An anonymous reader writes "The Jace Hall Show launched today on Sony's Crackle with a real gameplay preview of Duke Nukem Forever. Jace Hall is a former video game producer and Warner Bros exec and apparently this is his foray into online celebrity. DNF is 12 years in development ... it might be real after all." And if you have had enough self-indulgent gaming-news patter, another reader says "If you want to simply skip right ahead, it's about 4:20 in."
Why? What if it's good? Doesn't matter. It can't live up to the expectations. However good it may be, somewhere in the resume there will be the line "well, it has X, but after Y years of waiting, you could expect something more than just Z, and they could have taken that extra months to iron out the W".
You mean people still expect video games to have some sort of quality control done to them prior to launch? Wow. I always wait a year to get a new game. MOO3 I waited about three years and the fans were _still_ patching it. (They did a really good job, though.)
It will never live up to the expectations, but if it is good and fun, people will buy it. But I guess that no game can be profitable after 12 years of development.
Team Fortress 2 was in development hell for 9 years. Not only did it live up to the expectations, it exceeded them.
Sometimes extremely long development phases are due to the company making the best damned product they possibly can and not accepting second rate. Anybody can shit out a video game in a few years, but it takes a long time to make something that's truly good. Especially if the developer wants to make something that's fun to play and has interesting visuals. Instead of just FPS #54936-B
yeah that sounds good. Games are like computers, every time you think you've got the optimum price to performance ratio, there a new breakthrough so you start over refactor for the new tech. There is a saying "The road to failure is paved with perfection, The road to success is paved with good-enough".
They actually said what they've been doing in the video: hookers, cocaine and getting level 70 WoW characters. Exactly what I would expect of Duke's R&D staff....
They actually said what they've been doing in the video: hookers, cocaine and getting level 70 WoW characters. Exactly what I would expect of Duke's R&D staff....
Hookers and cocaine, sure. But what the hell were they doing playing WoW???
They actually said what they've been doing in the video: hookers, cocaine and getting level 70 WoW characters. Exactly what I would expect of Duke's R&D staff.... Yeah, in fact, forget the video game.
I think this is known as Doom 3 syndrome...I remember it being pumped at Quakecon for years...then I got a multiplayer preview...which was fun...then finally the game was released...and I never actually finished the single player. The multiplayer is actually kind of fun...and my friend made a really cool mod. Anyhow that's irrelevant, the moral to the story is that Doom 3's single player was completely disappointing, though in all actuality it probably wasn't that bad...but my expectations were set so high after getting the leaked alpha E3 demo...that it just wasn't enjoyable. I did buy it though...I'd expect the same of Duke Nukem Forever.
though in all actuality it probably wasn't that bad...
No, it's OK, it really was that bad.
It's one thing to have things teleporting into a room when you first arrive there (a la Doom 1), but it is entirely another thing to have some monster waiting in some tiny, undetectable compartment, ignoring you until you've walked past it exactly 7 times. The irrationality of such rubbish spoiled the immersion, and thus the game...
Delayed, over and over... Multiple trailers and gameplay videos shown, some with features that never made it into the actual game, most of which were just cool, and made you want the game now...
Original game was a bestseller, a genre-defining blockbuster, with the kind of ending that demands a sequel... Sequel came out ten years after the original, and was at least five years in development. I'd expect the anticipation would be at least as hard to match.
Can you guess?
Half-Life 2.
Oh, and they did it again, to a lesser extent, with Team Fortress 2.
Now, it's possible Duke Nukem Forever may never be released. Maybe it will be a Windows Vista, and suck so much that most people would rather play Duke Nukem 3D.
But I see no reason why it couldn't be released, and be every bit what we expect -- especially when most of us don't have expectations much higher than yours.
Maybe our interest cannot extend past the demo, because we've actually waited these 12 years.
I'm 25, so that means I was about 12 when DN3D was popular. Are you honestly saying that the 12-year-olds of today will not buy and play the game regardless of its development history?
by Anonymous Coward
on Thursday June 05 2008, @09:38PM (#23677789)
So, you implying that all boobs are fake? I mean, this is slashdot and most of the people here have never played with real 3D boobs since being breastfed...
Great, if we do actually get to see Duke Nukem forever for sure... in our hands... what will replace the ever popular Duke Nukem Forever vaporware meme? Spore?
There are a few pros and cons to releasing Duke Nukem Forever.
When it is released, we will be able to play Duke Nukem Forever, which by this time, better be awesome!
However, after it is released we then lose a lot of Duke Nukem Forever jokes. We will have to put thought into what will take its place in Wired News's Vaporware Awards.
The post-Duke Nukem Forever released world, will be vastly different to what we know today... and that makes me scared.
"If You thought Duke Nukem 3D (1996) was good... then HOLD ON TO YOUR COCKS!"
This will be an amazing hit with people who went into coma a decade ago and the last thing they remember was playing Duke Nukem with their Voodoo 3 card.
The release of DNF has been foretold as the final harbinger of the end times. When the Final Duke goes gold, the seventh seal shall be broken and all the gamers shall cry out and lament that their RAM is insufficient and their video cards unworthy.
Oddly enough, a sufficient amount of time has passed to let the ghost of oldschool Duke Nukem fade away. The result is that, much in the same way that TF2 took so freaking long that the people originally looking forward to it grew up, got jobs, had kids, joined the Masons, and died - leaving a largely new batch of people who weren't that familiar with the original context the game arose from. So to with DNF, I suspect. Let's be honest here - the average 22 year old kid who sees a review of DNF on some game site in six months isnt going to have the 12 years of expectation and context that the rest of us might have. The result? I suspect DNF will actually do just fine. We all went from growing expectations over time, to mocking it, to effectively forgetting about it and moving on. DNF is now a game for a new wodge of users, who won't be all that familiar with its history. DNF has gone on long enough that, like TF2, the clock has actually kind of reset.
Question: what engine is it using? Not bashing at all, just curious.
Broussard: Unreal. I believe we branched off somewhere around the Unreal 2 time when they added static meshes. Since then we've redone the rendering 100% and it's a fully modern engine.
So Broussard says they're using the Unreal/Unreal 2 tech, but that they've redone the rendering 100%. Parse that as you will.
(From http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?story=50481 [shacknews.com])
See bad guy, shoot, run, see another bad guy, shoot, run....
Which describes an FPS about as well as "Move piece, wait, move piece, wait, move piece, wait..." describes chess. Even in a deathmatch you won't become very good just running around shooting at whatever happens to drop in your sight, and there's plenty game modes that require real cooperation. Try watching a good CTF team and you'll see they don't run around shooting at random any more than a chess player moves pieces at random.
by Anonymous Coward
on Thursday June 05 2008, @09:39PM (#23677797)
To be honest, we had a meeting back in 1997 to figure out how to piss off a guy named stormwatch on something called slashdot in the year 2008. We came to the inevitable conclusion that we would have to first invent slashdot work with adobe to develop flash, waste years of development time on Duke nukem forever, then release a video in swf format and post a slashdot story with a link to it. Now all of years of hard work have paid off.
Why don't they use an actual VIDEO format for videos? Those swf-based players are hit and miss, and usually miss.
Most swf-players play an FLV (either streaming or not). FLV uses H.264 or H.263 (in the recent incarnations). These are the latest and greates codecs. And Flash is less evil than quicktime or realplayer, the other common ways to stream video online.
the Jace Hall show, along with all the new content on crackle.com is show with pro equipment and encoded in H.264 - that's why we require a recent build of the flash player. if you have a fast internet connection you can watch the 2Mbps 720p H.264 stream. we think it's some of the best looking video on the web today.
DNF cannot be completed (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? What if it's good? Doesn't matter. It can't live up to the expectations. However good it may be, somewhere in the resume there will be the line "well, it has X, but after Y years of waiting, you could expect something more than just Z, and they could have taken that extra months to iron out the W".
Re:DNF cannot be completed (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:DNF cannot be completed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:DNF cannot be completed (Score:4, Insightful)
Sometimes extremely long development phases are due to the company making the best damned product they possibly can and not accepting second rate. Anybody can shit out a video game in a few years, but it takes a long time to make something that's truly good. Especially if the developer wants to make something that's fun to play and has interesting visuals. Instead of just FPS #54936-B
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Re:DNF cannot be completed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:DNF cannot be completed (Score:5, Interesting)
Toss them in a box and charge $10~$25 for the pair of games.
Offer $5 off if you buy it with DN: Forever
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Re:DNF cannot be completed (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:DNF cannot be completed (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:DNF cannot be completed (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:DNF cannot be completed (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, in fact, forget the video game.
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Re:DNF cannot be completed (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:DNF cannot be completed (Score:4, Insightful)
It's one thing to have things teleporting into a room when you first arrive there (a la Doom 1), but it is entirely another thing to have some monster waiting in some tiny, undetectable compartment, ignoring you until you've walked past it exactly 7 times. The irrationality of such rubbish spoiled the immersion, and thus the game...
Parent
There was another game... (Score:4, Insightful)
Original game was a bestseller, a genre-defining blockbuster, with the kind of ending that demands a sequel... Sequel came out ten years after the original, and was at least five years in development. I'd expect the anticipation would be at least as hard to match.
Can you guess?
Half-Life 2.
Oh, and they did it again, to a lesser extent, with Team Fortress 2.
Now, it's possible Duke Nukem Forever may never be released. Maybe it will be a Windows Vista, and suck so much that most people would rather play Duke Nukem 3D.
But I see no reason why it couldn't be released, and be every bit what we expect -- especially when most of us don't have expectations much higher than yours.
Parent
Re:Funding? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe our interest cannot extend past the demo, because we've actually waited these 12 years.
I'm 25, so that means I was about 12 when DN3D was popular. Are you honestly saying that the 12-year-olds of today will not buy and play the game regardless of its development history?
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Re:DNF cannot be completed (Score:5, Funny)
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Like fake boobs... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Like fake boobs... (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, this is slashdot and most of the people here have never played with real 3D boobs since being breastfed...
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Sure they have (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Like fake boobs... (Score:5, Funny)
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vaporware until it's in my hands (Score:5, Funny)
Re:vaporware until it's in my hands (Score:5, Insightful)
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Last time I checked (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Last time I checked (Score:4, Funny)
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OK, I'll bite... (Score:3, Insightful)
Awww... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Better looking than the game. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Better looking than the game. (Score:5, Funny)
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DNF Gameplay revealed! (Score:5, Funny)
It is the first level!
The game is an infinite loop!
You have to play Duke Nukem forever!
Re:DNF Gameplay revealed! (Score:5, Funny)
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Pros and Cons (Score:5, Funny)
When it is released, we will be able to play Duke Nukem Forever, which by this time, better be awesome!
However, after it is released we then lose a lot of Duke Nukem Forever jokes. We will have to put thought into what will take its place in Wired News's Vaporware Awards.
The post-Duke Nukem Forever released world, will be vastly different to what we know today... and that makes me scared.
DNF Advertising Campaign (Score:5, Funny)
"Most Anticipated Game of Last 3 Generations."
"If You thought Duke Nukem 3D (1996) was good... then HOLD ON TO YOUR COCKS!"
This will be an amazing hit with people who went into coma a decade ago and the last thing they remember was playing Duke Nukem with their Voodoo 3 card.
Re:DNF Advertising Campaign (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop pretending you were allowed to touch daddys pc
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Duke Nukem may live... (Score:5, Interesting)
Repent! (Score:5, Funny)
The release of DNF has been foretold as the final harbinger of the end times. When the Final Duke goes gold, the seventh seal shall be broken and all the gamers shall cry out and lament that their RAM is insufficient and their video cards unworthy.
Another console game (Score:5, Funny)
Enough time has passed (Score:5, Insightful)
The shrink gun is in ! (Score:4, Interesting)
That was about time we saw such a gun in another game than a sprite-based First Person Shooter.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:A bit let down (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:A bit let down (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:A bit let down (Score:5, Informative)
So Broussard says they're using the Unreal/Unreal 2 tech, but that they've redone the rendering 100%. Parse that as you will.
(From http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?story=50481 [shacknews.com])
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Re:A bit let down (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:A bit let down (Score:5, Funny)
You forgot to mention that your screen is a 14" LCD at 800x600...
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Re:Damn swf video (Score:5, Funny)
3D Relms
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Re:Damn swf video (Score:5, Informative)
Most swf-players play an FLV (either streaming or not). FLV uses H.264 or H.263 (in the recent incarnations). These are the latest and greates codecs. And Flash is less evil than quicktime or realplayer, the other common ways to stream video online.
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Re:Damn swf video (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Flash 9 required. (Score:4, Funny)
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Trailers (Score:5, Interesting)
Duke Nukem _is_ a cartoony character
That said, trailers can be very deceptive, you might have just seen all the best parts and that's it.
A little bit of editing goes a long way, for example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmkVWuP_sO0 [youtube.com]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T5_0AGdFic [youtube.com]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekXxi9IKZSA [youtube.com]
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