NNC, on 21 January 2026 - 07:48 AM, said:
Btw. for me, the term "old map" means, something from the pre-AMC days. No way Red series (or even Roch 8) are old maps in my vocabulary, despite being created ages ago.
It's relative and interesting to think about. Here is the timeline the way I see it:
- prehistoric days, last few months of late 1996 tops, back when mappers were literally figuring out the pen (not even talking writing, but there were attempts); essentially all of the stuff that could ever make it onto shovelware compilations;
- late 1996 to 1997, better maps, larger projects (the first interesting TC's) and better execution of concepts start to come out, some kings of the era would be Ben Roffelsen or Bob Masters (unless I'm remembering wrong and he came a bit later); people worry about the Duke 3D scene dying soon;
- 1998 - 2003 I wasn't there to see it but apparently was the Dukeworld days, people had grasped how to do detail by then (some arguably a bit too much) and so you had names like Maarten Pinxten going around, some others like Mikko already showed early prefered adherence to the classic style instead of departing; people worry about the Duke 3D scene dying soon;
- 2004 - 2010 people have learned, some would say all the wrong things about series like Roch and BobSP (but historically those maps had to exist and are masterpieces in their own right), and cram as many sprite and texture colors and collage experiments into their design, at the expense of quality layout and clean structures, but as they play around with the expected format of a Duke 3D map more, a lot of maps emerge that manage to convey new feelings and/or tell a unique story each one in their own right, which in turn makes each new map release a big deal. AMC is the think tank and whilst purists always exist, in general everyone just does their thing; people worry about the Duke 3D scene dying soon;
- 2010 - 2012 the DN-R days after around the time AMC went down (but there had been a couple of years of overlap), everyone just migrated there but the spirit remained the same. More convenient tools have become the available standard, more programmers have joined the scene and as a result more ambitious, cleaner TC's start coming out. DukePlus in itself could be argued to mark its own era, and Gambini was chief; people worry about the Duke 3D scene dying soon;
- 2012 - 2017 I was on a hiatus and didn't pay much attention so missed a lot of releases I caught up with (most of them) later, but seemed like the beginning or at least reinforcement of the Duke4.era which also saw lots of new mappers pop up; maps in general start to find more mature balance between detail/structure/layout (authors develop better taste and appreciation as they get older); people worry about the Duke 3D scene dying soon;
- 2018 - 2024 not so many changes except the boomer shooter trend brings tons of new eyes on the scene, thankfully some turned into hands but by extension Duke 3D was never this viral in years and so the community started seeing funny stuff but also some of the best Build works ever; current EDukes and Mapsters are better than they ever were; people worry about the Duke 3D scene dying soon;
- 2024 - 2026 it's on now, motherfucker; people worry about the Duke 3D scene dying soon.