[Shaq Fu]

Fox, on 12 December 2014 - 03:07 AM, said:

I don't understand what exactly you are mad at.


He is not sharing the assets.

Hope I don't get crucified for this:
Let's all please stop the arguing. Hey MyHouse.map, remember that Fresch grew up on Apogee/3DR's games just like the majority of us here?

He is a fan like us all. Frederik may be busy but I'm sure he'd love to answer any great questions when he has the time to do so.

There's no need for the fighting.

[Jblade]

Quote

>not having nice discussions first

I know you mean well, but this will never ever happen because even if there wasn't the current troubles between GBX and 3DR, releasing something like early DNF versions would require going through lawyers which costs a lot of money. The amount of red tape to release stuff that only a few people will be able to appreciate it simply isn't worth it to them.

[PikaCommando]

Jblade, on 12 December 2014 - 04:31 AM, said:

I know you mean well, but this will never ever happen because even if there wasn't the current troubles between GBX and 3DR, releasing something like early DNF versions would require going through lawyers which costs a lot of money. The amount of red tape to release stuff that only a few people will be able to appreciate it simply isn't worth it to them.

Thanks for the proper reply. Would they still require lawyers even if GBX somehow wanted to release the builds and 3DR agrees? If so, why is it that early builds of Doom and lameduke get to be able to be released without seemingly large troubles? What are the lawyers for anyway?

[Jblade]

I don't think any of the early versions of Doom are actually legal, it's just more trouble than it's worth for iD to stamp down on them. Lameduke was officially released by 3DR back when they owned Duke3D so they could release it with no problems. Lawyers are there to make sure they don't release anything they either don't actually own or have copyrights to, or whatever. Bottom line is, uploading beta versions isn't just a case of zipping some shit up and hosting it somewhere. It costs money, so it's not going to happen. Bear in mind it's extremely rare for a developer to release beta versions - I think the vast majority of beta versions out there are illegal copies that were either leaked or stolen and the respected devs don't feel it's financially advisable to go after them (either that or they're not breaking any kind of copyright law or whatever)

tl;dr version is that the law is tricky and releasing early versions could potentially open them up to legal troubles.

[PokeThePower]

My job here is done! Thank you for taking the torch and running with it Fred. It's nice to hear someone else give a damn enough to keep the memory alive of what actually existed in whatever form is possible right now.

Frederik Schreiber, on 12 December 2014 - 01:53 AM, said:

I wouldn't say Dynamic Lighting Ruined the game. The required changes to everything surrounding it possibly did.

Even that was attempted to be as non-invasive as possible, but that may have ultimately been a worse path. Initially it was just projected shadows. Then it was auto-generated bump maps. Then it was selective targeting. It took a year from late 2001 to 2002 before it was an "all in" sort of thing. The assets were all updated on an as needed basis over the years.

The dynamic lighting did add a cool aspect to it sometimes, but would have been better served being explored in a game after DNF, or as a side internal prototype while DNF itself was wrapped up.

Frederik Schreiber, on 12 December 2014 - 01:53 AM, said:

I don't know why the majority of the enemies were changed back to the original. My guess would be that it had been so long since Duke 3D, that re-using the classic enemies was a "Safer Bet"

Back to the roots in an effort to clamp down on scope.

Jblade, on 12 December 2014 - 04:31 AM, said:

I know you mean well, but this will never ever happen because even if there wasn't the current troubles between GBX and 3DR, releasing something like early DNF versions would require going through lawyers which costs a lot of money. The amount of red tape to release stuff that only a few people will be able to appreciate it simply isn't worth it to them.

I wouldn't say never. 10 years is a long time. 20 years is forever. And anything can happen in Duke Nukem's Forever.

hyuck hyuck!

[Fox]

Frederik Schreiber, on 10 December 2014 - 02:24 AM, said:

Yes, the Doom 3 Style Switch was definitely the nail in the coffin.
A lot of great stuff in the prev. builds. My favourite part is probably the EDF "Tower" level, which starts with the highway, and the 747 crashing.
This is also where you experience the "Save the world all by yourself" scene, before reaching the top floor, cracking a code, and getting a hologram briefing of alien tech, before an aircraft crashes into the building.
Absolutely stunning and mind-blowing back in 2001.

How close to completion the game has ever been at that point?

[DukeNukem64]

Fox. More than you would really want to know..

[Hool]

I'm glad George has changed his views on shipping products - despite the fact that if he lived by this above philosophy we would've had the game that Fred is describing by now. But I suppose George has learned his lesson about this sort of thing - he's been putting out some pretty cool indie games lately.

I'm also glad that Fred is speaking out about what content was in DNF 2001 - it seems like quite the early Holiday present and a special treat to the loyal fans who have stuck with Duke for this long.

Also, Fred:

[PikaCommando]

Oh yeah Fred, one more thing; personally, how do you feel the 2002 builds, if completed and released back then, would fare against the DNF we got in 2011?

[Kathy]

MYHOUSE.MAP, on 11 December 2014 - 10:40 PM, said:

as would attempting to profit off of their owned material by releasing a book about DNF's development

If it doesn't include DNF assets Gearbox wouldn't be able to do anything.

[woah, this thread moved quite a bit]

Frederik Schreiber, on 12 December 2014 - 01:53 AM, said:

The Singleplayer was continous like Half-Life. There was no obvious episodes, but the game was split into Zones, using "!Z1L1_1" as a format.
Each of the 6 Zones was basically episodes. Vegas, Highway, EDF Base, Desert/Ghost Towm, Hoover Dam, Area 51.

The game had you manually drive the bike through vegas (Free Roaming), all the way to the highway, and through the desert. Extremely cool.
Multiplayer was pretty much done, and very fun indeed! With 9 dedicated Multiplayer Levels, all finalized.

[Tea Monster]

Thank you for sharing that Fred. It's good to find out something about the earlier versions of the game.

[TheZombieKiller]

Jblade, on 12 December 2014 - 05:24 AM, said:

I don't think any of the early versions of Doom are actually legal

Quote from the idgames description of Doom v0.2:

Quote

In order to create a complete collection of historic DOOM versions, as released to testers at the time, id Software has allowed to place this file, the Feb 4, 1993 pre-alpha version of DOOM, in the official idgames archive.

All the other alphas have a similar description

[Outtagum]

WheatleyNukem, on 12 December 2014 - 09:12 AM, said:

I'm also glad that Fred is speaking out about what content was in DNF 2001 - it seems like quite the early Holiday present and a special treat to the loyal fans who have stuck with Duke for this long.

I appreciate Fred giving us more info about previous builds, but that's just crazy talk.

[TheZombieKiller]

DNMP now has a Cutting Room Floor article

Hopefully we can get more info on that "whore" enemy, as well as any other things that were cut.

[Richard Shead]

TheZombieKiller, on 12 December 2014 - 09:44 PM, said:

DNMP now has a Cutting Room Floor article

Hopefully we can get more info on that "whore" enemy, as well as any other things that were cut.

Did anybody else notice:

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 

[TheZombieKiller]

Duke Rocks, on 13 December 2014 - 02:00 PM, said:

Did anybody else notice:

Indeed, it was one of the first things I noticed in the image. Since you mentioned it, I might as well make a note of it in the Cutting Room Floor article.

Also, I've added some more beta materials to the article, including an early Duke texture from 2001

http://tcrf.net/Duke...Unused_Graphics

[Darkus]

All of Frederik said about DNF2001 reminded me why I wanted to make a DN mod to Unreal.
I have found some interesting resource mods that extend the interactivity of Unreal, for example one that allowed to make interacting computers, keypads (similar to the one in the trailer), multi-stop elevators, controllable trains(very similar to Doom 3). Oh well...



BTW who want some videos showing (a little) the betas of Duke3D and ROTT?

EDIT: Sorry for the wait, but I decided to add some screenshots for those who don't want to download the videos.
I said also "showing (a little)" because there are no much to see (they added some beta footage in the final version) but it worth it.

You can also watch in streaming, but the quality will be pretty bad.
ROTT (starts at 8:40)
http://www.abandonwa...vid=10&num=1299

Duke3D (starts at 1:10)
http://www.abandonwa...p?vid=2&num=279


Let's start with ROTT:







Not directly visible in the two pictures below, but in the video, the enemies walk differently.



and now Duke:

[HulkNukem]

The multiplayer basically being done with near finished MP maps has me extremely intrigued.
Be nice if the whole legal issues evaporated and this little MP portion was fixed up and released as standalone.

[PikaCommando]

I'm really curious about that old DN3D shotgun above. What's the model?


Also I mistook that blue thing in the 1997 DNF shotgun for a scope

[Fox]

HulkNukem, on 15 December 2014 - 07:32 PM, said:

The multiplayer basically being done with near finished MP maps has me extremely intrigued.
Be nice if the whole legal issues evaporated and this little MP portion was fixed up and released as standalone.

If I remember it, TX said it's the same shotgun as the final version, except that it's using a bad photography.

[MusicallyInspired]

My heart sank a little bit after reading that early versions of DNF were far more serious. That means they actually DID have it right at one point....

[DNSkill]

That beta DN3D shotgun looks really cool though! I wonder how it animates.

And like Fox said, I do remember TX said it was the same shotgun as the final only different scans. It doesn't have the front grip that the final version does (they probably added that to make it less like the Doom shotgun?).

This is the pickup sprite, I did editing to a DN3D screenshot to make it. I'm not sure how close to the actual sprite I got with it though.

[cpt_picklehead]

ROTT Beta footage from darkus' post reuploaded on youtube (stream quality on the original site is very meh and the download server not the most stable).

[MrFlibble]

There's one thing about ROTT which just occurred to me, what was the timeline of the development of the registered episodes (Dark War) compared to the shareware episode (The HUNT Begins)? The footage is from Dark War with what seem to be levels fairly close to the final release.

IIRC the first version of Dark War was v1.2 and it came out in February 1995, while the very first public release of The HUNT Begins (v1.0) was in December 1994.

[cpt_picklehead]

MrFlibble, on 18 December 2014 - 11:08 AM, said:

IIRC the first version of Dark War was v1.2 and it came out in February 1995, while the very first public release of The HUNT Begins (v1.0) was in December 1994.

Not to forget the BBS exclusive shareware release had a different mechanic for mercury mode, instead of flying via the look up/down keys (as shown in the footage and final releases) you'd "flap" by pressing the space bar.

[TheZombieKiller]

DNMP has a bunch of unused music

Also found some new unused textures in the files (mainly in the first episode folder)

Looks like there are more remnants of the Proton-era of development than I thought.

[MrFlibble]

cpt_picklehead, on 18 December 2014 - 11:14 AM, said:

Not to forget the BBS exclusive shareware release had a different mechanic for mercury mode, instead of flying via the look up/down keys (as shown in the footage and final releases) you'd "flap" by pressing the space bar.

I think it's the shareware v1.0, released on Dec 21, 1994. You can get it here among other places.

[cpt_picklehead]

So hooray for 20 years of ROTT (with a 2 day delay) *hint*hint*

Video of me playing version 1.0 of the shareware release.
How many differences can you spot?

[Marphy Black]

Joe posted a very long retrospective on ROTT:
http://joe.siegler.n...e-of-the-triad/

Also, another video capture session, this time featuring some of the unused enemy variations:

[Fox]

TerminX, on 24 November 2014 - 02:57 AM, said:

Stadium is significantly different--I can only guess the direction they went with it didn't work out, resulting in a last minute reversion to what was more or less the 1994 version of the map

I am thinking of...