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Duke Nukem Forever Update
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Apr 13, 2006 09:59 AM
from the heh dept.
from the heh dept.
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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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."
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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."'"
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What Went Wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
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: 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.
Re:What Went Wrong? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re:What Went Wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:What Went Wrong? (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Parent
Re:What Went Wrong? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Parent
Re:What Went Wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
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:
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.
Parent
You Retards! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:You Retards! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Preorder? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Preorder? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Preorder? (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Parent
April 1 lasts a long time at Slashdot. (Score:5, Funny)
Nothing for you to see here, move along (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Nothing for you to see here, move along (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Finally some REAL progress! (Score:5, Funny)
"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.
Sending email? (Score:5, Funny)
I expect we'll see a realease right after Duke Nukem gets threaded news reader and RSS support.
Evolve? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Relevant? (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, at this point we just want to finish it. (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, whatever.
I'll buy it. (Score:4, Funny)
It might look good next to BOB and Daikanata.
World Interactivity (Score:4, Funny)
So they've built a spambot that runs from inside a game? And all it took was 10 years. Wow...what innovation.
Truths (Score:5, Funny)
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"
9. The folk at 3DR will be vindicated then bought out by MSFT and outsourced to India to make the "books" look good.
Tom
E-mail? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Uhhh... Not exactly a recipe for success (Score:5, Insightful)
With a motivation among the devs at this level, what quality can one expect from the game?
Oh please (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent