[DavoX]

Well if any guest wants to try the brand new DNF 2013 mod please do so

[Kathy]

You, on 13 June 2013 - 11:23 AM, said:

This thread is currently on the front page of http://www.reddit.com/r/games

Just letting everyone know in case a bunch of zero day accounts come in and start posting in this thread.

We must show what a great community we truly are. Too bad Mikko is off and I haven't seen BL lately.

[ReaperMan]

DNF.... the most interesting shitty game in the world. Seriously, a book could be written on this game.

Also, i wonder if Sega and 3DR will team up to take Gearbox down.

[Lunick]

ReaperMan, on 13 June 2013 - 06:55 PM, said:

DNF.... the most interesting shitty game in the world. Seriously, a book could be written on this game.

Also, i wonder if Sega and 3DR will team up to take Gearbox down.

Duke Nukem & Sonic at the Olympic Games.

[TerminX]

Lunick, on 13 June 2013 - 07:00 PM, said:

Duke Nukem & Sonic at the Olympic Games.

"It's down to you and me, you one-eyed freak!"

[Hendricks266]

TerminX, on 13 June 2013 - 07:26 PM, said:

"It's down to you and me, you one-eyed freak!"

I am a Sonic fan and I approve this message.

[Malgon]

What a clusterfuck!

[Striker]

I'm more pissed at 3DR and George Broussard over DNF than I am Gearbox to be honest. This just makes it worse.

Had the game been in 3DR's hands to this day and they didn't go bankrupt/hit with a lawsuit, we likely wouldn't even have the game today... and even if it were released, it would have been the same load of disappointment.

From what I know, Gearbox (or rather Triptych, taken under Gearbox's wing) only had a part in buying the rights and finalizing the game/polish and outsourcing the multiplayer development, and finally shipping it out after everything got fucked up by the 2k/3dr lawsuit. The game was already destroyed by GB's poor management and desire to mimic modern shooters due to his X360 fetish at the time*, to the point where it was beyond salvaging. Anything else at this point is just speculation.

* (Ie: Two-weapon limit due to not knowing how to efficiently map it to a 360 controller?! are you fucking kidding me? Even HL2 on the 360 got it right, it's competition back in the day.)

The only things at this point I really blame Gearbox for, is the complete and utter lack of modding tools, the falling flat of the first access club, and that one month or so delay for release. Anything else, falls square on GB.

A:CM on the other hand is another monster entirely, and unrelated to this. That, I can blame GBX for, definitely.

But in regards to Duke Nukem Forever, Gearbox took all the flak for the disastrous mess 3DR left them with. As said in the lawsuit, it destroyed their credibility. (A:CM Aside, which was their own fault.)

[Micky C]

I think releasing the game in such a crappy state (I still argue that they could have made minor improvements, mostly on the technical side, that would have made DNF more tolerable) not to mention hyping the FUCK out of it to maximize preorder sales played a moderate part in ruining their credibility too.

No one forced them to release the game. Given the amount of time they were working on it, they might as well have started from scratch. But that's another debate for another thread, the point is Gearbox takes some of the blame or their loss of credibility.

[Striker]

Lunick Prime, on 14 June 2013 - 01:21 AM, said:

I think releasing the game in such a crappy state (I still argue that they could have made minor improvements, mostly on the technical side, that would have made DNF more tolerable) not to mention hyping the FUCK out of it to maximize preorder sales played a moderate part in ruining their credibility too.

No one forced them to release the game. Given the amount of time they were working on it, they might as well have started from scratch. But that's another debate for another thread, the point is Gearbox takes some of the blame or their loss of credibility.

Perhaps, but there still is no doubt out there that 3DR really fucked up on their end as well. (Namely, George.)

[Player Lin]

Blame 3DR guys, laugh at the drama or not, it won't changed Gearbox still failed at DNF in some degrees... if they know it'll failed why still just want released it as "we just want to finish it", well, I'm not really surprised 3DR want to broke shit out...

Gearbox deserved it.

[Tea Monster]

I maintain that the franchise is cursed, and every incident like this is just another pin in the voodoo doll.

[ReaperMan]

Tea Monster, on 14 June 2013 - 02:54 AM, said:

I maintain that the franchise is cursed, and every incident like this is just another pin in the voodoo doll.

A Duke Nukem voodoo doll...... oddly enough i want one.

[----]

StrikerMan780, on 14 June 2013 - 12:56 AM, said:

Had the game been in 3DR's hands to this day and they didn't go bankrupt/hit with a lawsuit

Oh, 3DR is bankrupt. That is news to me. You learn something new everyday from the nice and informed people here.

[Paul B]

In my opinion, 3DR didn't have the talent left in the company to pull off a game like D-N-F. Everyone working for 3DR seemed too caught up with the success of Duke3D and they were having a difficult time coming up with something fresh. Unfortunately, after many failed attempts to create a HUGE new game they lost the focus of what made Duke... fun. They unknowingly removed all fun factors from the game and focused on a different style of game play which just didn't fit with what the fan base was expecting. As things slowed down progress on the game was essentially handed off to a couple of people and there weren't enough resources to complete the game. I think 3DR dropped the ball many times on this project over 15 years and ultimately they were the reason for the fail.

Gearbox tried to do the noble thing to revive the game because Randy knew they were struggling, however the game was already too far along to becoming a failure. Basically Gearbox just polished and released what they had to work with. I'm sure with the right developer team they could release a better Duke game which brings the fans back to the game once again. Picking up where someone else left off was not necessarily a good idea and Gearbox could have done a better job if they would have just scrapped the project and started from scratch.

Even if 3DR did finish the game it would still have been a massive disappointment and complete failure. Now Gearbox takes the bad rep and 3DR comes out smelling like a rose. If 3DR is bankrupt I don't even see how a lawsuit from them would be possible since they are essentially, non existent. They have backed themselves into this corner and its no ones fault but their own. They should just keep quiet before the tables turn and their own lawsuit comes back to bite them in the @ss!

[Hank]

@ Paul B - Apogee(3D Realms) is not bankrupt! Gearbox saved their arse and now in turn show their teeth as a huge thank you to Gearbox.

Randy made a commitment to 3D Realms, i.e. taking responsibility for a loan + paying royalties to keep them a float, meanwhile, and Apogee is now collecting.

[Paul B]

Hank, on 14 June 2013 - 08:51 AM, said:

@ Paul B - Apogee(3D Realms) is not bankrupt! Gearbox saved their arse and now in turn show their teeth as a huge thank you to Gearbox.

Randy made a commitment to 3D Realms, i.e. taking responsibility for a loan + paying royalties to keep them a float, meanwhile, and Apogee is now collecting.

Thanks Hank, I wasn't aware of that. I read an old article over at shacknews: http://www.shacknews...loper-3d-realms
which basically said the company had been dissolved. But if I wanted more current facts I should have just turned to the wiki article.

[Ronin]

This is just ridiculous, Gearbox Shovelware are clowns but this is a poor showing from 3DR.

This will be a movie or at least a documentary some day, and even then I bet members of the cast will die in mysterious circumstances to add to the absurdity.

I don't have any good will left for either company anyway so let them have at it, it will be amusing for us.

[LAW]

3DRealms acts like an old fart with flaccid d*ck, who just had a bad sex. It was his fault, but he sees culprits everywhere, but not in the mirror.

It was their fault in the beginning, that DNF is mediocre. This is not the old 3DRealms I have loved.

[Fox]

Ronan, on 14 June 2013 - 09:13 AM, said:

This will be a movie or at least a documentary some day

Looking forward it!

[TerminX]

It would certainly be an interesting story, though telling it in book format may be more appropriate, akin to something like Masters of Doom. If any of you haven't read Masters of Doom, I HIGHLY recommend it.

[Hank]

nah, forget books, it could be made into a DNRealty game

Imagine, George and Randi slinging DNF style poopo against each other and the player keeps score

[----]

Currently I will sit back, don't take any sides or whatever and will wait for the outcome.

I don't know what was going on behind the scenes and if or how desperately 3DR needs money or if there was true evidence GBX didn't pay what they had agreed upon.


One good thing about this thread is, that TerminX has pointed me to the Masters of Doom book. It is not available in German (not a roblem for me) that's why I had missed that until now.

[blackharted3]

I'm going to try to be neutral on this, but I have to say this is pretty fucked up, pardon my french.

I still can't believe this actually happening. It sucks. I don't think there's anymore that can be said for now.

[The Lone Duker]

Look who made news


http://www.shacknews...rever-royalties

Someone from Duke4

[Metalwolf]

Ronan, on 14 June 2013 - 09:13 AM, said:

This will be a movie or at least a documentary some day, and even then I bet members of the cast will die in mysterious circumstances to add to the absurdity.

The developer's cast version of the curse of the Poltergeist movie? Will they have spooky button-eyed dolls too?

This turn of events is like a bad soap opera. Next thing we'll learn is that Randy is George's ex girlfriend who had a sex change. They fight like a bad couple.

[Mr. Tibbs]

What a shame. I was hoping that George, Scott and hopefully Triptych would be able to at least consult on the next Duke game. I wonder if that might be delayed because of these squabbles?

Duke Returns Shacknews link has a pretty interesting comment from someone associated with the project:

"From what I know, GBX paid Triptych very little to complete DNF, and we as employees were told by Triptych that we'd get some sort of payout even if the game didn't do that well, because we were saving GBX/2K so much money having presented them with a near finished project and then working for peanuts to ship it. We were told that it didn't even need to sell over a million to make money, etc etc. Then it came out, and from what we could tell it easily sold over 1mil between the three platforms (like .3mil PC, .75mil Xbox and 7.mil or something like that on PS3).

Somehow this didn't happen, of course. We suddenly were told by Triptrych that 2K/GBX said it didn't recoup expenses and wouldn't be paying them any royalties, so there was not going be trickle down to us, obviously; seemed like the accounting changed magically, like some sort of fucking music industry deal you hear about. Well, at least we subsequently got giant raises to complete the DNF DLC and the two BL2 DLCs. Live and learn. But needless to say there's a few ex-Triptytch employees watching this closely, popcorn in hand. If they owe 3DR money, they owe Triptych money, I think, and therefore possibly me, money."

And this which is unrelated and probably know to most, but it kind of demonstrates that Duke wasn't much of a priority for Gearbox:

"To be honest the writing was done nearly for free (bad decision) by two women (yup, women, so the misogyny thing is just baffling) who had never written anything or anything like it before (one a technical writer right out of college IIRC, the other a relative of someone on the team who's never written anything published at all before AFAIK). There was no story or written dialog or fucking anything like a cohesive level progression to the game when 3DR shut down. All that was all done while the game was forcibly assembled from misc parts, over a few months between the shutdown and when GBX picked up the project.

One hope I had for the project moving to GBX was that they'd trash the writing, the recorded dialog, and give a decent professional doing-over story-wise - but they didn't want to spend the money or time on that, and thought what existed worked, apparently."

[kaisersoze]

I had heard about this quite awhile back but didn't want to touch it with a 10 foot Duke pole.

As I understand it, 3DR is owed quite a bit of money.

What do you guys think of 3DR ie: Scott and George potentially getting the Duke I.P. back from Gearbox? Do you think Gearbox can do the I.P. justice at this point?

If I were George and Scott, I'd try like hell to get the I.P. back. I could actually see a resurrection of sorts of 3drealms(the development part...I know they exist as a business entity at this point)

Anyways, the craziness with the Duke Nukem Forever story continues.............with what could be a shocking ending.

[TerminX]

You heard about a case that was filed barely a week ago "quite a while back?"

Dibs on borrowing your time machine.

[----]

Mr. Tibbs, on 14 June 2013 - 01:06 PM, said:

What a shame. I was hoping that George, Scott and hopefully Triptych would be able to at least consult on the next Duke game. I wonder if that might be delayed because of these squabbles?

Duke Returns Shacknews link has a pretty interesting comment from someone associated with the project:

"From what I know, GBX paid Triptych very little to complete DNF, and we as employees were told by Triptych that we'd get some sort of payout even if the game didn't do that well, because we were saving GBX/2K so much money having presented them with a near finished project and then working for peanuts to ship it. We were told that it didn't even need to sell over a million to make money, etc etc. Then it came out, and from what we could tell it easily sold over 1mil between the three platforms (like .3mil PC, .75mil Xbox and 7.mil or something like that on PS3).

Somehow this didn't happen, of course. We suddenly were told by Triptrych that 2K/GBX said it didn't recoup expenses and wouldn't be paying them any royalties, so there was not going be trickle down to us, obviously; seemed like the accounting changed magically, like some sort of fucking music industry deal you hear about. Well, at least we subsequently got giant raises to complete the DNF DLC and the two BL2 DLCs. Live and learn. But needless to say there's a few ex-Triptytch employees watching this closely, popcorn in hand. If they owe 3DR money, they owe Triptych money, I think, and therefore possibly me, money."

And this which is unrelated and probably know to most, but it kind of demonstrates that Duke wasn't much of a priority for Gearbox:

"To be honest the writing was done nearly for free (bad decision) by two women (yup, women, so the misogyny thing is just baffling) who had never written anything or anything like it before (one a technical writer right out of college IIRC, the other a relative of someone on the team who's never written anything published at all before AFAIK). There was no story or written dialog or fucking anything like a cohesive level progression to the game when 3DR shut down. All that was all done while the game was forcibly assembled from misc parts, over a few months between the shutdown and when GBX picked up the project.

One hope I had for the project moving to GBX was that they'd trash the writing, the recorded dialog, and give a decent professional doing-over story-wise - but they didn't want to spend the money or time on that, and thought what existed worked, apparently."

That's interesting and seems (if true) to proove my opinion about the GBX heads.