Realm of Chaos demos [-complevel 2]

[MOD EDIT: Post Realm of Chaos demos here. vanilla or -complevel 2 recommended.]

Here are some demos for Realm of Chaos I eventually plan on running demos for all 32 levels however for now there are demos for UVMax and UVSpeed for the first 3 levels. I'm only new at speedrunning so go easy on my skills please :)

You can get them Here

EDIT: Forgot to mention that these were done with prboom-plus-2.2.6.23 in comp level 1

The next batch of Realm of Chaos demos are available here

I have skipped level 4 for now since it is a very very difficult level for me to speedrun.

There is no level 6 max run since despite my best efforts, there is one enemy I can't find hence leaving me with 99%.

Grazza said:
Phil: I thought those demos were very promising. You looked a bit nervous at times (e.g. missed shots), but that generally improves the more you play a map and practice your route. I look forward to seeing more!

Kristian Ronge said:
Phil, you're already a skilled player, so don't sweat it. If I'm not mistaken you did a max run on "Blind Alley B" by Gene Bird some time ago, right? That run was good.

Why thankyou guys for the kind words. Though Kristian plz don't bring up Blind Alley B again. It brings back nightmares of me screaming at the computer monitor "theres no ***ing way that rocket could home in on me between these pillars!" :p

I don't know if its nervousness that is making me miss those shots Grazza but more likely a lack of skill. From my experience it requires a different type of skill to speed-run a level then it does simply to play through a level. Speed-running requires you to constantly move, aim and shoot while playing through a map normally allows you run to a corner, take a breath, before continuing cleaning out the room. Speed-running is simply more intensive and I find it difficult to maintain that intensity over a level.

Very good stuff.

If you upload one of your 99%-ers on map06, other people will be able to check more easily what that missed monster might be, and if it is unreachable/unkillable (in which case you won't need to kill it to record a valid Max).

I noticed a couple of little jump tricks that should make the map06 Speed go a bit faster if you choose to revisit that one. Here is a nomo, recorded just to show the tricks. I use strafe-50 for both jumps - I didn't check if that was strictly necessary. Neither jump is difficult.

Thanks alot Grazza. I did actually think about the first jump but could never get it to work. The second jump never even occured to me. I have a feeling i'm really going to need to learn strafe 50 soon. I never actually recorded a map06 Max run since I first try my runs out in God Mode to make sure I know where everything is and never got past that stage. I really don't feel like going though Map06 again at this point but I'll probably record both a 99%/100% "max run" and a speed run using the tricks that you showed me in the not to distant future.

Once again thanks for the demo Grazza.

Well i'm back with more Realm of Chaos UVSpeed and Max runs - this time for levels 8 - 10. All up you can expect around 20 minutes of demo goodness.

On a side-note, i'm not sure how this plays going from level to level but i'm enjoying playing these levels from a pistol start - this is definitely an underated megawad IMO.

You can find the new batch of demos here

Nice job Phil. Great fun to watch.

We have recorded a coop run over the last level of Realm of Chaos in one minute.

Eugene and Sergey:
http://www.doomworld.com/sda/dwdemo/kapustin_coop_demos.zip

=================================
Realm of Chaos UV Max Demo Pack
=================================

This is a collection of recorded demos (lmps) for all 32 levels of "Realm of Chaos" megawad. All lmps were recorded on skill 4 (Ultra-Violence), ending with at least 100% kills and 100% secrets where it's possible.

The demos were recorded in doom.exe-format, either by using compatibility level "2" with PrBoom-plus (2.4.8.x), or by using doom2plus (1.92.6), without any TAS features.

Consequently, all demos should play back all right using newer versions of PrBoom/GLBoom, Eternity, and Chocolate-Doom. These will all also play back with doom2.exe, of course.

"Realm of Chaos" is available at ->
http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=10513

Level   Recorder       Time
---------------------------
01      Heretic        1:45
02      Heretic        1:41
03      Hitherto       1:40
04      Heretic        5:11
05      Hitherto       4:09
06      Hitherto       7:56
07      Heretic        3:18
08      Hitherto       4:49
09      Hitherto       7:46
10      Heretic        1:10
11      entryway       2:06
12      Hitherto       7:18
13      Heretic        5:30
14      Heretic        9:18
15      Hitherto      11:29
16      Heretic        3:03
17      Hitherto       5:39
18      Heretic        8:13
19      Heretic        6:47
20      Heretic        3:13
21      Heretic        6:50
22      Heretic        9:21
23      Heretic       13:18
24      Hitherto       3:53
25      Heretic        3:00
26      Heretic        8:58
27      Heretic        9:55
28      Heretic        5:52
29      Heretic        7:10
30      Heretic        2:46
31      Heretic        3:48
32      Heretic        1:46
---------------------------                                                 
      Total time -  2:58:38

I have put a copy here.

My hat off to the iddqd.ru team for paying tribute to oldschool classics! I knew about RoC for a long time but never got around to finishing playing it. I watched the first 14 demos so far, and I must say this is an excellent demopak of the highest standards. If this were put on DSDA, I'm sure Opulent would include it in the Recommended picks without a moment's hesitation.
The project's page holds the original demo ZIPs, each with several runs for every map and comments for most, all in Russian. I think the language barrier shouldn't deprive avid demo heads worldwide of this interesting material, so I'll contribute to this project a translation of the comments of all the final runs as well as the project description in the first post of that thread.


-------------------------------------------

Realm of Chaos UVMax demopack

*Project objective: paying the deserved respect to the original classic 1996 megawad "Realm of Chaos" as well as provide entertainment to all participants and spectators. The final result - the archive of the fastest demos - will most likely be put up on the Doomworld forum.

*Rules:
1. pWAD - Realm of Chaos v1.4 only.
2. The demos must be fully compatible with the original doom2.exe (vanilla). In prBoom, for example, this can can be achieved with the -complevel 2 command-line parameter.
3. The demos must be recorded without cheating, without use of external or port-specific TAS, according to to Compet-N rules.
4. Demo category is for the moment limited to UV Max (100% kills, 100% secrets on the Ultra Violence skill level).
5. Any registered member of the iddqd.ru forum who is fluent in Russian and has recorded even one demo with the best time on any map can take part.
6. The filenames must strictly follow the following format: 12345678.lmp, where 12 is map number; 3456 - time (mmss); 78 - paricipant's abbreviated name. Example: 100110HR.LMP.
7. Any RLMCHAOS demo file that is not a competition entry but is of interest in some way must be name as follows: 12 - map number; 345 - MSC; 6 - a unique number; 78 - paricipant's abbreviated name. Example: 03MSC2HI.LMP.
8. For every demo file, it's a good idea to make a TXT file with description, with the same filename. Here's the template.
9. The participants submit new recordings (in ZIP archives) to the project coordinator via email and are registered in this thread.
10. The project coordinator maintains a dynamically updated table of the current results for every map, the archive of the best demo files as well as separate archives of all runs for every map.

Comments for each final run

MAP01: Dropoff - 1:45
EXE: glboom-plus -complevel 2

First of all, to save time I didn't pick up the Green Armor; second, it turned out that the switch on the left behind the shotgun guy in the last room is not needed, so I didn't bother pressing it, trusting luck from then on. All in all, I'm happy, except for the two annoying misses at the end.

Nikolay "Heretic" Kamnev

-------------------

MAP02: Outpost 27 - 1:41
EXE: glboom-plus -complevel 2

Everything depends on how quickly the Hell Knights can be disposed of with a fist. Ideally, three punches should do. Overall, the first half of the demo is not that hot, neither flashy nor particularly fast; but in the end the time is pretty good :).

Nikolay "Heretic" Kamnev

-------------------

MAP03: Mars Base Alpha - 1:40
EXE: doom2+ (1.92.6)

I am happy with the time, despite the annoyance of missing the teleport.

-Hitherto-

-------------------

MAP04: Sewers - 5:11
EXE: glboom-plus -complevel 2

This time I decided not to stop by the room with the double barrels and saved a few seconds this way.

Nikolay "Heretic" Kamnev

-------------------

MAP05: Mission Control - 4:09
EXE: doom2.exe

The map's starts and ends in a completely idiotic way, but is not that bad overall: there are several possible routes and a little puzzle called "kill the Spidermind in ...". I think I solved it satisfactorily in theory, but in practice it didn't quite come off. With such a route four minutes is a real possibility. entryway? ;)
First my best time was 4:12, then three tries with 4:07, 4:09 and 4:04 and 99% kills (the last Sarge stubbornly refused to leave the corner, but in this demo I got him at last. :)

- Hitherto -

-------------------

MAP06: Splatterhouse - 7:56
EXE: doom2.exe

A large map with a rather retarded monster placement (in particular, the beasties on the wall and the two Sarges at the far end of the courtyard - what are they doing there?) Despite that, planning the route was fun in itself. The run is not the fastest or the most accurate, however I met the minimum objective - get it under eight minutes.

- Hitherto -

-------------------

MAP07: Deathstay - 3:18
EXE: glboom-plus -complevel 2

Could have been faster still if I had shot all the Imps in the Yellow Key area without missing any, if the barrels' explosion had destroyed more monsters and if not for all the missed shots at the Mancubuses at the end. 3:15 - this is what the time for this level should be :).

Nikolay "Heretic" Kamnev

-------------------

MAP08: Research Lab - 4:49
EXE: doom2+ (1.92)

"Dead exit" saves 25 seconds (the time it takes for the last platform to rise).
In two places - the Cyber and on the mountain - I keep playing "as God wills" :|. Perhaps the Cyber's Barons should be given more LocketRaunching loving.

= Hitherto =
- 03-11-07 -

-------------------

MAP09: Machine Gun Etiquette - 7:46
EXE: doom2.exe

Probably the most interesting level so far. Everything is good about it, except for the evil roaming Cacodemon fucker in the final area... The first exit was 99% kills, the second you can admire in 09MSC1HI (snuffed out the damn critter after all, wasting some twenty seconds). Later I decided to stop suffering and kill it in the very beginning, at the cost of slowing down the route.

- Hitherto -

-------------------

MAP10: Hollow Oblivion - 1:10
EXE: glboom-plus -complevel 2

Great, the time is very good I think.

-Heretic-

-------------------

MAP11: Mars Starport - 2:06

<no TXT file available>

-------------------

MAP12: Home Sweet Home - 7:18
EXE: doom2+.exe

The unfortunate monster placement and the shortage of ammo for heavy weapons make the speedrun a hard and viscous affair. :[
Sixth exit. Time more or less. The first three were too slow (8:00-8:30), and the two later were junked with 99% kills caused by the traditionally crude implementation of monster-only teleports.

- Hitherto -

-------------------

MAP13: Bloodlands - 5:30
EXE: glboom-plus -complevel 2

Got a little muddled towards the end, thanks to losing track of the zombieman. Later it turned out a Lost Soul chewed his ass. :)

Nikolay "Heretic" Kamnev

-------------------

MAP14: Die Hard - 9:18
EXE: glboom-plus -complevel 2

This is the last try, I'm not going to touch this map again. :)
P.S. All the same playing with mouselook is uncomfortable, and I'm not used to it.

Nikolay "Heretic" Kamnev

-------------------

MAP15: Infestation - 11:29
EXE: Doom2+.exe

A gigantic, terribly laid out map by the talented, but very lazy mapper Bob Berkowitz. The place I hate most if the gigantic cage with the Red Key. Easy to miss a Trooper or an Imp in there. The encounter with the Archie (after taking the Blue Key, before the BFG) is another unpleasant spot; and of course, the Yellow Key mountain.
A couple of times I managed to telefrag the Cyber, but it's a risky business.
The time turned out to be unexpectedly good - I was shooting for 12:30
Thanks to Heretic for his demo (without it I wouldn't have never decided on recording this level) and the base route.

= Hitherto =
05/12/07

-------------------

MAP16: The Wolf's Hour - 3:03
EXE: glboom-plus -complevel 2

Simply 30 seconds faster than the previous time, it just happened to turn out this way :).

Nikolay "Heretic" Kamnev

-------------------

MAP17: No Escape - 5:39
EXE: Doom2+.exe

Two Megaspheres, one Soulsphere, an Invisibility that is (a rare case) actually useful, a lot of Medikits - the level can be completed the easy-and-stupid way in about seven minutes. But should you want to do it quicker, you can't get by without aggressive tactics, constantly (especially in the beginning) trying to provoke in-fighting.
The Red Key room presents an opportunity to sic the Barons on the Spider (alas, it didn't turn out well this time).
There is no need to hurry to drop down after taking the Rocket Launcher: it's better to linger in the window a bit, dodging the Cyber's rockets and giving him the chance to do some of the dirty work wiping out the Specters. ;]

= Hitherto =
03/11/07

-------------------

MAP18: Dead Radio - 8:13
EXE: glboom-plus -complevel 2

85% secrets is the max here, because the secret in sector 25 is inaccessible (because of the error on the map's author's part)
The only serious mistake I made was at the end, at the four bridges: instead of raising I lowered it; almost got snuffed out as the result. On the other hand, I neutralized the Arch Vile with no problems; he never had a chance (or the time) to teleport.

Nikolay "Heretic" Kamnev

-------------------

MAP19: Port Fury - 6:47
EXE: glboom-plus -complevel 2

The most important thing is to dispose of the monsters in the room with the tons of Cacos as efficiently as possible; it's smooth sailing from that point on. The only trouble is at the very end, in the Blue Key area, I just can't manage to kill everything quickly enough.

Nikolay "Heretic" Kamnev

-------------------

MAP20: Teleporter Central - 3:13
EXE: glboom-plus -complevel 2

I killed several days on this map, yet never managed to get under 3:10. Too much depends on luck, and the Cyber at the end should be killed either with two shots or not at all (otherwise precious time is wasted).

Nikolay "Heretic" Kamnev

-------------------

MAP21: The Prison - 6:50
EXE: glboom-plus -complevel 2

First exit, thus not very fast. The difficult part is where the monsters sink into the floor, where you cannot see them at all in OpenGL; so you can only guess where to shoot. Plus you have to save cells for the final fight.

Nikolay "Heretic" Kamnev

-------------------

MAP22: Nova Akropola - 9:21
EXE: glboom-plus -complevel 2

A big fun map. If I hadn't stumbled a couple of times and acted faster at the end, it could have been under nine minutes.

Nikolay "Heretic" Kamnev

-------------------

MAP23: Ancalagon - 13:18
EXE: glboom-plus -complevel 2

Looks like this is the largest map in the whole megawad - 306 monsters and 19 secrets and time over 10 minutes.
13:18 is my third exit, the first two were over 15 minutes. Therefore in the beginning I was shooting for 14 min, but it turned out even faster, though not quite smooth still - for example, again I forgot the last secret with the BFG. :)
The first megasphere is redundant; not only can it be reached from several different places but also its location doesn't count as a secret. In short, I skipped that megasphere.

Nikolay "Heretic" Kamnev

-------------------

MAP24: Burnt Guts - 3:53
EXE: Doom2+.exe

At first look, not a big map, but rather unpleasant for speedrunning. Besides the uncomfortable monster placement, various space constraints get in the way, of which the most unpleasant are the 57-wide (only one unit wider than the player) halls in the Blue Key area.
After taking the Yellow Key I opted for waiting for the wall that separates the monsters from the teleporting line to lower completely, and only then let them know I was there.
It may have speeded up their exit, but I'm not quite sure. :|

- Hitherto -

-------------------

MAP: Castle of the HellKnights - 3:00
EXE: glboom-plus -complevel 2

<no comment provided>

Nikolay "Heretic" Kamnev

-------------------

MAP26: Above and Below - 8:58
EXE: glboom-plus -complevel 2

A very crazy and chaotic map. I have no idea how this run could be optimized. Two monsters regularly get stuck in an unknown place, just like this time. Long story short, this is my first normal exit.

Nikolay "Heretic" Kamnev

-------------------

MAP27: Venom - 9:55
EXE: glboom-plus -complevel 2

My main mission is completed - get it under 10 minutes. :)

Nikolay "Heretic" Kamnev


-------------------

MAP28: Fortress of Death - 5:52
EXE: glboom-plus -complevel 2

The biggest challenge on this map are the four barons in the water; hard to get them when they get too close to the bars. This time I managed to finish them off quickly enough, that's why the time is under six minutes. Before that I couldn't go faster than 6:13.
There are a couple of mistakes in this demo:
1) On the way to the Yellow Key the two Chaingunners with the Caco between them take two rockets, but only if the Chaingunner doesn't notice you first. This time, he did ...
2) The monster pack in the Blue Key area can be wiped out much quicker and more easily. This time I screwed up a bit and almost gave up the ghost ...

Nikolay "Heretic" Kamnev


-------------------

MAP29: The Fountain - 7:10 (90% Kills)
EXE: glboom-plus -complevel 2

It's impossible to kill all the monsters on this map - not enough ammo. Out of 18 Cybers I decided to leave 17 alone. Could have taken down a couple more, of course; but given the Time/Kills ratio I opted for Time. Thus 90% (153/170) kills on this map is the max.
The idea behind this level is simplicity itself: first pick up the BFG, then come back and use it to wipe out all the monsters as they huddle together.

Nikolay "Heretic" Kamnev


-------------------

MAP30: Apocalypse - 3:40 (30MSC2HR)
EXE: glboom-plus -complevel 2

First exit, and as a bonus the dumbest demo I have ever seen. Not only you have to rush about around the hordes of monsters and try to pick out the eight Barons (to make it a Max demo, not just Speed), but you get killed in the end, to boot. I was lucky there were no Arch Viles, otherwise I'd have kicked the bucket sooner. But that's not the funniest part yet. The funniest part is it gets out of sync around the 2min mark when played back with doom2.exe v1.9!

--ATTENTION---
!!! This demo works in prBoom+, prBoom and Eternity only; with the original doom2.exe v1.9 and Chocolate DOOM for an unknown reason it gets out of sync on the second minute, even though the demo was recorded strictly with the DOOM2 v1.9 compatibility on!!!

Nikolay "Heretic" Kamnev
-------------------

MAP30: Apocalypse - 2:46 (300246HR)
EXE: glboom-plus -complevel 2

Everything depends on luck, on how quickly you can get rid of the Barons. If the first two, like the rest, could be finished off with just two shots, it would have been considerably faster .

Nikolay "Heretic" Kamnev

-------------------

MAP31: The Mansion - 3:48
EXE: glboom-plus -complevel 2

This time the Archie never had a chance to resurrect anything, I killed him first (although sometimes he'd die right where he is and not even react to the shots). The only thing I failed to pull off is to sic the Baron on the Mancubus; also screwed up the ending a bit .

Nikolay "Heretic" Kamnev

-------------------

MAP32: Nowhere to Hide - 1:46
EXE: glboom-plus -complevel 2

Second exit, first being 1:58. Unfortunately, getting the Cyber to fight the other monsters and taking down the Spiderdemon with a single BFG shot doesn't happen every time. :(

Nikolay "Heretic" Kamnev

Never_Again
Thanks for translation. :D

Impressive work, Never_Again! Hearty thanks to you!

Oh yeah. Never Again. Thank you very much. Some NY guys make me happy

Had the day off and spent the bulk of the day today watching these.

Great job guys! What a blast to watch! Thanks for the demo pack.

Yes, really nice demos, guys!

Wow great work! A while ago I went through many of these levels (can be found in miscellaneous demos if desperate), but your times handily beat mine! Loved seeing someone skilled beat these levels :)

I know it's bad form to bump such an old topic, but as one of the authors of Realm of Chaos, I wanted to express my appreciation to Heretic and Hitherto for such a stupendously wonderful job on their speedrun demos.

I'm sure I'm not the only mapper who dreams of seeing what a real Doom God can do with their map, and since I suck as a player, I sure can't do a good one. Before this, I had seen Donatas Tamonis do a run through my old Ultimate Doom map Elfstomp!, and that was fun, but these were jaw-dropping.

I do take pride in seeing that one of my designs, Map 23, took the longest at over 13 minutes, and that all of my levels took an above-average time to complete.

Natch, I started trying to think of ways to make it more difficult for speedrunners to use the techniques Heretic and Hitherto employed. We'll see if I ever put that into practice. ;-)

At this late date, I'd also like to apologize for some of the mistakes I made, namely putting the yellow door behind a secret door in Map 09, and making it so difficult to jump into a secret area on Map 23. I always played on Turbo in those days, and in the Mac version of Doom, you could toggle Turbo on and off from the menu. I didn't realize this wasn't available in the PC version.

In any case, thanks again to Heretic and Hitherto. It was a blast watching you guys massacre these old levels. :-)

Steve, it's a pleasant surprise to see our favorite map authors (like you and Christopher Lutz) visit our forums. Levels 18 and 19 (where I have beaten Heretic's records half a year ago) are my favorites from the second episode, and 23 is IMO the most impressive map in the wad. These old-school levels are tastefully done, atmospheric, and remain very interesting for modern demo recording.

I visited your demo page, SAV88, and I'll be checking those speed runs later today. Thanks for your kind words, too. Honestly, I'm shocked that people remember RoC or still do speed runs for it. I'm going to try tracking down Rob Berkowitz, because I'm sure he'd love to see them, too.

Chris Lutz is a great mapper. I always loved his work, and Anthony Soto and pcorf and many others. I used to playtest for Michael Krause. He was one of my favorites, too.

Personally, I've always been around, downloading WADs reviewed in the Newstuff Chronicles -- Double Impact (awesome) is the latest -- but not having time to read the Forum or finish any maps. But that will change soon. I have an E4M1 almost ready, and getting close to finishing a full E1 replacement plus a couple Doom2 mini-episodes of 4 or 5 levels each.

I just can't seem to get away from this game. ;D

SAV88, I watched all your RoC demos. A real adrenaline rush! I especially enjoyed seeing you reduced to 5% health at the end of the Map 19 UV Speed. ;) It was great to see you demolish Bloodlands, a cool map that always gave me trouble, plus your expert close fighting with Barons in Map 25, one of my personal faves from RoC. I was hoping to see your health reduced much lower in Map 18, but you pretty well destroyed that one. Very impressive work in the nukeage room.

I downloaded the inf-lutz demo pack, too, plus the WAD, and started playing through it last night, so I'll be able to appreciate the demos more when I see them. Very beautiful work by Chris Lutz, though E3M2 was shockingly easy. But I'm sure he'll bring the hammer down soon.

Probably the biggest disadvantage we had on the MacDoom side was our inability to view or record demos. We complained about that a lot with each other. I probably haven't played MacDoom since 2002, but I only recently started watching demos when I discovered you can do it with one click in PrBoom. Now that I'm watching them, I'll keep speedrunners in mind when I design maps. Specifically, I'll try to make certain it's possible to get 100% kills and items, or make note of why you can't in some levels, such as hub-based maps where you can see something that is actually encountered in a future level.

Speedrunning is one of the coolest things in the Doom community.

Does anyone have Phil's demos from the beginning of this thread? They aren't available on DSDA.

Here they are. I merged his three zip files into one.

roclmpsx.zip

Thanks! Some of his times are pretty close to the demopack ones, nice.

Here's also my map06 nomo/route demonstration mentioned near the start of the thread. What exactly the deal was with that barrel, I don't know. :p

rc06trck.zip

That barrel just wanted to hug you! <3
MAP11 Pacifist in 0:31

rc11p031.zip

Map30 UV-Max in 2:38 and UV-Speed in 1:50.

rc30uv+s.zip

Alright, ignore my previous UV-Speed demo and have this instead. Turns out the chaingun is all you need... Sorry about the wrong complevel.

rc30-139.zip

Realm of Chaos

Map 19 UV-Max in 5:41

rc19m541.zip