After a long time of gathering ideas, discussing them, creating a concept and, with the accolade decision panel, a new way to decide about submission winners, we are ready to introduce you to what might as well be called a new "Release Paradigm" here at New Element.
The basic difference is that the accolade decision making is now using a score system. Upon receiving a submission, we post it as a poll inside the panel where each panelist is asked to vote on a 0-20 scale. When enough votes are gathered, we close the poll and calculate the final score for the submission by throwing out the lowest and the highest score given and taking the mean of the resulting scores. Whether this mean score is enough for the respective submission to win something or not is decided at hand of minimum required scores we have established with "Level Determination" polls, using various ne releases as candidates for each submission category we have.

Accolade Categories

• 
  Definition: A spotlight submission roughly follows a park creation concept, no matter what style of building is applied.
  
  What can you win?
  • BRONZE (a new category where parks that don't quite make it for silver but are still worth winning something reside)
    Requirements:
    • score ≥ 10
      
    • any size
    
    
  • SILVER (equals Runner Up)
    Requirements:
    • score ≥ 12
      
    • any size
    
    
  • GOLD (equals Blockbuster)
    Requirements:
    • score ≥ 14
      
    • any size
    
    
  • Spotlight (Platinum) (equals Spotlight)
    Requirements:
    • score ≥ 16
      
    • park must win an additional "spotlight yes or no" vote in the panel applying the 70% majority decision mechanism
    What's the advantage? First off, the naming of the accolades is more integrated. The terms "Runner Up" and "Blockbuster" alone do not give away which of the two is better whereas with "Silver" and "Gold" it's clear. We also have had a "Blockbusters Challenge" back in the days for RCT1 where "Blockbuster" is used already and to avoid confusing shouldn't be used twice under different meanings.
    You might notice the Gold category has no map size restriction. This means that very good mini parks, for example famous h2h parks, can win Gold, too. This allows us to reward such submissions accordingly without either rejecting them because we have no appropriate accolade category, or making them a concept creation although obviously their concept was to create a park, which contradicts the definition of a concept creation.
  
  
• 
  Definition: A design submission follows the concept of a coaster design. Or, it's a coaster cut out of a full park with its surroundings (those may include flat rides, restaurants, shops, etc...)
  
  What can you win?
  • Design
    Requirements:
    • score ≥ 13
      
    • correspond to the definition above
      
    • any size
  
  
• 
  Definition: Anything that does not fit into the two categories above, meaning following a totally different concept.
  
  What can you win?
  • Concept Creation
    Requirements:
    • score ≥ 12
      
    • correspond to the definition above
      
    • any size
  Please note: The Concept Creation accolade category was closed on Friday, 09 October 2009 in this topic.

-----------------------------------

Level Determination Results
Some of you might ask where we got the levels from? As mentioned above, we did "Level Determination" polls during the first 2 weeks of the panel. The results were used to calculate the levels. All the candidates you see were intended as "would be" submissions. To calculate the levels, we took the mean of the bottom three and then rounded to whole numbers.

> SPOTLIGHT SUBMISSION
poll#-mean-name
>>> (GOLD) <<<
#01| 17.4 wattkins woods amusement park
#12| 16.3 busch gardens san simeon
#15| 16.2 shadowlands
#04| 15.1 spellbrook shore
#07| 14.3 cajamarca1532
#11| 13.9 tussaud's boscastle heights
mean of bottom three: (15.1 + 14.3 + 13.9)/3 = 14.43 ~ 14.0 (min score for a spotlight submission to win gold)
(meaning that "tussaud's boscastle heights" would win silver award)
>>> (SILVER) <<<
#08| 13.6 paradise island
#10| 13.1 soul calibur
#18| 13.0 disneysea spain
#05| 13.0 divinity ridge
#06| 12.3 the black lagoon
#09| 11.4 majestic paradise
mean of bottom three: (13.0 + 12.3 + 11.4)/3 = 12.23 ~ 12.0 (min score for a spotlight submission to win silver)
(if score <12 it wins bronze)
>>> (BRONZE) <<<
#16| 11.3 genesis
#02| 11.2 fantastic wonders
#03| 10.9 wtf by botki
#14| 10.4 las vegas 2010
#13| 9.50 the edge
#17| 9.00 memory lane
mean of bottom three: (9.00 + 9.50 + 10.4)/3 = 9.63 ~ 10.0 (min score for a spotlight submission to win bronze)
(so the cut off level that decides if a park is to win something or not is 10.0)

> DESIGN
poll#-mean-name
#05| 15.9 salga
#04| 15.6 mountaineer
#06| 14.4 formula1
#03| 13.8 silver starr
#01| 13.6 bodhisattva
#02| 12.9 buccaneer
mean of bottom three: (13.8 + 13.6 + 12.9)/3 = 13.43 ~ 13.0 (min score for a design submission to win something)
(bucaneer would be rejected if sent in today)

> CONCEPT CREATION
poll#-mean-name
#02| 15.8 escher island
#03| 14.5 marriott's discovery bay golf resort
#01| 13.8 house of happiness
#06| 13.0 mercury valley falls
#04| 12.3 magic world indoor paradise
#05| 10.0 pleasure point
mean of bottom three: (13.0 + 12.3 + 10.0)/3 = 11.77 ~ 12.0 (min score for a cc submission to win something)
(this means that using this system, a cc submission such as "pleasure point" received today would not win anything)

-----------------------------------

So there you have it. So far about 10 submissions have already been applied to this system and it's working perfectly. We are somewhat proud to have established such a sophisticated system. Your feedback is welcome, of course.

Wow, that's complicated.

Looks like this'll be an awesome system. One question though: With such a different system now, could we maybe send in submissions that have already failed/been released accolade-less?

This post has been edited by Gwazi: 23 August 2008 - 10:21 PM

Looks absolutely amazing. At first I thougt that 14/20 (i.e., 70%) was waaaaaaaaaaaaay too low for Spotlight (I was thinking more like 18) but I realize it was brilliant. LOL at Pleasure Point and Magic World being essentially "kicked out" I thougt they sucked when they were released, they were clearly gimmicks to usher in much, much better CCs.

How did you pick what parks to review? And how in the world did WWAP get ranked so well?

Anyways, looks stunning.

Maybe cuz WWAP kicks Premier's ass.

I'm not a big fan of having no size limit for spotlight submissions(Well, i guess its Gold submissions). I think it pretty much ruins the whole idea of submitting a full park.

Magic World did not get under the score....

This is excellent. Great for you guys, and also helpful for builders so there is more of a mark to achieve and parks to compare for what you are aiming for. It would be cool if all past parks could be ranked like this, it would be interesting.

Yeah that would be cool jusmith. I might be willing to help you guys if you wanted to do an overhaul of past projects/their ratings.

Come back with some full size solo submissions dr dirt and then say that.... they're so rare these days that's it's not like it's some major cheapening of the accolade system

Great job guys! Must have taken some time to work all this out.

James - rctnw

Milo, on Aug 24 2008, 12:16 AM, said:

Well, I would be mad if I submit a full park for spotlight and don't get it while I could submit a smaller park of the same quality and get the same accolade.

^But there can be parks in the Spotlight category that are more than four times the size of others winning the same award..

-disneylhand

spotlight and gold aren't the same thing.... think of bronze/silver/gold as different quality of any size park mini and up

spotlight is voted after a gold park of a certain size (115x115) passes a vote

so full size solos still can recieve spotlight while mini parks still have no chance but also have a place in the system


hope that makes sense

Alright I understand now, but I just don't see how full parks and minis can be put into the same category.

I propose that these works be rerated, as many who voted were involved in their making or otherwise clearly biased beyond acceptable circumstances. It doesn't take a genius to notice that the three lowest rankings for Gaelic Meadow were all from Majesty members who were clearly biased against it from the start due to continual exposure to his style. While the latter may be considered inevitable and those who know his work best can easily expose it for its flaws, I still think that 5dave should have been replaced with somebody who wasn't involved with the project even if their criteria wasn't quite as sharp. The value of a group system is cancelling out biases, and as of this first release, this system shows little improvement over the single judge system that was in place for so long. The difference for now is that the bias is less extreme but still frequent, though the judgements are backed up with data that makes arguing against them harder.

Also, could the inspiration from the ongoing Olympics be any more obvious? What's next, real theme park advertisements that conveniently congratulate spotlight winners proclaiming them as heroes while announcing that they've won free theme park tickets?

Um.... I have no clue where you got dave or me or anyone else from Majesty being biased based on being too exposed to the style.... that's about as far off base as it gets.

For one thing this is a bit of a turnaround from anything he's done before and to me it wasn't pulled off as well as it could have... the bare mountains and lack of continuity was what made me score it so low. I don't even see the logic behind blaming being a member of Majesty on my score. I also don't understand where you get the phrase "continual exposure to his style". What does this even mean? If it's so important why are you being so vague?

Sorry Ge but I think you're just talking out of your ass and shitting on the panel right now is just making you look stupid. I think you should stop with all the melodramatic recount crap as well. And no I'm not saying I'm perfect but I don't appreciate these false accusations of some sort of extreme bias.... give some proof and a better explanation of what you're even talking about or get out.

Not to mention daves score which was lowest was not used.

I mean that being a member of Majesty means that you're more familiar with Kumba's thought process in some ways than the average builder, considering the hidden forum where club members share ideas. It's not that you don't have valid reasons for scoring that way, but that you're observing your points about Kumba's earlier work, rather than judging the design on it's own merits. I'm not as you so eloquently put it Milo, "shitting on the panel", and I think that the panel in the current state edges out the admin selecting the park's alone. I will concede that my first point is based off of the numbers of the current poll and other than that was largely based on the old axiom that familiarity breeds contempt. The bigger problem that I see is that the panel clearly isn't regarding the bias of the judges clearly enough if they're letting somebody who worked on the project be involved in the decision of whether it gets an accolade. While that score, being the lowest was cut from the total, Camcorder, if there were another score from somebody else less biased, it may have not been the lowest score, therefore nulling your point on the grounds of the score not having any effect on the totals. The last part was just an attempt at a joke to lighten a more serious point, though I can see how it could be taken the wrong way.

As for some final notes, my frustrations are largely a result of my own bias against the allegations that the system is working perfectly with disregard for participation of parkmakers who worked on the works they're judging. Much of the rest is uncertain, as an entire basis for an argument cannot be made off of a single poll, which brings me to my final point. From your perspective, Milo, the panel is effective until proven otherwise, but from mine it's quite the opposite as I have no stake in the outcome. The first point was more an expression of reasonable doubt than a strong point, and I'll have to wait until I see more parks to see if it's true or not. You've pointed out a large hole in my knee jerk argument, but my second still stands. When I see more polls I'll be able to better judge my theory of bias, but until then I'll admit that it's not a solid point. However, there was an obvious error of decision which needs to be corrected allowing a participant to vote on their own RCT work.

In this case, it clearly mattered little, but it's an issue that needs to be addressed so that it doesn't affect scores that hover around the score of 13 required as it could easily bias them the wrong way.

This post has been edited by Ge-Ride: 24 August 2008 - 03:09 AM

First I thought that ≥ 14 for a spotlight is too humble,
but now I guess you have that system figured out.

I think it's gonna work very well, and it's fair.

This means that parks are judged more on skill than likability. That's a good thing for this site which is very serious and business like nowadays.

Okay, I just read this right (I think), and I would like to clarify: It says under Spotlight requirements that the "park must be bigger than 115x115 of effectively built on tiles". Does that mean if your park is 120x120 you can only use 5x5 spaces of water/other filler? Or does water/other filler count towards the 115x115 limit? Just wondering...

I think it just blacktile land isn't included in that. Since lots of parks use large bodies of water.

okay wow, i'm happy that this actually did stir up some debate as we had hoped it would.
i'll try to address all the points people have brought up.

dr dirt, when we were voting, we noticed that what matters the most about a park is the feeling it conveys. i am sure you have a few h2h parks that you really really enjoyed, or a few pt2 entries too that you like to look at every once in a while maybe. then, you have seen probably dozens of full scale parks that you found ugly and boring and never looked at them again. would you not rank those h2h parks higher? when you think about it, you'd have to, right? at least that's the conclusion we came to. we found that if a park really manages to strike on a so called "emotion scale" then it is considered a "good" park and stays in people's minds. for each of us, the importance of the map size plays a different role. some regard size to be very important because the more someone builds the more he has accomplished, right? you seem to be one of those who see parkmaking in that way. i do, too, by the way. however, there are others who don't really care about the size. they just focus on their "emotion". if it's there then they rank the park accordingly. you cannot believe how many hours we discussed about these different approaches to voting for parks. it was an issue that evil wme originally brought up when the panel first opened. as a result, we had to close the testing polls only to debate over this for i believe 10 or so days. it was terrible because we couldn't find a solution. eventually, we redesigned the polls so that both approaches to voting would be possible and a global scale for voting was established. there was one aspect we all agreed on though, which was to not allow mini parks for spotlight. hence we agreed that an additional requirement for winning spotlight would be the 115x115 min size restriction. this means that spotlights will remain "bigger" parks that are of top quality. the combination of size and quality is what's so hard to achieve. therefore the spotlight level score cannot be higher than 14. originally we had considered a 16.5 level for spotlight. we found though that bgss would then not have won. couldn't be right.
now, i agree with your worry that this might encourage too many small scale park submissions, but i believe that most people (and that goes for the panelists as well) value map size much more than they want to admit. so i don't see these submissions win very frequently, simply because they're just not good enough. also, the madness created by custom scenery for ever more detailed and work-intensive parkmaking is reaping people's motivation to start full scale projects. a trend that is unstoppable, unfortunately. only exceptional people like rctnw aren't affected. and see they are directly rewarded with a spotlight win.

gwazi, yes, we will review everything we're sent. we're thankful for your contribution to our site.

jusmith, ranking all our releases under this system is a thought that has come up in some of us, too. i agree it would be rather exciting. however, i do not believe it's possible. the test polls we did took 2 weeks to get roughly about 3/4 of the panelists' votes. something we were rather disappointed about. we realised that it takes extremly enthusiastic people for this kind of job and we already had to replace 2 panelists who showed by far the least initiative and support. so this idea is nice but impossible, i think.

Ge-Ride, did you sign up for a panelist spot? considering your great concern for the correctness of the scores, wouldn't you be interested to join the panel? (that is once a spot opens).
now, for reasons others have mentioned already, i do not believe your concerns should be worried over. and let me tell you that in the panel poll design, the poll has 23 options. 0-20, can't view and "i participated in this submission". we mostly know who was involved in a submission we receive and so even if they aren't so honest and take the "i participated..." option, we can still simply not count their vote when closing the poll however, this has not happened until now because the voting is looking very honest so far, something i'm rather happy about.

Great job on this guys, looks like submissions would be judged more objectively this way..
Major props also for the way the scoring ballot is displayed at the release page of the release!
Gives a great indication how every voting member was feeling about the release and it makes the whole voting system more transparent..

Kind of surprising to see Disney Sea Spain ranked "just" Runner-Up where iris ranked it Spotlight, although I agree with the "silver" nomination..

Great job guys and keep refreshing NE with these kind of new "features"!

SF

Just a tip, I don't think you should put the names of the people who voted in the breakdown thing under each submission's page- it should be anonymous, but you should put the score etc.

^ I disagree. It means we can hire someone to shoot them

Plus I'd like to know what people think of my park and if it is low then why


But this system does appear to be flawed in a way.

I'd say Divinity Ridge is Spotlight quality.

Also a coaster that was rejected recently. I personally find to be better than Kumba's that was released recently :-/

This post has been edited by JJ: 24 August 2008 - 09:44 AM

Cool, posix. Thanks for the info.

So it's flawed because you don't 100% agree with it? Open your eyes, this is exactly what the panel was put in to place to fix.

^ Well if you BGSS wouldn't make the cut when it the score is 16 for spotlight then something must really be wrong. Maybe it is just the wrong people voting or something? As in those who don't have LL voting for the LL park? Just wondering.

Not saying the panel is bad just wondering why

This post has been edited by JJ: 24 August 2008 - 10:14 AM

What? JJ BGSS would have made Spotlight... by over two points.

I meant to say 16.5

Sorry



And sorry geewhzz I think flawed was the wrong word to use.

This post has been edited by JJ: 24 August 2008 - 10:18 AM