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Duke Nukem is dead.  "Jon st John killed him."

User is offline   jkas789 

#241

I can understand and applaud that statement. Personally i don't hate that much the last boss. An easy broken Duke Nukem boss is not the problem IMO. Honestly all DN3D bosses are easy at best and Broken at worst.

I'm angrier at the fact that the PC port is so broken it is like playing russian roulette to see if it works in a modern Windows 10 machine, never mind getting it to work 100% as intended.

I still have Vietnam flashbacks of the last playthrough I did on it PC.

Tragically, not all features of the 20th anniv version were so bad IMO.
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User is offline   ck3D 

#242

Duke 3D bosses have always been average at best, but here it's clearly just lazy and broken with a recycled design and most especially absurd coding, being basically the same Cycloid Emperor as twenty years ago just with its only long-range and thus real threatening attack removed. The Battlelord, Overlord, first Cycloid and even the Queen actually posed some kind of threat if anything within the confines of their own original levels the first time you ran into them; here the guy just stands there as a barely-moving target with worse luck at offense than at self harm, only waiting for you to shoot him down as he gets stuck into signs, spitting fire at nothing while you yourself are waiting for the promised excitement to kick in, but it never does and so you end the whole song on that note. I've observed not just Duke 3D fans but also casual players laugh in disbelief (then cry when they remember they actually paid for that) at such a blatant letdown after such an otherwise epic journey. It's not like everybody's mapping effort in particular (let alone a "20th anniversary edition") wasn't worthy of putting maybe 15 minutes into coding a boss that would have actually been interesting (or really just viable), here it looks like the devs straight up gave up on the testing when they were this close to having a coherent product. I don't even care about the issue itself to be honest, but I'm intrigued by that approach to quality control just as much as by the next thing I don't understand.

This post has been edited by ck3D: 10 May 2021 - 06:59 AM

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User is offline   Ninety-Six 

#243

What WT needed was just some care, so it could have a few more minutes in the oven. But care is the last thing Gearbox wants for the franchise. Again, they seem to assume Duke is as big a name now as it was in the late 90s, so they can still push out any old crap. There were talented people who worked on the project, but they were obviously pressured into submitting partially incomplete work.


I've always wondered what sort of changes could be made to make the final boss more interesting. Like if the retaliation attack was changed to the firefly spawning instead, or if the flamethrower was made much longer. Now that the compatibility patch for eduke32 is in a fully working state (and is actually moddable as a result), theoretically there's nothing stopping anyone from trying to make something much better. I've even considered doing a trial-by-fire myself to see if there's anything a complete CON novice like me could do. That boss is such a pathetic excuse, especially since all other bosses had some modicum of challenge to them. Not too much, admittedly; they are still bosses from the 90s where circle-strafing was the one true strategy.

But even so, the Battlelord had a giant, accurate minigun in an arena with minimal cover, plus you only had access to the RPG. The Overlord required a rather unique spin on the circle-strafing idea, forcing you to spin in circles somewhere besides around him. The Cycloid Emperor had you either running for dear life or needing to fly over him to avoid the scattershot of his missiles. And the Queen was probably my favorite boss fight-wise of the original four, with more health than the others, spawning the tankiest enemies, and an undodgeable attack that thankfully didn't do too much damage.

Hell, even Nuclear Winter had a better boss. In fact it probably had my favorite DN3D boss full-stop, being essentially a dukematch bot. And then we get that pathetic thing at the end of Hollywood Inferno.
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User is offline   ck3D 

#244

View PostNinety-Six, on 10 May 2021 - 08:10 AM, said:

I've always wondered what sort of changes could be made to make the final boss more interesting.


I read that and instantly thought well, they could have given him the ability to throw mortars like the Battlelord does for long range, would have been a cool change from the Cycloid's rockets and as we all know 1/ instant ideas are never good ideas, they exist to be scrapped and then reflected on some more, yet that would have still worked better than what we got and 2/ that also means they wouldn't even have had to write new code and they could have recycled the lines from the Battlelord in literal seconds. Now make that two minutes and they could have given him the ability to shoot just about any already existing projectile in the game. Now what about an equivalent to the Queen's instant electricity attack but simulating fire instead (to match the firethrower thematic), resulting in time trial type of pressure, or just something newer entirely that the episode could have introduced earlier?

Now I was telling Aleks earlier, a real heavy hitter would have been having the recolored Cycloid spawn dollar bills instead of fireballs, so it's passive aggression and your goal is to dispose of him before it generates too many sprites and crashes the game. That would have been a perfect update to, and an on-point representation of the franchise at it seemingly stands right now the way I see it.

And what sucks is, such critique could easily be read and perceived as sterile and negative by the current IP owners, but it's really critique from their direct customers their audience people who genuinely want Duke 3D and Duke games in general to be good, perhaps even more so than some of those folks in charge. But of course the franchise is going to be a joke if they themselves start by treating it as one, in spite of some of their crew's honest work. And, shitting all over your hand to then wave en masse at the crowd isn't that funny (and now I just remembered you can sort of do exactly that in DNF).

This post has been edited by ck3D: 10 May 2021 - 08:59 AM

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User is offline   Jimmy 

  • Let's go Brandon!

#245

Hollywood Inferno is a cool map but a piss poor final map with a piss poor boss arena.

This post has been edited by Jimmy: 10 May 2021 - 08:27 PM

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User is offline   jkas789 

#246

Well, at least the franchise is dead now so the fans don't have to worry about Gearbox fucking it over (unless the movie/tv series/ whatever takes off) more than they already have.
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User is offline   Ninety-Six 

#247

View PostJimmy, on 10 May 2021 - 08:26 PM, said:

Hollywood Inferno is a cool map but a piss poor final map with a piss poor boss arena.


I do think it's a good final map in concept at least. A long gauntlet pitting you against every enemy type in the game as you ascend towards the peak of the Hollywood sign, bringing things full circle to where it all began with Hollywood Holocaust, as well as it basically being the single most defining feature of the L.A. skyline texture which you saw across the entire game.


So much potential, but squandered by what was obviously a very tight release schedule which forbade things like playtesting so the level is overall pretty easy, even from pistol start, or so much as basic quality testing which is how we got the suiciding cycloids.

I still hold that Blum and Levelord were and still are more than capable of doing better than what we got. Maybe it would never beat the community's best, but I still think they could have done better, and in all liklihood wanted to do better, but were squeezed dry by this horribly mismanaged project. I think nothing better exemplifies this than the uncut version of Prima Arena. The level is so much better and so much more interconnected than the release version, and that's to say nothing of the 1.0 release which still had the aliens in the inaccessible part of the map.

Now while I personally did not get confused with the layout when I played the uncut version, I also realize that I do have the benefit of playing the release version first, so I knew in advance where I was going and what I was doing. I state this because I can at least understand why a change was felt necessary. However, it is so painfully clear that Levelord was simply not given any of the time he wanted to shore up the progression, so had to just haphazardly cobble together a fix to have the level done by release.


Maybe I'm wrong and both level designers lost their touch over the years. But given the sorry state of the final product, especially the 1.0 release, I don't think we can really use that to gauge their current skill. I'm willing to bet they had less than a year to re-learn the Build engine and make four levels in it by release day, with an ""updated"" engine about as stable as soggy cereal.
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User is offline   ck3D 

#248

View PostNinety-Six, on 10 May 2021 - 09:15 PM, said:

I do think it's a good final map in concept at least. A long gauntlet pitting you against every enemy type in the game as you ascend towards the peak of the Hollywood sign, bringing things full circle to where it all began with Hollywood Holocaust, as well as it basically being the single most defining feature of the L.A. skyline texture which you saw across the entire game.


So much potential, but squandered by what was obviously a very tight release schedule which forbade things like playtesting so the level is overall pretty easy, even from pistol start, or so much as basic quality testing which is how we got the suiciding cycloids.

I still hold that Blum and Levelord were and still are more than capable of doing better than what we got. Maybe it would never beat the community's best, but I still think they could have done better, and in all liklihood wanted to do better, but were squeezed dry by this horribly mismanaged project. I think nothing better exemplifies this than the uncut version of Prima Arena. The level is so much better and so much more interconnected than the release version, and that's to say nothing of the 1.0 release which still had the aliens in the inaccessible part of the map.


Agree on Hollywood Inferno otherwise being a nice map for the very reasons you describe, and I'd say not just in concept but also in execution - I think it looks sweet, the progression is cool for what it is and the epic escalation actually kind of works - but then what the increasing sense of dread culminates with is Bozo the Clown suddenly popping up for you to sandbag before he kills himself first, completely ruining what's supposed to be the highlight of 20 years of a classic gaming experience. I'm certain deadlines were troublesome, but this is just so basic, and there's no way the devs never realized their boss wasn't even finished - when the new main villain (so part of the appeal of the whole expansion pack) obviously should have been a priority warranting a five- to ten-minute fix. But still it was shipped as such, which I can't help but observe says a lot about consideration for the franchise, legacy, product and audience.

I get what you're saying about the level design although honestly, I'm not one to romanticize what Blum and Levelord coulda woulda shoulda done on WT in a parallel universe, frankly I think they did a fine job (I don't like everything, but it's pretty obvious to me in the design that they tried for however long was allocated to them and had some fun attempting to make equally fun maps) and if it looks different in style or disappointing to some, a big part of that also very well might be on us for sanctifying their established work for 20 years and expecting them to carry that very same hot torch, when the design of the original maps wasn't just a product of pure artistic vision but also an indirect consequence of the technical limitations of hardware at the time, which contributed to shaping them. Now with those gone and Blum and Levelord having not been cryogenized for two decades and thus having been exposed to modern games and I'm sure various other life experiences (people change), they clearly weren't going to repeat the past. At the end of the day, they still did the best job on this project, along with Lee Jackson, when the art designer was busy recycling LameDuke tiles and recoloring Bozo and whoever coded the .cons asleep at the wheel.

This post has been edited by ck3D: 11 May 2021 - 02:05 AM

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User is offline   Jimmy 

  • Let's go Brandon!

#249

I will say, I do like the map! To me, it's more of a penultimate map. It's perfect for that. You want a gauntlet before the end.

I think Levelord and Blum hadn't lost their touch, but were definitely rusty. They should have done what Romero did and worked on a few free small maps to get going again and get criticism from the community. At benefit for Lee Jackson, the man has never stopped working.

This post has been edited by Jimmy: 11 May 2021 - 01:56 PM

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User is offline   Aleks 

#250

Level design and Lee's music are definitely the highlights of World Tour. The levels might not match the highest quality user maps made during these 20 years, but they're certainly in the respective style of each mapper and feel strongly linked to the feeling of original Duke 3D game - however, I do believe both Blum and Levelord did take some inspiration from user maps, at least the most popular ones out there, as some areas seemed strangely familiar. Golden Gate, Egypt, Paris and maybe even Rome maps are the best ones in my opinion and would certainly fit even the main game. Other than that, I'd still say all the maps would make MSDN's "hot maps" section, with the best ones scoring in the 90-92 perhaps, to make some comparison to user levels. That being said, one thing the designers had to keep in mind there was accessibility of their content as it had to be "commercial grade", so they couldn't get all fancy with their ideas, which was another factor keeping them at bay besides long hiatus from build and strict time limit for making their maps. I also think they did pretty good in showcasing Build's possibilities, with the very pronounced non-Euclidean part in first map and even how good the levels looked with the engine's new lighting effects.

Now as for the final boss... Well, personally I didn't feel that much struck by how much it sucked during my playthrough, but then I've never really given it much though - it was just there and I killed it like any other enemy after all. But in retrospect, it could and should have been done much better. While we can depreciate the original 4 bosses, I do remember them all being a challenge as a kid, back when playing keyboard only and with autoaim was a thing. Implementing a new boss is one thing where they shouldn't have gone with the "retro shooter" thing and make him more updated to the standards of how people play today, and numerous mods and TCs to original Duke have shown it could have been done in thousands better ways. Now what's more puzzling is, there's this - I have to admit, really cool IMO - feature in World Tour, which is dev comments during gameplay. It was probably a reason enough for me to replay the whole thing just to listen to these. Now where I'm going with this - the presence of these comments clearly meant that they DID tried and put effort into making the episode, they're done quite thoroughly and well, they are there in the first place. How come they went all the way to add these comments that hint they do care for their product and their customers/longterm fans, then put a half-assed boss at the end just like that (proceded by an image of Duke baking his balls)?!

Anyway, about a week or so ago I went with an idea about making "monthly map club" or something, which seemed to get quite some support, but then noone answered it. So, again - should we start this thing and what would be the best mod/map pack/episode pick for the start?
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User is offline   Jimmy 

  • Let's go Brandon!

#251

It's pretty clear that most of the money was spent on Blum, Levelord, and Jackson. At least a dozen people in the community could have and would have done better art, probably even for free. Whoever did the programming, while probably an experienced programmer in their own right, obviously had never dealt with CON before.

Gearbox made a rookie mistake; They kept it corporate and cheap.
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User is offline   Fox 

  • Fraka kaka kaka kaka-kow!

#252

I don't think they were cheap. Gearbox probably put a lot more money than you think on World Tour.

For example, whoever made the CON editing, must have been at least paid the regular price for weeks of programming.

Their mistake was to hire people without experience with an "rebellious" engine.
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User is offline   Jimmy 

  • Let's go Brandon!

#253

They were certainly cheap, because it's clear that the game is FUCKING RAW. Even another month in the oven could have ironed out so much.
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#254

View PostAleks, on 11 May 2021 - 02:56 PM, said:

Anyway, about a week or so ago I went with an idea about making "monthly map club" or something, which seemed to get quite some support, but then noone answered it. So, again - should we start this thing and what would be the best mod/map pack/episode pick for the start?

As someone who's been looking forward to it, but hasn't played any DN3D mods, I didn't respond because I don't really know much. If not the commercial add-ons, why not Platoon, the TC from the guys who would go onto making NAM and WWII GI. At least I think that was the case.
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User is offline   Ninety-Six 

#255

View PostAleks, on 11 May 2021 - 02:56 PM, said:

Anyway, about a week or so ago I went with an idea about making "monthly map club" or something, which seemed to get quite some support, but then noone answered it. So, again - should we start this thing and what would be the best mod/map pack/episode pick for the start?


At least in my opinion, the three quintessential map packs/episodes to anyone looking to start playing Duke mods would be:
-Metropolitan Mayhem; short and simple maps that probably play most like the vanilla levels, even if they don't always look the part to a 100% accurate degree
-Red series + Clear the Coast; probably would be hard-pressed to find a mapset that better conveys a story as well as the Red series does (as long as the remake version of Red 1 is used), outside of maybe its successor in Shaky Grounds.
-Roch series; though I think the gameplay is nothing special, it is a visual treat and shows the sheer flexibility of vanilla Duke 3D assets.

I think any of those three would be an ideal starting point since they showcase what are probably the best examples of the three biggest types of duke maps out there. They may not be the absolute best in their respective categories, but they are easy to obtain, set up, and play through without asking too much of the player (minus Yelldown Hellride from MM which is completely optional).

This post has been edited by Ninety-Six: 11 May 2021 - 05:55 PM

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User is offline   Aleks 

#256

Yeah, that's pretty much the same stuff I've proposed. Personally, my vote for the start would go for Roch series, as it's probably easiest to get into.
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User is offline   ck3D 

#257

Aleks at this point I think you should just start the thread. I would do it myself right now, but it's your idea. There isn't much point in losing ourselves in debate before picking the first map or series has even started, you should just launch a thread with a redirection to this one for background explanation regarding concept and purpose and just post a level of your choice. I'd say weekly for a user map would work better with monthly exceptionally reserved to more complete series i.e.. Red, Roch, ADG, Fernando Marquez's episodes, etc. a few times a year, maybe to kick into each new season. Personally I'd like to see a more obscure gem to start things up, some forgotten or straight up never popular level, thinking an oldie à la Azneer13, some commonly overlooked classics such as Hasit, or maybe a Kevin Cools level, something obviously off the beaten path to first catch the people's interest and on we go.

This post has been edited by ck3D: 12 May 2021 - 05:21 AM

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User is offline   jkas789 

#258

View PostAleks, on 12 May 2021 - 12:29 AM, said:

Yeah, that's pretty much the same stuff I've proposed. Personally, my vote for the start would go for Roch series, as it's probably easiest to get into.


Here is a small recommendation. With the amount of betas you have for submachine, it would be interesting to see you and other mappers play through them and talk about the process of iteration in working on a duke nukem 3d map. It does not have to be submachine specifically only it could be that one plus two other maps.

I would watch that with tacos and a cola.
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User is offline   Aleks 

#259

View Postjkas789, on 14 May 2021 - 06:42 AM, said:

Here is a small recommendation. With the amount of betas you have for submachine, it would be interesting to see you and other mappers play through them and talk about the process of iteration in working on a duke nukem 3d map. It does not have to be submachine specifically only it could be that one plus two other maps.

I would watch that with tacos and a cola.


I have like 300 versions of Submachine at different development stages, you ain't seen nothin' yet, bro :D That's probably still far less than what ck3D has for his map. Anyway, I'd also love to see someone do an "author's playthrough" of their map commenting on development process and everything. I'd consider doing it myself, but I would probably spend like 10 hours in Submachine talking about shit like how there's a small indicator near the main fan that turns from green to red when you turn the fan off or that kind of stuff. I had to "cut" (or rather not include at all) a huge chunk of what I first planned to include in the "secret PDF" after seeing how much space and my time it's already consuming. Another cool idea would be a mapper's video of playing someone else's map and commenting his live, blind playthrough feeling of it from technical point of view, like how he would do something or what's cool for him. I personally get more kicks while playing other people's maps from figuring shit out like that than from the gameplay itself :D

But hey, the idea here was to make a super-inclusive playing "club" here, so let's start with this one!
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User is offline   LAW 

#260

View PostMortimer, on 13 April 2021 - 11:49 AM, said:

Really? You got some sources for that? Because I honestly can't believe Aubrey Hodges would be such a piece of shit.


It happened on the Facebook. I asked about the possibility of creating a song for the Wolfenstein level in the PSX Doom Master Edition community project. I wrote about our limited funds and I asked two times and there was no response, even though he has been very talkative up to that point.

It seems I deleted that conversation. There was no point in keeping that. Anyway you could ask him. I am very curious about what he would say.

This post has been edited by LAW: 14 May 2021 - 12:37 PM

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#261

View PostAleks, on 14 May 2021 - 06:49 AM, said:

I have like 300 versions of Submachine at different development stages, you ain't seen nothin' yet, bro :D That's probably still far less than what ck3D has for his map. Anyway, I'd also love to see someone do an "author's playthrough" of their map commenting on development process and everything. I'd consider doing it myself, but I would probably spend like 10 hours in Submachine talking about shit like how there's a small indicator near the main fan that turns from green to red when you turn the fan off or that kind of stuff. I had to "cut" (or rather not include at all) a huge chunk of what I first planned to include in the "secret PDF" after seeing how much space and my time it's already consuming. Another cool idea would be a mapper's video of playing someone else's map and commenting his live, blind playthrough feeling of it from technical point of view, like how he would do something or what's cool for him. I personally get more kicks while playing other people's maps from figuring shit out like that than from the gameplay itself :D

But hey, the idea here was to make a super-inclusive playing "club" here, so let's start with this one!


I actually did record commentary through a few of my levels (plus a walkthrough for one with no commentary) and I'm fairly certain Zykov Eddy did something similar. I'd sure like to see more mappers do something like that - even if they just talked over screenshots/slideshows of what they think is their best level, like "This is the (thingy), to make it I had to (partake in sorcery), but had to cut out (this ridiculous idea)" type stuff, it'd be interesting to see their perspective on what they made and how they arrived at the idea.

This post has been edited by High Treason: 16 May 2021 - 12:09 AM

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User is offline   Ninety-Six 

#262

View PostHigh Treason, on 16 May 2021 - 12:08 AM, said:

I'm fairly certain Zykov Eddy did something similar.


He started one for his Moonbase Accident episode a year or two ago but it never got past the first video. He left the community a few months after, onto better things.


I am in full support of any "director's commentary" for their user maps. The creative process is just as fascinating as the technical process.
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User is offline   ck3D 

#263

View Postck3D, on 12 May 2021 - 05:20 AM, said:

Aleks at this point I think you should just start the thread. I would do it myself right now, but it's your idea. There isn't much point in losing ourselves in debate before picking the first map or series has even started, you should just launch a thread with a redirection to this one for background explanation regarding concept and purpose and just post a level of your choice. I'd say weekly for a user map would work better with monthly exceptionally reserved to more complete series i.e.. Red, Roch, ADG, Fernando Marquez's episodes, etc. a few times a year, maybe to kick into each new season. Personally I'd like to see a more obscure gem to start things up, some forgotten or straight up never popular level, thinking an oldie à la Azneer13, some commonly overlooked classics such as Hasit, or maybe a Kevin Cools level, something obviously off the beaten path to first catch the people's interest and on we go.


Just to say, if no one else is taking the initiative eventually, I will probably just do it myself sometime this week. Honestly, something like that shouldn't take long to administrate at all since it's all about regularly picking specific maps for everyone to comment, so there's really no need for any elaborate cunning beforehand, or more than 10 minutes of spare time a week/month depending on format. I'll wait a few days to see if anyone objects, or if Aleks intervenes to say he wants to commit to it himself since it's originally his idea. Ideally, though, I'd like to see as little focus as possible on which map gets or doesn't get 'highlighted' like we're talking a 15 minutes of fame deal and not something a bit more substantial, and as much of it as possible on actually appreciating, playing and commenting on the maps. Of course, suggestions to feature certain levels should be welcome but this kind of foreseeable bickering would be superficial and not that constructive for the community, when in reality anyone who wishes to highlight a particular level could (still and always) do it by themselves posting about it. Or I reckon every once in a while we could just pass the torch around. Either way, I can already think of a few relatively obscure user maps that could be interesting to bring up to start this, so just let me know if I shouldn't or I most likely will.

Or... perhaps that would all in fact be redundant with the Last Map You Played thread and we should all just start bumping that one a little more with no need for specific organization?

This post has been edited by ck3D: 26 May 2021 - 03:58 AM

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User is offline   Arrovf 

#264

View PostAleks, on 04 May 2021 - 03:18 PM, said:

I think the only proper way to really do a project of such a scale that would prevail would be in a team instead of solo. First thing is, it would indeed pretty much be a full time job, but then also the person losing interest sooner or later would pretty much end the project (as was the case with Arrovf I suppose).

I will continue with my web project of reviews of maps and gameplay videos B) .

I have been working on a non-videogame project for more than 4 years that is absorbing almost all my free time, so now I have the website "on pause", but soon I will be able to free myself a little and continue with Arrovf Nukem.
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