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First Person Shooters (Games)

3D Realms Buys Physics For Duke Nukem Forever 76

Posted by Zonk from the don't-hold-your-breathe dept.
sp00 writes "In a press release, Meqon announces 3DRealms has purchased the Meqon Game Dynamics SDK engine for the upcoming title Duke Nukem Forever. There are some neat demos of the engine here. Is DNF finally a reality?"
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3D Realms Buys Physics For Duke Nukem Forever More

3D Realms Buys Physics For Duke Nukem Forever

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  • Other News: (Score:5, Funny)

    by sithkhan ( 536425 ) <sithkhan@gmail.com> on Monday September 27, 2004 @03:31PM (#10366246)
    Pigs Fly.
    Hell Freezes Over.
    I get a date.
    • There is no Duke.
    • I get a date.
      Hmm, Duke Nukem Forever was announced in 1996 (and supposed to be out later that year.) Since then, I've gotten married, had two kids, bought a house ...

      Hopefully It'll come out some time before I start drawing social security (if it's even still around ...)

      • The DNF Timeline (Score:5, Funny)

        by ryder ( 111 ) on Monday September 27, 2004 @04:29PM (#10366760)
        Check it out! [evilavatar.com] My Favorite bit: 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.
      • no no no, it was never meant to be out the next year. It was all a y2k like bug. they idiotically type in the date 07 for the release date the program dropped the leading 0 and seeing a one digit year added 199 to the front, completely changing the intent of the date "7" which was of course meant to be 2007. so see they're still on track for a 2007 release!!
      • I dunno if this is revisionist history or not, but the DNF that was hyped up way back in 1996 supposedly isn't the same DNF that we're talking about right now. The original DNF was third-person like the first Duke Nukem games, but was never finished. It might have inspired Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project, which came out some time ago. The DNF we all know and love, on the other hand, was started right near the beginning of 1998.

        Of course, it's not like that two years makes much of a difference when the sev
    • 3DRealms has announced that Duke Nukem: Forever is going to be a launch title...for the Phantom.

      (Man...wouldn't that be sweet)

    • "With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine."

      RFC 1925 2.(3)

      http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1925.html

  • Heh (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cjpez ( 148000 ) on Monday September 27, 2004 @03:31PM (#10366249) Homepage Journal
    While not really knowing much about typical game development processes, I imagine that getting the SDK to your basic game engines would be some of the first steps you'd take before development. Wouldn't that imply that development on DNF, er, has yet to start? Or is being restarted again to use yet another new engine? Too funny.

    • Re:Heh (Score:5, Interesting)

      by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Monday September 27, 2004 @03:41PM (#10366346) Homepage
      This doesn't appear to be a basic game engine, but rather a bolt-on physics and character animation module, Ala Havok. Buying one generally means that they have a game engine to attach it to, and have tried it out and liked it in-game. The rigid-body and ragdoll collision code on the last game I worked on didn't go in until about three months before the end of the project, as it wasn't integral to the gameplay. Very few FPS games have taken their physics model seriously as a gameplay element, and as such I'd (Id?) be surprised if DNF's gameplay had to be reworked for such a thing. If any other game licensed this engine today, I'd put them roughly 6 months from ship. Now with DNF, on the other hand, all bets are off. This won't be the first physics solution they have tried, and it may not be the last.

      • Re:Heh (Score:2)

        by tc ( 93768 )
        Yes, but you don't bolt on your physics engine late in development, because physics affects so much of the gameplay. It needs to be integrated with the rest of your engine. Game and level design needs to take it into account.

        • Re:Heh (Score:5, Insightful)

          by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Monday September 27, 2004 @09:01PM (#10368993) Homepage
          Yes, but you don't bolt on your physics engine late in development, because physics affects so much of the gameplay. It needs to be integrated with the rest of your engine. Game and level design needs to take it into account.

          If you're talking 3rd party rigid body and ragdoll physics solutions, you're not talking about how far the character can jump, or gets blasted by rockets, or most of the other things one would normally associate with physics. You're talking about kicking around chairs and tables. In Doom 3 there are roughly four places where you can get bonuses by kicking rigid objects near other objects. Other than that it just serves to increase immersion and make explosions more fantastic... not to mention get in the way of the player and be annoying. The same was true with Max Payne, the hallmark of the Havoc engine: beautiful physical movements with little gameplay relevance. Even Deus Ex 2's physical model was functionally gratuitous, as the game would have worked just as well if the crates didn't have a coefficient of friction

          Actual freeform physics with gameplay relevance is pretty rare. 1: They are unpredictable 2: They are computationally expensive 3: QA will find a million ways to break it until you have to completely neuter the process. I don't mean to disagree with you... stronger physics engines allow for a tremendous amount of freedom for the player, and as such should be integral to the design rather than bolted on afterwards. But quite frankly, right now they're not.

          • Check out Gish if you haven't. It's a game whose gameplay is pretty much solely physics based.

            You're a blob and you roll around the level collecting things in kind of your tradiional platform format.

            The different is you're affected by physics, so there is no standard platforming double jumping. If you want to jump higher, you have to bounce up and down a few times. You can cling to ceilings by making yourself more sticky, but gravity and how fast you're moving or changing directions can peel you off.

            • Not only gish, the whole incredible machine series was developed around physics, also some of the games on garage games are developed around that concept. Looking glass relied heavily on physics in most of their games, also did origin in some Ultimas. Physics allow often some kind of freeform adventure style of gameplay where the developer only sets the problem but leaves it up entirely to the player on how to solve it. Perfect examples for this are the Thief games.
              • True, I didn't even think about the Incredible Machines, but those are great examples. Unlike a lot of games that use physics as icing for the cake, IM couldn't be done without physics.

                Not doubting you, but I am curious how Thief is an example, though. I'd put it into the Max Payne category of just using physics as icing on the cake, rather than an important facet of gameplay. Maybe I'm not thinking about something, though.

                • Thief is an example in the regards of environmental sounds, water fire interaction and basically sort of freeform play by being able to dump anything onto a guard so that it becomes unconcoius.

                  For instance the arrow system, you extinquish fire with water arrows which is an integral part of gameplay. Same goes for rope arrows. Also if you count physics you can move things around hide behind them, or use carpets to dampen your noise. Or if you throw something you can distract the gua rds by the noise it ma
          • Well it is not that rare, if you go out of the shooter field. Following titles instantly come to my mind.
            • The Ultima Underworlds
            • Both System Shocks
            • Deus Ex 1,2
            • Both Gothics
            • Arx Fatalis
            • The Thief Series as a classical example of
            • Also add to that most flight, car and whatever simulations

            gameplay relying on physics in gameplay is harder, because it opens the path to a freeform style of play. But the results for the player are much more rewarding in the sense, that the player does not feel locked in a

      • Very few FPS games have taken their physics model seriously as a gameplay element, and as such I'd (Id?) be surprised if DNF's gameplay had to be reworked for such a thing.

        I'm sure it won't need that major of a re-tooling, but usually do-it-yourself physics and character animation engines have a way of being very pervasive in your code. It may take them a very long time to remove their own engine and then implement and test this one. IMHO, they'd be better off saving all their level data as it is, then

  • No (Score:5, Funny)

    by PrvtBurrito ( 557287 ) on Monday September 27, 2004 @03:32PM (#10366255)
    Is DNF finally a reality?

    No.

    • Re:No (Score:5, Funny)

      by mog007 ( 677810 ) <[Mog007] [at] [gmail.com]> on Monday September 27, 2004 @06:54PM (#10367963)
      I read an interview with some guy who's writing a book about the development of Half Life 2, and he said that after the physics engine was introduced to the Source engine everybody spent about a month making random machines to play with the physics. Valve is bad, but this is 3drealms, they'll get back to work in a year or so.
      • A month just playing with the physics engine? That reminds me of the penny-arcade comic where they are shown sitting in a plane.

        "I just saw Gabe Newell up there in first class."

        "Oh? What's he doing?"

        "Not making HL2."

    • >> Is DNF finally a reality?

      >No.
      DNF is DNF. Or, can you be DNF if you are DNS?

  • Enginer (Score:5, Funny)

    by Silicon Mike ( 611992 ) on Monday September 27, 2004 @03:34PM (#10366275)
    The real question is how does the new engine interact with vapor?

    • Re:Enginer (Score:3, Funny)

      by lscoughlin ( 71054 )
      The Vapor(tm) engine is infact the most advanced graphics engine you will never see. It is capable of interfacing cleanly with havok, and other physics engine, doing policy administration on a mainframe, slicing up julian fries, making toast and having sung hi lee brin you coffee in a cute little french maid outfit.

      Do not disturb the Vapor(tm), or it will smite you like the ragdoll you are!

    • Re:Enginer (Score:5, Informative)

      by Soul-Burn666 ( 574119 ) on Monday September 27, 2004 @04:43PM (#10366928) Journal
      Pretty damn well.
      Download the tech demo [meqon.com] from the site in the story. And check Custom Elements -> Particles.

  • Upcoming (Score:5, Funny)

    by nick_davison ( 217681 ) on Monday September 27, 2004 @03:37PM (#10366306)
    for the upcoming title Duke Nukem Forever

    Upcoming kind of implies that it's actually going to happen some day soon. As opposed to "the upcoming sun going supernova" - which is on about the same timescale as Duke Nukem Forever.

  • DNF (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 27, 2004 @03:38PM (#10366316)
    This is the abreviation used in a race to mean DID NOT FINISH

  • Breaking news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by badfrog ( 45310 ) on Monday September 27, 2004 @03:53PM (#10366453)
    The most awaited game of 1998.....Just picked ANOTHER 3D engine to start the development cycle all over again with!

  • My God (Score:3, Funny)

    by togofspookware ( 464119 ) on Monday September 27, 2004 @04:10PM (#10366598) Homepage
    The engine demos are more fun than Doom 3.

    (well, unless you've bound some keys to spawn projectiles and chaingun ammo :D)

  • DNF and Half-Life 2 (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I hate to flog a dead horse, but if, as one poster theorized, DNF is 3-6 months from release, it might actually make it out BEFORE HL2.

    Vapor vs. Vapor! It sounds like a bad Japanese monster movie.. >.>

  • Another Engine???? (Score:4, Funny)

    by darthtrevino ( 812116 ) on Monday September 27, 2004 @08:03PM (#10368507) Homepage
    Goodness! DK4EVA has gone through more engines than my uncle on his '66 mustang. Honestly..how about just get some guys to make the damn game with a good engine and get it the hell out there!

    There has to be like 3 people working on this game just laughing their asses off about it. It's going to be their life's work, like the statue of David, or the Sistine chapel. I mean, it's been in production for about a decade!

  • "We evaluated several physics SDK's"...
    So that's what has been taking so long!

  • Um, shouldn't a physics engine... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday September 28, 2004 @12:31AM (#10370588)
    be one of the first things you get done in the game? I know, beating a dead horse and all... I gave up on DNF when the big headed morons took the Jetpack out because they didn't want to risk me missing one second of their fantastic level design. Here's a hint idiots, if it's that good, I'll go back and play it with and without the jetpack, like I did for the first Duke Nukem 3D.
  • IIRC Havok is underlying FarCry & HL2, both seem amazing does this new contender offer some competition?

  • Delicious irony (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I know, I know, DNF almost certainly isn't going to see the light of day any time this side of 2010. If it does, it will almost certainly be a flop of Daikatana-like proportions.

    However...

    Wouldn't it just be wonderfully ironic if 3d Realms did actually pull a great game out of the hat. I mean, Duke Nukem 3d *was* good... in many ways better than Quake. I just wonder how the gaming press would feel if DNF were to come out in the next 6 months and blow everybody away? Remember how until last year, everybody

  • Developer's Comments (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Omega037 ( 712939 )
    This was written by George Broussard, one of the game developers who actually appears on the 3DRealmsforums from time to time. It was a reply to comments made by posters in a thread about the physics engine.

    >>There must be considerable advantages to Megon over Karma for you to make the switch. What are they?

    IMO, Karma was first gen. Havok was second gen. Meqon is third gen. It's way way faster than Karma ever was, and it does more, and it's cleaner to use. I know Havok is working on next gen

    • Whoops, forgot the link: http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php ?Cat=0&Number=686953&an=0&page=0#68695 3
    • Interesting. I can certainly buy the argument that physics engines are difficult to build. But the timing of this announcement makes me wonder if they were a little jealous of all the attention that other still not shipped game, HL2, has been getting. In any case, with the spectar of Daikatana still in everyone's memory, getting a good physics engine is a good thing.
    • as long as they keep the Duke Nukem elements we all loved in DN3D, I don't mind waiting Forever.
    • IMO, Karma was first gen. Havok was second gen. Meqon is third gen. It's way way faster than Karma ever was, and it does more, and it's cleaner to use. I know Havok is working on next gen stuff now, but it's not available yet.

      emphasis mine: I guess this means that they're going to play with Meqon for the time being and when the new Havok engine comes out they'll switch once again :)

      The rendering has been done a long time.

      aka, when it finally comes out it's going to look like crap compared to games li

  • They will change physics engines again... (Score:5, Funny)

    by JavaLord ( 680960 ) on Tuesday September 28, 2004 @11:32AM (#10374768) Journal
    The laws of Physics will change before this game comes out.
  • I'm happy playing with this tech demo, never have I had my destructive impulses satisfied so completely without losing in Jenga or wrecking a sand castle. Now if they use this physics engine to create realistic jiggling boobies I'll be happy.
  • Its like the easter bunny and santa clause. They don't exist! 3dREALMS likes to perpetuate the myth just so they can hold onto a little bit of venture capital every so often. Also probably gives some sort of tax benefits by actually perpetuating that they are a company that does something.

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