[Lunick]

Micky C, on 28 October 2014 - 02:12 AM, said:

That guy really needs to sort out his priorities. Getting an education, getting laid, something other than betas of games from before he was born.

I assume the 2000 in his username is his birth year.

Edit:

[Jblade]

I try and feel sorry for him but then I remember that I was posting at his age, and nowhere near as obnoxiously, with better spelling too (I even actually released a TC, even though it was of dubious quality)

[Fox]

MusicallyInspired, on 27 October 2014 - 05:57 PM, said:

No he's not, he's behaving like a normal human being like the rest of us. In fact, that's all his behaviour has been indicative of to me since all of this started. Yet whenever a nobody catches a break people love to bring them down.

It was a joke. Why is everyone feeling so protective about Fresch?

[cpt_picklehead]

MetHy, on 28 October 2014 - 12:55 AM, said:

some good stuff

Thank you, this is basically the post I was going to write, which I registered for.
It's nice the alpha/beta material will (hopefully) be released for free at some point, but looking back how things turned out so far I can see why people got pissed off. Maybe this should have been done less transparent/teasing.
If one looks back at the current events so far (HEY, we got betas soon, ooops delayed, woo 98% of all PWs cracked also I have what you don't , oh further delay, how about buying this in the meanwhile?, xBryan2000x) I can see why people get back into "Duke Nukem Forever"-mode - I'm glad to personally have reached the point of "I'll just believe 3dR once I've seen stuffs for myself, sorry".

I'm not complaining tho, if _anything_ ever gets released it's more than we could have asked for.

[Hendricks266]

MetHy, on 28 October 2014 - 12:55 AM, said:

It could have been done very differently, HRP-style where everyone gets a chance to help somehow if he wants to and has the time and skill.

Have you even played the HRP? Anything good was made by only a handful of people.

Lunick, on 28 October 2014 - 02:12 AM, said:

I assume the 2000 in his username is his birth year.

Edit:

It's 2002. (EDIT: He claimed he was twelve in the emails, but we have reason to doubt this now.)

[Lunick]

Hendricks266, on 28 October 2014 - 04:39 AM, said:

It's 2002.

[Richard Shead]

Fox, on 28 October 2014 - 03:37 AM, said:

It was a joke. Why is everyone feeling so protective about Fresch?

Maybe because he's doing something extraordinary for the 3DR fanbase/community and the inappropriate actions of some deranged fucker has threatened to bring all of that crumbling back down....again.

[Hendricks266]

MetHy, on 28 October 2014 - 12:55 AM, said:

It could have been done very differently, HRP-style where everyone gets a chance to help somehow if he wants to and has the time and skill. It would probably also be faster that way.

The public can analyze them to their heart's content when they are released. We don't need everyone and their dog just preparing the packages.

MetHy, on 28 October 2014 - 12:55 AM, said:

Plus, for all we know we'll never get everything (there seems to be so much that everything sounds impossible), so from that point of view it sounds even more unfair that only 2 people get to do so.

"Unfair" implies a sense of entitlement. No one is entitled to this stuff. Not even us.

MetHy, on 28 October 2014 - 12:55 AM, said:

They're not the only people who have kept DN3D alive, and they're not the only people who'd have the skill, knowledge and time to go through the betas.

Are there any better hands the data could be in?

MetHy, on 28 October 2014 - 12:55 AM, said:

Seriously, to the people who know the Doom community a little, imagine if the same thing had happened (Romero finds all the betas and asks 2 people from the community to go through them), it would have been a disaster.

I know the Doom community a little. It looks like this:

Spoiler

[MetHy]

I can think of maybe a dozen people on this forum who would fit for the job, I don't see how your hands are any better than theirs for this job. Not sure how many would have time and would want to do it but surely a few.

[TerminX]

Why wouldn't we be the best suited for the job? I personally have had experience with the engine since 1996, and I already had existing business arrangements with 3DR, both through Megaton and through moderating their forums for half a decade. Every additional person involved is another NDA to be signed which requires some serious vetting of the person in question beforehand... you can't just send confidential material out to any old person who wants to check it out and help. At this point, all of the teasing stopped because everything we post has to go through a lawyer first!

[cpt_picklehead]

I'm getting mixed messages here. Just have to agree TerminX and Hendricks are probably 2 of the best choices inside the community for various reasons.
Anyways ... I'll be glad to get my hands on the beta/alpha stuffs in 15 years once 3DRealms gets picked up by Ubisoft or something. Best part still remains this all could have been done under Joe "das Siegel" Siegler already.

Oh well.

[TerminX]

cpt_picklehead, on 28 October 2014 - 10:31 AM, said:

Best part still remains this all could have been done under Joe "das Siegel" Siegler already.

I take offense to that. You act like we're just going through the contents of his old beta CD or something, which would be about the biggest misconception here there could be.

Let me just spell it out in plain English, in no uncertain terms: anyone not capable of programming Build games in C was not qualified to go through these materials. It would be pretty useless to have people going through them without knowing what it all is or having the ability to easily determine it, don't you think?

Here is a good analogy: a large cache of historical prototype components for a range of vehicles that went on to become "classics" has been found. Rather than sending it to the engineers and enthusiasts who have maintained the platform for years and are even currently working an official updated version, you suggest giving it to the customer service desk manager because he happened to work there back in the day, regardless of the fact that he lacks a background in any of the engineering fields required to properly analyze what has been found. Pretty ridiculous proposition.

Anyway, we're talking to Fred pretty soon about a first small release of stuff for people to look at. Since anything that gets released has to be sanitized beforehand (removal of placeholder assets used from games 3DR didn't own, etc) the first things will naturally be pretty simple in nature, but I think some of you will be happy with the stuff we want to release.

[High Treason]

Whilst part of me understands where Methy is coming from, I actually think handing them to TX and Hendricks was a great idea, because that way we know we're getting the real deal; TX doesn't stand for any bullshit and he and Hendricks take pride in their work, so we'll be getting the Alpha/Beta builds in the best way possible without the bullshit of cracking the archive and probably a reasonable degree of how to get them to work figured out already.

Could the average forum user crack archives? Maybe, for example sake I probably could but it might have taken longer. Could they then get the contents to actually work and figure out what files needed to be where? I think without a detailed knowledge of the engine and Apogee's history a lot of guesswork would likely be involved and this would compromise the quality of any release we would have seen if it had been done this way. Further to my previous example, I'd probably have made a mess of it and you'd all be left in a bad mood wondering who had stuffed the wrong art file here, forgot to include this map or some other blunder that would have just annoyed everyone in the end.

Anyway, we're nearly there now - they're almost within our grasp. It certainly feels a lot closer than it did just a couple of weeks ago.

[DNSkill]

TerminX, on 28 October 2014 - 11:36 AM, said:

Since anything that gets released has to be sanitized beforehand (removal of placeholder assets used from games 3DR didn't own, etc)

Wouldn't removing these things mess up the game? Or are they files that are not actually within the game levels (like the Blood alpha had graphics from Doom but they are nowhere to be found in any of the maps)?

Also, Lameduke was released in 97 and contains a True Lies poster as a placeholder. Why wasn't this a problem then but it is now? I'm just curious if laws have changed or what.

[DustFalcon85]

Ancient Coffee Bean, on 07 October 2014 - 03:47 PM, said:

So, any predictions? what ever happened to that bombshell game? maybe they'll announce they got duke back in it.
Don't care much about that though, rather have those alphas.

Ancient Coffee Bean, on 08 October 2014 - 10:25 AM, said:

Well any news? what's changed?

Tekedon, on 23 October 2014 - 08:42 AM, said:

Site is up now! .. But no sign of any alphas yet.

jet_nick, on 26 October 2014 - 02:47 AM, said:

we want betas version of dn3d and sw now ahahah

*OCD Intensifies*

PikaCommando, on 09 October 2014 - 09:19 PM, said:

Is that Caleb on the far left?

Likely Nevada Smith of Arctic Adventures & Pharoah's Tomb fame.

PikaCommando, on 23 October 2014 - 10:54 AM, said:

Say, I wonder what Broussard's up to these days.

Recently he made a game for 48 hours thing on his Twitch.tv stream.

[TerminX]

The laws haven't changed, somebody just wasn't paying attention (or decided nobody would care) when LameDuke was released. For stuff like that, decisions have to be made on a case-by-case basis whether something would be removed, blanked out or even substituted. A lot of substitution will probably happen anyway... the stuff we have is really a gigantic mess.

Any of you ever develop a mod for a game over a period of multiple years and end up with directories full of hundreds of outdated, unused, or even unrelated files? Yeah, this is like that, multiplied by the difference in work output that comes with it being commercial work versus hobbyist and again multiplied by the difference in team sizes between hobby mod work and a commercial game. There are thousands of files, and a lot of those are just zips containing dozens or hundreds of even more files. It's a ridiculous amount of material to go through.

[DNSkill]

What about the later in development builds that contain the majority of the retail game maps? How are those being released?

Do we have to provide proof of owning Duke 3d to download those?

[cpt_picklehead]

TerminX, on 28 October 2014 - 11:36 AM, said:

I take offense to that. You act like we're just going through the contents of his old beta CD or something, which would be about the biggest misconception here there could be.

I'm not saying you're "just going through" stuffs and there's no doubt your work is valueable and your time well spent for the benefit of the general public, but isn't his beta-cd the source of the material up to be released? Even if it isn't, doesn't affect my point tho, as I by no means meant to attack what you're doing at this point.

Either way, I've expressed my discontent to a degree that I consider sufficient - I'll be back as a happy camper once things go public

[Hendricks266]

gerolf, on 28 October 2014 - 12:09 PM, said:

Wouldn't removing these things mess up the game?

If we absolutely needed to remove an art tile, we would hex edit the ART to replace it with a black rectangle of the same dimensions. I don't know if there is anywhere we actually need to do that, though.

cpt_picklehead, on 28 October 2014 - 12:55 PM, said:

I'm not saying you're "just going through" stuffs and there's no doubt your work is valueable and your time well spent for the benefit of the general public, but isn't his beta-cd the source of the material up to be released?

His CD is one of a few sources. Joe kept it very well organized. The mess is from developers' old hard drives.

[TerminX]

gerolf, on 28 October 2014 - 12:27 PM, said:

What about the later in development builds that contain the majority of the retail game maps? How are those being released?

Do we have to provide proof of owning Duke 3d to download those?

We aren't looking at releasing anything like that at this time; they don't exist in what was recovered. There are lots and lots of fragments with which we can assemble an approximation of what a full build may have looked like during a given period, but anything more than that is a crapshoot. I have said this many times. I think we have a full build from a week or so before 1.3D but it's so close to the final game there's no way we can just put it up for download for free.

cpt_picklehead, on 28 October 2014 - 12:55 PM, said:

I'm not saying you're "just going through" stuffs and there's no doubt your work is valueable and your time well spent for the benefit of the general public, but isn't his beta-cd the source of the material up to be released? Even if it isn't, doesn't affect my point tho, as I by no means meant to attack what you're doing at this point.

Either way, I've expressed my discontent to a degree that I consider sufficient - I'll be back as a happy camper once things go public

The beta CD has never been considered for release and it's not anywhere near the primary source of the material at all. We have the CD and the majority of it is stuff that can simply never be released, sorry. What we're really looking closely at is dumps of 3DR fileserver and developer hard drives. It is a lot of data.

Some of you seem to have formed a sense of entitlement over materials that were never meant for public consumption, and regarding how well you think we're doing on a volunteer effort you know literally nothing about. That's bad.

[icecoldduke]

It seems like there should have been some kind of beta release that accompanied the re-release of the website since that's what pretty much everyone here has been waiting for.

Quote

Some of you seem to have formed a sense of entitlement over materials that were never meant for public consumption.

I think honestly a lot of people are overly hyped over the dev material, and will come back down to earth after the first few releases.

[Inspector Lagomorf]

icecoldduke, on 28 October 2014 - 03:35 PM, said:

since that's what pretty much everyone here has been waiting for.

Actually, I think most of us are pretty patient. There just happens to be a very vocal subset of impatient whiners in this particular thread.

[icecoldduke]

Comrade Major, on 28 October 2014 - 04:31 PM, said:

Actually, I think most of us are pretty patient. There just happens to be a very vocal subset of impatient whiners in this particular thread.

All of us except the crazies have patience but I do believe that a beta release should have accompanied the relaunch of the site since that is the reason why so many people have been viewing this topic.

The crazies will slowly come back to earth after a few builds get released and they realize it wasn't what they were expecting, which will then just leave the rest of us.

[MYHOUSE.MAP]

I say release Frankenstein builds that have the least amount of differences compared to the final game first to piss people like Bryan off.

[ReaperMan]

Release only pictures of the Shadow Warrior coolie.

[Fulsy]

Release maps that are completely mirrored, but otherwise identical to the final version, and replace the idle sprite of the chaingun to the lameduke plasma gun.

[High Treason]

Release them one file at a time, in no particular order... This extends to releasing all the art as separate PC Paint files without tile numbers.

[PikaCommando]

You need to go through lawyers first? Wow. What could possibly be so lawtastic and simply never be released? Say, why is Lameduke legal and the others not?


TerminX has a mouth, and he must scream.


By the way guys, we should really stop pressuring the team, everything is done for if they broke down or something.

[Romulus]

Everything TX has said so far makes complete sense. Hats off to him and Hendricks, and specially to Fred. Take all the time you need to release the early alphas or betas as you guys see fit, but maybe a couple of more videos on youtube wouldn't hurt.

[MrFlibble]

MetHy, on 28 October 2014 - 12:55 AM, said:

You guys act like it's normal that only two people get to go through them, it's not, they're extremely lucky. They're not the only people who have kept DN3D alive, and they're not the only people who'd have the skill, knowledge and time to go through the betas. It could have been done very differently, HRP-style where everyone gets a chance to help somehow if he wants to and has the time and skill. It would probably also be faster that way.
Plus, for all we know we'll never get everything (there seems to be so much that everything sounds impossible), so from that point of view it sounds even more unfair that only 2 people get to do so.

I'll have to disagree here. I'm quite okay with the fact that a closed group of experts does all the meticulous sorting through, analysing and preparing the archives for publication. This is how similar work is done with literature, films and other works of art. This is how this kind of work should be done.