Head-2-Head-X / The History of H2H: H2H3

The History of H2H: H2H3

Less is more is an often heard mantra on NE, but there were times when the site was run with the more is more mindset. When H2H2 was announced, iris first introduced the Blockbuster Challenge and the NextElement contest, and when H2H2 finally actually happened it didn't take long before the NE Invitational and Hi-Rollers were introduced. It was during the latter stages of H2H2, in August 2003, that iris first announced its sequel and opened sign-ups. A draft was held, resulting in teams like Team Cool (captain: Micool), The Platypus Project (captain: Butterfinger) and The Gymkids (captain: gymkid dude), However, in October, the Pro Tour took priority. In short, it was a mess.

In March 2004, sign-ups were held again because too much time had passed and the people who signed up were already retiring from the site. It actually led to a draft, in which teams such as Children Of The War Hammer (captain: Micool), The Happy Platypuses (captain: Butterfinger)  and The Maloys (captain: artist) existed, and the Icons were called the Eyekons as they also were in the first scrapped draft. Team rosters, schedules, rules, and even a trash talk topic with thirteen pages of nothing were started. Some teams started working on their parks; examples of which are Escape from Rockwood Prison, Aviara Cove and Ghost Cell Crisis, parks that would actually be released during the actual H2H3 season. With the team members scrambled between the two drafts, this resulted in these parks looking familiar to some when they shuld've been complete surprises. Too much time passed before this H2H could really take off, though. It was all talk and not enough play. Supposedly iris was not happy with the balance between the teams. It took until November before iris had a wake-up call, and it took only four days for H2H3 to go from the idea to perhaps redo the sign-ups to drafting new teams. As slow as the buildup was, as swift was the actual start, and the new teams were announced on November 5th.

JKay wrote:

Richie got tossed around more than a bad case of herpes....

Kumba wrote:

I count 7 times Richie has been traded since last draft, hell he was on 3 teams yesterday alone

Trades continued for a little while after the draft. Trades have become a much more rare thing in the later H2H seasons, but in this era captains traded intensively, to the point that it was hard to keep track of and sometimes drafted players barely knew what team they were on. One daring trade occured between The Hurricanes and the Vehemences. Kumba got H2H2 MVP Coaster Ed, but used him as a bargaining chip to get the trades he wanted. Trading away Ed and Richie, Kumba aqcuired Corkscrewed and sloB - a massive double trade that would affect the course of the season.

One of the captains and team names that survived the whole ordeal was Kumba with his Hurricanes - a first sign of the longevity the team would have. Rookie Chapelz led The Vehemences, and Themeparkmaster was in charge of a unique LL-only team with a name that is so absurd it becomes kind of funny: The MoLLesters. These three teams made up the North Division, while the South Division consisted of Iris returning as non-playing captain with the IIIcons, posix piloting The Flying Germans, and gymkid_dude introducing another questionable team name with The Seal Clubbers. With LL still being a potent force on NE, the MoLLesters looked powerful in both roster and strategy. Iris, with his predictable focus on big names, also gathered an impressive selection of parkmakers. Chapelz got his hands on the uncontested H2H2 MVP, Coaster Ed, however. X-sector, natelox, Corkscrewed, Toon and Phatage were the other Round 1 picks, of which the latter two ended up on the Icons through trading. However, disaster struck when iris decided to take a break from NE right before the Week 1 deadline, and Toon dropping out as well. The Icons were short a captain and a player, but Evil WME was flown in to fulfil both roles. Corkscrewed took over as the manager of the contest. With iris dropping out, the H2H3 Icons had no more overlap with the H2H2, however they were still considered defending champions.

With Corkscrewed now in charge, H2H3 would be more professional than its precedessors. This was evident in the schedule. Though still somewhat fluid, most rounds (still called 'weeks') quickly fell into a rhythm of being spaced ten days apart, with matches posted rapidly after each deadline. Week 1 (December 8th) was posted in the wake of the Icons roster changes, preceded by a lengthy announcement from Corkscrewed. The early H2H3 rounds were bookended by equally lengthy Ride6 reviews, somewhat making up for the lack of Coaster Ed writings this season.

H2H3 kicked off with the Hurricanes versus the Vehemences. The former submitted a modern RCT2 park, but with a classically H2H-proven concept: an adventure ride with timed events and explosions, here themed to a prison escape. Escape from Rockwood Prison, led by overall #6 pick Corkscrewed, comfortably beat Orange County, which looked nice but was rather repetitive and hollow. Perhaps inspired by the strange Othello win in H2H2, the Flying Germans cooked up a board game inspired map called Monopoly Tycoon. Better than Othello did it make use of the board game theme, having some pretty good ideas and theming props. Contrary to what the name suggests did it fail to gain a majority of the votes, losing to Kihme Research Facility by Twisted and Micool from the MoLLesters - the first of many LL versus RCT2 matches to come. The third match between the Icons and the Seal Clubbers ended in a Seal Clubbers win. The Icons submitted a Metropole-led Kierikkengord Castle, but it was no match for the John solo that did not try to be clever, new or surprising, which simply attempted to make something beautiful - and that Venetia Harbour surely did.

On New Year's Day 2005, Week 2 started. The Flying Germans received a win against an unfinished Icons entry, thanks to promising newcomers X250 and leighx and their creation Xenon. More interesting was the match between the MoLLesters and the Hurricanes. The former submitted Symphony of Pollution, a disonnant and technical LL park themed to urban issues. Sierra Glen, by sloB and Drew, was the complete antithesis to this, harmonious and grounded, centred around a flowing Arrow suspended layout. The community could not determine which park was better, and six pages of discussion and insults accumulated. The idea of a tie emerged as well, gained support, was voted on by captains and eventually confirmed by Corkscrewed. After a record breaking 110 votes, exactly split down the middle, the first and only official H2H tie became a fact. The match may not have gone this way if held later. Sierra Glen would sustain popularity, while Symphony of Pollution has faded into obscurity somewhat.

The Vehemences performed poorly in Week 1, but now they submitted a strong park called Merlinwood, and it looked like they secured the win pretty much right away. The park the Seal Clubbers submitted, Strange Happenings in Time ('SHIT'), was among the worst ever in H2H, so nothing stood between the Vehemences and a victory... Except for the Vehemences. Accidental sabotage occured, as a sign placed by yyo broke the anonimity rule, leading to the park being disqualified. This was controversial because anonimity was often broken in the comments of a match, which was never a problem before. For once, a somewhat civilized or at least constructive discussion occured. Strange happenings in time indeed. Cork went ahead with disqualifying the park, but also promised to enforce the anonimity rule much more strictly. It was a great example of how most H2H drama is the result of rule breaking, which is still true today. Take note and observe the rules. The Week 2 review by Ride6 was met with discussion on both spelling errors and the classification of RCT styles, a typical NE hobby that is still popular today.

The H2H3 standings after Week 2 were as follows.

Venetia Harbour by the Seal Clubbers	Merlinwood by the Vehemences
Symphony of Pollution by the MoLLesters	Sierra Glen by the Hurricanes

In Week 3 (January 10th) the Hurricanes maintained their undefeated status with Paradise Island beating The Cave by the Seal Clubbers. The Cave is a great example of a 'what if'. Old Red was known for his grand and memorable landscapes. The Cave could've lived up to that, but sadly it was just very unfinished. Some of the good ideas were in place and it managed to receive almost half the votes, impressive for a park in this state, but in the end it didn't matter for the outcome of the match. It must be noted that The Cave would be remembered for its innovative land block used throughout the season, so Old Red still created a legacy here. The Vehemences struck back after their Week 2 fiasco, as their park Rainbow Valley beat the Flying Germans' Area 51; a park that looked better up close than zoomed out, but eventually didn't offer quite enough.

Week 4 (January 20th) only featured one match. The Icons were seeking their first win, and they got it, delivering the first blow to the MoLLesters. Their park, God's Isle, is possibly one of the lowest density parks ever in H2H. Sparse as it is, it had moments of beauty and an interesting wooden coaster by WME. Against the tranquility of God's Isle stood Loopy and rctfreak200's Hanson, which was celebrated for its creativity and colour use.

Week 5 (January 30th) saw all teams submit a park. The Hurricanes extended their undefeated streak with one more win. Brilliantly they played into NE culture with its characters and egos, creating a love letter and satire of NE and its culture in Parkmakers!. It was created by Kumba and Six Frags. Iris occupied a fiery throne from hell, Micool was mocked for his randomly scattered scenery objects, there is a wall of quotes, and one section of the park was dedicated to players who were simply old people. Perhaps they forgot to make a cohesive park, but the park was surprising and held people's attention, and therefore it was well received. The Icons could do little to avoid a loss here, though their park Mysterious Forests indeed did little, showing none of the talent that Cedarpoint6 would later come to be known for. The Flying Germans attempted to recover from their Week 4 loss, and they had a nice idea of adapting Star Wars Episode VI's ending with the (spoiler alert) explosion of the Death Star. Other than a few nicely done space ship sculptures, the park didn't have all that much to offer, and it lost against Rapper's Delite from the Seal Clubbers, mainly made by an easily recognizable JKay, who hadn't been with the site long, but had already accumulated a few accolades in that short time. In the third match, the MoLLesters reliably submitted a solid LL park with puzzling title (Space Lake River Shrine) against the Vehemences' Malaria. Both parks got a positive but lukewarm reception, and the MoLLesters took the win.

God's Isle by the Icons	Parkmakerz by the Hurricanes
Space Lake River Shrine by the MoLLesters	Rapper's Delite by the Seal Clubbers

The weekly recaps had disappeared at this point, but as we reached the halfway point of the contest, Corkscrewed made up for it with an extensive recap. The season had been good so far. There was definitely a noticable amount of weak parks, but with H2H2 in mind, the alternative would be forfeits. H2H3 was functioning pretty well, and improving.

After Week 5, the Hurricanes only needed one more win to clinch a play-offs spot. Perhaps they would do it in Week 6 (February 10th), when they faced the Flying Germans. La Barrance Roja Grande by Drew and hobbes was a pretty good looking canyon set park with a wooden coaster. Opposite the Canes was Cliffs of Utopia by (replacement) Splash-O and Valp, a pretty good looking canyon set park with a wooden coaster. Whereas La Barranca had mainly full tile scaled architecture, Cliffs of Utopia made full use of quarter tile scenery, stacked them against the cliffs for a unique whimsical look. The Flying Germans also needed a win, but a win for survival - though they were tied with the Icons who had an equally bad season so far. Eventually, it was the Flying Germans who won this round with probably their best park so far, and the Hurricanes had to wait for the safety of the play-offs a little longer.

The H2H3 standings after Week 6 were as follows.

The Vehemences were trailing behind in the North Division, but the MoLLesters were still in reach with only one more win. As long as there were matches to go and the MoLLesters could lose, they would stay in the game. The MoLLesters sent out their main guy natelox (with Panic) in Week 7 (February 21st), with a desert excavation themed map - a nice break from all the research facilities and science fiction cities. The Seal Clubbers also brought forth one of their best players in Titan, who teamed up with supertrooper to create a quaint realistic park called Redwood Downs. Neither park was as impressive as hoped, and had signs of unfinishedness (such as the missing horse race in Redwood Downs) based on the names attached, though both parks were still good. Through the power of the triple dueling Schwarzkopf coaster, the Seal Clubbers won and had one foot in the play-offs.

With the MoLLesters losing, a real opportunity emerged for the Vehemences against the poorly performing Icons. And conveniently, overall #1 pick was scheduled to go this week. Coaster Ed continued where he left off with his amazing H2H2 run, creating Cajamarca 1532, themed to the Spanish conquest of the Americas. Featuring novel architecture, intricately hacked rides, clever theming ideas, all historically researched it was no doubt one of the best H2H parks ever made. It would take a lot for Cajamarca to be defeated. Cue Blitz and DarkJanus cooking up Ghost Cell Crisis, a park that has never seen its like. Floating islands in the void, more vertical than ever before, making use of and introducing new objects. The contest was in a bit of a lull looking at the engagement, but this clash of masterpieces invoked six pages of discourse. Perhaps because it was the flashier park, Ghost Cell Crisis won by a late surge in votes. However, calling it 'flashy' is a disservice to the careful thought that Blitz and DarkJanus put into the park. The match is still one of the best H2H matches of all time, definitely in the classic genre of LL vs RCT2, considering the debate that followed the match outcome. All in all: an ominous loss for the Vehemences, and an important win for the Icons.

Cliffs of Utopia by the Flying Germans	La Barrance Roja Grande by the Hurricanes
Ghost Cell Crisis by the Icons	Cajamarca 1532 by the Vehemences

Completely unexpected things occured in Week 8 (March 6th). For starters, the MoLLesters submitted an RCT2 park, built entirely by Roomie, representing a giant bedroom. The Hurricanes had already qualified for the play-offs, and the lack of urgency showed as their park by Jacko Shanty and RCTNW was unfinished, and aptly titled Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. This name which was more civilized than the post-match rant by Jacko after he Hurricanes had been accused of intentionally throwing the match, the final nail in the coffin for the Vehemences. Like the Hurricanes, the Seal Clubbers could afford to lose their Week 8 match. In fact, they did by forfeiting, gifting a win to the Icons, who also made a giant bedroom in what is probably the biggest H2H coincidence ever. When you mention a 'bedroom park incident' even twenty years later, the average NE member will know what you're talking about.

Bedroom 101 by the MoLLesters

Life is a Roller Coaster by the Icons

Other than the Flying Germans versus Icons match in Week 10, there was little left to play for in the last two weeks, and it showed as most parks were unfinished and/or low quality. The Flying Germans caught up to the Icons' 3-3 record in Week 9 (March 16th) because of a Seal Clubbers disqualification, a waste of Turtle's first H2H appearance. La Puerta del Atlantia had a nice coaster and some signs of good theming, but also lots of unfinishedness, and most of all, the parkmakers in the park name.

Coaster Ed wrote:

In any case, I appreciate your sense of adventure (park builders) but following a park called "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City" with one featuring a butt mountain in the middle and feces shops, well I'm glad you guys are having a good time and all, but it doesn't speak too highly of your team's maturity.

Kumba wrote:

Ok I guess you 2 have a point. Its not like we are all playing a game ment for little kids, so we should really act our age'.

chapelz wrote:

I don't know about you Kumba but my RCT2 box says E for Everyone(except for kids under 10 mentally or physically) on it.

Steve wrote:

I can take humor in RCT to a certain level, but I kind of draw the line at putting a giant ass on a mountain.

The other match between the Vehemences and the Hurricanes featured a very promising but unfinished realistic Disney park called The Boardwalk, featuring Steve, and a less promising and also unfinished park called Smelland, themed to smells. Could've been good, but... it wasn't. Somehow the match managed to be really close, though barely anyone dared to show support for Smelland in the comments. The Vehemences won, and Steve vouched to finish The Boardwalk in the future. We're still waiting. Until he does, its legacy will be that it defeated a park themed to farts.

The Vehemences ended their season with another hollow victory in Week 10 (March 27th) , as their unfinished Aquatica by Coaster Ed won against the MoLLesters' Blossom Springs in the only all-LL match of the season. Aquatica ended Ed's 10/10 H2H streak, but the signs of brilliance were still there. Blossom Springs was a pretty weak park reminiscent of LL work created around the times of H2H1 and 2. Week 10 really revolved around the other match though, the only one to still count, and the only match to feature two finished parks.

Captain Evil WME, together with top dog Phatage, made Outpost Prehistorica. Pretty original looking dinosaur themed park, featuring a unique set of duelers, it was a worthy opponent to Disastrous Paradise by the Flying Germans, who had also saved their most deadly weapon until now: x-sector in RCT2. Their park was a beautiful looking cliffside settlement hit by several disasters, from giant tsunamis to exploding oil rigs and volcanic eruptions. It lacked in the rides department, despite a spectacular splash boats ride, but it made up for it with its detailed architecture and good theming ideas. The Flying Germans won, securing a play-offs spot, eliminating the title defending Icons (debatable fact), and even claiming the top position in the South Division.

The H2H3 standings after Week 10 were as follows.

The Boardwalk by the Vehemences	Smelland by the Hurricanes
Outpost Prehistorica by the Icons	Disastrous Paradise by the Flying Germans

The final four went head to head in the play-offs (April 11th). With x-sector being the only star player on the Flying Germans, and ineligible for the play-offs park having gone in Week 10, most people expected the Seal Clubbers to win the South Division play-off. As a whole the Icons seemed to be on the upswing, though. Conversely, the Seal Clubbers, who had a strong roster but were running into some tough luck towards the end of Round Robin. 

It was up to Titan and JKay to fight on behalf of the Seal Clubbers; their styles fused well and were catered to making the most of the possibilities of the latest RCT2 custom objects. To the surprise of no one, their Artesian Well Waterworks was a very colourful fantasy park. So was the Flying Germans' park though, Eternal Springs City, built entirely by Ride6. The parks were generally well liked, but also divisive. Some people found the parks predictable and superficial. Surviving Artesian Well Waterworks, rumors of poll manipulation and general bitching about the validity of votes, the Flying Germans initially pulled ahead of the Seal Clubbers, but the Seal Clubbers almost caught up and the poll was kept open for a few more days. The Germans eventually got the win.

The North division play-off was held between the MoLLesters and the Hurricanes. This match would see the last proper natelox work ever released in the Tissot Archipelago, which he built together with Roomie - an unlikely duo. The natelox architecture was a little predictable, but simultaneously very good and detailed. Roomie was responsible for a big pink hacked coaster, that sadly didn't work well because Roomie ran out of time to complete the hack. Five years later, Roomie would revisit the map and replace the pink coaster with a more traditional wooden coaster. The Hurricanes created Aviara Cove - Kumba and Corkscrewed did, to be precise. It was another RCT2 park with detailed architecture draped over steep cliff sides, but Aviara Cove was definitely one of the better attempts in the genre, and even the park's critics could often not deny that it was really well made, and it could not be denied the win despite Kumba's cocky attitude potentially deterring them from voting as such. The Hurricanes won indeed.

Eternal Springs City by Ride6

Aviara Cove by the Hurricanes

The finals once again followed a best of three format, with the first deadline being in two weeks already. X-sector of course made his finals appearance for the Flying Germans, with Splash-O. The Faraway Tree, a fantastical park on a steep cliff with castles in the clouds built on a second level above. It obviously borrowed from a few other parks conceptually, most notably Ghost Cell Crisis and its verticality, but it seemed to do more than borrowing in the eyes of some. Amidst broader originality debates, encompassing this match as well as the past few matches, some similarities to Phatage's design Fright Nights were a bit too suspicious. The Hurricanes created something a little more grounded in Götheburg, a sloB solo park with dueling floorless coasters inspired by Dueling Dragons in Islands of Adventure, and a slight medieval German theme to it. Rather than trying to do anything new, it just tried to do something familiar really well. It was another really close vote, which drove up the vote count again, and again there were reasons to assume foul play. At some point the score was an amazing 51-51, and the match was concluded after the next vote, in favour of the Flying Germans. The topic was locked with discussion ensuing elsewhere. SloB lost the match, but gained the nickname Mr. Cursed.

The second match (May 6th) followed a similar pattern of the voting being incredibly close, with the two parks never being more than a vote apart. Kumba and Jacko Shanty built The Day After Tomorrowland, a science fiction park with a giant robot building, strange hacks, and possibly the most offensive colour scheme known to man - it was later nominated for worst chemistry and the good idea/bad result awards category in the H2H3 awards. Some considered it 'overhacked'. The Pyramid Connection, by Ride6 and leighx, was on the other hand considered too safe. As colourful as Jacko's parkmaking was, so were his comments. His essay on why The Pyramid Connection sucked is a great read, and a direct hit at this style of traditional parkmaking in general. Over the course of the six pages of comments, the discourse turned from discussing the (less impressive) parks to discussing the peculiar poll dynamics. Drastic measures were taken after a few days, when the standings were 49-50. A 24-hour poll was announced. New topic, vote through filling out a form in the comments only. Amazingly, the match outcome was pretty much similar. The Flying Germans received 31 votes; the Hurricanes 30. This meant that the Flying Germans were the new H2H champions, and posix the second H2H-winning captain!

The Faraway Tree by the Flying Germans	Götheburg by the Hurricanes
The Pyramid Connection by the Flying Germans	The Day After Tomorrowland by the Hurricanes

As usual, awards were held to reflect on the season as a whole. There were great plans for the live chat ceremony, starting off with a trivia quiz. However, iris did not like the size of the crowd and started postponing the ceremony. When the audience shrunk even further, it turned out the site was down. The ceremony was put off after about two hours. The winners were eventually posted on the forum. Unsurprisingly, Ghost Cell Crisis and Cajamarca 1532 was chosen as best match-up, with both parks and their creators sweeping up a large share of the awards. On the side of the runner-up team The Hurricanes, Corkscrewed winning Most Valuable Player and sloB being Rookie of the Year and creating the Best Steel Coaster were nice consolidation prizes. Now note the trade that happened at the start of the season, with Corkscrewed and sloB coming over from the Vehemences. What would H2H3 have been like without that trade?

H2H3 has been an interesting contination of H2H2's story of the emancipation of RCT2. Back in 2003, LL was the established game and meta, and RCT2 parks had to fight and go against the grain to receive wide acknowledgement. The situation was reversed during H2H3, with RCT2 rapidly developing and being the dominant game, but with a significant chunk of the spectators clinging to the LL days. This was one reason why the comments were still full of people butting with foul language. At the same time, the community was also showing growth in that department. If you compare the comments on an early Week match with the comments on the later matches, the word count per post had increased significantly. People were still butting heads, but more and more were people taking the time to support their insults with arguments and lengthy reviews. The process of maturing was undermined by constant controversies though - NE still had a long way to go. As pointed out earlier the contest and the site were getting more professional too. To save server space, a lot of the H2H content was hosted externally on Corkscrewed's website with a beautiful presentation, which went live as H2H3 ended.

The third finals match was canceled, but with the parkmakers who were scheduled to go still willing to finish their parks. Over two months later than the actual deadline did we indeed get a bonus match. Calatravas by sloB and (mostly) Corkscrewed was a finals worthy park, and finally a finals match could be decided through a convincing majority vote rather than a fishy tie. X250 was scheduled to build with x-sector for the Flying Germans, but due to unavailability X250 pretty much built Voodoo Loas solo - a very impressive feat. And thus H2H3 ended on a positive note.

Calatravas by Corkscrewed and slob

Voodoo Loas by X250 and x-sector

H2H3 Statistics

Players: Participation

Sign-ups

Counting the number of sign-ups for H2H3 can be a bit confusing, since there were three drafts. In the first draft, 51 players were on the list, and with a weird new rule, the captains were allowed to recruit one extra non-parkmaker player who was not on the sign-ups list. In the second round of sign-ups, iris installed a limit of 75 players, to allow for 15 replacements - a limit that wasn't reached. Eventually, the H2H3 teams were formed from a pool of 70 sign-ups, still allowing for an official replacements list for the first time.

	Season	Sign-ups
	H2H2	62
	H2H3	70

Roster mutations

H2H3 finally made it past the draft into the final teams! But had they? Nope. A record-breaking 31 trades occured over the next days. It must be noted that in this analysis, a trade is a player moving to another team. Therefore, two players swapping teams count as two trades. Three players rotating between three teams count as three trades. Further roster mutations happened later during the season, as 9 players dropped out - possibly the result of H2H3 just taking too long to get going? From the first sign-ups to the first parks, enough time had elapsed for a player to retire from the game, meet a partner, marry, start a family, divorce, and get sued for alimony. Nine dropouts is to date the highest number of dropouts we've had in any season.

	Season	Trades	Dropouts
	H2H2	?	?
	H2H3	31	9

Veterancy

H2H3's player pool was again very different from the last season, as only a handful of players returned - and even less veterans from the first season. However, from here on, there would be a stable core of players who would partake in future seasons. Half the H2H3 team roster would return for H2H4, and some of them are still competing almost two decades later!

	45 (76%)	3 (5%)	13 (22%)	-	30 (51%)	12 (20%)	11 (19%)	6 (10%)	6 (10%)	5 (8%)	3 (5%)
	Rookie	H2H1	H2H2	H2H3	H2H4	H2H5	H2H6	H2H7	H2H8	H2H9	H2HX

Players: Performance

Productivity

Having contributed a solo release quickly inflates the productivity statistics, and Ride6 practically built two: Eternal Springs City and Death Star Assault. The latter is questionable, but building Eternal Springs City all by yourself is an impressive H2H accomplishment, and Ride6 technically did a lot of the carrying for the Flying Germans, though X250 and Splash-O had considerable contributions. Also building three parks on the rival team Hurricanes was sloB - with no low effort parks at all. Calatravas was finished quite some time after H2H3's de facto conclusion, though. The other Hurricanes who put in a lot of effort were Kumba and Corkscrewed, with nearly identical statistics, cumulatively almost two parks each. Roomie showed his workhorse ethic with three parks, and Coaster Ed attempted to rival his epic H2H2 run in quantity but falling short in quality (or finishedness).

	Player	Parks	Shares
	Ride6	3	245%
	sloB	3	230%
	Roomie	3	200%
	Coaster Ed	2	180%
	Kumba	3	175%
	Corkscrewed	3	173%
	X250	2	150%
	Junya Boy	2	150%
	Splash-0	2	135%
	Phatage	2	130%

Best and Worst Performers

The Hurricanes made a valiant effort to win the championship. That didn't work out, but Kumba and Cork's seasons were glorious, with their collabo Aviara Cove probably one of the earliest RCT2 H2H parks that still hold up today. Cork arguably had a better season if you count Calatravas, which in addition to Escape from Rockwood Prison, is probably slightly better than Parkmakerz and The Day After Tomorrowland. Both make the top 20 best H2H runs of all time.

Rookie Splash-O definitely made a splash on behalf of the Flying Germans, winning both of his matches in style, including a crucial win in the final, when he paired up with x-sector. However it was x-sector who was got second place in the end of season H2H award for MVP. Looking purely at the statistics, John is actually the third most valuable player, but his only contribution was a solo park that won by over 80% of the votes. On the MoLLesters, the honour must go to Roomie, who despite winning only one out of his three matches, simply showed up to fill the slots in the team - even switching to RCT2.

There were several players with two appearances and two losses. The worst losers here, looking at scores and shares, are surprisingly Phatage and natelox - two firmly established players who simply could not perform as intended. Loopy is in third place here, but as a promising rookie, we can cut him some slack, especially looking at the parks: Hanson and Blossom Springs. Unlucky losses, not poor performance! Perhaps Jacko Shanty is the worst example of H2H poison here. Both his parks were unfinished, hard to understand, and heavy losses - in addition to a not to charming attitude at times. We hope he is in a better place now, because there was definitely talent there. NE is ready for a Jacko redemption arc in H2H11.

Below you will find a top 20 of the most powerful H2H runs by individual builders. The top 20 will be filled in as this series progresses.

	#1		#11	Kumba (H2H3)
	#2		#11
	#3	Coaster Ed (H2H2)	#13
	#4		#14
	#5		#15	Corkscrewed (H2H3)
	#6		#16
	#7		#17
	#8		#18	Ablaze (H2H2)
	#9		#19
	#10		#20	natelox (H2H2)

 

Team Performances

Not considering the eventual outcome of the contest, the Seal Clubbers actually emerge at the top of the H2H3 team ranking. The team had a few losses, but most team members also received a win to compensate for their loss, resulting in mostly green numbers overall. The Hurricanes had a slightly more turbulent season, but the strong performances by Cork and Kumba buff the score. The MoLLesters poor performance is notable, as the team did make it into the play-offs. They only narrowly qualified though, and then they proceded to lose really hard. Overall, the field was pretty

The Power Ranking calculation can also be applied to teams as a whole, taking the average performance from each team member. The result can be used to calculate a ranking of all H2H teams, which you will find below.

	Rank	Team	Season
	#2	Icons	H2H2	181
	#12	Seal Clubbers	H2H3	63
	#13	Sea Serpents	H2H2	61
	#14	Hurricanes	H2H3	61
	#19	Flying Germans	H2H3	26
	#22	Vehemences	H2H3	9
	#24	Blue Meanies	H2H2		0
	#28	Pufferfish	H2H2		-19
	#36	MoLLesters	H2H3		-52
	#42	Mean Green	H2H2		-79
	#43	IIIcons	H2H3		-85
	#48	Soutenours	H2H2		-188

Matches: Outcomes

Scores

The matches in H2H3 were much closer than in H2H2, with the average score of a winning park being 64% - it was fitting that H2H3 would be the only season to have a draw, ever. The largest win came from the Seal Clubbers; Venetia Harbour versus Kierikkengord Castle, with 81% of the votes - the closest thing to a landslide win in H2H2.

	Season	Average loss %	Average win %
	H2H2	32%	68%
	H2H3	36%	64%

Votes

Site activity was definitely way up from H2H2, with the average number of votes growing from 60 to 75 votes per match. Sierra Glen vs Symphony of Pollution received 110 votes, an all-time record that we're unlikely to break again. It was the close matches that drove up the vote count. The highest number of votes received by a single park was 55 for Xenon.

	Season	Average and maximum votes
	H2H2	99
	H2H3	110

Irregularities

H2H3 was a tremendous improvement on H2H2, which was marred by numerous forfeits. H2H3 only saw 1. On the other hand, there were 2 disqualifications - half of all registered H2H disqualifications. In both cases, it was the anonimity rule that were grounds for disqualification. The Seal Clubbers survived theirs, for the Vehemences it may have been a crucial early setback.

	Season	Forfeits	Disqualifications
	H2H2	6	0
	H2H3	1	2

Matches: Parks

Games

There had been a huge meta shift inbetween H2H2 and H2H3. RCT2 was now the main game, and LL had been relegated to an aqcuired taste that had to fight from an underdog position. 51 parks were submitted during H2H3 (again, an all-time record high!), of which only 10 were LL. Most of them came from the MoLLesters, possibly the first H2H novelty team, but the Vehemences also banked on a LL strategy with several submissions in that game, but all in all LL did not have a great showing in H2H3.

	Season	% of all parks	% of all parks
	H2H2	61%	39%
	H2H3	20%	80%

Only a single all-LL match happed; Aquatica vs Blossom Springs (hardly great advertising for the game). Eight inter-game matches took place, and LL lost six of them.

	Season	Match types
	H2H2
	H2H3
		LL vs LL   LL vs RCT2   RCT2

NE5 scores

After NE5, all parks in the database have been open to community ratings. Obviously, the number of votes on most H2H3 parks are very low. Only 3 parks have been voted on by the panel. Naturally, it is only the more notable and historically relevant parks that have been voted on, therefore this statistic is for now skewed towards the high end of the spectrum.

3 parks

0 parks

0 parks

0 parks

48 parks

 

Below you will find a (beginning of a) top 10 of highest accolade scores on H2H parks up until the current season.

	Season	Score	Park
	H2H3	85.00%	Götheburg
	H2H2	82.50%	Battlefield RCT
	H2H2	80.63%	Erwindale Forest
	H2H2	80.00%	Sicily
	H2H3	79.38%	Cajamarca 1532
	H2H3	70.00%	Voodoo Loas

 

Last updated: April 14th 2024

Absolutely incredible writeup on every front. The running statistics are very well executed and do a ton to put both each individual H2H and how they all compare in perspective. NE was definitely a lot more colorful back in the day and it's always so cool seeing these stories that could easily be lost to time getting the limelight. (Probably really embarrassing for some though.) Maybe it's just me as a relative newcomer who was blowing his whole loan on Build Your Own Six Flags after Build Your Own Six Flags while H2H3 was happening, but I do feel like this era tends to be very much romanticized. So much longing for the old days and simplistic styles that rewarded strong fundamentals without much additional detailing but things like Strange Happenings In Time and Jacko Shanty's rants go completely under the radar (although ngl he cooked with the Faraway Tree essay). Maybe for the better we let these go, but I think it also speaks to just how different of a time 2005 was in general. It's been 19 years since H2H3 and the internet was the Wild West and not yet ruled by corporations. It's easy to get very nostalgic for and even bitter that the internet will likely never feel this human again. Embrace the past but learn from its mistakes, as with anything in history. Anyway Faraway Tree was cool and I will die on this hill

no wonder i didn't want to participate in h2h for a while after this season... shenanigans all over the place. and the one park i was on was disqualified. amazing write up though!

MoLLesters legendary team name  

Wow, this is so impressive.

Again, another fantastic write up. Well done Liam.

Interesting and enlightening look into the olden days, which I wasn't a part of.

Very well written and arranged, also really cool to see the stats visually like that.

Looking forward to the next history lesson.

It's easy to get very nostalgic for and even bitter that the internet will likely never feel this human again. Embrace the past but learn from its mistakes, as with anything in history.

I agree with this. When going through topics from 2002-2005 it's obvious how much the community had changed from immature name calling and shitposting to pretty thoughtful and articulate essays exchanging thoughts on the abstract aspects of our hobby. Overall we've become a much more positive and supportive place. On the other hand, maybe we've gone soft, making a big deal out of every time someone calls someone else an asshole. It's become too rare for us to simply shrug and move on. It was just a different tone, more of a wild west indeed, but at the same time it felt genuine. That's something the internet as a whole has lost a lot of. Sometimes the community could perhaps benefit from a fuck you here and there - as long as it's the type of fuck you asshole name calling where you shake hands after. This ties in to the accolade voting debate; over the years the range in votes is getting more and more narrow. We're losing our ability to disagree and deviate perhaps.

Anyway, H2H4 is here soon. It's a good one, I think

Incredible write up!

Though I feel a little overlooked in it - the Flying Germans were a rickety team for a lot of the season and I recall posix and x-sector both disappearing for substantial chunks of it. x-sector came up HUGE with his builds though. And if I recall correctly Splash-O was a substitute we pulled in - I think I was in one of the RCT clubs with him and his work was really promising.

I recognize that my work was incredibly rushed in the moment, didn't hold up to the weathering of time, and was mired in controversial wins though. I was a second-round pick, and really felt that I needed to live up to that and by the end of the finals - I felt I had. This was a wild era. I personally romanticize it because it was so exciting, and I was fully engaged with it on an almost daily basis - something I still do with my creative projects, but it's been music more than RCT since 2006 or 07. But in H2H3 era - this wasn't a game - outside of school this was my life.

woops. Double post.

But I think the club was RCT-X

Amazing reviews Liam! Great way for those who showed up later on to hear about the wild early days of what has become a classic triannual RCT event. Love the stats too and all the effort you put into this. Thank you!