[Kathy]

I doubt anyone "forgets" watching a movie. But no distractions keep you more engaged in the process.

[Spirrwell]

Well, such simple options should at least be changeable via the console or CFG file. I would actually think that having a consistent HUD actually helps boosts performance, not like anybody with a semi-modern computer would EVER notice, but if rendering code was optimized so that nothing behind the HUD was drawn until the HUD is no longer obscuring it then it doesn't make sense to have a disappearing HUD. Although that is a pretty stupid argument, no game would ever need that kind of optimization these days.

[Jimmy]

Burnett, on 04 February 2013 - 07:20 PM, said:

I doubt anyone "forgets" watching a movie. But no distractions keep you more engaged in the process.

Well yeah, but I often find these 'immersion' features often make me less engaged. I like having the HUD up all the time, because it holds information I need to know.

[Alan]

I think my only real problem with its aesthetics are that they retained some of the goofier elements of the original. The hover pads, spike traps, and switchless moving walls look out of place in a modern shooter. Regardless, it looks like it could potentially be fun if it's not taken too seriously.

[DaveyDoomsday]

Hey guys,

Thanks for all the comments as well as the criticisms on our latest production diary - they're always welcome. I brought your concerns up with Frederik and Leon to confirm some things before replying to you guys to make sure I'm not spouting BS at ya.

First things first! That wall clipping you saw during the bit of gameplay where Daniel was discussing secrets and exploratory level design was old footage. The way pushwalls currently work is that they will move backward on actual rails that you can see when the wall has been moved. This allows us to still have things as ridiculous as pushwalls but gives us a way for them to seemingly make sense. You know, as if someone engineered these things on purpose! Here's a picture from an unfinished level to show you what I mean:



There are actually three secret areas in that one room you saw in the video. We've got 'em all over the place. Some easy to find - some not so easy to find. Now, in reply to what Bloodshot said:

Quote

"When they talked about secrets it irked me that they didn't seem to mention how they would make them distinguishable. What they showed just looked like they would press in a wall or use a pillar - I really hope there's more to it then that, because with stuff like that you just cause people to press every pillar and wall they come across. ID was always really good at secrets, they'd have visual cues, especially in RTCW when you had things like a slightly tilted wall torch, or a wall panel that looks pushable. Easy to miss, but they catch your eye if you stop and look around. "

Fred is a very big fan of that style of level design (I think we've discussed it on a podcast) and as such there will almost always be a visual cue to let you know, "Hey - there might be a secret here" ...As much as I know you all love "WHERE IS IT" style wall humping to find secrets. It might be a slightly discolored texture, different lighting, a cracked brick - or you may just see the secret plain as day - just not the switch to open the door for it!

As for the disappearing HUD! What Asle didn't point out in the video is that currently you have to be idle for quite a good while for it to fade out. It won't happen often during most levels due to the constant madness taking place, but during levels like "The Room" where there are no enemies and only puzzles and traps - we find that it definitely makes the level feel more immersive. However, there's little doubt that one of the MANY in-game options will be to always have the HUD on. So, have no fear - if you dislike the disappearing HUD - you can disable it.

As for beating up on poor Martin for pointing out that we have prisoner NPCs? He was simply citing one of many small examples of how we've updated the game for 2013 to make the world of ROTT 'make sense' as a modern game. We had to build a world around what was going on within San Nicolas Island because quite frankly ROTT 95 didn't give us much to work with. So now the Triads have a prison, they have torture chambers, they have workshops where they prototype new types of GADS, they even have laboratories that give off a distinctly Wolf 3D Ep 2 vibe. Although Dr. Schabbs has nothing on the dementedness of Sebastian Krist.

As I said, Martin wasn't trying to point out some 'major gameplay feature' - just giving a small example based on the level he was working on. Plus there's one prisoner who constantly does pushups. I like that guy.

In all honestly - your comments and criticisms do help us to make a better game - so keep 'em coming. If we only paid attention to the blissfully blinded ROTT fans who already can't wait for ROTT 2013 and want to give us their money (as much as we love them) then in my opinion we wouldn't be doing our jobs as game developers or doing this IP justice. It's guys like you at Duke4 who remind us that we can always be improving during the course of our dev cycle - even if you hurt our feelings from time to time.

As always, if you ever have any other questions or comments, feel free to ask here or email me at Doshry@gmail.com or find me @DaveOshry on Twitter

tl:dr

- Pushwalls don't clip in the game like you saw in the video
- The disappearing HUD is optional
- Prisoner NPCs are just one of the many small things we put in the game to update the world of ROTT
- We love you guys

-Dave

[Mr. Tibbs]

Cheers for the response, Dave. The game looks great!

[Bloodshot]

Thanks for the update, nice to see you can turn that stuff off

Burnett, on 03 February 2013 - 07:12 PM, said:

Really? I remember literally pressing every wall in Wolf3d.

Hence why i cited RTCW as a reference . They didn't really start doing visual cues for secrets until Quake 1 and on

[ReaperMan]

DaveyDoomsday, on 05 February 2013 - 09:58 AM, said:

If we only paid attention to the blissfully blinded ROTT fans who already can't wait for ROTT 2013 and want to give us their money (as much as we love them) then in my opinion we wouldn't be doing our jobs as game developers or doing this IP justice. It's guys like you at Duke4 who remind us that we can always be improving during the course of our dev cycle - even if you hurt our feelings from time to time.

Uh... well i'm a huge ROTT fan if you cant tell. I'm not going to just hand over my money, i already got burned by DNF, its got to be a good game.

Also, i why is the Machine gun not a MP40 with blue paint anymore? It was so cool like that.

[Person of Color]

Looking good. Can't wait to play this.

[Jimmy]

I always thought the blue on the MP40 was merely bad coloration, not that it was literally meant to be blue.

[Hank]

Ehmm, I thought it was a reference to

[ReaperMan]

Captain Awesome, on 05 February 2013 - 05:00 PM, said:

I always thought the blue on the MP40 was merely bad coloration, not that it was literally meant to be blue.

Still looked cool.

[Kathy]

Bloodshot, on 05 February 2013 - 03:35 PM, said:

Hence why i cited RTCW as a reference .

Man... I just realised that RTCW is not Wolf3d. Shit...

[Saiyuki234]

the next Duke Nukem game should follow ROTT 2013's example. it has modern elements like iron sights and reload animations, and retro 90's elements like ammo pickups,health packs, big labyrinthine levels,secret areas,traps,no weapon limit,etc

[ReaperMan]

Saiyuki234, on 05 February 2013 - 07:40 PM, said:

iron sights

Ehhhh.... it could do with out that one.

[Saiyuki234]

ReaperMan, on 05 February 2013 - 08:00 PM, said:

Ehhhh.... it could do with out that one.

Actually, it could be in there, but not for ALL the weapons. it could work for the Handgun & shotgun

[Jimmy]

Saiyuki234, on 05 February 2013 - 07:40 PM, said:

the next Duke Nukem game should follow ROTT 2013's example. it has modern elements like iron sights and reload animations, and retro 90's elements like ammo pickups,health packs, big labyrinthine levels,secret areas,traps,no weapon limit,etc

LOL.

[Inspector Lagomorf]

Hahaha. Iron sights. Hahaha.

(restrains self from making a "Call Of Dukey" joke)

[Micky C]

Saiyuki234, on 05 February 2013 - 07:40 PM, said:

the next Duke Nukem game should follow ROTT 2013's example. it has modern elements like iron sights and reload animations, and retro 90's elements like ammo pickups,health packs, big labyrinthine levels,secret areas,traps,no weapon limit,etc

Sigh. It's such a shame when something like "ammo pickups" and "health packs" are considered retro

Then again it's funny how COD fanboys blindly seem to think that running down a single path, and being able to absorb literally an infinite amount of damage (over a time frame that is) requires just as much intelligence as being able to navigate a complex layout and have a limited amount of health for each level.

[Kathy]

New Vegas had iron sights and it was an awesome addition, quite frankly.

[ReaperMan]

Sangman, on 02 February 2013 - 05:39 AM, said:

I'm sorry but the level design I've seen so far looks very amateurish.

I can't believe i didn't see this before. You do know that one of the level designers is Elzee... the guy who did the Return of the Triad mod. So here's hoping he will do just as good of a job as he did with Return of the Triad for mapping.



Edit: He made that map... and most of the other ones on that TC.

[DaveyDoomsday]

ReaperMan, on 06 February 2013 - 04:18 PM, said:

I can't believe i didn't see this before. You do know that one of the level designers is Elzee... the guy who did the Return of the Triad mod. So here's hoping he will do just as good of a job as he did with Return of the Triad for mapping.



Edit: He made that map... and most of the other ones on that TC.

Elzee a/k/a Leon Zawada is actually our lead level designer. The levels in ROTT 2013 are primarily based off the best levels in ROTT 95 and some of the added elements have been based directly on Return of the Triad levels. If you're familiar with Leon's levels you'll definitely recognize some of the areas in ROTT 2013.

5hfifty a/k/a Simon "Simmo" Rance (co-creator of Return of the Triad) is one of our artists and as such creates many of the assets for Leon's levels.

Needless to say, it's pretty great having them on the team.

[Mr. Tibbs]

DaveyDoomsday, on 06 February 2013 - 09:10 PM, said:

Elzee a/k/a Leon Zawada is actually our lead level designer. The levels in ROTT 2013 are primarily based off the best levels in ROTT 95 and some of the added elements have been based directly on Return of the Triad levels. If you're familiar with Leon's levels you'll definitely recognize some of the areas in ROTT 2013.

5hfifty a/k/a Simon "Simmo" Rance (co-creator of Return of the Triad) is one of our artists and as such creates many of the assets for Leon's levels.

Needless to say, it's pretty great having them on the team.

That's pretty awesome hiring two talented, clearly passionate guys from the community. That certainly bodes well for ROTT. Were they already familiar with UDK, or did you take them on board because of their awesome mod?

Edit:
Also, if I shoot porridge will it give me a health bonus like in the original ROTT?

[Frederik Schreiber]

I hired both Leon and Simon partly based on their work on Return of the Triad, and their skills in UE3.
Leon has extensive scripting and gameplay flow experience in UE3, and is one of the most solid level designers I have met.
Simon is also a great Environment Artist, having created the majority of our Episode 2 Assets in the game.
Shooting priest porridge with a rocket will indeed "Cook" it and give you more health

[Mr. Tibbs]

Frederik Schreiber, on 07 February 2013 - 02:02 AM, said:

I hired both Leon and Simon partly based on their work on Return of the Triad, and their skills in UE3.
Leon has extensive scripting and gameplay flow experience in UE3, and is one of the most solid level designers I have met.
Simon is also a great Environment Artist, having created the majority of our Episode 2 Assets in the game.
Shooting priest porridge with a rocket will indeed "Cook" it and give you more health

Oh man, now I really want this game! Cheers for the response.

[Spirrwell]

Man, it'd be cool if this game was released on February 17th. But that's too much to hope for. Also if you don't know why I'd shoot for that date, you're in the wrong place. At least a general time frame, will it at least be released by this year? Is that likely? I know you don't want to set dates, I'm just curious if there's any idea.

[Green]

Wanted: Testers for "Rise of the Triad"

[DaveyDoomsday]

That shot from Episode 3 is what I was talking about when I said we have levels that give off a real Wolf 3D Ep. 2 vibe. As you can see, the Ballistikraft clean the floors hourly.

[Mr. Tibbs]

That's one shiny floor! I'm definitely loving how distinct the environments are.

[thatguy]

Color me impressed, more so than before. Loving the environments. Like Tibbs said, the contrast is intriguing. Man i can't wait to play this game. Glad they are formed through Episodes. I miss the classic business.