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Duke in Trouble?
1up reports on rumours of trouble at 3D Realms, the long-term developers of the Duke Nukem Forever project. The duke project is apparently in jeopardy, according to the buzz, as several key developers have left the company for greener pastures. 3D Realms webmaster Joe Siegler has responded to these rumours, saying on the message boards "It's internal business - all employee departures and comings have always been that way. This is nothing new. People have left before, IT IS THE NATURE OF THIS BUSINESS. It's the way it goes ... There's honestly nothing to be concerned about. People leave. People come. There's staff on the project you don't know about."
I don't think anyone still thought this game was ever going to be released anyway.
Honestly, who could have predicted this? I am at a loss for words.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
I mean really... GASP!!!
"We have top men working on it."
"Who?"
"Top. Men."
Long live the Speaker Bracelet
Rolo D. Monkey
...anybody this long to wonder if their project was in trouble?!?
Good grief... Didn't the near DECADE development cycle give anybody their first clue on that front?
Nothing to see here...in fact there probably never will be anything to see here.
So Joe Siegler is basically saying that the infinitely long developement process for DNF is going to continue as planned, and will be subject of jokes and speculations for many years to come... Good to know.
This is a sig. It is appended to the end of comments I post.
...Duke Nukem Forever was a geek joke. You know, like the coming of the Messiah, the second coming of Jesus or the arrival of the Maitreya Buddha. I didn't know there really was such a game in development. That's shattered my whole world view. I might have to rethink my views on religion now.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
... that 'forever' referred literally to the release, we wouldn't even have to talk about it every 6 months. At this rate, computers will be self-aware well before 3D realms ship this turkey.
In other news: Water is wet.
...I thought this was posted for the obligatory September Fools joke.
Duke Nukem has been in the making for 10 years! With an average lifespan in this undustry of 3 -5 years, how the heck could a 10 year project be completed with the same set of employees?
"It's time to write code and chew gum... and I'm all outta gum."
You get burnt out in the game industry unless you're constantly shipping high quality titles. Turn over in a couple years isn't amazing, but it's not a great thing.
The fact is after EVERY game there's a good amount of turn over and even then that's a game that takes 2-4 years. People wanted to stay with the company til the game goes gold then leave. Duke Nukem has been going for far longer than any other game it's not a shock people are leaving the company now, especially before people have seen the game.
This might mean the game isn't amazing or up to par and people want to cash out now, but more likely it's business as usual.
So if the list of developers is secret... Is there a chance that nobody is working on it? "We have secret people working on it" just sounds like an ongoing part of a joke. Maybe all the 3D Realms developers are really working on something else, and they just release bits of news about DNF whenever the company needs a laugh?
Latest achievements: Responsible for bringing the Duke Nuk'em forever project to completion. I mean... errr... how can a guy write that with a straight face? Can you imagine the interview?
After keeping the stupid project alive for so many years, I really am surprised. You'd think after 10 years it'd pretty much keep going forever, if not eventually get released.
I really hope this game doesn't get cancelled. I really want to play this badly because I have the highest expectations of getting the absolute worst game ever. Something to love for it's terribleness. Something Mystery Science Theater 3000 bad.
Please release this game. I honestly can't wait.
it is gonnna take Duke Nuken Forever to be finished.
Nothing else to see here, move along.
C'mon now... Duke Nukem Forever is taking forever to release. The majority of people that were waiting for this game have forgotten about it. Those that remember it treat it as a joke. The hype surrounding this game once rivaled or surpassed Daikatana but, hey, at lease Daikatana was actually released. Duke Nukem Forever will go down in history as the one piece of software that completely defines the term "Vaporware".
I would have appreciated it more if 3DRealms said "Hey, we fucked up on this one... DNF will never be released. We're busy working on 'Rise of the Triads 2006' and 'Blake Stone: I Come To Kick Ass'". At least you can respect them for admitting a screw-up instead of constantly dragging Duke's good name through the mud.
Fifty watts per channel, baby cakes.
We all know the forever in DNF actually stands for how long we have to wait before we see this game. I've some hope mostly because I go back and play the original D3D and its still fun and I want more. And they did finally release Prey.
Thats also what I'm scared about - I just don't want it to be like Prey where the original claim was that there was going to be non linear gameplay and you could interact completely with your environment, destroying it or whatever. We did get portals in the end but heck I've seen that since Heretic - they just did it with a lot more style. Prey was o.k. - took about a day to get through and that was it - fun but nothing spectacular - just was not worth the wait.
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
My children's children's children have absolutely nothing to look forward too...
At first I read it as DYKE in trouble
He's not dead. He's frozen. And as soon as we find a cure for cancer, we're gonna thaw out the Duke, and he's gonna be pretty pissed off. You know why? Have you ever taken a cold shower? Well, multiply that by fifteen million times, that's how pissed off the Duke's gonna be. I'm gonna get the Duke, and John Cassavetes, and Lee Marvin, and Sam Peckinpah, and a case of whiskey, and drive down to Texas...
I guess it's a great story because it's so obviously silly. The very notion of a commercial game without a deadline is really ridiculous in the first place, and DNF's development to date provides a striking example of why this is the case. Yet still, after throwing away not only lots of money but also the reputation of a once-valuable franchise, they continue to repeat the "when it's done" mantra like a broken vinyl recording of a George Bush speech.
You'd think that they would learn something after all these years, and set a deadline after which the game would be shipped off to Korea for completion into shovelware so that they could focus on something else. You would have expected such a thing fully five years ago, and still they truck on. It's like a stupidity vortex has descended, and one can only imagine how long it can possibly last.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
I never understood completely what all the fuss with DNF is about. They've been honest about the timing of their development cycle from day one. Hell, they even put it on the game title how long it would take: "Forever".
forever?
Jonathanjk.com
Future ruler of a small Asian-Pacific island
I'd really like to know what's going on with this game. At this point, it's taken longer than an operating sSystem to develop, and it's been an industry joke for many years. What gives? Do they have like, 1 programmer working half time on it? I can't imagine working on a single product for so long, so it's no wonder there are people leaving, I'd just like to hear the actual story of why it's taking so long, and not just a press release version of "we'll ship it when it's done."
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
Since it'll never be completely done, open source Duke Nukem Forever. That way it can forever be in beta AND people can use it. Unless of course it's unusable at all now. Hopefully it's beyond that.
Funny createSig(Witty remark, Odd reference)
{
return (Funny)remark + (Funny)reference;
}
Seriously.
They MUST be using Perl to code this thing because that's the only way it could take this long. I know I'm going to get trolled down by all the Perl babies out there, but can you honestly think of any other reason it could possibly take this long to code a FPS? And one with no plot line to boot?
The only way would be code that looked like this:
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Perl
And soon, we'll learn that people killed themselves on the project, while in truth, they just died of old age.
Maybe the DNF developers are leaving to join the exciting GNU/Hurd team with its quick and upbeat release record.
http://saveie6.com/
I'm sure it's been mentioned before, but isn't it ironic that DNF in some racing (skiing, at least, not sure about others) means "Did Not Finish"....
Eric
Comment removed based on user account deletion
with a 10 year development cycle this could turn out to be the greatest game of all time!!
This is nothing new. People have left before, IT IS THE NATURE OF THIS BUSINESS.
Just sub in 'vaporware' and you get this.
This is nothing new. Vaporware IS THE NATURE OF THIS BUSINESS.
As a side note, why does Duke keep getting coverage??? Let the man rest in peace until the day he rises from the 3D Realms ashes and is born again at retailer near you. Until then, goodbye, Duke.
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
I think DNF is under active development, except without plans to be released.
3DRealms are, in my opinion, using our beloved Duke to try out new systems. So, a new rendering engine is first shoehorned into Duke, and tested. Then it is available for the other games.
just more evidence that it's an elaborate hoax. yes ... all the pieces are starting to fit together ...
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
The only reason the truth hasn't come out about DNF is 3dRealms is a privately held company. They're not required to release any internal company data that show this project is/was dead. If they were a publicly traded company, Sarbanes-Oxley would have forced them to come clean and/or go to prison.
I'm surprised the private stock holders haven't made a stink by now. There is no profit in lying for 10 years.
Oh, wait a minute....I guess there is....
What's Phantom going to use now that their star title is floundering?
That's right the new "Top Dogs" developing it are reworking it in VB .NET and are the people behind the biggest hits like mine sweeper, solitaire, and pinball. It will ship as part of Windows Vista right underneath the previously mentioned games, and will have two levels.
Buy the Vista "plus pack" to get extra levels.....
D.
I've just been converted. It's a new religion! I get it now. Life is complete. I have no fear of death, for I am destined to live forever in paradise, if only I believe in the Duke.
Stick Men
Ohhhhhh... thats gonna hurt cum christmas...
A man spends the first half of his life accumulating stuff, the second trying to get rid of it all.
Has yet to be posted, so I shall do just that, things that have occured since the announcement of Duke Nukem Forever:
Popular Video Game Series Releases
Final Fantasy:
* Main Series
o Final Fantasy VII
o Final Fantasy VIII
o Final Fantasy IX
o Final Fantasy X
+ Final Fantasy X-2
o Final Fantasy XI
o Final Fantasy XII
* Cell Phone Games
o Before Crisis: Final Fantasy
o Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII
o Dirge of Cerberus: Lost Episode
* Tactics Series
o Final Fantasy Tactics
o Final Fantasy Tactice Advance
* Crystal Chronicles Series
o Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles
o Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates
o Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearer
* Remakes
o Final Fantasy Collection
o Final Fantasy Anthology
o Final Fantasy Chronicles
o Final Fantasy Origins
o Final Fantasy I & 2: Dawn of Souls
o Final Fantasy III DS
* Games Featuring Final Fantasy Characters
o Ehrgeiz
o Kingtom Hearts
o Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
o Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix
o Kingdom Hearts II
* Movies, Anime Series & Concerts
o Final Fantasy: The Sprits Within
o Final Fantasy: Unlimited, Entire Series
o Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
o Final Fantasy: Dear Friends, Entire World Tour
Grand Theft Auto:
* Grand Theft Auto
o Grand Theft Auto, Gameboy Color Port
* Grand Theft Auto
* Grand Theft Auto: London 1969
* Gr
They are just waiting for the PS3 becoming the market leader of the next gen consoles. Then they will release it as a PS3 exclusive...
I have never programmed anything beyond Excel VBA. Yet my personal view is that developing _any_ program over the course of 5+ years is doomed to fail miserably - just from logic and observations about human behaviour.
Any program or game will be an interaction of modules. The textures can be seen as a module, the models as a module, the graphics engine a module, the AI engine a module, the menu system a module, the maps a module, etc. The final specifications for these are usually decided early - at the very _start_ it's decided what each module will look like when finished. This lets every module as it's created (1) be created at the edge of current technological capabilities into a cutting-edge whole, (2) be tailored to fit every other module.
When development cycles stretch out however, very bad things happen. There is a pressure to remain cutting edge - more in certain (e.g. graphically visible) modules than others. So those get rewritten, with some time taken to make sure everything still interacts right. After the time taken to do that (aided by a small development team at this stage), some other modules may lag behind technologically, and they need to be redone. After those, yet other modules need to get redone. For example, if they had had Duke Nukem Forever 'close to release' for the past five years, they would probably have had to rewrite the AI at least three times.
The problem is that firstly, when release finally happens, some modules are still ten years old, and although not very visible, you can glimpse enough of them that it hurts (e.g. the flag texture in CTF, the fonts used in menus at different resolutions, small things like that), and secondly, all the tweaking of modules has invariably made them fit less well together, leading to random crashes. It would therefore be better to simply discard anything which has been in development for 5+ years, and redo it from scratch.
At the moment I fear DNF will turn out something like Battlecruiser 3000 AD.
..at least now I don't have to worry about the end of the world coming anytime soon.
Bet this
Gnu Hurd has been taking longer, Windows Vista probably has been in development also for quite a while, but wont beat it.
If some key personnel have left, does that mean it has a chance to be released? If these "key" persons have worked on the project for 10 years I think it's time to let them go and get some new people to actually finish it off.
A thought came to mind, maybe they left the company because it would be the last game they made at 3D Realms and decided to move on afterwards. Perhaps the game is pretty much done and all thats left can be done by the newbies? Sounds like it could be good news as well.
That's wron.. whoa.... the nerd funk is overwhealming me right now.
That's why we always have to bet on Duke! Look how well he paid off! :)
... Graves or Nursing homes.
DNF in many racing sports stands for Did Not Finish
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
Listen, when you let 'god' code your game, in this case DNF, you might have to wait a while. I'm not even going to guess how long QA is going to take once hes handed it to Moses. I'm sure all the big boys up in the clouds are having a blast playing their way through the beta, while the guys down below in 3drealms have tilted their heads back, with tongues draped over cheeks, anticipating a response...
...but a few did die of old age.
You know what though?
It's a game, about a buff guy, in a muscle shirt, spouting stereotypical "badass" lines, shooting aliens.
Honestly.
There's only so far you can go with a core like that.
Unless they can release the game before the end of this year, they should cut their losses and kill development on it, IMHO.
Apart from anything else, the level of expectation about it now means that no matter what they come out with, it's not going to seem good enough to those still waiting for it. The other side of the coin is the degree of apathy which I expect would have set in among the rest of the gaming population who know about it. A level of apathy that big is not something you want to have greet the release of a game. I would also suspect that the number of delays have a lot to do with what they were originally intending for the game...they were aiming far too high, and haven't been able to deliver what they conceptualised. Although creativity is never something I'd try to discourage, trying to bite off more than you can chew can happen...even for people as talented as the ones we're talking about here.
Bottom line...they need a new title of some kind, whether it's DNF or otherwise, and they need it soon. The glory days were quite a while ago now, guys.
Why does anyone report on DNF other than its never going to be released?
I could code DNF in 10 _months_ all by myself in Perl. Not that I'd want to.
I mean it's pretty clear how you should do it and it wouldn't be as bad as you think. Especially since they aren't writing their own graphics/physics engines or anything... it's all just tying together APIs and interpreting scripts (hey... PERL's good at that).
It'd be slow, but it'd work.
But at this point I'm not the least bit interested in Duke Nukem anymore. The man's a joke. No one wants to play his games anymore. 3DRealms has missed the boat. In fact, they missed the dock completely and instead attempted to board the log flume ride at Sea World.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Let me guess, you could do it in one line.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
OK, so Apogee used to make tons of great games, such as Wacky Races, Hocus Pocus, and tons of other sidescrollers and first person shooters. Then, they bought 3D Realms who made Terminal Velocity, and they both put out Duke3D. Now, this company has been concentrating on a single game, Duke3D, for about 10 years. Why didn't they release tons of other games based on their other properties in the meantime? Give up on Duke and give us more classics!