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**The Black Parade** · (This post was last modified: 01-10-2023, 08:31 PM by The Black Parade.)

It has been one full year since Water Treatment 2 came out. First releasing back in 2022 on January 14th, according to the patch notes.

This is a thank you to everyone who played Water Treatment!
Even if you played for 5 minutes and quit on the first wall running section

It has been wonderful seeing everyone run these courses and putting in the effort to maximize runs, and even help others who might need a hand running the sewers ((The Suess, Alibi, Philip, the most notable people I can think of right now))
I again want to think everyone who has played and given their feedback on the gamemode, even the ones who have nothing good to say or for me to use. I of course want to thank Brass for putting in the time to develop a standalone gamemode, and take the risk on an already mixed event from 2020's Water Treatment.

I could end this post here, but I decided to look back on Water Treatment, its conceptions, the different iterations, and what's coming next...

Click on the spoilers under each title to display its contents.
Krampus (2016)

Spoiler

Krampus was the first official parkour event. It was part of the Old Lobby map as a disconnected area, which you can talk to Santa to participate instead of the Santa group fight you see every year.
Krampus was released in the 12/17/2016 patch (an xmas event releasing near the day of xmas, a very reoccurring theme with Brass Smile

). Krampus was a strictly linear course, get to the start and finish.

The goal for Krampus was as follows --

Quote:Krampus. This is the evil lair of Santa's Nemesis. He has stolen and stashed away presents here, your goal is to collect as many as you can, and attempt to complete the entire map. You get 1 gift per every 2 presents you recover here (if you only recover one it's a 50% chance to get a gift), you can only recover each present once per 24 hours. How fast players complete the map is tracked(if at all), and there is a leaderboard displayed on the map for the top 15 fastest clears.
This map can be a pain in the ass, and you should PLAY IT AT YOUR OWN RISK. It may contain images/colors that can induce seizures, so play at your own risk.

This event lasted for a few weeks, like a standard seasonal pass. After the event was over, you could still run Krampus via a command, but you couldn't collect anymore loot. Unless you were waiting to !ejoin, Krampus received little activity, and soon was removed 2 years later.

To be clear, I DID NOT MAKE THE KRAMPUS COURSE. Krampus, and the Old Lobby, were created by brass' cousin. I actually was not part of the community in 2016.

So... what did Krampus look like? I've collected a few screenshots of the various courses (they should be very familiar).

Krampus was split into 6 Courses. Each course got more challenging. Once you've completed a section, you will move on and gain a Checkpoint. You always kept this checkpoint until you exited Krampus. Checkpoints were not saved. Krampus was a test of endurance and patience

Course 1: Water Slide

Water Slide was a course in which you sped down a very fast lane of spikes. You had to jump, crouch and weave through these spikes. Hitting a spike would deal half your health. Each lane became harder and more intricate to figure out how to complete

Course 2: Platforms

The platform section was a simple parkour routine. There were platforms that moved and... platforms that didn't move. Pretty cool...

Course 3: Wall Crushers

Wall Crushes was a simple maze, but the goal was to pace your movement in align to the moving metal walls, which would instantly smash you.

Course 4: Elevator

It is easier to see what the course looks like in the Hammer Editor
The runner would be lifted by an automatic Elevator in which you would have to dodge each static platform. Simplistic but challenging to complete.

Course: 5: Maze

In this course, the player would have to traverse in a horrific maze, dodging lasers, travel in darkness, and not to mention... your flashlight was disabled in this section.
I at least have a soul and empathy when I make my courses. This is a truly evil course.
The yellow lines displayed in Hammer is the path of all of the lasers. You did not see the path ingame, however.

Course 6: Lava Tube

Lava Tube was the FINAL course to victory. Lava tube rotated rods of lava in a long tunnel. You had to dodge these rods to escape the tube.

Krampus was a short, yet gruesome test of might and willpower to complete. From Brass himself, it was a "pain in the ass" (although he's not that good).

Water Treatment (2020)

Spoiler

4 years later, WATER TREATMENT came out as another limited time xmas event. It was released in the 12/18/2020 patch. The above picture was a promotional teaser of the xmas update (2 out of 3 or those promised content updates came out...). The patch notes read the following --

Quote:With this comes a new obstacle course: Water Treatment. See if you have what it takes to clear all of the courses and gain a cool badge to show off your achievement.

Water Treatment was not a standalone map, but connected to The Lobby. Instead of a command or an NPC to access this event, it was attached to The Lobby itself (you can still find the entrance in current day lobby).
Water Treatment was directly inspired by Krampus, and used all the previous courses (excluding Platforms). Each course (besides Elevator and Maze) were refreshed with either new additions or new layout patterns.

What was the twist with Water Treatment?: Water Treatment was not linear and relied on your exploration skills to complete the map. The added exploration wasn't entirely parkour, and you can find secret passages and sections. At the end of some of these areas you might have found an "end course", in which you've acquired an infinite life checkpoint to try and complete the course. These end courses were the old Krampus sections
The goal to "complete" Water Treatment was to find and loot every Chest inside the sewers. Once you've collected every Chest, you gained a badge for completing Water Treatment. Water Treatment also brought back a record system, except the records also tracked the individual courses. After you've completed Water Treatment, you could go back and re-open "big chest" at the end courses. just like a pve event, it would go on a cooldown for a period of time.
Water Treatment did not have any unique items with the exception of the badge.

Other inspirations for Water Treatment: The concept of Water Treatment was inspired by the Destiny 2 raid Leviathan. Leviathan's architecture and the design was easily my favorite out of every raid up to that point, and specifically the underbelly of Leviathan was the seller for Water Treatment, using the sewer theme as also an underbelly type area of The Lobby.

Early development of Water Treatment
I do not have a lot of old Water Treatment stuff, but here are some images of Water Treatment.

This was a dev/nodraw version of Water Treatment (nodraw off)

The entrance to Water Treatment. This is the same current day entrance except there are lights.

Water Treatment itself. These sewers should be familiar to you

Old Wall Crushers

Ingame look of The Maze

In this version of Water Treatment, there was only one path, which lead to Krampus' Lava Tube.

Planned sketched of Water Treatment

With that, Water Treatment was very unique from other events, even from its predecessor Krampus. After the Christmas event was over, The Lobby was updated and removed Water Treatment (except for Speed Road and Wall Crushers, which can still be accessed through Easter Eggs).

Water Treatment 2 (2022)

Spoiler

WATER TREATMENT 2, as the making of this post, is the current iteration of Water Treatment (I'm going to referred Water Treatment 2 as WT2 from now on). WT2 is (essentially) a sequel from the original Water Treatment 1 version. It was released on January 14th of 2022 in a separate patch note, not belonging to any event or seasonal, and as an entirely new event.
WT2 expanded on WT1. It featured the original play area (with minor tweaks and removals, such as Maze and Elevator being absent, and Wall Crushers being moved and reiterated elsewhere). WT2 also included 2 brand new end courses. Death Tube (player is locked between two transparent moving walls and must keep up with the walls through a course), The Wall (a co-op course in which one player controls moving walls and the other player must use these walls to complete the course), and also returned the Platforms from Krampus.
WT2 also included WALL RUNNING. Wall Running used a more updated version of the D20 wall running Divine Mode. This added an entire new dimension to courses. Wall Running was used almost everywhere in the expansion of WT2.

As WT2 was a separate 40 player map, Brass treated the mode with some new content and quality of life, such as spectating other players, reviewing record holders' records in a 1st person perspective, a menu that holds your checkpoints, records and gems, and other updates to make the mode better.
WT2 included a Checkpoint system. Unlike a traditional Checkpoint, these were locked at first, and to unlock a Checkpoint you'd have to search for Water Treatment Beacons in "small chests". After using a beacon on a checkpoint, you can teleport and respawn their via the Water Treatment GUI.
WT2 had two goals. To locate every chest and find 50 gems littered around. After doing this you will be given the Trailblazer Badge for your effort, which also gave you access to the disconnected area, Agony, a very challenging 4 part course where you had limited lives.
WT2 featured "Trials", a replacement of records in which you teleported to the selected course to complete it as fast as you can in a single life. This also included a Trial for completing the "main way" of Water Treatment 2 (Death Tube path).

Why a new Water Treatment?: I was inspired to make Water Treatment simply because of wall running. Wall running came out inside the D20, and it would be a waste of an idea not to use it as a parkour mechanic. With a little refurbishing and only allowing you to wall run on specific textures, it became a very fun (and frustrating for some) mechanic.

The surface map of Water Treatment. Top half is WT1, bottom half is WT2. Top right is Agony.

There was actually a start of another new section to WT2, however due to the lack of map resources, it was never conceptualized out of this one area.

This area of Water Treatment 2 is actually a section of another event that is currently shelved, labeled as Exodus. It was an area that was fully fleshed out and I wanted the location to see the light of day. It also was an opportunity to reference The Lobby (warehouse area).

An area of WT2 (Shoreline / To The Shoreline).

Early layout concept of the expanded area.

An attempt to capture the entire map.

The Suess, avid WT2 enjoyer, created a walkthrough for all 50 gems in this video.

Philip, avid WT2 fan, completed the map goals and Agony in 44 minutes

Agony
Agony, the bonus course after obtaining the badge (or having the WT1 badge), is a hardcore parkour course using extremely difficult jumps and wall runs. Agony was not originally planned, but Brass had the idea to finally give the WT1 badge a purpose (allowing you to enter this bonus course without needing to complete WT2. Agony took about a week to design and test, a week before WT2 released.

Water Treatment has developed greatly, and has been a good way for me (and Brass) to experiment with the mode. So far, Krampus/Water Treatment has been altered every time it comes back, the next map is no exception.

Water Treatment: Voltage