[EliasCamber]

Thanks for the info @mr-edit and @Player Lin!

Thanks for the tips, I really enjoyed playing through the extra levels! You're right, some are obliviously incomplete, but there's actually some really good level design here, for instance the parking garage level or the shipping container level. I was also excited to find two new enemies (Brute and Executioner) as well as two new music tracks (on E2L8 and E2L9). It's a shame they didn't manage to complete these, adding some of them to the campaign would have helped make the game feel a lot more satisfying.

My only lingering question is, after having played through all the levels, there's still two enemies listed in the manual I don't recall ever encountering: The Zoid and the Hellion. Do you recall which levels (if any) these appeared in?

[MrFlibble]

BTW, I was watching that YouTube channel with obscure FPS games and the guy has a generally favourable opinion of MARS 3D:
https://youtu.be/Eknuq_nuJuY?t=1940

[NightFright]

Question to the guys who made the release: Would it be ok now for me to post the ISO in public? Since this was only a limited sale and no more profit can be gained, personally I don't see any obstacles here.

[Player Lin]

 NightFright, on 08 February 2020 - 02:29 AM, said:

Question to the guys who made the release: Would it be ok now for me to post the ISO in public? Since this was only a limited sale and no more profit can be gained, personally I don't see any obstacles here.

mr-edit did posted this...

 mr-edit, on 25 May 2019 - 06:45 AM, said:

It's not planned, but surely one of the 100 who got a copy makes an ISO or something.

So I guess this means it's fine?

[NightFright]

Alright. After all this time I wasn't sure if it had been forgotten or it simply hadn't been done yet. I also didn't consider this an explicit permission actually, rather an expectation.

[mr-edit]

There are 9 copy’s in stock. If all copy’s sold it’s not a problem to publish this version.

[NightFright]

Fair enough, then. Just keep advertising it and notify us here once all copies are gone.

[mr-edit]

I will do that @NightFright
Many people fill out the order form, but then they don't answer to the information mail. That's sad, otherwise all copies would be taken.

[mr-edit]

Hi everybody.

after LGR made a new video with an mention from the MARS 3D community release
my mail account explode! Now are all copies are sold out.

In the next weeks i will upload an free iso image of the game under the
website: http://www.mars3d-game.tk

So everyone can try the game in the translated version.
But i haven't so much webspace. it would be good if someone else could host the iso too.
I would then put the link on the website on it.

Thanks to all people they buyed this big box. It takes a long time, but
now this community release campaign is completed.

EDIT:
i forgot to say: i still have a lot of cd roms left. If anyone is interested, contact me.
I will send this in a normal letter just for the shipping cost. It's just the CD-ROM, without a manual, box or something.
If no one has interest, they are going to the trash.

[MrFlibble]

 mr-edit, on 09 June 2020 - 11:06 PM, said:

after LGR made a new video with an mention from the MARS 3D community release
my mail account explode! Now are all copies are sold out.

Cool, I didn't know about the LGR video

[Player Lin]

 MrFlibble, on 10 June 2020 - 11:03 AM, said:

Cool, I didn't know about the LGR video

At 30:12...someone sent him a copy of this version and...you know what happened now. LOL.

[Player Lin]

 mr-edit, on 09 June 2020 - 11:06 PM, said:

So everyone can try the game in the translated version.
But i haven't so much webspace. it would be good if someone else could host the iso too.
I would then put the link on the website on it.

Maybe you can try upload it to here? (But not sure if it's good idea or not)

[mr-edit]

I sent it to LGR myself because I had a sample left over. And as a thank you to his great videos.
I will upload the iso at google-drive. As i said, if some one wants to upload to other pages, feel free to do that.

[NightFright]

If the ISO isn't too big, I'm sure there's a space for it on the Duke4 file servers. It has the Duke3D pistol in it after all, so there's definitely a connection. Luckily, that's where similarites already end, though...

[mr-edit]

@NightFright,
of course you can do it

Now the ISO can be downloaded at the website. Have fun! And thanks again to all people who was interested at this community-campaign.

[MrFlibble]

I would like to clarify two questions of you don't mind:

a. As far as I understand it after reading the info at the site, this community release was made without involvement from the original developers, right? Has anyone tried to contact them?

b. I remember watching a gameplay video with commentary, and the guy said that the problem with translating the game into English was in the stuff like pickup messages, which use a handful of Chinese characters whereas a much longer text like "Picked up a clip" would be required for the English translation. If indeed so, how did you solve this problem?

[Jimmy]

Maybe someone could upload it to archive.org?

[Lord_Kane]

 mr-edit, on 13 June 2020 - 06:20 AM, said:

@NightFright,
of course you can do it

Now the ISO can be downloaded at the website. Have fun! And thanks again to all people who was interested at this community-campaign.

Any chance you also have a PDF copy of that manual? or is there a version already on the ISO?

[mr-edit]

@MrFibble
to your questions:
a, read page 1, post #18 at this thread
b, thats a bit tricky to explain how it solved: you must understand how the game works and which files it loads, and then edit these files. It's the same progress if rom-hacker do translations for console games.

@Lord_Kane
the manual is not included, it's not neccesarry for the game. it was just a feature for the big box version.

[NightFright]

I am currently not able (again) to gain access to the Duke4.net FTP server, but for the time being I have uploaded the ISO as 7Zip archive (slightly better compression than RAR) to my Dropbox account.

Mars 3D ISO (7Z archive, 36.7 MB)

Once I get my FTP access working again, I will move the file over there.

[MrFlibble]

 mr-edit, on 24 February 2019 - 12:46 AM, said:

The question of the copyright is justified but after many re-searches the company did not have rights to many things, which is probably
the reason why it was never sold properly. And after 22 years, most rights would have expired too. Furthermore, this is a non commercial campaign.
There is no profit mind behind.

I still believe that it would be nice to try to contact the original developers, if only to let them know how you brought their game to a new audience and made it more widely known.

Even if the developers plagiarised (if I may say so) certain assets from other contemporary games, they put a lot of effort into their project, and it turned out well too, otherwise you'd not be bringing it back to life.

Also don't forget that the original Duke Nukem and Duke Nukem II have certain graphics "borrowed" from Turrican and other games.

I'm quite inspired by Brandon Cobb's story of finding and finally meeting in person the original developers of Sango Fighter and Super Fighter. Would be cool if you could do the same, or something similar concerning contact with the authors of Mars 3D.

And I won't lie, if licensing is cleared and the game is re-released on GOG, I'm ready to purchase it (provided the price is reasonable of course).

[Lord_Kane]

 mr-edit, on 14 June 2020 - 09:23 PM, said:

@Lord_Kane
the manual is not included, it's not neccesarry for the game. it was just a feature for the big box version.

Sir, I must respectfully disagree, a manual adds that much more connection to a title, I admit Mars 3D does not have the technical prowess of lets say DN3d or Doom, but I think you should include a PDF copy with the free version just because well, manuals are cool and I like manuals so I urge you to reconsider.

[mr-edit]

@Lord_Kane, the manual was created exclusively for this community campaign and for the people who support it. I think it would not be fair to publish them. i respect that.

[Lord_Kane]

 mr-edit, on 15 June 2020 - 09:43 AM, said:

@Lord_Kane, the manual was created exclusively for this community campaign and for the people who support it. I think it would not be fair to publish them. i respect that.

Ah fair enough, I wasnt aware of that.
All good then.

[NightFright]

Don't take away the few benefits left for those that ordered. There isn't much left besides the manual and the box itself now. You got the game for free, I think we can all agree it's more than enough. And you really don't need it to play the game, it's as simple as it can get.

[Jimmy]

I think it's rather silly to think a PDF detracts from having a physical product that is no longer for sale. Just my two cents.

[Lord_Kane]

 NightFright, on 15 June 2020 - 01:18 PM, said:

Don't take away the few benefits left for those that ordered. There isn't much left besides the manual and the box itself now. You got the game for free, I think we can all agree it's more than enough. And you really don't need it to play the game, it's as simple as it can get.

yeah thats why I backed off. mr_edit's reasoning was pretty solid, but I get the feeling you didnt read my post.

[NightFright]

Actually I did before I posted, but I still wanted to provide the point of view of a "paying customer", if you want to call it like that. But then again, it's true what Jimmy wrote, having that manual as a PDF or not isn't making a huge difference. Maybe eventually it can also be provided. For now, it's great that this is available for everybody now, even though it's ofc not exactly a good game. An interesting artifact of its time, at least.

[Lord_Kane]

 NightFright, on 15 June 2020 - 09:38 PM, said:

Actually I did before I posted, but I still wanted to provide the point of view of a "paying customer", if you want to call it like that. But then again, it's true what Jimmy wrote, having that manual as a PDF or not isn't making a huge difference. Maybe eventually it can also be provided. For now, it's great that this is available for everybody now, even though it's ofc not exactly a good game. An interesting artifact of its time, at least.

Ah, sorry, I wasnt doing well yesterday so I misinterpreted what you wrote, anyways, yeah its not good, its a bit glitchy and runs oddly, but still, I wish I had the dough to have bought it, because odd jank I collect.

[Player Lin]

 MrFlibble, on 15 June 2020 - 07:46 AM, said:

I still believe that it would be nice to try to contact the original developers, if only to let them know how you brought their game to a new audience and made it more widely known.

Even if the developers plagiarised (if I may say so) certain assets from other contemporary games, they put a lot of effort into their project, and it turned out well too, otherwise you'd not be bringing it back to life.

Also don't forget that the original Duke Nukem and Duke Nukem II have certain graphics "borrowed" from Turrican and other games.

I'm quite inspired by Brandon Cobb's story of finding and finally meeting in person the original developers of Sango Fighter and Super Fighter. Would be cool if you could do the same, or something similar concerning contact with the authors of Mars 3D.

And I won't lie, if licensing is cleared and the game is re-released on GOG, I'm ready to purchase it (provided the price is reasonable of course).

SuperSango was very lucky as its dev. still care about their game...

Good luck with that, as I already said on the thread I introduce MARS3D, the Taiwanese publisher who was "publish" this game just never give any shit anymore after it failed.
(We called it "Black History", no, no, no, it's not that Black History. Well, it's means history that never want to be know or being found.)
Also, early time of game companies in Taiwan never cared about this kind of preserve things so everything about MARS3D may lost in time already...even nobody knows where are the devs. of MARS3D now. (Engine Technology CO. LTD closed on many, many years ago. It was hard to find info before that happens...after that, it more like mission impossible)

And I'm sure the engine guy(He seems not the only one who made whole game I guess) were came here also have not all of(or totally no) control over this too I guess but yeah, it would still possible if whoever want to pursuit whoever responsible/owned for this game/whose were in this project that can deciding about licensing, but the success rate may fall into...uh, fat chance, mostly because they didn't care/just forgot/lost anything.