Cacowards 2016 Nomination Thread

Standout single maps and smaller sets that really made this year something special and deserve serious consideration:
Toilet of the Gods
Legacy of Heroes
Ovum or Eden
Miasma
Pepper
Sparta 2: Project Vesuvius
NH4/5/666

i vote for Ancient Aliens, one of the best mod Which was released in 2016

I knew a wad would have slipped my mind.
No end in sight, some proper classic ultimate doom with some real impressive scale and scope to immerse yourself in. Great to see this finally released.

Not Jabba said:

Mordeth Award:
Alien Vendetta: Black Label

map01 took 2 months, map02 took about 3 months. Playtesting added some months on top of that but still it's not like anything was advertised prior to the release of them (i.e. there was nobody sitting around anticipating and hyping for these maps, aside from perhaps my inner friendcircle)

Not Jabba said:

Mapper of the Year:
First Choice: Valkiriforce

+1

Vorpal said:

map01 took 2 months, map02 took about 3 months. Playtesting added some months on top of that but still it's not like anything was advertised prior to the release of them (i.e. there was nobody sitting around anticipating and hyping for these maps, aside from perhaps my inner friendcircle)

Totally fair, and maybe I'm somewhat misunderstanding the history here, but I've been hearing rumors and requests for Valley of Echoes for many years, so it feels like it's been anticipated for a long time to me. In any case, it's a long and interesting development history, which I think is generally more important for the Mordeth Award than active development time.

(Edit) Another solid contender for that award is Echelon -- sounds like bits and pieces of it come from scrapped Eternal Doom content, and the megawad itself began as a different project several years ago before before becoming what it is now.

bzzrak said:

half of this thread is about D4D dammit

I thought most of the attention was on the maps instead. :P Loved the bloodstain maps and the new gothic movement 2.

Not Jabba said:

but I've been hearing rumors and requests for Valley of Echoes for many years, so it feels like it's been anticipated for a long time to me.

Oh ok I see what you mean. The history of VoE was that it was released with the main wad for 1 year, and then replaced with "Clandestine Complex". The re-release in avbl is a total overhaul because the original was a very important map to me but contained excessive gameplay grind and other 1998'isms

man, so many contenders for mockawards this year. first there was Golden Souls Portable, then DooD, then Seinfeld.wad, and now Run For It! out of all of them though, i think either Run For It! or Seinfeld.wad should win, with a gentle steering towards Run For It! because you can run it with PWADs and it's probably the funnier one of the two.

I nominate Ancient Aliens.

I vote Run For It for mockaward.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE96VqwW2zs

Untamed64 said:

I nominate Harambe.wad, made by TheGamingChiuaua for the MockAward

O_o

+1 The Inquisitor 3

Hopefully this won't be my only nomination ever :u

My Nominations are:

Bloodstain, Echelon, Mutiny, JPCP, and Ancient Aliens

When are the Cacowards usually revealed?

On Doom release date, December 10th.

Regardless of any prior posts in this thread, here's what I vote for:

-JPCP for simply being a great megawad
-DooD for mockaward (tough competition this year though!)
-Warp House for best stadalone map
-AeonDM for MP

gaspe said:

On Doom release date, December 10th.

Thanks, that's quite close. Might as well do a final vote summary too.

Single-Player: Bloodstain, Ancient Aliens, Urania
Gameplay Mod: D4D, Project Brutality
Mockaward: H-Doom, Trump Doom, Moonman Doom

December 10th? Well then, here're my final nominations
Megawad: Bloodstain, Ancient Aliens, Urania, THT: Threnody, JCP, Echelon
Maps: Foursite, E1M4b/8b
Multiplayer: AeonDM
Gameplay: D4D, IMPatience, HDoom
Mockaward: HDoom, DooD
Mordeth Run For It (hey the author said he originally started it about two years ago, lost interest, then came back), Echelon (I could be wrong here)

Honourable Mentions: IDKFA (there needs to a Best Music of the Year award)

In conclusion:
SP awards: miasma, AA, NEIS, bloodstain, ROMERO DOES STUFF
Mock award: seinfeld.wad over run for it.
Multiplayer: I dunno, 32in24-16.
MOTY: valkiriforce or Romero
Espi: quasar or Romero
Audio visual as a new category, and award it to Dime

Mayhem Mansion for being the most unique mod I've played this year.
rf1024 is also insanely good.
Ancient Aliens because duh??
HDoom bcuz bandwagon
I nominate Quasar for the Espi Award for all the hard work he's done and what little recognition he gets for the UDMF format :P
Urania for kicking my ass all over the place
Chex Quest 20th: Galactic Conflict for taking me back to my childhood and finding that CD in my cereal box

I'll make a couple nominations this year:

Mapper of the Year: rdwpa

He has released (not really) many maps over the course of this year that are simply fantastic stand-alone maps, most of which are speedmaps and unlikely to be nominated themselves, which is a shame. Rdwpa is a mapper that proves that amazing visuals and fun gameplay are not mutually exclusive concepts.

I would nominate Mech for mapper of the year, but it appears next year will be his year, assuming he finishes his current projects ;p

Single map: Warp House

Ed is a fantastic mapper and his great skill shows with every inch of Warp House. Once again proving that visuals and gameplay can both thrive in the same space is what sets this as a cut above.

Megawad: Ancient Aliens

Skillsaw and team achieved something big with this megawad, which will forever be regarded as one of the best we've ever seen. What order you place your favorite megawads in doesn't matter; this is there somewhere.

Oh snap, cool. For posterity, the non-speedmaps are Ovum, Blank Space, and Eden.

iw.wad is not among those at it's technically a largeform speedmap, if there is such a thing, with around 20 hrs of total work for ~an hour of casual play time.

Plutonia simulator for mock

Fonze said:

I would nominate Mech for mapper of the year, but it appears next year will be his year, assuming he finishes his current projects ;p

Afaik they've never totally ruled out the idea of someone getting Mapper of the Year twice, but Mech got it in 2009, so probably someone else next year.

Just want to echo those saying Romero should have his own special category for this year. His maps / return were a huge thing for the community and at the same time there was so much great stuff this year and so many talented mappers/modders that I feel making an extra slot would be justified!

Nah, if Romero wins, he should just get a regular cacoward.

Ancient Aliens, Bloodstain, Mark's Starter Pack, D4D and Wolfenstein: Blade of Agony for sure.

I hope Doom 2016 also gets some kind of mention.

If people don't win a cacoward this year, it doesn't mean they lost. I think adding extra categories complicates things and if your favorite wads don't win, use the comments section to promote the stuff you nominated. Its a celebration of all the good stuff that happened in doom this year and its supposed to be user friendly for people who don't watch this site often but are looking for good stuff to play. I think pumping in extra categories can only serve to make things more messy.

Cacoward writers have big shoes to fill and every year they have to be more compromising by making the honorable mentions list longer and longer. As wads get better and better over time, its likely that some truly great stuff that may have blown us a way a few years ago might not measure up today, and that's okay. They're still great wads and the fans will speak up.

I nominate H Doom

Mike12 is a good artist. If there's a category for "best sprite artist", I think he deserves it.

I also nominate:

Trump Doom and Brutal Doom 64