"The Greatest DOOM Player Of All Time" - video by Karl Jobst

[Mara]

Didn't see anyone talk about this here yet so I figured that I should make a thread. What do you think? I personally enjoyed it quite a bit.

 

 

Edited October 19, 2020 by Mara

[Biodegradable]

Master by name, Master by nature.

[Gez]

So my takeaway from that video is that Zero Master needs to hop on the Doom 3 train now.

[Percy T]

I agree that he is one of, if not the best, doom speedrunners ever. He has contributed many groundbreaking runs and has discovered tons about doom and doom 2. Even on the newer doom games, he just dominates them. It's even cooler considering he's only been speedrunning for only half a decade.

[D4NUK1]

At least in the newer games ZeroMaster have some degree of competition with DraQu, Xiae and FrostyXen, it's make the scene of those games making new runs or style of gameplay. I'm hoping for new speedruns on the DLC with this kinda action.
 

 

 

But on Classic Doom, he it's killing it, altrougth that record got beating not to much ago.

[Doomkid]

Zero Master is the king of the speedrun... With Looper (current Doom2 WR holder) and 4shockblast right on his tail!

 

Maybe it's just because I'm not a speedrunner, but in my eyes those 3 take the top 3 spots and the gap between their respective skill levels in not wide at all. Not at all surprised that they were mentioned just 2 minutes in!

 

Could Zero Master beat DevastatioN or JKist going 1 on 1 in the arena though? I've played against Zero Master in FFA servers and obviously he is a fantastic player, but could he have beaten the late DemonSphere, a man who was a literal god with the SSG and the BFG? (Seriously, DS had skill I consider unparalleled.. The worst I've ever lost in a match where I was actually trying was against DS.)

 

Who comes out on top in gladitorial combat never seems to be factored in these days! Not trying to say anything bad about Karl's video - it's amazing. I just remember an era where your skill in the ring was like, the majority of what was considered in the "is this person a Doom God?" question.

 

...Basically I'm saying this because I really want to see Zero Master in the ring more! There's nothing like going toe to toe with the Doom Gods, or even just watching two of them battle it out for our amusement.

 

Very entertaining stuff, as always from Karl!

Edited October 19, 2020 by Doomkid

[DOEL]

what about UV-Max? I'm always impressed by ancalagon, j4rio, and thev1perk1ller

[Andy Johnsen]

Good rundown, and certainly something one can get behind (even though I would not bring vastly different games into the comparison and disregard the new releases - but they're still part of the franchise so fair enough if one want to widen the scope). 

I'd still go with Looper, Hi Jango(Chewy) and Ocelot for overall skill display through the years, but Zero has several "first ever" both in accomplishment and engine understanding / exploit arenas that surpass past and present. So the argument to pick him is solid and valid.

The biggest flaw in the rundown would be completely disregarding the Deathmatch aspect, which Doomkid points to as well. Personally I always messured Doom skill as an equal split between SP and DM, and with that in mind, for me, the case still holds for at least mentioning Chewy and Ocelot if one was to attempt an overall crowning. For sheer Single player output ratio it becomes less of a competition, but to me that matters less than what was produced and what effort it took - and one cannot disregard the skillset that goes into the other "half" of the games venue.

As for my personal opinion on this; Most impressive trickster and inventive player award goes to Zero - while most effortless, impressive and raw skill display in single player would go to Looper. I do belive his current world record full game UV run of Doom 2 is the most impressive Doom recording we've seen so far. The effortless precision on display there is more than just grind.

For raw talent, I'd go with either him or Chewy, and I've seen a few "Doom Gods" come and go through the years. Old Sedlo deserve a nod for being on a top tire of movement skill combined with a very high level Deathmatch game for over 20 years, as well - despite not being active to a large extent anymore. In current or past ability he's right up there with 4shockblasts of today in my opinion, but there's more of an understanding for the game now and slicker tools. 

All that said; entertaining vid that makes a case one could easily agree with. ZeroMaster is unique in many ways and this was a well deserved ode to his SP efforts.
 

[Mara]

20 hours ago, Andy Johnsen said:

The biggest flaw in the rundown would be completely disregarding the Deathmatch aspect, which Doomkid points to as well.

 

To be fair, Karl Jobst's content is purely about speedrunning, which DM really isn't.

 

...then again, not everything in the video is necessarily speedrunning related either.

Edited October 21, 2020 by Mara

[baja blast rd.]

On 10/19/2020 at 7:23 PM, DOEL said:

what about UV-Max? I'm always impressed by ancalagon, j4rio, and thev1perk1ller

 

Anc is the best slaughter maxer, j4rio is really good too, and TVK is I think #1 out there at sheer productivity -- give him a megawad, even one full of long maps, and he'll have very fluid, competent UV-maxes of every map in a surprisingly short time. There are runners like 0xf00ba12 who are amazing, who people that aren't regular demo watchers are unlikely to have heard of. 

 

Some of them are on a similar tier as the Zeromasters of the world, but as a category, maxing is dominated by pwads, which doesn't really give it enough "mainstream speedrun" appeal to easily sell a video like this. 

 

20 hours ago, Andy Johnsen said:

As for my personal opinion on this; Most impressive trickster and inventive player award goes to Zero - while most effortless, impressive and raw skill display in single player would go to Looper. I do belive his current world record full game UV run of Doom 2 is the most impressive Doom recording we've seen so far. The effortless precision on display there is more than just grind.

 

Looper is a really strong candidate for #1 all-around all-around yeah. From full game runs like that to being a really strong maxer too in a variety of maps, to being one of the strongest at pure movement, to taking to DM and MP variants easily, to being handsome and multi-lingual and extremely well dressed.

 

Not too close behind guys like him and Zeromaster would of course be Bob9001.

Edited October 21, 2020 by ‹rd›

[Biodegradable]

Karl needs to make a video about Looper's new Doom II world-record speedrun pronto!

[Karl Jobst]

5 minutes ago, Biodegradable said:

Karl needs to make a video about Looper's new Doom II world-record speedrun pronto!

I am definitely doing a video about the progression of Doom 2 wr soon.

 

An overlooked thing that some people miss is that I specifically say in the video that if it were just about ‘skill’ there would be arguments to be made for other players. But I have no knowledge of a single other player that had done notable feats in both the classic and modern games. 

 

I dont call out many other players in this particular video but I have other vids that talk about them (so I dont feel the need to address them in every vid). And I plan to do other legends justice in future videos. 

 

Death match is something that I actually do consider, however I know of no death match players that have done notable things across the entire series. And I dont even know of death match getting any media attention (my point is that how ‘notable’ is something that gets no publicity or attention?). 

 

I would implore some death match experts to make some content explaining the merits of death match, highlighting the great players and their accomplishments, so that other people can understand.

[Biodegradable]

Speak of the devil, there you are! lmao your ears must've been burning mate.

[taufan99]

4 minutes ago, Karl Jobst said:

I would implore some death match experts to make some content explaining the merits of death match, highlighting the great players and their accomplishments, so that other people can understand.

The living legend Doomkid may be able to assist you on deathmatch stuff.

[Doomkid]

1 hour ago, ‹rd› said:

taking to DM and MP variants easily

<rd>, would you mind explaining what you mean here? (don't take this question the wrong way lol, I just don't understand the word easily here, do you mean Looper takes them seriously?)

 

9 minutes ago, Karl Jobst said:

I would implore some death match experts to make some content explaining the merits of death match, highlighting the great players and their accomplishments, so that other people can understand.

6 minutes ago, InDOOMnesia said:

The living legend Doomkid may be able to assist you on deathmatch stuff.

I wouldn't want to bog Karl down too much with a side of Doom that doesn't get the attention it once did - although it still does get a fair bit of attention, I've made mutliple videos about Dwango for example and they tend to garner roughly 20k views or so, so it's not a 'dead' market - but I think there would definitely be some meat on the bone for a video about skilled deathmatchers and duelers over the years.

 

I love deathmatch but there are still some big holes in my knowledge of the history and the current scene. I'd have to consult the #nightmare crew, #unidoom crew, #mdf crew, dew, and some other people who I know through Zandronum/Skulltag/ZDaemon/Doom Connector and some prominent clans.. but I think it would be a great endeavor. I might stark working on it seriously soon here, after I finish up the videos currently in the pipeline.

[baja blast rd.]

16 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

<rd>, would you mind explaining what you mean here? (don't take this question the wrong way lol, I just don't understand the word easily here, do you mean Looper takes them seriously?)

 

Afaik he has dabbled in deathmatch and did quite well relative to his basically nonexistent level of experience. I'll DM a Discord log from someone else who mentioned that.

Edited October 21, 2020 by ‹rd›

[DooM Bear]

@Karl Jobst Hey love your stuff man! Keep up the great work :-)

 

On topic, ZeroMaster deserves the title hands down in my opinion! The fact he was the one to find so many “broken secrets” and is also a top tier speed runner in BOTH the originals and the new DooM titles shows a level of ability I had never seen before!

 

Yeah I might be a bit of a ZeroMaster fan boy :-P

 

 

[dew]

ZeroMaster is 🐐

Chewy is ⛵

Edited October 21, 2020 by dew

[IvanDobrovski]

8 hours ago, Karl Jobst said:

my point is that how ‘notable’ is something that gets no publicity or attention?

Yeah how notable is something hosted on QuakeCon or seeing tournaments for it done by MDF on a regular basis... right? This is like saying Q3 doesn't exist because it has no singleplayer to speedrun it with.

[Hatred]

I had a great time getting to talk to Karl and a few folks in his discord. 
 

I don’t really want to delve too much into separating semantics when we define “greatest of all time.” To be honest, I think most people understand now that such a title comes with a grain of salt on its own because putting anyone on that pedestal is naturally very controversial and divisive. I’ll just say it was really cool to connect with other members of the doom community I’ve little experience with and additionally I got to learn about a great doomer.
 

Naturally as a former top tier duelist and ctf player in my own right back in the day, my ego was a little jarred by this. However, especially in the competitive community (primarily between the 3 major online source ports of ZDaemon, Zandronum, and Odamex), we have a nasty habit of tearing each other down for the sake of preserving our own egos. That’s why I am not going to get into the debate of who the GOAT is because I don’t want to attempt to diminish what zero master has contributed to the game.
 

Karl made a pretty great point during our discussion: there is nothing stopping competitive players from telling their own stories. He’s absolutely right. To date, there isn’t some magical source out there in terms of a YouTube video or some documentary (I chuckled with this one). However, the information is there - it’s just scattered about. I personally own almost all the of IDL demos up to 2014 (16gbs worth) and I’m sure I could probably get all the ZDDL ones, too. I also have relationships with lots of the competitive players from various eras and I can account for almost 15 years worth of first-person testimony on some things.
 

That’s the thing: I’m just one person, I haven’t even gotten to what is scattered about in various forum boards and websites. There’s also players who have way deeper perspectives than I do. I am fortunate enough though to say I got to play with the best in competitive pvp: ocelot, dev, chewy, Jkist, my idol and favorite doomer of all time Sedlo, Turska, the entire country of Finland being naturally good at doom and more (though my single greatest regret is never playing with demonsphere in his prime). Remember when I said I’m just one person? There are so many like me that can give testimony, provide demos, provide context, and make for great sources of information to tell our stories. We just have to do it. 
 

so for that reason, I’m going to attempt to organize something and do just that. My idea is to focus on a brief but informative introductory video explaining basic competitive doom2 history from the days of .exe to modern online source ports. Then, I’ll move on to leagues of the past and present. And then, after lots of background information has been provided, I’d like to look at great players throughout doom history. I am pretty inexperienced with video editing, but I’m happy to tackle the challenge and I know folks in MDF will help me because I won’t really give them a choice. In addition to some of the other stuff I’m doing with podcasts and mapping, I think this’ll be a great way to get more of our stories out there. So if anyone has any information they’d like to share in terms of video editing, I’m all ears. 
 

 

tl;dr zero master is great, and while the video mainly highlights speed runners, I am not going to get into trying to debate GOAT status. Instead, I’d like to focus on making our own historical referencial videos from the perspective of competitive pvp players. Great video, Karl. 

[Doomkid]

Fantastic. I'd be willing to help however possible, have built up decent video editing ability by now and can also provide damn near 20 years of first-hand testimonials on the multiplayer side as well, so the more old (and new) blood who love duel/ffa/ctf coming together for this, the better, I reckon.

 

One reason I've been hesitant to tackle this subject is because it just spans so many years at this point, and like you said, has always been heavily fractured largely as a result of ego taking the wheel. Some things I know just have to be mentioned are DemonSphere and his incredible feats, UniDoom (the longest lived Doom clan of all time) and other prominent clans over the years.

 

Just thinking about all the history is a little overwhelming, heh. Maybe we could even have different people tackling different specific eras, and within those eras, different source ports and the most skilled players for each chapter/each port. Anyway, I love this idea, I'm in the MDF Discord and I'll be on a bit more than usual to see however I can contribute to this becoming a thing.

Edited October 22, 2020 by Doomkid

[Hatred]

1 hour ago, Doomkid said:

Fantastic. I'd be willing to help however possible, have built up decent video editing ability by now and can also provide damn near 20 years of first-hand testimonials on the multiplayer side as well, so the more old (and new) blood who love duel/ffa/ctf coming together for this, the better, I reckon.

 

One reason I've been hesitant to tackle this subject is because it just spans so many years at this point, and like you said, has always been heavily fractured largely as a result of ego taking the wheel. Some things I know just have to be mentioned are DemonSphere and his incredible feats, UniDoom (the longest lived Doom clan of all time) and other prominent clans over the years.

 

Just thinking about all the history is a little overwhelming, heh. Maybe we could even have different people tackling different specific eras, and within those eras, different source ports and the most skilled players for each chapter/each port. Anyway, I love this idea, I'm in the MDF Discord and I'll be on a bit more than usual to see however I can contribute to this becoming a thing.

good shit, I’ll hit you up :) 

[Dylan Omen]

20 hours ago, Karl Jobst said:

 

Death match is something that I actually do consider, however I know of no death match players that have done notable things across the entire series. And I dont even know of death match getting any media attention (my point is that how ‘notable’ is something that gets no publicity or attention?). 

 

Karl's videos are great, and ZM deserves the praise he gets. but the idea that something can only be notable if that something gets publicity or attention is both dangerous, and poor practice for historians of any kind.

[Karl Jobst]

Dangerous? I think you are taking fun youtube videos a bit too seriously.

 

Unfortunately a couple of people misconstrued what I said. I did not say something can't be notable because it didn't get publicity. I asked, how notable is something that gets no attention and no one talks about? That's an important question to ask because that is a value judgement that is impossible for a researcher to establish unless the death match community themselves have clearly laid it out. Given that there is no historical videos on death match players, no easy to access resources on good DM players, it's not feasible for an outsider to investigate. The responsibility for the public knowing about DM players lies solely in the hands of DM players. For them to blame me, or anyone else for not getting credit or exposure is incredibly entitled.

 

It wouldn't change my opinion though. I value doom much more as a single player game, and if a player was objectively confirmed as being the best DM player ever it wouldn't shift my conclusion (unless of course they were also successful in other areas of the game, and across the entire franchise).

Edited October 22, 2020 by Karl Jobst

[Doomkid]

23 minutes ago, Karl Jobst said:

Dangerous? I think you are taking fun youtube videos a bit too seriously.

I think this is the main thing for people to keep in mind, this is all just for entertainment purposes. People definitely do talk about deathmatch and there are numerous videos on the subject with loads of views - I remember that one by Alistair Roche that's sitting at just over 500k views presently, my video from just a few weeks go about Dwango mysteries is sitting at over 30k views presently, the QuakeCon DM Tournament videos and oldschool Doom tourney videos in general have decent number of views, and there are several other examples as well. I mean no offense with any comments I've made, I just want to dispel the untrue statement that it's a subject which garners no attention.

 

I don't think anyone means to blame anything on you Karl and I would hope it's not taken that way. You have no "duty" to anyone other than to yourself, so don't worry about any such statements. Also, the inability to find info easily is definitely something for us as a community to take in mind and work on. If anything this is a good thing for multiple reasons, we got a very entertaining video giving Zero Master the credit he deserves, and the seed has been planted for us to make a similar video giving highly skilled deathmatchers the praise and recognition that they also deserve just as much as any other elite players for any other games. I'm happy that it's officially in the works.

Edited October 22, 2020 by Doomkid

[NoahRules]

Wasn't expecting to see Karl himself in this thread, Good work on the video bro!

[Karl Jobst]

54 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

People definitely do talk about deathmatch and there are numerous videos on the subject with loads of views - I remember that one by Alistair Roche that's sitting at just over 500k views presently, my video from just a few weeks go about Dwango mysteries is sitting at over 30k views presently, the QuakeCon DM Tournament videos here and here have a decent number of views and there are several other examples as well. I mean no offense with any comments I've made, I just want to dispel the untrue statement that it's a subject which garners no attention.

 

Definitely and I saw those videos when trying to find anything on historical DM players. Though nothing as yet that is specific enough about great players and their careers. I think that topic is definitely interesting and could be really popular on YT. I am really looking forward to seeing any videos about it and would love to learn more about it. Honestly, if I was an expert on DM I would already be making those types of videos. But as yet I'm only somewhat knowledgeable on speedrunning.

Edited October 22, 2020 by Karl Jobst

[wheresthebeef]

4 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

and the seed has been planted for us to make a similar video giving highly skilled deathmatchers the praise and recognition that they also deserve just as much as any other elite players for any other games.

 

And I think it can also lead into highly skilled and notable map and mod/wad maker videos, which could then also all loop around how they all relate to eachother.

Edited October 22, 2020 by wheresthebeef

[Bob9001]

23 hours ago, ‹rd› said:

 Bob9001.

Haha, thank you.

 

However, long after I've gone from this community will people see what I've achieved :)

Edited October 22, 2020 by Bob9001

[termrork]

in terms of speedrunning I would say currently the top 2 players are looper and ZM. Actually I enjoy watching looper's demos way more because of his excellent execution. At the end the time matters though :)!

 

When it comes to the greatest of all times I think it is a really difficult question. How can one compare the achievements of these giants compare to the giants in '98 as pointed out for example Thomas Pilger? Also different hardware and software limitations would have to be taken into account. Also different knowledge etc. etc. Imo it is barely possible to implement a fair measure.

 

Let us praise all the wonderful speedrunners that give is such a joy with their awesome speedruns! The order of their skill is not that important imo.