[gemeaux333]

And guess what : Frederic Schreiber think Terminator Dark Fate is a decent movie...

Do they both have bad tastes too ?

[gemeaux333]

It seems Randy is very interested in Half-Life 3, perhaps he is looking for Half-Life Alyx, an perhaps he would see in this an opportunity for Duke Nukem in the VR range...

[Outtagum]

Duke Nukem 5R

[DisgustedGrunt]

Outtagum, on 15 December 2019 - 03:05 AM, said:

Duke Nukem 5R

do you mean VR?

[MusicallyInspired]

That's brilliant. Fits right in with Duke's sequel titles' play on words.

[Tea Monster]

This is all based on what I've heard from various parties. I have never been involved with the Reloaded project.

I spoke to someone who worked on that project and they were under the impression that they were going to be paid. If this is the case, then Fred had a fully 'working' group of developers capable of putting out something resembling a finished game. These people are working on the prospect of being paid for their work.

Gearbox are thinking that this is a fan project. They are not going to give what they perceive to be a fan project a full license. It will be a non commercial license. From what I heard, the option of selling merchandise was taken off the table as well. So they are working for the simple love of Duke Nukem, which is grand if you want to do that. If you have been told that you are getting paid for your work, then that's a different thing entirely.

So, if all the above is true, then Fred has a bit of a dilemma on his hands. He has to do something that will get these people a paycheck, or he can kiss goodbye to being head of a studio. Make a Duke game for free or be a professional studio head. Hmmmm....

They wound up making Rise of the Triad, and the rest you all know.

If all this is correct, Then there is little likelihood of them picking development of Reloaded back up. He has to go to his studio, who are now paying their rent with checks from games that 3DR are producing, and ask them to work for free on a fan-based Duke game. Secondly, what is now 3DR is going to be seen to be going to Gearbox, cap-in-hand, and applying for a fan licence for the IP they originally developed. I don't think that's going to happen somehow.

[Mark]

So, bottom line. Is Reloaded doomed to reside in Legal Limbo forever or could the original guys slap it together in their spare time and release it for free if they wanted to?

[OpenMaw]

Mark, on 16 December 2019 - 05:58 AM, said:

So, bottom line. Is Reloaded doomed to reside in Legal Limbo forever or could the original guys slap it together in their spare time and release it for free if they wanted to?

"Slapped together" is actually pretty apt of what they had already done. Reloaded may have looked nice in still images and very shot clips that got leaked, but it actually played like ass. Imagine the jankiness of the ROTT reboot in Duke Nukem's gameplay. I think people had something in their head that wasn't going to match the finished product.

As to whether they could get back together and do something, probably not. Not under the Reloaded banner, anyway. Those same guys, assuming they want anything to do with the Duke IP ever again after all these years and with all the grief (You can still find the concept artists work on Deviantart, and the tinge of bitterness in some of the posts. Like, for example, they had designed a new custom pistol for Duke, that was ultimately replaced with a stock M1911.

I'd say Reloaded is a phantom of its time and we are not likely to see it again.

[MusicallyInspired]

Lots of similarities to DNF. Only difference is development time was not as long and we were mercifully spared its release.

[DisgustedGrunt]

Mark, on 16 December 2019 - 05:58 AM, said:

So, bottom line. Is Reloaded doomed to reside in Legal Limbo forever or could the original guys slap it together in their spare time and release it for free if they wanted to?

Was it that complete? I mean, i have no clue about the amount of content that was made. They developed it for what, a year, a year and a half?.

[OpenMaw]

Well, we saw what was worked on when it was in the early stages as "Duke Nukem Next Gen." Using, primarily, stock UE3 assets, there was an effort to remake Death Row, and Hollywood Holocaust.
The multiplayer test build, the only thing that was ever shown, was their remake of Hollywood Holocaust. Which, strictly from a design perspective, looked pretty good. They expanded it and changed things around similar to how Duke Nukem Rethinked did. Larger game area, more routes and rooms. Lot's of movie posters, a really seedy atmosphere. The street area was a bit more expanded. More of a busy warzone vibe with a storm, rainfall, and alien pods coming out of the sky. It looked nice, but as I recall those that tested it thought it was kinda shit performance wise. Lot's of glitches, like the chaingun continuing to fire even after it emptied out, weapons randomly not wanting to work. Really slow RPG projectile.

Honestly what it did was done better in Serious Duke 3D.


I'm pretty sure more work was done after that multiplayer build was put out, but not that much. Most of the game remained as concept art.

[Jimmy]

Reloaded was like 1% complete. LOL

[Mark]

Were they planning to do all levels and episodes? Thats the only way I can see 1% being accurate.

[OpenMaw]

The impression i've always had was that they had intended to do the whole thing. At least the main three episodes. With Duke Match, Capture The Babe, and a Horde Mode.

At a stretch and with a lot of rough edges, they could have pulled it off. Team Interceptor wasn't small. 20+ people around the world. The problem was at the top, with management.

[Jimmy]

Reloaded was nothing more than marketing.

[Tea Monster]

It may have been that if they couldn't sell the game, that they would rely on merchandising to keep things going. When Gearbox said no to that, then they may have been scrambling to find another project that would have paid people some wages. It may be that from necessity, they had to regretfully abandon the Reloaded project and turned to an IP that would support the fledgling studio.

The other possibility is that the whole Reloaded project was a publicity stunt so that Fred could say "Hey, we're working with Gearbox Studios, I'll give you a job" so that he could get his studio up and running. It may have been that there was no intention to ever finish Reloaded at all. If that was the intention, then he just banked on the names of Gearbox and Duke Nukem to gather staff. I think when we first heard of Fred, we were all like"Who is this guy and why have Gearbox given him a license?"

Imagine if he was touting around saying "Hey, I'm some random dude who wants to make a game studio!" These people are all over the internet and the general response to them is (sometimes) polite amusement. If he can state that he is working on behalf of the internationally known Gearbox Software, and that he has a license to the Duke Nukem IP, then that's a whole different pitch!

Will we ever find out the truth? Who knows?

[OpenMaw]

Tea Monster, on 17 December 2019 - 04:10 AM, said:

Will we ever find out the truth? Who knows?

Unfortunately it is very unlikely that we will.

Frederik Schreiber was caught on a facebook post literally saying he doesn't care about Duke Nukem anymore. So, at the very least we know it wouldn't be him at the helm.

[Jimmy]

Fred is a flim-flam artist.

[MusicallyInspired]

I sometimes wonder if Fred ever really did care.

[OpenMaw]

I think he did in the beginning. Like many of us he got hot in the wave of hype and the enthusiasm and energy that this franchise brings at the best of times.

It just wasn't meant to be.

[Jimmy]

I don't think he ever did.

Dudes who put up Super Mario sprite posters in their office are looking to build an image.

Reloaded was marketing. Fred is marketing. Interceptor was marketing. 3D Realms is marketing.

[OpenMaw]

Jesus is King, on 17 December 2019 - 09:37 PM, said:

I don't think he ever did.

Dudes who put up Super Mario sprite posters in their office are looking to build an image.

Reloaded was marketing. Fred is marketing. Interceptor was marketing. 3D Realms is marketing.

To a point I agree. I think Fred was interested in building a persona that was basically "I was part of that community for so long and now i've crawled to the top and we're going to make amazing things."

Then, as has been vetted here, I remember the conversations. There was no record of him being in the Duke Nukem community until relatively recently.

[MusicallyInspired]

I never saw him before. I just remember people saying he tried to do another remake/reimagining of another game (I forget which one) before Duke Nukem 3D Reloaded which failed miserably and then tried to do the same thing with Duke3D.

[necroslut]

MusicallyInspired, on 18 December 2019 - 06:34 PM, said:

I never saw him before. I just remember people saying he tried to do another remake/reimagining of another game (I forget which one) before Duke Nukem 3D Reloaded which failed miserably and then tried to do the same thing with Duke3D.

Pretty sure it was a Sin remake, though there might have been another too. IIRC he *had* been on the 3DR forums, but not a frequent poster or anything.

I don't really have any insight, but reading between the lines it seemed to me like Fred (and team?) was hoping their work on the free D3DR would impress Gearbox so much that they'd be willing to fund them. Turned out they weren't.
It might have been for the best – although the promo stuff looked promising, going by the quality of their following output they weren't anywhere near competent enough to pull off that project at the time.

[Person of Color]

I wish I still had that picture of Fred wearing fishnets from his American trip. Someone reupload that please.

[Jimmy]

Can you believe it's been almost ten years and we still haven't let that one go?

[Tea Monster]

From what I saw of the Reloaded project, Syndroid's Serious Duke did a much better job of creating a modern playground for Duke modders to have fun in. Still pining for either DNF modding tools or a copy of Reloaded? Don't bother. Download the level editor and make whatever Duke adventure your heart desires. It even has working deathmatch. Rock and roll!

One day, someone will make a new Duke Nukem game. I don't think that the time is now or that Gearbox will be the company to do it. But it will happen some day. Till then, either keep with EDuke32 or get Syndroid's mod for SS Fusion.

I don't see the DNF beta release from Gearbox being a franchise reviver. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see it.

[DisgustedGrunt]

Tea Monster, on 20 December 2019 - 08:44 AM, said:

Till then, either keep with EDuke32 or and get Syndroid's mod for SS Fusion.

FTFY.

[necroslut]

I don't really get the hype for Serious Duke – it doesn't really feel like Duke at all, not gameplay-wise, not atmosphere-wise; it feels like a Serious Sam 3 mod. It also looks and sounds kinda shit. Unless there's been some huge improvements since I played it last... I'd rather play DNF.

[Jimmy]

I feel the same.