[Youri87]

Hello,
I bought Duke Nukem 3D on the Zoom platform.
In the description, it says that Duke Zone II also includes Duke Zone I.
However, I have launched the game and searched but I only have the 3 episodes of Duke Zone II (Artic Assault, Alien Abby and Monkey Shines).
Does anyone know how to get them?
Thanks

[LakiSoft]

Duke Zone 1 is just bunch of user maps downloaded from internet and collected on CD. Duke Zone 2 on another hand is really creative work of authors.

[ck3D]

Youri87, on 02 June 2022 - 03:35 AM, said:

Hello,
I bought Duke Nukem 3D on the Zoom platform.
In the description, it says that Duke Zone II also includes Duke Zone I.
However, I have launched the game and searched but I only have the 3 episodes of Duke Zone II (Artic Assault, Alien Abby and Monkey Shines).
Does anyone know how to get them?
Thanks

Some later releases of Duke! Zone II actually omitted Duke! Zone I (which as was just said was all shovelware anyway). It's probably one of those versions that you got and the description has to be leftover text from the previous.

[NightFright]

If you think DZ2 was bad, you don't want to see those DZ1 standalone levels. They are definitely not worth your time and you are not missing anything. Tbh it makes me sad that there are people out there who want to have and, even worse, actually play these...

[Youri87]

Gingis Khan, on 02 June 2022 - 04:06 AM, said:

Duke Zone 1 is just bunch of user maps downloaded from internet and collected on CD. Duke Zone 2 on another hand is really creative work of authors.

I find the levels in Duke Zone II uneven.
I'm at the end of the 2nd episode, and sometimes they look like very hard levels made by hard core gamers who want to put as many enemies as possible, sometimes the levels are well balanced with a very dark atmosphere.

ck3D, on 02 June 2022 - 05:06 AM, said:

Some later releases of Duke! Zone II actually omitted Duke! Zone I (which as was just said was all shovelware anyway). It's probably one of those versions that you got and the description has to be leftover text from the previous.

Perhaps this is the explanation. I sent an email to Zoom Platform to make sure

NightFright, on 02 June 2022 - 01:03 PM, said:

If you think DZ2 was bad, you don't want to see those DZ1 standalone levels. They are definitely not worth your time and you are not missing anything. Tbh it makes me sad that there are people out there who want to have and, even worse, actually play these...

I like Duke Zone II, and I want to make up my mind about Duke Zone I too

[LakiSoft]

Youri87, on 03 June 2022 - 12:03 AM, said:

I find the levels in Duke Zone II uneven.
I'm at the end of the 2nd episode, and sometimes they look like very hard levels made by hard core gamers who want to put as many enemies as possible, sometimes the levels are well balanced with a very dark atmosphere.




Perhaps this is the explanation. I sent an email to Zoom Platform to make sure



I like Duke Zone II, and I want to make up my mind about Duke Zone I too

If you still want Duke Zone 1, take a look here: https://archive.org/...ne/DukeZone.zip

Duke Zone 1 contains 500 levels collected from the Internet and from BBS. It also contains some utilities (a couple of front-ends, grp utilities, EditCon), con-file replacements and tutorials on the Build editor.

[Youri87]

Gingis Khan, on 03 June 2022 - 12:15 AM, said:

If you still want Duke Zone 1, take a look here: https://archive.org/...ne/DukeZone.zip

Duke Zone 1 contains 500 levels collected from the Internet and from BBS. It also contains some utilities (a couple of front-ends, grp utilities, EditCon), con-file replacements and tutorials on the Build editor.

thanks

[ck3D]

I only have vague memories of the Duke! Zone II levels, but I do remember some of them definitely felt more rushed than some others and there were big tone shifts from one author's style to the next indeed. Complete with the original launcher and whatnot, all summed up to an experience that did feel pretty clean and novel but at the end of the day, arguably the level design and planning was still rather amateurish. I hope Zoom can get back to you but I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't even aware of the existence of several versions - the fact is rather obscure. I too remember being confused for years as a kid due to getting Duke! Zone II as part of the Kill-A-Ton Collection, and seeing mentions of the first installment but never anything close to a single map file. Then much later when I got online to look up Duke! Zone I, I realized it indeed was basically just the top 500 user maps that had showed up in someone's search at the time just randomly thrown onto a disc. Complete shovelware with no structure, some of the maps are copies from the next, etc. Now shovelware can be interesting in itself, but I want to say, even at the time there were other shovelware compilations that featured better user levels or mods. I'd venture the guess that it's probably the illegal aspect of shovelware that might have led to Duke! Zone I being retcon'd as a commercial product. But essentially, you could basically go and pick 500 random user maps from 1996 from Dukeworld or any other web archive and that would basically result in the exact same experience as playing Duke! Zone I, just not restricted to the random curation.

There's an apparently popular Canadian streamer (forgot their name) with a 'playthrough' video on YouTube, too that shows up if you search for Duke! Zone I (and I think they also did II, Nuclear Winter and Caribbean). Shows them just going through the folders at random and spending thirty seconds in various maps for three hours. Maybe turn your volume down if you ever go and find that because their commentary really is obnoxious ('large ham' style of overacting).

[Sanek]

ck3D, on 03 June 2022 - 01:02 AM, said:

There's an apparently popular Canadian streamer (forgot their name) with a 'playthrough' video on YouTube, too that shows up if you search for Duke! Zone I (and I think they also did II, Nuclear Winter and Caribbean). Shows them just going through the folders at random and spending thirty seconds in various maps for three hours. Maybe turn your volume down if you ever go and find that because their commentary really is obnoxious ('large ham' style of overacting).

It's got to be a Psychedelic Eyeball:

[NightFright]

Basically it's just some geometric shapes slapped together with generic, bland texturing and random item/monster placements. No cohesion whatsoever. I wouldn't even call that mapping. You often get better results with a random level generator even.

[FistMarine]

Here's a better link for Duke Zone (compared to the link Gingis posted earlier): https://archive.org/...oad/dukezoneusa
This link also includes download for the limited edition of Duke Zone that only had 150 maps included instead of the usual 500.

About the Zoom Platform version, I don't own that version to check, so I can't offer further help (I don't know if the Duke Zone map files are loose in directory like originally released or they were GRP'ed as well) but it is pretty surprising to see that the first Duke Zone is included in the package, as I don't think any other digital version included them (and even the Kill-a-Ton Collection apparently omitted them, as pointed earlier), so I find this Zoom version interesting and how it handled the expansion packs, it is the most complete digital package of Duke3D. I see there are also plans to include Duke, It's Zero Hour as an official addon in the near future.

I know that Duke, It's Zero Hour was once planned to be a commercial addon published by WizardWorks back in 1997 but this makes me optimistic that they plan one day to also include some of the community's works (at least older vanilla episodes and Fernando's entire FMX series) as sort of official/semi-official addons included as another bonus package (perhaps separate from the current package), kinda like how the recent remasters/ports for Doom and Quake are curating community works as official addons. I think that would be a neat thing to have for Duke3D as well. For instance, I really hope to see FM4X included there one day. If you are going to mail the people at Zoom Platform, would you mind if you ask them about including some community episodes as well? If not, I will ask them myself in the following days/weeks. Just to give people an extra reason to buy the version at Zoom Platform.

As for the Duke Zone maps, most of them are crappy, so it's nothing more than a historical curiosity. Two years ago I actually started playing through the Duke Zone maps (in DOS Duke3D v1.3D) and lost interest after the first 5 maps, so I intend to go back soon and quickly check each one of them. I also remember watching Psychedelic Eyeball's Duke Zone video back in 2018 and it was funny to see him (and other people in background) reacting to these maps, though his laugh was quite obnoxious at times (as ck3D pointed), so I recommend turning the volume down when watching the video that Sanek linked above.

Duke Zone II has 3 new episodes made by Simply Silly Software (the people behind the Nuclear Winter addon) and as far as I remember, the levels in the first episode were just ok but then the second and third episodes were noticeably worse (on par with first Duke Zone in terms of quality). They also had places you could get softlocked if I'm not mistaken (and some glitchy elevator in the first episode's secret level). There is also a fixed version of Duke Zone 2 by NightFright that is available here: http://www.duke4.org...c/dukezone2.zip

[Aleks]

FistMarine, on 06 June 2022 - 03:50 AM, said:

I know that Duke, It's Zero Hour was once planned to be a commercial addon published by WizardWorks back in 1997 but this makes me optimistic that they plan one day to also include some of the community's works (at least older vanilla episodes and Fernando's entire FMX series) as sort of official/semi-official addons included as another bonus package (perhaps separate from the current package), kinda like how the recent remasters/ports for Doom and Quake are curating community works as official addons. I think that would be a neat thing to have for Duke3D as well. For instance, I really hope to see FM4X included there one day. If you are going to mail the people at Zoom Platform, would you mind if you ask them about including some community episodes as well? If not, I will ask them myself in the following days/weeks. Just to give people an extra reason to buy the version at Zoom Platform.

I don't think it would be possible/reasonable to include extra add-ons in Zoom version, they would need to pay royalties/get permissions from the authors, but then all these addons are also available for free elsewhere.

Quote

As for the Duke Zone maps, most of them are crappy, so it's nothing more than a historical curiosity. Two years ago I actually started playing through the Duke Zone maps (in DOS Duke3D v1.3D) and lost interest after the first 5 maps, so I intend to go back soon and quickly check each one of them. I also remember watching Psychedelic Eyeball's Duke Zone video back in 2018 and it was funny to see him (and other people in background) reacting to these maps, though his laugh was quite obnoxious at times (as ck3D pointed), so I recommend turning the volume down when watching the video that Sanek linked above.

I used this thread as an incentive to download like 5 old Duke shovelware CDs from Internet Archives and look through them for some old maps I remembered from my childhood and couldn't really locate even in the Dukeworld archives. Had quite a successful hunt, of course some of those maps "didn't age too well" to put it mildly, but some are genuinely solid considered they were made and released usually just few months after DN3D original release in 1996, plus there's some particularly interesting concepts back from the time people were still trying to figure out the boundaries of Build/Duke 3D mechanics, many of which were later forgotten or never tinkered with again. I particularly liked the concept in a map called Mangler Deluxe (which is apparently a changed DM map called Mangler), which is super simple, yet makes for such an entertaining gameplay - check it for yourselves!

Quote

Duke Zone II has 3 new episodes made by Simply Silly Software (the people behind the Nuclear Winter addon) and as far as I remember, the levels in the first episode were just ok but then the second and third episodes were noticeably worse (on par with first Duke Zone in terms of quality). They also had places you could get softlocked if I'm not mistaken (and some glitchy elevator in the first episode's secret level). There is also a fixed version of Duke Zone 2 by NightFright that is available here: http://www.duke4.org...c/dukezone2.zip

I remember the first Arctic Assault map where you start in a helicopter was pretty decent, same with first E2 map that took place on a graveyard. There's been also some original puzzle maps, one of them a secret level that could be particularly frustrating with tall elevators over rocks and lava and the other being in E3 I think with lots of things trying to instakill you.

[LakiSoft]

@ck3D, @Sanek and @FistMarine, Thank you guys for sharing Psychedelic Eyeball's Duke! Zone 1's stream video. I had good laugh on this video because i can't stop laughing at his own obnoxious laughing.

Anyway while we at Duke! Zone 1, even if those shovelware levels aren't of very wonderful quality, i still decided to do small experiment and make my own unofficial launcher of Duke! Zone 1 levels. The launcher works as simple as typing number of episode\volume from 1 to 41 and then pressing Enter, telling DosBox to start selected volume. Note, i can guarantee that first 3 volumens\episodes would have continuity, but when it comes to volumes\episodes from 4 to 41, i can't fully guarantee that some of these maps may be unplayable or broken. In that case use either DNCLIP, DNSTUFF, or DNSCOTTY Cheat codes.

I also did some minor tweaking and fixing on some shitty maps such as CoolClub.map where i fixed broken NukeButton, and J1.map where i fixed player's starting position.

Even if this's mostly bunch of random shits thrown into random episodes, i still think this is somewhat more encouraging to play this way than to load each map individually.

Have in mind that this launcher is very glitchy and that there's many maps that may be broken at some extent . What i do planned in future is doing better, EDuke32 version of this, that will have even more maps fixed.

Screenshots:



Download:
 Duke! Zone1 Launcher.zip (16.65MB)
Number of downloads: 100

[duke3d.exe]

Sanek, on 03 June 2022 - 01:44 AM, said:

It's got to be a Psychedelic Eyeball:

I remember playing that inferno city map back then, not sure where i got it from, never had D!Z1. I have the original D!Z2 thanks to Duke: The Apocalypse. I find it rather odd that Duke: The Apocalypse contains D!Z2 and Duke: The Apocalypse 2 contains D!Z1 lol.

[Jimmy]

The Apocalypse add-ons pretty much relied on brand confusion in order to triple dip on those products.

[ck3D]

duke3d.exe, on 07 June 2022 - 05:48 PM, said:

I remember playing that inferno city map back then, not sure where i got it from, never had D!Z1. I have the original D!Z2 thanks to Duke: The Apocalypse. I find it rather odd that Duke: The Apocalypse contains D!Z2 and Duke: The Apocalypse 2 contains D!Z1 lol.

Inferno was a really popular map at the time I remember, you could get it off any compilation CD I seem to remember, and IIRC in slightly more recent times, DN-R hosted it too. Early Internet had this funny trend where people would go off map/file name to pick the user levels they would download or not (also due to lack of available information/proper structure with reviews, websites etc.), so for a few years after Duke 3D dropped it only mattered so much what actually was in your map as long as the name or concept was simple, catchy and edgy. Also in part why some maps like Anarchy, Warzone, 2009 and many more blew up the way they did, they had attractive or intriguing titles that caught the audience's attention and then (to varying degrees) the inherent qualities to back up that original appeal and ensure they were keepers in the long run. On the other side of the coin, 1996 maps are intriguing because for maybe one that would pull this off, maybe two or three dozens would fail to, things like myhouse.maps or really most more generic names easily could fly under the radar, being 'disqualified' at the time just on that basis and doomed to shovelware or random ftp:// folder archival despite occasionally being pretty-to-really good or coming up with interesting concepts, making them really cool to revisit nowadays with the extra perspective sometimes.

[Youri87]

Thank you for your answers, we are here among enthusiasts! I've only recently started to look at the extra levels of Duke Nukem 3D, being a pure console gamer until then.

I find indeed that the first episode of DukeZone II is quite good, while the second one is very average.
The randomness is accentuated by the fact that the maps are linked without any logical link, we go from earth to space without any logic.

[ck3D]

Youri87, on 08 June 2022 - 05:44 AM, said:

Thank you for your answers, we are here among enthusiasts! I've only recently started to look at the extra levels of Duke Nukem 3D, being a pure console gamer until then.

That's an interesting background, have you looked at Duke 3D user maps ever so slightly past what randomly happened to be thrown onto shovelware at the time or the more or less (sometimes hardly) official expansions? There are longtime running community websites that review and reference the best and if what you're looking for is quality, or interesting if not crazy ways people have been taking the game this whole time since its first release then that's definitely the content I would encourage you to look into if not familiar already. Way better curated and also generally wider range of options to choose from that I think would be a more enjoyable use of your time than collecting the cheapest, if not stolen commercial content from 1996 and 1997, from single maps to entire episodes or TC's. Duke 3D is one of those games the community instantly recuperated as soon as it came out and it's been the fans who really have been keeping it alive and interesting ever since.

MSDN 'hot maps' page would be a good place to start getting familiar (or just curious): https://msdn.duke4.net/hot.php

There's also a page for fan episodes (of varying quality, since more rare) here if that's more like your thing: https://msdn.duke4.net/tcrev.php

If you're looking around for a recently-released episode that's bound to blow your mind, and play using eDuke32, I would definitely recommend Merlijn's Shaky Grounds: https://www.moddb.co...s/shaky-grounds I think just from the screenshots you should be able to realize the gargantuan leap in quality and passion vs. products like Duke! Zone.

[Jimmy]

Don't forget that if you were downloading these off FTPs or BBSes or something, it would take quite a few minutes for one map, not the few seconds it would take with modern connections. Throwing an eye-catching and intriguing name on a map was smart marketing.

Although I'm not sure if it's fair to look at these old shovelware discs negatively in context. Like I said internet was slow, but many PC gamers didn't have internet (or even speakers/sound lol.) Shovelware discs gave these gamers access.

[ck3D]

Oh I actually cherish those shovelware CD's as products of their time, a honest reflection of how cheap or scummy humans can be sometimes (that's simultaneously in the principle and in the featured works) and, most importantly, an archive of many unique maps (regardless of how shit) that probably aren't around the Internet anymore but available under that form (if anything, the idea of downloading 1996 shovelware CD content in 2022 just to get some otherwise lost files back I find pretty funny and cool). Those CD's are both a sincere time capsule and a preservation chamber.

[Ninety-Six]

Aleks, on 06 June 2022 - 05:57 AM, said:

I remember the first Arctic Assault map where you start in a helicopter was pretty decent, same with first E2 map that took place on a graveyard. There's been also some original puzzle maps, one of them a secret level that could be particularly frustrating with tall elevators over rocks and lava and the other being in E3 I think with lots of things trying to instakill you.

The secret levels were easily the worst part of DZ2 bar none. They look bad, play worse, and are more annoying with a completely nonsense theme.

Well, except 4-way stop. I admit I enjoy that map a lot. It's the only one with a cohesive theme, and while it's a pretty hardcore map with lots of enemies, you do get a lot of ammo too. I guess we can call it a guilty pleasure? Of course, none of this matters since there's no way to access it normally. It's like Faces of Death but it has an ending.


E1's normal levels are pretty decent (minus a bad door in E1L4), as are about half of E2's. In my opinion the quality decline of E2 isn't easily demarcated. The ones I like are 1, 2, and 4. 2 has a loose theme admittedly, but 4 feels like a solid penultimate level, infiltrating the alien ship that landed on or near the abbey. Gameplay wise I can understand disliking 2 and 4 as there is a chunk of enemy spam, but I never felt they were random spam, and nuking everything in both levels I always found pretty fun. Call it another guilty pleasure I guess?

E2 also has the worst secret level in the game because its ending has elevators tagged completely wrong and it's almost impossible to beat the level because of it.

The rest of E2 and especially E3 are where the quality totally drops off, and it just gets worse as it goes on. Apparently, according to one of the people at Simply Silly who posted here not too long ago, that was where one of the level designers pulled out so the rest had to be hastily scrabbled together and it shows. There's no longer any sort of theme, many mechanics are outright broken, enemies are just kind of thrown in with no thought to placement, and it looks very ugly.


yes as a matter of fact I do play DZ2 semi-regularly what about it


Side-note: DZ2 pairs really well with the Playstation soundtrack. If anyone wants to play it for their own curiosity or because you're insane like I am, use the PSX soundtrack. It's surreal how well some of the tracks line up. Better than some of the vanilla levels PSX tracks were assigned for even.

[Aleks]

Jimmy, on 08 June 2022 - 08:23 AM, said:

Throwing an eye-catching and intriguing name on a map was smart marketing.

Speaking of that, I find it cute and adorable how a lot of the .txt files for these 1996 maps look like, with all the stuff like "this map is quite brilliant, with perfectly balanced gameplay", "this is a killer experience for all the true hardcore Duke fans" or "probably the best map for Duke 3D that would make Levelord himself jealous!" - of course, all written by the authors themselves - then you get a random crap done in 5 hours.

[duke3d.exe]

ck3D, on 08 June 2022 - 12:04 AM, said:

Inferno was a really popular map at the time I remember, you could get it off any compilation CD I seem to remember, and IIRC in slightly more recent times, DN-R hosted it too. Early Internet had this funny trend where people would go off map/file name to pick the user levels they would download or not (also due to lack of available information/proper structure with reviews, websites etc.), so for a few years after Duke 3D dropped it only mattered so much what actually was in your map as long as the name or concept was simple, catchy and edgy. Also in part why some maps like Anarchy, Warzone, 2009 and many more blew up the way they did, they had attractive or intriguing titles that caught the audience's attention and then (to varying degrees) the inherent qualities to back up that original appeal and ensure they were keepers in the long run. On the other side of the coin, 1996 maps are intriguing because for maybe one that would pull this off, maybe two or three dozens would fail to, things like myhouse.maps or really most more generic names easily could fly under the radar, being 'disqualified' at the time just on that basis and doomed to shovelware or random ftp:// folder archival despite occasionally being pretty-to-really good or coming up with interesting concepts, making them really cool to revisit nowadays with the extra perspective sometimes.

I have some ancient maps from cdroms that came with magazines. There are a few decent ones but most are too rough. Im sure there are some maps that have never been uploaded from local magazines where people sent their maps to be included on the cds. Good times.