Compet-n

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The Compet-n[1] database is the oldest website collecting speedruns for the Doom games, as well as a select few add-on levels (Hell Revealed, Requiem, Memento Mori, Memento Mori II, The Classic Episode, Alien Vendetta and Scythe); its demos and players have generally been considered to be among the best in the world.

History[edit]

Compet-n was founded by British Doom player Simon Widlake, probably in November 1994[2] (one month after the release of Doom II); the first mention of the coming archive appeared in October of that year.[3] The first demos were probably contributed by either Sven Huth (Dasa) or Jonathan Matthies[4], other than possibly the original example demos provided by Widlake (now lost).[5] It was originally hosted on an FTP server at a British university at brains.cc.rl.ac.uk, but soon moved to cdrom.com by June of 1995 at the latest.[6] Many of the early Doom "gods" started participating during this time, submitting a large number of demos and filling the world-record tables.

The original archive submission guidelines were agnostic to the version of Doom used for recording the demo, and the demos recorded on v1.666, v1.7, and v1.8 were accepted by the archive, though the vast majority of the earliest known demos were recorded in version v1.7. By the end of April 1995, Compet-n was no longer accepting demos recorded in versions prior to v1.9, so any submissions on those versions had to be converted to v1.9 and were accepted if there were no desyncs, which would typically only occur on any maps that received edits in the v1.8 and v1.9 versions of Doom.[7] Some of the demos in the existing archive were converted to v1.9 and retained, but over time, most demos predating v1.9 were purged from the idgames archive, leading to the current Compet-n archive being incomplete. Recently, a substantial portion of these demos were rediscovered on the following CD, along with the original versions of demos that were converted to v1.9: https://archive.org/details/hell-on-cd-rom-ocurrence-2. However, given that there is no log of which demos exactly were purged, and no complete history log of Compet-n itself, it is impossible to know how many demos remain lost.

In March 1997, when Widlake could not spare the time to maintain the site anymore, a temporary alternate FTP archive was started at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics by Istvan Pataki; it quickly became the main Compet-n site, and responsibility for it was handed over to Adam Hegyi in early 1998, when Pataki lost interest. Hegyi continued to maintain the site until July 2005.

Many of the veteran players retired in mid- to late 1997, but a wave of new players emerged in 1997-1998, obsoleting many of the older records; 1998 also saw the first ever Doom II Nightmare! run, done by Thomas Pilger (Panter), and the inclusion of pacifist and Tyson styles.

The Compet-n FTP site had to move again twice in 1999; nevertheless, 1999 turned out to be the second most popular Compet-n year after 1996, with many new tricks being discovered including rocket jumps, arch-vile jumps, glides, slides and more. All Doom episodes had Nightmare! runs by this time, and NM100S was introduced as a category in 1999. In 2000, Compet-n also started accepting cooperative demos.

Once Compet-n completed its second FTP move to compet-n.doom2.net in 1999, this domain would eventually be used to host the Compet-n frontend as well, and both the prior Budapest University of Technology and Economics URL and doom2.net would host the website over the coming years, with the latter domain becoming the primary host until the Compet-n resurrection in 2012. Various mirrors and redirects were set up to either of these two URLs over this time as well.

Results of PWAD additions poll.

In March 2001, an online poll was conducted to decide which PWADs would be accepted for demo submissions at Compet-n. The original accepted PWAD list would consist of the following: Hell Revealed, Requiem, Memento Mori, Memento Mori II, and The Classic Episode. Alien Vendetta would be added later in 2003.[8]

Compet-n remained on a hiatus after Hegyi's departure in 2005, although some demos were uploaded after July 2005 into the /incoming directory, until 2008 when the Compet-n FTP became nonfunctional. In 2010 the demo files archive also stopped working, followed by temporary downtime for the main page from 2011 until March 2012. Most of the Doom speedrunning done after Compet-n became inactive has since then been archived at the Doomed Speed Demos Archive.

In May 2012, Laura Herrmann (BahdKo) gave a copy of Compet-n site source to Zvonimir Bužanić (fx) with agreement to strictly follow Compet-n rules. The site was then moved and relaunched at https://www.doom.com.hr/ (archived 🏛), with additional database development by Jarmo Ranta.[9] The original, idle Compet-n site is archived at http://www.doom2.net/compet-n/ (archived 🗺). By 2015, Scythe was added to Compet-n as the first and final new PWAD since 2003; however, it did not receive significant demo attention on the Compet-n website due to lack of interest and the already existing competition on the Doomed Speed Demos Archive.

Subsequently the demo database was divided into two parts, traditional Compet-n requiring strict vanilla play, and a new Competition Doom with rule changes to simplify recording on modern computers, discourage cheating, and expand the set of megawads used. To support the latter project, fx and others forked Chocolate Doom into a dedicated limit removing port, CnDoom.[10][11][12][13]

After several years of dwindling activity, by late 2021 fx announced his intention to shut down the site in July 2022,[14] later extended by a year due to community requests in view of its historical value. In the Summer of 2023, Frans P. de Vries (Xymph) started work to migrate the site to Gamers.org, and on December 8 it relaunched at https://compet-n.gamers.org/.[15] It is however no longer actively maintained, not accepting demo uploads anymore and keeping the forums in read-only mode.

Notes[edit]

  1. ↑ The name stands for "competition" and is often typed in capital letters. See this Doomworld forum thread.
  2. ↑ Widlake, S (29 November 1994). "DooM (and DooM II) "Competition" Site." rec.games.computer.doom.announce. Retrieved 14 April 2024.
  3. ↑ Widlake, S (13 October 1994). "DooM (plus DooM II) Competition FTP Site." comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action. Retrieved 14 April 2024.
  4. ↑ Note: the current Compet-n archive lists a demo by Sven as the oldest, but this is based on the demo timestamp; due to archive migrations over the years, early submission times are likely not reliable. Additionally, due to the purge of many demos that were not recorded on version 1.9, our current Compet-n archive is not complete enough to definitively say which demo was first, even if the timestamp is assumed to be trustworthy.
  5. ↑ Widlake, S (25 January 1995). "DooM (plus DooM II) Competition FTP Site." rec.games.computer.doom.announce. Retrieved 14 April 2024.
  6. ↑ Widlake, S (20 June 1995). "DooM .LMP's "Competition" Site - The Files." rec.games.computer.doom.announce. Retrieved 14 April 2024.
  7. ↑ Widlake, S (27 April 1995). "DooM .LMP's "Competition" Site - Now V.1.9 .LMP's." rec.games.computer.doom.editing. Retrieved 14 April 2024.
  8. ↑  (8 January 2003). "The COMPET-N vendetta :: (8th January, 2003)." Compet-n. Retrieved 14 April 2024.
  9. ↑ Doom Croatia. "About Us." Compet-n. Retrieved 14 April 2019.
  10. ↑ CnDoom v2.0.3.1 source tarball
  11. ↑ Competition Doom, thread at the Compet-n forums
  12. ↑ CnDoom (Competition Doom), thread at the Doomworld forums
  13. ↑ New COMPET-N PWAD, thread at the Compet-n forums
  14. ↑ fx (4 December 2021). "The end is near..." Compet-n forums. Retrieved 9 December 2023.
  15. ↑ Xymph (8 December 2023). Compet-n revived on Gamers.org. Doomworld forums. Retrieved 9 December 2023.

See also[edit]

External links[edit]

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