*THIS POST IS UPDATED FREQUENTLY, CONSTANTLY CHECK HERE FOR NEW CONTEST THEMES*

NEW DETAILS, SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM!!!!

As mentioned in the poll, I decided this was important and needed it's own thread. Please read the details carefully, if you have any questions, please ask below.

Originally posted by Aaron

Kyle L., Drewbie, Phil, and myself just concluded a productive chat on the TNPP. This is what we have decided.

• The TNPP will be run in blocks of three. Each month there will be a new contest, with different rules. At the conclusion of the three month period there will be a "Winners Circle", in which the best park of the three previous winners will be chosen.
• The grand prize is a $50 dollar gift certificate to Amazon.com The #1 park of each winners circle will win the prize.
• Voting on the regular monthly competitions will be open to all members and staff. Voting for the Winners Circle will be reserved for staff members only. Given the nature of the prizes, we felt this was necessary to avoid people stuffing the ballot box.
• Parks may be built using RCT1, as well as Corkscrew Follies and/or Loopy Landscapes. Parks may also be built using RCT2, HOWEVER, as things stand now, neither Wacky Worlds nor Time Twisters will be allowed. Users may also enter parks made with Roller Coaster Tycoon 3.
• All custom rides, scenery, and pathing will be permitted. However, if custom data is used, the parks must have "Export Custom Scenery" selected so people without that particular custom data can aquire it and view the park.

Those are the general rules, as they stand now. Here are the more specific things concerning the first contests.

• All parks must be less than 128 X 128. Some contests may allow a larger, or smaller demension. Check each month theme to verify this BEFORE building your park.

• September: There is no specific theme. Any park 100x100 or smaller will be accepted, provided it follows the general rules.
• October: The park must be Halloween themed, or something to that regard. Whether it's a creepy forest park, a giant graveyard, a park themed to pumpkins, whatever, but it must clearly be connected to Halloween.
• November: The park must be themed to Ancient Greece or Rome. Again, the park may be any aspect of this, but it must clearly illustrate the theme
• December: The park must be Winter themed. The details are still being discussed. In early December, the staff will also vote on the first Winners Circle.
  
• December: We're giving you a choice this time. You can do something that involves winter and the December holidays, Christmas, Hannukah, and Kwannza (I have no idea how to spell that). However, you can also do a New Years themed park.
  
• January: Make the best Six Flags themed park you can. This is not a recreation contest. Instead, build a park in the style of Six Flags (clones, rides with generic names, Batman and Superman theming, etc.). Use your imagination.
  
• February: The Academy Awards are in February, so in honor of them, the theme will be movies. Theme a park to a studio, a movie or a movie series, you can even do a history of movies. Anything related to the movie industry will do.
• March: The TNPP's going international this month. Your task is to theme a park to any of the world's countries. America, Italy, South Africa, Paraguay, New Zealand, Turkmenistan, any country at all.
• April: Earth Day is in April, so for this month, we're looking for parks with a natural theme. Pick a environment, jungles, swamps, deserts, islands, caves, whatever, and theme a park with it. This should be different then the country park.
• May: This month will see the biggest TNPP contest yet, and that's why it's the last one of the cycle. Your challenge, should you accept it, is to build a full-blown resort. Not just with an amusement park (which can be themed any way you like it), but with the resort trimmings, such as hotels, waterparks, miniature golf courses, marinas, all kinds of things. Build the ultimate in RCT resorts. And due to the nature of resort parks, we're upping the size limit to 200x200 for this month's contest.
• June: All the parks this month are going to be based on music. Theme a park to your favorite artist, group, or composer, a favorite song, an album you really like, anything. You can even make one themed to musical instruments if you want. Just as long as it somehow represents music.
• July: We couldn't let summer go by without somehow incorporating it into the TNPP. Your task this month is to base your park on the tropics. Imagine swaying palm trees, steaming jungles, and deserts for this contest.
• August: Can you believe this month marks the 12th TNPP contest? It's been going on for a whole year, and so in honor of this achievement, the TNPP this month is to make a park with a mythical or legendary theme. Myths and legends from all cultures are accepted. There's plenty to choose from.

Let me just give you guys the tenative deadlines for the next four months.
May (Resort park): May 25
June (Music park): June 24
July (Tropical park): July 25
August (Mythical/legendary park): August 25
All times are generally between 2 and 3 p.m. Pacific Time. As you can probably see, the submission periods generally end a week before the start of the new month. Extensions can be granted for certain circumstances.
The reason why we decided not to allow Soaked is because we figured enough people wouldn't have it yet. Unless no one buys it, as was the case with Wacky Worlds and Time Twisters, it'll be allowed later on.

Any questions or comments?

IMPORTANT:Please view the TWO threads regarding these two topics: 1. The Fate of TNPP (Serious TNPP Issues) and 2. Expansion Poll. Please give us feedback in those two, the more feedback we get, the more we can make the contest good for everyone.

The details were posted by Aaron

ATTENTION: NEW VOTING POLICY: Since we now need to take drastic measures to ensure fair voting, the numbers for the vote, and downloads must equal, or the downloads number must be higher. Example: A park has 6 votes, but only 4 downloads. The votes will be moderated to portain with the number of downloads if there is such a case of "voting without downloading" In other words, if votes exceed downloads, we will take measures to delete votes.

PLEASE VIEW THE PARK BEFORE VOTING

Updated 8/18/05

I apologize for my lateness...sorry.






NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW DETAILS, READ CLOSLEY:
Okay, we've made a lot of changes to the contest. Here's the way it's going to work now.

* The contest will be quarterly, that is, a new contest every three months. This way, we hope people will have more time to devote to a contest, and hopefully get more submissions.

* The Winner's Circle will most likely be a yearly thing, with the winning parks from the four previous quarters competing. We've yet to decide whether it will remain a staff-only vote or be open to all members.

* Wacky Worlds and Soaked are now allowed. However, you may not use Time Twisters, at least, not yet. We might add it if we think enough people have it.

For the next contest, you have until the end of December (exact date to be announced) to submit your park. For this contest, the park may be any size with any theme. A Submissions thread will be posted a little later on in the contest cycle.
Post any questions or comments you might have, then get to work!

Updated: 9/5/05

__________________
Thornton to Heatley all day, every day.

Questions
Yes; (sorry if they have been answered elsewhere)

-No specific dates or deadlines have been given?
-What happens if there aren't enough entries for that month?
-will you provide the parks/scenearios to make it fairer? For example, how would you easily enforce the 100x100 rule? And theming?
-is custom theming allowed? I don't think it should be to make it fairer, but if it is of course i would use it.


comments

The halloween theme sounds like a good idea; i'll probably skip september and work on that. 100x100 might prove to be a little big to make a park in 1 month. maybe 80x80 would be better?

He says custon theming is allowed and that parks can be 100x100 or lower.

Yes i see that now. often i miss stuff, i knew i would do that.

its not hard to see what a 100x100 sized park would look like. if you must, just count how many tiles take up one side of the map.

for your comment, no one said it had to be 100x100. it said 100x100 OR LESS. make it 50x50 if you want. almost all of my parks will be 50x50's

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I'm Back
I was once TN's top poster!
2007 Gadv Count: Kingda Ka-6, El Toro-6, Nitro-4, Medusa-2, S:UF-2, R:TC-1, B:TC-, GASM-0, Skull Mt-0, B:TR-0, RMT-0, RT-0

No specific dates have been given because this is a general sketch of our entire idea to bring back TNPP. Our initial September contest will most likley be due by September 15th. (Halfway through a month).

Also, we are keeping it 100X100 or less. You have the option making it as small as you wish, granted it suits your personal abilities to make a good park. If the park is good, and maybe a little smaller than others, it should be fine. So you can make it any size under 100X100.

If there aren't enough entries for one month to carry on a winner into a winners circle (What like, one?) then I suppose we will just skip onto the next month and have the winners circle.

We plan on starting this sort of small. Little contests (Such as the mini parks) because we are not sure exactly what the turnout will be. Plus a few members will proabobly catch on after they see exactly what it is. (We have a lot of new members).

If you got any more questions ask away.

__________________
Thornton to Heatley all day, every day.

I have one question. Can we use a park thats already been released?

sorry about the park size thing it was obvious i suppose i just wasn't 100% sure.


If entries carry to the next month, won't the theme be different?
For example a halloween entry carried to xmas can't be changed!!!!


I'm making a park for halloween (already started!) only because i'm busy throughout september and know i can't make one in time for that.

Ok we need to follow through with our kinks here. What I was saying is that if we don't have good participation in a month of TNPP, we will proabobly have to postpone the next contest and winners circle.

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Thornton to Heatley all day, every day.

Good question. We haven't talked about this yet. This is the rule from the previous TNPPs.

Parks which have been already released may be entered in the TNPP. However, the park will be disqualified if it is entered in another contest before it's entry in the TNPP, or if it is entered in another contest prior to that month's voting.

As things stand now, I can pretty much assure you that if the park's already been released, it can still be entered in the TNPP. We'll discuss the issue of contests, and how long the period can be before release and entry (we don't want to see parks released in 2003 appearing in here).
No, we won't. This is so people can pick the rides and custom scenery/paths that they want. There may be some contests in which a workbench is provided, but those haven't been planned yet. Participants may be allowed to use a workbench someone else made, that's something we will have to discuss.

On a final note, we will try make a sticky thread with all the rules in it for the TNPP, which we will update as needed.

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Aaron Cedoras: Thrillnetwork Story Editor
"Dead men tell no tales..."

so you're saying that if lets say a park is entered into rct2.com's VP or monthly competitions, it wont be allowed to be entered in TNPP? if thats the case, i dont think i'll be entering any parks into TNPP because i send all my parks to VP

__________________
I'm Back
I was once TN's top poster!
2007 Gadv Count: Kingda Ka-6, El Toro-6, Nitro-4, Medusa-2, S:UF-2, R:TC-1, B:TC-, GASM-0, Skull Mt-0, B:TR-0, RMT-0, RT-0

That's what he's saying. I guess if you want to go with another site's contest's, that's fine. Our hope was that by making the parks small, it'd allow people to crank out smaller parks in time for the contest in addition to the larger parks that some of the veteran parkmakers might be working on for other things. Y

If we end up with some decent prizes and awards for the winner's circle, you may just change your mind.

__________________

Pleasantly missing since 2006

well if it has a good prize, i would chose TNPP since the other contests dont have prizes. i dont know, i'll see how fast i can work on the parks especially with school comming up, i dont know if i'll be able to crank out two 50x50 parks a month.

__________________
I'm Back
I was once TN's top poster!
2007 Gadv Count: Kingda Ka-6, El Toro-6, Nitro-4, Medusa-2, S:UF-2, R:TC-1, B:TC-, GASM-0, Skull Mt-0, B:TR-0, RMT-0, RT-0

Sounds excellent... the perfect contest for a "casual-RCTer" like me.

One question though... what about parks made by more than one person? Will they be allowed? (I suppose prixes would just go to one member of their choice...)

__________________
"Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.... now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." -Ecclesiastes 2:11, 12:13

I'll most likely enter the October contest. I've already started a small Halloween park, and luckily, it was 100x100.

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http://www.coaster-net.com

Let me reiterate that the contest rule is not set in stone, that's just what was done in the previous TNPPs. Actually now I think it might be a good idea if that rule isn't in place this time, we might get more entries.
And the prize for the Winners Circle, assuming we can make the necessary deals, will be quite good.
As for parks made by more then one person, I think it'll be okay if you get someone to maybe make a log flume for you or something to that extent. The park should be mostly yours, though. Use common sense.

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Aaron Cedoras: Thrillnetwork Story Editor
"Dead men tell no tales..."

Im going to try a park for the contest, it will be my first completed park.

Couldn't you just wait one month before entering it in VP? It wouldn't make any difference.

Also if you don't fix some rules (ie you change your minds) people might make parks that aren't ok to enter.

the problem is that rct2.com doesnt allow released/already entered parks into their competitions either. and i believe NE has the same rules. so if its one or the other, i would probably chose the other. although i already started the october TNPP since rct2.com had a halloween themed contest last october and i doubt they would do it again.

i would enter my current arabian themed 70x70 park into the september TNPP but im planning on sending it into VP.

__________________
I'm Back
I was once TN's top poster!
2007 Gadv Count: Kingda Ka-6, El Toro-6, Nitro-4, Medusa-2, S:UF-2, R:TC-1, B:TC-, GASM-0, Skull Mt-0, B:TR-0, RMT-0, RT-0

The group that's trying to get PP rolling again is meeting again to get the rules set in stone and approved by the Admins. After that meeting, clear rules will be laid out and one or two people will have the lead role in running the contest, similar to how Atrace is the head of the NL side. Sorry about the confusion in the mean time. Just have faith that the many of the group that are trying to relaunch this thing were participants in the past and have an honest desire for this thing to take off and succeed.

__________________

Pleasantly missing since 2006

Okay... I'll interpret that to mean a park made by 3 people who each did about the same won't qualify. That's alright though...

__________________
"Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.... now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." -Ecclesiastes 2:11, 12:13

The TNPP staff had another meeting. Here is what we decided:

• Park's may not be entered in any other competitions before being entered in the TNPP However, parks entered in the TNPP may be released before entry into the TNPP. Such parks must have been released no earlier then six months prior to entry in the TNPP.
• The monthly winners will be announced in the TN Update. We will also have a special page devoted to TNPP winners, and the winning parks of each three-month block will be featured on it. The park which wins the Winners Circle will have more space devoted to it then the other two.
• During the monthly contests, the poll will be public. You must have a review of the parks (they don't have to be big, a sentence or two will do) for us to count your vote. If you don't, your vote won't count.
• The prize for the Winners Circle will be VERY good, much better then we had initially hoped for. If we can get Alex to okay it, I promise the winner won't be disappointed.
• Submissions for the TNPP will be officially open on the 1st of each month (although for this first contest, you can submit beforehand). The submission period will be closed at midnight on the 23rd of each month, when the voting will begin. Voting will close at midnight on the 1st of each month, and the winners will be announced over the next few days. The results of the voting for the Winners Circle should be announced around the 5th.

Questions or comments?

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Aaron Cedoras: Thrillnetwork Story Editor
"Dead men tell no tales..."

question - what if a park is released over 6 months ago but i add and change a lot of things to it? (for example one of my old mini parks)

__________________
I'm Back
I was once TN's top poster!
2007 Gadv Count: Kingda Ka-6, El Toro-6, Nitro-4, Medusa-2, S:UF-2, R:TC-1, B:TC-, GASM-0, Skull Mt-0, B:TR-0, RMT-0, RT-0

Then there shouldn't be a problem with it.

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TV/Event Guide Editor

So the September park is due 9/23/04 and there are no rules except the park map has to be 100x100? Am I right?

or less...i believe

__________________
I'm Back
I was once TN's top poster!
2007 Gadv Count: Kingda Ka-6, El Toro-6, Nitro-4, Medusa-2, S:UF-2, R:TC-1, B:TC-, GASM-0, Skull Mt-0, B:TR-0, RMT-0, RT-0

Correct, it must be 100x100 or less but there is no specific theme for this month.

__________________
TV/Event Guide Editor

And, of course, it has to follow the general rules, which are found at the top of the first page of this tread.

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Aaron Cedoras: Thrillnetwork Story Editor
"Dead men tell no tales..."

This may be a dumb question, but I'm planing on designing a water park (in RCT2 of course) for the September competition. Will that be allowed?

Of course, it is a "park" so it really doesn't make a difference if its nothing but water slides.

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TV/Event Guide Editor