NE 20th Anniversary / History of New Element - 2015
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05-May 22
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Liampie
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The History of NE
One could argue that NE was somewhat in decline in 2015. Full scale solo parks had gotten very scarce, and stylistically the RCT2 meta reached its zenith during H2H6. Another way of looking at this would be saying that NE had hit calmer waters. The year started with the 2014 NE Awards, with the ceremony on Valentine’s Day traditionally announcing something big - either a highly anticipated park, or a highly anticipated contest…
It turned out to be the latter. Newest member of the admin team inthemanual took the lead into organising the next NE contest: the New Element Design Challenge 3. I can describe in detail the job that inthemanual did, and the entries that followed, but it’s probably best to read the topic for yourself, and to know that no one officially entered - though some joke screens were produced. ][ntamin22 eventually managed to finish something in 2017, unofficially closing the NEDC3 chapter in style.
What actually happened, is that the NEDC3-announcement was quickly overridden with the real contest announcement: Head-2-Head 7. Nearly ninety people signed up, and six teams emerged. Kumba returned with The Hurricanes once more, his team headlined by Hurricanes veteran nin, and Pacificoaster of Starpointe fame. Trav brought back The Italian Stallions, the team he was on in H2H4. Thorpe Park creator Airtime and the up and coming Stoksy were his top picks, but with people like Loopy, ][ntamin22 and Dirk Pitt (a revived fossil) signified that LL parks were a notable part of their strategy too. Robbie92 took matters into his own hands after a disappointing H2H6, with his own team The Robber Barons and FK+Coastermind as his right hand. Roomie, who took up the reigns of his team during H2H6 drama, introduced The Rat Pack, his roster consisting of a variation of highly creative players like 5Dave, AvanineCommuter and In:Cities.
The final two team slots were filled by two of the admins. Inthemanual captined Manual Laborers, an unusual thing for someone who had never participated in H2H before. All captains made a gentlemen’s agreement to allow inthemanual to draft Louis (who doubled as contest referee) for extra leadership experience. Cocoa was the other big name on this team. The H2H6 champions Heaven’s Kitchen reincarnated as Heaven’s Atlas. Steve and Sulakke returned as my valued team members; Fisch and Tolsimir were notable new additions.
The latter teams would take the lead (which they didn’t lose again) in the first round. Tolsimir and I built Tenochtitlan, punishing the Hurricanes with the shogo-led Port of Entry. Louis! led the charge for the Manual Laborers with Circus Circus & Adventuredome Atlantic City, a bold realistic park that gave the Rat Pack a run for their money. Arguably the best realism map of this round, and probably the entire contest, was Cedar Point’s Raptor - a collaboration between the relatively unknown wheres_walto, and the long retired geewhzz, who joined forces after both having attempted to recreate Cedar Point by themselves in earlier years. As can be expected from a geewhzz release, it sought to push the boundaries of realism in RCT. In this case, some detailed interiors were quite groundbreaking, and the map portrayed shadows! Set to the tune of the Black Eyed Peas' 'I Gotta Feeling', it did well do create hype for the contest to come.
In subsequent rounds, the Hurricanes overcame their round 1 loss, with strong like Pridelands and Star Wars - the latter featuring the return of none other than Xcoaster, who was recruited as a replacement halfway during the contest. These strong showings earned the team a spot in the play-offs. By the merit of having a 4% advantage over the Rat Pack, the Robber Barons secured the fourth play-off spot. Two wins and three losses did not make for the best season record, but notable losses like the architectural extravaganza by Robbie92, Sey and Sephiroth, World’s Fair, and the post-apocalyptic Mad Max-inspired by Morow World by JJayMForce justified the team progressing.
This meant the end for Roomie's The Rat Pack and trav's Italian Stallions, but not before they had given us some good RCT first. Arcanis Mineralis may be the Rat Pack's most fondly remembered parks, which competed in one of the best matches of the seasons, beating Archelaus by the Robber Barons. AvanineCommuter, In:Cities and ottersalad came up with a pretty unique fantasy concept with a very unique aesthetic. A tad unfinished, but progressed far enough to make a great impression. Arguable the most valuable player on the Italian Stallions was Stoksy, who led a strong Hanging Gardens of Babylon in round 3, and also featured with Universal Studios in round 5. Stoksy would further cement his status as a big player with his design Extinction, later in the year.
During the contest, even preceding the draft, the six captains and Louis shared a group chat on Facebook, where all of use made sure there would be no drama this time. Instead, we had a great time in that chat - all captains will confirm. With a contest as prestigious and long as Head-2-Head, naturally some tensions will emerge anyway. During the season, the Hurricanes got strained by multiple dropouts. Meanwhile, a single dropout caused a small crisis for the Italian Stallions as the member in question proceeded to share some screens of an in-progress park with the world. At the end of the day, though, the community as a whole remained peaceful and focused on the game. Again, NE appeared to be in calm waters.
5Dave wrote: I think that's a logical step seeing the amount of dedication and work that goes into those park to make it truly finals-worthy.
It's not 2006 anymore.
"MFG"
A notable controversy, but drama-free, was the decision to eliminate the knockout stage of the contest for a single, four-way match-up. This decision was made because most of the teams that qualified for the play-offs, struggled to get enough play-off parks off the ground. Four parks were submitted, and each were measured against each other to simulate head-2-head matches. Their average scores would determine the winner of Head-2-Head 7… The Hurricanes were feeling confident with Paradise Pier, a Disney park headlined by heavyweight Pacificoaster, but out of left field came Heaven’s Atlas with Asteroid Fields - a fantastical collaboration between Fisch, Tolsimir and newcomer bigshootergill. Unrefined, but playful and rich in ideas, against the perfected but more familiar looking Paradise Pier. Not everyone agreed with the outcome, some questioned the voting methodology, and perhaps the voting would go differently nowadays, but there is no doubt that Heaven’s Atlas won Head-2-Head 7 fair and square. In the background, the Manual Laborers grabbed the bronze medal with DisneyPunk, and the Robber Barons made an appearance with an unfinished park that was revived and released in 2022, thanks to a rejuvenated wheres_walto.
H2H7 could be summed up as peaceful and with somewhat even in quality. Few parks stood as much as they did in previous H2Hs, and there were few parks that stood out negatively either. Solid all the way through.
While trav’s Italian Stallions and Roomie’s Rat Pack were absent from this grand final due to poor performances, they did leave their mark on the contest. H2H7 saw six LL parks from four different teams, mostly the two aforementioned teams. Between these six parks, there was quite a range in styles. Some parks were highly technical and experimental, such as Area 52, while others were much more traditional, such as Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Upon closer inspection, you can see some members of the old guard passing the torch to a new generation of LL players. In the Battle for New Elementia, a callback to Battlefield RCT from H2H2, veteran Milo appeared side by side with newcomer csw as a supporting player, enabling csw to shine.
Loopy disappeared, but not before he started building an Indiana Jones park alongside Poke and a returned Dirk Pitt, featuring a drop track hack that impressed as one of the best ideas in the contest. Parque Los Muertos was a highly unfinished park by ][ntamin22 and the late replacement alex. That’s right - alex was left unpicked in the initial draft. It was only during H2H7 that he started to show his real talents. It’s these three, csw, Poke and alex, that would start an LL-revival moment on NE. The RevivaLL, if you will. Aguable the best LL park from H2H7 came from the Manual Laborers, however. Louis! and Cocoa produced The Wild West, a map packed with content, clever hacks and ideas, showing the game at its most innovative, but without alienating fans of traditional LL. The Wild West is not just one of the best H2H7 maps, it's also one of the best examples of peepable LL.
In February, alex started advertising Swoopasaurus. Just a little too late for H2H, but not (barely) featuring in the contest left him time to work on his RCT by himself. In October, this resulted in his first solo release: Lake Chronus. The word 'spotlight' was uttered by some in its reviews. Scoring over 80%, thanks to alex’s unique (Codex-free) approach to the game and original themes and techniques, it was a spotlight contender indeed. Lake Chronus 'only' won gold in the end, but it was also a golden promise.
Csw already had some solo LL success in the latter half 2014. 2015 saw no full scale LL solo from him, but he did feature as a guest builder on my Gold winning park, Fabritius Lake; a more nostalgic take on LL with varying quality and originality between its six themed areas. Initially it started out as a 'build whatever' type of map, as is evidenced by the somewhat lower quality entrance area, but it eventually turned into a more serious park with each area being something of an excercise in capting a particular style - like the historical Fabritius, who was a pupil of Rembrandt, emulating the master. I tried to channel Fatha's Tropico Horizons in the Mexican area, and challenged myself with a more Ablaze-esque chaotic science fiction area in the back - where csw helped me out quite a bit. Perhaps it's the most original area that stands out the most, however: Japan, with its rural wooded feel without the usual bombast of feudalism and empires.
Poke started the year with his first proper solo: The Eternal Empire; a silver-winning park showing clean and traditional LL. Barely half a year later, he produced Archipelago, a companion to alex’s Lake Chronus if you consider the context. Like Lake Chronus, Archipelago barely fell short of spotlight, having required only two more ‘yes’ votes. Despite none of these parks reaching the top rung of the NE accolade ladder, it was exciting to see full scale LL parks of this calibre and quality being produced on the regular again, making 2015 a great year for LL.
Meanwhile, the RCT section of Reddit was in full bloom during this time, with monthly contests bringing activity and attracting new talent. Alex and csw are two examples of members who originally hailed from r/rct, but other now familiar NE members also used r/rct contests as an experimental playground. Bigshootergill is an example of someone whose breakthrough on NE is built on Reddit contest entries - example here. Coasterbill also expanded his NE presence this way, although in 2015 he already reached the point of winning gold with a large solo park; Sunset Vista. Though Reddit’s role is really quite limited in this story, it is notable for the RCT world slowly expanding again, after the entire old guard of RCT websites had converged to NE as the sole survivor.
Other outsiders found their way to NE as well. Zenosbleed brought us a fantasy creation from Korea, banned/exiled K0NG ghost built part of GoldRush, and we even received a submission from Vietnam. Theflowdiskord (origins unknown) appeared on the scene with his unique, gold-winning Nowton Thrill Park. In 2015, Jappy also ended his years of lurking, starting his long, continuous stream of releases with silver-winning Avonturenpark Vossendal, and SlayMeGaga’s Paramount’s Movie World comfortably won a gold accolade.
Summer and fall were fairly slow on NE, but the year ended strong with its two Christmas releases. The first was That Guy’s highly anticipated Wasteland, a huge post-apocalyptic cityscape that hit all kinds of game limits. The map data sadly meant That Guy had to take a big chunk out of the park, but what remained was still very satisfying.
The second was G Force’s definitive breakthrough, and 2015’s closest brush with a spotlight, Westwinds. Like Archipelago, it missed out on spotlight by only two ‘yes’ votes, but this time it caused a heated debate that would last for years. While most people agreed Westwinds was a finely constructed piece of American realism, and an accurate interpretation of the real world Cedar Fair chain, a significant part of the audience felt the park was too boring and/or derivative; and the stylistic similarities to Starpointe indeed are hard to miss.
pierrot wrote: Probably G Force has a trash bin fetish lol. But then again: Starpointe was lovely, and Westwinds expanded on it with unique touches and coasters too. The Schwarzkopf spiral coaster 'Whizzer' is a good example of this. You rarely see these in real parks, and they may be even more rare in RCT. Quite refreshing! Anyway, the spotlight drought would continue, causing frustration that surely did help to fan the flames a bit. A rift between European and American preferences also came up in the discussions surrounding this upset.
Fortunately, writing this six years later, much of the controversy has been settled and we can appreciate Westwinds for what it is - the finest full scale RCT2 park of the year. The 2015 awards would later confirm this.
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ottersalad
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Yay I made the write up! Arcanis Mineralis was such a fun park to have been a part of. My contribution was honestly sub par compared to what Josh and AVC did, but man, does that park shine (if you don’t look at the unfinished corner).
H2H7 was a fun thing to be a part of. I wish I was able to latch on to the community better instead of ghosting for 2-3 years. Looking back, this year in RCT has a lot of work that I draw inspiration from today. -
Cocoa
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h2h7 has done more to boost my all-time h2h rankings than any of my objectively better work. wild west is great though, one of my proudest parks. and it tied with alex for best LL park in the awards last year IIRC. Probably one of the most painless parks to make I've ever done, it all just flowed so naturally
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Jappy
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H2H7 was such a blast! Being all new and looking at it from a participatory view really created such a 'wow'-feeling for this community.
Also, yeey I'm mentioned! As well as my first park! Shame it isn't linked
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Liampie
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Added four links!
https://www.nedesign...hat-never-were/
https://www.nedesign...guess-the-park/
https://www.nedesign...lassifying-rct/
https://www.nedesign...ing-task-force/
Regarding 2015: I liked the year quite a bit. Some tensions under the surface, but mostly petty stuff that seems irrelevant now. Pretty smooth overall. Good RCT. The LL renaissance I LOVED.
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