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With the evil truth that some simply have great talents and turn their firstie work into an accolade, and their second into a spotlight, plus having a huge influence on everyone's building style.

Nevis or PyroPenguin come to mind.

While I do think the point you're making is valid, I don't think this is historically accurate in the case of Nevis at least. I remember a dozen or so coaster recreation releases he made before he made UIX and won spotlight. And when I saw UIX I could almost trace a line back to his earlier works (which I didn't find particularly impressive at the time) and see the progression. And I remember thinking at the time, "oh, I guess there really is something to all that custom support nonsense he was up to. it actually looks really really good here!" I didn't see a full park from him before that, but he was developing the skills needed to build that park through a lot of smaller projects. I don't know about Pyro, but I suspect he probably had a lot of smaller projects before he became well known as well.

I think all parkmakers bring certain talents with them which influence how they play the game whether it's talent with visual art, winhack or coding, conceptualizing fictional worlds, etc. And that can come across as talent at RCT since those skills can translate directly into the game. But I would suspect if you really went back and interviewed those people they have some pretty amateurish work from when they first started playing the game and hadn't worked out the best way to use their skills yet.

Maybe the difference isn't that some people are more inherently gifted at parkmaking, but rather that some of us (because I include myself in this category) aren't comfortable putting releases out there in the world until they're at least at a level that would be considered above average while others are eager for attention right away even if their skills haven't caught up to their ambition yet. I'd much rather release only 2 or 3 parks and have them all be very high quality, for instance, than 10-15 parks which show a slow progression of skill from first to last.

As long as you're happy with what you're doing, I don't think it matters either way. But there is a danger I think in discouraging people by telling them talent is innate and you don't have to work for it. I think I've made good use of whatever my innate talents may be, but I've also put a whole ton of time and effort into playing the game and getting better at it over the years. If I had let it discourage me when my early submissions and screenshots were dismissed (which many of them were) I never would have discovered how good I could be. You have to have a tough skin and enough belief in your self to want to prove people wrong when they tell you that you can't do something. And you also have to have a realistic sense of perspective about where you're at in your development relative to other people who started years and years before you. Maybe those people are near the peak of their potential and your peak will eventually reach even higher. If you never try how will you ever know right?

And I also don't agree with the notion that one person is at the top of the list. Say what you want about assigning points to releases, and I think you've got a good system for doing it, what we're dealing with here is always going to be subjective and opinionated. Not to mention there's room at the top for more than one person. Even if the official parkmaker title is gone (or is it?) that's a better way for visualizing success at RCT than a number ranking. When you've attained a certain level of skill at the game and earned a certain amount of recognition from your releases you get inducted into the pantheon of the elite simply because you belong in that conversation. Who's number 1 and who's number 10 doesn't really matter. All are different, all are good. We've had various attempts at ranking over the years but it's pretty obvious that every one of those rankings are greatly influenced by what the parks of the moment are. A year later the ranking looks different and it's not just because someone got "better" and someone got "worse" it's because one person released a project they've been working on for awhile and boosted their reputation as a result while another person is maybe still working on something. Every list of "best parkmakers" is really only valid for a moment. Again, it's all about perspective.

Ah there I go rambling again...

@Levis, @Comet: Maybe I need to clarify. I'm not saying X amount of hours = Y amount of skill. Of course there is individual variation. I'm saying that the variation is not significant, especially compared to the difference in skill between someone who puts in time and someone who does not.

Whatever. This debate is quickly turning me into the sort of member that this thread was warning, so I'm going to take a bit of a break. じゃね。

-ACE

Wow, I'm amazed how many arguments came out of this thread....that have nothing to do with the topic they are in, I might add.

Look at it more as an interesting discussion than an argument

Wow, I'm amazed how many arguments came out of this thread....that have nothing to do with the topic they are in, I might add.

Welcome to New Element!

The one thing that everyone seems to forget to mention is motivation.

Even if in some very theoretical way, everyone can become good at rct, it also takes a certain motivation to do that. And patience.

RCT is very hard to measure whether you are good or not, but since the field is small I do believe basically everyone can make atleast one release that is worth a good look, given the right motivation and patience.

Something more easily measurable that illustrates some points quite well:

Little less than two years ago I started juggling, and I found a tremendous amount of drive to better myself at it. A good search on youtube(not a quick one! ) will find you kids 5 years old that are better than me! Which has to be talent, right?

You can also find videos of full-time professionals.. a lot of them..

There is really only one Anthony Gatto. There are many people that spend their careers on juggling, but there are very, very few that get close to his level.

I even found that most circusses contain jugglers that do only a couple of tricks that I haven't pulled off yet. (just to float my own boat about my new-found hobby ) (In their defence, cleaning up tricks is much harder than just being able to do them)

ha, just the other day i learned how to juggle. it's more exciting than you'd think.

but, im not very good at it, only can do three balls

WME, just wanted to point out those points you mentioned were brought up on page 3.

Skill: It does take some skill, or at least has a learning curve, else one could produce spotlight quality without knowing what they were doing.

Patience: Very important. Probably the 2nd most important aspect of any great builder (in game or otherwise) as the saying goes "Rome wasn't built in a day."

Motivation: This is the leading factor in any quality work done here at NE. Without motivation, one would quickly lose patience; or worse, they would give up before acquiring enough skill to achieve the desired results
.......

I'm just surprised a small disagreement from me started this discussion.

I'm just surprised a small disagreement from me started this discussion.

You are the glue that binds us all, Jaguarkid140. We are eternally indebted to you.

Nicely done Posix! It's one of the main reasons I have been on here for a while.

Joezia and Dotrobot have received a one week suspension. Last straw.

It looks like Dotrobot has tried to create a duplicate account. His suspension has been reset and restarts from today.

I thought he was smarter.

How did you determine it was him?

The ACP offers you all kinds of tools ...

win for Posix

Brilliant.

Tehe, nice job posix

Honestly, speaking from experience, it's not hard to create a duplicate account. But it's even easier for posix to determine when one is created. I'm guessing you used the IP address, same way you most likely determined it was me when I was banned.