[oasiz]

Pretty much all pre-release stuff is just L6, more specifically E1L2 from few different angles.

I think EP3 is mostly like that for it to work well in DM and that it was made at the tail end of development by LL.

[NNC]

MrFlibble, on 24 September 2023 - 01:30 PM, said:

Just popping in to say this. I'm not criticising the final design decisions, but I have to say that urban areas indeed have always had a great appeal to me in Duke3D, and the E3 levels mentioned above indeed do the impression of city streets rather poorly, especially when compared to pre-release screenshots and the LameDuke levels. For a certain time, I had this idea of how cool it would be to roam real-life streets in the game -- thankfully there are many user maps that do exactly that, and overall very nicely indeed.

The design of urban areas in the game as it is does not hurt gameplay or immersion, but it does feel cramped quite often, and it's very hard for me not to think (although I might very well be wrong here) that performance concerns were one of the reasons for this state of affairs. I also agree that this mostly relates to E3 levels, I have no problem with E1L1 or E1L2, although the outside areas are also quite limited in scope, they're a huge step above urban stuff from Doom II for example, almost feels like it's a next generation game here really.

E3's has a strength though with the coherent look, coherent texturing, visual narratives, enemy placement, and the night vision message running gag can't be found anywhere else. Well, especially the LL maps have this coherent look, Freeway uses the E3 specific tiles013.art set extensively, but it still feels more of an E1 map, closer to E1L1/L2, but that's no surprise it was made by Blum. And as we noticed many times before, it's XXX Stacy in episode 4, which feels like something that is E3-ish, it really doesn't even use Atomic art other than a few rooms (Unabomber area was a late addition, or the printing room near the start).

But with all the charm these maps have, I still wish more urban grandness was added to the game. Even E1L2 was a slight letdown after E1L1, it's for example a daylight level with night sky.

[Gargoyle]

10 years since this legendary thread was started. Can we celebrate this with say some early builds of Cosmo, Monster Bash, Halloween Harry and Raptor? The hype still hasn't faded out of us.

[Dr_Proton]

So Classic Doom got a huge update today and it contains the best addition yet, the id vault! I wish we could get the same treatment for Duke3D... Imagine all the cool development pictures and alternate sprites.

[NNC]

Dr_Proton, on 08 August 2024 - 03:22 PM, said:

So Classic Doom got a huge update today and it contains the best addition yet, the id vault! I wish we could get the same treatment for Duke3D... Imagine all the cool development pictures and alternate sprites.

They didn't even fix the pathetic final boss in World Tour, how can someone expect an ambitious job from Pitchfork?

[MYHOUSE.MAP]

Terminx has been posting more content from Duke 3D prototypes lately.

Enemies

Robot enemy that appeared in an April 1994 build.

 april bot 1.png (2.82K)
Number of downloads: 5
 april bot 2.png (2.9K)
Number of downloads: 3

Robot that is in a May 1994 build.

 may bot 1.png (1.82K)
Number of downloads: 3
 may bot 2.png (1.85K)
Number of downloads: 2
 may bot 3.png (1.69K)
Number of downloads: 1
 may bot 4.png (1.77K)
Number of downloads: 1
 may bot 5.png (1.74K)
Number of downloads: 1

A May 1994 build has it, the Femanoid, and the bat as enemies.

 may bot enemies.png (133.89K)
Number of downloads: 16

Speaking of the Femanoid, she was the first humanoid enemy in the game.

 first humanoid enemy.png (20.35K)
Number of downloads: 15
 femanoid first.png (2.02K)
Number of downloads: 11

The bat in a May 1994 build looked very different from the one in Lameduke.

 may bat.png (11.54K)
Number of downloads: 12
 may bat dead.png (1.04K)
Number of downloads: 7

Weapons

The May 1994 build has this as a weapon

 gun.png (3.59K)
Number of downloads: 7

This is another "frame" for it found in the files.

 gun 2.png (3.65K)
Number of downloads: 6

And this is the weapon's item sprite.

 gun world.png (2.04K)
Number of downloads: 7

The item sprite for the weird weapon in the April 1994 build.

 gun item.png (1.69K)
Number of downloads: 9

The first person sprite for reference.

 weird gun item first person.png (6.32K)
Number of downloads: 7

October 1994 build's Pistol first person sprites. The last two tiles were cut from later iterations of the Pistol's firing animation.

 1094 pistol 1.png (2.68K)
Number of downloads: 3
 1094 pistol 2.png (3.44K)
Number of downloads: 1
 1094 pistol 3.png (2.7K)
Number of downloads: 1
 1094 pistol 4.png (2.76K)
Number of downloads: 3
 1094 pistol 5.png (2.6K)
Number of downloads: 2

The item sprite for the Pistol in the October 1994 build.

 pistol 1.png (1007bytes)
Number of downloads: 5

The Pistol's (called Hand Gun here) HUD icon in the October 1994 build.

 pistol 2.png (983bytes)
Number of downloads: 2

Skies

Sky from an April 1994 build.

 april sky.png (50.82K)
Number of downloads: 12

Sky seen in 3DR's now-deleted beta game trailer.

 skybox.png (10.78K)
Number of downloads: 15

Sky that has Editart information in it for some reason.

 editart sky.png (18.27K)
Number of downloads: 13

Another sky. Not sure where this one is from.

 sky.png (87.61K)
Number of downloads: 12

Textures

The first switch tiles for Duke 3D.

 1st switch 1.png (1.29K)
Number of downloads: 4
 1st switch 2.png (1.29K)
Number of downloads: 3

Another switch that seems to be based on the previous one.

 switch 1.png (1.38K)
Number of downloads: 2
 switch 2.png (1.37K)
Number of downloads: 1

Temp-looking electrified water tiles.

 elecwater 1.png (6.62K)
Number of downloads: 2
 elecwater 2.png (5.13K)
Number of downloads: 1
 elecwater 3.png (7.04K)
Number of downloads: 1
 elecwater 4.png (5.21K)
Number of downloads: 2


The same tiles without the electric "effect" drawn on them.

 water 1.png (4.42K)
Number of downloads: 2
 water 2.png (4K)
Number of downloads: 1
 water 3.png (4.64K)
Number of downloads: 1
 water 4.png (3.88K)
Number of downloads: 1

The bookshelf tile before it was painted over.

 bookshelf unpainted.png (11.21K)
Number of downloads: 4

An early propane tank.

 explosive.png (2.08K)
Number of downloads: 3

Early exploding and flying barrel.

 barrel 1.png (1.79K)
Number of downloads: 2
 barrel 2.png (2.32K)
Number of downloads: 1

Attempts at painting lighting and shadowing onto textures.

 seper tex1.png (4.07K)
Number of downloads: 2
 seper tex2.png (2.95K)
Number of downloads: 3

Some tiles found in the May 1994 build that survived to the final game. They were not in the April 1994 prototype.

 tex1.png (8.54K)
Number of downloads: 2
 tex2.png (9.31K)
Number of downloads: 2
 tex3.png (3.99K)
Number of downloads: 1
 tex4.png (10.1K)
Number of downloads: 1
 tex5.png (3.8K)
Number of downloads: 1
 tex6.png (3.12K)
Number of downloads: 1
 tex7.png (2.09K)
Number of downloads: 3
 tex8.png (2.78K)
Number of downloads: 1

Miscellaneous

Pallete from an unreleased prototype. Not sure which one.

 oldpal.png (15.1K)
Number of downloads: 3

Information about how Episode 1 was going to end at one point.

 e1 ending.png (15.29K)
Number of downloads: 29

Some info about a cut "alien hive" level Levelord was working on.

 alien hive ll map.png (27.94K)
Number of downloads: 24

Dr. Proton was not in early prototypes.

 no proton.png (17.28K)
Number of downloads: 20

[jkas789]

That little robot looks like something out of Sonic.

[OpenMaw]

Reminds me of a reimagined version of the Duke 1 hover robots.