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How much damage has lack of multiplayer and general IP incompetence caused?

User is offline   pacman 

#1

When I look at Doom I see a vibrant community of new maps, mods, and servers filled with people all the time. Just take a look at the doomworld forums.

It's sad looking at Duke 3D not being near as active, when it had way more potential. The lack of multiplayer I claim has caused massive damage in keeing an alive community. This coupled with moronic re-releases of the same thing a million times throught Steam confusing people has helped in keeping playerbase count low.

Imagine if we had a bunch of multiplayer coop and DM servers, even CTF and other custom modes, with actual people playing. The incentive to create maps and mods and keep improving the game would arise naturally. We would also have better tools, like the awesome Doom Builder 2, better ports, more possibilities.

So the question is: How much damage has it cause, where would be today if things were different, and who is responsible for the disaster?

This post has been edited by pacman: 10 November 2018 - 05:04 PM

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User is offline   Forge 

  • Speaker of the Outhouse

#2

The single-player & modding community has been at odds with the Dukematch community since near the beginning.

If DM were a viable thing, there would be two separate communities (with a few people as crossovers that enjoy both & can live without talking trash 24/7).

At least that's the way I remember it. You kids get offa my lawn!!!!

What killed the Duke community imo was DNF. Specifically, the lack of modding tools.

This community used to be a lot bigger than it is now. After DNF, those people who were hanging on & looking forward to it mostly disappeared. The game itself was mediocre, the best part, from what I hear, was the dukematch. So that by itself shouldn't have killed the community. The lack of fresh & frequently injected user-made material is what made everyone move on.

This post has been edited by Forge: 10 November 2018 - 05:23 PM

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User is offline   Hank 

#3

to OP

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Doom is Doom, with a huge following. Duke 3D, stood out with its antics and perverted imagery, at first. As for multi player, it was excellent, for things like, balance of health and ammo, but dude, anyone can copy this, after 20 years of it's existence, into more popular games.

Thus I say, Doom had Doom II, Doom III etc; 3D Realms simply gave 0 instead. Thus it may simply lack the motivation of talents to bring Multi-Play into the current OPs
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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#4

View Postpacman, on 10 November 2018 - 05:01 PM, said:

The lack of multiplayer I claim has caused massive damage in keeing an alive community.

That may be true but the multiplayer ship has already sailed back in the 90s. Quake happened and Duke 3D blew it out of the water in terms of single player but when it comes to MP Quake was huge back then. That game created esports in the West, it's a fucking titan and that stopped Duke 3D from getting a truly substantial multiplayer community.

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 10 November 2018 - 05:34 PM

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User is offline   OpenMaw 

  • Judge Mental

#5

That's not true.

Duke 3D HAD a HUGE multiplayer community.

John Romero said it himself, Duke 3D had the best cooperative experience of any of the first person shooters of it's day. It was a fucking riot.
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User is offline   VGA 

#6

Doom is simpler and easier to map for. The wad/pk3 system makes it more user-friendly to load several mods at the same time, too.

There have also been several good map editors and nowadays there are two forks of Doom Builder that are just amazing and you can map for several Doom engine games. What tools do the Build engine games have?

Build engine is clunky, the speedruns of the games are a joke compared to Doom.

Doom engine with framerate interpolation is smooth and fluid, eduke32 took millenia to improve the mouselook accuracy, it was only fixed some months ago and probably because of Ion Maiden. Physics are clunky, a door can end you.

Doom doesn't have much of a story and doesn't rely on gimmicks or stupid jokes, it's fast, arcadey, dance-around-projectiles fun. It has a speedrunning community, it has single-player modding communities in Doomworld and ZDoom forums, it has multiplayer communities in Zandronum and ZDaemon, it has Brutal Doom fanatics, it is playable everywhere... For example, did you know you could use Delta Touch on your Android phone and play anything you want, like for example the Retribution mod, which is basically a bad-ass enhanced Doom 64 port to the GZDoom engine?

There are at least 10 actively developed Doom source ports. Anyway, multiplayer is not the reason the Duke3D community is smaller, there are so many other reasons!
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User is offline   pacman 

#7

View PostVGA, on 10 November 2018 - 08:15 PM, said:

Doom is simpler and easier to map for. The wad/pk3 system makes it more user-friendly to load several mods at the same time, too.

There have also been several good map editors and nowadays there are two forks of Doom Builder that are just amazing and you can map for several Doom engine games. What tools do the Build engine games have?

Build engine is clunky, the speedruns of the games are a joke compared to Doom.

Doom engine with framerate interpolation is smooth and fluid, eduke32 took millenia to improve the mouselook accuracy, it was only fixed some months ago and probably because of Ion Maiden. Physics are clunky, a door can end you.

Doom doesn't have much of a story and doesn't rely on gimmicks or stupid jokes, it's fast, arcadey, dance-around-projectiles fun. It has a speedrunning community, it has single-player modding communities in Doomworld and ZDoom forums, it has multiplayer communities in Zandronum and ZDaemon, it has Brutal Doom fanatics, it is playable everywhere... For example, did you know you could use Delta Touch on your Android phone and play anything you want, like for example the Retribution mod, which is basically a bad-ass enhanced Doom 64 port to the GZDoom engine?

There are at least 10 actively developed Doom source ports. Anyway, multiplayer is not the reason the Duke3D community is smaller, there are so many other reasons!


I agree, but my point is that if you have viable multiplayer, the incentive to create content to play online with your friends is higher. Doom had viable multiplayer since ages ago. I remember I played coop and DM on ZDaemon and that is why I started creating my wads to host them and play with friends online. So scale that and you get more people involved in content creation/improving ports.

Btw speaking of Delta Touch, im interested if someone has Magic Dosbox could you try this? https://forums.duke4...n-magic-dosbox/

This post has been edited by pacman: 10 November 2018 - 08:48 PM

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User is offline   Forge 

  • Speaker of the Outhouse

#8

View Postpacman, on 10 November 2018 - 08:46 PM, said:

I agree, but my point is that if you have viable multiplayer, the incentive to create content to play online with your friends is higher.

DNF multiplayer was supposedly good, but you can only DM in the same maps so many times before you get tired of looking at them. The lack of any mapping tool killed this game & the community that stuck around for so long waiting on it.

This post has been edited by Forge: 10 November 2018 - 10:02 PM

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User is offline   NNC 

#9

Duke community is still more alive than any other retro FPS game community Doom aside.

The utter douche-ness of the devs from Broussard to Pitchlord made the decline.
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User is offline   Kathy 

#10

After a massive Doom success id Software remained very active and released several good games whose communities overlapped with Doom's. I'm not sure if Doom would be that popular today had id never released its sequel and all other games. They kept the momentum going, and community massively grew because of that.

DNF could have brought some of that momentum back, had it been successful and mod-friendly.
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User is offline   Maisth 

#11

I think more than DNF's lack of modding tools killing the community It was the lack of sequel in a short span of time, Doom 1 had a sequel 1 year later, which only made modding for the game much more viable since not only you would get an active community, you got the support from the devs.

Though my other guess is that since Doom came in 93 and Duke3D in 96, that's a difference of 3 years between Doom and Duke3D's modding scene, and since Doom was a big deal back then, my guess is that it gathered a much wider audience than Duke3D ever did.
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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#12

View PostKathy, on 11 November 2018 - 06:54 AM, said:

After a massive Doom success id Software remained very active and released several good games whose communities overlapped with Doom's. I'm not sure if Doom would be that popular today had id never released its sequel and all other games. They kept the momentum going, and community massively grew because of that.

That's very true: id managed to build on what they had while 3D Realms licensed out Duke for mediocre TPS console titles (even as a kid that bothered the fuck out of me as a PC gamer, any developer that does that with a PC franchise can suck it in my opinion). After Doom Quake blew up like nothing before in the multiplayer scene but instead of sitting on that success they doubled down on it with Q2 and Q3.

Really if you look at it the problem is that 3DR never really managed their communities or the Duke IP well: Duke 3D had some momentum, it had a multiplayer community that was big enough even if it was overshadowed tremendously by Quake (but hey, what wasn't?) but 3DR just let it die instead of releasing new stuff.

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 11 November 2018 - 09:27 AM

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User is online   Phredreeke 

#13

3DR didn't expect to take 14 years developing DNF, they expected a development cycle like DN3D and for 3rd party games and expansions to fill the void in between.
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User is offline   Kathy 

#14

View PostZaxx, on 11 November 2018 - 09:26 AM, said:

Really if you look at it the problem is that 3DR never really managed their communities or the Duke IP well: Duke 3D had some momentum, it had a multiplayer community that was big enough even if it was overshadowed tremendously by Quake (but hey, what wasn't?) but 3DR just let it die instead of releasing new stuff.

Because Duke Nukem 3d, simply put, was a fluke.
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User is offline   Forge 

  • Speaker of the Outhouse

#15

This forum has 4,286 members.

If you delete all the accounts that went dead after 2011/2, the current membership probably wouldn't even be half that number.

This post has been edited by Forge: 11 November 2018 - 12:52 PM

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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#16

View PostKathy, on 11 November 2018 - 10:18 AM, said:

Because Duke Nukem 3d, simply put, was a fluke.

:rolleyes: Yeah, they were like "Oh shit, we made it, now what should we do? BLEEEEEEEUUH!"
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User is offline   Sanek 

#17

Multiplayer is one way to keep the community alive, but I think that it's all up to the developer's support of the servers/network things and general news about IP. Duke3D is one of the games that was tied with TEN network, and it's closure was one of the reasons that MP sucked. How long 3DR supported the MP anyway?
There's lots of Duke Nukem games on consloles and other devices, so the franchise remained popular enough for like 10 years after DN3D's release. But after Manhattan Project there's not much games with Duke to talk about. The number of new releases started to drop rapidly. The guys who's visiting forums is the same guys who played the game back in the 90s, they're the Duke fans for life, and there's simply not enough interest in the franchise for the new generation.
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User is offline   Forge 

  • Speaker of the Outhouse

#18

View PostSanek, on 11 November 2018 - 11:54 AM, said:

How long 3DR supported the MP anyway?

if you mean the TEN network, until towards the end of 1999.
Duke3d was "supported", or at least the community was encouraged to keep active, until the original 3dr closed it's doors & forum back in '09.
Most everyone migrated here. Still with hype and hope that DNF would get finished, now that it had new developers & publishers.
So much talk about how many cool maps people were going to make based off of what they seen in trailers & sneak-peaks.
So much disappointment the day it was released with no tools.
So much more disappointment that the game couldn't even live up to tempered hype after being in development hell for so many years.
So many accounts abandoned.

This post has been edited by Forge: 11 November 2018 - 01:06 PM

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User is offline   NNC 

#19

Maybe even the devs were surprised by the game's success. Like someone who accidentally does something right. But when he tries to replicate, the product will be a failure. Like one hit wonder bands. Broussard tried and tried and tried, and then had given up. But at least he should have helped the community, it doesn't need talent, just some decent behaviour.

It was a huge mistake BTW they didn't release another Build Duke game. Like Doom II or RRRA. With 3 more episodes and many new monsters, it would have been huge.
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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#20

View PostNancsi, on 11 November 2018 - 02:45 PM, said:

It was a huge mistake BTW they didn't release another Build Duke game. Like Doom II or RRRA. With 3 more episodes and many new monsters, it would have been huge.

Hey, we got Nuclear Winter, the best expansion pack ever made!
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User is online   Phredreeke 

#21

I think that's sort of wishful thinking. None of the Build games that followed DN3D ever got as big as Duke. A Build Duke 3D sequel would likely have been received the same way.
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User is offline   necroslut 

#22

View PostNancsi, on 11 November 2018 - 02:45 PM, said:

Maybe even the devs were surprised by the game's success. Like someone who accidentally does something right. But when he tries to replicate, the product will be a failure. Like one hit wonder bands. Broussard tried and tried and tried, and then had given up. But at least he should have helped the community, it doesn't need talent, just some decent behaviour.

It was a huge mistake BTW they didn't release another Build Duke game. Like Doom II or RRRA. With 3 more episodes and many new monsters, it would have been huge.


View PostPhredreeke, on 11 November 2018 - 03:51 PM, said:

I think that's sort of wishful thinking. None of the Build games that followed DN3D ever got as big as Duke. A Build Duke 3D sequel would likely have been received the same way.

Yeah, the Build engine just looked too dated after Quake and Quake II. Nobody bought Redneck Rampage Rides Again. Not that many people even bought Shadow Warrior, which was a great and unique game.
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User is offline   Micky C 

  • Honored Donor

#23

View PostNancsi, on 11 November 2018 - 02:45 PM, said:

It was a huge mistake BTW they didn't release another Build Duke game. Like Doom II or RRRA. With 3 more episodes and many new monsters, it would have been huge.


The Build engine was already kind of outdated when Duke game out, thanks to Quake. It would have been too late to start work on another Duke game from scratch on that engine, and the assets would have been outdated if they’d reused them. Expansion packs were probably the right move overall.

They already tried another build game with Shadow Warrior, which had started development in 1994(?). They revised it heavily to be much more like Duke Nukem, such that it was basically Asian Duke, however it was nowhere near as big. Sure, it might have been bigger if Duke was the star, but that much bigger?

3DR tried making a superior game in Shadow Warrior using what they thought were great ideas, and they failed overall. They might very well have failed with a new Duke Build engine game.
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User is offline   pacman 

#24

I still claim no MP does massive damage to keeping retro games like this alive. If at least eDuke32 had solid multiplayer like ZDaemon/Zandronum on Doom, we would have some more people around. It is simply insane we still don't have solid MP. Me and my friends would be playing coop a lot with custom maps and would even go back to finding some time for mapping, and im sure others feel the same. It just feels lonely mapping for strictly SP because you know there's no proper MP to bother with coop support on your map.
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User is online   Phredreeke 

#25

Download eduke32-oldmp?
-1

User is online   Danukem 

  • Duke Plus Developer

#26

After extensive analysis, I have calculated the answer to the question posed in the thread title. Lack of multiplayer has caused 17 points of damage and general IP incompetence has caused 53 points of damage.
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User is offline   Forge 

  • Speaker of the Outhouse

#27

View PostTrooper Dan, on 11 November 2018 - 08:06 PM, said:

After extensive analysis, I have calculated the answer to the question posed in the thread title. Lack of multiplayer has caused 17 points of damage and general IP incompetence has caused 53 points of damage.

Now we have to build an even greater computer than you to get the actual question.

This post has been edited by Forge: 11 November 2018 - 09:47 PM

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User is offline   oasiz 

  • Dr. Effector

#28

You might disagree but I sense quite a bit of misguided entitlement here and I can't just sit idle.

So you basically created this to complain about Duke3D MP and bridged that to eduke32 not having MP.
And you're kind of implying here that it's the fault of eduke32 devs that there is no doom-like MP available and that further ties to your first post with a quite disrespectful "who is responsible for this disaster".

If it was that simple to get a stable MP, you'd have it a long time ago. It's not something that's being held back and devs have simply been procrastinating for years, focusing on other matters instead because they don't care. It takes a competent coder who knows the engine inside-out, and I really mean it. Duke/Build is a completely different beast to the Doom engine in terms of complexity. DOS Era p2p netcode does work but is quite trash honestly, with many limitations. It has to be rewritten. However you can still play oldmp, which does have a good implementation of it, but it does come with downsides due to the implementation. Still a lot of fun.

Trust me, the leads devs really really really want to have MP working and there has been a lot of stuff behind the scenes but it's really not that simple to implement.
You could do a "baby version" which cuts a lot of mechanics from the engine in order for MP to work but that's not duke anymore either, and people will soon ask why co-op or custom maps / mod X doesn't work etc.. Not really a solution and I'm sure you can agree there.
They are very aware of MP and how important it is but wanting and knowing these things is not enough. Thing is, getting someone competent who wants to touch the code is HARD. Even during Duke's prime time we had nobody really step up and do a proper implementation so it's not really any easier with a smaller pool of interested fans who can code.

I think it's very unfair to claim such things when the code is open and anyone is free to fork it and code their own implementation on the latest sources. Not to mention that we are still getting active support for a 10+ year old port by people who do this on their spare time.
I.e. Striker decided to take matters to his own hands with oldmp improvements (with h266's code as base) and try to do his best on getting MP up and running. It's quite playable and you should perhaps try it out.
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User is offline   NNC 

#29

View PostMicky C, on 11 November 2018 - 04:35 PM, said:

The Build engine was already kind of outdated when Duke game out, thanks to Quake. It would have been too late to start work on another Duke game from scratch on that engine, and the assets would have been outdated if they’d reused them. Expansion packs were probably the right move overall.

They already tried another build game with Shadow Warrior, which had started development in 1994(?). They revised it heavily to be much more like Duke Nukem, such that it was basically Asian Duke, however it was nowhere near as big. Sure, it might have been bigger if Duke was the star, but that much bigger?

3DR tried making a superior game in Shadow Warrior using what they thought were great ideas, and they failed overall. They might very well have failed with a new Duke Build engine game.


I think SW failed because the asian theme had less appeal, and the leveldesign wasn't as good as in Duke. Also there were some unfair combat elements, the riot gun was very weak for example, and some enemies were way too tough or fast. In the second level you are already fighting with deadly red ninjas and coolies in tight areas. Not to mention the rippers later on. The shadow ninja appears in the first level.
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User is offline   Daedolon 

  • Ancient Blood God

#30

View Postnecroslut, on 11 November 2018 - 04:33 PM, said:

Nobody bought Redneck Rampage Rides Again.


Citation needed, I still have my receipt.
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