MegaDoomer Posted September 14, 2011 The Doomworld Top 100 wads and Cacowards pick the top 10 releases from each year, but what they don't cover is, what's the single best release from each year in Doom's history? This leaves me wondering what it would look like if instead of picking ten wads, there was a separate feature to pick only one wad from each year was to join the ranks of the most elite. How would envision the list looking? Here is a good candidate at least for what mine would look like, at least based on wads I've played to date (many but not all): 1994 - The Evil Unleashed 1995 - Obituary 1996 - Memento Mori 2 1997 - Requiem 1998 - Phobos 1999 - Batman Doom 2000 - Darkening E2 2001 - Alien Vendetta (I'm counting when it was FIRST released) 2002 - 2002ADO 2003 - Scythe 2004 - RTC3057 Hub 1 2005 - Scythe 2 2006 - NDCP 2007 - Community Chest 3 2008 - Plutonia 2 2009 - Hell Ground 2010 - Speed of Doom 2011 - Vanguard (so far) 0 Share this post Link to post
dew Posted September 14, 2011 i'd probably break your system with multiplayer wads, so i won't name just one for certain years. :p 1994 - doom2 (uac_dead for pwads) 1995 - fava beans 1996 - judas23 (plutonia for sp, memento mori for pwads) 1997 - brit11 (requiem for sp) 1998 - cyberdreams 1999 - demonfear, i guess 2000 - vrack 2001 - tvr! 2002 - greenwar (alien vendetta for sp) 2003 - scythe 2004 - zdctf mp1 (deus vult for sp) 2005 - scythe 2 2006 - vae victus 2? 2007 - rjspace9f (cchest3 for.. um, regular doom) 2008 - gayvox! err... plutonia 2, by a few hours 2009 - greenwar 2 (1024claustrophobia for sp) 2010 - speed of doom (special mention for best achievement: rjrandom) 2011 - plutonia revisited and i have to say, both the top100 list and cacowards are abysmally wrong on account of dm wads 0 Share this post Link to post
Vordakk Posted September 14, 2011 If you guys seriously think that Aliens TC wasn't the best wad to come out of 1994, you're out of your minds. If Justin Fisher released that thing this year it'd still be incredible. 0 Share this post Link to post
MegaDoomer Posted September 14, 2011 People have opinions. That wad is scary and it is a classic but the levels are outdated. Also not really a problem since dew did mention this but I am looking for SP wads. If you want to do a multiplayer wad or a mod (something without levels), it can be included IN ADDITION to best SP however, just as dew did. An IWAD can be used if the levels were not made by ID Software (i.e. Final Doom, NRFTL, the Wraith games are okay - anything besides (Ultimate) Doom or Doom II). Also note I count Master Levels as a single IWAD, if anyone wants to use that. No Maximum Doom or other shovelware CD's though. If your favorite of the year is an IWAD but want to recognize a PWAD also, two separate entities like dew did is just fine. AFAIK concerning release years of the commercial IWADS I can think of that are okay to use, Master Levels is from 1995, Final Doom & both Wraith games are from 1996 (in both cases only one individual 32 level set can be used though), and NRFTL (can be counted even though it's technically for XBox) is from 2010. 0 Share this post Link to post
MegaDoomer Posted September 14, 2011 dew said:2008 - gayvox! err... plutonia 2, by a few hours I would have honestly probably chosen ZPack, of all things, if PL2 didn't make it in '08. I liked Torm's maps there and absolutely LOVE Vader's maps, E2M6, and Sector. That's more than enough fun for me! But PL2 steals it for having a bit more consistency. I would say PRCP from this year is at least just as good though. 0 Share this post Link to post
vdgg Posted September 14, 2011 1994 - Invade 2 1995 - Obituary 1996 - MM2 1997 - Requiem / Strain 1998 - Realm of Shades 1999 - Crusades 2000 - Darkening 2 2001 - Slayer 2002 - AV 2nd release, if it doesn't count, maybe 2002ADO? 2003 - Vrack 3 2004 - Vile Flesh 2005 - Kama Sutra / Death Tormention 3 / Scythe 2 (damn! cannot decide) 2006 - none 2007 - none 2008 - Plutonia 2 2009 - D2reload 2010 - Awakening / Nina Dobrev 0 Share this post Link to post
MegaDoomer Posted September 14, 2011 vdgg said:1994 - Invade 2 1995 - Obituary 1996 - MM2 1997 - Requiem / Strain 1998 - Realm of Shades 1999 - Crusades 2000 - Darkening 2 2001 - Slayer 2002 - AV 2nd release, if it doesn't count, maybe 2002ADO? 2003 - Vrack 3 2004 - Vile Flesh 2005 - Kama Sutra / Death Tormention 3 / Scythe 2 (damn! cannot decide) 2006 - none 2007 - none 2008 - Plutonia 2 2009 - D2reload 2010 - Awakening / Nina Dobrev 2011? 0 Share this post Link to post
esselfortium Posted September 14, 2011 Dude, the year isn't even over yet. Also, it's seriously annoying for someone to be micromanaging a post-your-favorites list thread. 0 Share this post Link to post
MegaDoomer Posted September 14, 2011 esselfortium said:Dude, the year isn't even over yet. Also, it's seriously annoying for someone to be micromanaging a post-your-favorites list thread. Yeah I kind of agree. :) I'll let some other slightly looser rules get by as well. :) (Like vdgg mentioning multiple PWADs for some years) 0 Share this post Link to post
MegaDoomer Posted September 14, 2011 I have another potential idea - from each year, what is the best SP (and optionally DM) wad that did NOT get a top 10 (1994-2003) or Cacoward (2004-2010 -- runner up's count) mention? Also preferrably it should be a wad from an author that did not get any top 10 or cacoward that year, since naturally most lists try to do only one or at most two releases per author. Here would be a possible rough draft for me: 1994 - Enjay Doom 1995 - Cleimos 2 1996 - Osiris 1997 - Can't think of one 1998 - Inferno (by Chris Lutz) 1999 - Death Tormention 2 2000 - Pleiades 2001 - Enjay ZDoom 2001 2002 - One Bloody Night Ep 1 2003 - DooM Redemption (by Slayer) 2004 - Vile Flesh 2005 - Scientist 2 2006 - Death Tormention 3 (released in 05 but past Dec 10 so caco year 06) 2007 - Aeternum 2008 - ZPack (there are plenty more good maps here than just Thunderpeak!) 2009 - Claustrophobia 1024 2010 - F_Episode 2 2011 - My guess is it's going to be Jenesis. Just a gut feeling. Some of the wads I mentioned were really robbed of an award too, IMO - i.e. better than at least a quarter or so of the stuff that did make top 10/caco's/runner-ups that year. 0 Share this post Link to post
General Rainbow Bacon Posted September 14, 2011 @Megadoomer: That's exactly what I'm doing in my "findings" thread, check it if you haven't. 0 Share this post Link to post
Memfis Posted September 14, 2011 1994 - RRWARD02 1995 - Doom City 1996 - Phobos - Relive The Nightmare 1997 - Requiem 1998 - Mars War 1999 - A Hell Day 2000 - ... 2001 - The Brotherhood of Ruin 2002 - Alien Vendetta 2003 - Hell Revealed II 2004 - Deus Vult 2005 - Kama Sutra 2006 - e6y3 2007 - ... 2008 - Plutonia 2 2009 - Doom 2 Reloaded 2010 - Speed of Doom 0 Share this post Link to post
MegaDoomer Posted September 14, 2011 Memfis said:1994 - RRWARD02 1995 - Doom City 1996 - Phobos - Relive The Nightmare 1997 - Requiem 1998 - Mars War 1999 - A Hell Day 2000 - ... 2001 - The Brotherhood of Ruin 2002 - Alien Vendetta 2003 - Hell Revealed II 2004 - Deus Vult 2005 - Kama Sutra 2006 - e6y3 2007 - ... 2008 - Plutonia 2 2009 - Doom 2 Reloaded 2010 - Speed of Doom Is this best of the year or best not to get a top 10/caco, etc.? From now on I'd prefer that be specified, so it's clear what the list represents. 0 Share this post Link to post
purist Posted September 14, 2011 I'd have thought it would be obvious if the list contains WADs that did get Cacowards. 0 Share this post Link to post
Vordakk Posted September 14, 2011 MegaDoomer said:People have opinions. That wad is scary and it is a classic but the levels are outdated. Opinions or not, that wad was light years ahead of anything else at the time, and it blazed a trail for future mappers. The fact that Fisher was able to pull off some of the effects he did in a vanilla-compatible pwad are still incredible. I remember when that TC came out; people were more pumped about it than DOOM 2! Even if Aliens isn't your cup of tea, you have to admit what Justin Fisher did was way ahead of anybody else in '94. And since you specified that it should be the "single best release from each year", not simply "your favorite release from each year", that means it's Aliens TC. 0 Share this post Link to post
vdgg Posted September 14, 2011 Ops, forgot about Ruinbros :) Then, Memfis, why not another demopack? My ruinbros demos are 2 years old, so you could record most of them 10-20% faster. MegaDoomer said:I have another potential idea - from each year, what is the best SP (and optionally DM) wad that did NOT get a top 10 (1994-2003) or Cacoward (2004-2010 -- runner up's count) mention? In my list 1994,1998,2009 have nothing to do with 100 WADs of all time, so here you go :) A few other suggestions for early years 1995 - Cleimos II 1996 - Odyssey (Odyssey2.zip by T.Elliot Cannon) 1997 - End1 0 Share this post Link to post
Phobus Posted September 14, 2011 I don't think I know enough .WADs to definitively pick a favourite from most years, and I definitely don't know when most of the came out, so filling in a listing for this thread, for me, would be an awful lot of unnecessary effort. 0 Share this post Link to post
dew Posted September 14, 2011 Vordakk said:I remember when that TC came out; people were more pumped about it than DOOM 2! c'mon, you had us nearly convinced. why ruin it with utterly silly fanboyism? did you by any chance want to say "a few guys i knew on bbs" but mistyped? 0 Share this post Link to post
Vordakk Posted September 14, 2011 dew said:c'mon, you had us nearly convinced. why ruin it with utterly silly fanboyism? did you by any chance want to say "a few guys i knew on bbs" but mistyped? Well ok, some people had that reaction. I personally was more excited for DOOM 2. I not saying it was the greatest thing of all time, but in light of what it did to bolster the efforts of total/partial conversion makers and modders as well as level designers, it gets my vote for best of '94. That of course was back in the old days when you could get noticed and even land a job if you made a really excellent DOOM level. 0 Share this post Link to post
Megamur Posted September 15, 2011 Going through the Cacowards listings: 1994 - Eternity 1995 - Infinity 1996 - Icarus: Alien Vanguard 1997 - Eternal Doom (or maybe Hell Revealed. Both good!) 1998 - Phobos (honestly not that great, but it has fewer dark tunnels than EARTH.WAD) 1999 - Demonfear 2000 - ? (I don't think I played any of these) 2001 - ? (same) 2002 - 2002: A Doom Odyssey (maybe? I never bothered to finish it, but I played it longer than Alien Vendetta, so I guess it wins) 2003 - Doom 64: The Absolution (honestly sucks compared to DOOM 64 EX, but it was the only one off the list I played) 2004 - Daedalus: Alien Defense (maybe only an "Honorable Mention" for the Cacowards, but I liked it way better than HR2) 2005 - Suspended in Dusk 2006 - ? 2007 - KDiZD (only one I played) 2008 - ? (I'd rather put nothing than Eternal Doom IV) 2009 - ? 2010 - Unloved (honorable mention to Mega Man 8-bit Deathmatch) 2011 - 1994 Tune-up Community Project (year's not over yet, but I don't think anything's beating this for me) 0 Share this post Link to post
fullmetalvaran33 Posted September 15, 2011 Let's see.... 1994 - Doomsday of UAC (aka UAC_DEAD) 1995 - ? 1996 - ? 1997 - Eternal Doom 1998 - Cyberdreams 1999 - Herian 2 2000 - ZanZanTC 2001 - Doom Resurrection Episode 1 2002 - Alien Vendetta 2003 - Void 2004 - Grove/City of the Damned 2005 - Scythe 2 2006 - Phocas Island 2 2007 - The Ultimate Torment and Torture 2008 - Thunderpeak 2009 - Demons of Problematique 2/Hell Ground 2010 - Unloved/Dawn of Reality 2011 - Vanguard (so far) 0 Share this post Link to post
Blastfrog Posted September 15, 2011 Vordakk said:If Justin Fisher released that thing this year it'd still be incredible. As a product of it's time, it is very well done and impressive. But the thing is, they didn't have as good tools back than as we do now. To be honest, if it were released nowadays, it would be considered kinda mediocre (not level design wise, but utter lack of polish to today's standards). 0 Share this post Link to post
MegaDoomer Posted September 15, 2011 fullmetalvaran33 said:2010 - Unloved/Dawn of Reality I only wish I could get DOR to run at a playable pace... Just as a side note, it also surprises me how many people pick Thunderpeak over just picking ZPack, but of course that's just my opinion. And I do recognize that, being a fan of KDiZD (to the point in which I think it's horribly underrated), I could easily have liked/enjoyed ZPack (both as a whole and certain maps in it) a reasonable amount more than the average community member too. Really though, my argument boils down to this - in ZPack you get EVERYTHING Thunderpeak has, and even by the harshest standards there are at least a few other gems in the pack (Blackrock and Sector being the most commonly referenced), so by definition I don't even see how it could not be better. 0 Share this post Link to post
esselfortium Posted September 15, 2011 MegaDoomer said:I only wish I could get DOR to run at a playable pace... Just as a side note, it also surprises me how many people pick Thunderpeak over just picking ZPack, but of course that's just my opinion. Really though, my argument boils down to, in ZPack you get EVERYTHING Thunderpeak has, and even by the harshest standards there are at least a few other gems in the pack (Blackrock and Sector being the most commonly referenced), so by definition I don't even see how it could not be better. You have to play through all of episode 1 to get to Thunderpeak, and mediocre is about the nicest term I can think of for at least 80% of the rest of the wad. I don't think I've ever managed to force myself to legitimately play through more than a few maps of any episode of ZPack; it's almost all agonizingly dull and annoying throughout. 0 Share this post Link to post
MegaDoomer Posted September 15, 2011 esselfortium said:You have to play through all of episode 1 to get to Thunderpeak, and mediocre is about the nicest term I can think of for at least 80% of the rest of the wad. I don't think I've ever managed to force myself to legitimately play through more than a few maps of any episode of ZPack; it's almost all agonizingly dull and annoying throughout. I do not feel that I can emphasize enough that these maps are also unmissable: E2M6 (Terror Cube), E3M7 (Blackrock), E3M8 (forget name but it's by skillsaw nuff said), E3M0 (Sector). For the reception ZPack got, these maps should have been released separately also. I don't think you'll be let down no matter what your standards are, unless it's plain and simple personal taste. And you don't have to play all the dull levels - just go into the console and type "map ExMy" without the quotes. Simple as that. No pistol start issues either AFAIK. I also liked all of Torm's maps and a few others, which made it a very solid pack for me personally. Still, if you don't like Torm's maps, and judging by what I've seen clearly at least a fair chunk of the community fits into this category, that's only 4/28 good levels, which is just under 15%, meaning just over 85% is mediocre at best, so at least your statement holds out well in that case. :) Anyways I don't want to turn this thread into a long-winded discussion or argument about ZPack but those are my thoughts. ps I'm guessing you found KDiZD a big dissapointment too, my supporting evidence being: KDiKDiZD, whether or not it's still in progress. 0 Share this post Link to post
fullmetalvaran33 Posted September 15, 2011 MegaDoomer said:I only wish I could get DOR to run at a playable pace... Just as a side note, it also surprises me how many people pick Thunderpeak over just picking ZPack, but of course that's just my opinion. And I do recognize that, being a fan of KDiZD (to the point in which I think it's horribly underrated), I could easily have liked/enjoyed ZPack (both as a whole and certain maps in it) a reasonable amount more than the average community member too. Really though, my argument boils down to this - in ZPack you get EVERYTHING Thunderpeak has, and even by the harshest standards there are at least a few other gems in the pack (Blackrock and Sector being the most commonly referenced), so by definition I don't even see how it could not be better. It's unfortunate you can't play DoR successfully. It's such a lovely city map --and I don't usualy like city maps. Maybe someday you'll get an upgrade to your computer or a less graphic-intensive version will be released (like with Grove, where you can download the original and an alternate version with less laggy trees). As for ZPack, I could have picked ZPack, I suppose. I do like it, but I don't think episode 1 is really up to par with the rest of the WAD. Thunderpeak was the strongest part of episode 1. I liked episode 2 and really, really liked episode 3, but episode 1 keeps me from choosing ZPack as the best of 2008. Thunderpeak won out because it was released separately, and it's a tech-themed WAD I actually truly enjoy (tech WADs can be a hit or miss for me). 0 Share this post Link to post
Megamur Posted September 15, 2011 MegaDoomer said:I only wish I could get DOR to run at a playable pace... What are your specs? I've considered trying it, but if your rig is as good or better than mine, no sense trying. :) ...Wait, is Vanguard actually out? Oh crap. I wasn't even aware. 0 Share this post Link to post
MegaDoomer Posted September 15, 2011 Processingcontrol said:2034 - Mordeth E2 After THIRTY SEVEN YEARS (a whole generation!) in development, it ought to be truely epic. Oh I forgot to mention it might just get the Mordeth award that year too. May I ask, when is Doom Millenium due out? January 1, 3000? Or December 10, 2993 maybe? /implied teasing here, of course 0 Share this post Link to post