What happens when you spend 13 years developing a sequel?

[Kupek]

You go out of business: http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/58519

[bovine]

zing

[RentCavalier]

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

It is more surprising that this surprises me. I suppose we really should have seen this coming.

[SineSwiper]

Yeah, I for one am not surprised. Obviously, they have ABSOLUTELY NO CONCEPT OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT! And if a game studio is not producing games, it's not going to be a game studio for long.

[Eric]

And people complain about Blizzard.

[Tessian]

I don't think any of us ever thought DN Forever was anything more than vaporware... looks like we were right. Makes me wonder wtf they HAVE been doing for the past 12 years, if not actually developing a game...

[SineSwiper]

I'm sure Take Two was wondering the same thing.

[Kupek]

I don't think any of us ever thought DN Forever was anything more than vaporware... looks like we were right. Makes me wonder wtf they HAVE been doing for the past 12 years, if not actually developing a game...

That's how long DNF was in "development": the PA comic making fun of them for not working on it is ten years old.

[Zeus]

Didn't 3D Realms release Prey? It's not like DNF is the ONLY thing they were working on

[Mental]

The page was actually unloadable when I tried to pull it up, adding another layer of irony on top of the whole thing.

To my regret, I actually did think it would come out and was looking forward to playing it. I suppose that when the recession hit, all the publishers who were floating George Broussard's pipe dreams of watching porn and/or playing World of Warcraft all day - if he wasn't doing that, what the hell could he have actually been doing for twelve years? - decided it wasn't looking like as good a bet after all.

[Don]

Diablo 3 is in development for like 7 years already. They just didn't announce anything when they started working on it.

[Eric]

Diablo 3 is in development for like 7 years already. They just didn't announce anything when they started working on it.

Yeah but that has more to do with the entire Blizzard North team up and leaving and forming Flagship Studios.

[Julius Seeker]

Dr. Dre is still in the lab with a pen and a pad trying to figure out come backs for people who dissed him like 8 years ago. When Forgot About Dre came out, half the people who he was responding to had been dead for 5 years.

[SineSwiper]

Didn't 3D Realms release Prey? It's not like DNF is the ONLY thing they were working on

They released Prey. They didn't make Prey. They released Max Payne, too. I think they provided them some money or something.

[Mental]

Tycho's take on the whole thing: http://www.penny-arcade.com/2009/5/8/

It's funny, because I think he's right. Duke Nukem 3D was a masterwork and a true classic, far removed from the perpetual vaporware joke that the sequel development would be. And I agree that "there are lessons about what makes for good play still bottled up in Duke Nukem 3D, lessons [that] haven't truly informed the last thirteen years of industry progress."

The level design in DN3D was just fun, I don't know any other way to put it, as well as creative and innovative in a way that combined with the personality of the game. I would easily put it in any "best level design" competition you ever wanted to name. The levels had one foot in dirty reality and the other in the action-hero-half-parody of the personality of the game, and it just made things interesting and exciting. Stuff like the movie theater and its seedy booths and bathrooms in the "required" part of the first level actually created the idea of a real world you were fighting through, not a level specifically manufactured to meet design requirements or give the player some kind of artificial on-rails experience. And then in that same level, if you found the secrets you could fly up to some druggie's apartment and find synthetic testosterone, which felt totally in-line with the game world as it was. And all the levels were like that. The train in one of the later episodes that could either ferry you around or run you over predated similar stuff in 3D shooters by years. And when I found out that you could actually "shoot" the balls in the pool table in the fourth level just for fun, I almost shit, back then.

I mean, this was 1996, only about three or four years after the dawn of PC 3D games (Castle Wolfenstein 3D, which most people say started it off, was in released in 1992). I tend to think design in the industry has not managed to even consistently reach the level DN3D had at that date, which is kind of a downer for me. Halo's level design I thought was boring by comparison. It's only three or four years ago that it seems like some of the 3D design is getting back up to being that in-world, fun, and interactive at the same time (the Half-Life series, Portal...someone help me out, I haven't played many 3D titles since they stopped being like DN3D). Even Unreal Tournament, which I played for a few years and which had a wonderful community and server support and great graphics and was fun as hell, had nowhere near that flow and creativity, in my opinion.

Hence, why everyone cared about this story for thirteen years and why there are some people actually sad about the announcement (like me). I obviously have the same tarnished opinion about George Broussard's managment skills and/or work ethic that everyone else does right now, but I still recognize that title for the classic that it was and how much honest excitement it put into my life at the time. We used to have LAN parties after work at my office, and man, was it ever sweet. A bonding experience, even. I still remember playing it back then at my work computer late into the night with my coworkers after school. I still haven't really matched that level of excitement in terms of LAN or network gaming, I think.

[Mental]

By the way, while I can still get away with the tangential Castle Wolfenstein reference, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Wol ... n">this</a> will trip you out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Wolfenstein

It's not the 3D version. That is back in the day, right there. I knew about Akalabeth with Ultima and Jazz Jackrabbit for Epic and even that tiny-ass game that the Naughty Dog guys put out with my uncle's software company back when they were teenagers, but IMO it's always cool to know about the old-ass brick graphic games that were the direct sires of all the modern 3D insane-lighting-engine wonderfests we know and love today.

/threadjack

[Kupek]

I had a similar experience with D3D that Tycho did. Me and a friend played the shit out of that game over direct modem play.

You're right on the "realness" of the levels, but I think Half Life was able to build upon that feeling. (I'd like to say Half Life 2 did as well, but I've never actually played it.) The first few levels of D3D were fun, but what really captured me was the multiplayer. (Oh, the joy of setting down pipe bombs, hiding near a camera and watching your friend die an an explosion safely through camera.)

Half Life was the first FPS whose single player captured me. Before that, I had played through Quake's single player, but mostly because it was there - I had few PC gaming options at the time.

[Zeus]

Half Life was the first FPS whose single player captured me. Before that, I had played through Quake's single player, but mostly because it was there - I had few PC gaming options at the time.

Wolfenstein was mine. It was just so different from anything else at the time it was great. And chasing down Hitler is always fun :-)

Goldeneye's single-player set the standard away from the barely-there-single-player FPSs and Half Life took it to another level.

[SineSwiper]

I had a similar experience with D3D that Tycho did. Me and a friend played the shit out of that game over direct modem play.

We played it in a computer lab at the arcade. The game was awesome on multiplayer, because there was actual strategy into the game. For example, the speed pills used to be just for getting away, until we discovered that it countered the effects of the shrink ray. We played in that lab a lot.

Then Counterstrike came and destroyed everything. What a fucking boring piece of shit game! To this day, I'm sure there's jackoffs in that lab still playing fucking Counterstrike.

[Mental]

I also can't stand Counterstrike. I played it a few times at another office and that was enough. It's all twitch, no variety or interesting staging.

I imagine it to be the virtual equivalent of being in an actual, and actually shitty, urban or desert trench war. A war where you barely know who's shooting at you, almost everyone dies, and nothing ever changes. It reminds me of descriptions of WWI trench warfare from my history classes.

[Anarky]

I have fond memories of playing Duke Nukem 3d over dial-up. I was hoping Duke Nukem Forever would bring those back...

[Anarky]

By the way, while I can still get away with the tangential Castle Wolfenstein reference, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Wol ... n">this</a> will trip you out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Wolfenstein

You need to read Masters of Doom

[Zeus]

By the way, while I can still get away with the tangential Castle Wolfenstein reference, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Wol ... n">this</a> will trip you out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Wolfenstein

You need to read Masters of Doom

Great book

[SineSwiper]

I also can't stand Counterstrike. I played it a few times at another office and that was enough. It's all twitch, no variety or interesting staging.

I imagine it to be the virtual equivalent of being in an actual, and actually shitty, urban or desert trench war. A war where you barely know who's shooting at you, almost everyone dies, and nothing ever changes. It reminds me of descriptions of WWI trench warfare from my history classes.

Yeah, I don't want to play a game that is "realistic". I like the goofy weapons in Quake and DN3D. We would play various FPSs, RTSs, even tried out Diablo, etc.

But, when CS came out, NOBODY was playing anything else. Most of the regulars in the lab were kinda pissed because we didn't give a shit about CS.

[Anarky]

By the way, while I can still get away with the tangential Castle Wolfenstein reference, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Wol ... n">this</a> will trip you out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Wolfenstein

You need to read Masters of Doom

Great book

I'm still curious to see the film adaptation.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/news1 ... tersofdoom

[Zeus]

You need to read Masters of Doom

Great book

I'm still curious to see the film adaptation.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/news1 ... tersofdoom

That's a 2005 story. I'm pretty sure it's dead now

[Anarky]

Great book

I'm still curious to see the film adaptation.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/news1 ... tersofdoom

That's a 2005 story. I'm pretty sure it's dead now

I know, but it still says in production in the wiki page... still hoping to see something

[Shellie]

Looks like it had a decent amount of work done. Maybe someone will pick it up and actually finish it.

[Mental]

Looks like it had a decent amount of work done. Maybe someone will pick it up and actually finish it.

*sob*

it looks so good

[Zeus]

Looks like it had a decent amount of work done. Maybe someone will pick it up and actually finish it.

*sob*

it looks so good

Yeah, it actually does. I hope some publisher tries to pick it up.

[Mental]

Couldn't they have just released it on an episodic basis and tried to use the funds from the first episode to get the rest of the thing done?

[Don]

Couldn't they have just released it on an episodic basis and tried to use the funds from the first episode to get the rest of the thing done?

I have yet to see any proof that this model is viable, and that's assuming they have enough stuff done for even one episode.

[Kupek]

Those are a former member of the team showing off his modeling skills (not meant in a derogatory way; I assume it's resume material). That's not necessarily live gameplay.

[Mental]

Um. Did you watch the video, Kup? There's plenty of live gameplay.

And, Don, episodic content is available all over XBLA. Look harder.

[Don]

Um. Did you watch the video, Kup? There's plenty of live gameplay.

And, Don, episodic content is available all over XBLA. Look harder.

I'd imagine the development cost of DNF isn't quite the same as your average episodic game, so they'd be aiming for a pretty different audience here.

[Kupek]

Um. Did you watch the video, Kup? There's plenty of live gameplay.

I watched the video, and that was my point. Everything you saw could have been scripted. I tried differentiating between scripted sequences running in-engine and actual gameplay. Hence the phrase "live gameplay."

I'm trying to point out that while it looks like part of a nearly finished game, that's our assumptions filling in the gaps. The gulf between what we saw and a releasable game can still be huge.

[Mental]

Oh, I can absolutely tell you that it is huge. You wouldn't be seeing untextured polys in a real promotional shot. I doubt they're more than 30% done with the game, if that. The scenes where Duke was moving around and whatnot did not look incredibly "bullshotted" to me, but I could be wrong. As you said, if they really wanted to fake more content than they had, it wouldn't be hard to do. I suppose you're right, however - if there was undone work in the engine itself, and it seems there may have been, you can't release a single episode at a time.

It still makes me pine for what might have been. Sadly, my guess is that one of the reasons this project got clusterfucked is because their design process was probably awful, and when that happens, even God often can't pick up the pieces of the codebase and get another team running well with them. I know you have to agree with me on that one.

[Tessian]

Yeah that stuff was far from completed... what they had looked cool though