Doom Wiki Month in Review (Issue #6)

[Quasar]

Everything that was awesome on the wiki in September:

 

Doom Pre-Release Material

• Machine gun - The fully automatic rifle weapon detailed in the Doom Bible and found in v0.3 through v0.5.
• ‎Probjectile - Tom Hall's idea for providing real-time enemy stats by firing a probe at enemies.
• Spray rifle - An idea for a  stronger sort of shotgun, before the SSG existed.

 

Books

• Final Doom: Unauthorized Secrets

 

Doom Eternal

• ‎Grenade launcher

 

Mods

• Redemption of the Slain
• ‎DemWAD01

 

Person Articles

We now have the ability to autogenerate mapper articles thanks to Xymph. Due to the sheer volume, I'm not linking these.

• Mike Alfredson (Use3D)
• ‎Jason Allison (rf`)
• Ryan Anderson (obake)
• Antares031
• Argentum
• Jamie Bainbridge (Super Jamie)
• Josh Baker (mrthejoshmon)
• ‎Jeff Banks (Pottus)
• Vladimir Bespalov (Demonologist)
• Alun Bestor (Viggles)
• Maxime Bisiaux (Datacore)
• Pedro Arturo Gomez Blanco (PAGB666)
• Jean Bon (Jambon)
• Brendan Bradley (Bucket)
• Mike Brincka (brinks)
• C30N9
• Blair Cahue (killingblair)
• Captain Toenail
• ChaingunnerX
• Stephen Clark (The Ultimate DooMer)
• ‎Eli Cohen (ProcessingControl)
• James Collins (an mutt)
• CorSair
• Ian Cunnings (The Flange Peddler)
• Matthew D. (Matt534Dog)
• Lorenzo Davia (Ultimate Lorenzo)
• Didy
• Steve Duff
• Dusk
• Matthew Edwards (Foodles)
• Eradrop
• Mike Ewer (Mik57)
• Darren Finch (Doom Dude)
• Arnaud Florian (Oxyde)
• Gaspe
• Gary Gosson
• Gothic
• Jeffrey Graham (psyren)
• Sebastian Graham (General Rainbow Bacon)
• Adrian Hanekom (DeathevokatioN)
• ‎Chris Harriman (Impboy)
• Pavel Hodek
• Alexis Jeanson (Roofi)
• ‎Michael Jurich (Death Egg)
• Jeff King (Egregor)
• Kuchikitaichou
• Ilya Lazarev (joe-ilya)
• Andy Leaver
• Damian Lee (Lexus Alyus)
• Conor Maddin (ClonedPickle)
• Glen McColl (glenzinho)
• ‎Mephisto
• Kieran Millar (Melon)
• Mithran Denizen
• Justin Murphy (KingKill33)
• ‎Nautilus
• ‎Nes
• Haggay Niv
• NoisyVelvet
• Dávid Norbert (NoneeLlama)
• Nub hat
• Nuxius
• Arthur O. (Archi)
• Olympus
• Brendt Pantley (Megalyth)
• Mark Pedersen (Macro11_1)
• Micah Petersen (Jaws in Space)
• Rand Phares
• Steven Phares
• Philnemba
• Brandon Potgiesser
• Jason Root (Hellbent)
• Ryathaen (scwiba)
• Zoltán Schmidt (Katamori)
• Paul Schmitz
• Jochen Schneidau (Angus)
• Scypek2
• Thomas Seifert (tourniquet)
• ‎SFoZ911
• Jeff Shark (Marnetmar)
• Christopher Shepherd (ArmouredBlood)
• ‎Jimmy Sieben (EvilGenius)
• Alberto Sposito (Ismaele)
• Andy Stewart (eschdoom)
• ‎Jack Stewart (Jaxxoon R)
• Cody Stirm (Butts)
• StormCatcher.77
• Ben Taylor (Dreadopp)
• Dan Townsend (sgt dopey)
• Daniel Trim (dt_)
• Henri Vuortenvirta (Icytux)
• Lee Wallis (DooMAD)
• Dietmar Westerteicher (Dia)
• Tom White (Hyena)
• Whoo
• Andrew Wood (Catoptromancy)
• Worst-vd-plas
• ‎XenoNemesis
• Zap610
• Przemek Zimny (alterworldruler)
• Neal Ziring
• Jacob Zuchowski (ellmo)
• Joonas Äijälä (Jodwin)

 

Previous Issue

 

Edited October 10, 2018 by Quasar

[Tristan]

Folks, if you see your name on that list of people, be aware that the script only handles stuff that already has a wiki article. If stuff is missing, feel free to add it yourself, just keep the same format as the rest of the list. Thanks :)

 

WantedPages: 3,164 - Down 338 from last issue.

[Xymph]

20 minutes ago, Quasar said:

Mods

Plus map pages for the remaining megawads in the 32in24 series (8 through 11, 13 and 15).

[Marcaek]

Can I make a request here? Would it be possible to add a category for maps which contain a separate deathmatch area?

[Xymph]

21 hours ago, Marcaek said:

Can I make a request here? Would it be possible to add a category for maps which contain a separate deathmatch area?

Funny you should mention that, as the same thought already crossed my mind while working on exactly those arenas (with separate map views, spawn lists and thing stats) during the past week. That category is now online with the initial set of relevant levels -- I still need to revisit nearly 200 already processed WADs and check for any further such maps.

Edited October 12, 2018 by Xymph

[VGA]

The Doomwiki article "Final Doom: Unauthorized Secrets" should be "Final Doom Game Secrets: Unauthorized" according to those official ISBN listings and the book title. Also, did the book include a floppy? It says on the title it contains detailed custom maps. Huh?

 

By the way, is there a site where I can find game manuals and maybe ... ahem ... abandonware strategy guides?

[fraggle]

On 10/13/2018 at 3:43 PM, 𝕍𝔾𝔸 said:

The Doomwiki article "Final Doom: Unauthorized Secrets" should be "Final Doom Game Secrets: Unauthorized" according to those official ISBN listings and the book title.

I was unsure about the title too (the cover has stylized text that makes it a bit ambiguous about how you're supposed to read it), but the Library of Congress lists it as "Final Doom: Unauthorized Secrets" as does OpenLibrary.

 

Not convinced? As soon as you open the cover, the first page of the book says "Final Doom Unauthorized Secrets":

 

 The introduction chapter says "Welcome to Final Doom: Unauthorized Secrets":

 

and finally (perhaps most compelling of all) it's listed at the bottom of every left hand page of the book next to the page number:

 

 

In summary, unless there's a strong objection I'm going to argue for keeping the current page title.

 

On 10/13/2018 at 3:43 PM, 𝕍𝔾𝔸 said:

Also, did the book include a floppy? It says on the title it contains detailed custom maps. Huh?

No floppy, I think "detailed custom maps" just refers to the fact that it includes a printed map of every level in Final Doom.

[VGA]

Ah, ok, I just clicked on 3 of those ISBN links one after the other and they all had the other name. But the joke's on them!

 

[lowkey]If you have it in electronic format please send it to me.[/lowkey]

 

EDIT: Tried to edit the article and changed the OpenLibrary link to this:

https://openlibrary.org/books/OL1015527M/Final_doom

Edited October 14, 2018 by 𝕍𝔾𝔸

[Quasar]

6 hours ago, fraggle said:

In summary, unless there's a strong objection I'm going to argue for keeping the current page title.

The alternate should be a redirect though, if it's not already.

[fraggle]

35 minutes ago, Quasar said:

The alternate should be a redirect though, if it's not already.

Done.

 

On 10/13/2018 at 3:43 PM, 𝕍𝔾𝔸 said:

By the way, is there a site where I can find game manuals and maybe ... ahem ... abandonware strategy guides?

Game manuals you can sometimes find PDFs of though I don't have any good suggestions. As for strategy guides like these, after collecting a bunch of them to document them on the wiki, I can honestly say that unless you're "collecting for the sake of collecting" there's very little point in getting any of them.

 

Guides like these are perhaps most useful for the adventure game genre (years ago, Sierra used to sell hint guides for their games which no doubt were very useful when you inevitably got stuck). For a game like Doom, not so much. Sure, there's *some* value in having a map and being told where all the secret areas are, but you'll find far more comprehensive information on the wiki nowadays.

 

A lot of these strategy guides are really low effort. This particular book dedicates only two pages to every level, each is very brief and by the end of Plutonia you can tell that the author was getting bored and couldn't be bothered to write anything. Some of them, like this one, copied and reworded bits of the Doom FAQ just to add extra filler. The worst example of this I've seen is actually the official Heretic strategy guide, which puffed out the book by including four appendices that are just printed copies of the text files that come with the game. Ever wished you had a printed copy of DM.TXT? This book has you covered.

 

They're a historical curiosity that's vaguely interesting and nice to have as part of a collection but if you're looking for something actually useful it's not worth bothering. Indeed it's hard to believe they were ever especially useful, even back when the game had just come out.

[Xymph]

On 10/12/2018 at 10:39 PM, Xymph said:

That category is now online with the initial set of relevant levels -- I still need to revisit nearly 200 already processed WADs and check for any further such maps.

Another 14 levels have now been added to the category with map views and data. Those 55 are all I found among the WAD covered so far, although it is entirely possible that I missed some. :) In that case, just add the category to the pertaining map page, and I'll take another look.

Edited October 16, 2018 by Xymph

[SiFi270]

Does this area from TNT map26 count? It's visible in single player/coop and contains monsters, but is only properly accessible in deathmatch.

[Xymph]

2 hours ago, SiFi270 said:

Does this area from TNT map26 count? It's visible in single player/coop and contains monsters, but is only properly accessible in deathmatch.

That seems like a special case indeed, and... I don't know whether it should be in the arena category. Opinions, anyone else?

[Gez]

I'd say yes, since the deathmatch arena is separated from the single/coop area -- you can't reach the single-player zone from the deathmatch zone and vice-versa, so functionally they are separate.

[Xymph]

23 hours ago, Gez said:

I'd say yes, since the deathmatch arena is separated from the single/coop area -- you can't reach the single-player zone from the deathmatch zone and vice-versa, so functionally they are separate.

Okay, done.