Duke Nukem Forever in Production

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 Forever

[Voltageaav]

and ever and ever....

Re:Anticipation... Anticipayaytion...

[Voltageaav]

One word, Stargate.

So its still vaporware then

[el_womble]

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.

Re:Anticipation... Anticipayaytion...

[gbulmash]

One word, Stargate.

I said a major network. Now, when Stargate came out, it was on Showtime, which is owned by Viacom, which eventually bought CBS. It later moved over to Sci-Fi, which is owned by Universal Studios, which was eventually bought by NBC. But it doesn't air on CBS or NBC and neither was in on the deals to bring it to their related cable subsidiaries.

- Greg

Re:Anticipation... Anticipayaytion...

[Voltageaav]

IMHO, Sci-Fi and Cartoon Network are the only major networks.

When I was in gaming school

[rolfwind]

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

[dJOEK]

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"

Re:When I was in gaming school

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you don't consider sunk costs when deciding to continue with a project. Why? Because that money is gone. Cancelling the project won't bring it back. Cancelling the project will, however, make your investment up to that point a complete write off.

Consider the following scenario:

You've spent 150 thousand developing a game, you need 20 thousand more to finish the game. The game has an expected lifetime profit of 70 thousand.

Do you cancel the project? Heck no!
Sure, you'll make a loss of 100 thousand if you continue the project and bring it to fruition. However, you make a loss of 150 thousand if you don't.

As to why current estimates are likely to be more reliable than past estimates - well, generally when a cost blowout occurs you have some idea of why, and you can take these additional costs into account when making your new estimate. That isn't to say that these new estimates are always reliable, but it's better to make an estimate than to just cancel a project if something doesn't go exactly how you expect.

Re:read this somewhere

[PatrickThomson]

And don't forget driving around on the surface of mars for 2 years.

Re:Mixed Signals

[elgatozorbas]

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.

Dumbass

[Anonymous Coward]

o Waiting for all the non-rich "Democrats" to realize Democrat politicians just sweet talked them and told them lies about being compassionate, understanding, diverse, etc. so they could fuck them.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Straight from 3DRealms!

[Hakubi_Washu]

'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?

Re:Forget "expectations of a ten year wait"

[TychoCelchuuu]

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.

Re:Dumbass

[ChadN]

Not sure I see how the Hillary quote (to tax well-off people, not "average" people), supports the "Democrats are faux-compassionate" assertion, but whatever. Both parties are fucking us.

Democrats will raise taxes, borrow money, and spend it all. Republicans have cut taxes, continue to borrow shitloads of money, and spend it all. Either way, neither party has the guts to truly spend less and deal with the political consequences that will bring. Meanwhile, we better hope our credit holds...

My opinion on DNF as a forum member

[rg3]

Several years ago I used to read almost daily the 3DRealms DNF forums, at least for some minutes. It got really boring, so what I do know (because, after all, I'm interested in this game) is what I think everybody should do:

* Stop caring about the release date. When it comes out, IMHO, it will probably be a very fun game after all. There's no need to "wait" for it. There are dozens of good games out there and at least one or two every year.

* Periodically, read the latest posts by George Broussard. I have bookmarked his recent posts page [3drealms.com] and I check it from time to time. He barely posts, but you'll know everything he said, which is virtually everything that appears on the Wikipedia about the game and the only information you can trust. As the Wikipedia article claims, GB has said several times they restarted the game and, since some months now he claims the game is in production, that all previous problems are solved, technology is always finished in time and they are creating content as fast as they can.

Good luck, 3DR. I'm a gamer after all, so I hope this game is good and worth playing. If not, well, I'll buy something else :D.

Re:Forget "expectations of a ten year wait"

[Overly Critical Guy]

And according to WP, the mundane environments, instead of Quake's fantastic ones.

Right, why would I want to play in a floating space station and moon base or explore L.A. and see animated hot chicks in movie theaters when I could traverse the endless green and brown hallways and lava pits in Quake!

I'll say it, even though I know it's unpopular--Quake SUCKED. I was never more bored by a first person shooter. People only liked it because of its online multiplayer. Other than that, Doom 2 owned it (especially in the weapons and level design department).

Re:Forget "expectations of a ten year wait"

[JourneyExpertApe]

And according to WP, the mundane environments, instead of Quake's fantastic ones. You got that completely backwards. DN3D had great environments. There were huge canyons, alien spaceships, underwater environments, inner cities, and a lot more. I only played the Quake demo, but everything just looked like a dungeon.