[FistMarine]

Hello everyone! I want to make an important announcement regarding the future of Duke Map/Mod of the Month Club!

As you may have noticed, I have been hosting the event since the start of 2022, up until the end of 2024. Over time, I became a lot less active and since the last couple of months, I was unable to meet the deadline with my reviews and I admit sometimes rushing my reviews just to make it for the end, before hosting the next month edition, give or take a few days in some cases. And in a few cases (mostly in 2024) even extending the current edition until the following month.

In the last edition from December 2024, despite the good activity of that month, I just didn't have much free time as of lately and ended up skipping my playthroughs of DN64 and DNTM, as I couldn't get anything reviewed and eventually forgot about it. Therefore, I apologize for my lack of reviews for DN64, DNTM, FM7X and whatever else I ended up skipping for those times.

As a result, I ended up not hosting the first two 2025 Map/Mod of the Club editions. And with March approaching quickly, I decided to let people know what is currently happening. I feel like I am no longer in position to host the event from this point onwards and want to let someone else to host the event from now on. I have been talking to Aleks recently in a few PMs about that and he gave me a couple suggestions, in regards to who will become the host for future Map/Mod of the Month Club events.

I decided to make this topic to announce that and to listen for suggestions from the community and what are people's thoughts on all this. Personally, I trust a couple members to pick up this event and host it from now on. Those people are the following: Aleks, ck3D, High Treason, Quacken. I apologize if I missed any other dedicated player/reviewer. Let me know who wants to host the upcoming editions!

Anyway, I want to thank everyone for participating in all the previous editions of the club! It was very fun while it lasted, not only playing through various maps/mods over the years, some of which were either brand new experiences or revisiting a particular game/map/mod, as well as reading the reviews of many people who contributed to the club and in some cases, even seeing their screenshots/videos that were occasionally posted in the topics over the years.

I will also say that I never expected this club to become so successful. I was fearing back in 2022 that it will not last very long but it ended up lasting for THREE years and a half! I mean sure, there were a few editions that weren't too successful but at the same time, there were a couple editions that were incredibly successful and surprassed my expectations! Which in turn, ended up very active topics with a couple pages and also attracted new players to the club.

Initially, Aleks was hosting the event from June 2021 until the end of that year and as per his request, I carried over the torch for the following three years. But now it's time to step back and let Aleks continue hosting or have someone else step up and continue hosting the event from this point ownards.

Note that I am NOT leaving the forum! I might still participate in the future events and I still intend to review DN64, DNTM and FM7X one day. In fact, in past week I have been playing through the FM7X episode for the first time and I will have a review posted at some point in the future. Whether these reviews will be posted into a separate topic that I will make, it remains to be seen.

Thanks everyone for understanding and have a nice weekend!

[TheDragonLiner]

Sad to see this end. It was only kind of activity I personally sometimes had when you hosted for mods I enjoyed and had time to revisit like Last Reaction/Water Bases or Shadow Warrior among others ...

[Merlijn]

Thanks for hosting it for as long as you did! Even when I was not actively participating, I had fun reading through the topics and all the different reviews.

[slacker1]

Thanks for hosting the mod club for all that time!! I had a ton of fun on the months I was able contribute and write some reviews. Life's been a bit busy lately so I haven't had a chance to participate in a while. I hope to participate again in the future if/when the club continues.

[Quacken]

Thank you very much for hosting the Mod of the Month Club. I had a great time posting my thoughts on various map sets and even entire games, even when I didn't end up playing every map or making mistakes. As for myself, I'm not really sure what I'm going to be doing. I really only ever played Build Engine games for this forum and so without someone else running things I'm a little bit lost. I would be more than happy to try making Build maps... just as long as someone can direct me to map making software that isn't Mapster. Also even if there was such a thing, I would be more often than not making maps for Blood and Redneck Rampage and not Duke 3D. And Blood's best map maker is I think XMAPEDIT, and thinking about XMAPEDIT for more than ten seconds causes me to throw up in the inside of my mouth.

Again, thank you all! And have a great day.

[Quacken]

Some more things, while I'm in the mood of reminiscing: By far my favourite month was March 2024 (Wanton Destruction and Redneck Rampage Rides Again). Those were all great fun to write about. March 2024 also has probably my all-time favourite review I did, which was the one for Waco. It's still really funny to think that this map doesn't have the same amount of casualties as the massacre it's based on. El Peso, Again is equally as gold too. The Oostrum Brothers' maps were also another great highlight. Shaky Grounds is definitely the best thing I've ever played in a Build Engine game. The production value is through the roof on it. It was also the first user-made mapset I played for Duke 3D, so you could say that everything went downhill from there.

[Aleks]

You did a great job hosting the Duke Map/Dod of the Month Club for the past 3 years, thank you for that and for stepping in when I didn't have the time!

I do hope someone else will be able to host the future editions of this event, as there are still a lot of cool old stuff for us to play! It doesn't even have to be every month but can be each 2 months or so. Unfortunately, I don't have that much time myself (in fact, I have only now got to check the forums since this topic was created).

If I may point fingers at someone to voluntarily volunteer, I would like TLOD/Nacho to host it, as he keeps finding cool and new stuff to play for his YouTube channel every week, so why not involve the rest of us as well?

[quakis]

I may not participate as much as preferred, but it would be a shame to lose these going forward. I still enjoy reading through each post during events that take my interest or go back to older editions once I've completed my own playthroughs. There's not much discussion for older works anymore and nothing has been archived, this club serves as the next best thing to encourage talking about Duke's modding history.

I shouldn't be adding more to my plate but, if absolutely no one else is up to the task or has the time, I'm volunteering to at least keep these threads going on an undetermined schedule. There's still the issue that I may not post much myself or offer as indepth of an opening post as Fistmarine for each entry, but the ball can keep rolling and go on from there. Concerning commitment, I've been consistently running and maintaining this thread on Doomworld for over 2 years now and have no intention to stop.

[High Treason]

Perhaps if nobody can do it constantly, then someone could simply be nominated before the next edition is due as and when needed. I don't have a whole lot of free time, but wouldn't mind standing in once in a blue moon if nobody else can do it. It's largely just cloning a template for the post and linking to what was agreed upon in the previous one anyway.

[quakis]

Since there hasn't been an update as to who'll be running this going forward, would anyone have any objections to me starting a new thread and keep DMOTM running? It would suck to see this fizzle out afterall. I have a selection of maps in mind despite a late April start while having enough time to play and comment.

Please let me know, if there are no objections I can throw up a thread soon and have one prepped for May when a choice is made. Cheers!

[Aleks]

quakis, on 13 April 2025 - 05:27 AM, said:

Since there hasn't been an update as to who'll be running this going forward, would anyone have any objections to me starting a new thread and keep DMOTM running? It would suck to see this fizzle out afterall. I have a selection of maps in mind despite a late April start while having enough time to play and comment.

Please let me know, if there are no objections I can throw up a thread soon and have one prepped for May when a choice is made. Cheers!

Wonderful idea - thanks for taking up the initiative. Perhaps you could start a single for April and May together?

[quakis]

Aleks, on 13 April 2025 - 09:11 AM, said:

Wonderful idea - thanks for taking up the initiative. Perhaps you could start a single for April and May together?

I considered it, but decided to keep May separate since I already chose the BOBSP series as a good place for me to start hosting this, and since it's 5 manageable levels, the rest of April should be enough time and also allow folk to place their votes in for May's session.

Thread is up! https://forums.duke4...lub-april-2025/