[MrFlibble]

This magazine scan has one pre-release shot from Shadow Warrior and one from Powerslave:
http://download.aban...81995-07%29.jpg

[oasiz]

Interesting, that Duke shot might be one of the few shots from before LD. Has some texture changes and lacks that ventilation "secret" near the start from the looks of things.
LD doesn't have a pistol sprite there, only gives you ammo.

I wonder, is this the earliest public footage of d3d aside from the recent video ?

[MrFlibble]

There's a Blood preview in this French mag. Not sure if there's anything new or rare there, but there's a couple of shots of high-res character models.

[MetHy]

There is also a part of Redneck Rampage, Shadow Warrior, an interview of Frederic Raynal... great stuff!

What is this level in the two bottom right pictures? I don't recognize it
http://download.aban.../Page%20099.jpg
Two old SW enemies at the bottom picture
http://download.aban.../Page%20100.jpg

The start of the part about Blood says that during the game, the character gradually becomes a beast and you end up being one at the end. I heard the boss of The Plasma Pack episode was supposed to be a character, so this might be connected. I'll read it all later and tell you if there is anything else interesting.

Edit : I've never played Bloodbath so I don't know if it's true, but it says in the final game there should be an option so that respawn aren't triggered to close to the player who just killed you (or to other players); and also there is a crystal ball allowing you to see the field of view of your opponent on a corner of the screen.

There is a part praising enemies AI, which is right, Blood's AI are great, but it says some enemies should be able to "see you" before you see them. This doesn't happen in the game but I think we can all guess why, due to how it'd make the game an unfair mess.

Other than that nothing interesting is said really, except the reviewer claiming the game is super hard.

[MrFlibble]

Thanks for summarising the texts! I have only very limited knowledge of French and couldn't be bothered to try working through the articles themselves.

Again, not sure if this is anything special, but some very large 3D models of Shadow Warrior monsters:
http://download.aban.../Page%20150.jpg
http://download.aban.../Page%20151.jpg

[The Kins]

MetHy, on 15 September 2015 - 09:11 AM, said:

The start of the part about Blood says that during the game, the character gradually becomes a beast and you end up being one at the end. I heard the boss of The Plasma Pack episode was supposed to be a character, so this might be connected. I'll read it all later and tell you if there is anything else interesting.

Yeah, the developers talked about this in the past (most recently in Retro Gamer Magazine's making-of article). Long story short, you could transform into "The Beast", who would need to constantly kill enemies with powerful melee attacks to avoid reverting back into Caleb. It was "sort of working" but it was cut pretty late in development because frankly, it wasn't very fun. One of those "better on paper" ideas, apparently.

[XxMiltenXx]

The Kins, on 19 September 2015 - 10:52 PM, said:

Yeah, the developers talked about this in the past (most recently in Retro Gamer Magazine's making-of article). Long story short, you could transform into "The Beast", who would need to constantly kill enemies with powerful melee attacks to avoid reverting back into Caleb. It was "sort of working" but it was cut pretty late in development because frankly, it wasn't very fun. One of those "better on paper" ideas, apparently.

Some of these HUD-Sprites are still in the game. Few weeks ago I unpacked all TileArts and noticed some HUD-sprites where he had demonic hands. The first few frames are a transformation from the normal hands to the demonic ones. The attack frames are some sort of claw-attack, a 2nd animation (only a guess) looks as if he is throwing something and in the third he turns his left hand inwards and towards himself.
I found these in TileArt #9

[OpenMaw]

A lifetime ago someone had sent me a zip file that contained a bunch of artwork related to Duke. Chiefly among them was all the artwork and concept artwork for the RESAURUS figures.

Anyone know where I can find that? Been looking around and I can't find it anywhere.

[Fox]

Some BETA footage of Total Meltdown and Duke 64...
https://youtu.be/xst...rp0E?t=1h16m16s

[MetHy]

I was going through Duke It Out in DC and Caribbean Life in "Damn I'm Good/Pistol Start/get rid of all enemies bodies" when I realized something.

When you start the game on Come Get Some (probably is the same with all other skills I haven't tried), and then use "DNSKILL5" to switch to Damn I'm Good, enemies actually won't respawn.
You will get enemies tagged skill 4 though, because in the original game and in the add-ons, there are actually quite a few enemies per level which only appear on Damn I'm Good.

Anyway for those who like a little extra challenge but hate the respawns, this is a good way to have a few more enemies per level.

I'm not sure if Damn I'm Good changes enemies behaviour though
I remembering reading on these forums some enemies were less aggressive on skill 1 or 2 but I can't prove that and I don't know if there is any difference between Damn I'm Good and Come Get Some on that level. Also perhaps, just like the respawn factor, that aggressiveness difference doesn't trigger if you change skill using DNSKILL.

Anyway - as a result I missed the secret level of Life's A Beach and can't actually play it with respawns unless going through map 1 and 2 again. How do you use the warp level command of eDuke32? "changelevel <volume> <level>"
volume? level? i tried "changelevel 308" "changelevel 3 08" "changelevel 3 8" "changelevel" "E3L8" and got no result...

[Danukem]

MetHy, on 27 November 2015 - 02:16 AM, said:

"changelevel 3 8"

That is the correct format and I got it to work, but if you put in invalid numbers it just repeats the command description back at you. I noticed that it does _not_ use the internal numbering. So, for example, the second level of episode one would be "changelevel 1 2", and not "changelevel 0 1" as I would have expected.

[MetHy]

Ah thanks, that worked ! Not sure why it didn't last time I was sure that's what I typed...

Finally I could beat the last level remaining on Damn i'm Good pistol start.

[MrFlibble]

MrFlibble, on 30 August 2014 - 02:56 AM, said:

Recently I've noticed that MobyGames entries for Duke Nukem II and Duke Nukem 3D have these little bits of information:

Quote

"Duke Nukum II" -- Working title

Quote

"Duke Nukum 3D" -- Working title

While I suppose that the claim for the Duke Nukem II working title is somewhat plausible, based on the information in the Apogee FAQ (specifically, where it is mentioned that the name Duke Nukem was discovered to be not copyrighted during the development of Duke Nukem II), the information for Duke Nukem 3D's working title seems erroneous to me.

A correction would be in order, however I'd like to first get more info from you guys. Is there any evidence to "Duke Nukum 3D" ever being a "working title"? More importantly, is there any positive evidence against this claim?

Hendricks266, on 30 August 2014 - 11:02 AM, said:

From 1994-04-16:

The approvers at MobyGames just sent my correction for Duke Nukem 3D back to me, with the comment that originally Duke Nukum 3D was submitted as a working title based on this post by Joe Siegler:

Quote

The earliest build I have was way WAY back when it was still called "Duke Nukum 3D". This is the earliest build I have in our archives, and had actual "Coca-Cola" cans. There was some talk about then bout contacting them for an official license, but that died out.

I would be very grateful for any information on whether such build really exists and whether the title was ever spelled like that.

Or at least, please tell if Joe's statement should be given any benefit of the doubt. If yes I'll retract my correction altogether.

[Hendricks266]

The earliest build Joe has is the one that the image I linked and the footage I recorded for 3DR in 2014 comes from:



There is no trace of "Nukum" anywhere. However, the video shows "Duke Nukem IIID", but I would treat that as Todd's personal nickname for the project, not a working title. ("Duke Nukem IIID" survived as a comment in LameDuke's GAME.CON.)

The evidence suggests Joe was mistaken. He may have been thinking of "Duke Nukum II", which definitely existed as you can see from my post in the Beta thread.

[MrFlibble]

Hendricks266, thank you so much for the clarification!

[MrFlibble]

Aaand correction approved. Man, that was fast. Thanks again for the valuable info and clarifications!

[Frenkel]

Thanks a lot. You've lowered my MobyGames score.

I'm now contributing the cheat code that let's you play the demo level of Duke Nukem 1.
(Run the game with command line argument asp and at the main menu press Alt+F6.)
This way I hope to surpass the magic limit of 1600 MobyGames points.

[MrFlibble]

Oh. I'm sorry! But accurate documentation is more important than points, right?

[OFFTOPIC]Personally, I stopped caring about MobyPoints a while ago when I realised that the easiest way to spam them is to just submit screenshots (especially with the generally lax moderation of those), while much more demanding research like finding/detailing out obscure release dates, websites that only exist in the Wayback Machine or particular bits of info such as this working title issue is meagrely rewarded with only a handful of points.

Even with screenshots, there's no bonus for submitting them for an entry that is lacking shots. You get an equal amount of points regardless of whether the game had none or there were already a dozen or two on file.[/OFFTOPIC]

[Fox]

It amuses me how much people care about point on Internet sites.

[Inspector Lagomorf]

Fox, on 10 February 2016 - 10:30 AM, said:

It amuses me how much people care about point on Internet sites.

I agree. +1 rep to your post.

Spoiler

Edit: Yes! I get a +1 rep for this post too. My E-ego just got a little more puffed up.

[Daedolon]

+1 rep for everyone!

[MrFlibble]

MrFlibble, on 02 February 2013 - 03:20 PM, said:

I have posted more details about the differences in the early versions of Shadow Warrior in the 3D Realms' forums (with some screenshots).

I just noticed that ImageShack removed all screenshots that I had uploaded, so I re-uploaded them at imgur and updated the post here (same as what I posted at the 3DR forums).

[Fox]

[DNSKILL5]

I've noticed on the image on the Dr. Dobb's Game Programming book, it shows a screenshot of Blood, and it appears to have a different looking Tommy Gun. The level in the screenshot looks like it's from the first level found in the alpha, but with different enemies appearing in the room. Though it could be another early level found in the alpha, it just really reminds me of the one I was talking about.

[MrFlibble]

Here's a little fact I've just discovered: Apogee/3D Realms included a PKZIP authenticity verification routine in all their archives. When using the DOS version of PKUNZIP to unpack them, it will check the integrity of the files and then display the following message (or a similar one, depending on the time period when the archive was created):

Quote

Authentic files Verified! # TRH310
Apogee Software

*******************************************************************************
Thank you for playing an Apogee Software Game!
http://www.apogee1.com

Please be sure that the security stamp is intact. If the file has been
tampered with, please download the correct file from our web site.
*******************************************************************************

While this has little practical use, it's quite helpful if you need to verify if a certain old zip comes directly from Apogee/3D Realms or not.

[Daedolon]

gerolf, on 16 March 2016 - 12:04 AM, said:

Though it could be another early level found in the alpha, it just really reminds me of the one I was talking about.

Should look into that. Looks more like a pamphlet than a book, but if that's a real thing, someone should find a copy of it.

[DNSKILL5]

Dr. Dobbs is real, but I'm sure that magazine or pamphlet is long out of print.
http://www.drdobbs.com/

EDIT: I've contacted the former owner of the site, I'll update if I find out anything. I asked if there was a chance of a photoscan, or any info at all about that magazine.

[Marphy Black]

A friend of mine came across the old on-line resume of Shawn Swift, a fellow who worked as a level designer on several of Sunstorm's Build engine expansion packs:
https://web.archive....nk.net/~sswift/

Unfortunately, most of the images are broken, so I can't really say if there's anything previously unseen or truly of interest here. The two working Duke screenshots say they're from an unfinished map, but he also states they were made "for fun" and thus may not be related to anything Sunstorm. The two broken Shadow Warrior images say they're from an unreleased level which immediately made me think of Wanton Destruction, but his name is not mentioned in the credits of that expansion.

And for the curious, the following are the levels I could determine were made by him:
Duke Xtreme - At least Final Destination (originally identified here)
Duke It Out In D.C. - Brown Water
Blood: Cryptic Passage - Gothic Library

And he apparently worked on System Shock 2.

[Lunick]

He made a few other levels in the Xtreme addon too, here's a pastebin with most of the level authors: http://pastebin.com/TvtZyurB

[MetHy]

I remember Final Destination, that's a fun map.

Brown Water and Library are great maps too.

I had no idea Travis did so many maps for X-Treme. I've never played that cause I always thought it was a shit add-on, is it worth looking into?