So what the hell went wrong? Why did it take 15 years to get

Whoa shit, I've actually got that exact same magazine in a box in my parents' attic (assuming it wasn't thrown out.)

Also DNF was already in development for at least a year when this mag came out, possibly two.

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They don't actually spend 15 years making the game. Like Team Fortress 2 and Doom 4, they keep scrapping it over and over.

>>3033236
This, they insisted on using the newest and prettiest engine available and since the textures and models for the older engine didn't look good enough, it was start over from scratch.

>>3033208
They spread themselves out, yet they poured themselves into the FPS bandwaggon, also trying to do really radical stuff with Prey.

They also had some of their room for growth cut off with the release of Outlaws, Duke to Shadow Warrior was a smooth progression, but where were they supposed to go from there?

Also, Ken Silverman had some sort of breakdown.

>>3033236
Imagine, there might be a vault full of scrapped DNF builds.

They must have started running low on creative juice, partly due to that excessive focus on 3d shooters, made worse by how they dropped ROTT, which was an unusually creative shooter.

Having gotten so invested into platformers must have also been debilitating, with how awkward a genre for PCs that is.

The vulnerability of the shareware model probably contributed much too. Combined with how they were after all just a small company.

>>3033236
>>3033242
That's still development hell, guys. It's one of the best examples of it, actually.

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>>3033257
At least we got to see one of them. It's a shame really because this cancelled version is acceptable during its time. The longer you wait, the more you have to scrap and standards move up at the same time. The photo textures look pretty cool, for that time.

>>3033257
Damn, at least two not-quite-as-lamedukes, one with the original engine, and one with the quake2 or unreal engine, if not both hence at least three!

>>3033208
>448 pages
Holy shit. I don't think I've ever seen a magazine that thick. The thickest I've seen was about 150-160 pages. Did that issue really have 448 pages?

>>3033267
There was a "vault" of Duke 3D builds that we were supposed to see... That is, until Interceptor decided to keep dragging their feet on it until legal decisions resulted in them no longer being able to do anything with Duke or something like that. There might still be YouTube footage of one of the builds.

RIP old versions of Duke 3D.

>>3033208
wut, it was released?!

>>3034076
hopes and dreams crushed in

3

2

1

>>3033964
PC gamers back then where high test and demanded the thickest

>>3033208
>PC Gamer
>then: remember them shitting on the Dreamcast in the letters column. Pure, misplaced virgin-autistic hate that only an omega PC elitist could produce.
>They did love Virtua Tennis though and considered it the only console game they would ever touch.

>PC Gamer
>Now: Not worthy of being makeshift toilet paper.
>Dreamcast is universally beloved.

Like poetry

>>3033964
Attic-anon here.

You have to understand that at least 200 of those pages are ads or native advertising. There's a 14-page article on how to assemble your own killer rig that is essentially several shopping lists worth of information. PC Gamer was more interested in talking about rigs and performance than actual games - that's what the CD was for.

The reviews are like a single page and boiled to them saying Resident Evil was hot garbage because it doesn't work with every single 3D card, notably the reviewer's preferred rig so he whines about having to play it on his less beefy backup rig.

Where the fuck did rig come from?
Like a decade ago people weren't using this shit.
I can only guess it got hopped on from retarded people becoming "gamers" from having MMOs as what they "play" with "skill".

>>3034151
>Like a decade ago people weren't using this shit.

Who cares what 2006 was calling it?

I can assure you that people were using the term rig in the Quake 1 days.

>>3034174
Before 2006 people were shitting on retards bothering to use it. You could see people posting oil rigs or trucks on this site during that time as well. Hell even people hopping on Crysis were shitting on it.

>>3034195
You are delusional.

>>3034219
The post numbers involved were lower than what you see now on this board. Been pretty specific for delusions and what Anons considered cancer.

>>3034195
I don't give a shit about what retards on 4chan were saying in 2006, I'm just fucking telling you what's on the inside of that magazine and it's a article about building "killer rigs."

Do you want to discuss either the magazine or DNF's hellacious development cycle or are you just here to revise history so you can show off to all 6 of us in this thread?

>>3034262
If there's one thing this site does decently, it's complain about influences relevant to them at the time. Terms from "years ago" aren't going to get images mocking them in line with their active topics. I don't doubt ad based pages in a mag, but I will doubt "rigs".

>>3034293
Well then we're both just going to have to disagree because I know I'm right and you think you know you're right.

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Behold the true savior of humanity.

Even mighty DUKE failed to compete.

Only two micro-issues remaining.

>>3033208
Some guys make DNF on old Build engine, if I'm not wrong.

I'm going to repost a question here that I askedin the doom thread because no one there wants to talk about anything other than doom

Just discovered the existence of and played Dukes Penthouse Paradise. Are there other maps like this? Explicitly intended to be lewd? I just want to drink beer and kill aliens while my dick is hard.

Also I guess cause this is a duke thread, general good map/episode discussion?

>>3035474
holy fuck thanks for reminding me of this hahaha. Loved that shit when I was a teenager.

>>3035474
> I just want to drink beer and kill aliens while my dick is hard.

I didn't know Duke himself posted here

>>3034293
You'll doubt people were using the term rigs, when there's printed articles from the mid-ninties using it?

This is a new low.

>>3034129
>>Dreamcast is universally beloved.

Huh? I don't get that impression whenever I leave /vr/.

>>3033208
Slacker gamedev here.


When you're making something like a game, it's a lot like making a house from the ground up. If you build the house lopsided, forgot to make a foundation, thought about adding a new room right when all of the walls were up, or learned that floods happen a lot if your house isn't tall enough, you need to either rebuild it or do a hack job of finishing. For every new change or feature you have to tear apart the current product to make it fit, which takes time (and in the game industry, money). When you get more ambitious than what you can deliver, development limbo happens.

It's the achilles heel of creating content (unless you know how to properly sequel your content).

Also I'm just playing the eduke mod based on the trailers for duke forever. This fucking motorcycle is great. I need more duke mods with vehicle sections

>>3035576
The only reason I don't play it is it hurts my hands.

>>3034130
The hardware section was just a small portion of the magazine, likely more meticulously done than the rest, but still a limited bit.

Obsessing about performance? You mean how they gave recommended specifications for each game, and said that they tested each game on many systems? Is that supposed to be a con?

Yeah, they had tons of adds, wasn't that kind of common?

Are you counting the previews as adds?

They had a bit of drama too, with jack-in-the-box cheeseburgers and crap like that.

>>3035854
Now before I refute anything here, I need you to clarify if you're talking specifically about this particular issue of PC Gamer.

>>3033261
This is what happens when the whole of the late 90s was just yearly leaps and bounds of engines and graphics, unless you were the ones creating the engines you were always a year behind

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>>3035880
No, but I do remember reading a few extra thick ones, including that one.

They did have those editorialish columns too, which could get quite weird, like the baldur's-gate-a-thon article.

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>>3035880
>>3035897
>starfleet academy
They did have certain glaring perspectives, like, right there, how they loved star wars games, and fount star trek games to be a jarring contrast to that.

They also did some somewhat bizarre things, even in reviews, like going into an anguished frenzy over Headgames titles
>system requirement: pentium-<something>
>we recommend: aspirin

Switching game engines when you have a good chunk of game developed isn't a good idea, let alone doing it 3 times.

>>3034076
As one of the worst games of it's time. It's the mosy radically unfun shooter I had played in years.

>>3035907
>Win a job at Ion Storm!
Kek

>>3034293
You are retarded

>>3033208
Do you think it was censured because the main protagonist is a badass white guy even with blond hair?

>>3036536
What?

>>3033265
>It's a shame really because this cancelled version is acceptable during its time.

The E3 2001 demo was not acceptable, it was jaw droppingly incredible. Too bad it was all scripted and not real gameplay.

>>3036649
Illiterate shit-stirrer. Just ignore him.

>>3035589
Webcoder here. Not sure exactly how shit goes with developing games, but we also have what you describe, and it's the reason why I code every single thing in a way so it also works in 1-2 other ways that you aren't supposed to use it as, or has some extra perk that might be useful, or works with an entirely different data type, etc. Usually it's just checking for a few extra "why-would-you-do-that" type of conditions in advance and applying the appropriate formatting.

This saves an AMAZING amount of time when the inevitable changes come along.

Clarke's second law is possibly the most useful advice ever when it comes to coding.

In the "official" history of DNF making, development started in the Quake engine.

This is true, in the sense that "Duke Nukem Forever" started in the Quake engine, but before that started, some of their devs were already working on "the FPS sequel to Duke Nukem 3D which doesn't have a name yet".
At first they started development with what they had: the Build Engine.
They kept buffing up the engine to the point that technically, they could do almost as much as with Quake (just differently). I quote of the devs of that time "we had as much True Room Over Room as the computers could handle".

Between that and 3D models (already present in Shadow Warrior or Blood), we can dream a picture of what DNF could have been had they sticked to Build. Honestly, I believe they should have done that; a DNF in Build that's to DN3D what Doom 2 is to Doom, or Rides Again In Arkansas is to the original Redneck Rampage; except with a much bigger technical gap with engine improvements.

Honestly, they have 'their' own licenced engine they can keep improving, choosing to go for Quake was already the start of starting the game over.

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>>3033208
That looks more like Chris Evans.

>>3036703
The game started as a 2D platformer which got turned into Alien Rampage.

>>3035589
Yeah, they should've definitely sacrificed some of their plans for DNF just to get it out on time. You just can't have everything.

>>3034076
Yeah, in 2011. It's a pretty mediocre shooter, only saved from complete failure by the ever legendary Duke-humor and Jon St. John returning as Duke's voice. Also, the monster truck ride was fun.

>>3036886
I point to it when people complain about "modern shooters" and I say "DNF is exactly what you wanted; unapologetic violence, crudeness, and tons of guns, and you HATED it!"

>>3036901
Yeah honestly, I liked the DNF we got.
In most ways it is to modern shooters what DN3D was to Doom...

... just with one huge difference : DN3D was inovative, impressive, ahead of its time. DNF was none of that and on the contrary, felt a little dated.

>>3038696
I had never played a 'modern' shooter, the last one I played before DNF was HL2.

With that in mind DNF was pretty interesting, because all of the stale mechanics it incorporates were still new to me. I actually had a good time with it. The humor was somehow even lower brow this time, but I mean, modernization and all.

But you're right, in that it felt like a huge step back. As opposed to D3D's secret heavy open ended level design, DNF had linear setpiece levels (and personally I thought there was way way too much vehicle section bullshit). Even Manhattan Project had better level design.

>>3036886
>It's a pretty mediocre shooter,
I honestly thought it was incredibly awful.

>only saved from complete failure by the ever legendary Duke-humor and Jon St. John returning as Duke's voice.
It was fun hearing new Duke lines, but it's all tarnished by how the game is an atrocity.

>Also, the monster truck ride was fun.

I felt it kind of steered like shit and would probably have been a more stimulating sequence on foot.
But then I remember I absolutely hate the combat and it was probably better this way.

>>3036901
>"DNF is exactly what you wanted; unapologetic violence, crudeness, and tons of guns, and you HATED it!"
Because it was so badly done.
It tries to appeal to the oldschool shooter in some ways, but does it horribly, and tries to appeal to the modern shooter at the same time, which it does even worse, so it does both terribly.
There's lots of guns, but you only carry two at a time. There's violence but most of it isn't particularly satisfying, there's crudeness and titties but it feels less like it's there for fun and more like it's to distract me from how the gameplay and level design is bad.

>>3038696
>felt a little dated
By far the least of it's sins.

>>3038903
>because all of the stale mechanics it incorporates were still new to me
The regen health and carry limit was pretty stale, but mainly because it was done in the worst way possible.
There are better ways to do those than the colladoodie model.

>But you're right, in that it felt like a huge step back.
I think that's what hurts the most for me, because Duke 3D is an amazing game, one of the best FPS of it's era, lots of love and attention to detail went into it.

And then DNF was a long, drawn out mess that eventually was hurriedly cobbled together into a lazy modern cookie cutter shooter.
But I can't even call it that either because literally two dudes were hired to take what existed of the current builds and turn it into a finished product in a hurry. I honestly feel sorry for them.

>be a shitty egdy 13yo
>buy the duke nukem soundtrack
>discover the hidden bit of art behind the CD holder
>its duke partying with a bunch of big titty bitches
My teenage penis had never been so happy

>>3033964
That was pretty common with gaming mags around the holiday season.

>>3036901
>tons of guns
You could only carry 2 guns in DNF while you could carry like 10 in DN3D.

>>3040071
Exactly, if you find a Shrinker, you can save it and slowly gather ammo, then save it for a time where it would be useful or fun.

In DNF, you find a Shrinker, and you only have the opportunity to use your 10 designated rays NOW, you can't save them for a later point, because you need to alternate between two more generally useful guns at all other times, or else the combat will flow worse than it already does.

Oh, and combat is terrible. In 3D when you run into an enemy, it's completely up to you on how to handle him.
In DNF, pretty much every fight is an instance where you're herded into an arena, and there's only the guns you have available HERE that you're really allowed to use.
You can't really choose between running from cover to cover or running out and about because Duke has no cardio anymore and gets winded if he runs for like 3 seconds, you're stuck hiding behind things more than half the time because the enemy has perfect aim at any time and if you're exposed for even slightly too long you get too hurt and Duke has to go back into cover and wait for his health to regen.

DNF railroads you so fucking hard, it's disgusting, you can't use any strategy beyond the one currently available, and resource management is basically non-existent.

>>3040071
I heard the PC version of DNF was patched to carry more guns but I doubt it'd change much if the level design was based around the two weapon limit.

>>3041462
They released a patch for PC to let you carry four weapons, after launch. Literally too little, too late.
It was not released on consoles either, so it's 100% moot, because players would have removed the carry limit on PC on launch day.

Seriously fuck Gearbox and fuck Randy.

They wanted to ship a game that looked like those being put out by bigger companies with more talent. Rather than being content with releasing something that looked dated before it was even out the door (as Duke 3D did), they were insistant that the next Duke game had to be technologically current.

The problem was, they didn't have the talent/manpower to develop the game fast enough, and every time they saw their tech had fallen behind, rather than continuing on an outdated engine, they switched to the new one and started over.

They started over at -least- 3 times.

It's not that it took 15 years to make Duke Nukem Forever. It's that it took 15 years to say 'fuck it, whatever, lets just ship it'.

It's most likely George Broussard's fault.