Duke Nukem Forever Not Dead? (Yes, This Again) 195
kaychoro writes "There may be hope for Duke Nukem Forever (again). 'Jon St. John, better known as the voice of Duke Nukem, said some interesting words during a panel discussion at the Music and Games Festival (MAGFest) that took place January 1 – 4 in Alexandria, Virginia, according to Pixel Enemy. Answering a question from the crowd regarding DNF, St. John said: "... let me go ahead and tell you right now that I'm not allowed to talk about Duke Nukem Forever. No, no, don't be disappointed, read between the lines — why am I not allowed to talk about it?"'"
Of course it's not dead (Score:5, Funny)
Duke Nukem Forever is FOREVER!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Duke Nukem Forever is taking FOREVER!
-- FTFY
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Or maybe they've seen the same joke over and over for the past ten years?
Re:Of course it's not dead (Score:4, Funny)
It's resting.
It's, errr, pining for the fjords.
Re: (Score:2)
It's resting.
It's, errr, pining for the fjords.
Remarkable game DNF, beautiful graphics...
Stuns easily though.
Re:Of course it's not dead (Score:4, Funny)
It seems really wrong for DNF not to be in development. Long may it remain so!
Umm...what is Duke Nukem? (Score:5, Funny)
Is that one of those old bands my dad use to listen to?
Ya see, kid, ... (Score:4, Informative)
Upon seeing the headline I realized there's a whole generation of /.ers who weren't even around when Duke Nukem became old news.
http://xkcd.com/647/ [xkcd.com] applies.
Re:Ya see, kid, ... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
http://xkcd.com/647/ applies
Translation: I am worried about my age.
Solution: Grow up.
Get off my lawn! (Score:2)
Get off my lawn!
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
and drop my Floppy Disks! You don't have anything that can read they anyway!
Re: (Score:2)
actually it would be "drop my Tapes"...
Re: (Score:2)
Would that be paper tapes or those new fangled magnetic ones?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I think you're being pretty optimistic if you think Slashdot is getting any new generations of readers. In reality, new generations use Digg and Reddit.
Re: (Score:2)
Duke Nukem 3d was the last DN game before DNF was announced. The portable and console games were all side projects released while DNF development was underway.
Re: (Score:2)
What about Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project [gog.com]?
Re: (Score:2)
If I recall correctly DN3D (or one of the special editions) also included DN 1 and 2. I remember being excited to play them until I discovered that they were like side-scrolling platformers, at which point I said "what the hell is this?" and went back to DN3D.
Re:Indeed (Score:5, Funny)
I remember when... ...dialing a phone meant putting your finger in a hole and spinning the dialer. ...25MHz was fast for a computer. ...a dollar could actually get you a chocolate bar, and leave you with change to spare. ...downloading a song from the internet took 25-30 minutes, or more. ...I could bring my pocket knife on a plane. ...I could say merry christmas to somebody without offending them. ...cell phones were the size of masonry bricks, and were actually used to make phone calls. ...all personal computers were beige. ...a personal computer cost $2000 or more. ...playing a 4-color adventure game was cool. ...everyone knew how to use a command line interface. ...I had to rewind movies after watching them. ...I had to turn the cassette tape over in the player to listen to the other half of the album. ...camera's used film. ...polaroid camera's were the only way to get an instant photograph. ...a printer, a scanner, a copier, and a fax machine were 4 separate devices. ...the only way to make a phone call away from your home was to put quarters in a payphone.
Okay... I'll stop now. I could likely do this all day. :)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I remember when downloading a song from a BBS (internet? What's that?) took
a less than five minutes--'cause you were downloading a MIDI file. What
other kind of music was there on a computer?
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure how old you are, but I'm only 23 and I remember all those things as well... I'm not sure that it actually makes me feel old, though, because it really wasn't that long ago.
Re: (Score:2)
Remember the old 75ohm antenna connections. They looked like a horse shoe, and to attach it to your TV, you needed either a flathead screwdriver or a knife?
Um i'm pretty sure that style of connector was for 300 ohm balanced feeder, 75 ohm is the coax stuff.
Re: (Score:2)
I am three years older than you, and I played the 2D Duke Nukems... I grew up on computer side-scrollers (first console I ever had was the first X-Box so it was computer games only - no Mario) and of course the early first-person shooters when they came out. Commander Keen, Crystal Caves, Secret Agent, and so on. They may have been a couple years old by the time I played some of them, but some of them I played when they were new - my dad downloaded shareware from BBSs for me (took hours I presume) and later
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Get off my lawn!!
Re: (Score:2)
It's time to kick ass and chew bubble gum (Score:5, Funny)
And I'm all out of gum.
Damn, I'm lookin'... bad? (Score:2)
If you listen closely, you hear it say: Kiiiiilll meeeeee.... [3drealms.com]
Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
The only thing he sounded like, was "I'd like to tell you all about that shit and how horribly mismanaged that disaster was, but I've been gagged from telling you"
Re: (Score:2)
Please mod parent up, I was thinking the same thing.
Oh, and speaking of DNFs, when the hell is the next episode of Ninjai coming out? It's been over five years since episode 12 was released.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, no doubt that's why he said "don't be disappointed, read between the lines — why am I not allowed to talk about it?"
Because the most exciting thing possible for fans would be Jon's not allowed to talk about it because it was all a big fuck up! Oh, the excitement is pretty much killing me.
Re: (Score:2)
I fail to see the word "exciting" in the quote.
How about "don't be disappointed ... you never had to play the horrible piece of crap ... read between the lines ... this thing sucked so much we canned it to save the world from a disaster 1000x worse than daikatana ... why am I not allowed to talk about it? ... because merely speaking of
YouTube version (Score:5, Informative)
"Duke Nukem Neversaynever" (Score:5, Funny)
That's a good new name. :P
Re: (Score:2)
Of Course it's Not Dead (Score:4, Insightful)
The story, plot and characters of the game are still worth quite a bit. There still isn't anything quite like Duke Nukem even after all the FPS games that came after. The question is, can anyone take those up and create an actual game to some sort of plan?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh not again (Score:5, Funny)
Won't this bloody game ever die?!? I feel sorry for the Duke actually, being dragged through this ordeal when he should have been put to rest a long time ago.
The Dead Collector: Bring out yer dead.
[a man puts the body of Duke Nukem on the cart]
Large Man with Dead Body: Here's one.
The Dead Collector: That'll be ninepence.
Duke Nukem: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: What?
Large Man with Dead Body: Nothing. There's your ninepence.
Duke Nukem: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: 'Ere, he says he's not dead.
Large Man with Dead Body: Yes he is.
Duke Nukem: I'm not.
The Dead Collector: He isn't.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.
Duke Nukem: I'm getting better.
Large Man with Dead Body: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment.
The Dead Collector: Well, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations.
Duke Nukem: I don't want to go on the cart.
Large Man with Dead Body: Oh, don't be such a baby.
The Dead Collector: I can't take him.
Duke Nukem: I feel fine.
Large Man with Dead Body: Oh, do me a favor.
The Dead Collector: I can't.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, can you hang around for a couple of minutes? He won't be long.
The Dead Collector: I promised I'd be at the Robinsons'. They've lost nine today.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, when's your next round?
The Dead Collector: Thursday.
Duke Nukem: I think I'll go for a walk.
Large Man with Dead Body: You're not fooling anyone, you know. Isn't there anything you could do?
Duke Nukem: I feel happy. I feel happy.
[the Dead Collector glances up and down the street furtively, then silences the Duke with his a whack of his club]
Large Man with Dead Body: Ah, thank you very much.
The Dead Collector: Not at all. See you on Thursday.
Large Man with Dead Body: Right.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Zombie Nukem Forever (Score:2)
It's. Just. A. Videogame. (Score:2)
It's just a videogame. It's just a REMAKE of a videogame. It's not like they're even going to have a different story arc. Or even much of a story. There'd be more actual narrative material in a remake of a bad Saturday morning cartoon, like, oh, the Herculoids.
(If there's going to be a Herculoids movie, I don't wanna know. La la la la, I can't hear you...)
Re: (Score:2)
Gleep's in rehab, you insensitive clod!
Re: (Score:2)
Oh god, I had no idea, I'm sorry.
DNF??? (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I'll still buy it... (Score:2)
You're all drawing the wrong conclusion (Score:5, Insightful)
The Build engine (Score:5, Interesting)
Duke Nukem 3D did have a rather interesting engine. As someone else has posted, it did various things other engines at the time couldn't do (eg. mirrors) and was well optimized.
For anyone who's interested about the history of the engine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSVzn0F3pyQ [youtube.com]
OK, it's got nothing to do with DNF but I found this video recently and felt it was worth sharing. :)
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed, Build was amazing, Ken Silverman was The Man in his time (John Carmack still praises him to this day). Not only did he manage to develop a very good engine but also the most usable map editor ever. I wish that modern day game developers would learn usability lessons from Build, it was truly amazing, the only editor where I did manage to translate my creativity into game content, exactly the way I wanted, and with a professional feel to it. The only engine that came remotely close from Build in th
He's not dead (Score:3, Funny)
He's pining for the, er, strip bars.
Get her the gift... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
...that will last forever.
So, on the "things that will last forever that you can give to your girlfriend" scale, where between diamonds and herpes does a preorder for DNF sit?
not allowed to talk about it as it is going to cor (Score:2)
not allowed to talk about it as it is going to court and after the long time there it will be time to update it to a new 3d system.
Jon St. John's Duke Nukem outtakes (Score:4, Funny)
I just have to share this here - if you are a Duke Nukem fan... or really if you are just a fan of 'the funnay' then be sure to visit 3D Realms' Duke Nukem outtakes collection page: http://www.3drealms.com/duke3d/outtakes.html [3drealms.com] (note, it says realplayer is required by they also have .wav links)
Duke Nukem Forever not dead? (Score:2)
Let me be the first to say...
Noooooooooooooooooo...!!!
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not falling for this bit again... (Score:2)
Console Port (Score:2)
Looking forward to the console port on the PS/5, the Xbox 1080, and the Wii III.
"why am I not allowed to talk about it?" (Score:2, Funny)
Because there's a pending lawsuit?
Re:GRRRROOOAAANNNNN (Score:5, Informative)
* License iD Tech 4 [wikipedia.org]
* Begin development!
* Drool at Rage [wikipedia.org] and Doom 4 [wikipedia.org]
* License iD Tech 5 [wikipedia.org]
* Struggle to incorporate previously developed content into new engine
* Start over with a new license of iD Tech 6 [wikipedia.org]
* ???
* Profit!
Duke Nuken For.... WTF?! (Score:2)
3DRealms is done. Supposedly, Take-Two Interactive now owns rights to Duke Nukem. Maybe they're going to finish this game now. They did invest a couple of million into the game already. They have a fiscal responsibility to try and see it released.
Yes; but over what time period was that money invested? Any money spent on development and marketing (e.g.) ten- or five!- years ago is lost anyway, since they'd probably be much quicker developing from scratch rather than trying to contrive the inclusion of obsolete code and dated graphics which would have to be reworked to the point of being new anyway.
Any pretence otherwise is an accounting/legal trick to avoid having to write off losses and/or to make the companies involved appear better.
Nuken 3D wa
Re:Duke Nuken For.... WTF?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why didn't they just get someone to develop something and slap a name on it?
They did slap the duke nukem name on third party stuff a couple of times, duke nukem time to kill and duke nuem manhatten project spring to mind.
It always appeared to me that the big problem with dnf was they really wanted it to be a ground breaking game but others kept overtaking them and so they kept rearchitecting the game over and over again.
Re:Duke Nuken For.... WTF?! (Score:5, Informative)
The irony about the latest incarnation of DNF is that this time, it really was almost done. 3DR had finally hired someone from outside to manage the project and stop the feature creep and, by all accounts from people who'd seen the latest incarnation, it would've been a kick-ass Duke Nukem game.
Unfortunately the financial armageddon meant that 3DR needed some cash (they were probably funding DNF through various investment schemes) and so they were at the mercy of T2. Take Two decided that the Duke IP was worth more than just helping 3DR and so decided to screw them over. That incident a few years ago where George Broussard told T2 to "shut the fuck up" probably didn't help matters either.
This piece on Wired [wired.com] is probably the best write-up of the whole saga I've seen.
Re: (Score:2)
True. Rule 1, you cannot have a ground-breaking engine if you license someone else's.
But the original Duke Nukem, and then Duke Nukem 3D were both well implemented, but technologically boring. The only "groundbreaking" thing about it was the strippers, I suppose. And breakable toilets. Still, it was very well implemented and fun. Maybe they should have stayed with their strength.
Re: (Score:2)
Afaict build was actually pretty good for it's day (it had slopes, the ability to look up and down albiet in a slightly broken way, sectors were allowed to overlap in certain situations, and the ability for sectors to move easilly in real time allowing swinging doors, moving lights and varous other affect) and afaict duke was the first widely known game on the build engine. The trouble is quake (with it's true 3D world) came out not long after.
Did other engines have these features before build and if so wer
Re:GRRRROOOAAANNNNN (Score:5, Informative)
3d realms is not 'done' and Take Two does not own the rights to Duke Nukem. Take Two is suing for the assets to Duke Nukem Forever (possibly to finish the game) saying 3D Realms breached their contract with Take Two for failing to deliver the game. By the time the court case is finished, those assets will almost certainly be worthless, if they're not already.
Re:Anyone else outgrow Duke Nukem? (Score:5, Informative)
A lot of modern games do some of these, and generally do them better than Duke3D because the technology has improved. Given how much more primitive than Quake the engine was, you should get some idea of how good the game was from the fact that the two were played about as much. The thing that killed Duke3D for us was the fact that Quake supported mods (like most Id games, it's basically a playable engine demo), and so you kept getting new games that ran on the Quake engine for free. Duke3D stayed Duke3D and I never even managed to get custom levels to work in multiplayer.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Because the engine wasn't pure 3D, it could do impossible levels and the designers used this very effectively in a few places.
You can do "impossible" levels in pure 3D just fine. Examples: Narbacular Drop, Prey, Portal.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
There's a difference between what TheRaven64 and you are talking about with impossible levels. Try making a figure-eight shape for the player to run on the inside of, but make it so that when you are crossing the center point you can't see any of the crossing point - you only go along a single path the entire time and keep passing over an impossible point time and time again. You could literally make parts of a level physically on top of other parts, and the engine would not care. Think about Doctor Who
Re: (Score:2)
Given that DN3D achieved this by quietly teleporting the player as he walked, how is it any different from any "true 3D" game that does the same (as, I believe, Prey did)?
Re:Anyone else outgrow Duke Nukem? (Score:4, Interesting)
Marathon had the impossible levels too... they're really quite cool, and I haven't seen anything like them in Prey or Portal.
For example, you could make a figure-8 level where the two crossing hallways in the center "don't intersect" with each other. So and your friend can be standing literally in the same place, but you can't see each other because you're in different hallways. One of the Marathon multiplayer levels was mind-bending by using this trick... it made the radar completely useless.
Re: (Score:2)
I found that I could play Quake on most 486-class machines (anything with VLB VGA or better, really) at 512x384 or better. Given Quake's added realism, this was more than enough to kick the shit out of Duke. Duke had personality and a great set of weapons for multiplayer; Quake had the visuals all over Duke, though. If it took a little more machine, it was worth it; most of us had small monitors back then anyway :)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Also, for multiplayer, the DOS version didn't support the same protocol as the other versions.
having played winquake vs. dos quake, I disagree. you just had to set up an ipx network on windows. quakeworld was different though.
Re:Anyone else outgrow Duke Nukem? (Score:4, Informative)
Yet Doom as Well as Duke 3d were supbar technologically to Ultima Underworld which came out a few weeks before Castle Wolfenstein 3d.
Re: (Score:2)
3D Realms' own Rise of the Triad had destroyable scenery, fun weapons, and flying, over a year before Duke3D came out. It even had humor, though not to the same extent as Duke3D.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
RoTT visuals sucked, unfortunately, as engine-wise it was somewhere between Wolfenstein and Doom engine (in particular, 90 degree walls only, and ceiling height the same throghout the entire map - though it did vary between maps, unlike Wolfenstein).
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
> Duke3D stayed Duke3D and I never even managed to get custom levels to work in multiplayer.
It involved the arcane technique of copying the map into the data directory and choosing said map before starting the server ;)
But on a more serious note, dm14_2 was the _best_ _multiplayer_ _map_ _ever_. Tiny footprint, yet quite high; it ensured that you met each other all the time while still allowing you to hide (sometimes) and incredibly fast-paced. Fun times :)
Re: (Score:2)
It involved the arcane technique of copying the map into the data directory and choosing said map before starting the server ;)
That never worked for me. I could start a one-player multiplayer game and join with the custom map and play with it. If I started a proper multiplayer game, I got errors while waiting for other players most of the time or sync errors immediately after the game started other times. Copying the map to the clients didn't seem to make any difference.
Re: (Score:2)
> Copying the map to the clients didn't seem to make any difference.
I was about to ask, because that was the only other thing needed.
Maybe there were different versions and you had an old one? Patch distribution did not actually work as good as today, I fear. In any case, it's a pity cause you really missed out.
On the plus side, Shadow Warrior with the nuke, railgun and grenade launcher and the better stock maps should have worked for you.
Re: (Score:2)
There are no clients or servers with duke3D multiplayer it's a peer to peer synchronised system.
You need to copy the map to all the machines and start all the machines with EXACTLY the same settings (including specifying the same user map), then it should work.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Heh them were t'days. We used to drag our computers round to Tim's mum's house (we were all in our twenties and all lived with parents,stereotypes or what?) and trail thin ethernet everywhere. IPX , SPX , NE2000 cards, doom2 and duke3d. And there was no internet to download drivers in them days, you had to copy files off the netware floppy disks at work. Duke3d was ace because you could jetpack over an open area and drop pipe bombs on the poor fools on the ground. Good times before the cares of the world cr
Re: (Score:2)
Great post - something else to note was the Duke scripting engine- it was so much fun to get in there and tweak it - they got that much right in terms of mods, but beyond that I agree Quake excelled (and benefited as you said).
Re: (Score:2)
Wow. That sounds awesome. I wonder if they'll ever come out with a modern sequel...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, Descent was released one year earlier, and it let you fly too.
Of course, you could ONLY fly in that game. But I still considered it an FPS anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
There was text in Serious Sam??
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The first three games in the franchise were platformers.
What was the third Duke Nukem game before 3D?
Duke3D stayed Duke3D and I never even managed to get custom levels to work in multiplayer.
I've played a few.
Re: (Score:2)
BULLSHIT
Re: (Score:2)
mind you this was back in the day when you just learned cooties didn't really exist
I think you mean "when you stopped caring".
Re: (Score:2)
Are you serious?
I was in my early teens when I started playing Duke3D. I'd played Duke Nukem 2 years prior (it was kid-safe).
Yeah, the boobies were awesome. But that was just the hook. Yes, the game engine was behind by quite a bit with its sprites. The sinker was the gameplay.
Weapons the weapons and levels combined really well with each other to form an absolutely incredible multiplayer experience. Trip mines, secret passages, crawl spaces, remote detonator grenades, being able to hear through walls to som
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Anyone else outgrow Duke Nukem? (Score:4, Interesting)
No publisher would throw away 12 years of hype.
Isn't it even longer than that now? Anyway, Duke Nukem Forever had already moved from badly delayed to standing joke in the early-2000s. Now the joke's worn thin and just plain strange. The fact that someone hasn't just slapped the name on *something* and released it as Duke Nukem Forever long before now is what is weird.
I suspect that any game released would end up being the "Snakes on a Plane" of games. People discussing it a lot, but not necessarily buying it. Anyone who remembers playing the original games in their mid-90s heyday would have to be at least in their 20s now, and even then I suspect that most of them have moved on.
Disclaimer; though I'm old enough to have been a typical DN fan, I never played- nor had even heard of it- during its heyday, only becoming aware of it through DNF's reputation as a standing joke several years ago. Even *that* was so long ago that many kids probably aren't aware of it. Its best hope is as a tongue-in-cheek attempt to ride an "ironic" revival of the 1990s. Yuk.
Re: (Score:2)
No publisher would throw away 12 years of hype.
I would in a heartbeat (of course, IANADeveloper). The more hype, the more expectation. The bar keeps creeping up. Eventually, the hype is so bad that a no-name but otherwise identical "great" game is merely "living up to the hype" once it's got the hyped brand plastered on it.
It still rocks (Score:2, Interesting)
"I think the whole world has. Like you said, the main draw of Duke Nukem over similar games was the swearing/stripper angle, and even for today's kids that role was long ago taken by the Internet."
I actually played Duke Nukem 3D recently on Linux using eduke32 and it was still a lot of fun. Back when Duke Nukem was popular some kids may have played it because of the swearing/stripper angle, but I don't know of any adults who played it just because of that. My friends and I enjoyed playing Duke Nukem so much
Re: (Score:2)
Look, this joke stopped being funny eight years ago. DNF is like the penis jokes in a Mike Myers film.