best mod of 1994?

[sargebaldy]

for the 10th anniversary of doom, i'm going to compile a list of what is imo the best doom/doom2 wad for every year between 1994-2003. i haven't played every single fricking level, so i'd like some suggestions. right now i'm looking at wads from 1994.

[Job]

Requiem.

[Grazza]

Wrong year, dude.

1994... Trinity.wad, NJDoom2.wad, UAC_DEAD.wad, Return01.wad, er... Beavis.wad :) AliensTC and Cring666.wad, I guess too.

[Linguica]

ftp://3darchives.in-span.net/pub/idgames/fullsort.gz for a list...

[Erik]

I think aliens TC kinda has an edge over most other wads from that year.

[sargebaldy]

Erik said:

I think aliens TC kinda has an edge over most other wads from that year.

probably true, but i do want to consider any options. uac_dead and trinity in particular are highly classic maps as well.

[Graf Zahl]

My favorites of 1994 are Cleimos and Sudtic. These two were the first full episode replacements that really could compete with the quality of the original game. And let's not forget the original starwar.wad. There were also several excellent single maps but without searching some old CD's I can't name them right now. One map worth mentioning, however, is castevil.wad because it was the first level I remember that caused a savegame overflow (Thank god there are source ports out there now... ;-) )

Another interesting question: What is the oldest level that really qualifies as an original work? The oldest I can think of is megawatt.wad dated April 2nd, 1994.

[Ichor]

What about American McGee's deathmatch map?

[Grazza]

There's Serenity and Eternity too, though I haven't actually played them myself.

I checked in Tricks of the Doom Gurus (published 1995), and their top five wads were:
Aliens TC
Doomsday of UAC
Eternity
Return to Phobos
The Unholy Trinity

I mentioned NJDoom2... I have a version dated 28-Dec-1994, which was probably one of the very earliest versions. It probably isn't available anywhere on the web, so ask me (or Enjay) if you want it. There is a 1998 version available here.

The 1994 wad I have "played" most is actually the Beavis.wad (it's a sounds-only wad) I mentioned - for a couple of years I used it whenever I played Doom.

[Job]

Grazza said:

Wrong year, dude.

Whoops. I thought he was taking suggestions for anything between '94 and '03.

[sargebaldy]

Grazza said:

There's Serenity and Eternity too, though I haven't actually played them myself.

I checked in Tricks of the Doom Gurus (published 1995), and their top five wads were:
Aliens TC
Doomsday of UAC
Eternity
Return to Phobos
The Unholy Trinity

i actually own that book, and played every wad that came on the cd with it, which i think included everything that was on cdrom.com (or was it even cdrom.com back in those days, i don't remember) when the book was published. having looked at that has given me an optimistic attitude towards even the worst maps of today. even mockery looks better than most of the stuff on that CD :P

[sargebaldy]

Ichor said:

What about American McGee's deathmatch map?

i always hand a fondness for that deathmatch map :) but it's certainly not the best wad of 1994. i didn't even realize until i looked at the posts here how many cornerstone doom wads were released in that very first year of doom mapping :)

[Fletcher`]

Erik said:

I think aliens TC kinda has an edge over most other wads from that year.

Too bad it's '95. :)

[Linguica]

ravage said:

Too bad it's '95. :)

http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=1040

[Fletcher`]

Damn. Ling 121. ravage 20.5.

[myk]

From what I've checked I'd say I prefer Return to Phobos from that year.

[sargebaldy]

myk said:

From what I've checked I'd say I prefer Return to Phobos from that year.

it's been most of a decade since i've played that one :) i'm going to have check out some of these again.

[Searcher]

Serenity for sure, the best of 94.

good also:
Icedeath
101

All good

honorable mention to the very first Doom pwad = origwad.wad
there is a demo for it at DSDA

[Fusion]

aliens gets my vote because of the atmosphere... however, a very close 2nd would be UAC dead.. for it's time, it was utterly incredible and extremely atmospheric.

[Little Faith]

I'm a big fan of Return to Phobos. For some strange reason I am completely engorged in E1M5. Too bad it has so few monsters, even for it's time.

[Grazza]

I spent a little while analysing the fullsort document that Ling linked to (or rather a version of it I downloaded a few months ago). Number of files per year:

1993: 18
1994: 2428
1995: 6251
1996: 6528
1997: 2710
1998: 2081
1999: 1208
2000: 1022
2001: 857
2002: 737

Being a /newstuff reviewer would have been a fun job in 1995 and 1996.

[Little Faith]

It should be noted that these numbers is not a completely accurate measure of the productivity of the Doom community.



In these times it has become far more common to bundle wads into projects, megawads and episodes than releasing them seperately.


Still it is without doubt that 95-96 was the most raw productive years in the Doom community.

[sargebaldy]

Little Faith said:

It should be noted that these numbers is not a completely accurate measure of the productivity of the Doom community.

of course not, 3darchives is missing a LOT of stuff that the cdrom.com archives had.

[deathz0r]

Graf Zahl said:

Another interesting question: What is the oldest level that really qualifies as an original work? The oldest I can think of is megawatt.wad dated April 2nd, 1994.

http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=11

Ignore the zip date though.

[Grazza]

Yes, the figures are only a rough indication, but I thought they were still quite interesting. Some of the files aren't even Doom-related. Also, it is fair to assume that many wads from the early years (when the Doom community was less cohesive, and cdrom.com wasn't the only Doom archive) didn't find their way into these archives.

[The Ultimate DooMer]

Serenity, Eternity (if it was released in 94) and uac_dead.

[Fletcher`]

Well since aliens TC IS 94, my list is somewhat better

Aliens TC
Unholy Trinity
Doomsday of the UAC

Yay, and in that order too. :)

[Graf Zahl]

Grazza said:

Being a /newstuff reviewer would have been a fun job in 1995 and 1996.

I doubt it. Too many of those old levels are utter crap. It was just too many people trying (unsuccessfully) do make Doom maps. Today there are fewer releases but the quality-to-crap ratio is much better!

[Fletcher`]

Graf Zahl said:

Today there are fewer releases but the quality-to-crap ratio is much better!

ROOFLES!

[Graf Zahl]

ravage said:

ROOFLES!

Don't you think it is true?