What Doom books are worth getting?

[Havok]

I'm looking for any Doom books worth getting excluding fiction. I'm not interested in books about Doom 3 and onwards, only books about the original Doom games.

 

Are any of these editing books any good? I realise some of the editing methods and tools will be out of date but I think the theory of how to create good levels will still be useful info as I haven't seen much info online about how to create good maps.

 

• 3D Game Alchemy for Doom, Doom II, Heretic, and Hexen
• The Doom Construction Kit: Mastering and Modifying Doom. Only the CD that came with the book is on Archive.org. The actual book PDF isn't on the CD.
• The Doom Game Editor. The CD on Archive.org doesn't have the book on it.
• The Doom Hacker's Guide. The CD on Archive.org doesn't have the book on it.
• Tricks of the Doom Gurus

 

Apparently 3D Game Alchemy is considered the second edition of "Tricks of the Doom Gurus" and a copy is included with the Level Master II compilation. So there's no point in getting Tricks of the Doom Gurus. However I downloaded the Instant Doom Levels - Level Master II CD from Archive.org and the ebook on the CD says it's "Tricks of the Doom Gurus First Edition" NOT 3D Game Alchemy and it's 896 pages long. I thought it was supposed to be the 2nd edition? Also none of the page numbers it mentioned in the contents of the PDF are accurate. 

 

I downloaded the "3D Game Alchemy" CD from Archive.org but the ebook on the CD is only 56 pages long. The physical book is 750 pages long.

 

 

 

Edited December 9, 2017 by Havok

[Memfis]

AFAIK there is barely any theory in these, it's mostly just "how to make a door". Don't expect anything particularly enlightening.

[Quasar]

Not to be antagonistic but technically links to PDFs of these books would be warez.

[Havok]

So there's no decent Doom editing or strategy guide books?

[Quasar]

Hank Leukart's Hacker's Guide to Doom was quite excellent for its time, IMO, as far as editing books go.

[Havok]

Thanks

[xvertigox]

On 12/10/2017 at 5:30 AM, Quasar said:

Not to be antagonistic but technically links to PDFs of these books would be warez.

 

Pardon the thread Necro but I'd like clarification on this. Is this still the official DW stance? I've just got a copy of 'Tricks of the Doom Gurus' and I've got a physical copy of 'The Doom Construction Kit' coming in the mail. Since these books are OOP and I'm interested in preserving them am I able to post links to pdfs?

[Capellan]

You'll probably get more insights on "what may or may not work in level design" from the Wad Designer's Handbook than from any of those books.

[Phobus]

I'd fully endorse the Hacker's Guide to Doom if you can find a copy. It's what I learnt from back in the 90s and has some fantastic advice on non-linearity, old-school balance and a thorough tutorial in basic Doom functionality in a range of outdated editors. The DEU guide should translate pretty well to Doom Builder still, though.

[Maximum Matt]

Don't get the novels

[Doomkid]

vertigo and I have been chatting a bit about this lately. The only acceptable DeHackEd tutorial, to my knowledge, is the one that Enjay made back in like 2003 or something. It IS useful to those looking to dip into DeHackEd, but the 3D Alchemy book has an awesome tutorial as well that might be helpful to someone who, for whatever reason, finds themselves confused by Enjay's one. (More tutorials by more people is a good thing, so long as they're well written and presented, which both of these are).

 

Due to their age and potential for holding some useful information/tips/tricks/etc it feels like a sin NOT to preserve and share these. Anyone who may be in the know, is there some legal loophole by which we can share these? Is there a book equivalent of "abandonware"? Maybe they can be shared if the publishing house is no longer in business? Anything?

 

Even if they don't contain anything above what's already been documented by users on Doomworld (and elsewhere) over the years, I just don't like the idea of letting the "ancient tomes of Doom modding" be lost to time and go completely to waste for no good reason. To be very clear, NO ONE is buying these books new anymore - Hell, no one is buying them period, other than vertigo, near as I can tell.

 

Before doing anything I'd like others to weigh in.

[Doom_Dude]

5 hours ago, Maximum Matt said:

Don't get the novels

 

I saw one of those yesterday in a charity shop. I didn't bother to buy it.

[Jon]

The first doom novel is trashy fun. 

 

On my long term goals list is scanning a copy of 3d game alchemy and putting it on archive.org.  The PDF on the CD is only for some chapters that didn't actually make it into the book - stuff about hexen acs for example.  But the book itself is only useful as a historical curiosity and not superb as a modern day editing guide. 

[Vermil]

I've got all four original Doom novels, though I've only read the first two.

 

A pity someone I leant the second book to back in the day wrote all over the edges in pen :(

[The Nate]

How about A pokol kapui and Tisztítótűz?

[Bauul]

On 8/13/2019 at 12:42 AM, xvertigox said:

Pardon the thread Necro but I'd like clarification on this. Is this still the official DW stance? I've just got a copy of 'Tricks of the Doom Gurus' and I've got a physical copy of 'The Doom Construction Kit' coming in the mail. Since these books are OOP and I'm interested in preserving them am I able to post links to pdfs?

 

As someone who grew up reading the Doom Construction Kit many, many times as a kid I would be absolutely fascinated to read a PDF scan of it, if you were willing.  From what I remember, it focuses very much on the tools at the time (DEU, Dehacked, DMUS etc.) so from a historical point of view should be extremely interesting to compare to modern approaches. 

 

I also recall it used famous wads and mods of the time as case studies too - I specifically remember it calling out things like Aliens TC and another, that annoyingly I can't remember it's name now.  Cloud Castle?  Sky Castle?  It was a biege/brown castle level with a bright blue skybox that gave the impression of being suspended in the skies.  Anyway, it was a good read and my version was very well-thumbed the last time I remember seeing it.

[xvertigox]

4 hours ago, Jon said:

The first doom novel is trashy fun. 

 

On my long term goals list is scanning a copy of 3d game alchemy and putting it on archive.org.  The PDF on the CD is only for some chapters that didn't actually make it into the book - stuff about hexen acs for example.  But the book itself is only useful as a historical curiosity and not superb as a modern day editing guide. 

 

I agree with the Doom novel, I'm reading through it currently after being on a big Lovecraft kick.

 

I'm also wanting to digitize copies of these books and place them on archive.org. I've ordered all the books from the editing section on doomwiki (bar the japanese one) as well as The Lost Episodes of Doom book (fuck, I love that cover). I'm not sure what the best method is to actually digitize them, I understand archive.org has some pretty robust rigs for this purpose which I obviously have no access to. I'm going to talk to some friends who are still at Auckland Uni or have connections there to see if they can be any assistance.

 

Quote

As someone who grew up reading the Doom Construction Kit many, many times as a kid I would be absolutely fascinated to read a PDF scan of it, if you were willing.  From what I remember, it focuses very much on the tools at the time (DEU, Dehacked, DMUS etc.) so from a historical point of view should be extremely interesting to compare to modern approaches. 

 

I fully agree. Assuming all the books turn up (shipping from the US to New Zealand) I'll be digitizing them one way or another. They need to be preserved and shared - whether or not the links will be able to be shared on Doomworld forums is another question.

[Jon]

Yeah if I'm going to scan it myself step one will be to cut off the spine so I can feed the pages into a belt driven scanner with a hopper. But I have some contacts at archive.org so I might see if I can send them a copy of the book 

[Koko Ricky]

None, because, they're exceedingly poorly written. I own the first three just because.

[Gokuma]

On 8/14/2019 at 2:23 PM, Bauul said:

 

As someone who grew up reading the Doom Construction Kit many, many times as a kid I would be absolutely fascinated to read a PDF scan of it, if you were willing.  From what I remember, it focuses very much on the tools at the time (DEU, Dehacked, DMUS etc.) so from a historical point of view should be extremely interesting to compare to modern approaches. 

 

I also recall it used famous wads and mods of the time as case studies too - I specifically remember it calling out things like Aliens TC and another, that annoyingly I can't remember it's name now.  Cloud Castle?  Sky Castle?  It was a biege/brown castle level with a bright blue skybox that gave the impression of being suspended in the skies.  Anyway, it was a good read and my version was very well-thumbed the last time I remember seeing it.

 

Was that sky castle by any chance an MC Escher work of art experiment in the form of a vanilla Doom map, made by the Aliens TC guy?  I have it on the 3D Alchemy CD.   It's map02 of Nemesis.wad.   Crazy illusion of solid curved arches as well as some less solid onesin map02 and solid diagonal girders in map01.  Even looking around with modern freelook it still works.  Want me to upload it to mediafire?

[Jon]

 

5 hours ago, Gokuma said:

 

Was that sky castle by any chance an MC Escher work of art experiment in the form of a vanilla Doom map, made by the Aliens TC guy?  I have it on the 3D Alchemy CD.   It's map02 of Nemesis.wad.   Crazy illusion of solid curved arches as well as some less solid onesin map02 and solid diagonal girders in map01.  Even looking around with modern freelook it still works.  Want me to upload it to mediafire?

 

Its on idgames

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/m-o/nemisis

 

The full CD is

https://archive.org/details/3dGameAlchemy

[Diabolución]

On 8/15/2019 at 12:16 AM, xvertigox said:

as well as The Lost Episodes of Doom book (fuck, I love that cover). 

 

Just by curiosity, is it either with or without floppy disk? Mine came without, which is unfortunate.

[xvertigox]

It'll be without but the wad is easy enough to find.

[CyberDreams]

On 8/18/2019 at 10:01 PM, xvertigox said:

It'll be without but the wad is easy enough to find.

Yeah if you are buying them online (like on ebay or something) it seems like most come without the disk/disks. I've tried to find 'em with the actual disks but then the price is usually doubled or tripled (or they are sealed copies that are expensive too). I like to have everything complete so i don't own any of the editing books (yet). 

 

Also i've been looking up the Doom novels and i've seen some of the first edition ones go for crazy ass prices online...hell i'd buy 'em if i ever saw them for a reasonable price. TBH though, everything online tends to be severely overpriced. Anyway's the novels do sound like they'd be at least a decent "cheesy" read. I don't know why most of you guys passed them up unless they were expensive or something. You must not be into collecting haha!

 

 

 

 

 

[xvertigox]

I'm reading the first Doom novel at the moment and I can confirm it's a decent and definitely cheesy read. For me, it's not really a page turner but it's definitely cool to check out.

 

I do like collecting stuff but I'm more of a digital hoard. I might need to butcher these books to get good scans but in the end it'll be worth it.

[reflex17]

I had "Tricks of the Doom Gurus" back in the day. It would be a decent reference if you had it, but there's nothing in there that you can't find online in a few minutes. Like others have said it discusses the basics and cuts you loose. If you've already made maps and you're looking for 'advanced techniques', there's not much in the book to be found.

[xvertigox]

The books have started to arrive! :D Sorry about first pic being rotated - I fixed it but imgur refucked it and wouldn't let me edit it back but meh, whatever.

 

 

Spoiler

 

[Maximum Matt]

[beanz]

While only partially about Doom, Masters of Doom by David Kushner is an amazing book, and is worth a read if you have any kind of interest in retro shooters.

[xvertigox]

ye boi
DCK came with the CD too

 

Spoiler