News / New Element Celebrates 100+ Spotlights!

Logo by bigshootergill

New Element Celebrates 100+ Spotlights!

With the releases of Pixar Animation Studios by J K and Revelations of Stonehenge by Bluetiful_Monday and their well-deserved Spotlight wins, the New Element database now counts over 100 parks with the Spotlight tag - historically there are some caveats to this number (elevated spotlights that were later demoted) but nevertheless we'd like to take this moment as the opportunity to celebrate them!

The Spotlight award has existed at New Element since its inception, a descendent of the earlier Danimation Spotlight which you can read more about in the History of New Element - 2002. The most prestigious award available, the Spotlight has been New Element's anchor and each park to earn the honour has carved its own place in the community's long history.

To commemorate this milestone, our ever-dedicated NE historian Liampie has spent the past few months producing an incredibly in-depth topic that delves into the full history of the Spotlight award, from it's precursors on Danimation all the way to the present day, cataloguing the shifting trends and notable milestones in exquisite detail. Read all about it in The History of Spotlights!

To celebrate these timeless parks, we'll also be hosting a celebration of Spotlights past and present in the NE Discord. The large volume of parks makes it infeasible to look at all of them so we'll be having a Lucky Dip to decide which parks to take a look at, with commentary by SSSammy, J K, RWE and Xtreme97. The stream will be held on Sunday 5th October in the Streaming Room voice channel.

And as an added bonus, we will be revealing something extra special at the end of the stream. So mark the date and discuss your favourite Spotlight parks below! Which was the first you saw when you joined New Element? Which ones have stuck with you the most? Which are the most underrated, or overrated?

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Spotlight Milestones

With over 20 years of history at New Element, the Spotlight award has been an anchor, identifying the most accomplished parks and parkmakers across the years. Take a short look through its history below with a timeline highlighting the most memorable milestones.

Having this writing piece out there feels like I just won spotlight. Hope y'all enjoy the read as much as I enjoyed producing it. It was a great excuse to go through many of the parks again, work on completing the NE database, and perform some internet archeology again.

 

Congratulations to all of us for reaching this milestone, and also to bsg for the logo! Here's to 100 more

I remember all of these parks and their moments vividly. Thanks a lot to you both for producing this lovely historical review.

What a fantastic read and archival effort! Thoroughly enjoyed this. The nostalgia you've triggered is something else - a real bittersweet feeling with fond memories mixed with sadness for a simpler time we can't go back to. I guess a lot of us will have a similar reaction since NE has been such a constant through our formative years, and these RCT milestones go hand in hand with real-life memories of growing up.
 
It's amazing how memories come flooding back so vividly of certain parks or players who I'd totally forgotten about, and it's sad to think that there's various people who are no longer with us.
 
What really surprised me is the timeline of these different eras you identified. It’s crazy how much happened in such a short time span, especially the mid 00’s when styles were evolving so fast. Fascinating to pinpoint some of the parks/parkmakers who were influential in pivoting the meta of the eras, and to see the very mixed opinions about some of those coming through in the comments. It’s also really interesting to think about the real-world parks that had such influence on trends in RCT - I’d forgotten that there were quite so many Disney franchise parks, and how IoA had such an impact on the ‘four corners centre lake’ layout (with launched sit-downs and duelling inverts haha).
 
I still need to go back through the archive from the 20 year anniversary which I missed at the time, but looking at the community’s history through the lens of Spotlights makes me feel like I’ve caught up with a lot of what I missed. I especially enjoyed the section on the other communities beyond NE - I was very active on RCT2.com back when I started and it look me a few years to hop over to NE. I remember the reputation being quite intimidating and cutthroat over here (and looking at the comments on some of the parks featured here, that reputation was accurate!) - but I’m pleased that the vibe is more mellow and constructive these days. 
 
I’m so pleased that OpenRCT2 has triggered this renaissance in the community with the return of so many players. It feels like the community is going from strength to strength now - big shout out to CP6 and SSSammy who are actively directing people here through their YouTube series. Big shout out to the admin team here for keeping everything running, and of course to you Liam for all your efforts as a community historian! Can’t imagine how long it must have taken you to trawl through these sites and pull together all the stats and analysis, as well as creating such an engaging write-up. Long live NE!