Greatest ever speedrun?

I've checked the first 10 pages of this forum and can't find the topic.

What, in your opinion, are the greatest speedruns you've ever seen?

I'm just looking for demos to watch really, some of the ones I've seen on youtube are amazing. Skogsto's Doom 2 episode WR is the most impressive I've seen - a mistake or two but keeping that standard of play for that long..wow.

One of the greatest imo was the first time I saw Vincent's Map 17 Plutonia UV speedrun. Where he used the death slide. I think that was actually the first use of the technique if I remember rightly.

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-speed-demos/58515-favourite-demo-that-youve-ever-seen/

Notice the difference between "favourite" and "greatest". I prefer the first term, as it is more subjective; you really cannot compare so many different styles and categories in terms of objective quality imo.

Also check the last (bottom) demo here - clearly one of Opulent's favourites :)

Ah thanks, exactly what I was looking for. That'll be a couple of hours of my life gone :)

"Favorite" will almost always influence "greatest" to some sort of degree. However, unless I'm just an old relic from a decade past, the one speedrun everyone seems to look up to has to be Marijo "Sedlo" Sedlic's lv24-036. Even though it isn't the fastest time for the map, I've heard nothing but countless praises for this one particular run, and the time and effort poured into these 36 seconds are nothing short of magical.

I'm sure this topic is debatable, and unless there's been some other sort of demo that is considered better by a larger group of people than lv24-036, then from what I can tell this seems to be it.

That Chasm demo just looks like 36 seconds of perfection, given the tools he had available to him at the time. I can't imagine the patience you'd need to get that so right.

Btw, if you're AltimaMantoid, I love your let's plays of the original doom games..if you were to do any on PWAD's, I'd be all over them :)

kaihoisa said:

Btw, if you're AltimaMantoid, I love your let's plays of the original doom games..if you were to do any on PWAD's, I'd be all over them :)

He is, indeed. His stuff is pretty entertaining, plus I get to see more of DNF without playing it myself. :D

Watching his stuff also introduced me to RoahmMythril. I am just about to finish watching his Nezumiman runs (bizarre).

now that i remember of it (gonna watch it again once more) - watch this one
"Cameron Prosser doing e4m6 on -fast in 3:46, Tyson Grandmaster style, and only using fists except for the one enemy that absolutely must be killed with the pistol (and it's not the Cyberdemon). The stylishness, the novel jumps and unconventional use of level architecture, the commitment to making things as artificially hard as possible, it's everything a TAS demo should be."

kaihoisa said:

Btw, if you're AltimaMantoid, I love your let's plays of the original doom games..if you were to do any on PWAD's, I'd be all over them :)

I'm the one and only! ;) I'll eventually get around to doing some PWADS at some stage, but I still have a bunch of actual releases of Doom to do. There is still the Master Levels, Doom 64, and Doom 3/RoE.

Peoples around are not exactly into boasting, so that's probably why you hadn't luck with search findings. I wouldn't mind pinpoining here some faves but just not now.

For me the greatest speedrun ever is xit vono's NM Speed on TNT MAP09. Several generations of Compet-N players completed the whole of DOOM2 on Nightmare but no one could tackle this last IWAD challenge. To fully appreciate how incredible that run is try to do it yourself first.

For me, Xit's TN09-559 was also one of the most memorable demos. Fulfilling this innovative run clearly takes great skill and persistence, but later stx-Vile executed the same challenge in 4:18, and his great time improvement is also an innovative way of utilizing outstanding Doom skills. Though some people can still subjectively prefer the "original" 5:59 demo as the one that made the "first impression" to them.

timeofdeath's 11:57 on squane is pretty lulzy rocket jump sado-horror (there are faster demos but that slower one is more fun to watch maybe), or basically any other demo by him:
http://speedy.sh/Svh9j/squane.zip
(needs zdoom 2.2.0)

vile's eaxt map 2 max in 11:35, can probably find on doomed speed demo archive

Doom god \,/ Vile's plutonia map 4,tnt map 1,
Andres Jhonsen e4m2
xit vono's av20 nm100.....
Most Stylish Radek pecka's long list but tnt map 1,lv26 (almost reality),av map 32(made in 2 hours he said and unbeatable till today)
in Modern gods i like ancalegon's prcp map 32,tnt32 and tod's av26-1242,hr2-32....are coolest runs i ever saw if i recall now

dont forget anca's "nochance" uv max :p
btw anders made av32 in 03:58, so radek's is a record only for the diff versions. those desynchs but the map is practically the very same (correct me if im wrong anybody)

Tatsurd-cacocaco also did AV 32 in 4:21 (not on DSDA.)

Woah, nice to see that tnt32 in a list of good demos, i worked hard on it and nobody commented it here or in youtube.

Not saying it's greatest demo ever, but for sure a very very good one okuplok's su09, cause get hit by just 2 balls in a map like that is godlike

I loathe spending much time on a demo recording, so I guess it shows. hr05-236 and ng09-333 are probably the only ones I'm genuinely proud of.

Ancalagon said:

for sure a very very good one okuplok's su09

I might vote for oku's su06 run as my favorite, it's crazy how effortless he made some parts of that map look, the chuck-norris dodging, the ridiculously convenient infighting...

j4rio said:

I loathe spending much time on a demo recording...

I'm genuinely curious about this sort of thing, how much time various speedrunners are willing to put into a specific map, I mean. After seeing really good runs I'm always tempted to ask how many attempts it took, because sometimes I feel like I only get through certain maps because I've trudged through a hundred times and it was just eventually bound to happen, heh.

Well, between hour and two, ocassionally 3 on anything I posted since october except cc4 map 1 which was around 8-10 hours overall in the making.

j4rio said:

Well, between hour and two, ocassionally 3

Same for me with a very few exceptions (mm2 map22 max took a lot more, av map01 max took 10 hours). And most of my demos are done in one sitting, I don't like interrupting. (can't get the map out of my head and when I get back to it, it takes some time to concentrate on playing again)

it's ironic how i can spend multiples of the amounts you've been mentioning... on uv-speeds. it took me a 6hrs grind interrupted with a 15min dinner to get my 5.20 doom2 map01 nomo, haha. sc01p009 took at least twice that.

It really depends on the difficulty and optimality of the run you're going for. It'd seem logical that shorter demos would require less time, but since these runs are encompassed in such a small timeframe, improvements rely on precision movement and perfect monster cooperation. I usually find these runs particularly frustrating. I remember one grueling session on 2sectors MAP03. I spent several hours (three? four?) perfecting an 0:11 UV-Speed only to find out I was on the wrong compatibility level. When I tried replicating it on the correct setting, I could never come close.

To this day, the longest effort I can remember spending on one demo was s227p153. When I first planned that run out, I didn't have the proper speedrunning skills to pull it off. It took a few months of on-and-off attempts before I made significant progress and finally got an exit. Of course, that demo desyncs in the second version of Scythe 2, so goes to show you how thankless the effort can be sometimes. :P

...and i sometimes spend 10 hours shaving a tic in some measly TAS :/ Didn't expect to see such low numbers, in all other gamescenes i have been in, people often dedicated at least 20-50 hours for a single record. But at least now i see why i enjoy most dew's demos so much. I would take anyone's hardworked demo over a lazy pro's 30-minuter any day, even if the latter is faster.

My list of fav runs would be too big to fit into any thread, as i've got way too many fond memories of great demos and i wouldn't be able to resist urge to write them all down. Basically, any tyson demo by Xit Vono (especially plutonia map07, it's so jaw-dropping), any uv-speed by Sedlo (especially e3m2), any run by Looper (including TASes), any TAS by Akse, any uv-max by Anders Johnsen (even the slower ones, he just has so cool playing style) and so on.

PurpleMenace said:

To this day, the longest effort I can remember spending on one demo was s227p153.

welcome back, domrem. coincidentally, s227p153 and vile's lv11-205 are two demos i admire the most and they pulled me to speedrunning. i don't know if i should thank you or curse you. :)

That's awesome to hear; I'm really honored. :) I've always meant to revisit that run eventually, since I hate uploading shoddy first exits, but it was so liberating to finally complete it. Guess the desync is just further motivation.

And cursing me out is completely reasonable. I'm still trying to figure out why the hell I enjoy speedrunning so much. :P

jongo said:

I would take anyone's hardworked demo over a lazy pro's 30-minuter any day, even if the latter is faster.

I'm physically incapable of replaying something over and over for longer while. I'm getting worse at playing after a certain point, because the monotony just makes me unable to remain properly concentrating.

dew said:

welcome back, domrem.

Whoa, holy shit. Would've missed that if you hadn't pointed it out.

Been a while.

j4rio said:

I'm physically incapable of replaying something over and over for longer while. I'm getting worse at playing after a certain point, because the monotony just makes me unable to remain properly concentrating.

im very slow in getting good times usually, and this forces me to replay the recording session in various days for the low freetime. In general I need from 1h to.. several.
I remember some demos took roughly 6-7h at least or more
I really suck for that :p

btw first demo attempt I ever gave up was I think c2-28 (no room if im right), because map was rather tough, and one of your demos j4rio, cus I simply stated I wasnt able to get a polished run like yours. I guess for that run (i wont tell u which cus Ill give a go again in 2013 **) i literally wasted at least 10-12h

If it's the one I'm thinking of, you can try neglecting last backtrack for soulsphere and just recklessly enter last room. Bunch of free seconds at your disposal.