Topic: My contribution to newbie Descenters...

[D2Disciple]

... Is an absolute beginner's guide to Descent, called "The Descentials."

It's going to be a complete handbook to the series, both singleplayer and multiplayer, to introduce newcomers to the series. It's not a full walkthrough, but it will explain all the games, features, robots, weapons, tactics, and strategies for the games. I'm working on the rough draft now - Version 0.8 - and I will be adding lots of screenshots, graphics, and making general edits and fixes for Version 0.9, at which time I'll be seeking feedback and criticism in order to expand and improve the guide for a full release (1.0).

Today I started work on it...



... I couldn't even hack out that many words in one day on an overdue paper in college. 

[-<WillyP>-]

Heck, I don't think I even know that many words... 

[PyroJockey]

Reference material

http://amzn.com/0761500413

http://amzn.com/0761502912 

http://amzn.com/1566868440

[Scyphi]

Wow...there were official strategy guides? Huh! Never knew that. 

[PyroJockey]

Wow...there were official strategy guides? Huh! Never knew that. 

Yeah, never used them myself but may buy a set just to add to my Descent collection.

[Kaiaatzl]

I have old copies of Descent 1 and Descent 3's guides that I'd be willing to sell except they're missing the covers and a lot of pages.

[TechPro]

Wow...there were official strategy guides? Huh! Never knew that. 

I always kept that stuff on my bookshelf.  I take it you didn't look there? 

[Scyphi]

I knew you had installation manuals for the games, but not strategy guides, which are not quite the same thing.

Though now that I think about it, the manual that came with your copy of the Definitive Collection probably had the strategy guides tacked onto it, and I just never bothered to read through it...

[TechPro]

Yup

[Kaiaatzl]

Those must have been some big manuals then.
I still want to see D2's some time, even though I'd imagine it's mostly the same as D1's.

[D2Disciple]

I would imagine writing (or following!) a walkthrough to Descent II would be freakishly hard...

 "Go left, then down, then into the big room with the three doors, take the rightmost door, travel to your second left, then shoot a guided missile through the grate and hit the switch to open a forcefield on the opposite side of the mine, then go right, left, down, second right, up-left, and down-left to get the earthshaker..."

[-<WillyP>-]

There's some of them on the Guides forum, check there.

Descent Guides Project Forum - Index

Also Descentiapedia still exists, but I had to close it down as it had gotten hacked into and there are tens of thousands of spam registrations that need to be cleaned up. I know I should do this, just don't seem to have the ambition.

[-<WillyP>-]

DescentiaPedia is back online, but lots of errors on the page, and still about 20K in spam users need deleting.

[PyroJockey]

Out of curiosity I bought all three of the official strategy guides. They were originally $20 USD. I could see the history of the markdowns as they sat on a shelf somewhere. The D3 guide even has a Goodwill thrift store sticker on it. I picked them up for pennies a piece, but paid about $4 shipping for each.

Looking at the content I had to laugh. I can see why they didn't sell well.  They are pretty much useless. The D1 & D2 guides do have maps of all the OEM levels showing robot locations, energy centers, power-ups, secret rooms, etc... The D3 guide does not have any maps.

They all have walk throughs but they are very poor, D1 and D2 more so than D3.

For example, the walk through for D1 level 27 is less than 2 pages long. Here is the detailed walk through for the final boss battle:

Red Key to the Monster
Return through the Yellow Door from where you just entered. Go left Through the Red Door into the four-part Monster chamber (I in Fig. L7-12). Kill the Monster.
You may have to replenish your supplies from the weapon storage bays in Area J (in Figs. 27-11 and 27-12). When you have killed the monster, escape the mine through the exit located in the room's ceiling.(K in Fig. 27-13).

Other notable omissions: The walk through for D1 level 7 makes no mention that the red door can only be opened from the outside. The walk through for the final boss battle in D2 makes no mention that the boss is only vulnerable in one spot. That information is kind of important.

The bulk of the guides are filled with fluff, back stories on each map/mission, back stories on each bot, etc...

For the price, I'm not sorry I bought them. They add to my modest Descent collection.

[Scyphi]

The walk through for the final boss battle in D2 makes no mention that the boss is only vulnerable in one spot.

Y'know, the whole game wasn't that good at conveying that particular detail. The only reason I managed to find out about it was that I happened to have GB out and handy around the second or third time taking on the boss, and GB will advise you of his weak spot. That is pretty much the ONLY time the game actually gives you prompting about that, and otherwise leaves you to figure it out yourself.

The bulk of the guides are filled with fluff, back stories on each map/mission, back stories on each bot, etc...

Back stories? Like what kind of back stories? What more is there to tell that's not already given in the mission briefings?