Adam Hegyi has been the maintainer of the Compet-N for the last 5 years.  He has been involved with numerous demosets, the DOOM Done Quick projects, and is one of the Compet-N's most prolific players.
 

A little background behind the legend that is Adam Hegyi?

Hello, I'm Adam Hegyi, I'm 24, from Budapest, Hungary and I've been DOOMing since '96 :)

Can you remember the first time you played DOOM?

Yeah, that was back when we used to play AD&D at my friend's house.  When we took a break from the game we played computer games and that's when I first saw DOOM. My memories are a little hazy but I do remember we ran around The Factory trying to avoid those damn spiders, with very little luck :)

Has your config changed for DOOM or do you still use the same keys you did when you started?

I changed them only once. I started as a keyboarder on the default keys and I changed it to the popular WASD setup when I changed to the mouse. I've been sticking with that ever since.

Who would you like to thank for the Compet-N of yesteryear?

That's tough. Listing everyone by name would make things very long, and I'd never forgive myself leaving someone out. Generally I'd like to thank the previous admins, everyone who shaped the structure of Compet-N, and everyone who contributed. It's been a really great experience.

What made you start recording demos for the Compet-N and how did you come to run the Compet-N site?

I actually started recording well before I had access to the net.  My friend and I started putting together our own pack of UV demos for DOOM and DOOM II. They were really slow and amateur, but we eventually got all maps done. I think E4M6 was the last one.  When I finally got access to the net at the university, I immediately started searching for DOOM demos. I soon found DHT, and a bit later, Compet-N (this was in September 1997).  I soon found out that the Compet-N maintainer at the time was Hungarian also and studying at the same university. What incredible luck, I thought.  I met him soon and I got immediately got hooked with the whole demo recording thing. As he was more and more interested in QuakeWorld DM at the time, it was a natural thing for me to continue his work on the site.

Do you watch demos of other games?

Yeah, I'm an avid demo fan of just about everything. I think it's a great form entertainment. I've been following the Quake singleplayer and DM scenes since 1997 (though I'm not much of a player myself). I also followed most of the Quake II-III DM scenes when they were big.

What is your favorite source port of DOOM and why?

PrBoom for compatibility and generally good DOOM "feel". I admire the amount of work that went into making Prboom being able to play back all the demos.  Anyway, if I'd invite my friends over to show off DOOM, I'd pick jDoom to do that. I love the visuals.

You have edited some DOOM maps for the Compet-N contests, will we ever see a publicly released map from you?

Funny you ask that. I started out on a DM map a while ago (don't ask me where that idea came from), but I haven't really gotten around to finish it. Someday I might feel the urge to complete and release it, you never know ;-)

Can you name some wad releases for DOOM that you really liked?

Hell Revealed is the Holy Grail of WADs for the demo community, and one of my favourites too. Alien Vendetta is right alongside with it, and in many ways even better. I also love Requiem, first WAD which really impressed me.

You are one of the best players ever; are there still recording accomplishments that impress you?

Less than they used to. Much of the potentially exciting stuff has been done, the tricks discovered, the gaps filled in. Also, the most prestigious categories, UV and NightMare runs of the id WADs have gotten to a point where they require a devoted fanatic at his best to improve them. With the game being 10 years around now, I think it's natural that such fanatics are harder to come by.  Of course, the beauty of it is that you never really know what might pop up tomorrow in the incoming folder :)

Your movement skill translated well to deathmatch play; do you still play deathmatch games?

Not much, I don't have LAN partners anymore unfortunately.  I play on the net sometimes, but I don't take Zdaemon games very seriously. I'd very much prefer a network of PrBoom servers to play on.

Who are some of your toughest opponents in deathmatch and what was it like to play them for the first time?

I had the opportunity to play Croatian heavyweights Sedlo and fx in LAN. It might be surprising but I found fx tougher to play against.  He knows every trick in the book and won't hesitate to use them. Sedlo might punish you more, but his approach is more straightforward and the game maintains an enjoyable pace throughout.  I also played various Czech players online, I definitely think there is a unique style they carry which you could call "Czech style". Their defense is very hard to penetrate.

You added pwads to the Compet-N.  Do you feel that has been a success?

Definitely, and I think Compet-N really needed this refreshment. Demos for PWADs have been around ever since PWADs are produced. Most of them were, however organized in demopacks, or, demopacks improving previous demopacks :) There was clearly a demand for a step beyond that. Since PWADs were included, the focus gradually shifted away from id map records. This is actually the first year when there were more PWAD demos submitted than IWAD ones. I think we'll see this trend continue in the future.

There has been a little talk of another DoomDoneQuick production since a few new routes/tricks have developed; can you speak a bit about that?

If we talk about DOOM II Done Quicker, I think that it should've happened years ago, back when there was more enthusiasm for the project. Anyone who has seen 30uv1617 knows how much more complex the route became, compared to the first Done Quick run. If you know the top players around or me, you could see what kind of a monster project that would be, with all these perfectionist people around ;-)  I think there's a far better possibility of a PWAD Done Quick run. IWADs have their pre-set standard from the previous runs and all the TAS demos since, which are tough to meet. PWADs should have none of those.

Do you have plans to add more pwads in the future?

Sure, if there is demand for it. This is a delicate process though.  First, people already have DSDA to submit their demos to. Also, I like to think it's the hard challenges which move things forward and keep the site alive. If we added a lot of PWADs all at once, people would stop playing HR and AV all of a sudden ;) I really don't want that to happen.  I'm also thinking about a way to add single-level or smaller PWADs, either by adding them on a regular basis once in a while, or by organizing contests for them. It could be an interesting way of refreshing things.

You recently graduated from the university, what do you think about the future of DOOM demos and your future with the Compet-N?

I believe we are currently experiencing a rather slow transitional period with things picking up next year as DOOM3 gets released.  We don't quite know yet how demo recording would work out on it, whether it'll be possible to do speedruns for it, whether people will actually do speedruns for it, or make mods and maps which you could do runs for. Those are all exciting questions and I'm pretty optimistic.

Are you ready for DOOM3?

I have a fairly good system at the moment. Not particularly made DOOM3-ready, but an upgrade was long due if I wanted to keep up. In every other way, I'm DOOM3 *hungry* :)
 

Thanks Adam!