[Sanek]

Total Entertainment Network (TEN) was a popular online gaming service back in the 90s, which supported many popular games of the day, such as Duke Nukem 3D, Quake I and II, Shadow Warrior etc. (remember TEN's section in the Atomic Edition?)

It seems like TEN had some kind of a level design contest around '96/97, and apparently one or two Sunstorm Interactive mappers made maps for it - I remember it was mentioned on the old Sunstorm site.
Is these maps still around? Is there a list of the maps featured in the contest? I know it's all DM maps, but at least we can check'em out for history's sake. B)

[MetHy]

I'm ready to bet Library and Anslem are some of those maps.
Apparently the author of Library is unknown (if anyone knows, let me know) but I've always thought the map had a Sunstorm vibe.

[Vagan]

Hope someone comes through (my backups don't go that far back in time).

Many fond memories of DukeMatching on TEN. We budgeted for an ISDN line to get better pings!

Great times.

[Forge]

there's quite a few Sunstorm DM maps from jan/feb '97 at CGS!.
I couldn't tell you if they were part of the contest mentioned in the op.

http://www.scent-88....res/6spires.php
(scroll down the page for more)

I know there are other 'Sunstorm' maps at CGS, but if the actual author could be identified, the map was listed under their name, not Sunstorm.

[Marphy Black]

Robert Travis was the winner in the TEN level design contest:
https://web.archive....is1/aboutme.htm

His winning map was Anslem X. The original TEN contest page is here:
https://web.archive....et/dukecontest/

Although she didn't work for Sunstorm, another noteworthy name here is the author of runner-up Quadstry, Crista Forest, someone who worked on the Shadow Warrior Twin Dragon and Deadly Kiss add-ons.

This archived page includes a link to a full pack of all 33 semi-finalist maps, but unfortunately neither the exe or zip were saved, and I've not been able to find archived mirrors of either. This is doubly unfortunate since only a handful of these maps are identified on the page, but here are working download links to the winner and the named runners-up:

Anslem X: http://dukeworld.duk...aps/anslemx.zip
Earthwar: http://dukeworld.duk...ps/earthwar.zip
Quadstry: http://dukeworld.duk...ps/quadstry.zip
Hoovrdam: http://dukeworld.duk...ps/hoovrdam.zip
The_Rock: http://dukeworld.duk...ps/THE_ROCK.zip

And here's one other entry I could find, Charlie Wiederhold's Paint Ball II: http://dukeworld.duk...ps/pntball2.zip

Since they were likely released independently, some of the other entries in this contest could possibly be ascertained by cross referencing the names of the voted winners with readme author names, but that's for some other time.

[Forge]

Marphy Black, on 24 May 2018 - 07:18 PM, said:

The_Rock: http://dukeworld.duk...ps/the_rock.zip

the one in your post is from James Duncan, not Luc St.Cyr

[Marphy Black]

Forge, on 24 May 2018 - 07:51 PM, said:

the one in your post is from James Duncan, not Luc St.Cyr

Yes, you're right. I'm looking for the right map now.

Here's the correct The_Rock: http://dukeworld.duk...ps/THE_ROCK.zip

[The Watchtower]

So this wasn't the Mapstravaganza, right? That was won by Jonathan Cacy with Himalayan Hell (a rather weak map IMHO), with Monkey Shines as a runner up (the map was made by Joe Wilcox, who was the project leader of Nuclear Winter, Deadly Kiss etc. in Sillysoft).

[TheDragonLiner]

Nancsi, on 25 May 2018 - 03:51 AM, said:

So this wasn't the Mapstravaganza, right? That was won by Jonathan Cacy with Himalayan Hell (a rather weak map IMHO), with Monkey Shines as a runner up (the map was made by Joe Wilcox, who was the project leader of Nuclear Winter, Deadly Kiss etc. in Sillysoft).

Isn't Himalayan Hell a map from the TC BDP The Gate ? Or is it a different one ?

[The Watchtower]

TheDragonLiner, on 25 May 2018 - 05:57 AM, said:

Isn't Himalayan Hell a map from the TC BDP The Gate ? Or is it a different one ?

No, it's the same.

[Sanek]

@Marphy Black thank you for all the maps and information! It's nice to see so much well-known names in the contest.
Wonder if anybody still have that semi-finalists map pack. :)

Nancsi, on 25 May 2018 - 03:51 AM, said:

So this wasn't the Mapstravaganza, right? That was won by Jonathan Cacy with Himalayan Hell (a rather weak map IMHO), with Monkey Shines as a runner up (the map was made by Joe Wilcox, who was the project leader of Nuclear Winter, Deadly Kiss etc. in Sillysoft).

Monkey Shines...isn't it also the title of Duke!Zone II episode?

[The Watchtower]

Sanek, on 25 May 2018 - 01:19 PM, said:

Monkey Shines...isn't it also the title of Duke!Zone II episode?

Yea, the author was addicted with this word.

[Marphy Black]

Marphy Black, on 24 May 2018 - 07:18 PM, said:

Since they were likely released independently, some of the other entries in this contest could possibly be ascertained by cross referencing the names of the voted winners with readme author names, but that's for some other time.

After some hyper investigative sleuthing (I searched for the entrant names in the readmes), I've determined that the following were also entries in the TEN map contest:

Dethroe (Robert Chetwynd): http://dukeworld.duk...aps/dethroe.zip
Waistful (Tommy Cagle): http://dukeworld.duk...ps/waistful.zip
Versus (Matthew Sundling): http://dukeworld.duk...Maps/versus.zip
Skyhop (Dave Fithian): http://dukeworld.duk...Maps/skyhop.zip

That's unfortunately pretty sparse for checking 20 names. Of course, the big problem here is that these authors might not have used their real names in the readme, and I guess there's the possibility that the entrants may not have even released the maps independently of the contest. This could mean that they're legitimately lost forever.

The following were also entries into the 1996 contest (not the later 1997 Mapstravaganza), at least according to their readme descriptions, but it seems they didn't qualify as semi-finalists:
0whirl0: http://dukeworld.duk...aps/0WHIRL0.zip
Bartmap9: http://dukeworld.duk...ps/bartmap9.zip
daclown1: http://dukeworld.duk...ps/daclown1.zip
Dark1: http://dukeworld.duk.../Maps/dark1.zip
Dukeair: http://dukeworld.duk...aps/dukeair.zip
DukeMan: http://dukeworld.duk...aps/dukeman.zip
Highsc: http://dukeworld.duk...Maps/highsc.zip
Groundz2: http://dukeworld.duk...ps/groundz2.zip
Hope: http://dukeworld.duk...6/Maps/hope.zip
KINGDUKE: http://dukeworld.duk...ps/kingduke.zip
outpumc: http://dukeworld.duk...aps/outpumc.zip
Pow2r: http://dukeworld.duk.../Maps/pow2r.zip
Quake3D: http://dukeworld.duk...aps/quake3d.zip
Station1: http://dukeworld.duk...ps/station1.zip
slaine3d: http://dukeworld.duk...ps/slaine3d.zip
TRKRSHL2: http://dukeworld.duk...ps/trkrshl2.zip

[WorkWandaWork]

The first contest was the only truly interesting one, and in that one Robert Travis handily won along with all the talented/invested folks people have managed to dredge links up to thus far.

The next year I won with The Haven and even at that time I was skeptical of the judges row.

I was quite pleased with my map, but there may or may not have been relationships undisclosed to my at the time naive gamedev psyche. So I never took, even at that immediate moment, the 2nd TEN map victory as anything but a Potemkin village of my life.