Opinions on the Cacowards this year?

I can hardly remember playing anything that won this year except for Syringe. I really need to play Three is a Crowd though for sure.

Sure no DBP mentions but it's not like they're owed any <insert Doom community political intrigue here lel>. Unfortunately just because a lot of them are made and a lot of work goes into them doesn't mean that they're entitled to anything by the Cacowards committee, however much faith and authority you wish to place there because the real Cacowards were the friends we made along the way. Personally I do think they still deserve a mention as an impressive lineup of "coffee break mapsets" or whatever while projects that no one has even played and may never see the light of day get mentioned every year, heh. I suggest the use of more magentas and cyans in the color palette of future DBPs. 

The DBPs don't need an outside source for validation, and neither do you fellow Doom Slayer because a believing heart is your magic!

Three is a Crowd is the only thing I'm looking to experience in full and I believe Joe recommended it to me as well. I also agree with Doomware. I don't have anything to necessarily disagree about but that's probably only because I haven't played them and only saw the screenshots and thought "yeah, that's par for the course."

EDIT: Also discrediting any winner sounds pretty rude, yeah

Thanks very much for the kind words, fellas. If you guys end up playing through RR2, I hope you enjoy it!

DBP: Cacoward Bait Edition. All maps must take place on floating islands in a void and have 1000+ enemies. Being able to beat your own map is optional.

My thoughts (in case you couldn't tell) is that just like the Oscars, the judges have a favourite style. I'm sure these were the best maps of the year in that style, but it does seem like anything that's not in that style (neon slaughter or atmospheric storytelling) tends to get snubbed.

I thought briefly of streaming myself playing some of these cacoward winners. I'm glad I didnt because I was not having much fun, and ended up saying some pretty mean things that I'd probably need to explain later.

I started with what looked the coolest to me. Every winner and runner up I hoped I would like really annoyed me. I ended up quitting before completing all of the ones I played. Some of the wads didn't even hold my attention for more than three minutes.

Good gameplay must have a double meaning over at doomworld. I don't see the general Doom player base liking a lot of these winners at all. There's a lot of celebration over the amount of time and effort and attention to detail some of these mappers put into their work, but a lot of it is just shiny glossy finish on what is either grindy, doesnt have enough items, is confusing to explore, or is intentionally designed to kill you (usually more than one of these things.)

There's a lot of love in the doom community for sure. You need a tugboat to get through the monsoon of heart reacts some of these wads are drenched in. But I'd be curious to watch the average Doom player play them on stream and watch their real live reactions as they play some of this. I watch this very carefully when I watch people play our DBPs. You can tell players are having fun with pure bliss of natural refined Doom monster shooting. You can see it in people's reactions when they stream themselves playing it. The things I've seen people rage at in our DBPs are far inferior to multi-stacked megaphone loudness of the fun-neglecting level design choices I experienced tonight. Outside of the occasional bugs, I rarely ever see players get frustrated with our DBPs and they're always engaged. If any of you guys made some of these cacoward-winning maps for DBP, you'd have some serious notes to address.

I'll have to go back and play some of the less shiny ultr-a-fabulous ones but I hate when Doom isn't fun and I need a break.