RCT Discussion / The New Element Spotlight & Design Race
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07-August 23
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posix
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Introduction
There are a lot of things I have or had been planning for NE for a very long time, things that have never really been realised, mainly because I thought they needed to be incorporated into NE the website, as functional features. We all know this requires time and opportunity, things that come to you more and more seldom as life happens, not to mention that "Webdev" is a legitimate skill to have, and if done well is simply someone's job. So I've sketched out in my head how plausible it would be to try one or two ideas, all be it very manual and rather experimental - something which is not very much my thing - but just maybe in an attempt to let them happen a bit, at all, and to test how good they are.
So here goes: Most of you will remember the "Prestige Points" system that was in place on NE4 (2010-2013). I can speak about it at length, but to those unaware: There was a time at NE when the panel score of your park, multiplied by your share in it, multiplied by a custom factor based on the importance of the accolade, determined a point value used to derive player rankings among the community. The system had its strengths and weaknesses, of which we tend to remember the strengths disproportionately, but the weaknesses were also apparent. Come NE5 in 2013, the intention to revise and "fix" the system had dwindled, and so the chapter of points was closed for good.
I've always been thinking about NE's organisation of competition however, the design of incentivisation. So without further ado, what I'd like to (not quite yet) present, but more so suggest, is: the "New Element Race":
How it works
As the word "Race" would imply: It's a player ranking where if you win something you are ahead of others. It resets at the beginning of each year, it's based purely on scores received by the panel, and to keep it simple for now, only solo works count - that means your share in the park must be 80% or more. Finally, the hierarchy of the accolades is exclusive in determining your place, and only your highest scoring release will count. So no accumulated 5x Bronze wins can overtake someone's 1x Silver win. And to keep it even simpler, we shall start with the Spotlight category only. If it should prove well received, we can maybe add a Design Race as well. Or even mix the two, as had been the case on NE4, but believe me it gets messy quickly.
A ranking of the highest scoring solo creations per person per calendar year. A statistic that has always existed, just hasn't been collected and presented as such.
2023 Race 7 Aug, 2023 # Score Member Park 1 89.50 J K The Lonely Planet 2 86.50 BelgianGuy Thrill Point 3 84.50 Babar Tapie The Wizarding World of Harry Potter 4 83.50 Jappy Laguna Adventura 5 79.00 Ethan The Holy Texican Empire 6 71.88 ottersalad Adriatic Adventures 7 71.50 RWE Waikiki Beach - Aloha Festival 2023 8 68.50 Splitvision Cafe Lux 9 67.50 oldscool McBrides Funfair Glasgow 67.50 FredD Roswell UFO Fest 10 61.50 fidwell Cedar Point 61.50 JayChuppy Pirate Cove Family Fun Park 11 60.00 Lurker Country Roads 12 55.50 MemesRCT Six Flags World of Owl City 13 53.00 Herbart Ruong Lua 14 52.00 RaymondL SNES All Stars Looking back the years for a little more context
I thought it would be interesting to also see a fully completed calendar year once, and because it was quick enough to collect the 2022 data, I did so. We find a list of 23 entries, which is almost 2 solo releases a month. I thought this was quite a good number since we're not counting Duos, Collabos or Designs here. Certainly the "H2H Classic" contest helped produce some content.
2022 Race # Score Member Park 1 88.50 G Force Mahoning Gardens 2 87.00 pants DisneyEarth Vancouver 3 79.00 Babar Tapie Tropicool Waterpark 4 78.00 Ethan Hoshi En 5 72.00 ottersalad Isola di Levanzo 6 71.50 Cocoa Pirate Entrance Area 7 70.00 Kumba 1kjungeltheme.park 8 69.00 WhosLeon Vinh Long Ceramics 9 67.50 Faas Culinarium 10 67.00 AJ- Snake City Mall 11 65.50 soap and butter sandwich Volcania 12 64.00 Levis Crooked House 1 13 63.50 wheres_walto Willow Belle 14 62.00 Jaguar Hellforge: Hadean Heights 15 61.50 parkinho Koreana Park 16 61.25 Lurker Coldwater Valley 17 61.00 Ulvenwood Cartoon Networld 18 59.50 RobDedede National Cherry Blossom Festival 19 58.75 mickandy89 Arid Heights 20 58.00 windflower Leafy lake 21 56.50 Liampie Metamorphosis 22 50.50 Gustav Goblin Om Mani Padme Hum 50.50 Chronoteeth Stream of Conscious Commentary
Although much of the year's admiration for solos was given to pants, we find G Force coming out on top as the 2022 overall race winner. Given that his park was released at Christmas just shortly before the end of the year, it was a sudden overturn of leadership. He does lead by a 1.5% difference, and we all know that any split percent above the 85% mark is earned the hard way. Congratulations G Force!
So what's next for him? I find myself struggling to foresee something, but I doubt we've seen the last of him yet.pants then was truly the shooting star player of 2022. Coming out of nowhere for a lot of us, he seemed to just snack a spotlight win, and showed the site what's possible with Disney in terms of a 2022 meta. A beautiful moment.
He has teased new work that looks just as stellar, but he's one to work quietly and in private.Just like in 2023, we see Babar Tapie among the top 5, and by the end of 2022 we had understood what a force he is. Tropicool Waterpark was his highest scoring of another four (!) solo releases that year. Interestingly sitting in the middle of his parks chronologically.
Ethan's debut park placing so high was a clear sign that here's a new player who is up to something and very ready to pierce through competition. He did in fact also create another solo during the same year with Port of Discovery, which was the highest scoring solo release of H2H-Classic. It doesn't appear here due its score of 75% which is 3% under the above Hoshi En, and thus isn't regarded in terms of the race.
ottersalad has the second highest scoring solo of H2HC, finding himself ahead of two very experienced and elite level parkmakers in Cocoa and Kumba.
One more year back
I really wanted to have one race where the 90% mark had been cracked. As we know, this is quite rare, but surely did happen in 2021. And so because I could, I assembled the year 2021. Interestingly, H2H9, despite being a Duo or Collabo contest by nature, did produce a good number of solos too that feature prominently here.
Commentary
First off, it must be said what a year 2021 was, with three solo spotlights (sorry Storybrook Glen), one of them being LL, and one placing in each parkmaker level bracket. Also with 8 parks reaching above the 80% level it's very clear this was a very good year, not to mention that H2H9 also happened, adding a number of highlights to the race.
It has so far also been the last time someone broke the 90% barrier with a solo release. That we would get to see another masterpiece from CedarPoint6 was a huge and unexpected treat, given his previous solo had been close to 11 years prior with Six Flags Carolina (also above 90%). Until we create new achievements, CP6 has won everything there is at NE.
To see Cocoa finish his LL solo, and for it to win spotlight successfully was a wonderful moment. Cocoa has since had an excellent run in 2023's Micro Madness, but signalled certain fatigue with the game after. I'd like to think that's temporary.
hydroportal had a bit of a breaktrough with Riverview Exposition. Not so much in terms of the community's awareness of his skill, but in terms of establishing his name in NE traditions. It was a long coming solo release, immediately securing him the Elite Parkmaker status, and one of the best parks of all of H2H9 - in fact as you can see the highest scoring solo of the contest. I would love to see more solo work from him, but he's known to be prefer collabo projects. Any RCT from him is good RCT.
I'd also like to mention that this park may sadly have been a little underappreciated. Coming relatively late in a H2H season, it's typically a time when the community is quite exhausted.FK+Coastermind has created a bit of his own magical niche with RCT over recent times, and Tromso was an important release. Like Hydro, it secured him Elite Parkmaker status, and similarly it was the highest scoring solo release of its associated event, here Grand Tour 2020. It would also later become the overall winning entry of the contest. A milestone for FK.
bigshootergill is someone who established himself sooner than Hydro or FK, despite placing just slightly lower here, and despite having the more important accolade. He's yet another one with an interesting niche. It's always exciting to see him execute it. My antennas are extra sensitive for any hint of new work from him.
wheres_walto's Ohio Stadium was yet another breakthrough moment accompanied with a parkmaking status. Ever since Walto has made incredible progress, and is among the top most creative players for me.
alex sits seemingly effortlessly in this group here, making a scenario revamp that comfortably reached above 80%. This has been alex'es last solo of this size since, but most anything he's teasing from his kitchen looks rather epic, and will likely find itself in the indigo-purple realm again.
And then with FredD, Terry Inferno and ottersalad we find three players striving for parkmakership, with FredD just making the cut at thin but not less valid margin. No doubt a very happy and successful moment for him.
I do find it noteworthy that Terry's Yerka Daylight Time is in fact the second highest scoring solo release coming out of H2H9 after Hydro's Riverview Exposition. It does make me think of how many find the park underrated, and this number seems to support that.Conclusion
So there you have it. An analysis of the so far past two and a half years of solo releases at NE. I had hoped it would generate something meaningful to look at our score data this way and add an interesting dynamic. Must say I'm not disappointed. At least to my eyes, solo releases are possibly still the most important kind of showcase parkmaking, as they allow you to really see how someone expresses themselves in RCT.
I hope you've enjoyed this little review, and I'm keen to hear your thoughts on it. Needless to say I intend to update the 2023 race in this topic from time to time, as it is of course ongoing, and it should be interesting to see how things shape up.
Happy parkmaking New Element
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J K
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What an awesome read! We used to reflect on past work a lot on the forums and the prestige points were always a feature that was missed. Honestly you guys have smashed this, hopefully this really inspires us all to get those solos started, if not finished!
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Liampie
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I love this, and I didn't expect this to be as motivating as it is. I'm almost completely absent from the three years you did, with only a bronze ranking in 2022. If I consider myself to be an active parkmaker, I need to profile myself again. I need to make shit happen. I want to compete!!
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FredD
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Oh I vaguely remember this from old times. Love to see it back! Hopefully this will also stimulate people to do more solo-(non contest)-stuff
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Gustav Goblin
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This is really lighting a fire under my ass to both finish my GT park and get it to hit gold. I'm not tying for last this year
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posix
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Update 28 Aug 2023
It's been three and a half weeks since I first posted the race, and it's time for a first update. Thanks to several solo submissions coming in, and thanks to the panel doing their job, we can now see 5 new players who have entered the race, and one player improving their previous highest score.
2023 Race 28 Aug, 2023 # Score Member Park 1 89.50 J K The Lonely Planet 2 86.50 BelgianGuy Thrill Point 3 84.50 Babar Tapie The Wizarding World of Harry Potter 4 83.50 Jappy Laguna Adventura 5 79.00 Ethan The Holy Texican Empire 6 75.00 MK98 The Legend of Memnon 7 71.88 ottersalad Adriatic Adventures 8 71.50 Gustav Goblin Birth of an Ocean 71.50 RWE Waikiki Beach - Aloha Festival 2023 9 68.50 Splitvision Cafe Lux 10 67.50 oldscool McBrides Funfair Glasgow 67.50 FredD Roswell UFO Fest 11 63.50 Lurker Viridian Island 12 61.50 fidwell Cedar Point 61.50 JayChuppy Pirate Cove Family Fun Park 13 61.00 Bluetiful_Monday Frightmare Hills but beautiful 14 58.00 dm215 Forest Frontier II 15 55.50 Screamin' Demon Electric Fields 55.50 MemesRCT Six Flags World of Owl City 16 53.00 Herbart Ruong Lua 17 52.00 RaymondL SNES All Stars Commentary
We find MK98 as the highest-ranking of the five new entrants in this update, placing 6th overall. His Grand Tour Ethiopia entry is the highest-scoring solo release of the round, and his best-scoring solo release in the spotlight category to date. This is a clear indication that he has continued to develop his game, and that his talent hasn't gone anywhere. I looks like MK98 is a player who is steadily evolving, and it wouldn't surprise me if he soon came close to the 80% barrier.
Second highest new entry is Gustav Goblin, who showed us there is much more in him than he may like us believe. It's hard for me to remember someone so vocal about their own supposed shortcomings, only to then prove a real touch of aesthetic instinct coupled with meta-liberated abstraction. Birth of an Ocean is a beautiful park and deserving Gold winner, and signals what I'm finding a bit of a trend of 2023's second half: a return to stronger representation of fantasy style parkmaking at NE.
What is to be expected of Gustav is hard to say. The beauty of his relationship with the game is his refusal to develop routines. Naturally this slows him down, but means he can retain stylistic purity. For some players this has meant the key to greatness in the past.Next we find Lurker, who despite having improved his previous best score by 3.5% will remain in 11th place, due to the two higher placing new entrants above. Lurker has created an endless stream of extra classic LL-style parks, with the main focus being to capture the charm of the very early days. He has recently shown some new experiments with CSO, which should be an interesting new direction to watch.
Bluetiful_Monday has won his first NE accolade with Frightmare Hills but beautiful scoring a nice solid silver win. Again, a fantasy inspired park that isn't afraid of anything. Unabashed stylistic exploration met with an unexpected dedication to ride design. I find Bluetiful_Monday offers something unique, and I'm curious to see what he does next.
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posix
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Introduction of the Design Race
With there having been 4 (!) Design wins in August, we thought it's time to add a Design Race.
Designs have been around the community since the very beginning. Even before NE, there used to be a small section called "Dassle Designs" at Danimation, which originally had been real life coasters recreated in RCT, but also included original creations. NE then introduced so intended "Weekly Designs". Of course they were never actually weekly, but people enjoyed taking on little side projects focusing on one main attraction, and thankfully Designs have stood the test of time since.
The same rules as for the Spotlight Race apply: To enter the race, players must have at least 80% share on the map, they must have won the accolade, and only their highest scoring win counts for a place in the race. For this year, the following ranking assembles:
2023 Design Race 10 Sep, 2023 # Score Member Park 1 85.50 FK+Coastermind Salinity 2 79.00 Xeccah Charybdis and Scylla 79.00 Terry Inferno Patagon 3 78.00 SSSammy Saeiqa 4 76.50 G Force Skyliner 5 76.00 AJ- Mato 6 74.00 MorganFan Gale of Amun-Ra 7 73.50 Congoy Raptor Run 8 72.00 ACEfanatic02 Superman: Final Flight 9 70.50 tabard424 T-Express Commentary
I shall be giving commentary on all 75%+ entries:
FK+Coastermind is sitting confidently at the top here with his commanding 85%+ win. A rare triumph in the Design category. FK has proven a strong and comfortable routine with the game in recent times, which however doesn't mean that his style has stopped developing. He is not quite as present around the community as he used to be, and so if I had to make a guess, I would not expect him to submit another Design this year. I would still expect him to close the calendar year among the top 3 however.
After Xeccah's recent return, their first submission saw a mixture of reception by the panel, averaging just under the 80% barrier. I think most of us believe higher scores shouldn't be a problem here, but if the right kind of motivation can be found for them is the real question.
Terry Inferno has been very committed and shows a steady and healthy style development. He's never shy to follow his creative instincts, and it has meant a continuous learning curve for him. This entry here is no exception, where he again instils uniqueness to what could otherwise be seen as the relatively familiar "mountain against coaster" concept. I would expect Terry to bring more RCT to our eyes this year. Since he has done quite a few Designs in the past year however, I'm not sure he will choose to do this category again. Needless to say however I would love to see it.
It's lovely we should see SSSammy return, and impressive he would so readily place himself among the current top 3 scores of the race so far. I think you can see how he enjoys himself on a map of RCT. I don't know if he necessarily has the urge to push his style elsewhere, or deliberately seeks "improvement". And sometimes a relaxed and healthy relationship with the game is all it takes for higher scores.
G Force's placing here comes from an entry he described as an experiment with half diagonals. It was a very easy win for him, and if he chooses to I'm sure he can reach 85%+ levels. I would expect him to be more of a spotlight category builder for the rest of this year though.
Finally we have AJ-, who has in fact two solo Design wins already this year, but Mato being the higher scoring one (the other being Bussin' Bayou). AJ is a player with a kind of gradual breakthrough. We each of his recent releases we could see more finesse and conviction in the things he's interested in. He's another one with a quite unique touch who doesn't feel the biggest urge to follow trends. I think of all these players, he may be the most likely to improve his ranking this year still. Designs seem to come quite naturally to him, and higher scores too as of late. I'm keen to see it happen AJ!
Conclusion
An interesting turnout so far. If time allows, I shall also add Design Races for the past few years out of curiosity. For now, I hope that we'll see a couple of changes for this year's ranking still. Can't leave FK at the top there alone!
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Milo
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This is a great idea and so beautifully presented. One cool thing about this is the variety of names on the list and seeing newer members amongst heavy hitters in the community. Collaboration is great and there is plenty of incentive for it during major site events but focusing in on solo work like this does is a great thing as well. This pulls some of that throwback feel of the old List, the Parkmaker pages and the Up and Coming players all in one shot which is fantastic. And a Design Race too, game on!
The whole Design Race roster is very strong, lots of exciting names even in the under 75% group:
MorganFan - runs the risk of being overshadowed when it comes to someone who has recently pivoted to CSO but Gale of Amun-Ra was a very impressive and distinctive Design win. In just a couple of years he has gained a very clear confidence with CSO and I think is a strong contender to show up high on future Design or Spotlight Races.
Congoy - A very new face but has made a splash early with a steeplechase of all things. Their NCSO is clean, sharp and grounded. To have a comfortable Design win with a ride type that I personally would consider a tough sell bodes well for future projects. The set pieces were effective and well spread out, the hacking was fantastic and anything like Raptor Run in the future has the potential to bump up several spots. A candidate to give CSO a try and potentially have similar success.
ACEfanatic02 - For sure a welcome return to the community after an extended absence, they've had a rapid rise in both the high quality object creation arena and now a strong Design win as well. With a clean, highly detailed, and technical approach to realism I can see the possibility of a future Design pushing into the 80% range if activity and motivation is there.
tabard424 - a bit of a mysterious figure here, it's always cool to see a Korean member drop by with some unique and interesting RCT. The final score here may be slightly suppressed by a difficult to pin down accolade suitability. It has all the markings of a Design but with extras that may or may not be taken into consideration. The overall quality of the map is very high: with interesting rides, good hacking and quality architecture. It's very ambitious with some choices that could be improved, such as the angular and awkward edges and map shape. Activity level is a big question mark and perhaps we may never see another submission. But if we do, it's not hard to see some small improvement resulting in a solid Spotlight or Design Race position.
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Ge-Ride
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I hope that The Whispering Woods gets a panel vote. I think that was submitted for design. It was one of the designs that spoke to me the most.
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posix
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Update 01 Oct 2023
Time for another race update. With the current community activity, it looks like these roughly make sense in monthly cycles.
This time we have four new entries pushing themselves into the race, and one player improving their position. And although some players have released new solo work in the past month like RWE and Lurker, they haven't improved their score.
2023 Race 1 Oct, 2023 # Score Member Park 1 89.50 J K The Lonely Planet 2 86.50 BelgianGuy Thrill Point 3 84.50 Babar Tapie The Wizarding World of Harry Potter 4 83.50 Jappy Laguna Adventura 5 80.00 Mulpje Amras Telrunya 6 79.00 Ethan The Holy Texican Empire 7 78.00 Faas Tivoli Utrecht 8 75.00 MK98 The Legend of Memnon 9 71.88 ottersalad Adriatic Adventures 10 71.50 Gustav Goblin Birth of an Ocean 71.50 RWE Waikiki Beach - Aloha Festival 2023 11 69.00 RobDedede Scenes of Georgetown 12 68.50 Splitvision Cafe Lux 13 67.50 oldscool McBrides Funfair Glasgow 67.50 FredD Roswell UFO Fest 14 64.00 Version1 Discovered Mekong 15 63.50 Lurker Viridian Island 16 61.50 fidwell Cedar Point 61.50 JayChuppy Pirate Cove Family Fun Park 17 61.00 Bluetiful_Monday Frightmare Hills but beautiful 18 60.00 Levels The Whispering Woods 19 58.00 dm215 Forest Frontier II 20 55.50 Screamin' Demon Electric Fields 55.50 MemesRCT Six Flags World of Owl City 21 53.00 Herbart Ruong Lua Commentary
Congratulations Mulpje on being the highest new entry this time, not only entering 2023's current top 5, but also clutch securing parkmaker status. There's quite a bit that speaks in favour that Mulpje is currently the strongest fantasy player on NE. His fulminant Amras Telrunya has won most of us over very quickly, and the screens he has shown since provide reason for excitement.
When looking at his profile, you can see that Mulpje actually has quite a lot of RCT under his belt already, and he's now at a stage where he can build freely and lay down his creativity on the map with easy success. Since the year isn't that much longer at this point, it should be hard for him to further improve his place in the race still. But you never know if he might just build a solo Grand Tour entry. I'm very keen to see whatever he does next. Both as a person and player, I consider him great for NE.
Faas enters as a top 10 solo player this year, and in fact he's ended last year among the top 10 as well. Someone who does his thing, steadily, with marginal but noticeable improvements. Also someone who does seem to enjoy the competition, but not to the levels others desire to go to, which is totally fair. But hence I don't see him make more substantial improvements too soon, or break beyond the 80% barrier very easily.
Last year, RobDedede finished the race with the highest scoring Bronze park of 2022, and now enters with what's currently the highest scoring Silver of 2023. A very successful jump. A player whom I see in development both as a parkmaker and member in the community. Someone who is committed also outside of NE and lives in more than one world. If I had to make a prediction, I'd not necessarily expect another solo release from him still this year. I am curious though if Grand Tour can allure him enough. I would hope he's thinking about it. The release that brought him into the race shows great determination and desire to push the ceiling. It's the kind of attitude you need to continue to rise.
Next, Version1 enters the race. Someone who has gone in and out of NE over the past 1-2 years, and his last previous solo showing being in 2021 with a Bronze accolade. We all know he has built Gold in the past though, and is capable of it when he puts his mind to it. Someone currently omnipresent on the discord, and (almost ironically) quoting Louis' famous "just fucking build" regularly, I wonder if he will do just that. It's hard for me to say what he wants of his own RCT at the moment. Since he's enjoyed participating in Grand Tour though, I think it would be nice to see another entry with his involvement, to see where the rest of the year takes him.
Lastly we have Levels (aka RaymondL) who improves from the Bronze to the Silver group. This is an interesting player. From what I know he has a DKMP background, but beyond what that would make you expect, he has a uniqueness that I'm quite interested in. He seems relatively far from an NE reality of parkmaking as of now, given the size and quality of maps the panel would typically expect for a Gold or Design win. Something tells me though it's within his reach though, and I'd love to see it happen.
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posix
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Design Race - A first update
I anticipate updates to the Design Race might be a little less frequent than with the spotlight category. But sure enough it's only been 3 weeks since I posted the intial 2023 Race, and we now find a brand new race leader with this update! It's even a 90% barrier breaking winner, something incredibly rare, and indeed a reminder that you can only achieve legendary parkmaker status in the spotlight category. Hence the upper parts of the below table sticking to red elite level colour.
2023 Design Race 1 Oct, 2023 # Score Member Park 1 91.50 pants SolarWing Skyway 2 85.50 FK+Coastermind Salinity 3 79.00 Xeccah Charybdis and Scylla 79.00 Terry Inferno Patagon 4 78.00 SSSammy Saeiqa 5 76.50 G Force Skyliner 6 76.00 AJ- Mato 7 74.00 MorganFan Gale of Amun-Ra 8 73.50 Congoy Raptor Run 9 72.00 ACEfanatic02 Superman: Final Flight 10 70.50 tabard424 T-Express Commentary
Well, a huge congratulations pants for overtaking leadership of the Design Race 2023. I think SolarWing Skyway is about as good as a design gets. It is in fact the third highest scoring Design NE has known to this date, just a few split percent behind the leading Kumba (92.69%) and Vulture (91.54%). Truly a special feat that only happens every 5-10 odd years, leaving an impressive margin of 6% to the second highest scoring Design this year. A difference that in this score range is very very serious. Simply an astonishing achievement.
Whatever pants will do next the community will be here for it. He can simply do no wrong at this point, and he is in fact among the very few players currently who might have a chance still to overtake the spotlight race lead, too! His solo teasers have had us raving, and wouldn't we all fancy a showdown between him, J K and A n d r e w ?!
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J K
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Great effort from Pants taking the top spot! It was great to see him smash something from a conceptual standpoint. I just feel like you're warming up to be honest.
Not going to lie, I'm expecting Andrew to swoop in and take the top spot no issue and get that legendary status. Expecting very big things!
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ottersalad
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Love seeing the changes in the races over the course of 2023. Curious to see how different it'll look at the end of the year. Awesome work as always Posix.
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posix
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Design Race - The last update for 2023 ?
Another good month has passed, and we find two new entries to the 2023 Design race. I wonder if this will be the final standings for this year yet, or whether we'll see someone sneak their way in still. But let's look at the update:
2023 Design Race 9 Nov, 2023 # Score Member Park 1 91.50 pants SolarWing Skyway 2 85.50 FK+Coastermind Salinity 3 83.50 Jens J. San Avaiki 4 79.00 Xeccah Charybdis and Scylla 79.00 Terry Inferno Patagon 5 78.00 SSSammy Saeiqa 6 76.50 G Force Skyliner 7 76.00 AJ- Mato 8 74.00 MorganFan Gale of Amun-Ra 9 73.50 Congoy Raptor Run 10 72.00 ACEfanatic02 Superman: Final Flight 11 71.50 Bluetiful_Monday Apothicon Servant 12 70.50 tabard424 T-Express Commentary
Congratulations Jens J. for the wonderful San Avaiki. Not only is this entry cracking the top 3 in the race, which at the end of the year with near complete statistics is an impressive feat, the win also secured him parkmaker status by going over 80% in score.
I think most of us will still fondly remember their first exposure to Jens' extraordinary skill during H2H9's Kraken moment in Pirates!. The ability to sculpt RCT into things it was never intended for is not new. Jens' way of doing it however has an acute finesse that is startling and quite mesmerising. It unlocks a new level of appreciation for this kind of game aspect.
Since it is so intense and typically concentrated on individual set pieces, we had asked ourselves if we would ever see a larger release from Jens, as NE would typically expect. With this design win, we have seen it's possible for him, and immediately he reaps big profits.
I would absolutely love to see more of it, but I think it cannot be expected that he increases his project scopes beyond what's traditionally seen as a "mini map" in NE terms. In this format though, I definitely think he has the potential to go higher.Next to Jens we see Bluetiful_Monday win his second solo accolade at NE with Apothicon Servant. Although originally built for a DKMP contest, this map is definitely much more compatible with an NE format. It's also a big shift in style from his previous Frightmare park and fantastical realism, to this much more (semi-)realistic theme.
Over the years I've observed a pattern where the players who show stylistic versatility during the early days of their "rct career" are more likely to reach very high accolades later. It typically also takes longer, which however doesn't seem to be so much the case for Bluetiful_Monday. He is developing fast, and has a liberated approach to the game. This is a combination to treasure while it lasts, and I'm very curious to see where it takes him. To finish 2023 placing in both of the NE races during their debut year is a very good achievement, which in fact no other player has so far managed to do. Take notes NE! -
Version1
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Commentary
Seeing this, I must repeat that J K's showing at the top of this list is just so impressive, having come back to the game after a 10+ year absence, and just instantly re-establishing himself as the current race leader among the top players.
But will this top position remain his for the remainder of 2023? With it being the last year before a H2H season, it is typically a time for people's solo releases to drop, and surely we've caught wind on some solos being heavily worked on. A n d r e w's Belle Island being perhaps the most anticipated, and I should imagine with a definite chance to attack the top spot in the rankings.
But yes you remembered right, J K himself is working on another solo, and even announced this week he was already at 50% completion.
BelgianGuy now seems to produce RCT more or less permanently as well by the looks of it. He teased an immediate follow up project to his (so far) 2nd placing Thrill Point after its release. It's hard to imagine that another fully fledged release by him should not move him ahead in the race a little bit.
Needless to say we all know Babar Tapie is really the last person in the community struggling with a productivity problem. He's won an unbelievable four Golds this year alone, which translates to a mind boggling statistic of a win every 2 months (!). But the big question with him is whether he can break his score plateau and reach the red Elite level. I think it will require an element of reinvention in his style, and he's recently signalled a dip in motivation. We shall see what this means.
Very fresh race entry Jappy finds himself in 4th place with his triumphant spotlight win for Laguna Adventura. This is Jappy's highest ever score on a solo project, and so a new achievement for him. If I had to make a prediction I would assume Jappy will take a certain time away from competitive parkmaking, and enjoy a relaxed timeline park in Benelux tradition. Should he return to it and find ways to unlock a higher skill level yet, I should imagine him to follow the path Fisch or Lagom walked before him, that of the highest calibre of Euro-realism.
Ethan is someone who has already proven he's afraid of absolutely nothing and has a bit of a wild and uncontrollable confidence to try even the hardest things in RCT. If he manages to pull it together and direct it to a more cohesive output, I think a lot is possible for him. At the time of writing this, he's also the highest placed non-parkmaker, and we can see he's really just on the cusp of parkmakership, being only 1% point away.
And ottersalad is in fact another member who has teased a rather promising looking solo project. From the screens we've seen, it looks as though he's unlocked a new skill level for himself, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing the full picture of it. After a lot of persistence, it would only be deserving for him to have a breakthrough.
Lastly in the gold range is RWE, whom I'm most happy to find here. His relationship with the game is hard to read. His talent is very clear in my eyes though, and I definitely think it can take him to 80% and beyond, if he finds the desire for the necessary consistency and rigour.