Park / Westwinds

99 Comments

  • geewhzz%s's Photo
    I agree with Steve and Kyle, kinda ridiculous. Who wouldn't want to visit this park in real life? Give me a freaking break.

    If I had built this park I bet it would have won Spotlight for sure.
  • Cocoa%s's Photo
    I haven't gotten a chance to check this out in game yet but am surprised by the result too... looked like a shoe-in, i totally agree with what gee said about if he built it it would have been spotlight.
  • Goliath123%s's Photo

    Hey Fury was really cool man, I love a good hyper so I thought i'd just mention I thought it was really well done. Alot of the park was similar to previous realism parks but what are you gonna do, yours still looks great

     

    Good to see you had fun building it which is the main thing - to enjoy what you do.

     

    Ps good job on Fury again - awesome. And also mad pros for adding peeps :~)

  • Kumba%s's Photo

    NE Spotlight? Sorry.... Not saying it was easy to vote no tho. The park just lacked the originality to get the yes. I do enjoy this style of park, but you guys need to show us something we don't feel like we have seen before. Put a twist on it at least, if this was worked into a landscape with some elevation changes or had a cool side plot like The Village and the Park, it could have won.

     

    What I liked best was the atmosphere. It did feel familiar, but I still really enjoyed it. All the rides were realistic and solid.

     

    Russ, you are quickly turning into a monster parkmaker. I hope you gained some confidence from this release and can use it going forward and take down the spotlight next time. You are yet another example of how I can take a tropical storm of a parkmaker and turn them into a Hurricane :kumbasgreen:

  • inthemanual%s's Photo
    Yes, if Gee had built this, it would have been a spotlight, but that's because it would have been different. No two people build identically (except maybe shotguns and Rob ;) ) so different builders will make things in different ways. Gee building this style of park would have done some things better, some things worse, but it would have been different, and those differences are what would have pushed it to spotlight, not just his name.

    I also don't think that spotlights necessarily need to bring any level of innovation, but they should be different enough from existing parks to feel monumental. This really edged that line, making it a hard call to make.

    I still don't know whether I'd have voted yes or no on this, as I haven't had a chance to view the whole final version yet. Its a great park nonetheless, and a tremendous improvement. You deserve the parkmaker spot, Russ.
  • geewhzz%s's Photo
    I disagree ITM. Lets say nobody knew anything about this park and I had submitted it instead of Russ, I think it would have won based on name alone. I think a name holds weight for sure and that is just the way it is in the community. Is it fair? No, but it's just the way life is.
  • Cocoa%s's Photo

    holy shit G Force you got fucked. You absolutely deserved spotlight, and I don't know what happened (jealousy maybe?) but the community let you down here in my opinion.

     

    This is probably the most 'complete' realistic park I've ever seen. Perfect backstory that matches the setting and feel of the park perfectly. Fully complete backspaces that don't compete for object spaces, attention, or get crammed in due to mapsize restrictions- they flow seamlessly into the park. It has a fully unique atmosphere that I haven't felt in a long time and a really cool selection of rides that I absolutely enjoyed. It felt way more 'real' than starpoint, sfsf, or sfcarolina. If I didn't know better I'd think it was a recreation. To those saying it's 'derivative' of other realistic parks: 1. when have we ever not produced derivative works 2. Its only derivative in that its realistic (with todays standards of realism). I actually think G Force improved on the style and made it cleaner, more 'concise' (if that makes sense- he accomplishes realism with less overload of small objects and more subtlety) and prettier.

     

    Coasters: fantastic work (although I'm less keen on the hyper, too quick-paced with jarring turns IMO). Prowler was amazing (great name too :p), whizzer was fantastic, etc. They fit into the park really well and reeked of well-researched coaster love. They really helped the park feel 'real' to me.

     

    Architecture: maybe not so much in the park, but whats there feels totally realistic and excellently pulled off. It reminds me sooo much of the semi-themed cheap cedar fair style, everytime I saw a building it immediately brought me back to parks I'd been to. Serious kudos on that, people often have a tendency to overtheme or undertheme but I think you hit the nail on the head for the franchise you were building.

     

    atmosphere: so amazing. I don't know how or why but it just reeks of cedar fair amusement park, of all my nostalgic bits of worlds of fun or cedar point or kings island. just works so well and its the first truly engrossing and consistent atmosphere I've felt in a realistic park in a looong time.

     

    I probably have more to say but I'll leave it there. top marks from me. I think I figured out what happened here: you got fucked by non-americans (except kumba I guess). For me, this was the perfect american theme park, wonderfully realized and fleshed out, and I understand how you could miss that if you didn't grow up with these parks (or have even never been to one before). Maybe its the same reason I didn't really like Thorpe Park, I just don't get it the same way Louis would for example. 

     

    Anyway I've ranted enough for now, hope you don't get too down by the gold, it's probably my favorite realistic park yet so make some more! (and don't slow your pace down :) )

  • Steve%s's Photo

    Originality? WHO CARES. Not every park needs to be monumentally innovative to earn the top honor. It wasn't like that back in the old days. Not every natelox park was completely revolutionary, but nate built it and he built it well. This park is up there with SFSF and SFC. SFSF won Spotlight but I don't remember anyone saying "too similar to SFC, needs more originality to really push it over the edge." I'm starting to think geewhzz is onto something about the name thing...

     

    Ultimately, this quote by Turtle always strikes me when this conversation about being original or whatever comes up:

     

    Posix, What dissapoints me nowadays is that most people can only get "wowed" by something that comes up and slaps them in the face. Spacestations, giant bedrooms, the like.

    I looked at this and my mouth fell open.

     

    My mouth fell open when I looked at this park. It's not just because it was nothing new, but because it's the scale and the detail and just the whole package. Why are we holding ourselves to such high standards when we are lucky to have a park like this, at this quality and scale, come around only a couple times a year, maybe? Blows my mind.

  • geewhzz%s's Photo
    Yes Steve, it's funny, the entire file is maxed out with scenery objects, not to say cramming a bunch in to hit the limit is the way to go, but it's easy to tell everything was placed with care and thoughtfulness.
  • nin%s's Photo


    Why are we holding ourselves to such high standards when we are lucky to have a park like this, at this quality and scale, come around only a couple times a year, maybe?

     This. Exactly. Thorpe Park was great, was over a year ago, and it offered nothing newer than what this park did. The sheer size, quality, and completion of it was 'wow' enough, just as Westwinds is here. 

    Six Flags Carolina, Starpointe, and Watkins were all innovate, realistic parks, sure. But were the other parks that come before it? Stop comparing this to JUST the modern realistic parks, but compare it to ALL spotlight parks. Not every one was a major gamechanger. We used to have plenty of spotlight parks a year, and not everyone changed the game like some parks in the past half-decade. Westwinds may not have the impact that a park like DRC, RMM, or Euroscape, but let's be real: no one is building parks like that anymore. Hardly anyone BUILDS parks anymore, at least to this size and quality. 

    If you absolutely don't think this park deserves the spot, fine, but it surely isn't just a gold park like every other park released this year. The ranking system is flawed because scores give parks undeserving awards, tainting the system and creating the unobtainable peak of parkmaking skill that is the spotlight. I wish we still had the previous system of Spotlight, Blockbuster and Runner-Up because it at least had a sort of gap between the levels of quality. 
  • geewhzz%s's Photo
    Spotlight = showcasing the best work on the site, is this not some of the best work recently? Surely it is in recent memory.
  • Coasterbill%s's Photo
    If a park reaches 80% it should be a Spotlight. If it's not worthy of Spotlight then it shouldn't be good enough to earn 80%. Voting it high enough to get Spotlight and then saying it doesn't deserve the Spotlight makes no sense. It's as if people are saying "it should score high enough to get Spotlight but it's not as good as Statpointe so it shouldn't be a spotlight." The problem though is that Starpointe is well beyond the requirements for Spotlight, that's why it scored the way it did.

    And I'm just using Starpointe as an example here because we all know that's what this park is being compared to (which is unfair). Any similarities are only because they're both Cedar Fair parks.
  • geewhzz%s's Photo
    Bill, the reason for that actually does make sense, it was to filter out smaller parks that were really good just not as immersive as full scale parks to win spotlight, like h2h parks for example. I think this actually worked for that purpose as no h2h parks have ever won spotlight, this one however clearly is, which is why it's crazy that it did not win. it just sucks to see parks like this and northwest adventure get robbed.
  • Coasterbill%s's Photo
    Oh I totally understand that with small or H2H parks but what I don't get is why with a full scale park like this you could justify voting it 80% but "no" on Spotlight. That makes no sense.
  • G Force%s's Photo

    I actually think the voting system is fine, usually works pretty well.  Perhaps its just peoples standards being all out of wack, although I don't claim to have any credibility in this realm.  Where everything gets all out of wack is when it comes to H2H parks, because they are just so different from the normal releases, its difficult to judge them on the same scale.  There is probably a way to fix the issues past simply telling people to vote lower, but I have no idea what that would be at the moment.

     

    Like I've said in the past though, the pannel would probably benefit from an increase in the minimum number of votes, maybe not 15 but 12 or 13 possibly.  It always seems like a lot of panelist are unable to vote on parks and have an opinion that could have changed the outcome of the voting.  Though, with everyone seeming to have less and less time now, its almost to much to ask from the older/more established/credible members anymore, which is a shame.

  • Cocoa%s's Photo

    ^for example me, who would've voted ~90 and yes for spotlight. Not that it would have changed anything. For what its worth, I preferred this park to starpoint :p

  • Six Frags%s's Photo

    Yeah, if you'd do a general NE site vote I'm pretty sure it would win Spotlight. G Force just got very unlucky there was a majority in the panel that voted no on Spotlight from the overall 'no'-minority..

     

    Btw, why do we need this panel? Why can't we just let all the NE crowd's vote decide the accolade? Of course the few lowest and highest should be cancelled and there should be a minimum amount of votes, but I don't really see the point of letting a few guys decide the fate of a full scale park like this while for example in H2H everyone can vote and it works fine as well..

     

    I think we should be careful with this thing. It's interesting gee brings up Northwest Adventures as a lot of people, RCTNW included, thought it should've won as well, and I think it hammered James that much he never really felt the inspiration for a full scale park project like that again.

    I see G Force doesn't bother it that much as RCTNW, but still I think the staff should reconsider some of the accolade decision making.

     

    edit; Oh, and everyone complaining about this being not original enough, fuck that, have you even read the readme?! This is as original as any realistic park can be.

  • posix%s's Photo

    G Force, I'm sorry this is no longer about your park now...

     

    I think a lot of you guys are getting a bit carried away. It was a very close decision. Had this won spotlight we would have the same thread just with people dooming the site for its decline of standards (G Force, no offence. Just a hypothesis)

     

    I have a lot of faith in the panel. I usually agree with its decisions. When I'm the high or low vote, I often find I was probably wrong with my vote. Originality is an important aspect of spotlights. I think the understanding of originality isn't broad enough. To the Natelox example: he had a style that was totally original and no one else could build. He didn't bring in totally new features every time, but he developed a style that only he could bring to the site, and people loved him for it. Similarly CP6 showed with Wattkins how clean and perfect a realistic park with modern RCT2 objects could be, and he took it to a further extreme with SFC. No one other than geewhzz and maybe Rob has really done it like that. In that sense, these parks were original.

     

    But at some point, the uberrealistic style is a dead end if you forget to inject some of yourself and break a few rules. All you can do then is increase the amount of detail, which sooner or later wears you out.

     

    With this park, it's great, but it just has too little G Force in it for me. I want to see design decisions that only he would make. Be less obedient - instead be bold and intrepid.

     

    I also really disagree with this being about a player's reputation. Gee, we love you, but what you said had a slightly conceited tone to it. I've always thought that people are very objective. If something's great, they love it, no matter who built it. People even loved good quality stuff of people they've hated as a member...

  • Coasterbill%s's Photo
    Obviously I have tremendous respect for posix but I really disagree here. If you want people to "break rules" then you're basically saying it's impossible to win a Spotlight with a Cedar Fair park ever again because they're the most conservative company on earth.

    Anything that broke the rules wouldn't fit in one of their parks. 10 years ago it would have but lately they've done nothing unique at all (probably due to the company they're using for all of their new coasters being so conservative... I mean look at Banshee, Fury, intimidator, Leviathan, Valravn... None of those are original and they won't translate as anything original in RCT).

    I still feel like if you want to build a Cedar Fair park and you execute it this well then you should win a Spotlight but that won't be realistically possible with every one being compared to Starpointe which exceeded the requirements for Spotlight by a ton. This park did some unique things (like Whizzer) and it broke a Cedar Fair rule by having a Chaos ride but how many rules can you really break before people complain that it's not realistic enough?

    My worry is that if people are inspired to build Cedar Fair parks (very likely since there are so many in the U.S. and many of us draw inspiration from real parks that we enjoy visiting) then they should do it and they shouldn't be penalized for it. I know this will be met with a flood of people saying "people should build what they want and not worry about accolades" and you're right but I think many of the people on this site do (in a way) enjoy building for accolades and for the enjoyment of the community. If this weren't the case the accolade system wouldn't be in place.

    Just my two cents...
  • Steve%s's Photo
    Posix, I love you man but come on. Why would you let the panel dictate what you thought originally was good or bad? Usually your first instinct is the right one: if you love or hate something then that's the way it is. Besides the point, though...that just seemed silly to me.

    I also have to disagree with you. I think what it all comes down to, is the ratings system is flawed. If we can't let a park that scores above 80% to be Spotlight, then we shouldn't even have the option to choose. Automatic gold winner. If we think Spotlights are that unobtainable then set the bar for Spotlights to 90%. I think this is silly also, though, since I am a firm believer that even H2H parks that score so high deserve Spotlight but that's another story all together.