Duke Nukem Forever Release Date Revealed

stupid_is writes with news that Duke Nukem Forever has now gotten a firm US release date: May 3rd. It will release worldwide three days later. The game was resurrected last fall by Gearbox Software and 2K Games after 3D Realms' 12-year attempt at development came to an end in 2009 when the company closed its doors.

Comments

Well done, Gearbox

[RogueyWon]

Well done to Gearbox for finishing this off - it would have been a sin if it didn't see the light of day in the end. The previews look good and I'm looking forward to picking it up when it reaches Europe on 6 May (PC version, of course, the Duke doesn't need some stinking console). I'm hoping for a shooter which emphasises funky weapons, crazy situations and bad jokes over "balance" and other hardcore trappings. Back when I was a student, DN3D was always the game for a fun blast while Quakeworld was for whose who took things a bit more seriously.

Anyway, Gearbox, how about you get cracking on Aliens: Colonial Marines now - or will that be done "when it's ready"?

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[TrisexualPuppy]

Finishing this off? Please. We have only just seen the beginning.

I predict that the moment before the game is to be "released," a wormhole will open, occupying half the sky over Los Angeles. From it, millions of Octabrains will come forth, wreaking havoc and destruction while Battlelords appear and L.A.P.D. pigs are turned into L.A.R.D. cops. No, we have only just seen the early prophecy. In this Hollywood Holocaust, only those yielding laser tripmines, pipebombs, and microwave guns will survive.

I, for one, welcome our new DN3D Overlords. (Someone desperately needed to upgrade the sprites to DNF models!)

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[dunezone]

The Duke was King back in 1995/1996. Back then I didn't have any form of income being a 12 year old and my folks didn't believe in allowance. I had to rely on some older kids in the neighborhood that would allow me to borrow the install CD's for Duke Nukem, Doom 2, and Quake.

Starting with Doom back in late 94 early 95, I must have spent hours playing it and going over every square inch of the maps. By the time Duke and Quake arrived there was always those discussion among the older kids of which was better. I never understood why Quake was better, no one in the neighborhood was online back then nor could do multiplayer of any form. Between Quake and Duke, the Duke had attitude, character, some depth you felt like you were playing as someone awesome. Quake though was just a man who would grunt every so often, not much different from Doom 2. As for the graphics, sure Quake was 3D in both objects and map but this was early primitive 3D. A decent art team making sprites could outshine 3D graphics back then.

The Duke will always be King.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[Anonymous Coward]

Well it looks like Duke Nukem Forever WILL release before Half Life 2 Episode 3.

W

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[discord5]

it would have been a sin if it didn't see the light of day in the end.

Yeah, but now we'll have to look for a new nerdy injoke that is the equivalent of "When hell freezes over". I'm personally hoping the release date is pushed back at least once, just for the heck of it.

Back when I was a student, DN3D was always the game for a fun blast while Quakeworld was for whose who took things a bit more seriously.

Tripmines used to cause quite the bit of nerdrage. I personally am hoping those things find their way back into the game.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[khallow]

And one lone badass searches for a cold beer.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[Foobar of Borg]

Yeah, but now we'll have to look for a new nerdy injoke that is the equivalent of "When hell freezes over".

"When slashdotters all date hot girls." There, that wasn't so hard, was it?

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[2names]

Yeah, but now we'll have to look for a new nerdy injoke that is the equivalent of "When hell freezes over".

How about, "when we find the Higgs boson..." or "when the LHC reaches full capacity..."

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[Anonymous Coward]

Gearbox didnt finish the game.. Triptych Games did(former 3D Realms employees). All that Gearbox did was port the finished PC game to the game consoles.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[Thud457]

I'm pretty sure this was one of the signs of the end times that Glenn Beck was warning us about.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[pak9rabid]

Agreed. Not to mention the other niceties of Duke3D, such as blood dripping off the walls, the mirrors where you could actually see your own reflection, and being able to leave footprints when stepping over a blood puddle or out of water. I thought the graphics in Quake were awful compared to Duke3D back in that day, even though it was true 3D (granted, this was before glQuake made it's debut).

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[sconeu]

It's the end of the world as we know it ...

and I feel fine

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[somersault]

Yeah, but now we'll have to look for a new nerdy injoke that is the equivalent of "When hell freezes over"

When Richard Stallman shaves? Or buys a copy of MS Office?

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[somersault]

That's pretty awesome to know, best comment so far :)

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[Phreakiture]

"When slashdotters all date hot girls." There, that wasn't so hard, was it?

Done it. Got photos to prove it.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[Anonymous Coward]

No. The LHC is pretty much on schedule, and finding (or ruling out) the Higgs boson will happen before 2014.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[lavacano201014]

Yeah, but now we'll have to look for a new nerdy injoke that is the equivalent of "When hell freezes over".

Episode 3.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[brainboyz]

He said all. I've got one too. That's two of us. Only...a couple million to go.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[mcgrew]

I haven't bought a game in years, but I absolutely positively HAVE to get this one, even if it sucks. I knew the Duke when he was a squeaky little side scroller. Actually, I liked DN1 & 2 better than DN3D. I was very into Quake and Quake II, moreso than any of the DNs, but the DNs were great fun.

I hope they ressurect the Energizer Bunny and Doctor Proton.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[mcgrew]

I never understood why Quake was better, no one in the neighborhood was online back then nor could do multiplayer of any form.

You explained it to yourself. Single player DN was far more fun than single player Quake (fans of my old Quake site will scream "heresy!" for this), but network and online play is where Quake shone. As funny as the Duke was, the people playing and modding Quake were even funnier and more fun.

Imagine playing your game and a nude woman comes around the corner -- and shoots you. Or Santa Claus. Or South Park's Kenny ("OMG, you killed Kenny! YOU BASTARD!") That was online Quake. The things people said (in text, of course) while fragging you were likewise hilarious.

You're close to my kids' age, we had loads of fun playing multiplayer Quake on the home network I built back then.

I saw mommie killing Santa Clause
Playing in a game of Quake last night.
Old Santa didn't see
Her shiny BFG
The way he splattered on the wall was such a funny sight!

I saw mommie kicking Thresh's butt.
Boy, my mommie sure knows how to play!
He was camping by the cage
And I guess he couldn't guage
Just how her super shotgun would blow his butt away!

I saw Mommie fragin' everyone!
Boy, it sure was such a sight to see!
Immortal, Blue, sCary,
Zaphod and an LPB.
And oh, my God! She even killed- Kenny!

I saw Mommie killin' everyone!
Gee, my Mommie sure can play that game!
Oh, Mister, are you sure
That you want a game with her?
'cause you're surely gonna wish she hadn't came!

(More here...)

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[tixxit]

Yeah, but DN3D was the really the last good game of its breed, whereas Quake was the first of a new one (completely 3D). The Quake engine provided the basis for many fantastic games, including Half-Life.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[Pharmboy]

Personally, I can't wait for Duke Nukem Forever 2 to get released. By then, it will be available as a holonovel, and we will finally have flying cars.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it speaks to the history of DNF that the parent comment got a score of 5 for "informative" instead of "funny".

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[surzirra]

I still play Duke 3d with a good buddy of mine over the net. It was made possible by using eDuke32. Some games just never die off, we also still play Starcraft, Age of Empires and on very rare occasion we break out the NES.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[rolando2424]

Tomorrow Valve announces the release date for Half Life 2 Episode 3 as May 2nd.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[Pharmboy]

Yeah, but they won't say which YEAR...

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[dreamchaser]

Personally, I can't wait for Duke Nukem Forever 2 to get released. By then, it will be available as a holonovel, and we will finally have flying cars.

I'm not so sure there will be holonovels or flying cars here after the Sun swells to a red giant and engulfs us.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[JohnnyLocust]

Quake though was just a man who would grunt every so often

And yet, gay porn is a multi-billion dollar industry.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh...that's an accurate statement- but it doesn't convey all the convoluted nature of things within the situation there. Tryptich is in the building as GearBox and GearBox was asked by parties still affiliated with 3DRealms to see if they could help them finalize the game.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[Beardo the Bearded]

The cliche might have been valid when the site launched, but most of us are probably married professionals by now. I've been married for 13 years and I've got two kids.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[Beardo the Bearded]

Yes, I remember playing Duke Nukem when they were just side scrollers, launched as an adult's version of Commander Keen. (At least that's how I remember it...) I remember playing Halloween Harry as well; that one was pretty fun and the music was fun. DN2 was when you started to see his attitude really start coming together, including the showing of his autobiography, titled, "Why I'm so Great."

I remember playing DN3D in the mall back when I was working retail. They had a setup with a headset so you could put it on and use that for control.

If this actually launches, I might even upgrade my PC so I can play it.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[cp.tar]

I'm not so sure there will be holonovels or flying cars here after the Sun swells to a red giant and engulfs us.

Wasn’t Sun bought up by Oracle so that it wouldn’t happen?

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[HarrySquatter]

Yes, but he said "hot chicks" not some Jabba the Hutt look-a-like.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[HarrySquatter]

Or showers? Brushes his teeth? Uses mouthwash?

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[Beardo the Bearded]

How about "When Linux is fully documented"?

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[ildon]

Quake was a better *game*, as in it had better level design, more interesting enemy AI, better weapon balance, etc. Duke 3D had more humor, unique or interesting (but often impractical or useless) weapons, and levels that were made to look like real places, and for some people this made it more fun. But if you took the two and turned all the levels, models, and monsters into the equivalent of untextured grids, Quake would still be fun while I don't think I could say the same for Duke. That's not to say that Duke didn't have good levels or that Quake didn't have bad levels or whatever, just on the whole I felt like the average quality level of them was higher in Quake.

And finally, once you learned to use the mouse and mouselook in Quake, there was just no going back. It was simply a superior control mechanism that you couldn't match in Duke.

And before anyone speaks up about the AI comment, I don't mean the monsters were smart, because in fact they were quite dumb. I mean that their AI allowed the player to feel smart by out maneuvering them etc. and that each monster behaved different enough from the other monsters that it didn't just feel like a model swap.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[RulerOf]

"When slashdotters all date hot girls." There, that wasn't so hard, was it?

Done it. Got photos to prove it.

Pics or it didn't happen.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyway, Gearbox, how about you get cracking on Aliens: Colonial Marines now - or will that be done "when it's ready"?

Strippers...focus on the strippers!

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[davester666]

Larry just wanted to make sure that if there was anything bigger than his ego in this solar system, that he would at least own it.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[Anonymous Coward]

Duke for a laugh. Quake for the mood and the immersion. They are both great, and you can't really compare them at all.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[Zilvreen]

I'm not so sure there will be holonovels or flying cars here after the Sun swells to a red giant and engulfs us.

Wasn’t Sun bought up by Oracle so that it wouldn’t happen?

Well, if you think about Oracle's logo and consider their size, they already have.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[hitmark]

I suspect quake also aged better thanks to quake-c.

No game before had seen such a diverse set of mods, iirc.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm married to one, so take that!

By the way, never get married. You'll regret it for the rest of your life. You'll have a better chance of having sex if you stay in your parents' basement.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[Anonymous Coward]

and not one mention of the naked strippers... you guys really are a bunch of nerds

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[alexborges]

No OS is "fully" documented. No UNIX will EVER be fully documented and, hey, who would like to even see windows documented? It would be a larger task than building, marketing and supporting the software itself.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[ildon]

True, but I was just trying to compare the base games as released.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[gmuslera]

The source is some sort of documentation, maybe not the best, but is there anyway for most of it (optional drivers like nvidia ones are most of the few exceptions). Better try saying "When Windows run out of undocumented features/APIs/bugs/etc" and you'll have enough till sun becomes nova.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[sqldr]

To be honest, I'm quite worried about this. Isn't this one of the harbingers of the apocalypse? In other news, the moon went crimson and the river Thames boiled over last night.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[vasqzr]

Duke also had more colors than green and brown.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[TheTyrannyOfForcedRe]

The cliche might have been valid when the site launched, but most of us are probably married professionals by now. I've been married for 13 years and I've got two kids.

Wife is generally not equal to Hot Chick unless you get married very young. Hot Chick phase ends around 22-23.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[Anonymous Coward]

Or a couple of fags.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

When Microsoft open sources Windows.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[mattack2]

Julia Roberts. Halle Berry.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[dilvish_the_damned]

The cliche might have been valid when the site launched, but most of us are probably married professionals by now. I've been married for 13 years and I've got two kids.

Wife is generally not equal to Hot Chick unless you get married very young. Hot Chick phase ends around 22-23.

Not old enough to drink yet?

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[repapetilto]

They should be releasing this dec 12 2012

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[CAIMLAS]

As for the graphics, sure Quake was 3D in both objects and map but this was early primitive 3D.

It's further confounded by the fact that most kids at that age had a low-end computer (not a gaming computer) - they were still thousands of dollars - or the 'old' family PC. At least the friends I had at the time: they were lucky to have Pentium class hardware (66Mhz - 100Mhz). I remember a kid playing Quake at something like 2-3 fps on a 486sx - at the smallest postage stamp size, with his face right in front of the monitor. Just... no.

Duke, on the other hand, ran just fine on 33Mhz hardware with 4-6Mb of RAM. Hell, I remember someone playing it on early Pentium hardware at a resolution that rivals most modern games and their standard resolution.

Sure, it was all sprite-based, but it really didn't matter all that much: game mechanics were better as was the actual game play (than Quake - the various Quake weapon mods were pretty damn awesome).

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[hitmark]

Not a difficult comparison, as Quake was a incoherent mess of a game. Great tech demo for the engine, but a mess of a game.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[Khyber]

"And finally, once you learned to use the mouse and mouselook in Quake, there was just no going back. It was simply a superior control mechanism that you couldn't match in Duke."

Except Duke had mouse aiming as well. Press the U key to turn it on. No need to go into a console and type +mlook

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[Khyber]

MenuetOS is pretty much fully documented. Hard to not do it when you're programming something in pure assembler.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[Beardo the Bearded]

Yes we did.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[notknown86]

Dude, your sister doesn't count...

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[Anonymous Coward]

"When slashdotters all date hot girls." There, that wasn't so hard, was it?

What about the Mac users? They're not interested in girls...

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[Anonymous Coward]

so am i going to have to install dos4gw to play this thing? lol good grief, 12 years, my machine wont be old enough to play it :P

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[whereiswaldo]

Yes, I remember in the docs for the Duke Nuke'em map editor it said something like: do not place a mirror opposite another mirror - bad things will happen! I never did try it, actually.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[russryan]

In other news, Next will release Taligent this year shortly after Microsoft WinFS (Cairo) ships.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[Jello B.]

get a divorce you pussy

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[penguinchris]

Once you're old enough to drink, *any* woman can be a Hot Chick, depending only on how much you drink - is that what you're implying? ;)

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[Anonymous Coward]

Me too, but I probably don't count - AC, not an engineer of any sort, don't care who shot first.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[trawg]

That's pretty funny for me to read because I was in the exact same boat back then (though I was 18-19), and I was in the Doom/Quake camp. You're totally right re: the character stuff, but we only ever played multiplayer - we were doing LANs from the Doom age so migrating over to Quake was easy for us.

That said I am looking forward to DNF! It has been a long time coming and I really hope that it keeps the spirit of the original and still manages to be a fun game to play.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[goatherder23]

And Quake didn't have strippers.

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[IrquiM]

Photoshopped!

Re:Well done, Gearbox

[Xest]

Meh, I preferred Quake, largely because those chunky gibs were just so much more pleasing, and because those knights and pink jumping things (I always just called them pig monkeys when I was a kid) were actually capable of scaring the living shit out of you when they jumped out.

Also, because shamblers actually made you shit bricks, turn around, and run away.

Duke was fun, and I spent hours fucking around with the laser trip mines with fond memories, but as soon as Quakeworld came about and I was online with it Quake captivated me for about a further 5 or 6 years thanks to DM, CTF, and eventually TF. Duke was but a distant memory to me by that point.

I remember Duke 3D vs. Quake was the XBox 360 vs. PS3 of the day. The cause of some truly epic arguments.

Oh hell yeah

[wandazulu]

It must have been 10+ years ago since I last played a game on the PC, switching over to consoles. Damn right I'm gonna be picking this up. Think I'll break out my original copy of DN3D and give that a play-through as well. Hmm...wonder if it plays okay in DOSBox...

Re:Oh hell yeah

[The MAZZTer]

There are modern ports of the DN3D engine along with high-res texture/model packs. Google around and have fun. :)

Re:Oh hell yeah

[Gadget_Guy]

Yes, it does work in DOSBox. Gog.com sell it, so it must.

Hey, what do you know! Having a look at that page, I just spotted that I bought it from Gog. I don't remember doing that! Well, I'm off to play a game.

Re:Oh hell yeah

[TheCycoONE]

Like others here I can verify it works well in DOSBox. For multiplayer in windows xDuke + YANG seems to have online players whenever I check. For the single player experience I recommend eduke32 (which can be further extended with the High Resolution Pack and Polymer 3d engine)

YANG - http://yang-online.com/
xDuke - http://vision.gel.ulaval.ca/~klein/duke3d/
eduke32 - http://www.eduke32.com/
HRP - http://hrp.duke4.net/

Re:Oh hell yeah

[Grizzley9]

I played it yesterday on my iPhone. A new official app called iDOS has it and others like Wolfenstein3D.

Re:Oh hell yeah

[Macgruder]

I have the DOSbox version, but I also picked up a copy from XBox Live Arcade. The play is nearly identical.

Re:Oh hell yeah

[dontthink]

DN3D was also ported to XBLA, adding achievements and XBL multiplayer and such. I've played it through and I must say it translated pretty well to the dual-analog stick control scheme, with less fuss than getting the PC version working (which I played to death, including the Plutonium Pack expansion). So I'd recommend that if you're looking for an easy, current gen DN3D fix - coming from a guy who built multiple levels for DN3D on PC back in the day

Re:Oh hell yeah

[pinkushun]

I have been a fan since Duke Nukem I, best we start playing from the beginning!

I'm not kidding, it *really* does give you great insight into duke's persona.

Duke Nukem II sported a kick-ass soundtrack, I was blown away.

I hope the game doesn't contain such crap music like the trailer has. Really now, you can't kick ass, and chew bubble gum, without metal!

Re:While I applaud their efforts...

[Pojut]

Piss off*. Not everything needs to be like Apple.

*no offense

Sure.......

[Anonymous Coward]

Liars

As I've said for 12 years...

[A. B3ttik]

I'll believe it when the credits are rolling past my screen.

Re:As I've said for 12 years...

[ikkonoishi]

Once you install the game on your computer it will then start a six month timer till the point you can actually play it.

Re:As I've said for 12 years...

[elrous0]

I too have taken the "Believe it when I see it" view of DNF. Frankly I think this latest round is just a big publicity stunt. Come April 1st, Gearbox will announce "April Fools!" and reveal it was all a big hoax.

Re:As I've said for 12 years...

[maxwell demon]

Only six months? I thought the time when you can actually start to play would be December 21, 2012.

Re:As I've said for 12 years...

[Anonymous Coward]

Once you install the game on your computer it will then start a six month timer till the point you can actually play it.

Hahaha! If I had mod points, you'd get one.

Re:As I've said for 12 years...

[Anonymous Coward]

I played 15 minutes of the Duke at PAX 2010 after 3 or 4 hours in line. The dream is over. This thing is real!

Time to rock the ladders again!

[bchickens]

I have not touched a duke nukem game since HEAT was around. Can't wait to get in and kick ass and chew bubble gum! All out of gum!

Re:Time to rock the ladders again!

[cHiphead]

heat was for noobs, KALI FOREVER!

Re:Time to rock the ladders again!

[Deekin_Scalesinger]

Kali forever indeed! I never played Duke Nukem on it, but I played a he'll of a lot of Decent 2 on there with my squadron, the Wildcards. Man good times good times...

Maybe someone will start to work on the long abandoned Descent 4. How there isn't a similar game like that on the market baffles me.

TFA plays the duke theme song?

[Boltronics]

Scared the hell out of me. It's 2AM here, and I use that as my ring tone.

Re:TFA plays the duke theme song?

[Fallingwater]

I can see why someone with "It's GNU/Linux dammit!" in their signature would be scared by the sound of their phone ringing. I imagine it's something that happens roughly twice a year. :P

Old Times sake

[0racle]

They should let the release date slide a few times, for old times sake.

Re:Old Times sake

[sznupi]

How many more people are supposed to die without the experience of DNF, eagerly awaited by them?

(really, think about it - while the average mortality rates of past DN3D players certainly aren't very high, a decade+ does add up; are there any demographers here, to estimate the number?)

Re:Old Times sake

[BrewDad]

With the coming Rapture scheduled for May 21st, hope it doesn't slip by more than a few weeks.

Re:Old Times sake

[u38cg]

Neighbourhood trainee actuary here...let's have a look. We assume the age of a DN3D player follows a normal distribution with mean age 20 and variance of 25, giving 95% aged between about 10 and 30, which seems about right. We assume that all these people enjoyed DN3D for a year after Plutonium Pak was released, and so have to have survived from November 1996 to May 2011, which we will round down to 14 years (because non-integer years suck). We use the English Life Tables No 16, which give the mortality of the 2000-2002 cohort for the entire population. Without any further information to adjust mortality data on, this seems reasonable.

We take a Monte Carlo approach, simply simulating a large number of lives. I can't find an estimate for the number of players of DN3D, but I have used 100,000 and if further data comes to light my answer can simply be scaled up or down. We use the English Life Tables to generate the probability a player aged x in 1997 died in the next 14 years, which ranges from 0.1% for the 10 year olds (ten is roughly the safest age of your life) to about 3.7% for the more aged gamers. We then simply sum these over the weights for each age, giving an estimate of 835.37 deaths per 100,000 DN3D players.

Of course this is very much a back of the envelope calculation, but it seems pretty reasonable. As a crude check, 14q20=0.008762809, so multiply that by 100000 and you have a very similar number.

Mirage in the Distance

[Sponge Bath]

Practical nuclear fusion is always 30 years away.
Fast non-volatile memory tech to replace RAM and HD is always 10 years away.
Duke Nukem Forever is forever 6 months away.

Kudos for Gearbox in keeping the myth alive.

Re:Mirage in the Distance

[Anonymous Coward]

May 3rd - Jan 21 is like 4 months and 1 week away... not 6 months

Re:Mirage in the Distance

[A. B3ttik]

Fast non-volatile memory tech to replace RAM and HD is always 10 years away.

It's called FLASH memory and it exists now.

Re:Mirage in the Distance

[Anonymous Coward]

The flash is fast. Flash memory isn't.

Re:Mirage in the Distance

[MirthScout]

So, in 3 more years the new release date will only be 2 months away.
I guess it is progress.

Re:Mirage in the Distance

[LambdaWolf]

Fast non-volatile memory tech to replace RAM and HD is always 10 years away.

It's called FLASH memory and it exists now.

Flash memory can't replace RAM and hard drives because it will die after a limited number of read/writes. Semantically nitpicking, that's true of RAM and hard drives too, but the number is prohibitively small with flash memory.

Re:Mirage in the Distance

[Anonymous Coward]

FLASH is to slow for RAM :(

Re:Mirage in the Distance

[elsurexiste]

Hey! North Korea has achieved cold fusion! Slashdot reported it here. A couple of italians also achieved cold fusion a few days ago. Why are you so skeptic?

Btw, in accordance to Poe's law, here's your smiley: :P

Re:Mirage in the Distance

[alexam]

How small?

Many numbers I've seen talk about writing continuously to the flash storage and only reaching the limit after years and years. The largest number I've seen is 51 years! If it hasn't practically reached a level of exceeding product lifetime, it will soon.

Re:Mirage in the Distance

[guruevi]

He is referring to racetrack memory or memristors which respectively exist in the lab and are a theoretical construct.

Re:Mirage in the Distance

[stewbacca]

Practical nuclear fusion is always 30 years away.
Fast non-volatile memory tech to replace RAM and HD is always 10 years away.
Duke Nukem Forever is forever 6 months away.

The year of Linux on the desktop is always next year.

Re:Mirage in the Distance

[Anonymous Coward]

Good to know you find memory with write times in the ms range fast enough for your computing needs. Even better that you don't need random write access.

Re:Mirage in the Distance

[harrkev]

For right now, FLASH sits in-between hard drives and RAM, but much closer to hard drives. Faster than a hard drive (maybe 2x or 3x), but nowhere near the speed of real RAM, and more expensive than a hard drive (4x to 5x or so), but nowhere near the price of RAM (when measured as cost-per-bit).

All memory is measured by two things: speed and price (well, and volatility). In general, you can think of the internet is the "main memory", huge, but slow. Hard drives (and SSD) are much faster, but more expensive per bit, so you get a terrabyte of HD space. RAM is much faster, but more expensive still, so you only get a few gigs of that. L2 cache is still faster, and typically 1/2 megabyte or less. L1 cache may be 64K, but is blazingly fast. The on-processor registers are the fastest of all, but only hold a few dozen bytes.

If a memory technology is both faster AND cheaper than an existing technology, the old memory will die. Imagine if a new type of hard drive came out that was non-volatile, comparable in price to regular hard drives, but was as fast as RAM. You would pretty much eliminate RAM on your box, and just use a huge chunk of virtual memory to start with. Once the operating systems matured more, you could run the software directly off of the hard drive (the function of RAM and hard drive would have merged). No need to copy the software from the file system to the RAM, because the file system IS your RAM.

Of course, this has nothing to do with DNF, except that maybe DNF2 will be developed to run on this new super memory.

Re:Mirage in the Distance

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not fast enough to replace RAM.
And it's not cheap enough (and often fast enough) to replace hard disks.

Re:Mirage in the Distance

[Beardo the Bearded]

Average lifetime for Flash read was infinite, write was 100k cycles. So if you made RAM out of Flash it would be destroyed in, assuming a 400MHz FSB -- which is slow by acceptable for the example -- 250 nanoseconds. MTBF is unacceptably low for all but the fastest system administrators.

So, you might ask, how do they make a SSD? My answer would be "dunno. Look it up."

Re:Mirage in the Distance

[Anonymous Coward]

May 3rd is less than 4 months away, not 6.

Calendar Fail.

Re:Mirage in the Distance

[hedwards]

Actually, it's more like 3 months away. We're nearing the end of January and it's scheduled to be released the beginning of May.

Re:Mirage in the Distance

[maxwell demon]

Well, maybe this year, May is late. :-)

Re:Mirage in the Distance

[Nethemas the Great]

1 million write cycles is a pretty huge number, well in the range of spinning platter lifespans.

Re:Mirage in the Distance

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that GP actually means that the "promise" is always 10 years away. Having flash rival the cost and performance of ram/HD is said to be 10 years out. Till then cost/performance gives ram and HD the edge for all but niche applications.

Re:Mirage in the Distance

[ari_j]

Yeah, but hoverboards are now only 4 years away!

Re:Mirage in the Distance

[roc97007]

There should be some way to add: "The feature film of Burrough's 'A Princess of Mars', in development hell for 70 (that's seventy) years is just 2 - 3 years away."

Well, it's like we've been waiting forever!

[thewiz]

Hell, yeah!

My brain just divided by 0.

Has anyone seen Rod Serling around here?

Re:Well, it's like we've been waiting forever!

[Megane]

Rod Serling? How about Allen Funt?

Re:Well, it's like we've been waiting forever!

[grub]

I lol'd. But I'm "old".

Re:While I applaud their efforts...

[Anonymous Coward]

I see your point, apple marketing techniques seem to do a very good job. They had a good history of pulling this one off.

You mean the Mayans were wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

So the world ends in 2011????

Re:You mean the Mayans were wrong?

[gmuslera]

Of course that they were wrong... all the methods their used to predict the future were pretty unreliable, else they would be here instead of us. In the other hand we have new, reliable tools to know that the end of the world will be in May 2. Civilization has definitely evolved, even if was a bit too late.

Re:You mean the Mayans were wrong?

[Nethemas the Great]

How about this one to burn your melon. Using the infinite universe theory--whereby in the good old quantum world every decision point is a fork in the universe--the world could well have ended on each and every one of the so-called "world's going to end" dates but your conscience is simply traveling down the path by which this hasn't yet happened.

On a semi-related note, I highly recommend Neal Stephenson's book Anathem.

Release date

[ampathee]

If only they'd managed to make the release date April 1. That'd have been awesome.

Re:Release date

[oodaloop]

So May the Third we get DNF, then the next day is the next Star Wars game, right? May the Fourth be with you...

Re:Release date

[sharkey]

That'd have been awesome.

There's a "Dr. Streetmentioner" who'd like a few words with you.

Re:Release date

[Anonymous Coward]

....and in an unrelated story, an asteroid (to be named later) was discovered to be on a direct collision course with the Earth. Projections are sketchy at this time, but the estimated arrival date is generally agreed to be roughly around May 3, 2011.

Re:Release date

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, but its also pretty awesome that 5-3-11 in leet-speak might be read as "SELL" :P

Re:While I applaud their efforts...

[Max Romantschuk]

Actually there is a very large likelihood that a lot of the buzz around Apple products is from deliberately leaked information. That way Apple gets a ton of free press, and can keep their image squeaky clean.

Come get some...

[GregC63]

Death before Disco! I still have my old Duke CD as well as the Plutonium Pak! Might just have to break them back out! I think I may need to get the PS3 and PC versions. It's time to kick ass and chew bubble gum, and I'm all out of gum!

I'll believe it when I see it...

[sproketboy]

NTN

Just take my money

[soupforare]

I don't care if it's terribad.
I don't care if it's Borderlands2 with a Duke skin.
It's Duke, it's 2011. I always bet on Duke and I'm letting it ride.

Better be playable at PAXeast, though, god damn.

Re:Just take my money

[gknoy]

That's a really good point -- Borderlands does seem to really capture the same spirit of humor+gore as Duke. Perhaps that's why I've enjoyed it so much.

Re:Just take my money

[IronSight]

I think that has to do with the fact that your charactor actually reacts to stuff that happens in the game like critical hits/kills.. "Critical bitch!" or "So big... so angry... so dead". It's that stuff that gets you into the charactor you are playing. You can also look at all thing things the npc's say to you to get your goat, and the funny stuff you say. Like halo had that part down pretty good, but then the master chief is a mute when you are actually playing. Call of duty always has you playing a mute aswell.

The death of a meme

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not quite sure how to process this. Could it even be true?

Re:The death of a meme

[gmuslera]

Just will change semantics... once its installed in your pc, will take forever to load.

Will it run on Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously! I've wanted this game for years, and swore I would buy this as soon as it was released. But since then I stopped running Windows. Argh, I hope this will run on wine.

Re:Will it run on Linux?

[FunkyELF]

Yeah... when I was watching trailers for this game I had never heard of Linux.
Since then, I went and got a computer science degree, and now run nothing but Linux at home.... on my laptop, workstation, SheevaPlug, Xbox, PS3, router, and phone.
Gentoo, Gentoo, Gentoo, Gentoo, Gentoo, OpenWrt, and Android respectively.

I stopped using Wine too... don't think there will be a Linux port.
At most I could hope for a PS3 version (maybe there is.... I didn't RTFA).

Re:Will it run on Linux?

[Svartalf]

If it doesn't...I can see if 2K and GearBox would be interested in a reasonable deal to make it so...

Re:Will it run on Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can understand OpenWRT and Android, but Gentoo? That's for those who believe -O6 -funroll-loops will somehow make things more "optimised" while they're busy for weeks building KDE and OpenOffice.org.

Back then, I used RedHat. Had a short intermezzo with Slackware and moved to SuSE, followed by Debian in 2003 (and it felt overdue). I then moved my desktop to Ubuntu in 2005 which I still use (since I do most of my work in terminal emulators, I can live with bug-ridden gnome-panel and nautilus).
On the side, I've kept Debian and started using CentOS (4.3) on servers. Backporting the occasional needed Fedora RPM to CentOS was surprisingly easy. While I was still running SuSE, I installed FreeBSD 4 over my old FAT32 partition but I quickly got low on disk space (which surprisingly meant a negative disk usage, one of those little wonderful things in FreeBSD).

I've been using all of the above on and off (and the occasional test drive with other systems), but mostly Ubuntu and Debian. I don't like where things are headed though, with AppArmor (despite SELinux and RSBAC already exist), Plymouth (no input in the text theme?!), PolicyKit (just one policy? Sheesh, could've sticked with sudo), Unity (new releases are supposed to be faster) and KMS (although that's a Linux thing). There's even blatant advertising on every login if you install landscape-common on Ubuntu (default on server installs).

But even then, I wouldn't trade it for emerge if it came with nude pictures of Megan Fox. (Okay, maybe... but definitely not for anything less!)

MOD PARENT INFORMATIVE!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, please, overlords reign upon us

Re:MOD PARENT INFORMATIVE!

[Anonymous Coward]

But all he finds are worn out old strippers leaking out green goo.

And that's BEFORE he finds the ones the aliens have gotten to :)

Pre-Order

[hal2814]

So is my Pre-Order from Electronics Boutique still good?

Re:Pre-Order

[Kilrah_il]

No :)

Re:Pre-Order

[dunezone]

Possibly...
http://www.videogamesblogger.com/2010/10/09/did-you-pre-order-duke-nukem-forever-gearbox-wants-to-reward-you.htm

Re:Pre-Order

[Anonymous Coward]

cough EB games cough. What do you think the eb stands for...

Re:Pre-Order

[Kilrah_il]

EB - Erection Booster?!? Elevator Bomb? Elephant Ballast? Erotic Blower? Could be anything.

P.S. Don't Whoosh, I know what you meant.

Re:Pre-Order

[Divide By Zero]

I hope so. I gave the guy at Babbage's in the mall ten bucks to hold a copy for me. I'll let you know.

Re:Pre-Order

[Jon Abbott]

I pre-ordered mine at Babbages...

Re:Pre-Order

[hal2814]

Was Babbages still around then? The ones I remember all closed in the mid-90's after the Software Etc merger.

Re:Pre-Order

[Methuseus]

There is still a Babbage's at the mall near me. They're just owned by Gamestop, like the EB Games in the mall. No, there is no Gamestop in that mall...

Re:Pre-Order

[Anonymous Coward]

If you paid and still have the receipt it possibly is.l

the fine print

[Anonymous Coward]

Requires Windows 98, Windows 98 SE or Windows ME with an AGP video card capable of 16-bit color in 320x240 resolution.

Re:the fine print

[Drakkenmensch]

Just as long as your system is DirectX 3.0 compatible, you'll be just fine.

Re:the fine print

[Opportunist]

I am not convinced, it's certainly gonna be optimized for 3DFX.

Re:the fine print

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think Duke Nukem Forever will require more than 640KB of conventional memory? I'm concerned that my computer isn't modern enough to run DOS/4G. Bill Gates has also refuted the myth that "640K should be enough for anybody" so it's not looking good for DNF on my computer.

Re:the fine print

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn, I'll have to replace my Vesa Local Bus Card

Re:the fine print

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to dust off the old Pure3D

Re:the fine print

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

Do you think Duke Nukem Forever will require more than 640KB of conventional memory?

Yes, you will need to create a DR DOS boot floppy that will load all your drivers in the upper memory area between 640k and 1000. You should be able to get it to work as long as nothing else loads but DNF.

Re:the fine print

[Stenchwarrior]

Shit, is my Voodoo2 SLI gonna work?? I just got those bad boys!!

Re:the fine print

[roc97007]

As luck would have it, I still have my Matrox PowerVR card. I should be all set.

But I'm wondering about sound. Are we talking Sound Blaster 16 support? I dusted off my Gravis Ultrasound but can't find a slot for it.

You know, we may have to play this thing in a virtual instance of Windows 98...

This might be my last chance.

[eternalelegy]

I refuse to miss what may be my last chance to make the same horrible joke I made 10 years ago.

Duke Nukem Forever? More like Duke Nukem Fornever!

There, I feel better now.

Re:This might be my last chance.

[Anonymous Coward]

Duke Nukem Whatever. After this long, who cares about this game anymore?

Re:This might be my last chance.

[madprof]

We've been waiting for Duke Nukem Forever.

Re:This might be my last chance.

[hedwards]

Personally, I always like Duke Nukem if ever.

In completely unrelated news...

[stillnotelf]

Wrigley has announced that they are closing up shop, as they are running out of gum. They expect the world's gum supply to reach critical levels by late April; by the start of May we'll be all outta gum...

Re:In completely unrelated news...

[mcgrew]

And speaking of Wrigley, does DN4ever's 2011 release mean that this is the year the Cubs finally win a World Series? Or does it mean Satan's grandmother is knitting sweaters?

Shouldn't this be an April 1st post on Slashdot ?

[ntsucks]

Shouldn't this be an April 1st post on Slashdot ?

What's Duke Dukem?

[cpu6502]

Never 'erd of it.

(just joking)
.

This just in

[antifoidulus]

Special report coming to us from hell this evening, it seems that satan, lord of darkness, has been seen getting out his winter clothes and polishing the blades on his ice skates. We are still unaware of the cause of this behavior.

Is it chilly in here or is it just me...

[DarthVain]

Hell just dropped 10 degrees...

They chose the wrong release date

[Anonymous Coward]

If they were smart, they'd have picked 12/21/2012. Either the world ends, or we get Duke Nukem Forever.

Shovelware ahoy!

[rsilvergun]

or as I like to call it, DINO (Duke in Name Only).

Re:Shovelware ahoy!

[Anonymous Coward]

or as I like to call it, DINO (Duke in Name Only).

So... what would make it be "real" Duke to you? A fake-3D engine stuck in the 90s? IPX-only multiplayer? Big, chunky sprites and textures? Rewinding the last 15 years of game design just to recapture glory days of yours that may or may not have actually existed? The same abstract, easily replaceable plug-and-play concept of "feeling" that drives both Apple's profits and Fox News's viewership?

So... the attitude doesn't count? The over-the-top action? The weapons? The atmosphere? None of this counts? It has to be the exact same game you played back in high school/college? Why, because you were good at it back then and haven't been good at anything ever since? Or because you invested far too much time into it and are too embarassed to admit the rest of the gaming world moved on a long time ago?

If you were just waxing nostalgic about the Good Old Days(tm), I'd see where you were coming from. But saying anything new is crap before you even try it just because you remember some sort of Good Old Days(tm) (which, again, may or may not have actually existed), that's utterly ridiculous.

Re:Shovelware ahoy!

[brainboyz]

Given a lot of the fun of Duke is the wise cracks and strippers...seems like it's a good addition to the franchise.

Shouldn't this be in "idle"?

[Joce640k]

It's a joke, surely...

Re:Shouldn't this be in "idle"?

[mrmagos]

It's no joke. And stop calling me Shirley.

Re:While I applaud their efforts...

[Anonymous Coward]

Drop dead you lousy piece of worthless scum*

*no offense

(TAKE THE HINT!)

I can't wait to try out the innovative game contro

[exabrial]

Not sure if everyone heard, but the game will be a first of it's kind as far as how you control the FPS character. Rather than "up key for move forward" you will need to move each body part individually... Check out one of the :
earlier reviews

Fool me once shame on you, fool me 37.4 times....

[Chas]

Repeat after me.

Until it ships, it is still VAPORWARE!

BoomBoom

[ego centrik]

" .... what do you wait'n for, christmas ?

Re:I can't wait to try out the innovative game con

[Anonymous Coward]

I can live with that. It's the control scheme they used in octodad after all :)

Fascinating isn't it...

[Kaziganthi]

the death of an internet meme? Well, maybe I shouldn't get ahead of myself. They should have held out for a December 20th, 2012 release date and really freak people out when they actually released it. Maybe their plan is to keep letting the date slip until then.

Its about time damn it!

[nycheetah]

Its about time damn it!

In other unrelated Hell News

[Edsj]

It is expected low temperature records this May. Satan blames global warming while others think it is an excuse to cover something else.

Re:In other unrelated Hell News

[Erbo]

For more on this story, we switch you now to our special correspondents, the Flying Pigs.

I had plans 12, 13 years ago...

[Anonymous Coward]

I won a gift certificate for 30 dollars in 3dRealms' camera captioning contests, in 1998.

For this:
http://www.3drealms.com/camera/120498.html

So I saved it for 12, 13 years so that I could use it on Duke Nuke Forever.
Never quite happened.

Also had this crazy idea of getting hired by them on level design and moving down there to Texas and being really awesome.
Never happened (except the being awesome part), and I think maybe that is okay. ...Though could be I was the one missing piece of the puzzle !?

Re:I had plans 12, 13 years ago...

[f8l_0e]

Congrats on becoming awesome, Jaryn. Welcome to the club. ::rolls eyes::

Re:I had plans 12, 13 years ago...

[Anonymous Coward]

Club? I didn't know there was a club!

Thanks! Awesome! ::rolls eyes::

2011?

[Frequency Domain]

I thought the apocalypse was scheduled for 2012, not 2011!

Re:2011?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not according to the nuts at www.familyradio.com

Re:2011?

[Anonymous Coward]

Makes perfect sense... It will be pushed one more time untill 2012. Then the world ends!

Re:2011?

[Remus Shepherd]

2012 will be when they release the first official patch that makes the game playable. *Then* the world will end.

Re:2011?

[mcgrew]

No, everybody misunderstands the Mayans. The calendar rolls over in December next year, right when I'm eligible for retirement. Life as *I* currently know it will surely end.

As to the rest of you guys, it won't matter (except I'll have more time to write and tinker).

Re:2011?

[Anonymous Coward]

Came here for the Mayan prophesy, leaving satisfied.

Was it named "Duke Nukem Forever"...

[Smooth and Shiny]

...because they planned on taking forever to NOT release it?

In other news today...

[Anonymous Coward]

Other news item today: the new Amiga is rumoured to be released this year.

Analysts are quoting insider sources as saying that the new Amiga will be able to be used both as a cell phone, a regular desktop computer, and in a cluster depending on which docking station you are using. One Amiga developer (who wish to remain nameless due to NDA issues) is saying: "This will be the year of the Workbench on mobile phones!"

Re:While I applaud their efforts...

[Megane]

Oh, and one more thing... (pulls out BFG and mows down audience)

Hail to the king, baby.

1997 is back

[wideBlueSkies]

This is kind of far out when you think about it. We got GNR's Chinese Democracy, and we are getting DNF.

10 years ago I would never have believed it. The 90's still live!!!

But seriously, is there anything else left from 1997 that is still pending release? Can we get a trifecta?

Looking forward to the game though. I wonder if Duke will poke fun at his own lateness, in-game. :)

Re:1997 is back

[Enderandrew]

Ghostbusters 3?

Re:1997 is back

[Anonymous Coward]

Enlightenment looks like it may make 1.0. Now that's scary.

Re:1997 is back

[Anonymous Coward]

Ghostbusters 3 has been announced, and apparently they are making headway.
Scary stuff, huh?

Re:1997 is back

[wideBlueSkies]

>>Looking forward to the game though. I wonder if Duke will poke fun at his own lateness, in-game. :)

To answer my own question - at least partially. Near the end of the trailer Duke says "It's been 12 years, it had better be f*king good". (or something like that).

RIP DNF dev timeline jokes

[The O Rly Factor]

So does this mean we can't make DNF jokes about software development timelines anymore?

Re:RIP DNF dev timeline jokes

[wideBlueSkies]

Sure we can. Why not? It happened, and it can't be undone.

Heck, I still use Cheops Law when talking about project timelines and expense, and that one is > 3000 years old. :) So why not DNF?

Lessons learned: None

[Andy Smith]

"US release date: May 3rd. It will release worldwide three days later"

Games companies are forever bleeting on about piracy, so why the hell do they release a game in one country and tell everyone else in the world that they have to wait THREE days? As if loads of those people aren't going to pirate the game, when they may well have gone and bought it if they'd had the chance.

Re:Lessons learned: None

[daid303]

3 days is a LOT better then they used to do. We got it down from weeks to days. Now lets get it down from days to seconds.

Re:Lessons learned: None

[brkello]

Why are gamers such dicks they can't wait 3 days before they come up with yet another justification to not pay for a game?

Re:Lessons learned: None

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't matter. It'll be pirated worldwide a couple days BEFORE May 3rd anyway.

Re:Lessons learned: None

[MrL0G1C]

Maybe there's going to be online activation and they want 3 days leeway to sort out whatever mess happens in case they haven't set it up properly!!!

Re:Lessons learned: None

[Monkeedude1212]

The idea is that they expect it only to sell well in the States.

The states believe that no one in the states will be capable of cracking it within the 3 days to put up for the rest of the world, as opposed to the entire world having the chance to crack it before everyone in the states buys it.

Marketting 201.

Re:Lessons learned: None

[maxwell demon]

Of course, because it's the only way to play it before the world ends.

Re:Lessons learned: None

[sycorob]

How would releasing it simultaneously worldwide cut into US sales? Then, you'd never have to worry about cracking at all, right?

Oh, yeah, they want to sell it in different countries at different price points. Lame.

Re:Lessons learned: None

[bogjobber]

Likely it will be cracked and on the torrent sites before the May 3 release date, so your point doesn't really make sense. Even US-ians are still going to have to wait to play the game legally. It's not like 3 days is a long time period to wait.

Remember there are actual people in marketing and distribution that have to do real work in order to get the game into stores and promote it properly. Not every game is Halo. A simultaneous worldwide release sounds good on paper, but it adds a lot of complications. If you care that much about the game that you have to play it *immediately* then you should probably give them some money.

Re:Lessons learned: None

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are gamers such dicks they can't wait 3 days before they come up with yet another justification to not pay for a game?

Why are publishers such idiots to expect your average teenager/young-adult to patiently sit and wait for 3 days when experience has shown that they won't. Wouldn't the logical, sensible thing to do, be to release simultaneously worldwide and nip the problem in the bud?

Re:Lessons learned: None

[severn2j]

Because, with your average blockbuster release, they've been slowly drip-fed hype and marketing for months to the point that they must have it at all costs on release day. The publishers themselves measure the success or failure of a game on first day sales. There's a huge pre-order market just so that people can guarantee they will get their game on release day. Everything is geared towards getting your game on release day. And then you expect them to wait 3 days, when there are copies floating around on the internet?

begin....

[inerlogic]

.... holding breath .... now.

Re:begin....

[Anonymous Coward]

When should I stop? It's gettnig harrder to type already, leet alobe lok att th screensdfj fraefasdlfhswaasdfasf

BitBoys, Oy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Soooo....... now that DNF is finally coming out, what's the chances that we'll get to play it on a shiny new BitBoys Oy's Glaze 3d video card, eh?

The only question worth asking: Will it be Duke?

[Opportunist]

DN3D wasn't just a shooter. It was a shooter with a certain "attitude". It certainly set no hallmark for graphics or physics, but it sure was one for political incorrectness in games. Duke was a sexist, macho, bubblegum chewing (ok, ok, he was constantly out of gum, but he tried) pig. Not really the usual shining hero of shooters at this time.

What defined Duke was the wisecracking and the comments, the quite nonlinear levels and the blatant sexism. Let's be honest here, guys, that was part of the appeal. It was not the usual squeaky-clean world we usually got from shooters.

I hope that in our PC world there's still place for a sexist dinosaur like the Duke. It just wouldn't be Duke without tipping the strippers.

Missed a Perfect Opening Line

[tm2b]

"In the most eagerly awaited game since Daikatana..."

Re:Missed a Perfect Opening Line

[Mr Z]

Ooooh, ouch.

Re:While I applaud their efforts...

[NevarMore]

Hah, no offense taken. Better to be pissed off than pissed on.

Apple was the example because they're the most visible. Google sometimes does unannounced releases, but they tend to be quiet about it. Is there a generic term for that tactic? "Surprise release"? "Controlled leak"?

DNF has had so many failed and delayed releases that every announcement about it is justifiably treated like a joke. If some company is actually working on it and plans on releasing it, they should keep quiet about it.

When they come out and say "You can buy this game on Steam NOW" the internet will shit its pants and drop its Cheetos and rush to buy it. An announcement about a release data is greeted with a yawn and a snarky joke if its acknowledged at all.

I'll believe it when i'll have it on my hands

[Skatox]

When i have the game in my hands and start playing i will finally believe that Duke Nukem has been released

Re:While I applaud their efforts...

[Captain Spam]

Oh, and one more thing... (pulls out BFG and mows down audience)

Wrong series, man. :-)

Shouldn't be released

[HelioWalton]

I would personally pay full price if they never released this game, but kept putting out trailers every few years, and saying it was almost done, just switching to the latest engine, etc...

The timeline according to GU.

[splutty]

http://www.gucomics.com/comic/?cdate=20051005Pigs Fly!
http://www.gucomics.com/comic/?cdate=20060602Bleeding Employees
http://www.gucomics.com/comic/?cdate=20071220Threatening Moves
http://www.gucomics.com/comic/?cdate=20080207So close!
http://www.gucomics.com/comic/?cdate=20090507Awwwwwww
http://www.gucomics.com/comic/?cdate=20090519Dead Or Not?
http://www.gucomics.com/comic/?cdate=20100903No one can stop The Duke!

Re:While I applaud their efforts...

[Kell Bengal]

pulls out BFG and mows down audience

Uhhh... you know the BFG is from DOOM, right?

Surely you mean a shrink ray! That was the most fun from Duke 3D. *squish!*

Re:While I applaud their efforts...

[Pojut]

True...in the case of DNF, they probably would have been better served just saying "buy nao!" Then again, since the public has knowledge that Gearbox is working on the game, NOT giving even a rough release estimate could cause the rumor mill to swirl more than it already is...

Re:While I applaud their efforts...

[Anonymous Coward]

BFG 9000 was the Doom weapon. And in Quake 2.

Big Fucking Gun. Half of duke's weapons, in other words.

In Other News

[Enderandrew]

The marble tomb of Pope Julius II will be finished later this year. Sure, it won't be by Michaelangelo. It won't necessarily be his vision. It is being rushed to completion by people who had no previous connection to the early 16th century project. And no one knows or cares who Pope Julius II is anymore, but it will be finally finished.

Re:I can't wait to try out the innovative game con

[Captain Spam]

Ah, so what you'd have is QWOP: The FPS?

...okay, honestly, that would be hilarious.

Who will buy it?

[opus_magnum]

The franchise is more than stale by now.

ANY DAY NOW:

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

GNU Hurd.

Re:ANY DAY NOW:

[calidoscope]

Are you talking about the OS or the DNF port to GNU Hurd???

Or the DB based filesystem that Bill the Gates promised for Cairo?

Curse my office...

[Nethemas the Great]

without windows I cannot tell whether pigs are flying or the end of the world is approaching.

Re:The only question worth asking: Will it be Duke

[Anonymous Coward]

It was not the usual squeaky-clean world we usually got from shooters.

Yes, as opposed to the blood-soaked hellscapes (sometimes literally on the "hellscape" part) we get in today's games where people explode into chunks of constituent elements of "person" with more and more high-powered weapons and where the few female characters you get in such games frequently wear wildly impractical "armor" or outfits for the task and frequently talk/act like they're doing a bad job hiding a dominatrix fetish (extra points for bluntly implied lesbianism!).

Squeaky-clean, right there. :-) Frankly, not only would the Duke fit in nicely with today's video game world, he'd be proud of what it became.

Re:While I applaud their efforts...

[NevarMore]

Which is arguably a good thing!

Let the rumour mill say what it wants, get DNF back in the public eye, get people talking about your company and watching it. You get gobs of free press and no pressure to make a release date.

Just excited about being Slashdotted

[Interested Spectator]

This is be a bit off the Duke Nukem release date topic. But I work on the gameinformer.com site and just wanted to mention how freakin' excited I am that we got Slashdotted. Some people go their whole lives without ever feeling the Slashdot Effect. Wooohoooo!

April 1st already?

[stewbacca]

April fools on January 21st. Niiiiiice!

Re:While I applaud their efforts...

[stewbacca]

It's impossible to take offense by somebody so intellectually challenged that they find victory in insulting people's sexuality.

In other news...

[darkshadow88]

In other news, hell has frozen over.

No Bug fixes at all .. Ever....

[PDX]

No game support

Re:While I applaud their efforts...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish Apple was less like Apple

Think of the vaporware!!

[Anonymous Coward]

You Insensitive Clod!!!!

May 3rd of WHAT YEAR?

[Anonymous Coward]

May 3rd of WHAT YEAR?

DNF no longer = Did Not Finish?

[splerdu]

Awww man! We'll not be able to use that racing acronym anymore.

Hey!

[plorqk]

What's with the delays?

Trailers here

[nighty5]

both links point to youtube.

http://www.dukenukemforever.com/#?trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-b78TKZIyw

Re:While I applaud their efforts...

[Anonymous Coward]

pulls out BFG and mows down audience

Uhhh... you know the BFG is from DOOM, right?

Surely you mean a shrink ray! That was the most fun from Duke 3D. *squish!*

The Shrink Ray makes Duke

*puts on sunglasses*

feel like a big man.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

The End Times are Upon Us

[Trikenstein]

Cthulhu is rising and we're all gonna die
Da do run run run
Da do run run

Nyarlathotep is piping as my brain starts to fry
Da do run run run do

Lies!

[DigiTechGuy]

Lies, LIES!!

Newsflash

[MBlueD]

Thousands panic as previously mocking, unlikely to be fulfilled conditional dares and promises suddenly became payable in the near future.

In other news, stocks for "When pigs fly" are at an all time low as customer trust wavers, and demand for freezing equipment hits an all time high as a certain not to be named power figure decides he's had it up to here with the heat. If you'll excuse me, I'm off to eat my hat.

Re:Newsflash

[genner]

Thousands panic as previously mocking, unlikely to be fulfilled conditional dares and promises suddenly became payable in the near future.

In other news, stocks for "When pigs fly" are at an all time low as customer trust wavers, and demand for freezing equipment hits an all time high as a certain not to be named power figure decides he's had it up to here with the heat. If you'll excuse me, I'm off to eat my hat.

Try boiling it first.

Re:While I applaud their efforts...

[alexborges]

Well then:
1. fuck you.
2. Victory
3. Profit!?

Re:While I applaud their efforts...

[mosb1000]

No thank you, I appreciate the advance notice that the end times are at hand.

back in they day

[stimpleton]

Back when shooter titles were released at the rate of one per year(is it 365 per year now?), I used to get up about 3am to try to catch the news hot off the press. Sites like Voodoo extreme and bluesnews were my favorites. And they updated often in the early hours for breakfast reading.

Billy "Wicked" Wilson(voodoo extreme) was often up, and sometimes I'd fire him an email to which he replied usually. I guesstimate I got up 30 times for DN4 updates.

I followed intently the news when they changed from the Quake 2 engine to Unreal in 1998. They had been in development(supposedly) with Q2 for 2 years. The unreal announcement was the death knell for me. The disruption to the workflow could not support a valid business case?

Man, I nostagia'd

Re:The only question worth asking: Will it be Duke

[R3d M3rcury]

This is sort of interesting...

In the years between the last release of Duke Nukem, there's a new force in town called the ESRB. I'm going to be curious if we'll see it rated "Adults Only."

Actually, that seems like a fun idea. Make a "Mature" version and an "Adults Only" version. Sell the AO version exclusively through the website (since GameStops, etc. won't want to carry "Adults Only" games).

Re:While I applaud their efforts...

[Labcoat Samurai]

Well, technically, he didn't even insult their sexuality. He misidentified it. That's my favorite part about people calling each other gay. They seem to think it is self-evidently an insult when it is actually no more an insult than telling a person he's redheaded when he happens to be blonde.

GOOD NEWS EVERYBODY!

[lorg]

Good news everybody! We now know the date when hell will freeze over.

Wait!

[Sean_Inconsequential]

You mean they are making a new Duke Nukem? First I ever heard of it. I hope they don't do some rush job on it. May 3rd sounds like it would be too soon of a release date, that is a little over three months from now. I really think they should take their time on this one, spend some time developing it.

Biblical Proportions

[Darth Hubris]

Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, "biblical"?
Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, Duke Nukem Forever released ... mass hysteria!
Mayor: All right, all right! I get the point!

END OF TIMES

[TiggertheMad]

Well it looks like Duke Nukem Forever WILL release before Half Life 2 Episode 3.

It will never happen. If they say the game will come out on say, March 16th, this just means the end of the world will happen on March 15th. (Beware the Ides of March, Caesar...)

Gearbox is going to bring about the end of the world by releasing this game. The Universe just doesn't want it to happen.

Say what?

[Bud]

> stupid_is writes with news that Duke Nukem Forever has now gotten a firm US release date: May 3rd.

Yes, but which firm?

> It will release worldwide three days later.

Release what?

I thought "DNF" stood for Did Not Finish.

--Bud

Episode 3

[Lord Ender]

There will never be an Episode 3. The Gordon Freeman story will continue in Half Life 3.

Positive Proof the World Ends

[Anonymous Coward]

I take this to be firm and irrefutable evidence that the world will end on or before May 2nd.

Panicking may commence.

There is no cold beer in Hell.

[Anonymous Coward]

only warm water.

don't let the embalming (alcohol) in the water fool you.

my wife dispenses better hootch from her sqveidal spooch.

Re:There is no cold beer in Hell.

[khallow]

There is no cold beer in Hell.

1) acquire warm embalming fluid which smells suspiciously of malt and hops.
2) ???
3) Hell freezes over.
4) Cold beer.

Re:While I applaud their efforts...

[stewbacca]

Or even better is when they call a gay person gay, when they are indeed gay. That is so insulting when that happens, right?

Every game engine could do that.

[Anonymous Coward]

what's wrong with you people?

there are mod's everywhere that pooled together independend developments that added such environmental effects; even Doom1/Doom2 had bullet-marks mod and various other overlays for the main game "wad." Such was never addressed for a foot-print because in reality it was Duke Nukem that was dumb enough to be too busy looking forward and down while the marine in Doom was focussed more at his weapon to a 45-degree angle at the sky or directly forward.

As well, Quake was the greatest engine hands-down, despite Quake2 having the supreme graphics portability. You just didn't want to address the fact that Quake1 was true 3D graphics made for a Pentium-classic 90MHz or a 486 133MHz computer limited to 24MB of RAM while Duke Nukem 3D was 2.51D for the same Doom-class that any 386 50MHz computer could play.

This is why all of this should be embraced and extended; PDA phones, hand-held computers, and all have the same reach of older computers, that Apogee and related Share-ware houses realy need to sow their investments again rather than let it all dry-up: Rise of the Triadd, Wacky Wheels, Death Rally, Blake Stone, Halloween Harry, where are they or is someone fumbling the ball of American legacy software?

Re:Every game engine could do that.

[shutdown -p now]

there are mod's everywhere that pooled together independend developments that added such environmental effects; even Doom1/Doom2 had bullet-marks mod and various other overlays for the main game "wad."

You can't get bullet marks in Doom by modifying the WAD files - those are pure resource containers, and such a change requires hacking the actual game scripts. Maybe DEHACKED could work, I don't know - that patched the .EXE itself.

Modern Doom ports do add those features, yes, but they have the complete source code of the game. It was still long before that source would be made available when Duke3D was released, and I don't recall any "bullet marks" mod for Doom back then.

the marine in Doom was focussed more at his weapon to a 45-degree angle at the sky or directly forward.

You couldn't aim the gun up in Doom, it was always horizontal. The ability to look up & down was only added by later Doom ports (and the first game other than Doom but on the same engine to have it was Heretic, and it did let you look down as well as up).

You just didn't want to address the fact that Quake1 was true 3D graphics made for a Pentium-classic 90MHz or a 486 133MHz computer limited to 24MB of RAM while Duke Nukem 3D was 2.51D for the same Doom-class that any 386 50MHz computer could play.

He did address the fact. The point is that Quake may have an awesome engine for its time (but we've seen Descent before it), but it didn't really translate to an awesome image. As a player, I don't care about true 3D vs 2.5D - I care about "shiny". And Duke had that. Mirrors were awesome. Blowing holes through walls was awesome. Shooting missiles through teleports was awesome.

Re:Fool me once shame on you, fool me 37.4 times..

[cffrost]

Until it ships, it is still VAPORWARE!

Here's the difference

[definate]

I never got scared playing Duke 3D as a kid.

But I repetitively shat myself playing Quake as a kid.

Also, after I did get internets, I quickly began playing Quake online with QuakeWorld, and when QuakeWorld TF came out, I played that for years and years later. Even after Half-Life TF came out.

Re:The only question worth asking: Will it be Duke

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm...linked article quotes president of 2K..."brutally honest wit" -- I don't remember any wit or honesty in DN3D. There was, as you said, wisecracking and machismo, though. And I liked it, sure, although I liked Blood and Shadow Warrior (Build engine ftw) better, as those were actually witty. Now, there was one recent-ish character that was a lot like Duke - Serious Sam. His commentary I didn't enjoy at all. So I'm on the fence on this one - either make it not-Duke -> funny or make it Duke -> macho lameness. But perhaps my memory doesn't serve me very well and someone can point out Duke's wit. Go.

Lost a bet

[thelenm]

Well crap, I had my money on Perl 6.

Blow it out your ass.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, my title should be echoing in every time I quote you.

I bought a commercial package of "Pwads" and "Iwads" known as D!ZONE that was the best of the Multiplayer and Singleplayer scene for offline clients, and mods were able to overlay eachother; there was a utility even that converted a wad for Doom1 to run in Doom2 and vis versa; all for original unpatched game engine yet suggested a version for proper stability. Wish you could've enjoyed these techniques so you wouldn't need to spread FUD to replace history with His-Story. The average top-tier computer when Doom1 came-out was a $2k Pentium 90 with 128MB of RAM If I remember correctly, while business workstation tier was a 486 SX 80MHz or something like that. These were the days when Radio Shack stocked American computer software (Apogee) next to their Tandy computers while you came in the store front door (I'm dripping whetstones too, btw): those beasts sold with a complete .5-inch Mainboard Documentation book tracing every solder channel on the mainboard to every component and even sometimes BIOS function calls to test the reliability of your integrated chipsets to decide yourself if you want to re-solder a new reliable component with a Radio Shack stock part. Those were the days...and they can arrive again by kicking-out the foreign fabricated market that wouldn't perpetuate their own asses if they had to buy their own products.

You can't get bullet marks in Doom by modifying the WAD files - those are pure resource containers, and such a change requires hacking the actual game scripts. Maybe DEHACKED could work, I don't know - that patched the .EXE itself.

Modern Doom ports do add those features, yes, but they have the complete source code of the game. It was still long before that source would be made available when Duke3D was released, and I don't recall any "bullet marks" mod for Doom back then.

I was pointing to the fact that the image of the HUD-weapon was always pointing slightly up, and that auto-aim always shifted the sprite up to make it obvious; you can't aim up or down, I know! They just made it look like your marine is a midget always looking-up toward the environment.

You couldn't aim the gun up in Doom, it was always horizontal. The ability to look up & down was only added by later Doom ports (and the first game other than Doom but on the same engine to have it was Heretic, and it did let you look down as well as up).

Descent was no-way a 3D game engine: it was only 2.5D. I know what you mean on the Shiny part; ID Software never was finished Shiny: it was like the Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons would sell you something with a contract saying the game engine must be updated in order to get what you payed for, and that you payed so-much for it to begin with was that you got it discounted to to let you in on the earliest bleeding-edge gameplay for cheaper than what you were willing to pay (*tongue-in-cheek*). Seriously, Quake was a piece of shit but it was just that: it was the best Shiny as you say and it didn't even need a Story because it's Shiny was about superior engine. Duke was Shiny because we all wanted to be Roudy Roddy Piper from WWF.

He did address the fact. The point is that Quake may have an awesome engine for its time (but we've seen Descent before it), but it didn't really translate to an awesome image. As a player, I don't care about true 3D vs 2.5D - I care about "shiny". And Duke had that. Mirrors were awesome. Blowing holes through walls was awesome. Shooting missiles through teleports was awesome.

Re:Blow it out your ass.

[shutdown -p now]

I bought a commercial package of "Pwads" and "Iwads" known as D!ZONE that was the best of the Multiplayer and Singleplayer scene for offline clients, and mods were able to overlay eachother

IWAD is the primary WAD for the game, and there can be only one loaded at the moment - you cannot have multiple "overlaying" each other. That's precisely what PWADS ("patch WADs") are for. If you replace an IWAD, you're pretty much replacing all game resources. You could take the original game IWAD and several PWADs and merge them into a single modded IWAD - that's what D!ZONE tool did.

there was a utility even that converted a wad for Doom1 to run in Doom2 and vis versa

Making such a conversion was trivial, because Doom 2 was, in modern terms, more like an expansion pack for Doom 1. Same engine, all the same original enemies and items and weapons, some extra new things, and all new maps. Since Doom 1 items were all there, you could convert directly. Going Doom 2 to Doom 1 merely required replacing the new textures, items and monsters with something more or less analogous from the older game (more advanced tools would let you customize mappings).

Anyway, I'll assume that you're confusing the terminology because it all was so long ago. But you still haven't explained where the "bullet holes" mod comes from. I'll repeat again: it is not something that can be done with Doom without modding the engine, because the game does not contain the logic for it. You can't just hack resources (which is what WADs are) to make something appear that simply isn't there. And, unlike Quake, which had QuakeC in external resources, Doom had it all baked into the executable. The earliest tool that let you hack some of it (specifically, the item tables, which were really a bunch of static struct arrays) was DeHackEd. But I haven't ever heard of a .DEH that would add bullet holes, and everything I know about the internal workings of Doom engine implies that it is impossible.

auto-aim always shifted the sprite up to make it obvious

Auto-aim in Doom did not shift weapon sprites - it simply adjusted the vertical aim. The weapon did shift when you move, for the "weapon bob" effect, which is probably what you're confusing auto-aim with.

The average top-tier computer when Doom1 came-out was a $2k Pentium 90 with 128MB of RAM If I remember correctly, while business workstation tier was a 486 SX 80MHz or something like that.

Nope, sorry. Doom 1 was released in 1993. The very first Pentium CPU was released that same year - it wasn't "average top-tier", it was the absolute best you could get in a PC then. That's also why Doom was written to be playable on a 33MHz 80386, which was a pretty common PC at the day. 80486 was also common, but already getting into "powerful workstation" / "gaming rig" territory, and certainly not average even for a business workstation.

And 128Mb RAM, really? Doom required a minimum of 4Mb, and, when released, it was one of the most demanding PC video games in terms of both CPU and RAM. 4Mb was also fairly typical for a home or office PC - in 1993, it'd cost you ~$100; 8Mb was also common enough, though already noticeably above average. 16Mb was pretty much top of the line for a PC and very rare - you'd have to pay $500 to get that much!

These were the days when Radio Shack stocked American computer software (Apogee) next to their Tandy computers

There were several models in the Tandy line, but they were all contemporaries of IBM PC XT and AT - the most powerful Tandy had a 8MHz CPU and less than 1Mb RAM even when fully expanded. By 1993, they were already as outdated as, say, a Pentium 3 is today.

was pointing to the fact that the image of the HUD-weapon was always pointing slightly up

It wasn't pointing up,

Re:The only question worth asking: Will it be Duke

[Opportunist]

Hey, didn't you get the MPAA memo? Blood and gore is fine, just no tits and no ass!

Or, in the timeless words of Jack Nicholson: Kiss a pair of tits and it's X-Rated. Chop 'em off and it's PG13.

You wanna dance?

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a pwad that added bulletholes. Also was a DeHackEd file that did the same.

The gun sprite is pointing slightly up, and the sprite shifts up when firing, yet the logic is always pointing forward so that is what he meant. SNAFU.

128MB of RAM was on a few 486 workstations that I knew of used for graphics editing, and was a wopping 70ns SIMMs of FPM if I remember correctly.

I had a 25MHz Tandy, even ran Falcon 3.0 quickly and Windows 3.1 in Enhanced Mode! Somehow these older computers ran software more respectibly, like the Salesperson was inside the thing turning the hampster wheel to make it computer faster so you didn't get angry when you encountered his liessss.

Descent was the same 2.5D, and the sprites all behaved the same as other 2.5D entertainment meaning they just changed perspective by changing to another sprite to represent 15 degrees of an angle.

Re:You wanna dance?

[shutdown -p now]

I don't want to argue things about Doom, frankly. If you want to check, you can go ahead and run it in DOSBox or whatever and see for yourself.

Well, it seems that I was kinda wrong about Tandy, in that they did indeed have a 25MHz 486 (if Google is to be trusted, it was their last model). I didn't realize they were still around by then. I don't think many people knew that, either. The Tandy that I knew about, and the one which made them popular, was that PC-compatible-but-not-really one back in 80s.

As for Descent being "2.5D". It was not - it had sprites for pickups, yes, but enemies were true 3D models, which was blatantly obvious when you saw one turn - mostly because they had on the order of 20 polygons (hence probably why they were all mining robots... 20 polygons makes a decent robot but a lousy humanoid). I really don't know what else to say here, except that clearly you either don't remember it all that well, or, more likely, you simply didn't play the game (they've made a very big deal about being "true 3D", unlike Doom, before Quake came out; that comparison was even in the manual). There are videos of Descent gameplay on YouTube - go look them up or something. Or get it from GoG and give it a try.

Oh, and "2.5D" that preceded Descent - which is to say, Doom and others on its engine - actually only had sprites for 8 different angles, so perspective changed only when you rotated around by 45 degrees, not by 15. Again, trivially checked by either playing the game, or opening the resource file and looking at what sprites are there.

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Now this just feels rushed.

Amazon Confirms

[Anonymous Coward]

I received this from Amazon today:

"Hello,
We have received new release date information related to the order you placed on December 29 2010 (Order# xxxxxxxxxxxxxx).
The item(s) listed below will actually ship sooner than we originally expected based on the new release date:
"Duke Nukem Forever"Previous estimated arrival date: June 06 2011 - June 08 2011
New estimated arrival date: May 09 2011 - May 11 2011"

Re:While I applaud their efforts...

[alexo]

*no offense

Canadian much?