Many of you are probably not aware of the full story behind introduction of new difficulty which is nowadays called Extreme. First known mention of extreme category (unofficial) dates back to year 2020 although it was more about creating category for super long maps.
And yes I came up with the name.
First of all its good to understand how map pool looked back then. There were basically 2 maps which used to be considered as maps that exceed insane category:
TheGauntlet (released in 2019)
Ring of Gores 2 (released in 2020)
From current perspective both of these maps aren't big deal but in the past it was real challenge that gathered all pros trying to finish them in big teams. Later some people started thinking about making even harder maps. One of the reasons was that some players finished all maps available on kog back then (including me, Cor and Shoyyy) + there wasn't much to do for others that wanted to play only the hardest maps. Next reason are mappers who wanted to push skill ceiling even higher. Lastly there were some problems with rating maps (insane category was starting to be too wide).
Below you can find screen from conversation with QshaR that took place in 2020 and as you can see he wasn't interested in adding new category. From there nothing important happened till 2022, maybe besides map rerating projects which later were part of pushing new category to kog.
For whole 2021 and 2022 more and more maps were being released, maps that were harder and harder, maps that pushed difficulty to the maximum level. Some of them are:
Ring of Gores 3 (released in 2021)
Impossible2 (released in 2021)
KrumpleeLand (released in 2021)
Ascension to Heaven (released in 2022)
Worth to mention that in February 2022, we (testers) started talking about new possibilites for map ratings, points system and other stuff but now in official channel. It wasn't just one person writing his ideas to QshaR or later to Avo. It was whole group of people working on it or at least trying to do it. It resulted in first kog rerating project (never implemented) and first official use of Extreme category.
Below I will post some screens from official rerating file which is now outdated so there is no reason to hide it. Also note that extreme is used as temporary name there but as it turned out nobody even proposed other name later.
Moving back to implementing Extreme category, its second half of 2022 and everything is basically ready. Not waiting long, during christmas Extreme was finally added as official kog category for maps that exceed insane category. It was added on 26th of December 2022. Screen below.
First map ever to be added to extreme category is TheGauntlet2
First map ever to be made in purpose of extreme category is either RoG3 or Impossible2
Later more maps were released in extreme category such as:
Syre
Square of Gores 3
Spirits Path
Lord of the Rings
Thats where it ends but I think its worth to explain some things that may cause confusion.
1. Points for extreme maps - it will be changed in the future
2. Why some maps are still in insane category - well firstly it wasn't admins prio to move them there and what's more important list of these maps changed in the past (as you can see before we had both rog2 and gauntlet in extreme category)
3. There is updated version of rerating project (rerating 2.0) which also wasn't implemented.
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