speed! speed! faster, pussycat!

[AdamW]

So, since Stubbz has shamelessly pimped SDA over on the Quake forum, I couldn't possibly pass up this opportunity to brazenly advertise COMPET-N to the masses. Yes, inaugurated back in the dark ages when everyone used Usenet instead of the so-much easier to use, faster, more reliable (uhhhh....wait a minute....) UBB and still going strong here today, the *only* place to be if, like some of us, you get your kicks staring at the same primitive maze with pixellated monsters in it over and over again for weeks on end until you can run through it a second faster than the last person. Strange people, all of us.

COMPET-N is the Doom speed records site; if you've ever wondered just how fast you can get through Doom, there are those of us who devote our free time to finding out for you.   . It's been running since 1995, and records are still broken every day. COMPET-N covers a range of skill levels (well, two. UV or NM.) and run types - from your standard speed and max runs to things like Pacifist, where you can't harm any monsters, or Tyson, where you can only use fist, pistol and chainsaw. Maintained at first by Simon Widlake, or S ;-) - as those of us with long memories knew him - and now by the erstwhile Adam Hegyi (no, that's *not* me. Williamson is different from Hegyi. Really.), COMPET-N is the *only* place to be. Well, not really. But it's definitely *a* place to be.

You can find the COMPET-N page at http://competn.cjb.net . Pretty much every demo - especially ones in the major categories on the original games - is worth watching, but for the impatient, here are some of the more spectacular and impressive demos you could start with (all in my personal opinion, of course!) All COMPET-N demos are recorded in the original game .EXEs, so they won't play back on some modern source ports, like ZDoom or Legacy. All is not lost, however - you can use PRBoom, which runs happily under modern Windows versions (and, indeed, under Linux), and is almost perfectly compatible with the original .EXEs for playing back demos. http://prboom.sourceforge.net . To playback the demos, simply put PRBoom in your Doom directory, unzip the demo(s) there, and run prboom -playdemo <demoname> .

The compulsory one to watch is, of course, Henning Skogsto's most recent 30NM run. That's all of Doom2, in one go, without dying. Or saving the game, of course. (You can't do that while recording a demo.) On Nightmare. In less than 35 minutes. Impossible, you say? ftp://competn.doom2.net:8002/pub/compet-n/doom2/movie/30nm3413.zip , says I!

Some insane trick demos: Marijo 'Sedlo' Sedlic's LV07-006: ftp://competn.doom2.net:8002/pub/compet-n/doom2/speed/lv07-006.zip . Yes, that's MAP07 in six seconds.

Also by Sedlo: LV24-034: ftp://competn.doom2.net:8002/incoming/compet-n/lv24-034.zip .

By, um, Sedlo again (some other people do have records, really :>): LV03-019: ftp://competn.doom2.net:8002/pub/compet-n/doom2/speed/lv03-019.zip . Can't rocketjump in Doom, you say? Pish and tosh!

MAP21 in 17 seconds, by Vincent Catalaa: ftp://competn.doom2.net:8002/pub/compet-n/doom2/speed/lv21-017.zip . Keys? Who needs 'em?

and some for Doom1...

E1M4 in a mere twelve seconds - with some sneaky jumping...by Adam Hegyi: ftp://competn.doom2.net:8002/pub/compet-n/doom/speed/e1m4-012.zip

More Doom rocketjumping action - E2M7 in just 18 seconds, by John Rimmer: ftp://competn.doom2.net:8002/pub/compet-n/doom/speed/e2m7-018.zip

And not to blow my own trumpet, but Romero's own E4M2 in a mere quarter of a minute, or thereabouts, by, uh, me: ftp://competn.doom2.net:8002/pub/compet-n/doom/speed/u4m2-016.zip

And as I said, these records are being threatened by a bunch of committed players every day. Can you say, 'replay value'?   . Thanks for the hours of lost sleep, incoherent ranting at the monitor, and breaking small objects, John...how can we speedrunners ever repay you? =P

[VolteFace]

Oh my god! I just watched that NM demo! That was
freakin' amazing! Although, Henning made a few
major screw-ups here and there (missing a jump;
twice on Map 6   ), it's wayy better than what I
could ever do. My best was running all of Doom on
UV in about 45mins, and I wasn't even recording a
demo.

I actually learned a secret I didn't know about too.  
In Map13, there is a building at the back of the level,
where you can lower a portion of the back wall to
reveal some armor (he was invul. so I'm not sure
which color). I didn't know that existed.  

[AdamW]

it's a blue armour.

the end jump on map06 is a lot harder than it looks, and missing it only costs 10-15 secs first time and 5 secs after (first time you miss it you have to kill the monsters in the pit or else they'll block your next attempt), it doesn't count as major in a full game run. And you better believe it's better than you could do...a good thing to do with all these demos is, after watching them, fire up the game and try it yourself =). doing that always gives me even *more* respect for the quake speedrunning guys, they're nuts...

[VolteFace]

I myself used to be a Quake speedrunner -- it's
actually not as hard as it looks, mostly because
there aren't any huuuuge hordes of monsters. Usually
4-5 at a time is all that gets thrown at you.

I was also a re-cam guy in the Fiend Run Light
movie.  

[AdamW]

cool  

i'm good at dealing with the hordes of monsters (that's why a lot of my records are Doom ep1). what i could never manage with quake speedruns is all the movement tricks - just can't handle doing wallruns, bunnyhopping, rocket jumping etc etc all at once  

[Stubgaard]

Hordes of monsters is what I deal with best too  

[Adam Hegyi]

Guess it's time I registered  

[Kaiser]

the speed run of Doom2 un-sync's in map02.

in fact, every single Doom2 map01-30 speed demos I get always un-syncs in map02.

what gives?

and this is with the Prboom, and Eternity ports.

[VolteFace]

doom2.exe

That's the only way they run.

[Adam Hegyi]

PrBoom should work fine with all demos except very few.

By the way, this is pretty much off-topic here (I don't wanna bring our stuff to someone else's forum, especially John's), so if you have any problems post to the COMPET-N Forum.

[Auran]

Quick question for doom 1 speed runners... in e4m1 i am sure i saw a demo where the runner got the red key through the bars! Damned if i can emulate that - help?

also for the runners - for quake1 is the "rabbit run" still the standard or has someone made vast improvements? the last demo i had was all of q1 on easy in just under 15 minutes...

[VolteFace]

You gotta squeeze against the bars really hard (not
just slam into it), and lots of the time you won't
get it at all.

[AdamW]

kaiser: you may well have a broken version of either the .exe or the .wad if that's happening consistently. The only ones guaranteed to work with COMPET-N demos are the official v1.9 doom2.exe (709,905 bytes, Feb 1 1995 - NOT!!!! the version of doom2.exe which comes with Final Doom, which is slightly larger and has a bug to do with teleporting. This .exe has to be used for some Final Doom speedruns, but NEVER for a Doom2 speedrun. The Final Doom .exe is 722,629 bytes, June 10 1996.) and the official v1.9 doom2.wad (14604584 bytes, Feb 1 1995). If you use anything else, your mileage WILL vary. Though as AdamH says, prboom (latest version) in combination with the correct version of doom2.wad ought to play back almost everything.

The E4M1 keygrab depends on a slight clipping error. If you watch closely, when it works the player is standing closer to the grill than he really ought to be able to. To make this happen you have to 'rub' against the grill by facing mostly forwards and running, so you just rub slowly along it. Sometimes it'll work quickly, sometimes it'll take ages.

As for Quake...the rabbit run is a bit outdated in Quake speedrunning terms now - get Quake Done Quick With A Vengeance, the third Nightmare skill release which completes the game in around 12 minutes. And watch out for new releases  

[Tygrinn]

Don't think me an asshole, but i find this speed-running quite an offense to the designers of the game. It takes hours (doom) to days (quake) to months (who knows) to make an interesting level, filled with balanced enemies, weapons and powerups and stuffed with traps and so on and all you guys do is try to get as quickly as possible from A to B ?!?!

For me, the fun has always been in getting killed in a level on every single way provided by the level designer  

Well, at least you guys have found your roots  

TG

[Adam Hegyi]

Nope, since DOOM already had par times built-in before speedrunning began, which pretty much proves id Software had at least some interest in speedy playing.