finished first two levels. being waay behind par time. excellent. better than my old Doom wads 

i NEVER beat par times. in ANY doom maps. :P 

They aren't an accurate figure for orientation. Supposedly they were determined by John Romero who played through the maps as quickly as possible and then added 30 seconds to his time. More often than not the par times seem to be closer to speedrun times than regular play.
Naturally, since they are hardcoded in the engine, the nummbers will be even further off when playing custom maps. 

I thought I read somewhere that they were a math thing ... the engine was measuring the distance to the exit or something. Which, of course, makes them useless as benchmarks. 

i was under that impression as well. i mean, i recall some of the stock doom maps had like 30 seconds or something and there were keyed doors and such in the way which required taking long detours to get the keys. 

negje, you are wrong and necros is right :) Par time for the first map in Doom is 30 sec. That means that Romero is able to finish it in 0:00 second. That's impossible, unless you cheat, you can'd do it in 0:00 even if you noclip, you could do it in 3, maybe 2 seconds with noclip.

But par times can easily be beaten, check the screenshot: http://www.abload.de/img/doom0000c2byp.jpg

And I didn't cheat. 

According to the DoomWiki, I'm right: http://doomwiki.org/wiki/Par

Obviously, adding 30 seconds only applied for maps of a suitable size. A small one like E1M1 didn't need it, because it can be finished within that time frame regardless of skill.
Besides, considering how they developed Doom, something as sophisticated as a mathematical calculation for that is out of question. Not that it would be successfully applicable anyway - what about maps where the exit is right next to the starting point? 

I quote from your link: "John Romero generated the par times by completing each level as fast as possible, rounding off the resulting time and adding 30 seconds"

The "key words" are "rounding off". I don't know what's the round interval, but I assume it's 10 seconds (or maybe 5 seconds, but 10 seems more realistic). 

ok, I declare myself officially lost in z1m3
http://i41.tinypic.com/qmyqls.jpg
I believe Ive explored both levels of the map, see no other buttons, no red key. spoiler needed pls, thnks 

I've been lost countless times in these levels. It's probably a good idea to use the automap and place markers at important locations.
Perhaps there are walkthrough videos on Youtube? 

played quite a lot of *Doom* back in late 2005, not much since. are there any other must-play-wads Ive missed in these last 6 years pls? tips somebody? 

having too much fun with double-barrelled in z1m4 

I just went through The Ultimate Torment and Torture again. Played a couple of levels i missed the first time. Damn that thing is the greatest mod ever. 

There were many great maps in the last six years. Look here for a start. 

...looks like a good resource site. will try some of those wads. do any of them use/contain KDiZD stuff/features? played through z1m1-z1m8, liking it A LOT, how do I pls enter the 2 remaining secret levels, which maps lead to them, whats the idclev cheat? 

there are some spoilers on secrets here: http://www.doomworld.com/vb/wads-mods/40401-kdizd-secrets-spoilers-obviously/ 

what a level! z1m10 still to be played.
OT: as for the other wads played so far, I like the two "sinedie.wad" SINE DIE levels, look-wise. gameplay was too nonlinear for my taste, too much path finding and being lost. "ma_val.wad" VALHALLA level also great look-wise + great atmosphere and gameplay 

cool, i will have to give KDITZD another try. A wad I recommend is Deus Vult II. 

...looks wow
http://essel.spork-chan.net/maps/vaporware/
but needs an Eternity Engine. working link smbd pls? 

isnt it? 

it needs to be reuploaded 

After spending ages getting Eternity going - I DLed that mod but it is only one medium level.

It *does* include the cool gremlin plasma monsters and vanishing poo monsters from Torment and Torture (amongst others). Was Vaporware the original source of these enemies ? 

still havent figured out how to get to the second KDiZD secret level... 

I can't seem to get these maps to load.. :(
map z1m1 ;nope
warp z1m1 ;nope

No joy.
I have all the wads, from my originals, doom/heretic/hexen. So I put them in seperate folders ZDoom/Doom ..etc.
path=doom for each.
Took the doom.wad out of the folder and left it in root with KDiZD files. nothing.

What gives, please.
One would think that there would be -some- kind of install/running directions in the pack. <sigh>

Hey maybe I am running it correct but can't "see/recognize" whats diff' because I haven't gone far enough.. What should I see/how would I know? 

Put everything in the same folder, then run zdoom -file kdizd.pk3 or simply drag&drop the file onto zdoom.exe, and select Ultimate Doom (doom.wad) in the popup window.