Deathrun started as a test bed of my "clean gametype" project that aimed at getting rid of all the stock scripts provided by cod4mp (_globallogic, _weapons, _hardpoints, etc..) to get rid of the bloat which i wouldnt need in other mods, at that time it was the upcomming reign of the undead 2 which at early stage was desired to be a cooperative campaign mod (there's just one video of "campaign" where players had to complete objectives to progress map and a few shitty screenshots taken on my wooden pc). The work has started somewhere in january of 2011 or late 2010.
The 0.1 version of deathrun was most likely made within a hour plus another hour to create first map for it which was mp_deathrun_darkness (it was named deathrun_test at first), the mod has been totally "barebone", one could simply respawn after death by joining a team via menu, there were no characters and selectable weapons at all (up to this day the 1st default character is the same as it was in 0.1 and every deathrun release uses the same activator model aswell).
Research for "traps" began a few days earlier - it was a simple map where I tested how player entities react to rotating and moving brushes, or both at the same time and how players moving on brushes react when a player hits the wall but the brush is still moving (I'm a sciencist :whistle: ).
I believe EHD has started making their own deathrun mod a few days later after a bunch of these guys played on iNext testing server.
The versions worth mentioning are (i'll just note the most important additions, A stands for "alpha", B for "beta",):
0.2A - was mostly bugfixes, and added deathruns own spawn point entities.
0.3A - added end round music and vision files, thirdperson camera aswell and a V menu
0.4A - 20 ranks, leaderboard at the end of map, the hated free run funfact: i was so confused with novemberdobby's ranktable generator that i took my time to examine how ranks worked in cod4 and wrote my own tool to generate .csv
0.5A - anti rank-hack
0.6A - an enhanced menu (the one that was worked on up to version 1.1), added selectable character models and a next map voting
0.7A - the introduction of sprays and HUD rework
0.9B - introduction of BH and admin panel, activator received XP for activating traps, I've annouced 1.0 would become public for anyone to host their own servers
1.0 - PUBLIC RELEASE (began tracking player statistics client-side and showing them in menu)
"Historical" maps that had a huge impact in making of deathrun mod:
mp_deathrun_watchit - the earliest community made deathrun map created by iNext.Viking (it was iterated 2 times by etheross to look better), i was testing mod a lot on this map, the times where we were experimenting with traps and one of them ended being insta-kill that got later removed from map :dave:
mp_deathrun_dungeon - a map made by iNext.Mr-X, my faviourite arab guy, it's been *that* map where people would vote "replay" all the time
mp_deathrun_long - the first "big" map for deathrun, its been made by me but also improved by etheross as i've been more busy updating mod than this map
mp_deathrun_takecare - nowadays a forgotten map, it was made by Mr-X and is one of my favourites up to this day
mp_deathrun_portal - a funny map made by rednose, in my opinion it was a lot nicer than the latest version
mp_deathrun_grassy - a second long map for deathrun, lots of fun, i think it was one of the "late maps" before public release, never enjoyed the newer v4 version
If something's unclear ask me in this thread :dave:
And now, after all these years, I'll write the real story of why deathrun has been abandoned by me:
After succesful but not hassle-free release of 1.1 i began work on DR 1.2, as most people of that time remember, I've had a crappy PC and during the development of 1.2 two HDDs keeping the mod files crashed (first has just died, the 2nd i've accidentaly broke myself). At the time of 1st crash the 1.2 version has been near-complete, when I had a new HDD and a backup of 1.1 files, i began working on DR 1.2, again and to no suprise that HDD died too resulting in yet another loss of source files. I then had yet another HDD and re-created 1.2 for the last time. During 1.2 developemt the mod files have leaked and people began hosting the 1.2 indev version mod on their own servers, after asking server owners i was meet with hostility towards me so i've ignored them, banned them from the upcomming mod and keept working on 1.2 more. If that was not again i was meet with toxicity on xfire and steam due to angry players blaming me for broken mod and "telling me in an unpleasant way that i should work much more and fix everything cuz im a *dumbfuck who ruined the fun for them* by *releasing* a broken mod and they didn't understand it's been an early leaked version, fuck logic).
Some time later the early beta of 1.2 has been leaked, this time it was due to one person who betrayed me. I was so upset I released 1.2 beta to public the next day. In meanwhile i've finally purchased a new PC and i was then able to play games newer than CoD4 as my old PC couldnt even handle CoD4 at decent frame rates.
*at that time i was still working on a final version of 1.2 mod*
..but the work has been suspended, many admins have rebranded the mod, removed authors from credits and calling it their own, it has demotivated me as fuck resulting in me not releasing the hotfixes package I made to address issues with abilities and achievments.
At the same time braxi.org has been plagued with DDOS attacks and there was much hostility towards me and others involved with mod. People expected that I'd work for free to make them all happy. The over-the-top expectations and toxicity of cod4 community has had a huge impact on my decision to close website and stop development of mod completely.
I should also mention that I got interested in game development and real life problems that distracted me from mod making and that I lost a few promising .map files.
I later started to work on 1.3 but I was yet again meet with toxic behaviour so it didn't progress too much.
Many months later I've released source files on github.
The End.
#edit: another fun fact: i got more than 10 .map files of unreleased maps of mine and a few other mappers, including deathrun_poison by Mr-X :dave:
