NE 20th Anniversary / History of New Element - 2018

 

The History of NE

 

 

This episode has been co-written by trav and Liampie, with minor contributions by G Force

 

The renaissance of NE continued into 2018, with the community going from strength to strength; the success of Discord had given new life to the community, and plenty of fresh faces started to stream into the members pool. OpenRCT2 was still making strides in the community, and it felt like there was a buzz and level of excitement not seen for many years. A good part of that excitement was generated simply by the realisation of what the year 2018 meant - the 8th iteration of Head-2-Head must be just around the corner. 2015 had seen H2H7 and produced some fantastic RCT in a drama-free, fun and friendly competition setting. Now that we’d had a bit of a community revival, people had an almost insatiable hunger for a big competition on a scale never seen before.

 

In terms of actual releases, the year started off quite slow - Riverland was technically a 2017 release, although the record breaking Spotlight was the talk of the town for the first section of 2018. Other than this, the community largely recognised that H2H8 was imminent and so set to work on buffing up their portfolios. New members looked to prove their worth while the old guard were eager to show why they should be picked early, leading to a smorgasbord of fantastic screens covering the front page for a good period of time.

 

When the NE Awards rolled round midway through February, it felt like a formality with the H2H8 hype train leading the way. For the first time ever, this year’s awards ceremony was hosted live on the discord, replacing the old school chat style ceremony that had been performed for years. To almost no one’s shock, at the conclusion of the ceremony, H2H8 was finally officially announced. Immediately, the sign ups boomed with 55 sign ups on the first day, and 90 sign ups in total - the actual draft is still remembered to this day as possibly the most active evening in modern NE history!

 

Most of the teams were fresh, with only The Replacements led by nin and Heaven’s Gallery led by Liampie having any recent H2H history. Louis! revived a long lost Icons team, as did new captain G Force with Strangelove - despite having no players in common with the previous incarnation of the Strangelove team in H2H4. Other new captains alex and ][ntamin22 captained the Ultrarealists and Team Spacecrab respectively. Having a roster of relatively inexperienced captains led to what felt like a very even split of parkmakers and members across the board, with no particular team looking like the clear out and out favourites, leading to a very exciting competition and the stakes being extremely high; each team bringing their best week in week out to try and inch ahead of the competition. A new feature in this edition was the ‘floater’; a low ranked player who would be allowed to build on every park without any restrictions.

 

The first deadline came around and started strong, with a round of solid parks being released - the major surprise being Dig Site 4 which seemed to instantly propel dr dirt from relative obscurity to one of the strongest idea-driven builders on the whole website. On top of this, we also had the eagerly anticipated release of Tahendo Zoo, a park by nin that has seen many iterations over the years.

 

Round 1 showed that every team was here to win, and each team from here on out continued to deliver week after week; the Icons, who famously had the lowest rated park of R1 (Motherland), came out swinging in Round 2 with Robbie’s latest masterpiece and the highest rated park of H2H8 - Tubiao Action Park. Looking back, Tubiao almost seems like the forefather to the modern ‘crunch’ meta, utilising a dense, busy and heavily textured look to create an impressive non-park scene surrounding an eerily accurate Chinese amusement park. Setting the tone that in this new era of OpenRCT, going above and beyond to create believable rides and atmosphere was required.

 

After Tubiao, Louis and the Icons never managed to truly reach the upper tier of H2H standards again. Their round 3 park, Arendelle, was a rather wacky attempt at a Disney’s Frozen park. Coasterbill, the main builder, had a clear influence on this park due to the number of unique (and controversial) objects created for the map. Next up was North Fork Mountain Park, Scoop’s third park in a row, which is impressive for any H2H player. This park was a bit of a rebound, being a pretty strong attempt at an american Herschend style park, however despite this, the Icon’s found themselves with a 1-3 record and effectively were eliminated from playoff contention due to their vote % metric. Their final park, released rather controversially was The Apprentice, a pretty ambitious fantasy concept that unfortunately was overshadowed at the time by the controversy surrounding its release. 

 

Dig Site 4 by Team Spacecrab	Tahendo Zoo by The Replacements
Tubiao Action Park by the Icons	Feira do Flamengo by Heaven's Gallery

 

Liam once again returned with his Heaven team branding coming off two consecutive wins in H2H6 and H2H7, ready to show the community that his style of captaining would yet again yield results. The Gallery started off strong, with the captain-led Durham, Knaresborough & Staithes (also known as 'DKS') being an immediate fan favourite grounded in realism that’s perhaps even underrated in 2022. Many scenes from the map became early icons of the contest. Facing the Icons' heavy hitting Tubiao Action Park was another high calibre BRICS-set realism park: Feiro do Flamengo by Cedarpoint6, Roomie and ultro - inspired by the now defunct La Feria de Chapultepec in Mexico City. Representing CP6’s return to H2H, this map was a hacker’s dream as it also featured contributions by Roomie. Heaven’s Gallery then brought us fantastically creative parks, such as Incident At Billy Wonka’s, bursting with incredible ideas and the talent to back it up, lead by the duo of bigshootergill and Liampie, with solid backup from Roomie and CHE. Forum Caeleste was a surprise hit that followed this theme; ahad a  fantastic idea to set a modern day style theme park 2000 years ago during the peak of the Roman Empire using technology at the time, but with a revived Six Frags and Sulakke behind it, the skill was there to turn this idea into a feast for the eyes with an abundance of tiny details scattered throughout the map. Liam and Steve produced the simple yet very fun Metropolis, a bit of a throwback to the early days of H2H parks where a single focused concepted executed well was all that was needed - in this case a love story built around a classic shoe string hack coaster. Heaven’s Gallery ended the round robin as a solid second overall seed locked into the playoff, showing that strong but relatively simple ideas done extremely well are a sure fire way to power through a competition.

 

Nin was the 3rd captain returning for another season, bringing back his team of The Replacements from H2H6, who focused primarily on realism, but doing it to the highest quality. The core of this team had worked together multiple times previously, and so knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses. This was definitely used to their advantage initially, as each park seamlessly blended into the next with no real drop off in quality at any point. Pacificoaster showed why he’s consistently seen as one of the strongest builders of all time, casually dropping Castles-n-Coasters, an incredibly dense but realistic American style amusement park inspired by the Arizona roadside establishment of the same name, and then the very next round teaming up with Leon to produce Ruigrijk - a completely different style of realism! The Replacements ended the round robin sneaking into the playoffs with a little drama enveloping them, but none of that takes away from the quality of RCT produced throughout.

 

Team Spacecrab were possibly the the dark horse team of the whole contest when it began, coming out the gates strong with the aforementioned Dig Site 4, but just continuing to roll through with a high level of quality throughout. A few mid tier parks such as A Year In Winkelheim and Romon-U Park were buffed with smash hits such as Dig Site 4. A Year in Winkelheim is famed for its four seasons perspective trick, and Romon-U Park was a fun take on the novel indoor park concept which has been a longtime staple of H2H, this time with a heavy Chinese twist. Do you see a trend here? The real win for Team Spacecrab came in the form of Mount Haystack, another park that almost leans into the early ‘crunch meta’, led by beloved members saxman1089 and Camcorder22. While having an RMC in a snowy setting was a bit controversial, the immense detail and care taken with the ski-lodge theme combined with the awesome custom rides by Spacek made Mount Haystack one of the best parks of the contest. 

 

Overall, Spacecrab has a mixed round robin, dominating their wins with solid showings and ending the season with the highest average vote percentage, but still finishing somewhere in the middle of the pack. With every park it became clear that the team excelled in its team chemistry, and saxman1089 far outperformed any of the other ‘floater’ players, with significant shares on nearly every park during Round Robin.

 

Ruigrijk by The Replacements

Mount Haystack by Team Spacecrab

 

Alex was a member who debuted in H2H7 and had just gone from strength to strength, culminating in him being the captain for the Ultrarealists. Their name turned out to be a red herring as they championed fantasy and whimsical ideas above all else: a trippy park themed to mushrooms (Wit's End), a campy bond villain-type lair (E.V.I.L.), and a Hinduism themed map with fully realised reflections in the water (Mandala). The Ultrarealists were unlucky not to qualify for the play-offs, but they left a very good impression.

 

The surprise team of the contest, perhaps, was Strangelove. Helmed by G Force, the expectation was for the team to be leaning towards realism. This expectation was instantly subverted in a clever way, with the fantastical realism (or realistic fantasy?) All Coasters Go to Heaven. They followed up this park with Forgotten Mekong, which is considered to be one of the best parks of the entire contests - with major shares by Cocoa and Ziscor. Again, the park was a blend of a realistic setting with a more adventurous twist to it. The team made it into the semis, but the excellent Disney’s Fairytale Kingdom by In:Cities, Stoksy and Ziscor lost out against Team Spacecrab’s Mobray's Illusions.

 

Forgotten Mekong by Strangelove

Mandala by the Ultrarealists

 

In the other semi-final, Steve and Cedarpoint6 set out on a mission to prove that American realism can be warm, atmospheric, and interesting on the H2H stage. Allegheny Adventures was a hit, and comfortably beat The Replacements simply by showing up - something that the opponent failed to do. Having relied on their top players all season, it seemed the battery ran out early. There was another reason that contributed to some players pulling out.

 

H2H8 was a massive success when just looking at the quality of RCT it produced, however with the good also comes the bad. H2H8 was plagued with rule breaking and unsportsman-like behaviour, with multiple penalties, warnings, suspected vote manipulation and the likes. It’s always hard to difficult to discuss these things so many years later. Nearly all people who disappointedly left the community have since returned, so perhaps it is best to shake hands, move on and forget about the whole ordeal. A short version for the curious: an arbitrary decision by one team ejected the Ultrarealists from the contest in favour of the Replacements (with both teams ended up being disillusioned), with some Round 5 parks such as Recurious’ much anticipated The Apprenticeship, and The Replacements’ A Far Cry From Home being largely overlooked. Louis! stepped down as an admin with immediate effect.

 

Despite the intense drama, the remaining part of the community continued H2H8 in style, with the Grand Final being between the now favourites Team Spacecrab, and the inevitable Heaven’s Gallery, with Liampie looking to complete his trilogy of championships. Six Frags was on fire after Forum Caeleste, and supported by bigshootergill and newcomer RoyR, produced the fairytale apocalypse themed park Heaven’s End - a park name that also signified the end of the Heaven’s brand. Team Spacecrab built without floater saxman1089 for the first time, but as always used great team work to produce Zerzura - a Middle Eastern oasis settlement, with a fantasy twist to it. Zerzura comfortably won, and no one contested the outcome of this match, or the worthiness of the champions!

 

Allegheny Adventures by Heaven's Gallery	Mobray's Illusions by Team Spacecrab
Heaven's End by Heaven's Gallery	Zerzura by Team Spacecrab

 

Some new RCT trends emerged during H2H8. The potential of custom palettes had barely been tapped into until now, but a breakthrough was hanging in the air... Liampie wasted no time, and introduced the English Palette in Round 1 through Durham, Knaresborough and Staithes - to date one of the most used custom palettes, with a rich variety in earthy tones - and pale skin colours. Strangelove’s Mekong Palette has also been popular ever since. Team Spacecrab managed to get their hands on spacek531 - someone who was not known for actually building in RCT. ][ntamin had a plan, and the plan was to have him produce custom train models for all kinds of occasions. It was a smash hit, and suddenly custom trains became a common occurrence. Other people like Roomie also joined in on the custom train fun - more on his endeavours later.

 

Perhaps it was all the innovation, combined with the drama, that made people long for a more casual RCT experience. During H2H8, the idea slowly developed of following it up with an unofficial contest with exclusively retro LL parks; nicknamed H2H8/8. 8 / 8 = 1, ergo something like H2H1. The contest became official and started soon after H2H8, and very little groundbreaking RCT was made - mission accomplished. Instead, players had fun, free from the pressure to perform or innovate, many of the familiarising themselves with LL for the very first time.

 

Despite the casual nature of H2H8/8, some very good RCT was produced. Mongo Tropica by bigshootergill and G Force, part of the Kumba-led TropicaLL Storms (a play on the Hurricanes, a team absent from H2H8) was chosen to be the best park of the contest. G Force supplied a great B&m invert, which bigshootergill themed as if Twisted possessed him. Liampie (with some help from Iron Rattler) produced MS Office Suite 2003 Resort, a time machine to the titular year (computers were huge - games were installed through cd roms, and cd roms would be scattered around the room - especially that Encarta 2001 edition that you weren't really using) and a love letter to MS Word, Powerpoint and Excel. Two maps managed to grab the design accolade Firstly, Valle del Amanecer by Poke. Among all the players who tried their hands at LL for the first time, Poke could be considered a veteran of the game. The other design was Toreador by RWE, which interestingly was built without any hacks!

 

Mongo Tropica by bigshootergill and G Force	MS Office Suite 2003 Resort by Liampie and Iron Rattler
Toreador by RWE	Valle del Amanecer by Poke

 

H2H8/8 slowly faded out, and the community returned to its normal state. The second half of the year saw a few respectable full scale solo releases. Very soon after H2H8 concluded, shogo released Seas of Antiquity, a massive park that combined retro object usage and composition with some new tricks like a custom palette. It only just fell short of the spotlight accolade. One month later, after a few releases that went mostly unnoticed, RoyR showed his real worth with Club Roy 97 Beilui West - a map so packed in content and life that it nearly won spotlight as well. His former Heaven’s Gallery team mate Roomie produced Laguna. Having experimented with custom rides in H2H8, he was on a creative roll and combined every single idea good and bad in a crazy little park called Laguna, featuring the first custom RMC track, a functional dinosaur petting zoo, and a cleverly hacked custom top spin.

 

Only one park actually won the top prize: after about five years of construction, Liampie’s Seaquarium Curaçao became the next entry in the spotlight genre. What it lacked in actual park content (it wasn’t much larger than a H2H park), it made up for in detailed surroundings and a unique character. What if Sea World built a park in a developing country? Maybe it would be something like Seaquarium Curaçao! Pacificoaster and Cedarpoint6 both contributed a coaster layout, while Liampie focused on doing the colourful architecture of the Caribbean island of Curaçao justice.

 

Seas of Antiquity by shogo	Club Roy 97 Belui West by Royr
Seaquarium Curaçao by Liampie	Seaquarium Curaçao by Liampie

 

Speaking of exotic locations, some members from less common countries contributed to NE in 2018. From Korea, windflower submitted Fun Park, a map that lived up to its name despite its relative simplicity. Battle Boy, from Poland, had been around the site for a few years. Big Theme Park failed to win an accolade, but it was battle boy’s poetic, possibly Google Translate altered musings that became an esteemed sight in the community. Like battle boy, MrTycoonCoaster - from Brazil - also ensured that the site had its moments of levity and wholesomeness, while also churning out large, casual maps at a high pace. Playcenter eventually was the first to win him an accolade. Both members became symbols of a positive, loving attitude, which NE was much in need of.

 

A few RCT2 designs stood out in 2018. Coming out of a strong H2H8 run, Stoksy finished the year with Great White. H2H8’s rising star Saxman built something by himself for once, an excellent recreation of Dorney Park’s Talon. Terry Inferno had a strong year, showing his skill with custom scenery and affinity with natural landscapes with Thundering Sierra. Later in the year, he’d return to his NCSO roots with Moonbeam, and his full scale solo Raspberry Acres. FredD had a strong year similar to Terry. First a full scale park called Terra Ventura in January, later two design submissions that narrowly missed out, and finally Hy-Breasil, a comfortable design win inspired by Toverland’s Avalon area. Hy-Breasil was the last release of 2018.

 

Great White by Stoksy

Talon by saxman1089

 

 

Other selected releases		Other selected forum links
Mzima Springs		RCT2 portrayed by Spongebob
Park Guell		Calling out the invisible critics
Studio Ghibli		Battle boy x MrTycoonCoaster
Grand Central		Underrated and overrated parkmakers
Frontierland		Unofficial NE meeting at Toverland
A Trip to the Beach		World's first wooden suspended coaster
The Legend of Ching Shih		World's last wooden suspended coaster
Celtic Legends		H2H8 - Advertise yourself!
Astroworld		H2H8 - Team analysis by Liampie
Learnatorium: Age of Dinos		H2H8 - Speculation/hype
Beachcomber Cove		H2H8 - Kumba's Fantasy H2H
Hidden Kingdom		H2H8 - Bingo
Baker Lake Amusement Park V3		Guess the builder
Euclid Beach Park
Wolfman's Ultimate Tomorrowland
Redlynch Heights
Chione
Sunfields

 

So cool, this is the year I discovered NE, without understanding how these parks and hacks worked. I just looked at the screenshots and was fine with it. These parks are still great to look at and a great source of inspiration!

This was probably my least active year since I joined, it's been a real treat to discover and re-discover some of the top work coming out around this time

Great write up all! This was the year I really felt at home in this community. It was a huge year of change for me, and having this community in support was really helpful, even though I didn't realize it at the time. I will look back fondly on H2H8 for a long time. Thanks to that contest, I made a ton of friends I probably would not have made otherwise, and who can say anything bad about that.

 

Looking forward to the next few writeups!

what a great and hilarious year, loving all the battle boy and mrtycooncoaster quotes. so fun! I loved strangelove, what an excellent team

2018 was a great year. Was fun rejoining the community again around this time. If it weren't for Liampie posting about H2H8 in the r/rct subreddit, I probably wouldn't have been active the past four years.

Yeah - this was the year that brought me back into the community. Good times! The Strangelove boys were a great bunch to be a part of

Great write up all! This was the year I really felt at home in this community. It was a huge year of change for me, and having this community in support was really helpful, even though I didn't realize it at the time. I will look back fondly on H2H8 for a long time. Thanks to that contest, I made a ton of friends I probably would not have made otherwise, and who can say anything bad about that.

 

Looking forward to the next few writeups!

 

It's hard to be bitter about memories of captain chat with a post like this.  8/8 was a very astute move in hindsight, and the burst of creativity in LL was super cool.