What Are The Old School Wads That Have Aged The Best?

[DSC]

Pretty self-explanatory title. I'm going with a boring and obvious one: Alien Vendetta. Compared to modern releases it's much less cohesive and consistent in terms of level themes and designs, but looking at the levels themselves individually AV has a very strong lineup to this very day. The sense of adventure I would say still rivals even the more epic and explorative wads of recent times!

[Michael Jensen]

Aside from 3 or 4 maps, Eternal Doom is both incredibly consistent and high quality in pretty much all aspects. Gorgeous maps that flow together really well for the most part, immersive atmosphere, excellent soundtrack, beautiful new textures. 10/10 even if it came out today.   

[Shepardus]

Cyberdreams still holds up well today, especially with the new MIDI pack.

[esselfortium]

If 2005 counts as oldschool (I'm going with it since it's only a few years past Alien Vendetta), Suspended in Dusk by Espi still holds up extremely well. It inspired a lot of modern design trends but is still a unique and singular enough work that I would say it still hasn't been surpassed at what it does.

[LadyMistDragon]

Scythe

Possibly Kama Sutra

Fava Beans

The latter Chord maps.

 

[xerox]

Hell Revealed is definitely still a go-to for players who want to get good at hard mapsets, specially cause you can run it on any port.

 

Requiem is another one which is still a lot of fun.

 

Basically if a wad from those times is still mentioned on this forum is because it held very well. A personal favorite is Phobos: Anomaly Reborn, maybe because it was the first boom/MBF-compatible mapset I played.

Edited September 18 by xerox

[Steve D]

I'm a big fan of single maps, minisodes, and episodes. So here is a short list of wads I play off and on to this day because IMO they have aged very well indeed.

 

Fava Beans. A really sweet E1 replacement in a mixed E1/E2 style.

 

Osiris. An atmospheric and fun Stargate/Egyptian adventure that's a near total conversion with a killer soundtrack by Jeremy Doyle.

 

Michael Krause maps. To this day I brag that I playtested many of his maps back in the day, and I did so with great enthusiasm because I loved and still love his work. Krause developed an epic style that makes the player feel small and vulnerable, and which is influential to modern mapping. Even Doomers who've never played a Krause map are likely to have been influenced second-hand by those who did. I like all of his maps to one extent or another, but I'd particularly recommend Run Buddy and Dark Star.

[Christopher Brown]

• All Hell Is Breaking Loose!!! is my favorite nineties wad, hands down. Such a mindfuck that any dated design is easily forgiven.
• Area 51, A Fistful of Doom, Doom City, and Runaway Train are quite fun.
• Revolution! and TV1998 may have been topped by Harmony later on, but they're still a great time and full of creative flourishes.
• Trinity.wad remains a "UV-Maxing Nuts" level of insane technical accomplishment, and is especially fun to run around in if you've visited the location as I have (or studied there, which I did not).
• Void's gameplay is broken in several key ways at this point, but it's such a singular and mind-boggling art piece as to be an essential play regardless, even with flight enabled.

[jazzmaster9]

Scythe and Scythe 2 immediately come to mind for me

[Junglist]

Besides Scythe and AV obviously, I am a huge fan of "The Darknening" and especially "The Darkening Episode 2".  I Also love "Crusades", however this one is quite tight with ammo and you cannot miss a single shot!!  Another great one is "Dawn of the Dead" which is one of the best E1 replacements ever made imo!

[Pancrasio]

Cyberdreams, no doubt!

[purrgetheenbie]

Plutonia and Plutonia 2

[TheHambourgeois]

Scythe is literally what got me into mapping, its the goat

[Jarinex]

Been a while since I played them, but memento mori 1 and 2 I've always felt were some of the best old school, along with those in this thread.

[Jayextee]

The original Plutonia.

 

I just beat it for the nth time, due to the NightDive sourceport offering a new set of achievements for me to gnaw at; but what stands out about it is how it basically set the tone for mapping from then on in so many ways. IMO it absolutely stands head and shoulders with contemporary works, because it set a lot of the standards.

I mean, it does drag a bit in its last third, but hot damn do I love me some Plutonia.

[Xaser]

Relative to their release date, Plutonia definitely has the megawad market cornered, but the crown for single maps surely goes to CASTEVIL. Released in '94 (less than a month after Doom 2's release -- though it's for the first game), it's a delightfully nonlinear romp with impressive architecture for the time that holds up even today for fans of big, exploration-heavy levels.

 

If the later episodes of NEIS are your jam, this is like the spiritual predecessor of maps like Netherworld Citadel and Sanctuary of Filth. One of these days I need to remember to ask NT if there was any influence there or just convergent evolution, but the resemblance is uncanny either way.

 

Speaking of: obligatory end1.wad mention. Damn, it's been way too long since I've done that. :P

[Omniarch]

1 hour ago, Xaser said:

but the crown for single maps surely goes to CASTEVIL

Damn, beat me to the punch! Now I'll have to turn in my #1 Stasiak-stan card...

 

In all seriousness, it's interesting to consider CASTEVIL as an antecedent to the more adventuresome NEIS maps - despite being a demented proselytiser known appreciator of both, I never made that connection myself.

 

 

Thread tax, for all the Doom 1 appreciators out there (you know who you are):

 

Crusades, by Richard Wiles, is a strikingly atmospheric and well-polished E4 replacement from 1999, with a particular emphasis on advanced (for the time) lighting. The only way in which it really showns its age is with the terrible and completely superfluous sound replacements.

 

The Classic Episode, by Jan van der Veken, Anthony Soto, Nick Baker and Travers Dunne, is an E2 replacement from 2000 that mixes the themes of the first two episode of D1. Despite being nearly a quarter-century old at time of writing, it is extremely polished, feeling almost like a Romero-take on E2 at times.

[Baron Von Gott]

Old school wads?

 

Personally some of my favorites are doomcity, cava, and isis. Doom city isn't really a city, it's more like a small town at night. A good level for zombie or robot mods. Cava is a beach town in Brazil that has a lot of buildings to enter and a lot of enemies. Isis is a large Egyptian city with some caves and teleporters.

 

If you're looking for a good fight, anything made by Dario Casali is also worth playing.

[ukiro]

Just wanted to say I’m delighted to see the Richard Wiles and Jan van der Veken appreciation in here. Their style isn’t flashy but they get Doom so goddamn right in my opinion. 

[Junglist]

Yeah, glad to see other people mentioning "Crusades"!  This is a WAD I've found myself returning to periodically, almost religiously!  It definitely seems to have been ahead of its time as far as engineering tricky combat puzzles, scenarios that are addicting in their nature to try to solve and complete the levels!  

Similar along these same lines I think are Malcom Sailor's "Chord" series of one-off maps; these too are some of the most important Classical-era Doom works, and in many ways can be seen to have pioneered many modern gameplay mechanics (which we are familiar with in WADs today), and moved the meta for combat far beyond what was seen in the original id games.

Also, Shout out to Dark 7, this is just a great fun one and a personal favorite that I highly recommend!

And shout out to B.R.P.D's Equinox, a flawed masterpiece for sure, but so fucking awesome.  B.R.P.D is like the Stanley Kubrick of doom WADing.  If anyone does play Equinox, fuck MAP08, and just please don't even play MAP13 or you will be sorry you did!