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Duke Nukem Forever in Production

Posted by samzenpus on Thu Feb 02, 2006 05:12 AM
from the anyday-now dept.
Entertainment Games News
An anonymous reader writes "Like that fungus under your keyboard, Duke Nukem Forever never really seems to go away. Well in the latest installment in unsubstantiated DNF rumors it appears that the game is finally in production. Via Joystiq "everyone's favorite vaporware is "in full production" according to George Broussard, co-founder of 3D Realms. In an interview with 1up, towards the end, Broussard chats about the status of Duke Nukem Forever, the unfortunately-apt title to the game over a decade in development."
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[+] Duke Nukem Forever Update 250 comments
Gamasutra reports on an update to one of the longest running jokes in the games industry, Duke Nukem Forever. The title, already ten years in development, may (possibly) see release this decade. From the blurb: "3DR's George Broussard also demonstrated world interactivity that includes Duke standing in front of a computer and emailing the player, if he provides his email address for the game. But, according to the piece, Broussard was bashful, overall, about showing off the game, commenting: 'The problem is that when we show it, people are going to be like, Yeah, whatever. Honestly, at this point we just want to finish it.'"
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  • read this somewhere (Score:5, Funny)

    by matt4077 (581118) on Thursday February 02 2006, @05:16AM (#14624287) Homepage
    ""The rovers Spirit and Opportunity were proposed, authorized, announced, designed, launched and successfully landed upon Mars within the timeframe of Duke Nukem Forever's development."

  • So its still vaporware then (Score:5, Insightful)

    by el_womble (779715) on Thursday February 02 2006, @05:17AM (#14624296) Homepage
    In production means nothing. It could still not make it through to gold, because, lets face it, no game can live up to expectations of a 10 year wait. Trying to make a game fun is the hard bit.

    • Forget "expectations of a ten year wait" (Score:5, Interesting)

      by typical (886006) on Thursday February 02 2006, @10:13AM (#14625889) Journal
      no game can live up to expectations of a 10 year wait.

      Forget that -- I want to know why anyone expects DNF to live up to the standards of a *regular* game. Why would DNF be an exceptional game? Because it has the same name and possibly a few characters as an ancient game?

      Sequels make sense when they're truly related to the earlier work. Bungie's Marathon series [wikipedia.org] was good right through the series. That was because the game design was still fairly new and interesting for the time, and the same team was working on the games. It was legitimate both to expect "more of same" from the same people, and that "more of same" would be a good thing.

      But, while I'm not familiar with DNF development, I doubt that the same team is working on the second game -- and that's what makes the game good, the artists and musicians and programmers and writers. Even if it was the same collection of people, I'm not sure that a team that could produce "more of same" would be a good thing.

      I've only played a little Duke Nukem 3D [wikipedia.org], but I remember that the game was mostly notable for its simple, crude humor and its ability to allow you to have simple interactions with objects. (And according to WP, the mundane environments, instead of Quake's fantastic ones.) None of this is exceptional any more. The only "edge" that I would expect DNF to have over any other modern game is that some of its marketing work will have been done for it -- people with fond memories of Duke Nukem 3D might remember the name and want to buy it. Possibly that means that a smaller percentage of the funding need be blown on marketing for DNF.

      Other than that, there's no reason to expect that DNF would be better than any other new game coming out.

      Furthermore, DNF has constraints on it that a new game does not. This is most commmonly visible (in an extreme form) in "video games of movies". Most people who follow the video game industry know that video games based on movies tend to review rather badly. Some of this is undoubtedly due to time pressure, but I would suggest that some of it is because the game developers are constrained to follow the movie and figure out ways to incorporate the movie into the game, instead of having no restrictions on their ability to do what is necessary to develop a good game. This restriction, to a lesser degree, is present in game sequels like DNF. (Plus, these video games based on movies have the same marketing edge that DNF can be expected to have, yet they are frequently pretty bad.)

      So I just can't see why anyone would expect DNF to be a particularly good game any more than I would expect a modern remake of a classic movie to be any better than any other modern movie.

      Sometimes it's nice to just let pleasant memories lie and go on to producing new, different ones...

      • Re:Forget "expectations of a ten year wait" (Score:5, Insightful)

        by TychoCelchuuu (835690) on Thursday February 02 2006, @10:54AM (#14626310) Journal
        I can tell you've only played a little DN:3D. The reason DNF has had so much attention payed to it isn't that it's taking forever. It's because it's the sequel to what many consider to be one of the best games of all time. Duke Nukem 3d had realistic environments (something that were really neat to us back then! We were in LA, man! I mean, Doom is some weird Mars research base, but I'm fighting aliens in LA!), genuine humor (and also crude humor), wonderful weapons (the shrink ray shrunk enemies really small, and then you could step on them, and who can forget the pipe bombs), and a jetpack. I mean, come on. Even today few games have jetpacks.

        Duke Nukem 3d was an awesome game. You can find legions of fans, and that's the reason why DNF is getting on Slashdot: we may have given up on the new game, but we all remember the joy of the old one.

  • Only available on the Phantom! (Score:5, Funny)

    by seeker24frets (204359) on Thursday February 02 2006, @05:19AM (#14624299)
    I heard the game will only be released for the Phantom console.

  • Mourning (Score:5, Funny)

    by FidelCatsro (861135) * <fidelcatsro.gmail@com> on Thursday February 02 2006, @05:22AM (#14624306) Journal
    Today we mourn the loss of one of the longest running jokes on slashdot .
    A joke that has been a stedfast for many an aspiring Troll and Humorist alike .
    Like BSD before it , Duke Nukem forever jokes are now dead.
    We all hope for a swift passing into the land of the dead , Also we hope that Frist psot and Soviet Russia jokes to follow soon... to um keep you company in the land of dead jokes.
    • Don't count your jokes before they're hatched, dude. I for one plan on sticking with the DNF jokes shiv up until if/when the thing actually ships.

    • Re:Mourning (Score:5, Funny)

      by DrWhizBang (5333) on Thursday February 02 2006, @08:15AM (#14624834) Homepage Journal
      <monty-python>I'm not dead, yet!</monty-python>
    • Netcraft confirmed early this morning that Duke Nukem Forever jokes are now dead.

      • Re:Mourning (Score:5, Informative)

        by Fishstick (150821) on Thursday February 02 2006, @06:12AM (#14624460) Journal
        >Just because they're saying it's being worked on doesn't mean that it'll ever be released.

        Whatever has been going on all this time, it appears that now there is a 12/31/06 date with money attached, with millions already being paid.

        http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?st ory=7993/ [gamasutra.com]

        One other notable payment was the renegotiation of a $6 million charge due upon delivery of the final PC version of Duke Nukem Forever back in March 2005. The epic delay of 3D Realms' shooter has meant that $4.25 million of the final milestone payment has already been paid, alongside the promise of a final $500,000 upon the commercial release of Duke Nukem Forever prior to December 31, 2006.

        from the previous story about Take Two's SEC 10K filing [slashdot.org]

        maybe not worth the paper it's printed on, but this is way more detail than I've seen on this in years

  • Heh? (Score:5, Informative)

    by sucker_muts (776572) <sucker_pvnNO@SPAMhotmail.com> on Thursday February 02 2006, @05:25AM (#14624312) Homepage Journal
    Duke Nukem Forever you say? What is it? What happened untill now?

    Check it out for yourself, from Wikipedia. [wikipedia.org].

  • Development (Score:4, Funny)

    by x4071k05 (934632) on Thursday February 02 2006, @05:25AM (#14624314)
    Duke Nukem Forever is slated to be released for the Play Station 6, which will, like all previous playstation consoles, feature real time toy story like graphics, and will be cutting edge, and also for the Xbox 36,000, which will require an entire garage to store the external PSU brick.

  • Wrong article title (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mantees de Tara (652482) on Thursday February 02 2006, @05:29AM (#14624329) Homepage
    The right one was "Duke Nukem: Forever in Production"

  • When I was in gaming school (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rolfwind (528248) on Thursday February 02 2006, @05:38AM (#14624364)
    They always used to say not to consider what the project cost so far when deciding whether to continue, but what it will cost to bear into fruition.

    However, that logic always seemed seriously flawed - if the past estimates on how much a project will cost were bad, what guarantee is there that the current estimates are good.

    Seriously, what does 3DRealms (?) have to gain anymore? It's like a doomed government military project where they keep throwing good money into this black hole, never to see anything for their investment other than ridicule.

    It makes the Daikatana folks seem professional.

    Either way, 3D_Realms should just shut-up until the factories are actually packaging the CDs, or quietly kill the project.

  • DNF will fail almost certainly (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dJOEK (66178) on Thursday February 02 2006, @05:52AM (#14624405)
    Why?

    because after all the delays, hype, anticipation ...
    no matter how good the game is, hopes will be higher than it can deliver.
    And reviewers will say: "Well, it might be the greatest game ever, but it wasn't worth the wait"

  • Incorrect punctuation (Score:3, Funny)

    by Hieronymus Howard (215725) on Thursday February 02 2006, @05:54AM (#14624409)
    This is yet another example of incorrect punctuation in a Slashdot submission. The title should, of course, read:

    Duke Nukem - Forever in Production

  • Dupe! (Score:3)

    by earthbound kid (859282) on Thursday February 02 2006, @05:59AM (#14624425) Homepage
    Well no, I don't have a link. But I'm just going to go out on a limb and assume that Slashdot has in fact discussed the imminent release of DNF more than once in the last 10 years.

  • You're 2 months early (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 02 2006, @06:13AM (#14624463)
    April fools day is still 2 months away.

  • System requirements (Score:5, Funny)

    by BokLM (550487) * <boklm@mars-attacks.org> on Thursday February 02 2006, @06:17AM (#14624472) Homepage Journal
    George Broussard published the system requirements for the game :
    IBM PC Pentium 200 or higher
    Windows 95 or higher
    32MB of RAM
    4X CD-ROM drive
    Sound Blaster 16 or Compatible
    Optional: 3dfx Voodoo 2

    • Those system requirements match the PSP rawther well. Should we be expecting a port? Or will 3DRealms downscale the design to the Nintendo DS in order to take advantage of the system's keyboard-and-mouse-like touch screen setup?

  • Fungus? WTF? (Score:3, Funny)

    by wheany (460585) <wheany+sd@iki.fi> on Thursday February 02 2006, @06:23AM (#14624485) Homepage Journal
    There is no fungus under my keyboard. But then again I'm not a damn dirty GNU/hippie.

    I fucking hate comedians.

  • You all miss the point! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by perrin (891) on Thursday February 02 2006, @07:01AM (#14624587)
    Why should 3DRealms make Duke Nuke'm Forever after all this time? Because when it finally ships it will receive the most free PR from the trade press and every other press under the sun ever. Sure, they will make fun of it, probably give it poor reviews, but as long as 3DRealms manage to keep it fun, ironic and in bad taste it will still sell like hot cakes. If they play their cards right they could turn this into a stroke of genius.

    Although we'll lose a good joke. But the joke might in the end be on us.

  • unlikely combination (Score:3, Funny)

    by tabby (592506) on Thursday February 02 2006, @07:50AM (#14624740) Homepage
    A year or so ago I would have said that something was as likely as being able to play DN:Forever on an Intel Mac with an Apple made multi-button mouse...

    Seriously I think Lucifer may have left the air-con on high.

  • JonoF's Duke Nukem 3D Port (JFDuke3D) (Score:4, Informative)

    by DrSkwid (118965) on Thursday February 02 2006, @08:09AM (#14624805) Homepage Journal
    This is the home of my port of 3D Realms Entertainment's Duke Nukem 3D to Windows using my port of Ken Silverman's Build game engine. It is work in progress so that means it might crash and burn and be unstable.

    Notices

    9 October 2005 - New release

    http://jonof.edgenetwork.org/index.php?p=jfduke3d [edgenetwork.org]

  • Look, that's just a status update. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Vo0k (760020) on Thursday February 02 2006, @08:11AM (#14624814) Journal
    In other news, Australian tectonic plate heading towards Asia at full speed now!

    They got the guns and monsters. That's like, 30% of the work. since the end of the design phase. Add to that maps (30%), engine (30%), piecing it all together (10%). Development phase is about 50% time. 25% for design and preparations, 25% for betatesting, bugfixes and release.

    So given their current speed and progress (about 45% of the whole project) I predict DNF around 2018. That's a realistic date.

  • Straight from 3DRealms! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Hakubi_Washu (594267) <washuNO@SPAMuni.de> on Thursday February 02 2006, @09:20AM (#14625331)
    'The release date of this game is "When it's done". Anything else, and we mean anything else is someone's speculation. There is no date. We don't know any date. If you have a friend who claims they have "inside info", or there's some game news site, or some computer store at the mall who claims they know - they do not. They are making it up. There is no date. Period.'

    Why, oh, why is a sucker born every minute?

  • Riiiiiiiight (Score:3, Funny)

    by Danathar (267989) on Thursday February 02 2006, @11:29AM (#14626686) Journal
    HA! yea...right (wink wink). Next you'll be telling me that Apple is going to be switching to Intel and TV shows will be legally available for download on the web.......

    • Re:Mixed Signals (Score:5, Funny)

      by mwvdlee (775178) on Thursday February 02 2006, @05:36AM (#14624357) Homepage
      He talks about character models almost being done
      They were planning to do character models but decided against it at the very last moment, so they were almost being done. ...and guns being "finished".
      Yes, guns are finished; they're through with the whole guns thing, had enough of them, they're finished, gone, out of the game.
    • You do build the props for a movie before you start filming, but it's different for games. You build the engine (unless you use an already existing one), work out the rough plots etc and spiff up the graphics at any stage you like. So finishing the guns doesn't give any indication as to the level of completion of the project - neither one way not the other.

    • Re:Mixed Signals (Score:4, Insightful)

      by elgatozorbas (783538) on Thursday February 02 2006, @06:03AM (#14624431)
      He talks about character models almost being done (almost?) and guns being "finished". That sure doesn't seem like things are terribly far along - you build the props for a movie before you start filming, right?

      Not necessarily: the work is probably divided into the engine, the plot, artwork, character models etc. I can imagine all testing so far has been done with a wirestick guy (or a squirrel or whatever model they had available) and they can develop the models independently.

    • Unfortunately it will only be available for Atari, BeOS and NeXT systems. Also it is especially optimized to work well with the GNU/Hurd kernel...
    • Well, the analysis has been quite detailed.
      They have UML, use cases, entity relationship diagrams, dataflow diagrams, and a requirement what makes the Bible look like a short story.
      It's the waterfall development model of justice.

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