Operation: Lightning (OP-LITE2.WAD)

Stephen Clark, aka The Ultimate Doomer, made his debut splash in 2001 with his solo megaWAD, Fragport, but he had previously made an eight-map Doom episode called Operation: Lightning. Somewhere down the line he converted it to Doom II and added three more levels. While it was finished mid-2000, Clark didn't publish it until early 2002, once he saw some positive feedback for Fragport. OP-LITE2 replaces MAP01-MAP12 with the final map merely being an episode bumper to keep you from coasting into the regular Doom II campaign. It is as far as I know vanilla-compatible and should function correctly in the source port of your choice.

Barons o' Fun (BRNSOFUN.WAD)

BARONS O' FUN

by Esa Repo aka "Espi"

Espi is one of the most celebrated authors of the Doom community. I've only touched on his Suspended in Dusk, but his Back to Basics and level in Eternal Doom IV, "The Shrine" (MAP27), are similarly lauded. When we instituted a lifetime achievement award for the Cacowards, it was named in his honor. And it all began with this. Barons o' Fun is an E1M8 replacement for the original Doom. Released in 2000, the name clearly refers to Barons of Hell while also implying the presence of explosive barrels due to it being a take on Doom II's "Barrels o' Fun" (MAP23). You will have both, but the execution may be simpler than you were expecting.

bitebwad (BITEBWAD.WAD)

My first introduction to Andy Leaver was via Community Chest 4, as of this time the last of the CCHEST series as well as - as far as I know - aleaver's last published level. His authorial career began during the source port boom in the year 2000, however, with the curiously-named BITEBWAD, found in a .zip named DIGIMORT. The latter is uncomfortably close to the title of the first level from No Hope For Life, which Andy released in 2001. I'm sure that the two are related in some fashion. This is a three-level minisode for the original Doom, replacing E1M1-E1M3. At least, I'm pretty sure it would play back without the Ultimate features. Looking ahead, it seems as though most of Andy's non-community project works were for the original Doom.  It'll be interesting to see how his craft develops from here.

Blackness (BLKNS.WAD)

Samuel Villarreal kicked off his career with two sizable releases. DSV was a megaWAD that could be played back in each of the then-popular source ports. A sizable portion of its levels were based on Doom 64 maps, ever near and dear to Kaiser's heart. Blackness was released at the exact same time in 2000 and appears to have been intended for a bigger run. This second installment of the DSV series, however, only came out to a five-level hub with a final boss map. The author described it as "abandoned" and a parody of Hexen. I can agree with the first statement but I doubt whether it was initially intended to satirize or poke fun at Hexen. If so, then it would be amusing considering how much of Hexen is woven into Doom 64's DNA. This set was explicitly designed for ZDoom; owing to its relatively early place in the port's history, it is not compatible with later versions of (G)ZDoom. Jumping is absolutely required.

Warehouse (WAREHOUSE.WAD)

WAREHOUSE

by Pablo Dictter

Dictter's WADography is kind of a pain to sort out. He shopped some of his PWADs around online before uploading them to /idgames so the dates of creation are less than clear. Forget the fact that his first ten or so levels never found their way to the archives! This particular release has its own curious detail. Pablo notes that Warehouse won a Doom WAD Station contest. I can't find anything mentioning it on the current iteration of Larkin's site, though. While there are a few archive.org snapshots of DWS back when it was hosted on the now-defunct NewDoom they are pretty much identical to the way it's currently laid out. Minus the garish background, of course. Whatever the case, it's an E1M1 replacement for The Ultimate Doom. The author suggests that you use a Boom source port but Varun Abhiram was able to play it in vanilla.

10 Sectors Part 2 (10SECTO2.WAD)

In 2000, Doomworld hosted a contest inspired by an Unreal community challenge. 10 Sectors took more than 120 submissions from authors looking to create the most interesting Doom II level they could using - you guessed it - no more than 10 sectors. The premise actually allows for fairly complex levels as demonstrated in the official 10SECTOR megaWAD. It collected the thirty highest-rated entries plus two special mentions. 10SECTO2 is then the first and only spillover release. 27 of these levels were part of the top 32 for at least one judge. The illustrious Linguica hand-picked the remaining five to round the collection out to the mythic "complete game replacement" status. Like the primary release, this 2000 PWAD should be played with Doom II in a Boom-compatible port.

The Chemical Base (CHEMICAL.WAD)

THE CHEMICAL BASE

by Pablo Dictter

Pablo was another prolific figure during the source port boom beginning in 1999 but mostly from 2000 and on. He rubbed elbows with the likes of his soul brother Tobias Münch as well as the Abhiram brothers (Karthik and Varun) and even found his way into the Alien Vendetta lineup. Dictter made a lot of levels but something like half of them - all early works - didn't find their way to /idgames. It's no wonder then that his first-archived material shows a lot of craft in, if not making interesting layouts or room shapes, adding a lot of visual panache. The Chemical Base is a MAP01 replacement for Doom II and was released somewhere on the borderline between 2000 and 2001. The WAD itself has an older timestamp while the .TXT leans toward the latter.

The River of Fire (RIVERF.WAD)

THE RIVER OF FIRE

by Pablo Dictter

Pablo made a good number of Doom / II levels that are no longer publicly available before he started uploading stuff to /idgames. The confusingly titled They Will Repent (House of Pain Part Two) was his archival debut. The quasi-E4 styled map pointed pretty strongly to the level design that he would be infamous for in Alien Vendetta. As it turns out, though, he also dabbled in making levels for Heretic. The River of Fire is the first of these irregular morsels to find their way to broader publication. It wasn't uploaded until 2001 but it was available elsewhere circa 2000. It was made for a now-defunct source port called wHeretic but as far as I can tell the engine did not have any special features, primarily existing to bring the game from DOS to Windows.

DSV (DSVMAPSZ.WAD)

Kaiser has made a ton of stuff for the Doom community which is why he was the first person to receive the equivalent of a lifetime achievement award for the 2013 Cacowards. He put out more than a hundred levels with his DSV series, not to forget an impressive array of singles; was a common fixture through Community Chest as well as CCHEST2 and 3; led the Absolution team, at the time the definitive experience for PC users; took the piss during The Community is Falling 1, 2, and 3; and worked to bring authentic classic FPS experiences to modern users. He started out on Strife but eventually fulfilled the promise of the 64 TC with the Doom64 EX source port.

They Will Repent (House of Pain Part Two) (PD-TWR.WAD)

THEY WILL REPENT

HOUSE OF PAIN PART TWO

by Pablo Dictter

It's unfortunate to generalize an author's entire career based on a single level but Pablo Dictter has been most remembered for Alien Vendetta's "One Flew Over the Caco's Nest" (MAP21). It's not a horrible level but it can't compare to the masterstroke of "The Spooked", his MAP16 submission to Doom 2 Unleashed, Paul Corfiatis's 2011 community project. Judging by his AV work, his 2001 self had a pretty good eye for architectural detail but little ability to create interesting spaces. He made many levels prior to here but this is his earliest /idgames material. An archived version of his 2001 home page lists a bunch of stuff but circa the included.TXT in 04/05/00 he listed Two Gates - I believe a work in progress - and what I assume is this very PWAD. It's titled They Will Repent (House of Pain Part Two) and is an E4M5 replacement for The Ultimate Doom. Pablo doesn't mention a source port but I don't see anything that a limit-removing one couldn't handle.

KARTHIK2 (KARTHIK2.WAD)

KARTHIK2

by Karthik Abhiram Krishna

Karthik had a solid string of releases from 2001 to 2003, working with both his brother as well as Brad Spencer of Alien Vendetta fame. He even garnered a coveted spot in Doomworld's Top 10 WADs of 2002 with Congestion Control. Every author has to start somewhere, though, and while he never uploaded this particular level to the archives it was his first finished creation. KARTHIK2 is an E3M1 replacement and was finalized in late 2000. As far as I know it's only available on his personal website alongside a couple of sector tag 666 experiments.

MS5 (MS5.WAD)

MS5

by Malcolm Sailor

MSSCRAPS
MS1	MS2	MS3	MS4	MS5

The last act of the boy wonder was to publish all of his unreleased outtakes and incomplete fragments as Assorted Scraps and Leftovers. Uploaded to the /idgames /prefabs directory at the end of 2000, the intent was to allow them to serve as the inspirational springboard for any aspiring author. A handful of these maps were actually fully functional (if not realized) levels. He collected six of them into MS1.WAD for Doom II. MS5 has the distinction of being Malcolm's second release for id's original trilogy after 1996's SKULL. I doubt whether it uses any advanced source port features but Sailor implied that no serious bug-quashing was performed. You might be better off playing it in any limit-removing .EXE.

MS1 (MS1.WAD)

MSSCRAPS
MS1	MS2	MS3	MS4	MS5

Assorted Scraps and Leftovers was Malcolm Sailor's final gift to the Doom community, a collection of previously unreleased materials split into five different PWADs. The package was published in late 2000 and ranges from fully functional levels for Doom II (as well as the original) to deathmatch outtakes and aborted scraps. The majority of the items, which are found in MS2.WAD, are not "complete" levels per se. The author considered another seven to be fully functional in single-player, though. MS1.WAD contains six of them, all designed for Doom II. They are probably - mechanically speaking - vanilla compatible but the author did not polish them for release so I would play them back in a limit-removing port just to be on the safe side.

SELFISH2 (SELFISH2.WAD)

SELFISH2

by Paul Corfiatis

pcorf's Selfish series spanned the gap between his 1999 and 2001 releases and slowly metered out through 2005 before being collected into both vanilla and Boom episodes. The main conceit appears to have been the development of Doom II levels apart from a larger, collected work like The Twilight Zone and Final Dreams. SELFISH2 was of course the second publication by number though it appears to share the same release date as SELFISH1. It's a MAP22 replacement, initially uploaded in January of 2000, and as is the case with the rest of the series it has absolutely no fictive context.

SELFISH1 (SELFISH1.WAD)

SELFISH1

by Paul Corfiatis

In 1998 and 1999 pcorf dumped more PWAD levels on the Doom community than most authors do in their lifetime. In the year 2000, while he was assisting with the Millennium project, it was time to take a break. Enter the Selfish series, a run of single-level releases dating from Y2K to 2005. Paul eventually gathered all of the levels together as an episode and added some bells and whistles but for now I'll be focusing on the individual titles as I come to them. SELFISH1 is a MAP21 replacement for Doom II. While it would eventually gain an appellation of "Canyon of Lava", there isn't any sort of narrative embellishment to ground the action.

Ballistics (SWBLSTCS.WAD)

BALLISTICS
by Sam "Metabolist" Woodman

Where Ice Station Alpha got cut out of Alien Vendetta and remained so, Ballistics was removed from Hell Revealed II... only for it to return for the final release. That's why it initially made its way to the archive as a solo publication; Sam has an aside in the .TXT for an Andy, presumably one Olivera, talking about a few changes he made since it was excised. I don't know the full story of how it found its way back into the project but according to Woodman it was removed to make way for another level of his own construction. Given HR2's troubled development history, I assume that some of the levels just didn't come through in one way or another and SWBLSTCS felt like a reasonable alternative.

Mortiser 1: Lookout Base (SWMORT1.WAD)

MORTISER 1
LOOKOUT BASE
by Sam "Metabolist" Woodman

It took awhile, including three wildly ambitious beginnings, but Sam eventually hit his stride with this MAP01 replacement in late 2000. The Mortiser series constitutes his largest, independent body of work and spans five levels from 2000 to 2003. The biggest thing tying these maps together is the Mortiser resource WAD, a collection of works from Nick Baker also serving as the basis of the theme for the apparently-still-in-progress Testament of Judgement. The Doomwiki informs me that ToJ eventually turned into Plutonia 2, but in September 2000 the difficulty design doc for PL2 explicitly labels it as such while the text file for MORTRES (timestamped on 10/31/2000) continues to talk about ToJ as its own project-to-come. Maybe someone with access to the earliest dev materials can explicitly link the two.

Dataville (DATAVILL.WAD)

DATAVILLE

by Sam "Metabolist" Woodman

Dataville isn't the third iteration of the Testament of Judgement project but it is a likewise hilarious demonstration of his boundless enthusiasm. In mid-2000, the flavor of Sam's month was Hacx to the tune of a prospective new series entitled "Alternative HacX". With Nostromo's design documents in hand, Woodman was committed to building a new set of levels per the original plans. Dataville is the first and only fruit yielded by the Banjo-strumming author. It was designed for the original release but works absolutely fine with the 1.2 IWAD published back in 2010, which is what I used. The most important things to know are that it has to be played in some sort of limit-removing port and occupies MAP19.

Testament of Judgement I v0.2c (demo) (TOJ_E1M1.WAD)

TESTAMENT OF JUDGEMENT I

v0.2c

by Sam "Metabolist" Woodman

Take two. Or not, since this one's for the original. SW put out a promotional release of his Testament of Judgement project in 1999, then for Doom II. By 2000 he had switched gears, going back from Boom to the original executable and more or less disowning TOJ_15B. While still a single map replacement, this time E1M1, Sam included quite a few custom resources including a level title graphic. He certainly seemed committed! Alas; time makes fools of us all. Sam had more luck with his Mortiser series and shepherding the Plutonia 2 project through its early days, among other things.

Dark Castle (DARK_C.WAD)

Vick Bobkov aka Virgil the Doom Poet has two major claims to fame. He was a single level contributor to Paul Corfiatis's 2002: A Doom Odyssey and managed to worm his way into the Plutonia 2 project during its early stages. Vick got his start in the source port era and while his first release, Black and White, makes no mention of other executables, Dark Castle targets the Boom engine and more generally limit-removing source ports. Virgil's most active year was 2001, but this three-level minisode also referred to the author as an appetizer was published in 2000. Dark Castle is definitely an accurate title, but as they say, the devil is in the details.