What is a DHT exam file?

Could someone please tell me what kind of file this is? Is it a singleplayer map?

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/lmps/dht-exams/dht5/titles/d2sg/d2sg-twm

The Doom Honorific Titles (DHT) were an early form of competitive Dooming, begun in 1994. Players could ask for a level to be randomly chosen from either Doom or Doom II, in one of several difficulty classes. Upon submitting a valid demo (referred to as an "exam") in a particular style, they would be considered to have earned that title.

Linguica said:

The Doom Honorific Titles (DHT) were an early form of competitive Dooming, begun in 1994. Players could ask for a level to be randomly chosen from either Doom or Doom II, in one of several difficulty classes. Upon submitting a valid demo (referred to as an "exam") in a particular style, they would be considered to have earned that title.

Were there any criteria for the "exam" as such, or were the so-called Titles awarded on a case-by-case basis?

deadwolves said:

Were there any criteria for the "exam" as such, or were the so-called Titles awarded on a case-by-case basis?

Initially, the following titles were awarded:

Doom Master: a player that can finish any level on Ultra-Violence.
Doom Grand Master: a player that can finish any level on Nightmare!.
Doom Tyson: a player that can finish any level on Ultraviolence with 100% kills, using only the fist, pistol, and chainsaw as weapons.
Doom Grand Ass Kicker / Doom God: a combination of the three titles above.

As time went on, a few new categories were proposed, such as Pacifist and Reality.

So these files served as a video of sorts of their gameplay?

A demo (also called LMP, from the lump file extension) is any recording of a game session that can be played back using the game engine. Internally, it is a sequence of tic commands, keeping track of just the input control states during each frame. Thus, a demo is much more compact than a video capture, or even than a recording of the states of all objects in the level.

I'm not saying I've read the whole thing, but this appears to be a 33 page ruleset and guide dating to 1995.

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/lmps/dht-exams/.admin/dht5

dht5.txt said:

6.3 The authentication dance
The authentication dance is a sequence of randomly assigned
movements that comes with your challenge. You must include it
in every recording you make. It certifies that your LMP was
recorded by you in response to that specific challenge. It
proves that you really did it yourself. If your LMP is branded
with your dance, nobody can say that you stole somebody else's
LMP that was floating somewhere on the Net.

...........

Schwarzenegger (D1S, D2S): Can do the whole game consecutively
on Nightmare, one big LMP for the lot.

Man!

Linguica said:

Doom Grand Ass Kicker / Doom God: a combination of the three titles above.

How does that work? You can't be both master and grand master simultaneously in a level.

Also why don't modern Compet-N recordings require authentication dance validation?

printz said:

How does that work? You can't be both master and grand master simultaneously in a level.

But you can beat a level both ways consecutively.

printz said:

How does that work? You can't be both master and grand master simultaneously in a level.

You need to have the three titles, you don't need to earn them all in a single demo! Nor even on the same level.

printz said:

How does that work? You can't be both master and grand master simultaneously in a level.

Well, unless being a Grand Master automatically grants/overrides Master status, you can always beat a level in both modes. Is there ANY case where a level is actually easier to beat in NM than UV?

printz said:

Also why don't modern Compet-N recordings require authentication dance validation?

Good question....as they are, they mostly relying on a honor system. There are some minimal checks in place (e.g. checking files against already submitted ones, and analysis for tell-tale TAS signs), but as long as there is no requirement to produce COMPET-N demos in a real-time, controlled and refereed environment, there will always be some doubts.

Somebody could really be as good as his demos suggest...or he may have used TAS. The ability of prboom+ to resume control in the middle of demo playback (which IS a form of TAS) and thus produce "natural looking" demos which however may have been the result of copious editing and retries, further strengthens the need for a refereed environment, IMO.

Maes said:

Well, unless being a Grand Master automatically grants/overrides Master status, you can always beat a level in both modes. Is there ANY case where a level is actually easier to beat in NM than UV?

There are certainly levels that are easier to beat normally in NM than to Tyson in UV.

Gez said:

There are certainly levels that are easier to beat normally in NM than to Tyson in UV.

That's why nobody talked about any overlap/superset relationship between Tyson and Grand Master/Master, but only of a proper superset relationship between Grand Master and Master.

Are there any levels that might be actually be harder to beat in UV than NM, with any rules OTHER than Tyson? That includes fast, 100%, pacifist etc., as the old DHT didn't really care HOW you finished a level, as long as you finished it (apart from Tyson, which was recognized as a separate achievement).