MAYhem 2016 (MAYHEM16.WAD)

The MAYhem series has built a PWAD for every May since 2012 and, starting with 2014, they've all been megaWADs. The project organizers have changed but the general procedure is the same. 1) Pick a texture pack in order to give the set a distinct identity. 2) Decide on some sort of limitation as a gimmick. 3) Kick the event off in May, where the bulk of the level design is (hopefully) performed. In this particular case the merry month was used for planning and logistics while the actual work was done in June. 2016 was really a tale of two gimmicks but you probably wouldn't realize either due to the necessities of the final product's presentation. It's a 21-level mapset for Boom-compatible source ports and, in spite of some promising progress, still drug ass until it was uploaded in early 2017.

Mayhem 1500 (MAYHEM15.WAD)

Every May since 2012 Doomworld community members have gotten together in an attempt to make a megaWAD in a month. It isn't polished and finalized by June, though, and it might not even be finished during the same year. The 2015 session followed in the grand tradition of MAYHEM13 insofar as it wasn't released until 2016. It is also the second of the projects to reach the symbolic status of a full game replacement, occupying MAP01-MAP32 with additional bonus levels in the MAP33 and MAP34 slots. MAYhem 1500, like its forebears, is meant to be played in a Boom-compatible source port. If you play it in something that supports a brand of MAPINFO, though, then the secret levels will transition smoothly into the extra stuff.

Abyssal Speedmapping Session 5 (ABYSPED5.WAD)

The Abyssal Speedmapping sessions changed hands a couple of times but it's still going strong. At this point I'd go so far as to call it a Doomworld institution. The general idea is that a bunch of authors get together on a group Skype session and then kick off a two-hour limit for making a map. Once the initial period is up they get 15 minutes to change textures and pick music and then 15 more for bugfixing. Excepting chaps like Gus, who was notorious enough for taking an extra hour that doing so was dubbed "The Alfonzo Treatment". Session 5 was released in May of 2014, replaces MAP01-MAP12 of Doom II, and is meant to be played in Boom-compatible ports.

Abyssal Speedmapping Session 3 (ABYSPED3.WAD)

Obsidian is a cool dude who has more or less brought speedmapping back to the Doomworld community. I mean, they had the Doomworld Speedmapping Compilations going for awhile, and then the SargeBaldy Speedmapping Compilations, and then BACK to Doomworld for a bit before Obsidian started things up again. Sure, there have been other programs to fill the void since then, especially in places like the Russian Doom Community, but it's cool to have a semi-regular event happening again, especially if it means we get maps the average caliber of these. Abyssal Speedmapping Session 3, released in 2014, heralds the return of a lot of the Session 2 crew, though Osiris has dropped out to make Obsidian the only holdover from Session 1. I also see in the notes that Tarnsman was around but elected to do something completely different.

Doom 2 In Name Only (D2INO.WAD)

Doom 2 in Name Only arose out of discussions of Chris Klie's BF_THUD. After playing Klie's megaWAD, it's pretty clear that he took most of his design cues from the names of the map slots his levels appeared in. A thread by Hellbent prompted another thread by ella guro where the project took off and then stagnated until its untimely release in 2014 amid some controversy. The final product is a full-fledged megaWAD for Doom II that makes a claim for vanilla compatibility, but the sheer size of many of the submitted levels made for less than rigorous playtesting as far as technical details go. A limit-removing port should be used, at the very least.