3D Realms shuts down [Archive] - Retrogaming Roundtable

roushimsx

05-06-2009, 08:43 PM

This company has made maybe 1 game in recent years. Producing Max Payne doesn't count.

They haven't made anything since Shadow Warrior and that game sucked. They've produced and published a bunch of stuff (Max Payne, Prey, Duke spin offs on PS1/N64/PC).

Current rumor is that they asked Take 2 for more money and Take 2 said "No". Take 2 wanted to buy the Duke Nukem IP and 3DR said "No". George posting on the Shack for Take 2 to STFU a few years ago and the horrible pace of development (possible release in 2010) probably didn't help.

p.s. I'm still looking forward to seeing the game get finished and released, most likely by a second developer. Hopefully Monolith. Hopefully a Monolith that realized that they were on the wrong track with FEAR 2 and is looking at reclaiming the glory days of NOLF / NOLF 2 / Tron 2 / AvP 2 / etc.

The 1 2 P

05-06-2009, 08:47 PM

Hopefully this will put an end to all that "it will be released one day" talk. Forever has finally come to an end....atleast 7 years too late.

Diosoth

05-06-2009, 08:47 PM

They haven't made anything since Shadow Warrior and that game sucked. They've produced and published a bunch of stuff (Max Payne, Prey, Duke spin offs on PS1/N64/PC).

Current rumor is that they asked Take 2 for more money and Take 2 said "No". Take 2 wanted to buy the Duke Nukem IP and 3DR said "No". George posting on the Shack for Take 2 to STFU a few years ago and the horrible pace of development (possible release in 2010) probably didn't help.

p.s. I'm still looking forward to seeing the game get finished and released, most likely by a second developer. Hopefully Monolith. Hopefully a Monolith that realized that they were on the wrong track with FEAR 2 and is looking at reclaiming the glory days of NOLF / NOLF 2 / Tron 2 / AvP 2 / etc.

Monolith blew it when they sold off the Blood franchise to a company that buried it forever.

I also doubt the game is even complete enough to actually finish. We've never seen any solid evidence they were ever actually working on a game. A few seconds of gameplay from the late 90s, a short movie in 2007... for all I know or care, Broussard was just using it as an excuse to embezzle funds. It'd probably be easier for a company to start from scratch than to mess with whatever 3DR managed to actually make.

roushimsx

05-06-2009, 09:48 PM

Monolith blew it when they sold off the Blood franchise to a company that buried it forever.
Monolith was a pretty young company back then and I'm sure they needed the money. It didn't help that Blood 2 and its expansion pack were serious bombs (both critically and commercially). Not sure how well the stuff they were publishing (Captain Claw, Rage of Mages, Septera Core, etc) was doing, either....

Staying afloat at least meant that we got the aforementioned rad as fuck games (NOLF / NOLF 2 / AvP 2 / Tron 2.0 / FEAR), so it worked out pretty well in the end I'd say. Too bad they've started moving in a direction that I don't totally dig since like 2006. Oh well!

Why Inforgrams/Atari doesn't want to do anything with it, I'll never know. It's as nonsensical as Lucasarts ignoring the cries of its adventure gaming fanbase to make their games available in some fashion. GOG / Steam / whatever. Minimal fucking effort here. Instead it's like they'd rather encourage people to pirate the games or drive up the prices on the second hand market. wtf.

I have no idea who thought that it'd be a good idea to throw Fate of Atlantis onto the Wii version of Staff of Kings, but I hope to god he gets a nice bonus or a promotion of some sort. At the very least, give that man a cookie. Bummer that it's not on the PS2 version, but beggers can't be choosers and it's a fucking miracle that it's happening at all.

Edit - Oh and back on topic, I don't disagree that the game is too incomplete to release as is. That's why they need to pass it off to another developer to massage it and develop it for a year or so. You know, kind of like what Swinging Ape got tasked to do for Starcraft: Ghost...until Blizzard was all like, "oh I don't think this is something that we want to pursue anymore so we're just going to kill the whole fucking project". Jerks. :(

Sonicwolf

05-06-2009, 09:54 PM

Duke Nukem Forever. The Duke Nukem fans waited forever, and now its never.

Sad.

I remember playing Duke Nukem 3D when it first came out. I was little and my parents hovered over me to keep a context on the game's content (after the parental lock was initiated of course)

slapdash

05-06-2009, 10:14 PM

Pft. Companies come and go, but intellectual property never dies. Oh ye of little faith.

Clownzilla

05-06-2009, 10:24 PM

Pft. Companies come and go, but intellectual property never dies. Oh ye of little faith.

Once 3D Realms goes then the Duke Nukem IP will be much easier (and cheaper) to buy. Somebody will pick it up and do something with it.

Diosoth

05-06-2009, 10:28 PM

This no doubt kills the DS and PSP Trilogy releases, too. Oh well.

Baloo

05-06-2009, 10:30 PM

Looks like Duke Nukem Forever just became Duke Nukem ForNever it seems.

But if Take-Two still retains publishing rights, who knows, they might lease them out to a good developer this time.

RCM

05-06-2009, 10:34 PM

While I never dealt with them directly, it's pretty clear that the folks running the show at 3DR were really out of touch. At least that's what my colleagues conveyed. REgardless, it's too bad we never got a proper Duke sequel.

roushimsx

05-06-2009, 10:38 PM

This no doubt kills the DS and PSP Trilogy releases, too. Oh well.

Deep Silver announced that the DS and PSP releases of Critical Mass are going to be unaffected by whatever is going down at 3DR.

Diosoth

05-06-2009, 10:47 PM

Looks like Duke Nukem Forever just became Duke Nukem ForNever it seems.

But if Take-Two still retains publishing rights, who knows, they might lease them out to a good developer this time.

Given how many Duke Nukem games have been made by OTHER COMPANIES since Duke 3D was released, it really hasn't been a 3D Realms franchise for a long time.

grolt

05-06-2009, 10:47 PM

Fools. While they were wasting time and money on endless rethinks of the same tired concept, the Quakes, Unreals, Tomb Raiders, Resident Evils and the like all crafted franchises and made a mint. This certainly closes off one of the biggest jokes in gaming development history.

Push Upstairs

05-06-2009, 11:20 PM

First "Chinese Democracy" gets released, now the end of Duke Nukem Forever.

We're losing all the tried and true jokes.

roushimsx

05-06-2009, 11:29 PM

We're losing all the tried and true jokes.
As long as Spark Unlimited continues to release games, we'll have at least one running joke.

Vlcice

05-06-2009, 11:46 PM

First "Chinese Democracy" gets released, now the end of Duke Nukem Forever.

We're losing all the tried and true jokes.

DNF was pretty much the last of old era vapourware, wasn't it? Team Fortress 2, Mother 3, Too Human, Chinese Democracy all were eventually released. Even Smile got an actual release.

Trumpman

05-06-2009, 11:48 PM

This sucks...Duke Nukem was my childhood. I always held out some (foolish) hope that DNF would be released, but it looks like all the naysayers were right all along.

RARusk

05-06-2009, 11:57 PM

"I have no idea who thought that it'd be a good idea to throw Fate of Atlantis onto the Wii version of Staff of Kings, but I hope to god he gets a nice bonus or a promotion of some sort."

Which version of "Fate of Atlantis" - Action or Graphic Adventure?

Jorpho

05-07-2009, 12:09 AM

Holy F*ck! I was not expecting this.

My question is, what will happen to their overpriced back catalogue of 15-year-old games? They did "spin off" the Apogee brand again a while ago - was that a last-ditch effort to save the company and secure funding?

mnbren05

05-07-2009, 12:26 AM

3-D Realms introduced an entire generation of youthful gamers to the joys of throwing cash at a pixelated woman for a peep show (Just kidding). In all seriousness though no surprise here but I really wanted to someday get a crack at the Duke's long awaited game. No dice I suppose.

Leo_A

05-07-2009, 02:17 AM

Snapple

05-07-2009, 02:26 AM

lol anyone who thought DNF had any chance of ever being released.

Biggest con job ever: Being a programmer for 3D Realms. You put together a demo video once every three years and tell your bosses that you're working on a game when you're probably off picking your nose or playing WoW all day. And you get a paycheck!

But seriously, anyone who was still holding out hope needs to stop being so gullible. The game was never going to happen. And even if it did happen (which it wouldn't), the game probably would've sucked anyway.

Gameguy

05-07-2009, 02:48 AM

There was only one, the graphical adventure game.
No, there was also an action game released at the same time. It just wasn't that popular.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/amiga/indiana-jones-and-the-fate-of-atlantis-the-action-game

I'm pretty sure it's the graphic adventure that's included with Staff of Kings, I think I saw footage of it on some site for Staff of Kings(I'm not sure of the link at the moment).

Push Upstairs

05-07-2009, 04:40 AM

DNF was pretty much the last of old era vapourware, wasn't it? Team Fortress 2, Mother 3, Too Human, Chinese Democracy all were eventually released. Even Smile got an actual release.

Even "Prey" got released, and before Duke Forever.

I'm still shocked at that.

exit

05-07-2009, 04:46 AM

All this talk about Duke Nukem Forever makes me believe that the series was something more than it really was. Sure the original side scrollers were fun and Duke Nukem 3D was a stepping stone in it's own right, but they weren't really anything beyond mediocre after 3D.

Sucks that 3D Realms is shutting it's doors tho, they really did help change the way people looked at games.

roushimsx

05-07-2009, 06:36 AM

Even "Prey" got released, and before Duke Forever.

I'm still shocked at that.
Well the only reason that ever happened was because 3DR outsourced it to Human Head, who actually had the ability to complete games somewhat on time. For the most part, they did a pretty badass job with it, too.

Diosoth

05-07-2009, 11:25 AM

Prey was something, wasn't it? 3DR licenses out the Doom 3 engine, and somehow Broussard STILL feels a need to trash iD Software for no good reason.

They should be thankful they even GOT the fucking license, after being sued over the dead Doom marine in Duke 3D years before.

Then again, people still play the original Doom and the community is strong, with numerous modern source ports available. The Duke 3D community? Little mapping going on, even fewer GOOD maps, the source ports see little development... not even the fans care anymore.

kainemaxwell

05-07-2009, 07:45 PM

Update 5:49pm PST: A statement was released on behalf of Deep Silver and Apogee Software, the two companies working on Duke Nukem portable titles. "Deep Silver and Apogee Software are not affected by the situation at 3D Realms," the statement reads. "Development on the Duke Nukem Trilogy is continuing as planned." Late last year Apogee Software was launched as a sister arm to 3D Realms.
http://pc.ign.com/articles/980/980457p1.html?_cmpid=ign40

Push Upstairs

05-07-2009, 09:44 PM

The Duke 3D community? Little mapping going on, even fewer GOOD maps, the source ports see little development... not even the fans care anymore.

I blame 3Drealms for dicking around for 12 years and letting the franchise become the joke that it is. Or maybe Duke3D was like canned lightning.

ProgrammingAce

05-07-2009, 10:11 PM

Diosoth

05-07-2009, 10:24 PM

I blame 3Drealms for dicking around for 12 years and letting the franchise become the joke that it is. Or maybe Duke3D was like canned lightning.

They released Duke3D under GNU/open source(though possibly limited), but refused to release Shadow Warrior or the Build engine itself. Similarly, Monolith wouldn't release Blood as open source and Interplay... well, not like many people ever played Redneck Rampage anyway. So there's no Build engine general port.

And just because a company CAN buy up the property doesn't mean they'd ever touch it. Acclaim bought up Valiant Comics in the late 90s, made some decent games, then flattened the company. Someone bought up the old Valiant properties plus the Acclaim follow-ups(games, all issue reprint rights) but nothing's been done.

Not that they CAN do much... Magnus and Solar reverted to Gold Key Comics, so any reprints of the old Valiant stuff in full would require licensing of those 2 characters. They want to get Shadow Man ported to Virtual Console(it was on the N64) but they're not certain it's worth the hassle.

For comparison, Acclaim paid MILLIONS for the Valiant stuff. The current owner paid less than $200,000. It's borderline worthless without the full reprint rights.

Jorpho

05-07-2009, 11:58 PM

A couple of us on Vbender looked through 3D Realms' history. Turns out they've only *ever* developed 2 games, Duke 3D and Shadow Warrior.3D Realms very much used to be the Apogee of yore, which did develop a bunch of other things (including the original Duke Nukem sidescrollers).

I guess with the Apogee "arm" still functioning, we won't be seeing Death Rally suddenly become available for cheap. Oh well. They really ought to release their whole back catalog through Steam; Commander Keen and Wolfenstein have been selling for a lot cheaper there than they ever were through the 3D Realms store - plus they have the preconfigured DOSBox.

j_factor

05-08-2009, 12:30 AM

How can they close 3D Realms without closing Apogee? Aren't they the same company?

Jorpho

05-08-2009, 12:53 AM

How can they close 3D Realms without closing Apogee? Aren't they the same company?See Mr. Kainemaxwell's post above.

Poofta!

05-08-2009, 01:14 AM

wow this made me so sad. i know the joke was that duke nukem forever would never come out, but somehow deep inside i thought it eventually would. duke3d was one of my favorite games of my teens, and a game i remember very, very fondly. i remember begging my dad to buy it for me and how much i played it afterwards. the original max payne was awesome too, even though i know they werent completely responsible for that. i loved shadow warrior. in general some of my favorite DOS games from that lost era were 3drealms & apogee.

i wish them all luck, this is the 2nd development company i ever cared about going out of business (the other was Troika, and to an extent, black isle)

Poofta!

05-08-2009, 01:22 AM

DNF was pretty much the last of old era vapourware, wasn't it? Team Fortress 2, Mother 3, Too Human, Chinese Democracy all were eventually released. Even Smile got an actual release.

I'm still looking forward to Gravy Trader. (bonus points for people who know)

Kitsune Sniper

05-08-2009, 01:28 AM

3D Realms very much used to be the Apogee of yore, which did develop a bunch of other things (including the original Duke Nukem sidescrollers).

I guess with the Apogee "arm" still functioning, we won't be seeing Death Rally suddenly become available for cheap. Oh well. They really ought to release their whole back catalog through Steam; Commander Keen and Wolfenstein have been selling for a lot cheaper there than they ever were through the 3D Realms store - plus they have the preconfigured DOSBox.

http://www.gog.com/en/search/sort/publisher/Apogee%20Software

It's a start. Other companies have released tons of old games through GOG. I don't see why Apogee won't do the same.

j_factor

05-08-2009, 02:09 AM

See Mr. Kainemaxwell's post above.

I read that link, but it doesn't really explain how 3D Realms and Apogee are separated. The only thing I can think of is that they are only closing "3D Realms" as in the development team that was working on Duke Nukem Forever, and not "3D Realms" as in the company.

Push Upstairs

05-08-2009, 05:05 AM

Nikademus1969

05-08-2009, 05:21 AM

When we finally got Fallout 3 I thought maybe, just maybe, Duke would actually happen too. I guess not *sigh*

roushimsx

05-08-2009, 06:26 AM

They released Duke3D under GNU/open source(though possibly limited), but refused to release Shadow Warrior or the Build engine itself. Similarly, Monolith wouldn't release Blood as open source and Interplay... well, not like many people ever played Redneck Rampage anyway. So there's no Build engine general port.
They released the source code for Shadow Warrior over four years ago, dude. Monolith has no say in the release of the Blood source code (they'd love to release it and they have the data, but they haven't got the rights to do so). I don't remember the story of why Redneck Rampage's source hasn't been released.

I'd want modern ports of "Shadow Warrior" and "Blood" more than Duke3D.
Try ProAsm's port (http://www.proasm.com/). Built off of JonoF's with additional bug fixes that do various things such as make it more stable and fix the compatibility with Wanton Destruction.

I read that link, but it doesn't really explain how 3D Realms and Apogee are separated. The only thing I can think of is that they are only closing "3D Realms" as in the development team that was working on Duke Nukem Forever, and not "3D Realms" as in the company.
The new Apogee Software is a separate, privately owned company that's pretty much unaffected by the 3D Realms troubles. They're incredibly small, comprised of a few of the guys from 3DR, and focused on licensing old Apogee/3DRealms titles so there's very little risk or overhead. Now if Frontline Studios goes tits up, we're fucked and we're not getting any new Duke Nukem games.

I'm pretty happy they managed to fix the licensing issues with Duke Nukem Manhattan Project and get it out there again. That game was stuck in legal hell for years once when ARUSH went under.

Lady Jaye

05-08-2009, 07:50 AM

Just had to post this:

http://i.a-13.net/slash000_fudigg.jpg

robotriot

05-08-2009, 08:17 AM

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

GrandAmChandler

05-08-2009, 09:22 AM

Coconut Monkey will finish this one day, I have faith.

I'm still looking forward to Gravy Trader. (bonus points for people who know)

at 101%, it has to be the best game ever!

Trumpman

05-08-2009, 02:04 PM

A couple of us on Vbender looked through 3D Realms' history. Turns out they've only *ever* developed 2 games, Duke 3D and Shadow Warrior.

They've published a number of other titles, but I think it's fairly obvious they had no idea how to make a workflow for a modern game. Just because you can license someone's engine doesn't mean it magically becomes easy to make a game. This isn't paint by numbers.

I always got the impression that they kept licensing new engines thinking the technology would make game design easier. I think they wanted something like Game Maker for multi million dollar projects.

I think someone said this already, but the old Apogee IS (or was) 3D Realms. They published/developed much more than just Duke 3D; they were one of the major players in the DOS market. And man, those DOS games were some of my favorites as a kid. I used to play the side-scrolling Duke I and II, and the flight game Terminal Velocity all the time. Not to mention the fact that they published Commander Keen and other great DOS games such as the shoot-em-up Raptor.

I agree with Poofta - this is the first developer I've ever felt sad about now that they've gone out of business. Along with the DOS games, I loved Duke 3D. I knew that Duke Nukem Forever could never live up to 12 years of development, but I still wanted to see what it would be like.

Push Upstairs

05-08-2009, 03:40 PM

Try ProAsm's port (http://www.proasm.com/). Built off of JonoF's with additional bug fixes that do various things such as make it more stable and fix the compatibility with Wanton Destruction.

I didn't really have any problems with Wanton Destruction on my Win98 machine.

Diosoth

05-08-2009, 03:57 PM

They released the source code for Shadow Warrior over four years ago, dude. Monolith has no say in the release of the Blood source code (they'd love to release it and they have the data, but they haven't got the rights to do so). I don't remember the story of why Redneck Rampage's source hasn't been released.

Shadow Warrior WAS released? Guess no one really cared about it, then. I never heard.

Wikipedia check shows that Vivendi bought the Redneck Rampage rights for $300K, then sold it to Blizzard this year. Really, why? The game franchise wasn't popular and they'd probably waste money making a new game. But oh well, it's Bllizard and they're not likely to release even a limited license source code.

Then again, Raven only released Heretic and Hexen under full open source THIS YEAR... so now all the Doom source ports can officially run them, rather than "they just can".

Overbite

05-08-2009, 04:53 PM

Shadow Warrior is a pretty terrible game though. The only thing it has going for it is even lamer jokes than Duke.

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

The 1 2 P

05-08-2009, 08:01 PM

Just had to post this:

http://i.a-13.net/slash000_fudigg.jpg

Thats now a collectors item. They should put it in the Smithsonian.

Hitman Tyler

05-08-2009, 09:19 PM

Damn it, one game I was looking forward too: Duke Nukem Forever... :( :(
I remeber being like 8 playing Duke Nukem 3D at my Dad's house on the computer, luckly I play it now on my own.
Well I now cannot wait for the Trilogy on PSP.. :)

roushimsx

05-08-2009, 10:12 PM

I didn't really have any problems with Wanton Destruction on my Win98 machine.
I don't get it. You ask for a modern port of Shadow Warrior and then you get critical when I point one out for you.

For what it's worth, I had no problem playing Shadow Warrior and Wanton Destruction through either DosBox or ProAsm's port on my Core 2 Duo E6600 in Windows XP. In a window or full screen (at 1400x1050). While downloading in the background, running a chat client, having winamp paused, with a web browser running two dozen tabs of different web sites (including this forum).

And by no problem, I mean no technical issues. Stomaching the lackluster quality of Shadow Warrior is another issue entirely.

Shadow Warrior WAS released? Guess no one really cared about it, then. I never heard.

Wikipedia check shows that Vivendi bought the Redneck Rampage rights for $300K, then sold it to Blizzard this year. Really, why? The game franchise wasn't popular and they'd probably waste money making a new game. But oh well, it's Bllizard and they're not likely to release even a limited license source code.

You didn't hear anything about it because no one cared and no one cared because Shadow Warrior sucked. The game was in development hell and was quickly finished off by people who weren't even attached to it when it was in primary development. Sometimes that pans out (Alien vs. Predator 2, Team Fortress 2, Prey) and sometimes you wind up with Shadow Warrior and Daikatana.

If it weren't for Sunstorm developing Wanton Destruction and ultimately releasing it a few years ago, the game would be notable only for being such a shitty followup to Duke Nukem 3D. Pretty much everyone worth a damn at the time got sick of the structure at the office and jumped ship. Hell, even some people that came on later (including from places like Sunstorm) have since bailed and wound up working for the offspring of those previous developers.

Wouldn't that be poetic fucking justice if Take 2 got Gearbox to take the job of doing the game? You could be damn sure that there'd be Rebel Boat Rocker references dropped in there.

I really hope Blizzard does something with the Redneck Rampage franchise. It's nice to see it available on GOG (hell, I rebought it on there), but I'm hoping that they secure a development team to produce a new entry in the series. If they could do something to make up for buying up and killing the developer of Metal Arms: Glitch in the System (thus depriving us of any future games from them), that'd just be super.

Push Upstairs

05-08-2009, 11:06 PM

I don't get it. You ask for a modern port of Shadow Warrior and then you get critical when I point one out for you.

No, I said I'd rather have a modern port of SW or Blood more than Duke3D.

Shadow Warrior is a pretty terrible game though. The only thing it has going for it is even lamer jokes than Duke.

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

I love those lame jokes, it is what makes it more awesome than Duke.

roushimsx

05-08-2009, 11:34 PM

I love those lame jokes, it is what makes it more awesome than Duke.
It's a shame that the lame jokes are about all it has going for it. The level, weapon and enemy designs are absolutely garbage.

RARusk

05-08-2009, 11:54 PM

http://duke.a-13.net/

Push Upstairs

05-09-2009, 04:50 AM

It's a shame that the lame jokes are about all it has going for it. The level, weapon and enemy designs are absolutely garbage.

Shadow Warrior has the jokes, Blood has the fun weapons.

I'm gonna have to post a screen cap I took of Blood where I spawned like 20 zombies (in the same spot) and blew them up, only to have their heads stack one on top another 20 high. LOL

I can't get enough of the hairspray flamethrower/firebomb and those different dynamite packs.

roushimsx

05-09-2009, 09:41 AM

Shadow Warrior has the jokes, Blood has the fun weapons.

I'm gonna have to post a screen cap I took of Blood where I spawned like 20 zombies (in the same spot) and blew them up, only to have their heads stack one on top another 20 high. LOL

I can't get enough of the hairspray flamethrower/firebomb and those different dynamite packs.

Blood was awesome as piss. The first episode might be pretty terribly balanced and too cheap for its own good, but episodes 2, 3 and the first half of 4 put even modern games to shame. What a wonderful, wonderful game. What I find even more humorous is that 3DR could have had the rights to Blood but opted to turn them down to focus on Shadow Warrior. Sunstorm's "Cryptic Passage" expansion for Blood is fucking amazing, like their other A-Team expansions.

One of my main reasons for being so heavily interested in Gearbox's new Aliens: Colonial Marines title is that Charlier Wiederhold is an associate producer on the project; he was one of the main mappers on the Sunstorm "A-Team" (Duke it Out in D.C., Duke Caribbean, Cryptic Passage, Sucking Grits on Route 66, Wanton Destruction) and the dude chiefly responsible for releasing the Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior source code. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Poofta!

05-09-2009, 09:58 PM

i just remembered Terminal Velocity by reading the comments here. that game was fucking awesome. so much better than Descent (in my opinion).

as for shadow warrior, im surprised so many people hate it, i loved that freaking game. the jokes, the weapons, the levels. i thought itw as really great. Blood was fun, but only because of the interesting weapons and crazy gore, i hated playing the levels.

roushimsx

05-09-2009, 10:31 PM

i just remembered Terminal Velocity by reading the comments here. that game was fucking awesome. so much better than Descent (in my opinion).
You may want to check out Terminal Reality's followups, Fury 3 and Hellbender. You'd probably also really enjoy Descent 3, as it's pretty much the ultimate version of that sort of game.

Descent I and II were just too damn confusing for their own good sometimes.

Push Upstairs

05-10-2009, 01:26 AM

Blood fun:

http://usera.ImageCave.com/Push_Upstairs/ss000002.jpg

Ed Oscuro

05-10-2009, 04:32 AM

I tried out the first episode of Blood recently-ish. Didn't really like what I saw of the first episode, but hey. Haven't ever touched Shadow Warrior which should amaze me considering what else I've played.

Onto the topic of 3D Realms dead:

Yeah, who'da thunk it.

2009 - the year accounting dreams and schemes died

Somebody at the Shmups Forum made a good point: If they're going to continue development under a different name and with different graphics, they'll be breaking the 3D Realms "a share of the profits for all" creed. I dunno, I just play games ;)

Overbite

05-10-2009, 09:03 AM

Trumpman

05-10-2009, 02:25 PM

One of the animators working on Duke released a demo reel of his work. It's a lot of models animating in the modeling program (cuz it's supposed to show off his animation work) but it's got some Duke footage!

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/316675.html?playlist=featured

Watching that just makes me even more sad and nostalgic. That actually looked fun and it makes me think that they could have actually finished it. Hopefully some other studio will pick this up and finish it. I fired up Duke 3D yesterday for the first time in a while and forgot how much fun it was, even though it is so primitive - you can't aim up and down with the mouse!

roushimsx

05-10-2009, 02:50 PM

I fired up Duke 3D yesterday for the first time in a while and forgot how much fun it was, even though it is so primitive - you can't aim up and down with the mouse!
You have to toggle on mouselook. By default, the toggle key is "U".

That said, vertical aiming is still handled automatically and there's a healthy little autoaim cone, mostly noticeable when using the RPG or when using the flare gun in Blood.

Sonicwolf

05-10-2009, 03:31 PM

Just had to post this:

http://i.a-13.net/slash000_fudigg.jpg

I wonder if he can now get a refund? LOL

I was only 11 years old when he preordered that...

The 1 2 P

05-10-2009, 06:57 PM

I wonder if he can now get a refund? LOL

You bring up a good point. From now on when someone at Gamestop tries to get me to preorder a game I'm going to tell them that I'm still waiting on my Duke Nukem Forever preorder. That should keep them quiet.....for a few seconds.

Poofta!

05-10-2009, 07:23 PM

One of the animators working on Duke released a demo reel of his work. It's a lot of models animating in the modeling program (cuz it's supposed to show off his animation work) but it's got some Duke footage!

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/316675.html?playlist=featured

holy shit that looked awesome. i am so much sadder now ={

Watching that just makes me even more sad and nostalgic. That actually looked fun and it makes me think that they could have actually finished it. Hopefully some other studio will pick this up and finish it. I fired up Duke 3D yesterday for the first time in a while and forgot how much fun it was, even though it is so primitive - you can't aim up and down with the mouse!

yes there was mouse aim/look. in fact Duke3d was the game that pioneered the mouse/keyboard interface for FPSs. (and if it wasnt the first, it was definitely the first-best)

Gamebrain

05-10-2009, 07:33 PM

Its a damn shame to see 3DR go. No matter what you think about Duke Forever, Duke 3D was one of the best games I've ever played. So much fun, and its a shame that we'll never actually get to play DNF.

I really feel bad for all the people who worked on the game. 13 years to only end like this.

makaar

05-11-2009, 03:07 AM

Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, and Shadow Warrior are still some of my favorite old-school FPSs ever...that and Dark Forces 1-2...any JK vets on here? Haha (off-topic but good times regardless)

ProgrammingAce

05-11-2009, 03:46 AM

yes there was mouse aim/look. in fact Duke3d was the game that pioneered the mouse/keyboard interface for FPSs. (and if it wasnt the first, it was definitely the first-best)

I don't know about best, Quake did it much better. Duke wasn't designed to have mouselook, the entire game was designed to be played on a 2D plane. There's a weird bug in Duke3D due to how it handles the exceptionally large POV and camera rotations where looking up or down while turning creates a weird parabolic effect. I know it makes a some people motion sick. Strangely, they didn't fix it for the XBLA re-release. Though, i guess that's what you get for using a 2D engine to make a 3D game, the matrix translations (the cause of the issue) don't work since everything is technically 2D. If you want to read up on the issue, the technique is called "Perspective Correction".

j_factor

05-11-2009, 04:52 AM

I don't know about best, Quake did it much better. Duke wasn't designed to have mouselook, the entire game was designed to be played on a 2D plane. There's a weird bug in Duke3D due to how it handles the exceptionally large POV and camera rotations where looking up or down while turning creates a weird parabolic effect. I know it makes a some people motion sick. Strangely, they didn't fix it for the XBLA re-release. Though, i guess that's what you get for using a 2D engine to make a 3D game, the matrix translations (the cause of the issue) don't work since everything is technically 2D. If you want to read up on the issue, the technique is called "Perspective Correction".

How odd that the XBLA version doesn't fix the issue. The issue isn't present in the Saturn version, because they ported the game to a different engine (Slavedriver), which was fully 3D.

As for mouselook, I thought Marathon was the first to use it, but perhaps I'm mistaken.

roushimsx

05-11-2009, 06:44 AM

I don't know about best, Quake did it much better.
By first-best, I'm sure he means that it's the first one to effectively implement mlook instead of using it in some horribly botched fashion where mouse forward/mouse back were used for forward and backward movement, making otherwise simple maneuvers like effectively circle strafing a pain in the ass. Playing through Powerslave a few months ago on PC made me appreciate the later build engine releases that much more.

I've never had a problem with the perspective correction in Duke3D, really. They limit the amount of yaw to decrease the distortion effect (I'm sure if they allowed full on 100% mlook then it'd be pretty funky looking), but the modern polymost engine really does kick a large amount of ass.

The Saturn version was a lot of fun, but the lack of a manual crouch option made it a hell of a lot harder. In the PC version, you could dodge shots if you ducked at the right time, making E1M3 a hell of a lot more manageable when you haven't got any weapons (not to mention being able to use those benches for cover in the execution viewing room). You really had to work the circle strafing hard in the game, but it turned out pretty ok since they decreased things like the numbers of mini battlelords throughout the game (I think there were only two?). Good fucking god did Eurocom ruin Duke Nukem 64 by overusing them all over the place.