No problem, I imagine I would have the same problem trying to write in a language not my native one about a subject I'm not familiar with.
That's actually some really shrewd business moves. Or at least that's what I would say if they worked. Scamming people out of their assets so they can flip them in foreign countries, then repeat the process there is just so stereotypically evil corporation that I'm surprised it didn't work out better for them. Maybe it would've worked if he brought Wolfenstein or Doom over instead of making his own. Its a shame to hear that the Sango Fighter devs got conned, but that does explain why only the first game was translated to English.
This post has been edited by Morpheus Kitami: 23 September 2019 - 01:59 PM
Morpheus Kitami, on 23 September 2019 - 01:58 PM, said:
Maybe it would've worked if he brought Wolfenstein or Doom over instead of making his own.
Id Software had already struck a deal with a Taiwanese publisher called Kingformation, who had previously been involved in translated pirate versions of games such as Dragon Quest. So the story goes, Id licensed several of their games to them in exchange for a low royalty rate of $1 a copy. This way Kingformation were able to obtain a bit of legitimacy and Id were able to make at least a little money off the Chinese market.
Supposedly Kingformation went on to publish Duke 3D in China, but I haven't been able to find any information on this release.
Id Software had already struck a deal with a Taiwanese publisher called Kingformation, who had previously been involved in translated pirate versions of games such as Dragon Quest. So the story goes, Id licensed several of their games to them in exchange for a low royalty rate of $1 a copy. This way Kingformation were able to obtain a bit of legitimacy and Id were able to make at least a little money off the Chinese market.
As I heard something about this from a former Kingformation co. ltd. employee -- was a game designer/producer in that time, he's still actives these days but some times ago, I did tried to ask some info about that time but sadly he just cannot remember most of details about them...and I don't want to bother him about these things again --, those games from id software didn't really sold well, so they changed plan.
But still, they(Kingformation) tried.
I'm sure they have nothing to do with mainland China as I know, at least on early DooM & Quake time.
BTW, Kingformation did made a game strategy RPG game: Dragon Force(Guang Ming Zhan Shi 光明戰史), its gameplay was like Shining Force from Sega Genesis. They also put a lot of Dragon Quest/Shining Force elements in Dragon Force's background and main story, use its spell names(pure transliteration, they're all original Japanese spell name, but in Chinese), player character(s) designs and some other things.
In the game's secret battle that cannot visit by normal means(as it was designed for cheater, when it triggered, the game will show an error message and sent player to the studio of Kingformation...and it can be avoid by just go to city/town to find church then save the game and exit, them quit and restart), the player's force have to fight the game devs, and they are overpowered but still, the battle can be beaten if your characters are also overpowered too but it's only possible by doing memory hacking(Kingformation also published some memory scanner/debug tool for hacking...so how irony), I did tried that but...since no reward so beaten the level just pointless...
Well, the point is : A developer enemy unit named "Game Desinger", his battle sprite looks like he wears a white T-shirt, with DooM 2 logo on it. It was confirmed by the former employee : they had a lot of that T-shirts for put into the package boxes of DooM 2 they published, and most of employees also had the T-shirt as reward and wear the T-shirt too.
Proof of in-game footage, in 1:27 :
(I failed on this video because Game Designer's instant death attack just overruled my cheat program so my hero just dead and Game Over, sad. I did tried again but without recording and I got victory, so I know it's no reward, just sent player back to game)
The Kins, on 24 September 2019 - 07:15 PM, said:
Supposedly Kingformation went on to publish Duke 3D in China, but I haven't been able to find any information on this release.
No, Kingformation never publish Duke3D, that was other company that I never heard, I did saw the ad of DN3D and I'm sure it was from other company(in a game magazine), but I don't have the ad anymore so I cannot show the prove, and if Kingformation did had publish Duke3D, then I would know and found some info about that I also found nothing......but then again, Accend Inc. was published original RotT but still not many remembered this.
This post has been edited by Player Lin: 26 September 2019 - 07:09 AM
There are a few clues that in Duke Nukem 64 the Freeway was planned to not be a secret level like Launch Facility in this version, but they changed it back later on during developmnt.
- The more obvious evidence is that the Nukebutton at the end of Freeway is not green
- The secret exit in Hotel Hell is missing the manhole under the Nukebutton
- Stadium doesn't start in the lifting platform, likely because it wouldn't be the level after Hotel Hell
What level would be found in the Hotel Hell secret is up to speculation. But Derelict can be seen in an old screenshot...
There are a few clues that in Duke Nukem 64 the Freeway was planned to not be a secret level like Launch Facility in this version, but they changed it back later on during developmnt.
- The more obvious evidence is that the Nukebutton at the end of Freeway is not green
- The secret exit in Hotel Hell is missing the manhole under the Nukebutton
- Stadium doesn't start in the lifting platform, likely because it wouldn't be the level after Hotel Hell
What level would be found in the Hotel Hell secret is up to speculation. But Derelict can be seen in an old screenshot...
was the cycloid emperor map a cut level? Or a community user map?
Spoiler
This post has been edited by Fox: 31 October 2019 - 12:57 AM
Reason for edit: Big images
It's funny that devs made these screenshots just for the magazines, while in reality the maps simply doesn't exist. Yet people have odd nostalgia for the maps that never were, being mesmerized by these images decades after game's release. I remember Gambini said that he was very dissapointed by the absence of police car in E1L1.
I have the odd nostaliga for Witchaven. I have it on a warez cd, and I remember my father played it a couple of times - I never actually played it myself until my late teens. When I was a kid the game seemed so cool and awesome to me, almost on par with Hexen and Heretic, which I actually played back then. Somehow the game's cover image become sort of childhood/nostalgia symbol to me - the image I always remembered. Oh well.
The Watchtower, on 23 December 2019 - 07:51 AM, said:
Duke Nukem 64 is the best console version of the game, while changing the game to adhere to Nintendo's policies at the time still does so in a way that makes it stand on its own.
So, a little-known fact about the Apogee Sound System (the audio library used in ROTT and differing Build Engine games), is that it has audio recording capabilities.
These appear to be used for voice chat in multiplayer ROTT LAN sessions. If you see any DemandFeed-related code in the audio library (e.g., FX_StartDemandFeedPlayback), it seems to be used on the receiving side as follows: First, audio arrives from the network and is added to an internal playback buffer. The DemandFeed code is then used in order to play back the sound data from this buffer. This differs from playing a premade audio segment, say a WAV or VOC file.
The opposite is essentially done for sound which is recorded and then sent over LAN.
Now, as it turns out, the last version of VMware's desktop VM software has improved SB16 support. There might still be enough which is missing, but audio recording is, in fact, covered, at least partially. (I actually don't recall checking if this worked before the update, but it's still been a good chance.)
Other than VMware, and possibly also NTVDM for Windows XP, only other environments which I know to have working audio recording for SB-compatible DOS programs are actual DOS/Win9x setups with compatible sound cards.
As the following step, locating DOS software which supports audio recording with the SB *and* can do so under VMware turned out to be less than "simple".
As for actually hearing whatever is recorded with a microphone: Eventually, I looked at the Apogee Sound System sources, which include the sound playback utility PS, and modified it into RAW PCM sound recorder, shortly named RS.
While browsing through archived versions of Bobby Prince's old site, I came across what seem to be a couple (very scant) unused alternate Duke line recordings. Don't get your hopes up!
Unsurprisingly, it's Duke saying "Ooh!". Not that remarkable, unfortunately, but this is not the same "Ooh!" from him saying "Ooh, I needed that!" or "Ooh! That's gotta hurt!"
It's Duke saying "Let's rock!" with a repeated echo. This is not the same "Let's rock!" used at the skill menu, and the seemingly peculiar echo seems like it was meant for the menu selection sound. You'll note that the filename here is letsrock1, while the line used in the game is LETSRK03, suggesting other takes we've never heard.
And this segues into my next interesting discovery on the site. Each image here links to a Duke-related piece of audio, and apart from the aforementioned Duke lines, we can see that Bobby linked to myrtle.mid which we know didn't actually end up in Duke 3D but rather only in Xenophage. But even better than that, the page provides a whole backstory for the track explaining how that all came to be! And there are even more backstories for most of the tracks he made pages for on his site!
With that in mind, I have collected all of the midi pages on Bobby's site that present historical backgrounds (sans the Doom ones which can already be found here and here):
I found out that Lameduke has a suicide function that if you mess with FILE_ID.DIZ, the game.exe will erase itself when it fails integrity checks.
This file can't also be edited, unless you open D3D.EXE and find the text content embedded in the executable and modify it there also.
Based on compiled files the game also internal definitions for some sounds that do not exist, along with copter/elevator movement sounds but these are not correctly defined and some names are garbled. Despite renaming files, I was unable to get these play in-game. References to KSM also exist, so it's likely that the game+engine might still be able to play those back somehow. Actually not, no KSM. Wrong notes to another file.
This post has been edited by oasiz: 09 March 2020 - 12:15 PM
Reason for edit: wrong exe file name
I found out that Lameduke has a suicide function that if you mess with FILE_ID.DIZ, the game.exe will erase itself when it fails integrity checks.
This file can't also be edited, unless you open GAME.EXE and find the text content embedded in the executable and modify it there also.
I also remember reading about this type of copy protection, maybe even for other Apogee games. The FILE_ID.DIZ of the registered version would say something like "This is the registered version, do not distribute, and notify sysop if found on a public FTP", and the game would not run if the text was altered or removed altogether. Actually a good way of preserving integrity of distributions and discouraging tampering, even if the game is not commercial.
I also remember reading about this type of copy protection, maybe even for other Apogee games. The FILE_ID.DIZ of the registered version would say something like "This is the registered version, do not distribute, and notify sysop if found on a public FTP", and the game would not run if the text was altered or removed altogether. Actually a good way of preserving integrity of distributions and discouraging tampering, even if the game is not commercial.
I'm quite sure Duke II did this. Interceptor broke the Steam version with one of their updates by "accidentally" removing the file_id.diz.
In Warp Factor there's a bunch of porn mags in the really ready room. One is unique in that it has the palette set to 22 (not used elsewhere AFAIK) but the sector's palette overrides it.
In Life's a Beach's The Wavemistress there's a liztroop with the palette set to 10, but the sprite used by the expansion makes it hard to tell.
IMHO a bit too generic, probably something made up
Especially as the poster exists in LameDuke already but with different (alien) text. Still, Fright Night was hardly an obscure movie at the time, so who knows.
Help
Duke4.net
DNF #1
Duke 3D #1
