Duke Nukem Forever Tops Vaporware List

Wired has an annual list of high-profile vaporware projects and the number of games on there is just depressing. Numbers 7, 6, 5, 2, and 1 are all videogame projects. When the Phantom is only #2, you know what has to be number 1. From the article: "Announced in 1997 and promised every year since, this game takes vaporware to new heights. Think about it, in just 13 months this game will have been in one form of development or another for a decade. This project started with a game based on the Quake 2 engine, then in 1999 it moved to the Unreal engine and has been stalled ever since."

Comments

But But But

[LiquidCoooled]

Duke Nukem is in production?

Say it ain't so.

Don't Panic

[someguy456]

Don't worry, it's painfully obvious that DNF will run on Vista running on a Phantom. In fact, these have the same launch day...

In other news...

[the_skywise]

Water is wet!

Although I think calling the new Legend of Zelda "vaporware" is off as its only late by... ooh...3 months.

DNF isn't dead!

[Esine]

You guys should follow the most excellent 3D Realms forums! George Broussard has provided us .. um.. "a lot" of info about DNF

It will come soon (as in 10 years), I'm sure! ;)

-- dbg

google

[szembek]

I disagree with the author having the Google beta products in the list. Simply because a product doesn't change from beta to actual release for a while doesn't necessarily make it vaporware. Gmail has been implementing new features and improving ever since it was initially released as a 'beta'. I think I would file it under vaporware, if we kept reading slashdot posts about an upcoming mail service by Google only to never see anything. Also Google tends to use the term 'beta' quite loosely.

Re:google

[drinkypoo]

According to Wired's definition, it's vaporware.

The only thing wired's an authoritative source on is how to make a magazine so ugly, gaudy, and unreadable that you lose half your subscribers. The only people who hung onto wired for that long were the ones who wanted to look like a nerd by having it on their coffee table.

Wired articles tend to be punched up so much in order to be sensational that they lose any validity. They're not about the news, they're about giving them excuses to put pretty pictures and funky type in their magazine.

No one who is anyone important takes Wired seriously.

DNF

[singularity]

I just noticed this on the DNF FAQ:

1.8 - Will DNF be available on DVD?
This still has not been decided yet, however the chances of this happenning are slim. It is important to note that DVD's are not mainstream yet, at least not in the software industry.

Now, I almost never do any gaming on my computer, but I definitely think that any machine that is going to run DNF is going to have a DVD drive.

Amazing that this product has been in development so long that means of distribution have even changed.

Re:DNF

[drinkypoo]

Now, I almost never do any gaming on my computer, but I definitely think that any machine that is going to run DNF is going to have a DVD drive.

Are you kidding? At this rate, any computer that is going to run DNF is going to have a direct neural interface and a quantum holography storage device.

Re:DNF

[bigbigbison]

To be fair, in America, there are still very few PC videogames released on DVD -- and when they are, it is usually as a more expensive "collector's edition" while the regular version is still released on CDs.

For those too lazy to RTFA

[ThomS]

The list: 10. High-def TiVo and TiVoToGo for Mac 9. AlphaGrip ergonomic keyboard/trackball 8. Blu-ray or HD-DVD discs 7. Team Fortress 2: Brotherhood of Arms 6. Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess 5. StarCraft Ghost 4. Microsoft's Vista and Internet Explorer 7 3. Google -- betas galore 2. Phantom Game Service 1. Duke Nukem Forever

Just thinking about other things

[LiquidCoooled]

DNF is only a long standing joke because its of interest to us.
I'm sure our anticipation of that will be similar to how movie buffs react to news.

Its taken 18 years to a get a sequel for Indiana Jones.

DNF has loads of time yet.

Re:Just thinking about other things

[AuMatar]

It did? I seem to remember an Indiana Jones sequel. Two of them, in fact.

Woah. News.

[Kid Zero]

Congratulations to the DNF team. Now we know what they mean by "Forever".

Free publicity

[Threni]

> Think about it, in just 13 months this game will have been in one form of
> development or another for a decade.

I can't believe there are still people who seriously think this is what's happened. Obviously they've not been working on it for 10 years. They must have decided at some point to work on other things and simply give the impression they were working on it, and have finally (perhaps) decided to release something. Not many companies get to pay nothing to have one of their major project ranges mentioned on a regular basis - good luck to 'em. I've bought several of their games on PSX and PC but I'm hardly hanging on for new games from them (or any other company for that matter). I'm happy to wait for reviews and screenshots of the finished product.

For runners, DNF == Did Not Finish

[SurryMt]

Could there be a little similarity here?

WINE

[Pantero Blanco]

If products that have been in Beta for forever are classified as vaporware, WINE deserves at least an honorable mention. How long has it been in Alpha now? ;)

(yes, I know it's often useful nonethess, but...)

Re:WINE

[wolf369T]

Well, I think WINE is actually in the Beta now, starting from december...

The real vaporware

[dcapel]

is Desktop Linux. Sheesh, it is not the year of the Desktop Linux. It never will be. It will slowly grow, but just 'be' there. Yes, Martin Fink, I'm talking to you.

Re:The real vaporware

[dcapel]

Ahem, there is a not after the but in the previous post :)

Re:The real vaporware

[Lisandro]

You can have a desktop linux NOW. Fetch a modern commercial distro (http://www.ubuntu.com/>Ubuntu, Mandrake, etc) or any of the free ones and you'll have an excellent desktop with little issues, if any.

    The people that bitch about the "linux desktop" haven't normally ever tried Linux and want something that feels like their WinXP desktop. If you're looking for that, yes, there's nothing like it now and probably won't be for a while. If you want an useable Unix desktop, there's a lot of excellent ones arround.
    You have a wide choice of desktops and window and managers, and there's a lot of excellent software for them. A linux desktop is useable today, and by anyone - i had Ubuntu on a desktop for a while and my mother, who's 'computer-imparied' had zero issues using it. Besides being unable to find the blue E icon ;)

Re:The real vaporware

[generic-man]

My killer app for Windows is Quicken. I've been using it since version 1, back before Linux's kernel hit 1.0 and before GNUcash development was started. My file is something like 12 MB in size. Whenever the topic of "how do I migrate from Quicken for Windows to GNUcash?" comes up, the solution involves a very tedious and lossy export/import of QIF files, usually with some childish jabs as to why I would ever use such a closed platform.

I bought a Windows PC specifically to run Quicken after seeing how unbelievably awful Quicken for Mac is: the migration process from Quicken/Windows to Quicken/Mac is nearly as bad as the one from Quicken/Windows to GNUcash.

Show me a program that can import my whole Quicken for Windows file into a Free Libre Software program format, and I'll go down on you.

Re:The real vaporware

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

You don't get it, do you? People don't want a choice of window managers, they want something that works. They don't want OpenOffice, which, while an excellent product, is bloated and not fully compatible with Office.

What happens when I buy a multi-function printer? Will I be able to scan photos using it? Will my webcam work?

If I decide to get into photo editing, will I be able to run Photoshop? When I do my taxes, will TurboTax run? Will I be able to play games?

Will I be able to buy (mainstream) music and put it on my iPod? Will Mathematica run? What about Maple?

All of the things above are trivial on two operating systems: Windows and Mac OS X. Currently, Mac OS has less than 5% of the desktop market, and it is far more 'ready' for the desktop than Linux.

You can meet 80% of the needs of 80% of the people 80% of the time. But in a world where Windows just ins't that expensive, that's just not good enough.

Re:The real vaporware

[aussersterne]

No, you don't get it, it works NOW. My friend, in a management position at Intel corp., recently called me to bitch about Windows. I overnighted him a Fedora Core 4 DVD.

He called me the next day, ready to try it out, apprehensive as hell. I told him not to sweat it, that he didn't even need me on the line.

He booted from DVD, "Next-buttoned" everything from then on. It detected his 3D accelerator, his flatscreen monitor, his wireless network, and all of his hardware and dropped him in a nice desktop.

He plugged in his late-model Brother laser printer. Autodetected upon plugin and away he went, printing.

He plugged in his USB flash drive to test out access to office files. BOOM, icon appears on desktop. He double-clicks and up pops a file manager window showing his files.

He double clicks on an MS Word file and it opens in OpenOffice, no problem.

He plugs in his scanner and asks what program he needs to use to scan. I tell him to start GIMP and use the acquire tool, just like he would in Photoshop. The nice, user-friendly scanner dialog was just like he was used to in windows, and he scans three or four test scans and says "all good!"

He wants to use his Olympus digital camera. I tell him to go for it, so he plugs it into USB and BOOM, an icon appears on his desktop. He starts copying images off of it.

He normally copies his images to DVD-RAM, and he's got an external DVD-RAM drive that he made by installing a Panasonic LFD-211 in a USB case. I get a little nervous about this one, but he plugs it in to his USB hub, inserts a 4.7GB disk, and BOOM, there it is on his desktop.

He drags-drops the files from his digital camera to the DVD-RAM drive, prints out the photo he'd scanned with gimp, and tells me that he has one last need: he's got to install MS Office, Photoshop CS, and FrameMaker.

FrameMaker and Office, I tell him, are a go. Photoshop CS, not so fast. Does he need the whole suite? No? Then does he have Photoshop 7 onsite? Can he use that? Yes? Then we have a go. I point him to the Codeweavers website and he buys Crossover Office for the price of pizza and soda delivery, well under the cost of similar software for Mac OS.

After downloading it, he double-clicks on the Crossover Office icon on his desktop. Up pops a window asking for his password, and a moment later, it's installed itself.

I tell him to insert the Office XP CD and double-click on the "Setup" icon, just like he would in Windows. He does, and a few minutes later, he's got Office XP installed, including completed activation. He quickly does the same for FrameMaker 7 and Photoshop 7.

He begins to ask "how do I start these," and a moment later cuts himself off with, "oh never mind, they've gone into the start menu in a group called 'Windows Applications'."

He launches each one to test that it opens, saves, and prints files.

An hour and forty five minutes after he originally called, we've gone from nothing to a full Fedora desktop, complete with printer, scanner, digital camera, flash drive, DVD-RAM drive, and major Windows applications, and I haven't had to answer a SINGLE QUESTION and have instead been listening to him talk mostly about his family.

It's two weeks later, and I haven't had a SINGLE CALL from him asking for tech support help. His one comment, sent via e-mail:

"Man, I can't believe how fast Linux is. Starting about last year I was thinkin' this PC was due for a replacement request, but I guess it was just XP."

--

Linux is ready NOW. Five years ago, there were a few unmitigated optimists that refused to admit that Linux wasn't ready yet. Today, there are a few unmitigated cynics that refuse to admit that it became ready sometime in the last 24 months.

What about Too Human? Or Mario 128?

[mouse_clicker]

Don't get me wrong, I love all of Silicon Knights' games, but Too Human has been in development since before The Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen (meaning over 10 years, probably more) and has switched consoles twice. Now, I have no doubt it'll eventually come out and most likely be excellent, but why is Twilight Princess or even DNF on the list and not Too Human?

For that matter, why is Zelda on the list but not Mario 128? Mario 128 has been promised to us since, what was it, Spaceworld 2000? I could be mistaken, but regardless, it's been a while and we have seen no demoes, videos, or even screenshots, and it's switched development from the Gamecube to the Revolution. How is Twilight Princess being delayed 4 or 5 months but still having videos, screens, and demoes galore count as vaporware, but Mario 128 not? Odd...

-Moses

Re:Yay Wired

[ferrisb312]

Just click the Print view link to get it all on one page: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/1,70143-1.htm l

Yes, thank you. -- team fortress 2

[Tibor the Hun]

The original team fortress (not the original, original quake one, but halflife one) was my first serious team based game and i have many great memories playing it.
but this whole hl2, but no tf2 experience has left me pretty raw towards valve. heck I was even willing to go along with their steam delivery, hoping that they'd deliver tf2 one of these days, but they've been dragging their feet too long..
in the mean time we've had the wonderful and free Wolfenstein: ET released, and the upcoming quake wars: ET, which should be the best game ever made...

i'm glad someone has the courage to tell valve that they've dropped the ball on this one.

HD-TiVo

[ivan256]

From the article:(The cable-card) high-definition TiVo (was) announced at CES 2005, probably will be re-announced at CES 2006.

Actually, it was announced at CES 2004 for release in the first half of 2006. It's not even late yet.

uh... ultimate dupe?

[EvilAlphonso]

DNF vaporware of the year?

I thought they would stop nominating it after a life time award... I mean, dead horse and all that

TiVo recommendations? (Offtopic)

[Xenophon Fenderson,]

Speaking of TiVo, I'm thinking about buying one but I don't know what to get. Some of my buddies were able to do some neat things hacking into their TiVos, and I'd like the ability to save off selected shows or movies without building a MythTV box (too much effort). Which TiVo should I buy, and what Windows/Linux/FreeBSD apps should I grab? Are there non-TiVo firmware images I should download and install on my TiVo? Can I just go out and buy a TiVo brand new and use it without having to mod it? Or, even better, is there a web site out there that explains everything? I googled for "tivo recommendations" and "which tivo to buy", but they didn't turn up anything interesting. It looks like the Series 2 DVR does everything I want except for burning stuff to DVD, but if I can just FTP the files off or something that'd be good enough for me.

Weak, as usual

[Godai]

Every year they hash in a bunch of weak entries.

Personally, I don't consider something vapourware that's delayed from the end of the year in question to first quarter of the following. Maybe I'm picky, but I prefer my vapourware to be talking in years, not months. But every year, they pick at least one or two. Zelda being delayed 3 months does not, I think, get it the 'vapourware' sticker.

And c'mon, Google? That's a real strech. All the things they mention you can use just fine. By other people's definition, they're finished, but Google's fussy. That's not 'vapourware'. Geez, they must have been seriously hard up for ideas or something.

Starcraft: Ghost is more on the nose, though not in Duke Nuke Em's league. The Phantom is aptly named. Complaining about Blu-Ray or HD-DVD seems a touch premature I think, given how long it takes hardware standards to formalize, but at least there's a little substance there. TF2 has been in the works forever.

Vista, well, it's been delayed a couple of years so I guess it qualifies, even if it's one of those things that's guranteed to come out, in a way like nothing else on that list, even if does take another three years.

Re:Weak, as usual

[jonadab]

> Vista, well, it's been delayed a couple of years so I guess it qualifies, even if it's
> one of those things that's guranteed to come out, in a way like nothing else on that
> list, even if does take another three years.

I'd count Longhorn/Vista as vaporware. It was going to come out in 2003 (or was it 2002?). The original projected release date for *Blackcomb* (the release that was going to be after Longhorn) passed in late 2004. It's now early 2006. However, it's not the total quantity of delay time that really makes Longhorn vapor; it's the continual repeated pushing-back in small increments: Every spring, it's coming out later this year. Every summer, it's coming out in time for Christmas. Every Christmas, it's coming out next year. Mmm Hmm. Sure it is. Now they're saying 2006 Q3. Since they've now shown an actual factual beta to a significant number of people outside the company, I project it will now only get pushed back 1-2 more times, and release in 2007.

> even if it's one of those things that's guranteed to come out, in a way like nothing
> else on that list even if does take another three years.

That's another vapor-ish thing about Longhorn/Vista: the ever-changing feature list. *Something* is guaranteed to eventually come out, and Microsoft will *call* it Vista, but if you look at what Longhorn was going to be, in terms of promised features... well, that's another thing. Some of that stuff may *never* come out.

For instance, they've changed the whole *concept* of WinFS, at least twice. Originally it was going to be a filesystem built on top of a database (kinda like BeFS, only on steroids), that would eliminate the whole concept of hierarchical file storage in favor of a database/metadata paradigm for organizing data. Fortunately, they thought better of that, so then they said well, it's going to be an extra symantic _layer_, on top of a more traditional filesystem, so that while the traditional hierarchical storage will be there under the hood, the user won't ever see that, and you'll have the database and the metadata paradigm on the surface instead. That too has now not been heard in the last year or so. At this point I think what's left of WinFS is little more than a specialized indexer.

Re:Duke Nukem needs a DNR

[VRisaMetaphor]

That would be so embarassing! Thank god my shoes don't have buttons.