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Duke3D shareware version with incomplete 1st episode

User is offline   Tigrou 

#1

I remember the first time I played Duke 3D (around April 96) it was from a Demo CD of a french magazine.
Unlike the regular shareware version we all know, only the first level (E1L1) was available.

Back then, I knew there was even a shareware version with 3 levels.
Later on (June 96) the shareware version with all 6 levels of 1st episode was available easily in Europe (but I had already bought the full game :D ).

I have been wondering if those incomplete shareware versions is something known in the community. I took a look at fandom page but there is no such a thing. I am also wondering why someone would want to do that ? It's not about saving bytes on the CD (full 1.3D shareware version is 5.64 MB, not that much compare to cutdown versions)

I have been able to retrieve them (see attached file). Here it is :

- Gen4 87 (April 96)
Duke Nukem 3D Unregistered Shareware v1.0 - E1L1.MAP

- PC Collector 2 (May 96)
Duke Nukem 3D Unregistered Shareware v1.1 - E1L1.MAP - E1L2.MAP - E1L3.MAP

Attached File(s)

  • Attached File  DUKE3D.7z (4.51MB)
    Number of downloads: 183


This post has been edited by Tigrou: 15 November 2022 - 01:37 AM

11

User is offline   LakiSoft 

#2

View PostTigrou, on 15 November 2022 - 01:37 AM, said:

I remember the first time I played Duke 3D (around April 96) it was from a Demo CD of a french magazine.
Unlike the regular shareware version we all know, only the first level (E1L1) was available.

Back then, I knew there was even a shareware version with 3 levels.
Later on (June 96) the shareware version with all 6 levels of 1st episode was available easily in Europe (but I had already bought the full game :D ).

I have been wondering if those incomplete shareware versions is something known in the community. I took a look at fandom page but there is no such a thing. I am also wondering why someone would want to do that ? It's not about saving bytes on the CD (full 1.3D shareware version is 5.64 MB, not that much compare to cutdown versions)

I have been able to retrieve them (see attached file). Here it is :

- Gen4 87 (April 96)
Duke Nukem 3D Unregistered Shareware v1.0 - E1L1.MAP

- PC Collector 2 (May 96)
Duke Nukem 3D Unregistered Shareware v1.1 - E1L1.MAP - E1L2.MAP - E1L3.MAP


The three level demo was already familiar to me and to the community long ago.

For the reference see the link here: https://forums.duke4...424#entry140424

But honestly i don't think neither myself neither any other community member ever heard of 1.0 shareware with one level only. What we did heard of is 1.1+ (almost version 1.2) with one level only though. :)

Thanks for sharing anyway. This does make good reference to nostalgia and Duke history. :)
4

User is offline   oasiz 

  • Dr. Effector

#3

Heh... that 1.0 edit is just lazy GRP editing, they just replaced E1L2.MAP with ........ in hex editor, the data is all still there but they just intentionally broke the file name headers.

Just extracted up to E1L6.MAP and it matches with regular 1.0.

Seems that USER.CON was simply edited to include E1L1.map for the whole EP and that's it.

So likely the only edits are dummied out entries while shipping the map data itself otherwise.


EDIT: Checked the rest, seems that DUKESW.BIN differs. Didn't bother checking. This is just the info splash.
4

User is offline   DNSKILL5 

  • Honored Donor

#4

Yeah, this is pretty interesting. It seems it was done by the magazine for sure compared to the CGW 1 level demo, which seems it was done in-house by 3DR (and was sort of between 1.1 and 1.2).
3

User is offline   MrFlibble 

#5

View Postoasiz, on 15 November 2022 - 11:31 AM, said:

Heh... that 1.0 edit is just lazy GRP editing, they just replaced E1L2.MAP with ........ in hex editor, the data is all still there but they just intentionally broke the file name headers.

IIRC the three-level demo from the other magazine does exactly the same thing - it's simply a hack of the shareware version that destroys access to later levels beyond E1L3.

I can hardly guess what the reasons for this could be. Did they think the entire shareware episode was too much for a demo? Did they try making "their" version "unique" by partially breaking it? Because I think that technically this kind of slighting actually counts as violation of the shareware EULA, in addition to serving no constructive purpose whatsoever.

BTW, I checked what the magazine actually says on that matter. My French is poor but I believe it describes their version as "a playable one-level demo of the genius 3D Realms game" (or, rather, "a playable demo of one level from the genius 3D Realms game"). Considering that shareware v1.0 came out in January 1996 and version 1.1 in February (and the April issue was likely prepared in March), the guys were a little bit behind things for sure.

This post has been edited by MrFlibble: 26 November 2022 - 08:38 AM

2

User is offline   oasiz 

  • Dr. Effector

#6

Publishers perhaps had different beliefs locally regarding "demo vs. shareware" (giving out a lot vs. tiny bits) or wanted to inflate the "new levels count" artificially.
Could also be the exclusivity thing.

I vaguely remember the 3-level one being slightly less broken and not literally corrupting the GRP itself.
1

User is offline   MrFlibble 

#7

View Postoasiz, on 26 November 2022 - 01:03 PM, said:

Publishers perhaps had different beliefs locally regarding "demo vs. shareware" (giving out a lot vs. tiny bits) or wanted to inflate the "new levels count" artificially.
Could also be the exclusivity thing.

I vaguely remember the 3-level one being slightly less broken and not literally corrupting the GRP itself.

I wonder if there are other examples with different games? I've been using these French mag coverdisks for some time as a source of demo and shareware versions of old games, but I don't remember finding anything that received a similar cut as these Duke3D shareware "demos"...
1

User is offline   Tigrou 

#8

Duke3D was distributed in Europe by U.S. Gold.
It's probably them who modified the shareware (to make sure only 1st level is playable) and only allowed that version to be distributed.

Generation 4 magazine only released the shareware with 6 level in July / August 96.
They would have done it before if they could. Especially since they could have downloaded it on the web easily.

Joystick (a very popular French magazine, direct competitor of Gen4) did exactly the same :
April 1996 (only first level)
July / August 1996 (6 levels)

I don't think it's a coïncidence.

This post has been edited by Tigrou: 27 November 2022 - 03:10 PM

2

User is offline   dwtietz 

#9

I received a CD in the mail yesterday that has this same version on it pictured here:

Attached Image: Duke_3D_Demonstration_Sampler.png

I started some discussions about this disc last night over in the duke4 discord, and after seeing this conversation thread here this morning I figured that this would be a good place to share the same information, so provided below is mostly a copy/paste of what I had posted in discord.

So, with the Duke Nukem 3D v1.0 CD that I received today, I've found a handful of small differences between the contents in the duke3d.grp file and a typical v1.0 grp file. After going through the files a bit and playing the game on this CD, it is apparent that the publisher specifically chose not to use the word "Shareware" while describing the disc's contents, and that someone intentionally went out of their way to change some files and nerf the file names of all of the map files except for E1L1.map so that it effectively became a one level demo, much like that one version that had been made for that magazine one time. This is also confirmed by the message that is displayed when the game is exited:

Attached Image: Duke_Nukem_3D_Demonstration_Sampler_1.png

This table shows the files that were found to be different, packed within the grp file:

Attached Image: Duke_Nukem_3D_Demonstration_Sampler_2.png

The .bin file is a binary file so I couldn't tell what the differences were when I compared them with a hex editor, but their contents are somewhat significantly different. The user.con file was intentionally modified to have all levels point specifically to the file E1L1.map as shown in these side by side comparisons:

Attached Image: Duke_Nukem_3D_Demonstration_Sampler_3.png

... and a view of the contents of the grp file reveals that the file names for E1L2.map to E1L6.map have intentionally been borked. You can't export these map files via drag-and-drop, but I was able to successfully export them one by one using Dragon UnPACKer and renaming the files to their original names during the exportation.

Attached Image: Duke_Nukem_3D_Demonstration_Sampler_4.png

I just can't really imagine why they would have intentionally gone to all this effort to harf the files and use labelling that specifically refrains from calling it shareware in the first place? Surely there must have been a reason for this.

The only thing that sounds different at all about this disc and the ones referred to above is that the others were distributed on PC gaming magazine discs, whereas this CD doesn't make any reference to any additional publications - It's just it's own thing (although the software itself sounds like it's the exact same version that was being discussed).

Just some further speculation of my own for the time being...

I'm starting to wonder if there's some possibility that what had transpired might be along the lines of something like:

US Gold was in the middle of transactions for the rights to be the authorized European publisher/distributor but that hadn't been thoroughly completed yet, but it was far enough along that they did have a soft copy of the shareware version in their possession.
As far as distribution goes, if that had not yet been fully authorized yet, could they have maybe brokered a deal with 3D Realms, either formally or informally, where they had been granted the right to distribute a stripped down version in specific regions if they wanted to based on what they did have at the time, and assuming that had been given the green light then US Gold hastily modified the files on their own in order to rush it out the door and get it to market?
That could possibly explain how the same version ended up appearing on the game discs accompanying at least two gaming magazines from France.

I wonder if there's anyone out there that worked for any of the companies involved (3D Realms, US Gold) that could add any insight or details that could help to prove or disprove the legitimacy of this particular version?

All just guesses and conjecture for now anyway.
2

User is offline   dwtietz 

#10

I just noticed that the one available with the Gen4 magazine from April, 1996 in France includes some additional text files that certainly appear to have been provided by U.S. Gold, so this may just very well add to the prospect of credibility and legitimacy of what is on the disc that I have here.
2

User is offline   dwtietz 

#11

Here's a quick rundown of what differences can be found between the US Gold 1 level demo version that can be found on a couple of French gaming magazine cover discs, a 1 level demo CD that was distributed directly by US Gold, and the US Gold 3 level demo version that can be found on a PC Collector gaming magazine cover disc.

I'm not going to delve deeper into the contents of the duke3d.grp file at this time, but here are a few basic details about the grp file and an image of the only thing that you'll be able to expect to see that's different while playing the game (Well... more accurately stated as "while you're exiting the game"):

Gen4 Magazine cover disc - April, 1996
Joystick Magazine cover disc - April, 1996
=========================
Game Version: v1.0 - One Level Demo
Filename: Duke3d.grp
Last Modified: 1996-02-09
Size (Bytes): 10,429,258
CRC-32: 929BE92F

When exiting this version of the game you'll be presented with the following screen:
Attached Image: magazine cover disc version.png


U.S. GOLD DUKE NUKEM 3D PC CD_ROM DEMONSTRATION SAMPLER
===========================================
Game Version: v1.0 - One Level Demo
Filename: Duke3d.grp
Last Modified: 1996-03-11
Size (Bytes): 10,429,258
CRC-32: 09C5258F

When exiting this version of the game you'll be presented with the following screen:
Attached Image: us gold demo cd version.png


PC Collector Magazine cover disc - May, 1996
===========================
Game Version: v1.1 - Three Level Demo
Filename: Duke3d.grp
Last Modified: 1996-04-04
Size (Bytes): 10,442,980
CRC-32: F679E81B

When exiting this version of the game you'll be presented with the following screen:
Attached Image: pcc magazine 3 level demo cd version.png

This post has been edited by dwtietz: 20 July 2023 - 06:17 PM

1

User is offline   MrFlibble 

#12

Was this U.S. Gold demonstration sampler CD a free product, or was it sold in stores? If the latter, sounds like a huge ripoff, considering anyone could download the complete shareware episode for free off the 'Net. Yeah, I know, Internet access wasn't as widespread back in 1996, but still one could download and then share it with others on several floppies.

I'm still suspicious that this sort of cutting down content is at least in part grounded in the commercial companies' notion that interactive demos must not be more than like three levels, and certainly not amount to a complete, albeit short, standalone game (which Apogee shareware versions essentially are).

It's about the same as with the Mac version of Duke3D, which also only has three levels -- although interestingly, it also includes DukeMatch with functional bots, unlike the DOS shareware version.
1

User is offline   dwtietz 

#13

View PostMrFlibble, on 21 July 2023 - 01:35 AM, said:

Was this U.S. Gold demonstration sampler CD a free product, or was it sold in stores?



Unfortunately, I do not know the answer to this, but I do agree with you 100%

One more tidbit of information that I have found is that the April, 1996 Gen4 magazine contained printed page advertisements where the art style/layout is consistent with the design of the sleeve that this disc came in:

Attached Image: Gen4_Avr96_1.png Attached Image: Gen4_Avr96_2.png

I'm hoping to get around to making some high resolution scans of the disc label as well as the front and back of the sleeve in the next day or so.
3

User is offline   dwtietz 

#14

Scans of the disc are done. These pics are just under 1/3 of the original size but uploading anything larger may be problematic.

Attached Image: demo disc 0_.png Attached Image: demo disc 1_.png
1

User is offline   dwtietz 

#15

Attached Image: demo disc 2_.png
3

User is offline   Frenkel 

#16

View Postdwtietz, on 20 July 2023 - 04:14 AM, said:

The .bin file is a binary file so I couldn't tell what the differences were when I compared them with a hex editor, but their contents are somewhat significantly different.


It's the Exit text screen, according to ModdingWiki.
1

User is offline   dwtietz 

#17

View PostFrenkel, on 21 July 2023 - 10:43 AM, said:

It's the Exit text screen, according to ModdingWiki.

Yup. I had concluded that much; I just meant that the changes that they'd made to this file weren't in a humanly readable form, and I didn't feel like going through and deciphering them into something that I could read. The results of those changes can be seen in the game exiting screenshots that I posted above though.
1

User is offline   Šneček 

#18

In the very first version I ever played (must have been in the early millennium) I remember only these levels were playable:
L.A. Meltdown
-Hollywood Holocaust
-Red Light District.
I'm not sure if it was the 1.3d version, anyway, the game wouldn't let me continue because it froze and I always had to call my brother for exiting the game :-) which was probably quite annoying considering the length of time I ended up playing that version. Anyway, in Lunar Apocalypse, playable levels were only:
-Spaceport
-Incubator.
In the Incubator stats screen, the game froze. And in Shrapnel City only Raw Meat was playable, then the game froze again.
The Birth episode wasn't present at all, interestingly I first got to know this fourth episode through the High Resolution Pack. (finally all 4 episodes were fully playable for me)
Despite some of the annoyance of this very truncated (1.3d?) version, I endured playing it for many months before finally getting around to a more normal version.
It was only after HRP that I finally got to know the original Atomic Edition? (with original unenhanced textures and without 3d models), followed by Low Resolution Pack and in 2011 the other expansions (CARIB, DC, THEGATE TC, ZONE II, NW, Xtreme TC, Penthouse Paradise). To this day I'm not sure if I saw blood, guts and hookers in the brothels in 1.3d version, I think it was more like my brother turned off Adult Mode because of momma.

This post has been edited by Šneček: 28 September 2023 - 10:49 AM

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User is offline   LakiSoft 

#19

View PostŠneček, on 28 September 2023 - 07:29 AM, said:

In the very first version I ever played (must have been in the early millennium) I remember only these levels were playable:
L.A. Meltdown
-Hollywood Holocaust
-Red Light District.
I'm not sure if it was the 1.3d version, anyway, the game wouldn't let me continue because it froze and I always had to call my brother for exiting the game :-) which was probably quite annoying considering the length of time I ended up playing that version. Anyway, in Lunar Apocalypse, playable levels were only:
-Spaceport
-Incubator.
In the Incubator stats screen, the game froze. And in Shrapnel City only Raw Meat was playable, then the game froze again.
The Birth episode wasn't present at all, interestingly I first got to know this fourth episode through the High Resolution Pack. (finally all 4 episodes were fully playable for me)
Despite some of the annoyance of this very truncated (1.3d?) version, I endured playing it for many months before finally getting around to a more normal version.
It was only after HRP that I finally got to know the original Atomic Edition? (with original unenhanced textures and without 3d models), followed by Low Resolution Pack and in 2011 the other expansions (CARIB, DC, THEGATE TC, ZONE II, NW, Xtreme TC, Penthouse Paradise). To this day I'm not sure if I saw blood, guts and hookers in the brothels in 1.3d version, I think it was more like my brother turned off Adult Mode because of momma.



Interesting @Snecek. I believe glitchy version you had was 1.2 maybe?

This post has been edited by LakiSoft: 28 September 2023 - 01:02 PM

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User is offline   Šneček 

#20

View PostLakiSoft, on 28 September 2023 - 01:01 PM, said:

Interesting @Snecek. I believe glitchy version you had was 1.2 maybe?


Hard to say, but I sure don't miss such a problematic version nowadays :) Moreover, I guess that finding even specific older versions to download nowadays may not be easy, including launching them

This post has been edited by Šneček: 30 September 2023 - 08:39 AM

2

User is offline   MrFlibble 

#21

View PostŠneček, on 28 September 2023 - 07:29 AM, said:

In the very first version I ever played (must have been in the early millennium) I remember only these levels were playable:

I'm not assuming that this was any kind of official release, was it?

However, I've never heard of any pirated versions of Build games having such problems. It's either that some of the levels were ripped (which is odd because this would not reduce the game size by a lot), or perhaps there was a problem with missing or replaced sound files? Also it probably can't be ruled out that certain data files got corrupted and were causing the freezes you mention.

View PostŠneček, on 28 September 2023 - 07:29 AM, said:

The Birth episode wasn't present at all, interestingly I first got to know this fourth episode through the High Resolution Pack. (finally all 4 episodes were fully playable for me)

Do you mean that you installed HRP over this glitchy version that you had and ran it with EDuke32? Or did you get a different version of the game with HRP?
1

User is offline   Šneček 

#22

View PostMrFlibble, on 01 October 2023 - 11:29 AM, said:

Do you mean that you installed HRP over this glitchy version that you had and ran it with EDuke32? Or did you get a different version of the game with HRP?


No, I definitely wasn't using any resolution pack at the time I played the imperfect version. Resolution pack had nothing to do with that 3-episode version.

I'm 100% sure I didn't know the eduke32 port at the time, and I didn't know it for a long time after playing the duke version in question. That version may have been downloaded from warez. I didn't even know my way around Duke's game menu at the time, let alone install anything myself.

Corrupted files could be possible reason.

1. I first met the imperfect version with three episodes.
2. After some time I met the High Resolution Pack and atomic edition (surely- due to fourth episode), which worked fine for me.
3. Low Resolution Pack followed, with dn 1.4
4. different dn expansions running in Jonofs port followed etc etc
1

User is offline   MrFlibble 

#23

View PostŠneček, on 02 October 2023 - 05:51 AM, said:

Corrupted files could be possible reason.

Back in the day it was not uncommon for warez groups to cut out what they thought to be "optional" content, like videos and music, to reduce the download size of the pirated game. Downloads could also be split into multiple parts to speed up the downloading process or fir the game on floppies. The fact that your Duke3D would freeze after certain levels might very well indicate either some missing data file or a corrupt one.

However, Duke3D is not that big of a game (smaller than 50 MiB), and games of such size would, from my experience, rarely undergo content cutting -- besides, you would not achieve much my removing the music for example, although re-recording the voice lines at a lower bitrate perhaps could reduce the file size a bit -- but I doubt any warez group would readily go for such lengths. So I indeed am inclined to think that either some data files were accidentally corrupted or lost in your case, so when the game was trying to load a level that, for example, used a tile from a missing TILES.ART file, it would freeze.
1

User is offline   MetHy 

#24

Pretty sure that's the same demo as I had as a kid which I mentionned a decade ago in the build demo thread

It has to be an official release:

Posted Image

edit: and yes it's the same one, the PC Collector 2 one, so it looks like this particular 3 level demo was only distributed in this magazine. I wonder if they got some kind of special licence to do that, to make it more substantial than the 1 level demo already available in other places, as everything in the files indicate it's just the shareware versions gutted off the rest of the levels.

This post has been edited by MetHy: 03 October 2023 - 10:40 AM

3

User is offline   MrFlibble 

#25

It still eludes me why they'd go all the way to limit the shareware version for these "exclusive demos". I know that not everyone had Internet access back in the mid-90s, but surely some French users were able to download the fully legit shareware copy? BTW, did France have any shareware vendors like the US did? Those would distribute physical copies of shareware games for a nominal fee, and take orders for the registered games too.

On a somewhat different note, yesterday I remembered that certain 90s games had OEM-exclusive expanded shareware versions with up to half of the full game's content. IIRC, this includes among other things Descent[ (called Destination Saturn) Descent II (I think), Hexen II, Warcraft: Orcs & Humans and Tyrian (also, a bit later, Half-Life: Day One). I wonder if Apogee/3DR ever went that route and Duke3D, or some other game, had a special version of this kind?
0

User is offline   MetHy 

#26

I don't recall/know of any shareware distributor in France from back then but I was pretty young so really I have no idea. All the sharewares I got came from this magazine which we would buy most issues of, or other magazines, and the order info for sharewares was always the US one. We didn't get an internet connection until 1998 either iirc, even though we did get internet access earlier than the vast majority of people I knew.
This is why this demo version being legit makes sense to me even though it's just personal experience. I see it as a way to reach a part of the player base which only had very limited access to the shareware version, without outright nullifying the point of the shareware version itself.

This post has been edited by MetHy: 06 October 2023 - 06:21 AM

1

User is offline   MrFlibble 

#27

View PostMetHy, on 06 October 2023 - 06:21 AM, said:

I see it as a way to reach a part of the player base which only had very limited access to the shareware version, without outright nullifying the point of the shareware version itself.

The logic of cutting down content feels like as if they thought that offering less levels would somehow make you buy the full game even more compared to the regular shareware version. It seems like a very dubious method, although we do know that the Mac demo of Duke3D also only contains three levels -- which is what people apparently felt to be a good measure for commercial game demo content. But then, the Mac demo of Doom still has the full E1 if I'm not mistaken.

The entire point of the Scott Miller/Apogee model is to give players what is essentially a short but complete game, with a boss battle or some such climatic moment, a secret level and otehr stuff, which would entice users to order the registered version. If your game has around 30 levels, giving away six for free doesn't seem like a really big chunk (compared to having let's say only 14 levels in the entire game, for example). Also the whole E1 is designed in such a way as to showcase what the game has to offer, and cutting down the level count just takes away part of that showcase (like the extensive underwater areas in E1L4). I can't imagine anyone back in 1996 playing the shareware release and enjoying it, but then somehow deciding to give the registered version a pass, unless for external reasons preventing them from buying the game.

I can understand the CGW one-level demo, its appearance was likely due to a misunderstanding. CGW editors back in the day frequently asked game devs to provide demos with exclusive levels. It seems plausible that they communicated a similar request to 3DR, but the "exclusive" part got lost somewhere along the road, so they ended up getting the demo with E1L1 only. IIRC, the very next issue of CGW featured the complete six-level shareware to somewhat rectify this. It would be awesome if an actual demo with an exclusive level existed, but ah well. Yet for these French releases, I cannot but help imagining some of the publisher's manager or another saying something like, oh, we're giving them too much content, players will not want to buy the full game if they have this much to play with for free, let's cut this down to one level that is played over six times, that'll whet their appetite.
1

User is offline   ck3D 

#28

I suspect that's just because for the longest time, maybe until the mid to late nineties, American distribution in France in particular used to be pretty do-it-yourself and in many ways compared to modern standards would now qualify as bootleg. I distinctly remember obscure 'companies' that really must have amounted to three dudes tops in one of their mom's basement placing ads in magazines, hoping to dig their own niche market by reselling shareware demos on mail-to-order floppy disks. That was before the CD-R craze and so for some of the demos, you'd get the files scattered on and have to recompile a folder from half a dozen floppy disks. I remember there was stigma around the practice already because a lot of people who would order from those companies were expecting to get the full game for that price, the exact quality of the product was never clear until the files were installed and you'd realize what you've got. In the field of video games in particular I suspect Nintendo/Sony/Sega along time in the 90's set strong systematic precedents with dedicated localization and distribution teams all the while monopolizing the console market, as a result PC gaming had to keep up in order to meet the average player's expectations, the industry in general developed like crazy and that weeded out a lot of the sketchier attempts at business. Surely quality control and serious supervision on foreign distribution was more abstract and less established in the past and for a while whoever technically could distribute a game easily could personally mess around with the arrangement of the files prior to spreading them. An extra intermediary trying to shine as opposed to just a processing agent if you will. In some countries in mainland Europe, that persisted relatively late. The web also really took off later than it did in the U.S. most of the time and so one just had to rely on different sources, sometimes strangely indirect ones, to find demos.

This post has been edited by ck3D: 07 October 2023 - 06:03 AM

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