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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[interkin3tic]

Site is slashdotted. Or just offline due to bankrupcy.

Re:RIP DNF

[Chris Burke]

2 Girls 1 Grail!

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

[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.

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

[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

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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?

[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).

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.

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."

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...

[L4t3r4lu5]

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

The year of Linux on the desktop, of course!

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:The king is dead....

[Barny]

hail to the king baby

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...

[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...

[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...

[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...

[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...

[Verdatum]

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

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: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

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".

"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...

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!!

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 :-(

Why now?

[Wicknight]

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

"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...

[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.

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?

DNF Released.

[muzicman]

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

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'

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.

[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..."

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.)

Re:The king is dead....

[fph il quozientatore]

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

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.

Given how long Hurd has been in the making

[nem75]

I take it the developers have plenty of gum.

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.

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...

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Pass the Cheetos, you unwashed tub of duck shit.

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

[Don_dumb]

DNF is comon to athletics also

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.

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: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?

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...

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"?

The developer?

[FirstTimeCaller]

... the developer is finished ...

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

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

[Ragzouken]

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

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