Duke Nukem For Never

PLSQL Guy writes "Duke Nukem Forever developer 3D Realms is shutting down, according to Shacknews. They cite 'a reliable source close to the company,' who said the developer is finished and employees have already been let go. It looks like all of the Duke Nukem Forever jokes are turning into reality; DNF might turn out to be the ultimate vaporware after all." 3D Realms' webmaster, Joe Siegler, confirmed the closing, saying that he didn't know about it even a day beforehand. Apogee and Deep Silver, who are working on a different set of Duke Nukem games (referred to as the Duke Nukem Trilogy) say they are not affected by the problems at 3D Realms.

Comments

RIP DNF

[Anenome]

There've been calls to open-source the game. Take-Two still owns the publishing rights on the title, and apparently never had an agreement to support development with funds--DNF was essentially privately funded.

DNF is now the gold-standard for vapor-ware. How much money did they spend, I wonder, producing nothing?

Re:RIP DNF

[Anonymous Coward]

There've been calls to open-source the game.

Why ? There is already better open source vaporware - Hurd. Though I must admit that DNF has a much cooler mascot with Duke.
Perhaps Duke can become the mascot of Hurd now ?
He is free... for other vaporware.

Re:RIP DNF

[Idaho]

DNF is now the gold-standard for vapor-ware. How much money did they spend, I wonder, producing nothing?

With such an acronym as the abbreviated name of the game, who could have expected anything less, to be honest? Maybe it was just a practical joke all along!

Re:RIP DNF

[sopssa]

If you read their site you'll see they seemed to do lots of fun stuff along the years.

I think most of there where to have fun and do what they liked. If you read their job posting, you'll see they offer revenue from sales of their projects and honestly are a cool company to work at. And that probably was what caused their shutdown, with all the EA and others just going for profits and making developers and programmers a slave.

Also see their company info page, theres lots of fun stuff. I wish I had worked there, they had a great mentality and fun in it.

Re:RIP DNF

[AlgorithMan]

How much money did they spend, I wonder

I once read that they had $50,000,000 - but that was after years of development had already passed (and they were asked, if they could afford finishing DNF)

Re:RIP DNF

[Anonymous Coward]

Competition or not, if you can't produce a product, you've already lost.

Re:RIP DNF

[rolfwind]

DNF is now the gold-standard for vapor-ware. How much money did they spend, I wonder, producing nothing?

Whatever it was, just way, way too much. It will (or has long already?) become the prime example for developers why one should eventually just product out the door. Like a chef repeatedly fiddling with his concoction too much, the built up anticipation of changed recipes and of just the endless waiting meant the game just would have never lived up to the hype. Ever.

Years ago, the best they could have done was scrap the project in name without announcing it, and use whatever art and code they had as the foundation for another (officially unrelated) Duke Nukem Game while promising DNF would come out later. Once it was out for a while, just announce pulling the plug. It made the DaiKatana team seem to be on top of their game.

Re:RIP DNF

[tsing9150]

Where can I sign up for the development? I imagine DNF as a 3D Wikipedia where the levels are continuously improving and every time I replay a level, it will be familiar but with sometimes subtle, sometimes disruptive changes.

Re:RIP DNF

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe the reason for the shutdown is that they couldn't deliver a product after at least 11 years of development.

Re:RIP DNF

[Froboz23]

This has got me all nostalgic, so I loaded up Duke Nukem 3D to pay my last respects. But when I try to run it, I keep getting this message:

SecureROM Activation Failed: Could not connect to the 3drealms activation server.

What does it mean??

Re:RIP DNF

[sopssa]

yes, and that is what i said :)

industry has changed and 3D Realms used the old, nice ways to do things. The ways that are definitely nicer and better for invidual designers and programmers, and what makes the fun on it.

However nowadays its really competitive, and thats why you see EA and other mass companies using the tactics you see.

3D Realms wanted to respect their employees and have it a personal company, kudos for that for them. Its sad that it doesnt work in games industry anymore.

Re:RIP DNF

[frenchbedroom]

With such an acronym as the abbreviated name of the game, who could have expected anything less, to be honest? Maybe it was just a practical joke all along!

Yeah, I mean, I read "DNF" and I'm like Disjunctive Normal Form ? Ha, what kind of name is that !

*chuckles*

aha... okay, stop staring at me, guys ?

Re:RIP DNF

[rolfwind]

I think most of there where to have fun and do what they liked. If you read their job posting, you'll see they offer revenue from sales of their projects and honestly are a cool company to work at. And that probably was what caused their shutdown, with all the EA and others just going for profits and making developers and programmers a slave.

Unfortunately, by itself, having fun does not pay the bills.

Even a generous company like google, where 20% of your time goes into a project of your choosing, looks like it requires you to do something with that 80% of the time.

Re:RIP DNF

[ciderVisor]

"Doonf" ? I don't get it.

Re:RIP DNF

[v.dog]

There've been calls to open-source the game.

That's assuming that there's anything worth opening. According to a quote form an "ex-3D Realms employee" on The Duke List, not that much ever got done:

Entire maps would be done from the ground up, almost to beta quality, and then thrown out simply because no one would make decisions early on in the process. (Read up on Valve's 'orange box' method of design -- that's how you make games) Another example of [redacted] is the fact that there was one part of one map that was being worked on before I started working there. Nineteen months later and the same designer was still working on the same part of that same map... I'm not blaming the designer, it wasn't his fault.

Re:RIP DNF

[Exception Duck]

You must be joking....

They failed miserably...

Re:RIP DNF

[CZakalwe]

What a shame! 3D realms is one of the legends, I loved quite a few of their games.. RIP I thought DNF was "Do Not Fart"

Re:RIP DNF

[jonaskoelker]

I would like to reiterate http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1220783&cid=27813603

The vapor that I long for most
The Duke, the Wolf*,
And the Starcraft: Ghost

They saw their code build
So they'd boast

The day
Their sche-----dule died.

And Duke was saying:
(Chorus)
bye, bye
Eat some shit and then die

... apparently, writing code isn't as easy as (American) Pie :)

Re:RIP DNF

[MBaldelli]

If you read their site you'll see they seemed to do lots of fun stuff along the years.

Really? Well, I've attempted several times this morning to actually load up their site and I'm seeing Page Load Errors. Seems that they're officially gone off the web for the moment.

Re:RIP DNF

[martin-boundary]

Perhaps Duke can become the mascot of Hurd now ?

"Install the Hurd NOW, or I'm gonna rip off your head and shit down your throat."

Re:RIP DNF

[Xest]

It's a shame, because Prey had a longer history than DNF I believe in that it was originally announced before Quake 1, but eventually Prey came to fruition, and personally I thought it was an absolutely superb game - I might even go as far as saying I thought it was worth the wait!

Similarly, Teamfortress 2 dated back to about 1998 with it's original release due for Quake 2 and was changed/cancelled/restarted so many times it seemed it would never come to be released, amazingly however, like Prey, it finally saw the light of day even though it was much less ambitious than the earlier versions of the game that were touted many years before.

Alas though, it seems now that DNF really might not ever be able to suprise like Prey did or see the light of day like both TF2 and Prey did.

Re:RIP DNF

[siddesu]

try eduke32

Re:RIP DNF

[wisty]

So how's your opensourced vapourware Netscape browser going? I think it's called "Firefox" these days.

Re:RIP DNF

[Anonymous Coward]

GPL v. 2 isn't bad, just outdated.

As opposed to GPL v. 3, which isn't good, just new.

Re:RIP DNF

[JAlexoi]

But you can get hold of that kernel and maybe even run something on it. Can you do that with DNF? Hurd is perpetual alpha/beta, DNF is vaporware.

Re:RIP DNF

[thetoadwarrior]

If you read their site you'll see they seemed to do lots of fun stuff along the years.

Of course they've been having fun. They've been playing around for over a decade.

What'll be interesting is to find out how true this is.
http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?story=58519

By: mourningstar Crosspost from SA:

Channel_F, a previous employee of 3DR, posted some interesting info:

In my best interest, I'm going to be somewhat candid for now. I will, however, elaborate a bit on some things:

The 2001 trailer was 100% scripted cinematic, and not actual gameplay. They built specific demo maps just to record video from to make a trailer. Everything you see in that trailer was phony.

The typical work flow there went something like this: Designer would be assigned a task (build a new map, rebuild an old map, polish a bit of a map, etc.). Designer would work on said task for two, three weeks, a month, all the while lower management would be looking over it and making sure it was going in a "good general direction." Designer would move on to another task. A month or two later upper management would finally look at the work and say, "It's all wrong, do it again." Rinse, repeat.

Entire maps would be done from the ground up, almost to beta quality, and then thrown out simply because no one would make decisions early on in the process. (Read up on Valve's 'orange box' method of design -- that's how you make games)

Another example of WTF is the fact that there was one part of one map that was being worked on before I started working there. Nineteen months later and the same designer was still working on the same part of that same map... I'm not blaming the designer, it wasn't his fault.

I think the biggest problem that the company had in general is being self-funded. When you're a developer working directly with a publisher and you have milestones to meet it's a whole different ballgame. If you don't meet those milestones, you don't get any money. That right there will keep your project on schedule. If, however, you're funding it yourself, you don't really have anyone to answer to except yourself and you can quickly lose sight of just how much money is going out the door.

Re:RIP DNF

[thetoadwarrior]

Treating your employees decently is not what killed 3DR. Let's not pretend that they were some nice group of nice guys that just can't make it in this era.

It was poor management that ruined them. Whether a company treats employees well or not poor management can kill a company.

Re:RIP DNF

[Philip_the_physicist]

The FSF will take over the project, call it Duke Gnukem Forever, and make it the killer app for Hurd.

Re:RIP DNF

[LaminatorX]

Perhaps the projects could merge. HIRD of Users Reviving Duke?

Re:RIP DNF

[moranar]

Ahem, actually, there might be a fine line between 'respecting employees and being cool' and 'taking eleven year to finish a program'.

Sorry, no, it's a line the size of a road.

Re:RIP DNF

[Sockatume]

I dunno, plenty of other developers manage to have fun and chase their own creativity, and manage to get more out of 15 years of labour than a couple of trailers that look like generic Half-Life mods.

Re:RIP DNF

[Stormwatch]

It's a shame, because Prey had a longer history than DNF I believe in that it was originally announced before Quake 1, but eventually Prey came to fruition, and personally I thought it was an absolutely superb game - I might even go as far as saying I thought it was worth the wait!

I'll disagree. It was pretty good, but not really that great. After a while, it felt a bit like a chore: much like Doom 3, the levels were mostly so bleak and similar that I didn't feel like I was really going anywhere. Also, the resurrection system felt more like a quick fix to poorly balanced challenge than anything else.

The Art Bell segments were genius, though.

Re:RIP DNF

[rant64]

The way I see it, they've produced exactly two games over the last five years, according to WP (Prey and some variants of Duke Nukem). Nothing to do with being nice to your employees. The bottom line is that just two releases won't keep your business in business. Which probably boils down to management issues, yeah.

Re:RIP DNF

[moon3]

I would opt for full US salary instead of % piece of sales. Today, most games struggle to break-even, just read Gamasutra sometimes. Having a small salary + some vapor % might be discouraging in the long run.

Re:RIP DNF

[sopssa]

Obviously they were given normal salary, and aswell percent of the real sales.

Re:RIP DNF

[Archimonde]

There've been calls to open-source the game.

The problem is that there is no source whatsoever to release I'm afraid.

Re:RIP DNF

[jellomizer]

Actually treating your employees well, is actually a good management decision. Turn over cost about 150% for the first year to replace an employee so it is much more affordable to keep them there. The main way to keep them is to treat your employees like human beings, and compensate them appropriately and fairly. That said management needs to keep the employees focused on what makes the company money, and assuring that projects get completed on a reasonable time scale, as well know the lines between udder crap, poor quality, good enough, and Perfect. This is a near tangential line where 89.99999999999*pi/180 rad is perfect. and the y axis represents time/money.

So you need to assure the product is released at a good enough quality level to make money and keep your company in business. Trying for perfection will cost too much for what people will pay. Because the Line for the consumers for what they will pay for increasing quality falls more on a Logarithmic scale, on the Same Axis.

Re:RIP DNF

[alen]

i hear blizzard is a good place to work at and their games make a ton of money to keep it a nice place to work.

i read this years ago when the game industry first started growing from lone dev in the garage days.

in hollywood when they make a movie, they first write a script and draw storyboards and whatever. so by filming everything is planned out and everyone knows what to do.

in the game industry a lot of dev houses would start to make a game and change too many things midway and waste time starting all over again.

Re:RIP DNF

[somersault]

I started wondering that too after I noticed the abbreviation was DNF.. what a shame.. this is one game I'd have actually bothered to reinstall Windows for.

Re:RIP DNF

[zaxus]

> ...udder crap...

I'm not typically a grammar nazi, but please people: udders don't crap, they produce milk. The phrase is "utter crap". Thank you. That is all.

Re:RIP DNF

[maxume]

Surely there is some secret military program that makes DNF look like a feeble attempt to waste money.

Re:RIP DNF

[Sausage Nibblets]

I wish I had worked there, they had a great mentality and fun in it.

Ever since I played Commander Keen I've liked Apogee (even though they published it, and when I played it, I wasn't old enough to understand the difference). I just found out not too long ago that Apogee turned into 3DRealms, making me like them even more. Sucks to see them go down the tubes.

Re:RIP DNF

[jellomizer]

But if that did happen then that would be some really poor quality milk wouldn't it. Udder Crap would be utter crap.

The term Crap came from John Crapper the inventor of the Toilet. So while Crap normally means deification it has been expanded to anything so worthless that it needs to be disposed of as soon as possible.

Re:RIP DNF

[keithjr]

EA just posted a $1 Billion loss. Treating your employees like shit may guarantee you make deadlines, but it won't guarantee a good product.

Re:RIP DNF

[Zero__Kelvin]

"the prime example for developers why one should eventually just product out the door."

Sometimes one should just product out the door, but other times one should use the preview button a bit more diligently ;-)

Re:RIP DNF

[WolfWithoutAClause]

In Formula 1 motor racing a DNF result means "Did Not Finish"

I always thought this was a bit of clue as to its eventual fate. ;-)

Re:RIP DNF

[log0n]

I'll disagree with you :)

Prey's my favorite all time game (might even overtake HL2 for me now that I think about it) - the story was just so layered and engaging. To me, Prey felt like some sort of perfect amalgamation of really good book and really good game. Kept me engrossed and let me drive the story.

The resurrection system was a part of it I think. I'm beyond the point in gaming where my performance is based on twitch reflexes, or how quickly I can memorize routes/attacks/etc. Those aren't interesting or rewarding to me, if anything, they force the story you're playing to become secondary.

Re:RIP DNF

[hairyfeet]

Not to mention they had some properties that would have been trivial to make money with, if they had only bothered to do it. They could have had cash coming in from porting the old Duke and Shadow Warrior games to things like the iPhone and other mobile devices, and would have been really hard to take the Quake 3 or latest Unreal engine and make another Shadow Warrior? I don't think so. And it would have probably sold like mad just from us old greybeards wanting to hear "Who wants some Wang?" as we blasted bad guys again.

So while it is a shame to see another of the old timers die, honestly who didn't see it coming? They had plenty of great properties but could never seem to capitalize on them. So now the question is, what happens to their old games like Shadow Warrior and Duke? Is there a chance that someone out there that can actually release products on time will buy them? That would be the best course IMHO. The Duke and Shadow Warrior names could still sell if given to someone who kept the anti PC attitude and simply updated the games for today's systems. So RIP 3DRealms, you guys really should have been making some smaller games if you wanted to keep wasting time on DNF.

Re:RIP DNF

[phaggood]

I think the biggest problem that the company had in general is being self-funded. When you're a developer working directly with a publisher and you have milestones to meet it's a whole different ballgame. If you don't meet those milestones, you don't get any money. That right there will keep your project on schedule. If, however, you're funding it yourself, you don't really have anyone to answer to except yourself and you can quickly lose sight of just how much money is going out the door.

Huh. I'm trying to launch an ed/tech magazine next year; I think I'm going to take that piece of advice and nail it to my forehead.

Thanks.

Re:RIP DNF

[elrous0]

I sense a lot of investor lawsuits in their future. I've long suspected that they actually gave up on the games years ago and were just shining on their investors to keep the wolves at bay. Looks like time finally ran out.

Re:RIP DNF

[networkBoy]

sig'd

Re:RIP DNF

[skeeto]

You can actually boot up HURD with a live CD. It's not very usable as a real system, but it's definitely not vaporware.

Re:RIP DNF

[DarthVain]

I thought it was Did Not Finish...

Oddly it makes sense...

DNF DNF. Did Not Finish Duke Nukem Forever...

DNF Squared I guess.

Re:RIP DNF

[LingNoi]

20% of your time into a project of your choosing*

* Which somehow benefits Google and is popular with other Google developers.

Re:RIP DNF

[EvilIdler]

Reinstalling Windows for a shooter with finite playtime? You'd spend nearly as much time installing as playing :P

The games worth installing it for are Sins of a Solar Empire, Company of Heroes - not another shooter ;)

Re:RIP DNF

[Applekid]

Not to mention they had some properties that would have been trivial to make money with, if they had only bothered to do it.

Not quite, 3D Realms whored out the IP over and over and over again and let it get whored out all during the so-called DNF development time. For Duke alone there were rehashes of the game or horrible variants or Plain-Jane-out-and-out ports for Saturn, Playstation, Game Boy Color, N64, Dreamcast, Game Boy Advance, Dreamcast, 360... porting over to iPhones and even more devices wouldn't really have made much more of a difference financially.

Simply put, they simply put too many development eggs in the DNF basket, didn't crack the whip and demand progress and instead took the arrogant "when it's done" approach and got called out on the bluff. If the economy didn't take a downturn they'd probably still keep developing for the next dozen years.

Re:RIP DNF

[B3ryllium]

Uh. Do you even know what vapourware *is*?

Re:RIP DNF

[Anonymous Coward]

So while Crap normally means deification...

Wow, I've heard of kids flushing lots of stuff down toilets, I never realized people tried to flush gods as well!

Re:RIP DNF

[Auz]

"Read up on Valve's 'orange box' method of design -- that's how you make games"

I would do, but any search pulls up the Orange Box compilation they did... any further clues?

Re:RIP DNF

[FiloEleven]

Crap normally means deification

I have no humorous quip to add do this, but it stands on its own =)

Re:RIP DNF

[PalmKiller]

Woosh Yes I think he does, maybe the long discussion of open source Netscape being vaporware is before your time or something.

Re:RIP DNF

[3dr]

It's not very usable as a real system, but it's definitely not vaporware.

LOL. I'm not sure this distinction is all that great. After all, people develop software to use it. After 15 years (whatever) of development, a reasonable expectation is that the system would be usable for something other than just rebooting.

After all, I have Windows for that task.

Re:RIP DNF

[Chris Pimlott]

Duke Nuken Forever
1997 - 2009

tl;dnf

Re:RIP DNF

[Gizzmonic]

So while Crap normally means deification it has been expanded to anything so worthless that it needs to be disposed of as soon as possible.

Crap means "deification" to you? Man, you've got a weird theology. Are the 2 Girls and One Cup considered holy artifacts?

Re:RIP DNF

[nabsltd]

So while Crap normally means deification it has been expanded to anything so worthless that it needs to be disposed of as soon as possible.

I don't think I have ever seen the term "crap" used in such a way as to imply that something was to be worshipped like a god.

This has to be the most twist from the intended meaning on a /. typo ever. The word you were looking for was "defecation".

Re:RIP DNF

[ultranova]

I'm not typically a grammar nazi, but please people: udders don't crap, they produce milk.

O RLY?

And just in case someone didn't figure it out from the context, the link is not safe for work.

Re:RIP DNF

[Fred Or Alive]

AFAIK Valve tend to prototype the gameplay side of things using basic graphics, notably orange (with a white outline) textures for walls and so forth, before moving onto the graphics side. It sounds like 3D Realms went strait to the "making good looking levels" before making sure they worked gameplay wise.

Re:RIP DNF

[uofitorn]

George Broussard, producer/designer of Duke 1/2 and supposedly involved in DNF, was in my guild in Everquest way back in 1999/2000. He was a nice guy. Played under the name "Hack Nukem"

He used to play every day / every hour. I wonder if an addiction to MMOs contributed to that :)

Re:RIP DNF

[uofitorn]

Considering the recent stories about Apple disallowing certain apps on the store, I have a funny feeling Shadow Warrior would not be approved as well. :)

Re:RIP DNF

[kalirion]

I've always liked JFDuke3d myself.

Re:RIP DNF

[interkin3tic]

Site is slashdotted. Or just offline due to bankrupcy.

Re:RIP DNF

[Azar]

The term Crap came from John Crapper the inventor of the Toilet.

The mans name was Thomas Crapper and he didn't invent the toilet. No did the term "crap" come from his last name.

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

Re:RIP DNF

[Reapman]

I'm glad I'm not the only one that remembers Shadow Warrior.. I swear that game was as good if not better then Duke3D.

Re:RIP DNF

[mrchaotica]

Yes: it's what the "Mozilla redesign" was in the two years between when it was announced and when the first beta of Phoenix (later renamed Firebird, then Firefox) came out. I'm a Firefox fan, but I know my history.

Re:RIP DNF

[Loadmaster]

Just because the next gen awesome-o game engine comes out doesn't mean you have to move to it. You can, you know, just finish the game.

George, is that you?

Re:RIP DNF

[anomnomnomymous]

How could they open-source a proprietary engine? As far as I know, their latest build was on the Unreal 2 engine, so I don't think it can be their call to open-source the game.

I'm seriously disappointed that the game, after all those years, got canned though. I would have bought this game for sure, if not only because I have awesome memories from Duke Nukem 3D, and its corny one liners.
Blegh :(

Re:RIP DNF

[HTH NE1]

We'll never know thee.

Re:RIP DNF

[kalirion]

Yeah, I'm just waiting for it to show up on gog.com.

Re:RIP DNF

[grub]

3D = Diseased, Dead and Decomposing.

Duke runs on the BSDs?

Re:RIP DNF

[thetoadwarrior]

The problem with all the Duke games is they were made by anyone and were shit. People didn't want shit 3rd person Duke games. They wanted DNF.

I think it could have went better if they used their other properties to make money and didn't tarnish Duke's image with so many poor games.

Re:RIP DNF

[Chris Burke]

2 Girls 1 Grail!

Re:RIP DNF

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Even a generous company like google, where 20% of your time goes into a project of your choosing, looks like it requires you to do something with that 80% of the time.

Yes, they generously allow you to spend 20% of your 60-80 hour week on a project of your choosing (if it is of potential use to Google). Quite nice, really.

Re:RIP DNF

[grub]

Looks like someone was overly optimistic:

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: 3DREALMS.COM
Created on: 13-Sep-94
Expires on: 01-Jul-15
Last Updated on: 08-Dec-05

Re:RIP DNF

[zerocool^]

Often, this is enough to make a playable map, anyway. For example, I play Counterstrike Gun Game, which is focused entirely on player skill, not on objective or a vague version of reality.

A good portion of the gun game maps are built entirely with the default textures, see:
http://www.css-maps.eu/dlpics/aim_ag_texture20015.jpg
http://bwfhw.de/downloads/maps/aim_maps/aim_ag_texture_city-komplex.jpg

I think this is in general how Valve does level design. I'm not sure if they use the same Orangeish-Yellow for vertical surfaces and Grey for horizontal surfaces style, but it's got to be something like that. Before you spend any significant time doing the prettying up, it helps to know if the map is good and balanced and fun.

The same steps were taken with UT3, if I remember - they rendered generic low-res textures, slapped them on a wireframe map, and deathmatched the map to hell - then if they liked it, went back and finished it.

I can't imagine this not being the first thing that most people think of when doing level design.

~W

Re:RIP DNF

[turtledawn]

So while Crap normally means deification

While I as an atheist would tend to agree with the inverted form of this statement, I think you were looking for defecation. :-)

Re:RIP DNF

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps Duke can become the mascot of Hurd now ?

"Install the Hurd NOW, or I'm gonna rip off your head and shit
down your throat."

That's actually a pretty hard choice.

Re:RIP DNF

[hairyfeet]

I thought it was great, yes better than Duke in many ways, and more importantly it would have been trivial to make money to stay afloat with it. Hell they wouldn't have even had to design new maps, just copy everything using the Quake 3 or Unreal engine and folks would have bought it. It had good level design, smartass attitude, it was just a blast to play. Just update the graphics to Quake 3 standards and cash the checks.

And I still say they could have made good money off of Duke by porting to the new mobile systems like phones, PSP, and DS. And I am NOT talking about those crappy ports they cranked out for the PS1 and the likes, I'm talking about the original Duke 3D and the expansion packs for the PC. Hell they could have updated those to make them easy to play on XP/Vista and sold it through Steam and made even more cash. Who wouldn't like to go ripping through the old Duke when they had a little time to kill waiting in line somewhere?

So I stand by my original post. They had tons of properties that they could have been making positive cash flow with, they just never seemed to care. I hope some company comes along and buys them out so they can create new games and new ports and more importantly actually release them. So RIP 3D Realms. Your lack of business sense doomed you just like Ion Storm.

Re:RIP DNF

[StikyPad]

Width or length?

Re:RIP DNF

[The Archon V2.0]

one should eventually just product out the door.

Even if they accidentally the whole product?

Re:RIP DNF

[mike260]

DNF also exists and is playable. Most vapourware exists in some form or other; that doesn't disqualify it from being vapourware.

Re:RIP DNF

[refitman]

The term Crap came from John Crapper the inventor of the Toilet.

Common misconception. The term 'crap' predates Thomas Crapper by at least 150 years.

Re:RIP DNF

[LoRdTAW]

Feature creep was their down fall. Duke Nukem 3D was released in 1997. Their original attempt to make the next Duke Nukem shooter was built using the Quake engine. They then moved to the Quake 2 engine shortly after and little was heard of the development for a while. Then around what 2000 or so it was announced they were switching to the unreal engine. Then a year or two ago they said they modified the unreal engine to the point it wasn't even the unreal engine anymore. And after that they then said it was built using a propriety engine. WTF make up your minds.

Its sad to see them go but after 12 years DNF is still nothing more than some screen shots and a few E3 videos. I don't believe they even gave any public demos of alpha/beta play testing, just the canned videos. There was no solid plan and they just kept screwing around with the engine.They should have set a goal and created a stable engine for the content and just worked from there. They just kept moving to the latest whiz-bang technology which broke stuff requiring all the content to be constantly updated. And each new fancy feature would give them new ways to implement content causing more feature creep. George Broussard must have thought money grew on trees. It was also very irresponsible and reckless to keep spouting "when its done" every time they were asked for a release date. Its like they all had ADD.

No sane developer or big conglomerate studio does that. The dev's are given a release date and that's that. Only really big names like id, Blizzard and maybe a few others have the luxury to comfortably sit back and and hammer out a title. But they have a goal set and don't fuck around, they have a goal and they work towards it. I remember when long ago they announced Prey. It too was a series of screen shots and a single E3 video that was touted as the next gen of shooters with folded space and some other crap. It was eventually canceled around 2001 or 2002 and they said they were "focusing" on DNF. Well Human head was given the honor of finishing prey and they did. I bet any money DNF will be hand to another studio and they will eventually finish it in a few years or so.

Re:RIP DNF

[Renegade Iconoclast]

2 Girls 1 Grail!

Wow, wish I had mod points right now. Nicely done.

Re:RIP DNF

[Verdatum]

Brilliant! Quick, Rule 34!

Re:RIP DNF

[XO]

15? I'm pretty sure HURD has been in development for the entire time I've been alive - almost 33 years now.

Re:RIP DNF

[ildon]

I realize the joke you're trying to make, but, for the uninformed, Duke3D came out long before phone-home DRM existed.

Re:RIP DNF

[mattack2]

Thomas Crapper did not invent the toilet. http://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/02/science/l-of-facts-and-artifacts-568392.html

Re:RIP DNF

[B3ryllium]

Turns out it was *after* my time; I was using Opera under BeOS at the time, I think.

Re:RIP DNF

[dudpixel]

damn.

so how long do we need to wait now?

oh wait...

Re:RIP DNF

[aus_jackd]

You said Dreamcast twice. Although maybe you like the Dreamcast.

Re:RIP DNF

[node159]

In all seriousness, if you want a modern Duke Nukem experience, try Duke Nukem 3D: High Resolution Pack (http://hrp.duke4.net/).

Hey at least it shipped :P

Re:RIP DNF

[moranar]

yes.

Re:RIP DNF

[againjj]

Or he really hates milk....

Re:RIP DNF

[dreamchaser]

Besides, I'd believe a release version of DNF a LOT more than I'd believe they'll ever finish Hurd.

Re:RIP DNF

[Patch86]

That's just a folk etymology, and has no basis. For one, no-one called Crapper invented the toilet- the closes is Thomas Crapper, who was a plumber and is who usually does duty in this myth.

The word comes, by various routes, from the Latin word "crapinum", for "chaff" (the stuff in agriculture that is thrown away as waste, such as when harvesting grain).

Re:RIP DNF

[Patch86]

They could open-source everything except the Unreal engine. Exactly what that would entail is impossible to know without actually knowing what they'd managed to finish. Even textures, models and maps might make a passably diverting mod project.

Like you say though, there isn't much to get excited about in terms of "open-sourcing" a project where the key aspects are licensed proprietary code. Even if you do get some interesting tidbits, we're not exactly talking about another Freespace 2 here.

Damn

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like they are all outta gum

Re:Damn

[angelwolf71885]

ive always wondered witch would come first..this day or DNF guess I have my answer xD

Re:Damn

[atraintocry]

i've got balls of steel

Re:Damn

[ElectricTurtle]

I would wager at this point they are all out of ass.

Re:Damn

[Anonymous Coward]

That's one DOOMED space mari^H^H^H^H^H company

Re:Damn

[cptnapalm]

I can't believe that I'm never gonna come get some again...

Re:Damn

[nametaken]

I would wager that they're out of money.

About time

[something_wicked_thi]

I've been kind of expecting/hoping for this for some time. Ever since the economy got so bad, I figured we might come to this. I'm actually amazed this didn't have before. You can't go that long with such incompetent management of a project and expect to be allowed to keep going, especially when you can't even be bothered to produce an actual time estimate for completion anymore except "When it's done".

Re:About time

[drfool]

yeah, well you can go to hell. Thank God Duke Nukem Forever was never released. If they had "competent managers" as you call them, we probably would have had a laughable pile of shit for an FPS released under the title that will forever have soiled Duke's reputation, which I foresee happening under Take-Two.

Re:About time

[religious freak]

Holy crap, with all the jokes, I honestly figured this thing was killed years ago... I'm truly surprised people were still working on the thing.

Re:About time

[phoenix321]

Competent managers are not required to have a product out the door in, what?, 15 years? Other companies without real managers do that in three. Example: iD Software managed several of these feats, making quality games, having some kind of time and money estimate beforehand and then actually finishing something.

When a product like this takes *umpteen* years without any kind of progress or even a measly status report, you have incompetent managers, incompetent programmers, insufficient funding, incompetent financers, inadequate workplace or ideas distant from reality. 3D Realms probably had all of it and more.

Unfortunately, badly managed companies go bankrupt. Fortunately, they're not wasting anyone's resources, money and time anymore.

But it's much much worse when badly managed companies cannot go bankrupt under any circumstances, being deemed "too big to fail" or having some other kind of socialist protection.

Re:About time

[drfool]

we aint even on the same plane here man. Duke Nukem isn't something to trifle with, if you're putting out THE Duke title of all time, you gotta do it right, and if that means scrapping everything multiple times over a span of time larger than a decade, you do it. Some things are more important than time and money, Duke Nukem is one of these things.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm going to repent all of my sins and start frequenting a church, hopefully when I die, Duke Nukem Forever will be waiting for me on God's Commodore 64.

Re:About time

[Tawnos]

That "outdated" engine does one thing extremely well: people. In many ways, that makes it a better engine than the latest gee-whiz (saying that makes me feel old, I'm young! I promise!) shader deformation cool effect.

Games are often and increasingly about telling a story, and I think Source does that very well.

Re:About time

[phoenix321]

Much of the time is spent for story, graphics, sound and map design, which is the reason for 3-year cycles between episodes. The engine itself can be bought wholesale and gameplay mechanics don't take decades to finish.

What Valve actually finishes in 3 years is still much more than what 3D Realms did in 15. If the result is an Episode or a Game doesn't matter, because most Duke Nukem players would be satisfied with either, as long as the damn company Gets Something Done Real Quick(tm).

They didn't, because 3D Realms were underfunded, incompetent or overzealous, which Valve (or iD Software) were not. Some of the solo projects of iD artists were, which is why i.e. Daikatana and the others were not commercially successful. But at least they finished some day.

Re:About time

[sopssa]

Yes, and the general movement in Source games just pwns. I've stopped playing many games because the movement just seems so crappy.

Re:About time

[Nursie]

Frankly Duke 3D was bad enough.

It was no Quake, and that's for certain. I never did get the Duke Hype, it was outdated as soon as it was released.

Re:About time

[TheRaven64]

iD Software managed several of these feats, making quality games, having some kind of time and money estimate beforehand and then actually finishing something.

I'm not sure about that. They have made some technically-impressive game engines and some thrown-together games that ran on top of them and served to get enough copies of the engine out for mod developers to build games on top that were actually fun, and to persuade other companies to license their games. The last game id released that was fun enough for me to play it right to the end was one of the Commander Keen series - and it ran nicely on an 8086 with EGA graphics...

Re:About time

[marco.antonio.costa]

Example: iD Software managed several of these feats, making quality engines, having some kind of time and money estimate beforehand and then actually finishing something.

There, fixed that for you. :)

Re:About time

[Sockatume]

Thing is, back when it first appeared, DNF wasn't "THE Duke title of all time", it was just another FPS with Duke in it. The delays led to it growing an absurd image as something amazing, not the other way around.

Re:About time

[KneelBeforeZod]

Incompetent financiers? Honestly, what kind of madman would crack open their checkbook for 3Drealms after seeing their derailed track record. They were totally self financed.

Re:About time

[El_Muerte_TDS]

When a product like this takes *umpteen* years without any kind of progress or even a measly status report, you have incompetent managers, incompetent programmers, insufficient funding, incompetent financers, inadequate workplace or ideas distant from reality. 3D Realms probably had all of it and more.

I still don't get that trail of thought. So, when a project is leading nowhere you trash it right? And then start on a new project. If that doesn't go anywhere you trash it, and start a new one again?

That pretty much sounds like Duke Nukem Forever. They trashed the projects a few times and started a new one. Except that they kept using the same name for the project.

I think the problem was that they didn't make enough changes to the production process. So they were bound to fail in the same way.

Re:About time

[evilkasper]

Do you remember DaiKatana? Sure it wasn't in limbo nearly as long, but once it was released it was outdated and a commercial flop. Better DNF not share that fate.

Re:About time

[Stormwatch]

I never did get the Duke Hype, it was outdated as soon as it was released.

The gameplay was very far from perfect, and the pseudo-3D engine looked bad compared to Quake's actual 3D (which came out a few months later). But it did have some cool bits... strippers, a wicked sense of humor, and a badass theme song.

Re:About time

[radtea]

Unfortunately, badly managed companies go bankrupt.

Unless they are investment banks, insurance companies or auto companies with their hands so far up Washington's bipartisan butt that they can get the sock-puppets to rape the taxpayer for them.

This is the face of National Socialism, as created by Bush and continued by Obama: some companies in some industries are deemed to be too important to the Reich to fail, and markets are trampled for the sake of keeping them alive.

Meanwhile, companies that are just as badly run in other industries are allowed to die off. That provides a huge incentive to every company in the country to suck up to the government as closely as possible. It's a ticket to virtual immortality.

3DRealms should have claimed it was vital for national security that DNF be released. It probably wouldn't have worked, but who would have thought that anyone would have even considered bailing out newspapers, even theoretically?

Re:About time

[Spatial]

Source isn't really outdated. The original one in HL2 isn't hugely fancy but it's pretty decent even now. The modern version of Source in HL2:Ep2 and L4D is pretty great looking, with dynamic lights and soft shadows, all that fancy stuff.

And as someone else said, the engine is so much better at rendering people than everything else that it makes up for any other shortcomings it may have. Even in Crysis people still have those stupid dough-heads and rubber mouths that don't even lip-sync properly. And Fallout 3 was just comedic in that regard.

Re:About time

[east coast]

I'll say that I haven't read all that much about it but to me it seems that the failure came from someone with too heavy of a hand that wasn't willing to go to market with a number 2 selling product.

I think this is a mistake on the parts of lots of people; taking too much prep time, wanting their products to be too perfect to be believed. Sooner or later you have to pull the trigger or all the effort leading up to the release of a product becomes null and void. Every game out there has flaws. As much as PC Gamer doesn't want us to believe this, there is no 95% games in existence. And if you're developing and constantly looking at what the other guy is doing it's easy to get caught up in finding things in your own product that don't live up the expectations laid out by other products. You just can't go through life like that... at least not in a productive manner.

Re:About time

[kidde_valind]

Seriously, pulling a Godwin in a comment on frickin Duke Nukem?

Re:About time

[Nursie]

Some of them were blue!

Also - Quake = The birthplace of Team Fortress and the real genesis of online FPS play.

Re:About time

[Applekid]

Even falsely assuming DNF is The Perfect Game Everyone Must Own, how could it ever really live up to the decade plus of hype? How many millions upon millions of copies would they have had to sell to make up the development investment? Are there even that many people in the video game market to recoup that kind of development cost?

Re:About time

[danieltdp]

Duke is a complicated piece. I do agree that is was outdated with respect to the technology, but the gameplay and mostly the general attitude of the game is fantastic! The main character has a personality and a very peculiar one. This is quite uncommon on FPS and just absent on Quake. I was a really fun game to play!

I downloaded the game again a couple of days ago and even today the game remains fun. Oh, did I said download? I meant reainstall...

As our hero would say: "Mmmm I'm afraid on no Quake"

Re:About time

[Nursie]

Quakeworld with Team Fortess did that sort of stuff. It probably borrowed the pipe-bomb concept from Duke, sure, but it had all sorts of clever stuff going on.

I did play it multiplayer, but nowhere near as much as my near obsessive amount of TF play.

Re:About time

[Christian Henry]

I never did get the Duke Hype, it was outdated as soon as it was released.

The gameplay was very far from perfect, and the pseudo-3D engine looked bad compared to Quake's actual 3D (which came out a few months later). But it did have some cool bits... strippers, a wicked sense of humor, and a badass theme song.

...And it was runnable on much lesser hardware. Attempting to run a graphically superior game is painful when you're getting frame rates below 5 per second.

Re:About time

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only that but Duke 3d had better network play at the time. It was very playable via Modem (which friends and I did all the time) as well as network play. Something Quake failed pretty bad at until Quakeworld was released. It was also just more fun to play Duke with friends than Quake. For us, quake was much more serious. (and not everyone is a fan of all rocket launchers all the time) yes, quake was good and remains good, infact overall better. But at that time, It was duke.

Re:About time

[bickle]

It was no Quake, but it was released before Quake. Half a year, but it was enough in a starved market.

Re:About time

[kalirion]

After playing Duke 3D, I was very disappointed at Quake. Duke 3d was more fun, at least in single player, and IMO had far more appealing graphics. Quake had far better animation and you swam by looking in the direction of your swimming - thats the only thing it had above Duke for a single player gamer. GLQuake upped the graphics ante of course.

Re:About time

[mrchaotica]

Even in Crysis people still have those stupid dough-heads and rubber mouths that don't even lip-sync properly. And Fallout 3 was just comedic in that regard.

And that's really too bad, since arguably games like Fallout (and TES, etc.) are even more character-driven than Half-Life is.

Re:About time

[mzs]

It did run okay on my 33 Mhz 486 with ISA SVGA card though unlike Quake. The multiplayer was better as well. Also it came-out earlier.

Re:About time

[east coast]

Well, they would have had a better chance than not releasing at all.

Re:About time

[Renegade Iconoclast]

I've been kind of expecting/hoping for this for some time. Not me. I was hoping it would go on for another 20 years at least.

You're completely missing the comedy aspect. Just for example, think of all the things we could have accomplished in that time to add to the list of things done while DNF was in dev. There's already great stuff on it, like we built the International space station, and Britney Spear's entire career. We might have added a human trip to Mars, or cheap fusion power to the list if it could have gone on for a few more decades.

No, it's a sad day for nerd jokes. Now I have to move on to some other vaporware, and I've never heard of HURD, so I don't have a real stake in making fun of it.

Re:About time

[mgblst]

Duke Nukem Forver: Daikatana 2?

Re:About time

[radtea]

The transition of the modern United States to a national socialist economy does create an interesting conundrum with regard to Godwin. It can be resolved by observing that while the NAZIs were national socialists, not all national socialists are NAZIs, so for anyone who actually understands what the terms mean there should be no confusion.

And while my original comment was correctly modded offtopic, it did seem to me germane to point out that the notion that badly run companies go out of businesses is a quaint and out-dated belief. In national socialist America, bankruptcy is something that only happens to the little people, the taxpayer, the small business. To make a blanket statement regarding "how the market works" as if there was still anything resembling a market in the politically controlled upper reaches of the American business world is to reveal a truly majestic scale of innocence or ignorance, and because myths die hard in America it seemed like a useful opportunity to remind you, once again, that the democratic republic of trade that you once were is long, long gone, and you are now living in a national socialist (but not NAZI) empire.

Re:About time

[Waccoon]

...and the pseudo-3D engine looked bad compared to Quake's actual 3D...

It also had more colors than just brown, which is incredibly rare even by today's standards. Duke3D was still stuck in the 2D pixel era, and I think that made the graphics more interesting than any of the sludgy, "realistic" experiments that have plagued FPS games to this day.

My favorite part was modifying the Duke3D game config file. It's quite satisfying to hack the game so when you blow up a humanoid enemy with a rocket launcher, 15 legs spray all over the place. Good times!

Re:About time

[phoenix321]

If you thought all iD did was engines, you probably missed the first Doom back in its days and what it meant for the gaming world, did you? :)

Am I old or what?

Re:About time

[phoenix321]

Well, if they were self financed, how did they pay for rent, electricity, water and the daily pizza delivery?

Did they have a second job flipping burgers or investing their saved pocket money?

Anyone paid for them sitting around and coding bunk, so whoever that was is probably incompetent. If they were self-financed, they should've invested in beer instead, because that brings at least 4.5 percent.

Re:About time

[phoenix321]

If they started several projects all leading nowhere, they'd better stop starting projects before finding out why they failed and improving their shortcomings.

When the same people trash a project that had the same premise several times over, you and I know there's a deeper problem. 3d Realms did not and I dare not to ask how many venture capitalists were ripped off in the process.

Re:About time

[marco.antonio.costa]

No, you're right. Doom was freakin awesome. I think I meant id after Quake, then :P

I still remember playing deathmatch and racing the plasma bolts while my friend screamed and melted around me on the null-modem.

We're both old. :D

Re:About time

[Chris Burke]

It was no Quake, and that's for certain. I never did get the Duke Hype, it was outdated as soon as it was released.

The Duke phenomenon isn't hard to explain unless you try to make it that way.

Re:About time

[drew]

The great thing about Duke 3D was the combination of silliness and strategy. Quake had I think 7 different weapons that you could use, but with few exceptions there wasn't any real strategy to them. There were different balances of power, rate of fire, and splash damage, but it was all just variations of "fire projectile at the other guy."

The single player game was amusing, with Duke's comments and the props giving a more light-hearted feel to the environment than most other FPS's, but what made the game really shine was its multi-player. Weapons like the pipe bomb, laser trip mines and shrink-o-matic and items like the jet pack and steroid pills added a new level of strategy to multiplayer gameplay that had not been seen in FPS games up until that time. And the silliness of some of the weapons added to the fun. I still remember almost falling out of my chair laughing while trying to avoid getting stepped on after getting hit with the shrink-o-matic at point blank range.

Well, so....how long will they shut down?

[scheuri]

Will they be shutting down the coming next 10 years?

SCNR...it is bad for the devs at 3d, but still...it opens a whole new series of jokes.
scheuri

Re:Well, so....how long will they shut down?

[JordanL]

It took me like 30 seconds to figure out what SCNR stood for...

Re:Well, so....how long will they shut down?

[Archon-X]

Perhaps they have all moved to Magarathea..

Re:Well, so....how long will they shut down?

[nem75]

YMBNH.

Re:Well, so....how long will they shut down?

[Whiteox]

(cough cough) You could be right (cough cough). I haven't seen a telephone sanitizer for a long (cough cough) time! (cough, hack, cough).

If this is news to you, you are new around here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, long live the DNF April Fools Jokes.

Take-Two won't do the right thing.

[pieisgood]

Since Take-Two has the publishing rights they're going to keep the DNF assets and current playable game and never release it or they're going to hand it over to another team that won't put forth the Duke style that one would expect. I really wish they would at least release a beta demo of the playable assets.

Re:Take-Two won't do the right thing.

[drfool]

I hope the project lead burns the building down in a desperate effort to destroy what of the project is done. The bastardisation of Duke Nukem Forever, in my opinion, would be an unforgivable offence, and we know Take-Two's ripe to do it too.

Re:Take-Two won't do the right thing.

[rice-dawg]

Since Take-Two has the publishing rights they're going to keep the DNF assets and current playable game and never release it or they're going to hand it over to another team that won't put forth the Duke style that one would expect. I really wish they would at least release a beta demo of the playable assets.

According to GameSpot, Take-Two only owns the publishing rights. The intellectual property still belongs to the developers, so don't hold your breath waiting for a Rockstar Studio to finish the job. http://www.gamespot.com/news/6209271.html

Re:Take-Two won't do the right thing.

[Throtex]

Why not hold a bake sale and buy up the IP in bankruptcy? Surely some devoted fan can make this happen.

Re:Take-Two won't do the right thing.

[Antique Geekmeister]

Maybe they could give it to the guys writing Sven Coop? That's a group actually doing some cool stuff for free and fun and contributions. I'd _love_ to see a Duke game translated to Steam.

Re:Take-Two won't do the right thing.

[mlk]

I hope they release each of the unfinished versions. It would be cool to see the directions it took over the years.

Re:Take-Two won't do the right thing.

[Loadmaster]

Apparently, Take-Two offered 30 million for the IP back in January when 3d Realms showed them the game. 3d Realms said no, but did offer to complete the game for 5 million. TT said no to that.

I don't know if that's true, but it sounds likely enough. 3d Realms has been milking this, likely, scam for years. If TT would have given them the money we'd be going through this again in two years.

The king is dead....

[Foo2rama]

The King is dead, long live the King...

Re:The king is dead....

[Barny]

hail to the king baby

Re:The king is dead....

[fph il quozientatore]

FTFY: The duke is dead... hail to the duke baby

Damn...

[Korey Kaczor]

I wish we all would have hurd that a long time ago, as to not get our hopes up.

(When) will DNF be released?

[mischi_amnesiac]

Old answer: "When it's done."
New answer: "No, we are done."

Re:(When) will DNF be released?

[Captain Spam]

It'll be released "when it's done". The fact that it will never be done does not change the validity of that statement.

Re:(When) will DNF be released?

[OrangeTide]

but they are done.

Re:(When) will DNF be released?

[Captain Spam]

Then I suppose it follows that they will be the ones released.

Talk about a blow to PC gaming...

[Shadow of Eternity]

This is like the vatican coming out and saying "Shows over people, no second coming. Sorry, pack it up and go home."

What ridiculous mythical everpresent promise are we going to look forward to now?

Re:Talk about a blow to PC gaming...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm already looking forward to the Pandora being unleashed to rape the unsuspectingly closed-source handheld console market.

Plus, it might actually happen soon. They've finalized the keypads, made the final case prototypes... But a whole bunch of crap is 'in transit'.

Their process is blocking on the postal service.

Re:Talk about a blow to PC gaming...

[L4t3r4lu5]

What ridiculous mythical everpresent promise are we going to look forward to now?

The year of Linux on the desktop, of course!

Re:Talk about a blow to PC gaming...

[mindcorrosive]

What ridiculous mythical everpresent promise are we going to look forward to now?

No More DRM, Honest! And Will Work On Linux As Well!

Re:Talk about a blow to PC gaming...

[atraintocry]

I'm sure we'll think of something.
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/17/1459202

Re:Talk about a blow to PC gaming...

[Osmosis_Garett]

Which one aren't we going to look forward to?

Re:Talk about a blow to PC gaming...

[atraintocry]

Six months isn't too much of a delay for a bunch of people who were essentially learning the manufacturing side of it as they went along. Their real problem was having too tight of a promised schedule. Luckily for them, the Wiz doesn't seem to be coming along any faster.

I never thought at any point in the process that there was any vapor. There were some worries on the forums, but it's mostly youngsters there...in fact, the collective impatience (and the slowing trickle of GP2X releases) has kept me from going back until it ships and people have constructive things to say. I'll be glad when mine shows up on my doorstep, my guess is late summer.

And I'll be even more glad as beefier ARM solutions like Cortex gain even more traction in devices that size and work their way up to netbooks.

Re:Talk about a blow to PC gaming...

[TheRaven64]

Not to mention that the Pandora delay meant that the shipping models have twice as much RAM, making them look like very attractive handhelds for the non-gaming market too. Also twice as much flash, but storage is easily upgradable via memory cards, while adding extra RAM would have required either replacing the PoP or adding extra traces to the board, neither of which is really possible for end users.

Re:Talk about a blow to PC gaming...

[Mark_in_Brazil]

What ridiculous mythical everpresent promise are we going to look forward to now?

I've heard the next version of Windows will be a lot more secure.

Re:Talk about a blow to PC gaming...

[evilkasper]

The year of Linux on the desktop, of course!

How about Linux gaming, or does that go hand and hand with the desktop?

Re:Talk about a blow to PC gaming...

[bigstrat2003]

Hey, that's not fair... the second coming of Jesus is at least theoretically possible.

Re:Talk about a blow to PC gaming...

[Steauengeglase]

I have to agree, as a gamer it feels like the tooth fairy has died or there never was a Santa Clause.

Re:Talk about a blow to PC gaming...

[RyoShin]

One of these years we'll get the Phantom console!

Re:Talk about a blow to PC gaming...

[Svartalf]

That'd be my guess as well. It'd be sooner (As in, they're largely ready except for some spit-polish on the deployed firmware) save for the classic delays you get when you make something like this- doesn't matter whom you are, whether you're the OpenPandora project or Sony.

Re:Talk about a blow to PC gaming...

[PrimaryConsult]

What ridiculous mythical everpresent promise are we going to look forward to now?

My vote is for New York City's Second Avenue Subway. Since the first plan was approved in 1929, it was redesigned in the 40s, 70s and 90s, with multiple ceremonial groundbreakings. The result of the billions (in today's money) poured into it were only some short, disconnected sections of tunnel with no track that were costing millions to maintain with no funding to actually make them usable. The completion date for the first phase of current construction has been pushed to 2016 from 2014.

13 years of development down the drain

[voisine]

Damn... 13 years of development down the drain.

Re:13 years of development down the drain

[Yvanhoe]

Oh! The cruelty of a competing market.

Re:13 years of development down the drain

[Khyber]

OH! The cruelty of piss-poor management of a project!

Re:13 years of development down the drain

[Linker3000]

I hear all the devs have been snapped up by EDS.

Re:13 years of development down the drain

[Don_dumb]

I hear all the devs have been snapped up by EDS.

A cold chill consumes me at that thought. (Sitting here typing at an EDS implemented system, waiting for it to do something)

Re:13 years of development down the drain

[The Archon V2.0]

I hear all the devs have been snapped up by EDS.

Wow. Just when I think DNF is the epitome of development hell, someone comes and reminds me that even Hell has a bad part of town.

Intentional Inefficiency?

[Korey Kaczor]

With this news, the constant lack of updates regarding the status of DNF throughout the years, and the fact that there are no known killer technologies associated with it (such as Half Life 2's facial editing and Doom 3's lighting) to provide marketing buzz for it, makes me wonder if the developers intentionally dragged their feet. Easier to get a paycheck and do nothing for longer than to do something, finish it, and risk getting let go. Bah, I'm cynical.

Re:Intentional Inefficiency?

[Sj0]

I have another proposal.

When 3d realms was in its heyday, game development was a much much much smaller endeavor than today. Interactivity consisted of playing a sound file when you cross a certain line.

At the time, anyone could make a game with the BUILD engine, and there were lots of non-commerical full-length TCs of very good quality. Even a bunch of kids could put together something of fairly good quality. Today, game development is a much more involved process. Creating a single level is a massive achievement of art, programming, design.

I bet the people at 3d Realms simply were overwhelmed by the challenge of managing a project of that size. The quirky rapid-fire development cycle and snap decision-making that's kept DNF from being released also resulted in some of the most incredible 3d games of the 3drealms era.

Re:Intentional Inefficiency?

[danieltdp]

Mmm. I hated Doom 3 for the lack of light during game play, but the lightning technology was awesome!

Re:Intentional Inefficiency?

[mlk]

In The Pit did get work with the Doom 3 lighting system.

Re:Intentional Inefficiency?

[mlk]

great not get. I really must learn to read what I write.

I want to hear more...

[TiggertheMad]

...I would kill to have an ex-employee give a tell all interview about what the hell was going on for the last ten years or so. If any game media people are out there, I will gladly click through thirty pages of crappy advertising to read this one.

Rampant egos? Ineptness? Fraud? There has to be some juicy tidbits that will come put of the tale...

Re:I want to hear more...

[atraintocry]

I bet they were dividing their time between Duke Nukem Forever and Monster Bash Forever...

Re:I want to hear more...

[iron-kurton]

I can't believe they didn't come out with something. There have been plenty of crappy games, and one more wouldn't change a damn thing -- but being the poster child for vaporware? I would take a bad beat for one game than take the beating they did for DNF.

There will always be sequels. Unless your name is Duke Nukem, I guess...

What a shame

Re:I want to hear more...

[Danathar]

Man...the miniseries is going to be great.

The resulting article will be better than the Daikatana story.

Re:I want to hear more...

[_ivy_ivy_]

...I would kill to have an ex-employee give a tell all interview about what the hell was going on for the last ten years or so.

I'm going to hazard a guess: not very much.

Re:I want to hear more...

[SuperCharlie]

I was one of those obsessed followers for the first 3-4 years after DN3D until I came up with what *I* figured happened. Hell, I even bought all the action figures...

I believe they made a name with Duke 3D and had good intentions of making a sequel..at first. Then along came licensing rights. Easy money. Then came some noteable side-tracks. Max Payne for one. Then came some more licensing. Then it really didn't make sense to work that hard any more. The money (anyone with a buck to buy licensing) just called on the phone, the lawyers did their work, and the money showed up in the bank.

Here is some of what we got instead of DNF..

Duke Nukem 64
Duke Nukem - Game Boy Color
Duke Nukem - Land of the Babes
Duke Nukem - Manhattan Project
Duke Nukem - Time to Kill
Duke Nukem - Total Meltdown
Duke Nukem - Zero Hour
Duke Nukem Advance
Duke Nukem II
Duke Nukem Mobile

They milked it for over 10 years. I am surprised they actually "called it off" and didn't just let it fade away.

The shame here is the magnificent property that was lazily shit off.

Re:I want to hear more...

[Anonymous Coward]

Linked somewhere else in the comments: http://gamingisstupid.com/2009/05/06/the-chair-story-revival/

TL;DR: Working as intended.

Re:I want to hear more...

[hansamurai]

I was hired out of college and then retired comfortably at the age of 65... and worked on Duke Nukem Forever the whole time!

Re:I want to hear more...

[Minwee]

I would kill to have an ex-employee give a tell all interview about what the hell was going on for the last ten years or so.

Let's just say it was "Just a few more turns" of Civilization.

And let's just say you're going to notice a sudden drop in the number of daytime posts around here.

Re:I want to hear more...

[hibiki_r]

I've talked to a few former developers: Few people that started the project where working for 3D Realms last year. Some core positions were abandoned twice during development.

The project never had real focus or a clear schedule. The programmers would work on adding feature X or Y to their engine of the year. Those features were chosen because important people thought they were cool, not because they were in a design document. They continued adding random features until the next engine came to market, and management decided that they had to switch engines, throwing most of the work away, including large chunks of game assets. By the second time that happens, morale is a disaster, so performance suffers. Eventually, people quit, because saying that you worked for 5 years in DNF is not exactly a good resume builder. Then, the exact same thing happens to the replacements.

When your intended result is to make a very interactive game that also has the best graphics in the industry, you need either a well defined target in the future and someone that can design an engine that will be the top engine by the day you want to release, or have a very reduced schedule, and a ridiculous amount of manpower, with the risk that involves. 3D Realms didn't do either.

Re:I want to hear more...

[irinotecan]

My take is slightly different: I believe they were afraid to fail. Given what little we do know about the endless delays -- that they switched the basic engine from Quake II to Unreal to Unreal Tournament to Quake III to one being built solely in-house, and had to restart level work every time, I believe that this was driven by the fear that the game would be a failure. Duke 3D was a smash it. It put them on the map. And they promised to themselves and their fans that DNF would be even better. So, they couldn't stand the thought of it possibly being a flop; it had to be a #1 bestseller, and every game reviewer had to be able to rant and rave at how much more amazing it was over D3D or any other FPS for that matter. And every year that passed, and every time they got more and more ridiculed at its "vaporware" status, it hardened their resolve that the game must not be a failure, or even mediocre, under any circumstance whatsoever. And that mentality paralyzed them, and caused them to essentially re-write and re-write the game, until the weight of it all finally caused them to collapse

Re:I want to hear more...

[Anonymous Coward]

It is ironic that Duke 3D was a hit with an outdated engine...

Re:I want to hear more...

[Stray7Xi]

Duke Nukem Forever is dead... But look forward to Duke Nukem Forever: The Movie

Maybe they'll make a game to tie-in with the movie.

Re:I want to hear more...

[kalirion]

It is ironic that Duke 3D was a hit with an outdated engine..

Outdated? This was months before Quake. There was nothing better. And as far as I'm concerned, Duke 3D looked better than any other game until GLQuake made its appearance. Sure, Descent and Terminator: Future Shock were true 3D, but either those engines had some major limitations, or they weren't used right.

Re:I want to hear more...

[earlymon]

And that miniseries is going to come out on..... what date?

Re:I want to hear more...

[SuperCharlie]

I agree that the no-fail thing had a lot to do with it as well in the early (first 3-4 years) years. Surely frustration set in early as ID ran laps around them and the upcoming EA behemoth made the days of garage development, their roots, a thing of the past.

They were bleeding edge when DN3D came out and there was no way for them to get back there without selling out or working their asses off, neither of which made coming to work a fun thing any more.

I think the decision that DNF would never see the light came a lot earlier than most think. I believe around year 5 or so it was all just keeping the property worth enough to license.

Re:I want to hear more...

[Verdatum]

Actually, that could be good. Imagine Lost in La Mancha only, for the gaming industry.

Re:I want to hear more...

[kriston]

Don't forget Duke It Out In DC.

good gnus

[Tumbleweed]

I guess the Hurd has a chance to beat Duke Nukem Forever to 1.0, after all! Who woulda thunk it?

Re:good gnus

[TheRaven64]

Unfortunately, HURD follows the same development methodology as DNF. They had it booting and running X11 / GNOME a few years back, then they decided to ditch Mach and switch to L4. Then they decided to switch to Coyotos instead. Then they decided to write their own game engine, uh, microkernel, from scratch.

Re:good gnus

[cbiltcliffe]

Then they decided to write their own game engine, uh, microkernel, from scratch.

That actually makes me wonder....

I read a while back that somebody had taken large portions of the Samba codebase and inserted them right into the Linux kernel.
The result, of course, was unbeatable fileserver performance.

Is there any technical reason why you couldn't do the same with a game engine?
Could you take the source code for one of these engines, hack it right into the kernel itself, and then just pull data files in, depending on what game you wanted to play?

I'm not a C programmer, so this is an honest question. It might very well be more effort than it's worth, for the performance. But it would still be a cool project for somebody, I would think....

Re:good gnus

[TheRaven64]

Yes, it would be possible. No, it's not really a good idea. The reason file servers perform much better in kernelspace is that something like samba or httpd is basically taking data from a block device and throwing it over a network interface (or vice versa). Both the block device and the network interface drivers are in the kernel. To get data from the block device to the network interface, you need these steps:

1. Device DMAs the data to the kernelspace cache.
2. Kernel copies data to userspace process in response to read() call.
3. Kernel copies data back to kernelspace buffer in response to write() call.
4. Network interface DMAs the data and sends it over the network.

This means that the data is copied twice. This is not really an artefact of the server being in userspace as much as it is of the interfaces not being designed for modern hardware. If you use mmap() then you can eliminate the first copy, but that's not really feasible for a fileserver running on a 32-bit server, or you run out of address space very quickly. If you use extensions like sendfile() then you can eliminate both copies and this makes things very fast. Putting the entire fileserver in the kernel does not make things any faster than just using sendfile().

For a game engine, the overhead of context switches for system calls is a very small proportion of the total. I'd be very surprised if it's even 5%. Putting a game engine in the kernel would give a very small performance gain, but at the expense of a bug in the game engine being able to write over kernel data and potentially write nonsense all over your hard drive.

Re:good gnus

[dkf]

Is there any technical reason why you couldn't do the same [put it in the kernel] with a game engine?

No deep technical reason, but it's really hard to get code to the level of stability of an OS kernel, and game engines just aren't written to that quality. Would you want a game crash to require a hard reset of the computer and possibly a reflash of some of your hardware too? Keeping games (like other applications) in user-space makes a great deal of sense...

Re:good gnus

[IamTheRealMike]

Eh? But, game engines run in "kernel mode" on games consoles all the time ... and they're often the same codebase these days. I agree that it would not make much of a performance difference though.

Re:good gnus

[cbiltcliffe]

....and potentially write nonsense all over your hard drive.

But since most people use Windows for gaming, aren't they already at this point, anyway? :)

Ok...I hadn't really thought it through, and hadn't figured out what actually slowed down network performance in userspace apps.

I suppose you're right, that it would make marginal speed differences in this case.
Still an interesting intellectual exercise, though...

Re:good gnus

[cbiltcliffe]

Would you want a game crash to require a hard reset of the computer....

Reminds me of the Atari 2600 when it had a dirty cartridge socket.
Funky colour blocks all over the screen, and bizarre buzzing sounds from the speaker. Fun stuff.

But, you're right. It's not a good idea. But it was an idea.
It was more an intellectual curiosity than an actual suggestion.

Re:good gnus

[mlk]

but at the expense of a bug in the game engine being able to write over kernel data and potentially write nonsense all over your hard drive.

But how did the Spore installer work then?

Re:good gnus

[Chris Burke]

Then they decided to write their own game engine, uh, microkernel, from scratch.

What the fuck? I thought the whole fucking point of HURD was to write a GNU microkernel to go with the GNU system, you know so it'd be GNU/GNU instead of GNU/Linux. If all you wanted was a UNIX with GNU tools and the Mach microkernel... I'm pretty damn sure I've read a few dozen of the hundreds of research papers based on such a system!

Now I honestly haven't been paying attention, because I've got a nice working kernel thanks, and the whole micro vs macro kernel debate seems as relevant to me as the CISC vs RISC debate. But I thought the whole point -- the only point I could see any, well, point to -- was for them to be writing their own microkernel.

Oh well. I guess you're right. Same development methodology as DNF, same result. Minus the ability to go bankrupt. Yay!

Re:good gnus

[TheRaven64]

A microkernel, by definition, does very little. In any microkernel-based OS, most of the work is done by servers - some privileged, some unprivieged. These provide drivers, abstractions like processes and users, authentication, and so on. Mach lets you create threads and memory regions and basically nothing else. Most (all?) UNIX-like operating systems that have been built on top of Mach just ran an instance of BSD as a Mach task and then ran all of the userspace apps on top of that. HURD, in contrast, is a multi-server microkernel OS, which splits all of the important OS functions into separate tasks and runs them on top of a small and lightweight microkernel (part of the reason they want to move away from Mach is that it's heavier than they need).

Re:good gnus

[Chris Burke]

I know what a microkernel is, thanks, that was kinda a prerequisite to understanding all of the research papers. I had just always assumed that the whole point of HURD was to have a GPL-only FSF-copyrighted microkernel (and obviously any services) so you could have an entirely GNU system. So hearing that they ever used Mach or any other non-GNU microkernel was rather surprising.

Chinese democracy of games

[andemann]

Hey, Axel rose managed to release Chinese democracy. There is still hope for Duke Nukem Forever.

Re:Chinese democracy of games

[drfool]

If you're implying that someday something of the "Chinese Democracy" caliber is released under the title "Duke Nukem Forever, then you are wrong, there is no hope...

Re:Chinese democracy of games

[guyminuslife]

Duke Nukem Forever will never be released.

If there is ever another major (e.g., PC/console) release of a Duke Nukem game, it will be released by different people. People, by the way, who will be smart enough to call their product, "Duke Nukem Tomorrow."

Re:Chinese democracy of games

[danieltdp]

After 13 year waiting for a release, I would prefer a "Duke Nukem TODAY". Thank you sir. ;-)

Axl Rose wins the vaporware wars against 3DRealms

[Anonymous Coward]

I always thought Guns 'n' Roses was DNF's main competition in the Vaporware Wars Of 1994-2009. :)

I honestly never thought Axl would ship his album first for the win, but, here we are.

And in other news...

[hyades1]

Guinness World Records reports that the long-standing record for constant masturbation previously held by Gooey, a chimpanzee at the Buffalo Zoo, in what was thought to be an unbreakable grip, was "overcome in one magnificent stroke" by the DNF team at 3D Realms.

The sheer magnificence of the accomplishment has moved a Guinness spokesman to suggest that DNF has actually outgrown the term "vapourware", and become something else entirely. He suggests a new definition, "spankerware", be coined to cummemorate this astounding, 12-year feat of dong-flogging. "If this were an anniversary, the appropriate gift would be linen...and lots of it", the spokesman said.

Re:And in other news...

[MadKeithV]

"In one magnificent stroke"? I see what you did there..

I'm here to kick ass

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm here to kick ass and fund development!
And I'm all out of funds.

I propose...

[phillymjs]

...that Wired names their annual vaporware awards in honor of Duke.

~Philly

Re:I propose...

[Chatsubo]

But, of course, it must have a silly cutesey name like the "Dukey".

Re:I propose...

[jgtg32a]

I thought they gave it a life time achievement award because it was on top for the last 10 years.

Re:I propose...

[Minwee]

Or, for extra cutesy, the "Dukey Nukey".

Re:I propose...

[Kenshin]

Dookie?

"Duke Nukem For Never" - That's funny!

[tmkn]

Hello, I am Fox News. I want to hire you to write some more funny news titles for me. When would you like to start?

The Duke Nukem Forever List

[Burning1]

I think now would be as good a time as any to repost the Duke Nukem Forever List for those who haven't already read it, or remember it fondly and looking for a encore laugh.

Just as the DNF team would occasionally tease us over the years with trailers, the list has been updated to include humanity's latest accomplishments (and failures.)

The following things have been accomplished between Duke Nukem Forever's announcement on April 28th, 1997 and its death on May 6th, 2009...

Interestingly, a conversation regarding the late great duke came up at work just today...

Re:The Duke Nukem Forever List

[El_Muerte_TDS]

What a crappy list. The first part is interesting. But that second half where they list all things that happened in the industry, world; or the things that didn't take that long. It's complete bullshit. I can make a list like that for pretty much everything.

Duke Nukem For[N]ever

[rice-dawg]

Loved Duke 3D back in the day, but I was 15 when I last played it and 16 when Duke Nukem Forever was announced. My computer back then was a Pentium 166 with 16 megs of RAM and a 3dfx Voodoo Banshee card. And now, I'm 28, typing this on a multi-gigaherz, multi-core, multi-gigabyte, multi-monitor setup. My, how times have changed.

For a couple years I eagerly awaited DN4, but after that, enough is enough. I gave up the ghost, earned a college degree, started a career, and next thing I know, I'm almost 30. I literally have not thought once about DN4 in years until I saw this headline.

What a shocker. Not.

Does 3DRealms still deserve headline space? They haven't done anything innovative in years. Their management is curt, snarky, and drunk with hubris. If anyone dares to post something anti-3DR on their forums, the thread gets locked, Siegler and/or Broussard gets the last word, and the user gets banned. But that's cool. It's their forums, they can do whatever they want, and apparently they only allow sycophants.

"When it's done," they say. "The game will revolutionize interactivity," they say. "We don't need any money, we're 100% self-funded, and can afford it indefinitely because we are rock star developers and can sell ice to eskimos," they say. Oops.

How many engine changes did DN4 go through? How much work was wasted in redesigning all the levels over and over again? And most importantly, how much money could DN4 have made if they simply instilled a little more discipline than "when it's done" into their culture? Management has to be stunningly demented to squander such a valuable franchise, and instead be content with trickling out old Duke Nukem ports and re-makes. If I were a developer at 3DR, I would be seriously pissed at having busted my ass all these years without ever seeing a dime of royalty that could've been seven figures, and instead am now laid off and have to look for another job in this craptacular economy.

Memo to 3DRealms: thanks for the good times back in the day, but good riddance to your arrogance, your lack of respect towards the industry, and your vaporware promises. You will not be missed.

Re:Duke Nukem For[N]ever

[Arthur Grumbine]

What a shocker. Not.

Apparently, you retained some of your witticisms from when you were 15, as well. That's da bomb!!

Re:Duke Nukem For[N]ever

[B3ryllium]

Heh. Your first paragraph makes you sound exactly like me ... (Except I'm on one of those new dual-head Mac Minis now). My Banshee was fun, though.

Re:Duke Nukem For[N]ever

[Retron]

I was 16 when DN3D came out (I managed to get around the 18-rating for it by asking my grandmother to buy it for me - poor old dear didn't know what the game was about!)

Unlike you, however, I've been following developments since then closely. Truth be told I didn't expect to ever play it, although the hundreds (if not thousands) of posters on the 3D Realms boards had different expectations!

The one I feel most sorry for is Joe Siegler. Through the years he's campaigned hard and helped release many of the old Apogee games as freeware and he was always posting on the forums, with all sorts of interesting insights and bits and pieces. He was also oft seen posting about how the bosses had no interest at all in their back catalogue (except making money from it!) - it was a one-man battle to get things like Bio Menace and Kroz released as freeware.

The really sad thing is, Apogee / 3DR could have kept going easily enough - witness the so-called "casual game" explosion. If only they'd had the foresight to publish things like World of Goo, Peggle, Zuma etc... The really annoying thing is, that's how they started! Back when games were simple, when a team of 6 could produce something amazing.

But no, it seems that they'd rather just concentrate on the great white elephant that was Duke Nukem Forever. And no matter how good a game that would be, talking about the future doesn't generate cashflow. It's Osbourne computers all over again!

Re:Duke Nukem For[N]ever

[straponego]

I doubt the developers are pissed. I was in a UT clan with one of them in '99 or so, and while he was mostly a nice guy, he was constantly bragging about how every car in their parking lot cost $250K, they were swimming in pussy, etc. Don't know how long that standard of living lasted, but if I got paid like that for producing nothing for ten years, I'd tell myself it was a good run... Rock star developers indeed.

Charlie Wiederhold's Chair Story

[Japong]

This is the strangest read I've had in a while:

http://gamingisstupid.com/2009/05/06/the-chair-story-revival/

I was told to think about my next words very carefully before giving my final answer. Honestly, I felt this was a test to see how well I would hold up to pressure later when we had to "hold the lie" (the similarity to "hold the line" isn't on accident), so I held firm and said I really wanted to, but needed to have it reviewed...

oh fuck...

Faster than I can even remember (literally... I don't remember) I was knocked out of my chair by I *think* of all people Tim Sweeney (it was a wooden kitchen chair) and was pinned on the ground by Mike Wilson and Cliffy B (he's so much stronger than I ever expected). George walks over to my chair and fucking stomps the shit out of it until the legs are broken off. He casually picks up one of the legs that had split into a shit your pants style point and starts tossing it up and down. Scott and Mark Rein alternate on and off saying that I apparently wasn't aware how *real* business is done and that if I didn't want to find out why those two companies had maintained such a strong position in the industry dating back to the shareware days (when it seems people didn't ask nearly as many questions about why developers appeared, made a game, and then disappeared without a trace)... I had better reconsider my answer.

I do remember the next part very very well though... I will never forget it and I have to admit that I have dreams about it pretty frequently.

Cliffy and Mike pulled me up and shoved my face about 6 inches from the point of the chair leg. I was drenched in sweat (the trailers didn't have decent AC so it was already hot as hell in there)... and if they had let go of me I would not have been able to stand on my own.

George looked me in the eyes and asked me one more time what I was going to do... so at that point I did what anyone would do...

I mean, this guy actually did work at 3DRealms and this is his blog, but seriously, CliffyB and Marc Rein threatening developers with broken chairs? Tim Sweeny tackling people and holding them down for gang beatings?

this is so sad!

[AlgorithMan]

I loved Duke Nukem 3D, I played it until 2003 or so (when the last DN3D league was closed). I still have it on my HDD and play against the sob-bot every now and then. I even helped working on the High-Resolution-Pack for some time and I wrote the win32 launcher for the sob-bot...

I was patiently waiting for DNF since 1997 and I never lost hope that some day it would be done

to me, this is as if a relative had died :-(

Re:this is so sad!

[juancnuno]

to me, this is as if a relative had died :-(

Have a little perspective. It's a game.

Re:this is so sad!

[JoCat]

At least funerals have coffee and cookies. This is just... :(

Re:this is so sad!

[whatever3003]

I had the same kicked-in-the-guts reaction too. I spent a good chunk of my adolescence either playing it or making elaborate maps that I never published. Learning how to make all the different types of doors, using the BUILD editor, stuffing about with the .con files ... mods! caribbean duke was great. sigh.

I've been waiting for since before I had internet and was still on my local BBS. I spent 6+ hours downloading the original DNF trailer. Of course, it takes less than a minute now on youtube ...

That trailer actually has some spooky similarities to HL and HL2 ... especially about the 1:30 and 2:00 minute marks.

Long live the king.

Re:this is so sad!

[AlgorithMan]

nope :-)

Re:this is so sad!

[Zhe Mappel]

to me, this is as if a relative had died :-(

I see you are grieving, and I hurt with you, my brother.

Just, er, don't tell any relatives that you equate them emotionally with a stripper-loving redneck in a canceled video game.

Think of the Fanbois

[BeardedChimp]

I came across the DNF forums a while back and was surprised to see how active it is, continuous posting everyday, constantly breathing in the hype and now it's all gone and they are in denial. oh dear

Re:Think of the Fanbois

[BeardedChimp]

Oops I know it's bad practice to reply to yourself but I found a couple of choice quotes.

"Its going to suck trying to learn personalities of new people on a new forum. This is where I get my gaming/computer/popular media news. Where am I to go? 7+ years is a long time. Right?"

"I've spent 10 years of my internet-life here, it's actually the only internet community I like (except my hl2-clan). F*ck DNF for that matter, I don't want this forum to go. "

Why now?

[Wicknight]

Why now? Why not 10 years ago? Did they run out of money?

DNF still on...

[oneplus999]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/91526-3D-Realms-Shutting-Down
Deep Silver and Apogee Software have issued the following statement: "Deep Silver and Apogee Software are not affected by the situation at 3D Realms. Development on the Duke Nukem Trilogy is continuing as planned."

Re:DNF still on...

[oneplus999]

Nuts I need to read the summary all the way to the bottom...

Re:DNF still on...

[pieisgood]

That's for the Duke Nukem [bold] TRILOGY [/bold] Duke Nukem Forever (FOUR EVER) is not a part of the trilogy. DNF.... if all this is really the truth, is finished.

"expecting/hoping for this for some time."

[Joce640k]

You were dedicating neurons to this? You need to get out more.

It's time...

[rolandog]

to write code and chew bubble gum; and I'm all out of gum...

Re:It's time...

[kramulous]

Come get some.

Re:It's time...

[AnXa]

You've got it all wrong...

it's time to write code and chew bubble gum; and I'm all out of job...

Re:It's time...

[danieltdp]

I'm gonna rip your head off and shit down your neck

Re:It's time...

[lastchance_000]

It's a testament to the collective brilliance of /. that this is modded 'Informative.'

Re:It's time...

[danieltdp]

Its a testament to my nerdiness! Better, its a testament to the nerdiness of us all, and this is the only place were this is actually a compliment.

Re:It's time...

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

I now have plenty of time to bleeeeed.

Re:It's time...

[sootman]

This news makes me very sad. I feel as if someone tore off my head and shat down my neck.

Re:It's time...

[LaminatorX]

Frankly, I would wan to be informed of that eventuality.

Re:It's time...

[lucas teh geek]

hey, is there some way I can get in contact with you? I've been using your iphone'ized /. for a while, and found some inspiration to spend a few hours tonight making some changes to the source that I figure might be worth sending back your way. drop me an email: sootman.lucas_ at xoxy dot net

Cus

[Cus]

"Deep Silver and Apogee Software are not affected by the situation at 3D Realms. Development on the Duke Nukem Trilogy is continuing as planned."


There's a plan to this project?

Re:Cus

[Plug]

The Duke Nukem trilogy is a trio of side-scrollers for handheld consoles..

Shadow Warrior would have been better

[PhantomHarlock]

What would have been way better is a follow on to Shadow Warrior. SW was so damn funny with John Galt as the voice. I really, really wanted to see a modern SW game with more epic SW dialogue. Oh well.

"You want to wash wang? or you want to watch Wang wash wang?"

Re:Shadow Warrior would have been better

[space_jake]

Didn't 3DR get sued over Shadow Warrior's dialog?

Does this affect the availability of old games?

[Drinking Bleach]

this is actually the part that's concerning me most; Apogee/3D Realms actually has a good backlot of games which were sold on the website directly (3drealms.com seems to be suffering a Slashdot effect atm). I have only a few, but it would be great if the others were still available. They did make a few of the older and unsellable games available as freeware, but other than that, the entire catalog was available for sale, so I'm mostly wondering what's going to happen to these.

OK-- I guess the second-hand market is always going to be there, but having the ability to always get fresh, original copies was nice.

Re:Does this affect the availability of old games?

[penguinchris]

I didn't have the Nintendos all the other kids my age had, but I honestly think I had more fun with the Apogee/3D Realms games I played so much.

I grew up playing those games, like the Commander Keen series, Crystal Caves, Raptor: Call of the Shadows, Hocus Pocus, and Secret Agent... good times... (and that's not even counting Wolf 3D, Rise of the Triad, Terminal Velocity... a lot of great games). I was happy playing the shareware episodes over and over, so I wasn't a very good customer as a kid :)

I did buy the full version of Secret Agent several years ago from their site, though, and had a lot of fun checking out the other episodes that I never played originally. Quite satisfied for the $10 or so I paid. I bought Crystal Caves a couple years later as well, and my brother got Raptor: Call of the Shadows which was always one of his favorites. My dad had all the Wolfenstein 3D episodes when they were originally out; I'm not sure he actually paid for them though.

It would, indeed, be a shame if the only way to play these old games was by finding a torrent. The site isn't working for me right now either, but they do have all the shareware versions of their catalog titles available for download in addition to the full (paid) versions.

Anyway... it's refreshing to stir up some nostalgia that's relevant to me; as I mentioned, usually people my age just talk about their Super Nintendos :)

Re:Does this affect the availability of old games?

[claytonjr]

Have you tried Good Old Games? They seem to have a couple of Duke titles available.

http://www.gog.com/en/search/sort/search/duke

Re:Does this affect the availability of old games?

[Drinking Bleach]

Yes (in fact, I've already bought Duke3D and Rise of the Triad from them), but their selection of Apogee games is quite small. Blake Stone, Duke Nukem 3D + Manhattan, Rise of the Triad; all great games, but it pales in comparison to the entire Apogee catalog. Not to mention the whole downloadable games vs boxed copies issue, but that's not really relevant to the conversation :)

Ahem

[Fizzl]

a reliable source close to the company

DNF Released.

[muzicman]

Wouldn't it be hilarious if the turned round in a month and said "Fooled you here it is!!!".

Re:Charlie Wiederhold's Chair Story

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a joke, dude.

what waporware?

[ypctx]

Exactly as the name says, it will be in development forever. It's the customer expectations based on this misunderstanding, that was misguided.

On a more serious note though, maybe now it's the time for the company to do the right thing and open source / free domain the game for everybody to finish. Even if in the form of a Quake3 mod, or based on its engine.

You know what'll happen

[w0mprat]

They'll botch up this too, if asked about when they are shutting down they'll say 'When it does'

Still Waiting...

[ae1294]

I'm still waiting for my copy of Commander Keen 2012 to come out....

Any updates?
ae

Re:Still Waiting...

[Skip1952]

Oh Commander Keen is okay, but I was hoping to hear about Captain Comic III being available soon.

Sell the rights, storyline&artwork

[Jeppe Salvesen]

If they sell the rights, storyline and artwork in one big packages, someone competent can implement the actual game in a year or so.

RIP

[SalaSSin]

Damn :-(

This just makes me sad, not really for DNF, but because Duke Nukem (1) was one of the first games i played, and Duke Nukem 3D was actually a game i loved a lot.

RIP 3D Realms :'(

Wow.

[ledow]

Gotta love the site that lists all the things that have happened in the time DNF was "supposed" to be being made.

For instance, it took less time to implement and complete the entire Moon landing program.
The Beatles were formed, released every song, and split up in less time than it's been since DNF's initial announcement.
Wars came and went quicker.
The *entire* GTA series of games was released since the announcement.
58 Mario games were made since the announcement.

It always was a farce, always will be a farce. Even if the source was released tomorrow, complete and playable in every detail, DNF would *still* be the biggest development farce in gaming. It should have had its tail cut long ago, rather than constant "reinvention". All we can hope is that the developers and producers involved learn a lesson and start getting things out of the door in their new jobs. It sounds like it was technically good at most points but reinventing the wheel and constant, inept, managerial interruptions turned it into a circus (so, what else is new?).

Surely anyone with a brain would have left 3DRealms *long* ago anyway, if this is how it was working?

Re:Wow.

[Ogive17]

Surely anyone with a brain would have left 3DRealms *long* ago anyway, if this is how it was working?

Hmm, getting paid for 15 years to produce nothing of value (as far as we can tell)... sounds like job security to me!

Re:Wow.

[Sockatume]

The Metal Gear Solid franchise was also launched and completed in that timespan, consisting of four "blockbuster" large-budget projects, four handheld titles, two mobile phone games, and five remakes/expansion packs.

Re:Wow.

[ledow]

Until one day, you come in to work to be told that the company doesn't even exist any more?

And from what I read online, the turnover on staff was quite high during most of that time, and essentially they spent their time re-doing things they've already done. I can't imagine a worse job to be honest. Being employed to do the same thing that your friend did yesterday, knowing that it'll never finish. I would imagine anyone with half a brain got out of there a long time ago, which is probably part of the problem.

Re:Wow.

[Ogive17]

It puts food on the table, right? Consider yourself lucky if you have never held a job that you didn't like, but kept to pay the bills.

I don't code, but I've seen stories on /. about the difficulties in finding jobs in the US. A job is money and experience (be it good or bad experience).

Re:Wow.

[Shrike82]

Until you go to an interview for your next job.

Interviewer: "So what have you been doing for the last 15 years?"

Applicant: "I've been working on Duke Nukem Forever!"

Interviewer: "Get the fuck out..."

Re:Charlie Wiederhold's Chair Story

[Sam H]

Obviously you've never worked at a game development company... Programmers there aren't worth much.
At least this guy got away with all his limbs and no oil burns. And they didn't use the spiders...

Obviously you've worked at the wrong game development company. I know quite a few successful European studios where programmers are well treated. I can't believe no US companies is worth working for, see for instance Insomniac Games.

You stole my joke; oh well, it's "Did not finish"

[jonaskoelker]

What, I thought DNF was "Digital Noise Filter". Which is what you need when reading rumors about the impending release of DNF :)

Wikipedia says it's

"Did not finish" in racing parlance

(Non-native English speakers might not be familiar with this particular acronym expansion.)

God uses Linux, Linux implies !C64

[jonaskoelker]

hopefully when I die, Duke Nukem Forever will be waiting for me on God's Commodore 64.

But everyone knows God uses Linux, which doesn't run on the C64.

Google numbers for "God uses $OS":

1. Linux: 202
2. OS X: 7
3. Vista: 7
4. XP: 6
5. Windows 98: 3

I found these numbers on the Internet, so they must be true!

Re:God uses Linux, Linux implies !C64

[4D6963]

I get 30 for "God uses Windows", 899 for "God uses a Mac" and 29 for "God uses Linux", but alright.. This being said, the C64 runs Linux.

Re:God uses Linux, Linux implies !C64

[JustOK]

God tried Linux, but couldn't find the drivers for his wireless. He keeps trying, but I don't think he has a prayer.

Re:God uses Linux, Linux implies !C64

[jgtg32a]

Gotta use quotes

"God uses a $_" PC 1650
Atari 0
Smartphone 0
C64 0
Amiga 0

Re:God uses Linux, Linux implies !C64

[allawalla]

Actually... Check out the lng/lunix project.

Re:God uses Linux, Linux implies !C64

[mlk]

Linux or a free UNIX-em-up? as all I can find is LUnix.

Re:God uses Linux, Linux implies !C64

[danieltdp]

I can't! It's stuck!

I agree that my previous post came out a little harsh, but the content remains true. Anyways, when I manage to get the tampon out, things will go back to the usual ;-)

Re:God uses Linux, Linux implies !C64

[mgblst]

Well then, he should try downloading a version of Linux which isn't 5 fucking years old.

Re:Charlie Wiederhold's Chair Story

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked at a UK games company where the CEO smashed the crap out of a devs car with a baseball bat because it made the front of the office look messy.

In related news...

[TornCityVenz]

The sequel which some had said would hit the market "when pigs fly" was rumored to have been only days away with many reports of Swine havening flew... wait...what? it's Swine FLU? oh well... Never mind.

Given how long Hurd has been in the making

[nem75]

I take it the developers have plenty of gum.

Re:Given how long Hurd has been in the making

[steelfood]

But no teeth.

Re:Given how long Hurd has been in the making

[Xzisted]

Yeah. All their teeth have been kicked out by /. posters and Fark readers.

Ahh, the irony

[marqs]

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/DNF

Re:Charlie Wiederhold's Chair Story

[QuoteMstr]

I hope your coworker left and sued the CEO. Nobody deserves that shit.

What about facts?

[AnXa]

1. Take-Two which has lots of money(tm) owns 3DRealms. Take-two did give lots of money to 3DRealms until the contract which made it that 3DRealms will make the game by themselfs and Take-Two will only publish that game after that. And they are not allowed to say anything about situation in 3DRealms. Why is that so?

2. DNF is at least 95% done atm. Why would they be showing stuff off if it wouldn't be? Besides Bloussard in his blog mentioned that the check list of undone/buggy stuff for DNF has/had only 24 objectives left. When bug smashing started it had literally thousands of objectives.
http://twitter.com/georgeb3dr/status/1513503306

3. 3DRealms has survived this long without much help from anyone. Why now so suddenly would they be closing? Website closed? I think they are more likely to update it entirely. After all they have had it same at least 10 years.

4. News like "3drealms closed" is just the news we all probably have been waiting for these long years... Think about it. What would be the best way to shout out that Duke Nukem Forever has gone to gold? Of course it would be to give press release of 3DRealms shutting down!!!

I'd say that this is just a marketing trick and odd but kind of funny way to shout out that DNF has gone to gold!

Re:What about facts?

[ledow]

- Worst credit crunch in recent history, particularly affecting video game sales, IT workers, etc.
- Most of the main/original/best developers *long gone*.
- Posts from ex-developers about the diabolical lengths taken to reinvent wheels that had already been reinvented the week before and other enormous wastes of money.
- Longest-running single game development in history (the *entire* Grand Theft Auto series, from the original DOS versions through to GTA4 were made in the timespan of *just* DNF... think about that - ATI and nVidia 3D cards DID NOT EXIST when the game was first announced, not to mention Google or a million other places, it was 3DFX or nothing and most people had *nothing*.).
- Games being "95% done" mean nothing - games have been *completed* in the past but just abandoned before being published (mainly because they were crap, or because they wouldn't sell, or just because some idiot decided to cancel them at the last minute). Similarly 50% complete games *have* been released because the studio ran out of money and just needed to get something out there. It's not unusual at all in the industry.
- You do not generate hype about a product which you are universally slated for delaying by announcing closure. For one thing, your shareholders will sue you - it might actually even be illegal to do so if you don't tell your stockholders that it *is* just a marketing exercise and that would see their share prices *plummet* which they would *not* approve of.

Not a marketing trick (if it is, it's the worst *ever* and likely to evoke lawsuits). Just plain crappy management. Don't go looking for convoluted answers when the simplest solution fits the bill - somebody finally decided to cut their losses.

Re:What about facts?

[dbcad7]

This is a strange story... If you read all the links, you can not find anyone actually verifying anything, except that the web site has been closed down.. all the rest seems to be conjecture, taken as facts.. Perhaps things will be cleared up shortly, or maybe there are other things going on that will be revealed soon.. It seems strange to abandon something that was apparently so close to completion.. especially considering they could have taken pre-orders is money was so tight.. It all doesn't seem right, and I think I'll wait to see what happens in the coming days.

Re:What about facts?

[AnXa]

Note that website has not been closed. Forums and estore are both active and working. Also at least my web browser tells me that there is too much traffic in 3drealms.com and that's why it cannot access it.

And I agree with dbcad7. Something fishy is going on. Especially with game which had only 24 tasks/objectives left to do last week before being 100% complete and ready to go to gold.

Re:What about facts?

[MadKeithV]

Besides Bloussard in his blog mentioned that the check list of undone/buggy stuff for DNF has/had only 24 objectives left.

23. ?????
24. PROFIT!

Re:What about facts?

[Zarf]

Besides Bloussard in his blog mentioned that the check list of undone/buggy stuff for DNF has/had only 24 objectives left.

I've seen the list...

1. clean up opening
2. tweak AI
3. rewrite entire game from scratch

... it gets worse from there.

Re:What about facts?

[AnXa]

I don't know but I know for sure that every freaking website and magazine wrote up stuff when George published that they had only 71 tasks on list left to do.

Just an example:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Duke-Nukem-Forever-3DRelams,7593.html

Last reported number was only 24 things are left to do. And that was on April 13th!!!

I'm pretty sure that Duke Nukem Forever has gone to GOLD!!! :)

And during the next few days I think we will hear more about the matter. But I am not going to buy this story until actual press release is sent out.

We should make a bet here. You will offer me free drinks, free women and free meals during the next weekend if I am correct.

If I'm wrong... well... I can always buy two bottles of Finnish Koskenkorva Viina or some cheap Russian Vodka if you like and then we can both have a blast off party for 3DRealms while sitting on cold bench at park and crying together...

Re:What about facts?

[dbcad7]

As a possibility.. If you look what happened with the Wolverine movie, perhaps this is just an extreme security lock down, so that nothing gets out there until they want it to.. and actually I couldn't blame em.

Re:What about facts?

[Kalriath]

Actually, there is verification - a forum post (on the 3drealms forums) by Joe Siegler, saying that "It's not a marketing thing. It's real."

They're really gone.

Apogee is saying ther are not affected by what happened to 3DRealms, and are refusing to say any more.

Terminal Velocity

[Shivetya]

I will always remember 3DRealms for Terminal Velocity. I remember at the time just how impressive it looked in 1994 for what little it was.

Re:Terminal Velocity

[TheRaven64]

Terminal Velocity was great fun, and had the somewhat dubious distinction of being the only game I ever owned to be accelerated by the S3 ViRGE. Well, that's not quite true. GLQuake, with a hacked driver, went from 0.3fps in software mode to 3fps on the ViRGE, but I'm not totally convinced that counts.

Re:Terminal Velocity

[moon3]

S3 ViRGE, man, I had the same setup back in the day, Teminal Velocity was a great fun at the time. Gosh that game is still great even by today's standards.

Re:Terminal Velocity

[TheRaven64]

Turns out Terminal Velocity works in DOSBox 0.65 or newer. I just downloaded the demo and tried it again. Lots of fun, although it's the pure software renderer which doesn't look as nice as the ViRGE version.

Re:Terminal Velocity

[moon3]

Thanks, I happen to have 0.65 DOSBox in my PC, I downloaded TV, installed it, but it runs really choppy on my 3GHz Core2.. funny anyway.

Re:Terminal Velocity

[TheRaven64]

Try updating. I'm on 0.72, and it runs fine with the graphics turned to 'pentium' mode on my 2.16GHz (laptop) Core 2 Duo.

Bravo!

[Danathar]

I've always said that te DNF gig has got to be the greatest job in the world.....Surf the web, eat cheetos and get paid for 10 years.

What a scam! Genius!

developers proud of their sloth

[johncandale]

The development seemed like a joke to the key players. If you saw the pictures of their offices, they were basically arcades/play pins. The developers openly admitted they spent more time playing games ('research') then developing, and were proud of it. Take two years ago offered a huge bonus if they finished the game sooner, which they turned down. I have a sinking suspicion they were the spoiled rich kids of development, and it ruined them. They made a ton load with the first 3d duke, and were in control of that money, and spent the last 10 years burning it. Like the rich kids, it's 10 years later, the moneys run out, and they have no job history or skills to go on because life's been one big party.

Re:Charlie Wiederhold's Chair Story

[GF678]

CliffyB and Marc Rein threatening developers with broken chairs? Tim Sweeny tackling people and holding them down for gang beatings?

Shhhh! Once Steve Balmer get's word that another company's been threatening people with chairs, he'll read that guy's blog and think the bit about holding developers down for gang beatings is not such a bad idea...

Re:You stole my joke; oh well, it's "Did not finis

[Canazza]

I thought it was "Do Not Fold" - which is normally stamped on packages containing CDs or other fragile media, and indeed, it seems that DNF are folding :)

"Did not Finish" makes much more sense though.

Source Code(s)

[ae1294]

Wouldn't it be nice if companies would release the source code for their software after 15 years to public domain? I'd love for some of the old titles to get reworked and released for free... Heck I'd give my time to work on some of those projects...

It's a crime that games that only ran on platforms like the Atari, Commodore and my first 386sx 16Mhz clone are being lost to time... Yes I know about emulators but they are "illegal" you know...

I'm all for corporations making money, heck I once was incorporated as an LLC but it really bothers me to know that a lot of good stuff is being lost for no real reason. I would think at the very least it would make for a wonderful college course. That is, taking the old game code and learning how to make it work on a modern 8 core 4Ghz computer. I think we would end up with better programmer's if they could see how things once had to be done in ASM and the like and how you had to make sure to save every bit you could back then but how they still could create stable workable programs...

ae

Good riddance

[thetoadwarrior]

DNF can now stand for Did Not Finish.

They've gone on for ages without actually producing anything. What did they expect? I feel bad for the little guys buy for the guys like George, fuck 'em, and I hope other companies have the sense not to hire the fatso.

Re: Funds!

[TaoPhoenix]

They're all out of Funds,
and so lost without them,
they can't even make
a freeware Duke Nukem...

(With apologies to the 80's)

Re:Fooled

[TaoPhoenix]

I'll riff your theme.

Wouldn't it be great if SOMEONE turned around and released it. The PHB types would be crushed. "We TRIED to kill it! We trashed the company! We laid off everyone. We closed the company. Now we're trying to collect our Short Sells. Where the HELL did the gamecome from???"

Re:You stole my joke; oh well, it's "Did not finis

[Kynde]

>> "Did not finish" in racing parlance
>
> (Non-native English speakers might not be familiar with this particular acronym expansion.)

It's internationally used atleast in sailing along with the DNS, DNC etc...

Re:You stole my joke; oh well, it's "Did not finis

[The Standard Deviant]

Don't worry, most native English-speakers are probably not familiar with it either.

I'm I just up too late?

[johncandale]

I can't tell if this is satire or real: http://gamingisstupid.com/2009/05/06/the-chair-story-revival/ "Scott quickly got to the point. Max Payne was going to do gangbusters⦠and 3DR had some other stuff up their sleeves that would be generating so much revenue for 3DR that they could continue on indefinitely⦠or at least another 5-10 years⦠without making a dime on internal development. Scott being the marketing buff he is (and Mark Rein being pretty much the same for Epic), they got this idea for how to generate the biggest story in the history of gaming. DNF being a monster hit is fine, but it wouldnâ(TM)t make âoeforeverâ history. As you can tell from the name and what Iâ(TM)m about to describe, Scott and George apparently had this idea from the very start but werenâ(TM)t sure they were going to act on it, but there wasnâ(TM)t any harm in using a name that would play into it. So in order to make âoeForeverâ history there was only one way to do that, and that is to turn it into something completely unprecedented in the industry. Turn it into the sort of thing that will be talked about 100 years from now." "The plan was actually pretty simple⦠create the longest developed game in history that eventually is one of the greatest games ever made. You have the time to work on it properly (no shit), so given the intelligence and talent of all the people involved, it was a pretty good bet. All 3DR had to do was make money on other stuff. All Epic had to do was open up a wide channel between the two companies. 3DR would serve as a research house for future Epic engine updates, but also give 3DR everything they did as well. The boots on the ground just had to keep the drum beating and keep the image of business as usual going."

Re:I'm I just up too late?

[mzs]

You know the whole chair and how strong CliffyB is thing later on, makes me think that guy has a good sense of humor. Also the word STORY in bold at the beginning...

Re: Funds!

[daveime]

We knew you were right,
To say that it was too long

Serves them right really

[DrXym]

Average game turnaround in the industry appears to be between 1 and 4 years depending on the complexity and scope of a project. Yet 3DRealms can't even produce a first person shooter after 13. A lousy first person shooter. Perhaps its unfair to blame the entire company, I think its fairer to point fingers at the leadership, especially George Broussard for prevaricating and vacillating for so long that all the money dried up. I wouldn't be surprised if all sorts of fun revelations appear in the next few days, possibly even threats of legal action. There is no way any above board and competently run company could fuck things up this badly for so long.

There is still hope ...

[g00ey]

I'm waiting in anticipation that they will announce that they will resume the development of the game.

There is still hope ...

[g00ey]

I'll send them a big batch of gums, perhaps that will make them change their minds!

I came here to release software and waste money

[Junior J. Junior III]

...and I'm all out of money.

Oooooh!

[domatic]

That's gotta hurt!

Sell the title to iD Software

[Tim12s]

Sell the title to id Software.

If anything, they have the best chance to deliver.

I would probably be similar to microsoft releasing a linux distro but the game would probably be good.

Re:It's been on my desktop for the last ten years

[Anonymous Coward]

Pass the Cheetos, you unwashed tub of duck shit.

Duke Nukem Forever Indeed

[Drakkenmensch]

He'll live in infamy now as the poster boy for software companies living on hype instead of delivered products. This is how cautionary tales are made, folks!

Re:Charlie Wiederhold's Chair Story

[Mordaximus]

I read "This is a story I wrote on..." to mean it was fiction. Do you honestly believe that if these people really behaved as described, that Charlie would post the entire story with his and everyone else's names intact?

Re:Release it as a MUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Duke Nukem rips off your head and craps in your neck. You are stunned: HP -18
Duke Nukem craps in your neck: HP: -9
Duke Nukem craps in your neck: HP: -9
Duke Nukem craps in your neck: HP: -9
You flail your limp wristed pansy fist unconvincingly at the Duke: You miss.
Duke Nukem craps in your mouth: HP: -9
You are dead.
Your spirit rises slowly from your defecated corpse.
Duke rips off your ghost's head and craps in your ghostly neck: XP: -100
Duke rips off your ghost's head and craps in your ghostly neck: XP: -100
Duke rips off your ghost's head and craps in your ghostly neck: XP: -100
Duke rips off your ghost's head and craps in your ghostly neck: XP: -100
Duke rips off your ghost's head and craps in your ghostly neck: XP: -100
Your XP has dropped below 0.
Deleting player account
Goodbye
connection to dnfMUD has been terminated

Re:You stole my joke; oh well, it's "Did not finis

[Don_dumb]

DNF is comon to athletics also

They should release the Duke Nukem Forever side

[Joe The Dragon]

They should release the old Duke Nukem Forever side scroller game that was only a beta and was to come out after duck nukem 3d.

Re:It's been on my desktop for the last ten years

[Spatial]

I have to admit, that's the most hilarious insult I've heard all month. Bravo sir.

Project Offset is my next guess

[rAiNsT0rm]

I remember sitting and being blown away by the first media from Project Offset. It consisted of like 3 dude's in a garage and was miles beyond anything out at the time. Then all kinds of money got thrown in and here I sit quite a few years later with nothing.

My guess is it is the next DNF. I hope not, but DNF has taught me the valuable lesson to just give up now and hope for the best at some point.

DNF -> Open source please.

Re:Project Offset is my next guess

[Loadmaster]

Offset software was bought by Intel. Expect it to be released (tech demo?) along with Larrabee.

Re:Project Offset is my next guess

[rAiNsT0rm]

That would be awesome if true. I can only hope they are holding it as an ace up the sleeve for something like that.

If they wait more than a year from now it will lose the amazing advantage it has in graphics and engine and fall into the same abyss DNF did.

Need a post mortem

[Trikenstein]

several of them in fact.
It'll be intersting to see who points fingers at whom.

on another note, this is sad. Would have liked to have seen what took 12 years to not finish.

Re:Need a post mortem

[Threni]

I'm a little surprised anyone seriously thought there'd ever actually be a Duke Nukem Forever. (And that if a game of that name were ever released, it'd be one that took 10 (or whatever) years to code.) What can you do in 10 years which you can't do in 5? Why not do a 5 year game, or a 3 year one, and do one after that, then another one after that - have the money from 3 games and work towards that third game being what you were originally aiming for, but based on engines/maps/etc you've had out there being playtested and proven?

Facts?

[Don_dumb]

2. DNF is at least 95% done atm. Why would they be showing stuff off if it wouldn't be? Besides Bloussard in his blog mentioned that the check list of undone/buggy stuff for DNF has/had only 24 objectives left. When bug smashing started it had literally thousands of objectives. http://twitter.com/georgeb3dr/status/1513503306

After 15 years and nothing to show but a teaser video and endless hype you actually believe that?.
For gods sake, it's a tweet from someone who would have a reason to lie.

Fact your ass.

Re:Facts?

[AnXa]

I believe there is a heretic among us...

Re:You stole my joke; oh well, it's "Did not finis

[TooMad]

Do Not Fart, the hot Texas sweaty gamer funk is already bad enough in their cramped office cubicles.

Re:Charlie Wiederhold's Chair Story

[vertinox]

I mean, this guy actually did work at 3DRealms and this is his blog, but seriously, CliffyB and Marc Rein threatening developers with broken chairs? Tim Sweeny tackling people and holding them down for gang beatings?

Pshaw! Thats nothing compared to what EA does to their employees.

Do you think its easy to code with broken thumbs?

the real duke nukem

[spandex_panda]

I used to play the shareware version of the original duke nukem (you know... the 2D one), always drooled over the really fucking cool lookin' next 3 episodes which weren't on my computer.Ahhh... the memories.

But surely the duke nukem forever thing was a joke from the start right? There never was intent to finish it (hence the forever bit).

DNCASHMAN to the rescue!

[curtisk]

crap....didn't work in real life

Nothing left to do now but DNENDING

Give DNF to Rockstar...

[bashibazouk]

Rockstar is part of take-two. If any development house could handle this project, not destroy the theme and put out a polished, good game it would be rockstar...

My heart is weeping

[Billkamm]

I seriously think I might cry. I've waited so long for this game :(

Re:My heart is weeping

[AnXa]

Thou shall not cry because you will see thy holy light on a 3rd day from now on. Now go my son...

Re:It's been on my desktop for the last ten years

[L4t3r4lu5]

When Linux works with the hardware Windows does *out of the box* without having to edit text files, then it's ready for the desktop. Until then, it's just a time soak for the average user.

Bearing in mind that the average user spends 60 seconds looking at any one website, what makes you think they'll spend any longer looknig up the appropriate grep switches to find out which firmware they need for their wireless network card before switching back to Windows?

Could they release their source code?

[rcamans]

Please?

How about

[EvilBudMan]

Duke Nukem - never say never

That's what is being worked on now in the 21st century.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Chtorr

[Leuf]

It's not PC gaming, but Gerrold's been promising the next book in the series since '93...

Re:Axl Rose wins the vaporware wars against 3DReal

[dburkland]

HAHAHA I thought the same and was shocked when I actually held a copy of Chinese Democracy in my hands for the first time.

Re:You stole my joke; oh well, it's "Did not finis

[FroMan]

DNS? Did not sink?
DNC? Did not capsize?

re: "The Duke hype"

[King_TJ]

Honestly, it probably did grow "larger than life" over the years, with so many people fondly remembering it (but not having really considered how far the 3D shooter genre has come since then either).

I'd agree that it was "no Quake", but it wasn't supposed to be. Part of what made the game really good, IMHO, was the humor and lightheartedness to it - while still keeping the player focused on having "serious" missions and goals.

A lot of action arcade games are "silly" or "cute", and that has an audience and a purpose. Others try to be as serious and realistic as possible, and that's got merit too. But it's relatively rare you get a game like Duke Nukem, where the character's random comments and gestures keep you laughing, while creating a fondness for the character himself. Yet at the same time, the game still appeals to the typical male's "violent side". You still get to blow things up and kill all sorts of aliens, and especially on multi-player mode, you had real strategies to employ. (I think it was the first of its type to make use of explosives you could drop and trigger remotely afterwards.)

At the end of the day though, how much do we "fondly remember" the main character in Quake, or even the space marine in Doom, compared to "The Duke"?

Re:It's been on my desktop for the last ten years

[david_thornley]

As has been said, average users don't install operating systems. Geeks install operating systems. Average users use what comes on the machine, or take it to a geek.

Therefore, ease of installation is way down on the list of what makes operating systems successful for the average user, right under plumber endorsements and right above percentage of vowels in the docs. And you don't see OSes written in native Hawaiian taking over the world, do you?

Re: "The Duke hype"

[Nursie]

True.

The main guy in quake was YOU though. i guess I never got into duke back when it was popular so I don't have the rosy glow of hindsight there. Quake I loved because of the online community, the explosion of online play and the amazing mods (like TF). I think I must have spent many weeks of real time in that game, and I remember some of the names of the other people and clans very fondly.

Each to their own, but it never did impress me.

One more vaporware down the drain

[alexo]

What's left?
Nethack 3.5?

Re:One more vaporware down the drain

[Pop69]

How could you forget a database filesystem for windows ?

The developer?

[FirstTimeCaller]

... the developer is finished ...

Next time they might want to consider putting two developers on the project.

Hurd

[sal]

You can get a QEMU image for Hurd. Or a live cd. Or install Debian with the Hurd kernal.

Hardly vapor.

http://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install

Re:Blizzard

[ebuck]

A company need not be perfect in every way to be good (or perfect) in one way.

Re:You stole my joke; oh well, it's "Did not finis

[Ragzouken]

You don't get graded on obscure abbreviations in English classes.

Re:You stole my joke; oh well, it's "Did not finis

[interkin3tic]

Do not fund... a game that has been in development for over a decade.

Seriously, I can't wait for the book/interview explaining how this lasted so long. How did it keep getting strung along? Zero accountability over at 3d realms? Unwillingness to the point of insanity, to admit you've wasted a lot of money and time and should be fired?

At a minimum, I'd expect the programmers and graphic designers to quit. Doesn't "Worked 10 years on a game that was clearly never going to be released" look kind of bad on your resume?

Coincedence?

[SnarfQuest]

SCO goes chapter 11, and immediately after 3DR is gone. Was SCO funding 3DR, or was it the other way around?

Duke: RIP

[tenzig_112]

Duke's tombstone

As sad and ridiculous as this saga has been...

[X86Daddy]

... I would still rather see my tax dollars spent on bailing out this failure instead of General Motors, et al. :-)

Remember

[AnXa]

Always bet on Duke... ;)

Re:You stole my joke; oh well, it's "Did not finis

[snl2587]

Doesn't "Worked 10 years on a game that was clearly never going to be released" look kind of bad on your resume?

No. But "refused to work on a game/quit because it didn't seem to be going anywhere" kind of does. To some employers, at least.

Re:Charlie Wiederhold's Chair Story

[HTH NE1]

Do you think its easy to code with broken thumbs?

Yes just use capslock.

No! No! Left hand goes here (asdf) right hand goes there (jkl;), got it?

Damn cross-wrist typists hitting shift with their thumbs.

Re:It's been on my desktop for the last ten years

[despisethesun]

Considering the number of times I've had to go searching for Windows drivers, your standard suggests that Windows is not ready for the desktop either.

I've got balls of steel.

[saleenS281]

I've got balls of steel.
I've got balls of steel.
I've got balls of...

Re:You stole my joke; oh well, it's "Did not finis

[Godji]

Is THAT what it meant? And I thought they were already shipping the game! Damn.

Duke Who'kem ?

[billcopc]

I gotta admit, I never really saw what the big fuss was over Duke Nukem. I didn't like the first two platformers, they were shitty knockoffs of Keen, developed in-house so they wouldn't have to pay dividends to iD. Then came Cosmo, Bio Menace, Monster Bash... all cheap platformers that played like stuttery 256-color remakes of 10-year old CGA games.

Rise of the Triad was probably their greatest success, again because it ran on someone else's engine, someone competent (Carmack). It was cheesy and outdated, but the camp style and chaotic multiplayer action more than made up for its flaws. That game is still played to this day, because it's such a riot. The same cannot be said of DN3D.

Duke 3D looked and felt awkward at the time, even compared to its older cousin Doom. It was just a shit game with artificially-implanted "cool" in the form of strippers and sound bites. The animation was stuttery, the scripts were glitchy, and multiplayer was a painfully disorienting exercise, what with all the lag...

It certainly didn't help that they milked the franchine with countless rehashes: Duke Atomic, Duke Megaton, Duke this Duke that... all the same crap engine, on every damned platform.

Another shop that danced with failure was Epic Megagames, with their ill-fated One Must Fall franchise. At least they had the sense not to put all their eggs in one basket, so when OMF2 fizzled, they recovered with Unreal and Unreal Tournament. 3DR had no such backup plan, after a while it seemed like they were dragging DNF along as a joke, how could anyone possibly be still working on that tired old project, with no money and no publishing partners ? Where would the money come from ? What made them think everyone would run out to buy it ? Even fifteen years ago, it was obvious that the gaming industry was cutthroat, and a single mistake was enough to ruin the company. It has happened thousands of times, why would 3D Realms not be bound to the rules of reality ?

I, for one, was never looking forward to DNF. I am grateful that someone finally contracted Prey out to people who could actually develop and release it, and it was pretty damned decent when it finally did get released, but 3D Realms itself was always a 3rd-rate shop in my mind.

Re:Duke Who'kem ?

[smash]

Duke 3d is competent. 3d realms have/had a few coders from the demoscene days (Broussard, i think he was with Ultraforce back in the day??). Duke3d was the first FPS shooter 3d engine from memory to have mirrored surfaces, levels above levels (unlike doom), ability to look up/down, etc.

In it's day, it was competent, and the theme was kick-ass.

Unfortunately, it would appear that they lost the plot.

damn shame...

Amazingly... Sad

[LUH 3418]

I remember reading an issue of a gaming mag back in 1998 and seeing some early screenshots of a DNF build based on the Quake II engine back then. Then in 1999, their first video trailer for the E3. Back then, it looked like they had a ton of material already made, like the game was almost ready for a release. I started hanging out around their forums for a bit, and at the start, things were nice and friendly over there.

However, as the years passed, people began asking more and more questions about the game, and when it was going to be released. The forum moderator, Joe Siegler, started locking more and more threads, and banning more and more users. Overall, they've been very secretive about the development process. Now I suppose people will say that's because they didn't have much to say, since they weren't doing much of anything...

BUT, recently (a few months ago), I saw a video somewhere (don't remember), where someone went to the 3DR offices, and actually played some kind of pre-beta build of the game. The guy said the game looked quite polished and almost complete, and that it was fun, that the fans wouldn't be disappointed. So really, it makes you wonder, what the hell happened?

Visibly, they have something playable *now*... And it amazes me they weren't able to complete this game in something like 13-14 years (it's been rumored development started as early as 1995-1996). Even if they only had one guy to make the maps and one modeler, in 13 years, they could have made a s*** ton of material. Not to mention they licensed the Unreal engine... It's not like they had to create one from scratch.

As others have suggested, it really looks like lots of their work was wasted continuously starting over. Everytime they "switched engine", all the assets were probaby remade. That, and it seems like the management had unclear requirements and misplaced perfectionism. This actually isn't the first project they screw up. The game, Prey, was originally being developped by them, but they gave up on it, apparently when it was close to being completed... Another company later recreated the game, not 3D Realms.

This is just sad too because, chances are, this game will never be open sourced. The publishers will keep the rights, and more likely than not, it will just sit on some backup media somewhere, never being used. It's possible the rights could be sold to some other company, I suppose, to try and milk the franchise some more, but I believe we can now officially say that DNF is dead.

Re:Charlie Wiederhold's Chair Story

[DrXym]

If its not some kind of bizarre humor piece, I am amazed the guy didn't report it at the time. Even now it almost sounds like racketeering. I wonder what the statute of limitation is on things like this.

Also

[Sycraft-fu]

Tim Sweeny isn't a 3DRealms employee. Sweeny wasn't an Apogee guy, he is the founder of Epic Megagames, currently known as Epic games. He's the lead programmer of the Unreal Engine, including the current Unreal Engine 3 (though he was something more of a technical director for that). He's never had anything to do with 3DRealms other than that they licensed Unreal Engine 1 and 2 for DNF.

I have been waiting.

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

Just waiting. In my parents basement for the past 12 years.

What in the hell am I supposed to do now?

Re: "The Duke hype"

[MadKeithV]

"I ain't afraid of no quakes!"

Re:Charlie Wiederhold's Chair Story

[gknoy]

You know, if I were faced (literally) with the prospect of being seriously injured with a jagged piece of wood, in an atmosphere where I could indeed be overpowered (and had just been), I don't think it's unreasonable to be fearful. "Are they joking or are they psychotic?" would be my thought process, and in a situation like that, I think it's prudent not to call their bluff.

Re:You stole my joke; oh well, it's "Did not finis

[Darkness404]

DNC? Did not capsize?

Or if you are a grammar nazi it is Did Not Capitalize

Easy...

[sourICE]

Ahem, actually, there might be a fine line between 'respecting employees and being cool' and 'taking eleven year to finish a program'.

Sorry, no, it's a line the size of a road.

It's easy to miss a line the size of a road when you're standing forever away.

Re:You stole my joke; oh well, it's "Did not finis

[Chris Mattern]

I had guessed that "DNS" was "Did not sail", but after some Googling, found out it means "Did not start"--the boat came to the start area but did not actually start the race. "DNC" is "Did not come"--the boat never showed up at all.

Acronym hell

[Anenome]

DNF Did Not Finish (racing)
DNF Digital National Framework (UK)
DNF Did Not Find
DNF Do Not Forget
DNF .NET Framework (Microsoft)
DNF Does Not Follow (mathematical proofs)
DNF Do Not Forward
DNF Deschutes National Forest (Oregon)
DNF Do Not Freeze (USAP)
DNF Does Not Function
DNF Domain Name Forum
DNF Do Not Fax
DNF Data Not Found
DNF Do Not Fix (software bug)
DNF Defense Nuclear Facilities
DNF Deep Neck Flexor
DNF Disjunctive/Disjoint Normal Form
DNF Down 'n Floundering (racing)
DNF Second Disjunctive Normal Form
DNF Duke Nukem Fornever

What I'll miss most.....

[DrStoooopid]

....it's not Duke...but the lil' chinese guy.

"WHO WANTS SOME WANG?"

What counts

[Intrinsic]

I think you guys are to hard on them, they had fun, its the journey that counts. I wished the had released it 5 years ago, but hay, who am I to judge. Somethings just are not meant to be.

Its been good reading about it, hope they keep the spirit up and continue to do whats important.

Here's guessing (hoping) this is a ploy.

[CAIMLAS]

I'm going to (hopefully) guess this is an advertising ploy to sell the game when it's actually, finally, released.

Situation 1: "Duke Nuk'em Forever will be on shelves July 4th" -> "Meh, about damn time. Never thought it'd get here, but who gives a fuck now?"

Situation 2: "DNF has been canceled." -> "What the...? DNF at Gamespot? I thought it was canceled! Cool, I wonder if this is a fluke!" *grabs three copies, 1 to play, 3 for ebay*

The Brilliant 3D Realms

[shish]

Source code in progress leaked:

package test;

public class _3dRealmsBean {

private String _3dRealms = "Brillant";

public String get_3dRealms() {
return _3dRealms;
}
}

(original)

Re:Charlie Wiederhold's Chair Story

[Trogre]

Hook, line, sinker and copy of Angling Times.

Re:Charlie Wiederhold's Chair Story

[DrXym]

"If its not some kind of bizarre humor piece,"

Re:Charlie Wiederhold's Chair Story

[illumin8]

You know, if I were faced (literally) with the prospect of being seriously injured with a jagged piece of wood, in an atmosphere where I could indeed be overpowered (and had just been), I don't think it's unreasonable to be fearful. "Are they joking or are they psychotic?" would be my thought process, and in a situation like that, I think it's prudent not to call their bluff.

In a situation like that, the legally prudent thing to do is agree and sign their contract. Afterwards, take pictures of the chairs, witness accounts, contact the police, everything you need to do. The fact is that legally, a contract signed under physical threat of violence is not valid. You can't legally consent to something when your life is being threatened. Otherwise common muggers could hold a gun to you, ask you to sign over a living will, and drain your entire life savings. Don't you think our society has progressed a little beyond that point?

Also, those are some serious charges and if he did call the police, with the number of witnesses in the room, I suspect those executives would be behind bars for a long, long time.

I know if this happened to me, the first call I would make after I got out of that meeting would be to 911. This story doesn't really add up. Business executives usually have too much to lose to make physical assaults and threats like that. It would be far better to try and put pressure on him financially by just threatening his job if he doesn't fall in line.

Duke Nukem Forever has gone to GOLD!!!

[AnXa]

http://i40.tinypic.com/xduk2b.jpg

HHAHAHAHAHAAA What did I just told you guys! I always bet on Duke!

Re:Charlie Wiederhold's Chair Story

[Airw0lf]

...threatening developers with broken chairs?

Sounds like an ordinary day at Microsoft?

Re:Goodbye, Apogee

[Kalriath]

Apogee's stated they aren't affected, man.