30,000 Levels



30,000 Levels is a mapset by Doomguy 2000. A spiritual successor to the earlier Doomguy's Warzone, 30,000 Levels is a jokewad that, as implied by the title, features 30,000 levels. Each level is an identical square room with an exit switch directly in front of the player, bringing the gameplay down to repeatedly hitting the use key. The WAD includes a new sounds and music, a small selection of new menu graphics, and a new ending. Each of the first 100 levels has its own unique song, but after that the song only changes every 100 levels. The ending is a message about the planet having gone extinct followed by a cast call featuring monsters from Warzone.

Originally, 30,000 Levels was going to be 100,000 Levels, but this number was eventually abandoned due to growing load times. Maps were duplicated up to 46,000 before the author began to encounter crashes upon loading the WAD.

Criticism
As with Doomguy 2000's last mod, 30,000 Levels was poorly received. Despite being a tiny copy and pasted level repeated tens of thousands of times, the filesize totals up to nearly ten megabytes and the mod has an extraordinary load time. While some were impressed by the fact that Doom could handle so many maps, this novelty quickly wore off as it became apparent that it was a mod with no gameplay to speak of. Though the author billed it as a test of one's boredom, most critics agreed that it wasn't worth even that. The scant modifications beyond the maps have been criticized for once again being juvenile humor, coming across as more irritating than funny. Despite it also being a critical failure, the author included several resources from Doomguy's Warzone Gold Edition in the WAD for use in the ending without explanation. This type of ending and some of it's scant modifications were used once again in the next Doomguy's Warzone that came out the following month.

Sequel And Spin Off
Heaven is the sequel to 30,000 Levels and prequel to the third Doomguy's Warzone that came out in April. It's just a sky level, with the player trapped in an invisible tiny box and the only way to actually beat the level is through cheating. There was however some controversy when it was later discovered, that the wad itself had a Megadeth song in it used for the ending in Heaven. This lead to the rejection of the sequel in the idgames archive due to the song being in the wad, it had been removed one month later since the rejection. As soon as Doomguy discovered that his sequel was removed, he then decided to reupload it without the Megadeth song, replacing it with a midi and has a slightly different file name. The secret level in Beyond Reality pays tribute to Heaven.

Millennia Invasion pays tribute to both 30,000 Levels and it's sequel Heaven. The WAD's story also suggests that it might take place during the 30,000 Levels timeline.