[jkas789]

Danukem, on 05 July 2024 - 02:52 PM, said:

It's not true that "only the old guard" is mapping. Some of the newer mappers aren't visible to you though because they focus on maps for modding projects that don't have much presence on this old web forum.

Here's a good example:

https://www.youtube....@SPYmaps/videos

There's also AMC, and Alien Armageddon, and the upcoming serious sam TC, and others

SPYmaps is doing God's work working on Ion Fury user maps. I still think that the best user map I have played for the game is Hong Kong however everything that SPYmaps has ever posted is absolute gold.

[DustFalcon85]

 OpenMaw, on 05 June 2024 - 10:52 AM, said:

After all these years, who is still here?

What's going on in your lives?

I'm here occasionally. Just keeping a low profile, working and enjoying life as best as I can.

EDIT: Oh and I don't have a Windows desktop PC anymore. I switched over to MacBook Air M2 2023 15 inch and I'm going Mac moving forward. If I wan't to play games on my MacBook. MacSourcePorts baby!

[Ninety-Six]

I needed to take a sabbatical from Duke4 and online communities in general, outside of my close circle of friends. Had to deal with the threat of going homeless and that threat still hasn't gone away; just delayed for a month or two. Hopefully we can think of something in the meantime. Our good friend Impie has actually paid for me to be an editor on some of his books, which has helped a lot.

Currently suffering through my second round of covid. I've seen more phlegm in the past week than I have my entire life.


What have I missed while I've been gone?

[Putrid Pete]

I've been absent for quite a while due to a combination of switching to Linux in 2021 and taking many months to figure everything out, getting a Switch console and obsessively catching up with many RPG games that I prefer to play portable (I wanted a Steam Deck for that, but unfortunately it is unavailable for purchase in my region altogether), and also getting into home servers and self hosting plenty of services, particularly my own media server using Jellyfin. I've started to crawl back into pc gaming recently and so been peeking back at these forums; loved the Ion Fury expansion and currently replaying it over and over.

I have all my build engine source ports running under Linux again and kind of ready to go back to some good ol retro gaming... just waiting for my new mouse to arrive so I can complete my new wireless setup and play all these shooters once more.

[jkas789]

Putrid Pete, on 18 December 2024 - 11:10 AM, said:

I've been absent for quite a while due to a combination of switching to Linux in 2021 and taking many months to figure everything out, getting a Switch console and obsessively catching up with many RPG games that I prefer to play portable (I wanted a Steam Deck for that, but unfortunately it is unavailable for purchase in my region altogether), and also getting into home servers and self hosting plenty of services, particularly my own media server using Jellyfin. I've started to crawl back into pc gaming recently and so been peeking back at these forums; loved the Ion Fury expansion and currently replaying it over and over.

I have all my build engine source ports running under Linux again and kind of ready to go back to some good ol retro gaming... just waiting for my new mouse to arrive so I can complete my new wireless setup and play all these shooters once more.

Oh hey I also jumped ship to Linux around that time! Jellyfin is indeed cool and I will not be paying money to Plex thank you very much.

[Putrid Pete]

I chose Arch Linux as my first distro, which I've been running happily since; started on XFCE but eventually moved over to Hyprland to try out Wayland and just been so smooth for my multi-monitor setup. As for my three servers, they all run Debian (including my VPS machine and 2 actual hardware boxes that run headles). These days I live in a terminal and vim most of the time.

Jellyfin has been my favorite thing to host by far: building the server and selecting the right components, figuring out how to get hardware acceleration working, setting it up remotely with a reverse proxy... all great fun. What drove me to host it was the excessive amount of money streaming services asked so I could get 4K HDR content, and how insanely bad their support for Linux is all around.

But circling it back to build source ports, I've been quite happy with how easy it is to build them from source, and I even wrote my own bash script to automate the task of rebuilding them pulling the latest upstream changes.

[jkas789]

Putrid Pete, on 19 December 2024 - 05:24 AM, said:

But circling it back to build source ports, I've been quite happy with how easy it is to build them from source, and I even wrote my own bash script to automate the task of rebuilding them pulling the latest upstream changes.

Yeah, it's super easy. Btw eduke32 just updated!

Quote

I chose Arch Linux ...

I'm using Endeavor OS myself atm. I started with Arch initially but after having to reinstall the OS a couple of times I switched to Manjaro and then to Endeavor because I didn't want the hassle of setting up Arch every single time. Nothing fancy just on basic bitch KDE on Wayland. I don't really live inside the terminal though I do use vim for note taking. Also Jellyfin is great.

[Sledgehammer]

Still there, but rarely visit the place, mostly lurking. Barely have any time due to work and being a parent.

[Sanek]

Hi there!

Tecnically I'm still here, I still check forums, MSDN, TAW and such but actually...I'm afraid that I lost it, in a major sort of way.


I just lost interest in playing the game all of a sudden. The last time i played a user map was back in September of 2023, and it was ck3d's Duc-Man map for a BattleDuke Contest Pack. I continued working on my own project after this, but stopped on a 2nd map of a supposed 8-map episode. It was exactly one year ago, and I haven't launched the game at all since then.

I don't know what was the exact reason behind a fallout like this. Maybe it's my other interests that's more important to me right now. Maybe I don't feel comfortable playing and mapping on laptop when compared to a regular PC. I dunno, guess it's just a perfect storm of everything what's happening.

I think that I started losing interest even way before that, when the game become the playground of ideas (I don't like the word "gimmicks" tbh) for me. When I finished the first BattleDuke episode I had enough hype in me in order to make a second one. I really found it's more interesting and more fulfilling for me than making a regular type of map. I still do, I still think it's a great concept that's worth toying around with.


I won't say that it's genuinely sad (because it happened very naturally) but it's rather confusing to say the least. Things change, but DN3D has been a constant in my life for the past 25+ years, like a #1 hobby of yours. So it was a sort of a norm, and what's happening right now is not the norm. And sure, the quality and quantity of my output varied greatly over the years but I always had something mapping-related on my mind, always thinking what kind of world or adventure I can make next, and how to cram it all within a map's limits and my own ability as a creator.

So to wrap this all up - I want to go back but I don't have as much interest in it as I used to. I guess I've got to be really bored or have absolutely nothing else to do in order to launch the game again! Maybe it'll happen soon, maybe it'll take even more time than it currently is. And if it's not - I think that I did pretty good with the game and the editor over the years so I can be at peace about it by now. That's all.

[The Albino Ape]

Still lurk occasionally. Married now, trying to start a family. Busy with work, church, gym etc

Very heavy into playing the new Doom. Unfortunately, with Duke in purgatory it's tough to come in here and talk much about nothing.

Hope everybody here is doing well!

[Splat]

I'm not here.. but i sometimes check in when i am drunk.
Somehow burned out on Duke and gaming long time ago.
I remember predicting to Yatta years ago that he would get married or go on with other things and shut this all down, so why bother.
He did NOT chicken out, i did. So i respect that all this is still running.
But i was just doing some webdesigning quasi artistic hobbying. When i carefully dabbled in moderating.. i was like, fuck this. I am out. Felt like Joe3DR on a bad day at the 3Drealms forum.
Jeez.. started in 2005.. i am old and sad.

[Yatta]

Splat, on 02 June 2025 - 09:04 AM, said:

I'm not here.. but i sometimes check in when i am drunk.
Somehow burned out on Duke and gaming long time ago.
I remember predicting to Yatta years ago that he would get married or go on with other things and shut this all down, so why bother.
He did NOT chicken out, i did. So i respect that all this is still running.
But i was just doing some webdesigning quasi artistic hobbying. When i carefully dabbled in moderating.. i was like, fuck this. I am out. Felt like Joe3DR on a bad day at the 3Drealms forum.
Jeez.. started in 2005.. i am old and sad.

I'm never leaving and neither are you.

[Hudson]

OpenMaw, on 05 June 2024 - 10:52 AM, said:

After all these years, who is still here?

What's going on in your lives?

I'm still here. Had to take a break to take care of some groovy adult things but I'm back again and have been tinkering away at making a successor to Zombie Crisis in the form of a Director's Cut. I was really surprised at the reception when we launched and I've received a mountain of feedback since so I thought it only fair to repay them with a massive quality of life update. Creating all new weapons, more enemies, you know the drill.

When I'm not tinkering I'm enjoying the calm life with my doggos, my great job in I.T. and just enjoying life or trying my best to. Life is too damn short to be upset all the time, you know?

[Doom64hunter]

Sanek, on 25 May 2025 - 05:23 AM, said:

I just lost interest in playing the game all of a sudden. The last time i played a user map was back in September of 2023, and it was ck3d's Duc-Man map for a BattleDuke Contest Pack. I continued working on my own project after this, but stopped on a 2nd map of a supposed 8-map episode. It was exactly one year ago, and I haven't launched the game at all since then.

You are not the only one who experienced this after 2023. It's uncanny but I've observed the same loss of interest with a lot of people during that timeframe, not restricted to Duke either.

It's like something was pumped into the atmosphere.

[LeoD]

Doom64hunter, on 27 July 2025 - 05:17 AM, said:

It's like something was pumped into the atmosphere.

So after failing at mind control and mass sterilisation they finally got chemtrails working.
Although I think the plethora of EDuke32 issues introduced during IF development had a greater part in driving me away.

[supergoofy]

Still here, but I'm retired from programming or whatever (I never was a pro, only for hobby). I remember back in the day, when I was younger, I used to do eduke32 source compilation and produce binaries, little fixes to con code, maybe other little packs etc. Now all these things are unknown to me. I forgot how to do these things. And I never was an expert, like the other friends of the forum.

Stay healthy, stay strong.

Best regards to all.

[Gambini]

I come around from time to time to see if there´s anything said about the projects i care or have participated. I worked on IF Aftershock, got my in eternal development hl2 mod finished in 2021 then refurbished in 2025 to fix what the 20th Aniversary HL2 update broke, currently porting it to Steam as a standalone free game.

I hardly do any mapping these days, more than tinkering with old projects and polishing little details i come across (it´s something i have to admit i love to do). I´ve shifted my energy to more practical projects, just finished rebulding my car engine and drivetrain, and building an expansion to my house. But rest assured i do put in practice the learnings that modding left me, managing projects, troubleshooting, architecture. I do love when i have a solution for something that comes from my old mapping days.

I´m also counting the days for my retirement, which i would love to spend working on modding again. The DNF mod update is also in the to-do list, so whenever i get bored of what i am working on, or have some free time i can´t allocate i fire mapster again and tie some lose ends on it, so every chance it´s a little bit less unfinished.

Never got the hand of Discord and its fast paced communication system. Only used it for proffesional reasons, but i do miss the old Forums days.

[dnskill]

Wow it's awesome to see some people I remember being more active when I first joined here posting here now. Glad to hear you're all doing well. I'm trying to be more active again but life has gotten in the way. Just know that Duke4 means so much to me and I am glad I can connect with so many Dukers, new and old timers alike.

[Merlijn]

I'm still lurking and posting here from time to time, just not as much as I used to. I'm also still mapping, but it's a bit more sporadic so it takes longer to finish something.
Still I expect to release a new map somewhere around October/November.

Quote

You are not the only one who experienced this after 2023. It's uncanny but I've observed the same loss of interest with a lot of people during that timeframe, not restricted to Duke either.

Just from my own experience, the years before that were defined by lockdowns and uncertainty about the future. During that time, focussing on mapping was one of the things that helped me get through the monotony of the lockdowns. Once everything was open again, it makes sense that the interest for Duke or mapping went down. For me it meant I could go out again, play gigs with my band etc.