Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

Duke Nukem Forever Update

Posted by Zonk on Thu Apr 13, 2006 08:59 AM
from the heh dept.
Entertainment Games
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.'"
+ -
story

Related Stories

[+] Duke Nukem Forever in Production 428 comments
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."
[+] Duke Nukem Sheds Light on Brain 50 comments
bodger_uk writes "The BBC is running an article on the use of Duke Nukem in long term memory research. From the Article: 'It has long been thought that sleep deprivation affects your ability to consolidate memories. To test the theory, the researchers gave the volunteers place-finding missions in a virtual city created in the Duke Nukem game.' Slashdotters already know that Duke Nukem aids long term memory research of course. Just look how long we've been remembering about Duke Nukem Forever!"
[+] Duke Nukem Forever Due This Year? 251 comments
nz17 writes "Under the original deal, 3D Realms was to receive some $6 million from Take-Two to develop the title. Now the Texas-based developer will receive only $4,250 for the oft-delayed game when it is completed. Just the same, 3D Realms has a fairly large incentive to get Duke Nukem Forever done by the end of the year; Take-Two has offered the studio $500,000 in the form of a promissory note if the game sees commercial release by December 31, 2006."
[+] Duke Nukem Forever 'Confirmed' For Late 2008 344 comments
An anonymous reader writes "A Dallas newspaper is claiming that the long-in-development title Duke Nukem Forever is headed for retail release in late 2008. Unfortunately, game creator 3D Realms says that's not exactly what they meant. 'What the modest Texas newspaper actually seems to suggest is that 3D Realms is "on target" to release the mythical sequel sometime this year, though company president Scott Miller adds, "we may miss the mark by a month or two" (wink, wink). Miller also hinted that "hitting the big three" (in this case, PC, Xbox 360 and PS3) is the obvious development strategy, but he continued to stress that 3D Realms has not "formally announced any platforms for DNF."'"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Duke Nukem Forever Update 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • What Went Wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by eldavojohn (898314) * <my/.username@@@gmail.com> on Thursday April 13 2006, @09:00AM (#15120566) Homepage Journal
    You know, I think there's a lot to be said about project management when developing a computer game. Computer games have so many frail aspects.

    They are complex.

    The technology is forever changing.

    There are multiple platforms.

    They become obsolete after two months.

    The fan base is one of usual hypercriticality.

    With these aspects working against you, developing them is just all the more difficult. How many times has this game changed the engine it's being built upon? Too many.

    From the article:
    The game has undergone at least one complete change to its game engine during the course of development. Originally utilizing id Software's Quake II engine, the 3D Realms team switched in 1998 to Epic's Unreal engine 1.0 [6], forcing a revision of all previous work except for the game's textures, which were later replaced anyway.

    3D Realms continued to receive updates from Epic for their newly licensed engine, and in 2000 they moved to the Unreal Engine 1.5 technology branch. However, in mid 2001 they cut themselves off entirely from Epic and went their own way [7].

    2002 marked the start of what is widely considered to be the second project restart. After hiring several new programmers, the team completely re-wrote the renderer and other game engine modules, beginning work on a new generation of game content. Broussard estimates that around 95% of the previous level design work has since been scrapped. The engine (now based on Unreal engine 2.0) is for the first time supposedly complete, and supporting such features as pixel shading, normal mapping and high dynamic range based lighting.

    George Broussard has stated several times that the only parts of the Unreal engine that are still part of their code base are UnrealScript, the networking code, and the level editor. Everything else, except Meqon, which is the physics engine, has been written from scratch by 3D Realms. The principal technical reason given by Broussard for the extensive delays was the unstable tech base. Now that this problem seems to have been solved, 3DR have expanded their team considerably, from 22 to 31 members, marking what many hope to be the final stage of the development cycle.

    When a major game comes out, it is humorously suggested in many fan circles that Duke Nukem Forever will be switching to the renderer of that recently released game.
    There's also a very informative timeline. As the last sentence of the above excerpt illustrates, Duke Nukem Forever came to suffer a development process that simply could never complete itself because it always needed the newest latest and greatest renderer. This is insanity, and I predict that this game will lack original content and any sort of story line since they are relying on graphics and graphics alone to satisfy the customer requirements. You could release a side scrolling version of Duke Nukem (a la Duke Nukem II) that I would play given a good story line and fun puzzle-solving levels.
    • ...have been thought up, created and gone through two or three versions in this timeframe?
    • Now that this problem seems to have been solved, 3DR have expanded their team considerably, from 22 to 31 members, marking what many hope to be the final stage of the development cycle.

      What happens again if you add more people to a late project? :-)

    • Re:What Went Wrong? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by AKAImBatman (238306) * <akaimbatman@ g m a i l . com> on Thursday April 13 2006, @09:15AM (#15120729) Homepage Journal
      The game has undergone at least one complete change to its game engine during the course of development. Originally utilizing id Software's Quake II engine, the 3D Realms team switched in 1998 to Epic's Unreal engine 1.0 [6], forcing a revision of all previous work except for the game's textures, which were later replaced anyway.

      It's worse than that, actually. From a PC Gamer article I read back in the 90's, DNF started with the Quake I engine, then moved to the Quake II engine. They thought it would be an easy transition until they realized that the higher resolution of the Q2 engine meant that they needed to add more detail to all their models. By the time they got to the Unreal engine, everyone was already starting to wonder if it was going to ship.

      So in short, they've been picking up and throwing away their work for a long time now.

    • Re:What Went Wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rolfwind (528248) on Thursday April 13 2006, @09:23AM (#15120795)
      What went wrong?

      Yeah, there can be a multitude of reasons but I think it boils down to: Someone in the chain of command didn't know when to call quits.

      When to quit tweaking the game. When to quit adding shit. When to quit revising it. When to quit the project period.

      This obviously isn't the game they had in mind years ago, hell, it's been majorly revised several times. The problem is, in that span, a normal team could have gotten several (say 2-4) of the better concepts for a DukeNukem game to market and have had at least one good, if not great game.

      As it is, I don't see any strong direction for the game now, it looks like it's being designed to be a jack-of-all-trades. And through all the hype and time, the bar is set so high, that it better be nothing short of spectacular.

      Personally, I'm betting it'll be thoroughly mediocre.

      • Re:What Went Wrong? (Score:5, Funny)

        by rueger (210566) on Thursday April 13 2006, @10:00AM (#15121073) Homepage
        Yeah, there can be a multitude of reasons but I think it boils down to: Someone in the chain of command didn't know when to call quits.

        When to quit tweaking the game. When to quit adding shit. When to quit revising it. When to quit the project period.

        As I recall, these attributes are considered to be a good thing within the Open Source community.

          • Re:What Went Wrong? (Score:5, Informative)

            by Bogtha (906264) on Thursday April 13 2006, @11:22AM (#15121905)

            Yeah, but think of where Linux would be if Linus was still working on it alone at home because it didnt quite have all of the features that he wanted.

            We know exactly where it would be, because another open-source kernel project has succumbed to this.

            The GNU kernel was originally meant to be based on Trix, but then it was decided that it was too much work to port to other architectures, so work began afresh on the HURD, based on the Mach microkernel. After a while, it was decided that Mach wasn't good enough, so work began again on a revision of the HURD, this time based on the L4 microkernel. These days, there's talk about abandoning that work too, in favour of something based on Coyotos [coyotos.org].

            Meanwhile, after sixteen years, GNU still don't have their own production-ready operating system kernel, but more pragmatic people have brought us Linux.

      • Re:What Went Wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by geobeck (924637) on Thursday April 13 2006, @10:21AM (#15121257) Homepage
        The problem is, in that span, a normal team could have gotten several (say 2-4) of the better concepts for a DukeNukem game to market and have had at least one good, if not great game.

        They say projects are never completed; they are merely abandonned.

        You are exactly right. 3DRealms should have released 2-4 good (but not great) games since I bought my copy of Duke Nukem Atomic Edition way back when. I still load that game onto my computer occasionally when I feel like blasting some aliens, because even though the game technology is years old, it's still a very playable game.

        Here's my armchair perspective of how 3DR should proceed:

        1. Replace the project manager - Whoever is in charge of the project has obviously never managed a project for a company where the customer sets the deadlines. Replace this guy with a non-game developer type who knows when a product is good enough for the market.
        2. Kill "Forever" - The name of the current vapor-game implies that this will be the ultimate Duke Nukem experience, the game to end all games, after which every gamer will burn his Quake, GTA, and DOOM3 CDs in despair. Forget pursuing the Holy Grail. Just make a game.
        3. Release your results after one year no matter what - Sure, you'll have cool stuff you want to add on release day, but you can save it for Duke 5. You know? The one you'll be able to develop because Duke 4 brings in some revenue?

        3DR needs to stop thinking of Duke 4 in terms of a motion picture masterpiece that will go down in history with Ben Hur, Lawrence of Arabia, or Debbie Does Dallas. Think of it more like James Bond or Star Trek. Some people will like each release, some people will hate it. But it brings in enough dough to keep the franchise going, and gives your core fan base a whole lot of fun.

    • What I don't understand is WHY Duke Nukem Forever had to take so long. In the same time that it has taken to do DNF, 3D Realms has shipped several other decent games, for example, Max Payne and Max Payne 2. I understand that these games would have been developed by separate teams within 3D Realms, but why did they have the wrong team working on their BIG game? They could have shipped at least 3 Duke Nukem games in the time it has taken to do DNF. No one expects a Duke game to be the best game ever. It's su

  • You Retards! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2006, @09:01AM (#15120574)
    April Fools day was on the first. This story is 13 days too old!

  • Preorder? (Score:5, Funny)

    by skelman (848976) <skelman&skelman,com> on Thursday April 13 2006, @09:01AM (#15120576) Homepage
    This sounds great...where can I preorder it?
    • This sounds great...where can I preorder it?

      I noticed it's available for download at http://freshmeat.net/projects/dukeforever/ [freshmeat.net] and it's being written in Perl. I knew Perl was powerful but now I'm really impressed :-)

    • Re:Preorder? (Score:5, Funny)

      by revery (456516) * <charles@[ ]2.net ['cac' in gap]> on Thursday April 13 2006, @09:27AM (#15120814) Homepage
      Just pre-order the Phantom Game Console and you're automatically pre-ordered for Duke Nukem Forever, or you can sign up the most exciting magazine never to hit the stands, Vaporware Monthly, every month VM pushes back the deadline for what will be the most spectacular magazine launch in history. Each soon to be published issue is expected to be packaged with a virtual Blue Ray disc potentially containing the full version of thousands of super-exciting games that will never be released. Additionally, a mustn't miss feature of each issue is Shrodinger's SoapBox, a visionary look at the state of next year's vaporware. Subscribe Now!!!

    • Re:Preorder? (Score:5, Funny)

      by wolfemi1 (765089) on Thursday April 13 2006, @10:12AM (#15121163)
      HELLO GOOD SIR.

      MY NAME IS MIKE OBUTU. I HAVE RECENTLY COME INTO POSESSION OF 1000000 (ONE MILLION) COPIES OF DUKE NUKEM FOREVER.

      Stupid lameness filter isn't letting me post the full message, but you get the idea.

  • April 1 lasts a long time at Slashdot. (Score:5, Funny)

    by MyLongNickName (822545) on Thursday April 13 2006, @09:02AM (#15120581) Journal
    And you forgot the "OMG P0n13s!!!11"

  • Nothing for you to see here, move along (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Bogtha (906264) on Thursday April 13 2006, @09:03AM (#15120597)

    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.'"

    Sounds to me like Broussard has finally realised that endless rewrites and engine changes were a mistake, and that at some point you have to accept limitations and ship the product. Now that he has realised this, I expect DNF will actually be released in the near future.

  • Finally some REAL progress! (Score:5, Funny)

    by coupland (160334) * <dchase.hotmail@com> on Thursday April 13 2006, @09:04AM (#15120608) Journal

    "mainly just pieces of the game in progress and tech demos", including "an early level, a vehicle sequence, a few test rooms"

    OOOoooo, an early level *and* some test rooms? Sounds like they've been busy these past ten years! If we're lucky maybe they've also completed a Pong mini-game, which leaves nothing left to create except the game itself.

  • I can't wait 'till this is delayed because they need to take some violence and sexual content out instead of because "it doesnt exist"

  • Sending email? (Score:5, Funny)

    by wwrmn (42399) on Thursday April 13 2006, @09:06AM (#15120632)
    Once again proving the old adage that all computer programs evolve until they can handle email.

    I expect we'll see a realease right after Duke Nukem gets threaded news reader and RSS support.
  • On Atari 2600. They've got the splash screen, but they can't figure out how to get the other 2 GB on the cartridge.

    Wait...this *is* just a late 4/1/06 joke, right?

  • Relevant? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheGreatDonkey (779189) on Thursday April 13 2006, @09:08AM (#15120656)
    The brand itself seems to have lost a significant amount of value and overall relevancy to me. I remember many endless nights playing Duke 3D, and the great world it immersed you in. The character itself was great, as was the game. Everyone was excited to see what they could do next with the franchise, and they sounded really ambitious about what they wanted to do. Then, time passed.. and passed.. and passed.. and games like Deus Ex came out, which again kicked some serious ass (the sequel maybe not quite as much). So, obviously the industry has moved on, and would this game coming out even make as much as a splash as much as it once may have? I mean in all this time, they had plenty of opportunity to license another engine (again, like Deus Ex) and take the original game to the next level. Instead, I honestly have no idea what they have been doing, and in the meantime, many other great games have come along to fill the void. No matter what they come out with at this point, it is never going to live up to the expectations that they have working on this game, theoretically, for 10 years now.
    • Well, just for old time's sake try this [edgenetwork.org], if you still have your original game disc handy to get the .GRP file from. Phenomenal Duke 3D port (he's working on Shadow Warrior now) and the network support is now UDP-based, rather than IPX like the original, and works great over broadband. It's remarkable playing Duke Nukem 3D at 1600x1200 resolution with shading and a lot of other modern OpenGL effects, not to mention several other players. Runs flawlessly in Win2K and XP ... haven't tried it under Wine yet. I
    • It is hard to tell whether anyone outside of the "yeah, it's gonna be released with Vista" style jokes on slashdot knows the name, apart from those who played the previous games all those years ago, it's going to be difficult to break the collective image that people have of it.

      It's possible they're going to have to be marketting it less as a sequal, but as a new game. I don't think they can rely on the name they had, because it's very much a "had".

      • Yeah, how many gamers today even REMEMBER Duke Nuke'em at this point? It would be like releasing a "Pole Position" sequel that tried to trade on the cache of a game that most gamers only vaguely remember (if at all). Duke Nuke'em is more the butt of jokes now than a serious franchise.

        -Eric

  • Honestly, at this point we just want to finish it.

    Yeah, whatever. ;)

  • who? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dlc3007 (570880) on Thursday April 13 2006, @09:14AM (#15120711)
    I think the most important question at this point is: Who cares? Is there anyone who is still looking forward to this game? Anyone?
    I remember playing Duke Nukem 3D, but I honestly can't remember what computer I was playing it on because it was so long ago. It isn't like there haven't been three or four generations of shooters since this game was announced.
    Sure the original was amusing, but it wasn't that good. Just give it up. No matter what they finally release, it won't be worth the wait and no one will really care.

    • Oh please (Score:5, Interesting)

      by thepotoo (829391) <thepotoospam@yah[ ]com ['oo.' in gap]> on Thursday April 13 2006, @09:28AM (#15120822)
      There is more viral marketing behind this game than you could possibly imagine. This game is a fucking legend. Every 10-year-old on AOL knows that when DNF is released, hell will freeze over, Elvis will return, and Linux will gain 100% marketshare.

      Because of this, the instant it's released, a million people will rush to buy the game just because of the hype.

      It may be that a week later, the game will turn out to be shitty, and no one will care, but I'm predicting that the game will at least cover its development costs within that first week.

  • I'll buy it. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Graemee (524726) on Thursday April 13 2006, @09:14AM (#15120712)
    Hell, I get it just to put it on the shelf, whether it is crap or win.

    It might look good next to BOB and Daikanata.
    • I was thinking the same thing. It might be a huge seller, just so people can have it on their shelves or take screenshots to put along side all of their jokes. I know I'll take a screenshot and make it my avatar on other forums!

  • World Interactivity (Score:4, Funny)

    by VorpalRodent (964940) on Thursday April 13 2006, @09:18AM (#15120748)
    Broussard also demonstrated world interactivity that includes Duke standing in front of a computer and emailing the player

    So they've built a spambot that runs from inside a game? And all it took was 10 years. Wow...what innovation.

  • Wow. 10 years for.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bobwoodard (92257) on Thursday April 13 2006, @09:22AM (#15120774)
    ... a test level, a vehicle sequence and a few test rooms????

  • Maybe you guys don't see the true humor here... (Score:4, Funny)

    by danpsmith (922127) on Thursday April 13 2006, @09:22AM (#15120777)
    ...even the duke nukem forever april 1st joke is late!

  • Truths (Score:5, Funny)

    by tomstdenis (446163) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .sinedtsmot.> on Thursday April 13 2006, @09:23AM (#15120787) Homepage
    1. Some game website will first frown on it, then get a beta copy and hype all the neato features.

    2. Other testers will then buy $800 graphic cards to test it out on their vapor cooled 5Ghz Pentium4 box, then say, meh, only gets slightly better FPS than Jazz Jackrabbit or something equally stupid

    3. The game will be released, it will sit on 5 CDs instead of one DVD to keep "costs down" and pirated versions will appear with all the speech replaced with mexican festival music

    4. People will realize the game is as deep as the pamphelet their latest credit card came in and will toy with the game until 17 minutes after initial release someone posts a complete walkthrough with every secret bonus and glitch found.

    5. The online site will be inundated with delinquant 13 yr old sharp shooters who won't give us hard working adults a chance to just play the game and have fun.

    6. Some dude in Korea will die after playing the game for 79 hours straight.

    7. A full week after the release of the game a dozen patches will come out to fix various holes in the game [re: pirates] and each one will take a full 200MB to replace 39KB of code in the binary.

    8. A full week and one day after release the game will become yesteryear news and people will be clamouring about the latest "let's kill the mutant aliens in obviously dangerous situations game" ... oh fuck call it Far Cry 2.

    9. The folk at 3DR will be vindicated then bought out by MSFT and outsourced to India to make the "books" look good.

    Tom

    • Re:Truths (Score:3, Insightful)

      by yem (170316)
      Nice :) Unfortunately there are only two real possibilities:

      1) The game is never released. The idiots in charge finally can the project, like they should have five years ago.

      OR

      1) The game is released
      2) 5 people buy it
      3) 5000 people download it for a laugh and delete it 5 minutes later
  • Can the moderators forgive me for not saying anything of value but:

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!! pull the other one.

  • LOL (Score:2, Funny)

    by GmAz (916505)
    I think its just too funny to see a) that Wiki has DNF listed in their site and also b) the image used on their page. That image alone really dates the game. I vote they use that original image for their auctual game box.

  • E-mail? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by The-Bavis (855107) on Thursday April 13 2006, @09:34AM (#15120862)
    If the big feature they have is that the game's character can e-mail you a form letter then the game is in even worse shape than I ever imagined. They don't talk about innovative gameplay at all, but they were sure to show off how Duke can write you an e-mail probably telling you to "keep it real!"

    This "feature" should be a late addition in the final production or something a programmer added on their lunch breaks, not something to show off.
      • Damn, that's pretty cutting-edge, being able to store and retrieve string data.

        But this is special string data that has been touched by the blessed DNF engine (may it bring us everlasting joy amen).
  • George B. should just shut up until he either sells the game or delivers it. He's wayyy past "hype" and moving past "pity" onto "people wishing he would just go away"

    Why does 3DR bother? This game will get crapped on no matter how good it really is. The common refrain will be "It took them ten years to do this? "

    They would be MUCH farther ahead to sell the game rights to someone else. 3DR gets money now, the new developer will catch all the crap when the game is launched and 3DR gets to say "Well, gee.

  • Duh Nukem (Score:4, Funny)

    by Doc Ruby (173196) on Thursday April 13 2006, @09:41AM (#15120921) Homepage Journal
    "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."

    Inspired, insightful thinking like that is getting Duke Nukem finished and downloaded to your computer at lightning speed.

  • Uhhh... Not exactly a recipe for success (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jugalator (259273) on Thursday April 13 2006, @10:26AM (#15121308) Journal
    Honestly, at this point we just want to finish it.

    With a motivation among the devs at this level, what quality can one expect from the game? :-p

  • Jarndyce and Jarndyce (Score:4, Insightful)

    by awol (98751) on Thursday April 13 2006, @11:23AM (#15121919) Journal
    Despite the cliche, it seems that Duke Nukem has become the "Jarndice and Jarndice" of the modern age, reflecting on the evils of software development rather than those of the Chancery division. In all seriousness DN3D was such a pathetic story it would be funny.

    I wont be surprised if they make more money from the book about what not to do with a game/generic development project than they do from the software itself.
    • At this point, they can't say they've invested 10 years in it. What they've done is spend the last 10 years on 3-4 failed projects, and one (bearing a superficial resemblence to a design doc that's ten years old) that may see the light of day.

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.