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Duke Nukem Forever Physics Impress
rauper wrote in to alert us to a GameIndustry.biz story. The quote says it all: "Swedish company Meqon, the firm behind the physics for 3D Realms' Duke Nukem Forever, has rekindled interest in the long-delayed game with a stunning demonstration of its latest physics technology."
the laws of physics will have changed. Whenever...
You mean there's a real game behind this that might actually be released someday? That's scary, when you consider the release of this game would signal the end of the world more than say, the Rapture would, to most gamers.
How come we haven't heard of this game before now? It sounds great. I can't wait for it to be released.
The fabric stuff sounds just like the goal-net "physics" in every soccer game since 2000. I don't have much confidence in DNF, but with HL2 and PPUs, "physics" seems to be the new buzzword in town.
How would you answer honestly when someone asks you what you do for a living when you're working on the physics technology for Duke Nukem Forever without sounding like an idiot.
I actually almost got involved in doing the music for Duke Nukem Forver. I must say i don't regret it didn't happen.
Sample this!
Has to have the latest physics technology since its release will freeze over Hell and give the power of flight to pigs, not to mention pulling one of the seals off the Book of Judgment and releasing the End Times. :)
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Especially for this type of hyped-up claim, I'd really like the opportunity to judge, or at least see it for myself. If you say you're going to change the world, I'd prefer you bring some evidence to the table rather than have closed-door accounts spinning your PR for you.
Duke Nukem already existed as a platformer but after the success of doom it also went 3D. Or rather 2.5D if I remember correctly. Like Doom I don't recall being able to walk under things. Meaning the floor plan was essentially 1 story with differences in heights. Odd because at the same time the game System Shock did have a full 3D world although still using 2D sprites for characters.
Then in 1998 talk really started about a sequel being in the works. To give you an idea how old duke nukem 3D was then already. The new Duke Nukem would use the quake 2 engine. So ID had done Quake AND quake 2 by the time 3D realms was ready for its next attempt.
Since then ID has released Quake 3 and of course Doom 3. 3D realms in the mean time switched from the quake 2 engine to the unreal engine while over the years the unreal engine has had plenty of upgrades as well.
Luckily 3Dreals claims that they replaced most of the unreal code. Good thing because the original while ground breaking at the time is now a bit dated.
But not just graphics engines have changed. The pure "walk around shooting things and collecting key cards" thing has changed. Games like Half-Life added a story. Dues EX added character interaction beyond getting strippers to flash their titties and started with physics (I still love being able to shoot your rifle up in the air and then hearing the bullets fall back down). Half-Life 2 added an even better physics engine that worked on more of the world. Operation Flashpoint added huge outdoor worlds with vehicles.
No game has yet done it all but my fear is that Duke Nukem Forever is trying to do just that. Lets face it. They can't get away with a Doom or even a Quake clone. Unreal has beaten them to it. We gonna at least want a bit of story telling ala half-life. Some nice open levels at least of the unreal level if not Operation Flashpoint. Something to drive perhaps. Physics and some destruction of the level.
The bar just keeps being raised higher and higher for 3d realms. Who can beat the looks of Doom 3 (yeah yeah anybody that can put the pc monitor in power save mode)?
We all remember daikatana. Tried so much. Failed at even more.
Now 3D realms is using its own money to fund this so perhaps it is nothing more then an excentric rich guy funding some magazine that never makes a profit. Their money their right to waste it.
Frankly if the demo is half as good as it sounds then just release the damn game already. Either the demo is as fake as the Half-Life 2 E3 demo was OR 3D realms just is stuck because they want their game to be the best at everything and other game companies keep beating them by focusing on only a small section.
3D realms, there is room for more then 1 nice FPS out there. You don't need to be the best to win. Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 both had their missing features and did well. Just release and start work on Duke Nukem "and you thought the previous one took a long a time".
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
http://www.meqon.com/downloadarea/downloadarea.php
"Hey guys! Physics is done!"
"Alright! What's left?"
"Not much. Just graphics, control, scripting, AI, sound, and multiplayer."
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
They printed out what they had of the source code and dropped it on the floor. Bang.
That's not a soda... it's a caffeine delivery device!
The page contained no concrete information, it could have been a rewritten press release for all I could see. The "links" linked not to anything relevent but to ads - for example, the link on Duke's "technology" went straight to an ad for Microsoft LiveMeeting.
This is obviously a click farm, albeit a slightly cleverer one than usual.
So far there's no evidence that DNF is anything but vapourware. An article that talks excitedly about improvements in realism, without showing any evidence, and whose links turn out to be ads, strikes me as about as trustworthy a source as an email entitled "L@@K! FR33 V10XX 1N Y0UR MA1LB0X N0W!!"
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I read the blog of Scott Miller, CEO of 3DRealms, quite frequently. He's a really smart guy. If companies followed the advice he dishes out on his blog, they'd be much better off. He's especially keen on marketing. For example, he has some great ideas on naming games and on avoiding using long titles like Star Wars Dark Forces II Jedi Knight III etc. Very smart stuff.
So why he has so f-ed up the marketing on DNF is beyond me. Frankly, I think he's betrayed the relationship between developer and fan more than nearly any other gaming single company. The problem is not that they've taken so long. If they had never released any information at all about DNF but simply announced the game and released it a year later after a PR blitz, it wouldn't have been a big deal. People might've wondered why it took so long, but they'd probably be too busy playing the game to care.
Instead, Miller and 3dr has arrogantly strung their fans along by surfacing every 2-3 years with a carrot of information or screenshots or an E3 preview. Then, when the enthusiasm level is just enough to maintain a slight knowledge of the game, they dive back into the murky depths of "when it's done."
"When it's done" does not inherently violate the relationship between developer and fan. But as soon as companies like 3drealms start relying on fan enthusiasm and fan network news distribution, they owe more to them than to snub their nose at the fans, say in a British Lord accent, "When it's done," and then walk away backs turned. DNF is a perfect example of this elitism.
There was a sociological study done a few years back that showed that the time people wait for things demonstrates the level in society of the two groups of people. This study was talking specifically about people waiting in doctor's offices or at a government institution. The longer people waited in these offices, the more important the person was they were waiting for - either a doctor or an institution. The longer we sit in a waiting room, the more we need to be in the waiting room. Doctors and buerocrats can get away with that because of their level of importance in society. Simply, we need them more than they need us, and that's why we wait.
But there's a discrepency in this when we apply this same theory to gaming. We don't need a DNF as much as Scott Miller and gang need us. We've been getting along fine without them. And perhaps Miller and 3drealms have enough money that they don't need to work quickly on the game, but if they have other aspirations for DNF - for it to become a benchmark, or just known as a really fun game - they're going to have to drop this elitist "when it's done" attitude and do one of two things: a) shut up about the game and stop releasing any kind of information like this, or b) set a date for the game and stick to it as best as they can.
Some of the more succesfull studios get away with "when it's done," namely id and Blizzard to name a few. This is just the validity of the sociological study; that we actually do "need" a game from id and Blizzard and are willing to wait long enough. Why this works for id and Blizzard and not 3drealms is that the first two companies have never betrayed the trust. While utilizing the fan network and and fan ethusiasm, they have never taken advantage of fans to maintain momentum while they diddle-dally on a game. 3drealms has violated that relationship - time again and time again. Gamers are a very forgiving bunch - throw a great screenshot their way and usually all is forgiven - but I think that DNF has broken a cardinal rule, and "fans" may relegated it to special level of gamer hell.
Will I need to run an IPX stack to play online?
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