Michael Jensen

There's a lot to look forward to :) Cammy did outstanding job on the music and sprucing up the maps.

Sverre Kvernmo! He made absolutely amazing maps back in the 90's, and in 2013 he returned for a while with, once again, some of the best maps ever. Echelon is an absolutely incredible megawad and more people need to play it. He had a quite unique style, especially in his newer works. It'd be incredible if he made more. He made some Quake II maps, including a sequel(?) to Earth.wad. I couldn't find much else about him, although I didn't do a very thorough search.

Comparing gameplay of classic wads against modern only makes sense when judging maps with similar style, goals and focus. Maps built primarily around combat are naturally going to be ahead of maps which favor atmoshpere, exploration, worldbuilding, puzzles, etc.. Majority of 90's wads had a different balance of these elements, often emphasising primarily worldbuilding and atmosphere, creating unique places to explore, and modern maps with similar focus aren't that much different in terms of gameplay. Sure, there are some improvents, but apart from couple of unpopular tropes (excess of which in 90's wads is often overexaggerated anyway), there isn't much to improve. Action in the classic wads is for the most part completely fine and when it isn't, it's easy to look past anyway, since it isn't the main focus. I don't mind if a map has a boring hallway fight, when I have an interesting places to explore. Combat is only one element of level design. People like the classics, not because their gameplay is a non-stop kinetic action extravaganza experience of pure distilled skill or whatever, but because there are other things to enjoy in Doom, and these wads do them well.

I was thinking about what the fd meant and somehow never thought of that. However, according to the coverdisks contents file, the level was made after Plutonia was finished. The wads textfile says that it is a "taste of what Final Doom is all about", maybe that's why it's called that? There is a rejected Evilution submission on the coverdisk, nomercy.wad, a Map30 replacement.

On the topic of filling Requiem with previously released maps, Map23: Hatred by Dario Casali appeared, among other Casali maps, on a coverdisc with the October 1996 issue of PC Review magazine as Vault_fd.wad, around 8 months before Requiem came out. The only differences are a unique sky, the SS sprites, which are modified to remove their face and hands, and sound replacements for the SS and opening doors, which use the IoS pain sound for whatever reason.

New version that adresses most of the issues above, plus some other changes. (Don't read this if you haven't played the map yet) Deimos Command (E2M5) v2.zip

First submission of E2M5 for testing. This is by no means the final version, but I'd like to hear from others how it plays so far. Multiplayer starts are implemented, difficulity settings are partially implented, since monster composition is most subject to change depending on feedback. Deimos Command (E2M5).zip

I checked the maps I did and made a couple of fixes in 10 and 29, notably some unkillable monsters in 29. 01 is fine. By the way, could I be credited under my new name? M10 M29 Final.zip

Outstanding: 1. Drake O'Brien 2. Ty Halderman 3. Jimmy Sieben 4. Brian Kidby 5. Jim Dethlefsen 11 of the 13 maps between these 5 are pretty much perfect, some of the all time best. Interesting note, 3 of them were also collaborations between Sieben and Halderman. Mill is also co-credited to Halderman, but is not included, because it's mostly by Dario Casali. Last Call isn't included because it sucks. Very good: 6. Jim Lowell 7. Robin Patenall 8. Andre Arsenault Excellent maps with only minor flaws. All the maps from the top 8, minus Mill and Last Call, plus Storage Facility (see below), are not only great maps, but also exemplify the unique aspects of TNT. It's heavy focus on atmosphere, adventure, exploration, semi-realism and implied narrative. All this sets TNT apart from the other IWADs and most PWADs, and is one of the best early examples of the community taking Doom into a new direction and pushing it's boundaries beyond what the original games did, while retaining their general format (no changes to the game itself). TeamTNT later pushed this above and beyond with Icarus (the best pwad ever), where ALL of the maps contribute in some way, which elevates even the weaker ones. Good: 9. John Minadeo 10. Dean Johnson 11. William D. Whitaker 12. Tom Mustaine 13. Dario Casali 14. Andrew Dowswell 15. Mark Snell 16. Milo Casali 17. John Wakelin Solid maps on the whole, but they either aren't as memorable as the others (Mustaine's maps are very good, but generic and could be in any other mapset) or are lacking in either gameplay or visuals comapred to the best. Johnson's Storage Facility would put him in outstanding, but Quarry is one of TNT's weakest. Metal rules. Baron's Lunar Habitat: 18. Paul Turnbull 19. Christopher Buteau 20. David J. Hill I didn't enjoy their maps in Evilution, but Hill and Buteau made some good ones for Icarus. I thought about doing another list, taking the work outside Evilution into consideration, but only major change would be bumping Dario and Milo just below Sieben. I always thought their maps in TNT were among their weakest. Pharaoh is great concept but the execution is lacking in places, Mill is a great map with a couple of fatal flaws and Heck is fine but feels completely out of place in the set which really drags it down. Christopher Buteau would also rise near the top. His only other map is one of the best ever, perhaps the greatest jump in quality between two back-to-back maps by one person.

Holy shit, Drake O'Brien couch!

My map is about 60% done

Now this is exciting! Thank you very much.

Yeah, no way I could do definitive top 5. Here are the first top picks that came to mind. 5. Chicago - Chicago Transit Authority 4. Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Tarkus 3. Rush - Signals 2. Jerry Goldsmith - Star Trek: The Motion Picture Original Soundtrack 1. Yes - Close to the Edge

@LadyMistDragon While I’m not sure what he’s up to now, it should be noted that O’Brien didn’t just disappear after Evilution. He is credited with testing on Eternal Doom III (1997) and Daedalus: Alien Defense (2004!). The latter probably isn’t very known about, since the textfiles don’t include individual credits. The full credits appear as an easter egg in the first secret level of Daedalus’ second hub. Oh, and he was also working on textures, level design, models, skins and as a coordinator, on LUC, a Quake II Total Conversion by "Suspension Software". Basically TeamTNT members making stuff for Quake II. The LUC site hosted on quake2.com even lists it as "from TeamTNT", although another, newer site only refers to them as Suspension Software and. On TNT’s website, it waslisted under current TNT projects at first, and led to the quake2.com site, but in captures of the site after 8.2.1999, it is listed under "Friends of TeamTNT" and led to the newer site. The project never materialized, which is a shame, according to the site, they had a lot of work done and the screenshots look cool. I’ve wanted to look deeper into this LUC project, but never had the time. Maybe someday.

Hell yeah!