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.

One-Week Megawad (ONEWEEK.WAD)

Sam Woodman was bitten by the bug. Inspired by the Quake community, Doomworld was hosting Speedmapping Sessions on a weekly basis. Another site, Doom Center, kicked off a week in tribute to Knee Deep in the Dead. The intrigue was amplified with a contest where authors had a fortnight to craft an E1-themed level, to be judged by John Romero. Metabolist ultimately settled on hosting ten consecutive invitationals. The turnout was... less than spectacular as far as numbers go. He received an average of 1.5 submissions per event. The eleven that Sam did not reject were collected and compiled into the One-Week MegaWAD. Released in 2001, this Doom II episode is generally limit-removing but ought to be played in a Boom-compatible port due to MAP10 at the very least.

2002: A Doom Odyssey (2002AD10.WAD)

Paul Corfiatis released a ton of maps during 1998 and 1999 and then slipped into the background for a bit. You saw a few glimpses of his work making the lineup for the 10 Sectors 2 megaWAD and he also released a few solo levels as part of his Selfish series, but he was working on much bigger things. The first was as a contributor to the ill-fated Doom: Millennium project which he started taking to task in the .TXTs that accompanied his contemporary releases. The other was 2002: A Doom Odyssey, a megaWAD for the Ultimate release replacing all four episodes and featuring the collected works of eight authors... even if pcorf is responsible for half of them.

The Lost Seraphim (SERAPH.WAD)

Virgil started out making vanilla Doom maps including his passion project, AfterDoom 2, but he was also quick to experiment using feature-rich source ports. This started out with Boom in 2000 but accelerated to ZDoom for 2001's Lost Seraphim. SERAPH is a four-level minisode for Doom II and has some unfortunate realities resulting from the differences between the port it was ostensibly released for - v1.22 - and the inexorable progress of development. It's a shame because there are some pretty cool ideas in Lost Seraphim that contribute to an interesting early ZDoom era experience and the problems render it relatively inaccessible. Above and beyond the usual issues associated with Vick's level design, that is.

3-Tech (VRGL_3T.WAD)

3-TECH
by Vick "Virgil the Doom Poet" Bobkov

Ol' Maligheri wasn't much of a community project guy beyond his work with Plutonia 2, but he did try to get in on a few contests during his active period. One of these was 10 Sectors, where Vick had the faint distinction of being picked for the top 32 leftovers collection, 10 Sectors 2. The other considerably less popular contest nonetheless had him rubbing elbows with Erik Alm and Doug Merrill and might also have been the genesis of his Sam Woodman bromance. Though The Metabolist ultimately collected the results as the One Week Mapping Contest collection in 2001, Virgil saw fit to publish his one entry on its own during the same year. The fancifully-titled 3-Tech is a MAP01 replacement for Boom-compatible source ports.

Marine Army 1 (M_ARMY1.WAD)

MARINE ARMY 1
by Vick "Virgil the Doom Poet" Bobkov

When I downloaded this, there were a few givens. It had a huge warning label at the top of the accompanying file specifying, among other thing, that M_ARMY1 (a MAP01 replacement released in 2001) was designed for ZDoom and had neither solo or multi-player functions. The author attempted to shroud it under the cloak of experimentation and even went so far as to command a lack of criticism. All this, and for what? A "nice surprise?" The /idgames comments were characteristically descriptive and the information offered by Virgil himself was coy, to say the least. My imagination conjured the image of some sort of scripted ZDoom event not unlike the opening of Doom 64 where a complement of marines takes on some of Hell's finest.

AfterDoom 2: Deep Space Pirsuit (ADSP.WAD)

Virgil released a number of PWADs as part of his "appetizer" series (Black and White, Dark Castle, Ash to Ash) while trying to talk up his big project, the main course. As far as I can tell, though, Vick never actually finished it; fair Euterpe withdrew her favor and all we have left is the 2001 pre-release of AfterDoom 2: Deep Space Pirsuit. ([sic].) While the teaser only includes thirteen Doom II levels out of the planned thirty-two, I think that I have a pretty good feeling of how the finished ASDP would play out. Oh dear goodness do I know what the rest was going to be like.

Ash to Ash (ASH2ASH.WAD)

ASH TO ASH
by Vick "Virgil the Doom Poet" Bobkov

Virgil was one of many authors active during Doom's source port boom, starting out publishing stuff in 2000 but kicking off 2001, which dates the bulk of his material, with Ash to Ash. Later on he would contribute a level to Paul Corfiatis's 2002: A Doom Odyssey and worm his way into a Plutonia 2 map credit. ASH2ASH is a MAP01 replacement espousing the Plutonia theme for Boom-compatible source ports and plays decently in ZDoom with one major exception that didn't hurt my feelings. Suffice it to say, I'd already had my fill of grueling, Hellish ambushes and one broken slaughterfest came as quite a relief.

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.

Black and White (BW.WAD)

BLACK AND WHITE

by Vick "Virgil the Doom Poet" Bobkov

The ol' Virge got his start back in the year 2000 during the source port boom before having a fairly active 2001. His main claim to fame is probably contributing a level to 2002: A Doom Odyssey but there was also that one time where he "punched up" some of the levels for Plutonia 2 back when Sam Woodman ran the show and one of them made it into the final product after some tender love and care from Thomas van der Velden. Black and White, a MAP01 replacement for Doom II, was his first release but it didn't find its way to the /idgames archives. It would have gone down with Geocities had a kind soul not scraped it from the cold bosom of the internet. BW is apparently vanilla-compatible but I've been informed that the markers for its two flats need to be fixed.