[pjVgt]

Jblade, on 02 December 2014 - 01:45 PM, said:

Good points, but I think if that Duke3D and SW were the products of sloppy development they still turned out well enough but I think it was only sustainable with earlier levels of graphic fidelity. As soon as DNF started the speed and cost of development started to ramp up pretty quickly and their old methods just weren't cutting it when actual 3D came in full force.

I think we forget one thing why DN3D was so popular AT THE TIME - because it was released before Quake.

Quake changed everything on the market. Full 3D enviroment, 3D monsters, fast-paced gameplay, focus on multiplayer, client-server interface, console and easy modding. At that time DN3D with it's quaint puzzles, slow gameplay, cartoony monsters and little useless cute interactions looked outdated compared to the "new style" 90's dark-n-gritty what Quake did.

NOW we know that Quake didn't stood a test of time - it is just garbage. Boring, ugly and unpleasant it was the product of 1996 with expiration date of 1997 - as what happens with all products focused solely on the exterior - they date really fast. Under what shocked people in 1996 (holy shit! 24fps of 3d scalable 8bit graphics in 320x240!) there is very little soul in Quake and what we know now why (Carmack kicked Romero out of the picture and did another Doom).

If DN3D came out after Quake almost nobody would remember it - as almost nobody remembers game that came between Wolf3D and Doom. There were some good FPS games that experimented with some innovations (ROTT, Hexen, T:FS) but nothing really could topple good ol' Doom. DN3D was better than it in all ways but it had to be the right time.

[Kristian Joensen]

Perhaps the development of TF2 provides a better comparison point to Duke3D than HL2?: http://www.chuckejones.com/valve.html

[MYHOUSE.MAP]

Part of DN3D's success was that it came right before Quake, but you're downplaying how good and revolutionary it is. It's the first game managed to portray "realistic" locations instead of the abstract levels, one of the first games that made the world really feel alive, with touches like usable toilets, barrels blowing up chunks of the wall near them, mirrors that you could see yourself in, and cameras, a character that actually talked, weird weapons that didn't fit the standard set by Doom, and having locations people had never experienced in FPS games before, like strip clubs, banks, movie theatres, restaurants (Raw Meat, and later, Duke Burger), high-rises, and slummy areas.

Kristian Joensen, on 02 December 2014 - 04:26 PM, said:

Perhaps the development of TF2 provides a better comparison point to Duke3D than HL2?: http://www.chuckejones.com/valve.html

This is a good point, though I feel that DNF is more akin to TF2, and it's not because they were developed for a long time. Both DNF and TF2 originally started out as radically different from the games they were derived from, such as DNF having mostly all-new aliens and different weapons, while TF2 only kept the idea of class-based combat from QWTF and TFC. However, as development dragged on, they eventually reverted to an update of old content, such as most of DNF's enemies and weapons being from DN3D and TF2 using simplified versions of TFC's classes.

[Fox]

pjVgt, on 02 December 2014 - 03:54 PM, said:

I think we forget one thing why DN3D was so popular AT THE TIME - because it was released before Quake.

Quake changed everything on the market. Full 3D enviroment, 3D monsters, fast-paced gameplay, focus on multiplayer, client-server interface, console and easy modding. At that time DN3D with it's quaint puzzles, slow gameplay, cartoony monsters and little useless cute interactions looked outdated compared to the "new style" 90's dark-n-gritty what Quake did.

NOW we know that Quake didn't stood a test of time - it is just garbage. Boring, ugly and unpleasant it was the product of 1996 with expiration date of 1997 - as what happens with all products focused solely on the exterior - they date really fast. Under what shocked people in 1996 (holy shit! 24fps of 3d scalable 8bit graphics in 320x240!) there is very little soul in Quake and what we know now why (Carmack kicked Romero out of the picture and did another Doom).

If DN3D came out after Quake almost nobody would remember it - as almost nobody remembers game that came between Wolf3D and Doom. There were some good FPS games that experimented with some innovations (ROTT, Hexen, T:FS) but nothing really could topple good ol' Doom. DN3D was better than it in all ways but it had to be the right time.

I disagree. Duke Nukem 3D success was because of level design, interactive environment and humor, making it different from the rest of the FPS.

[Robman]

Hindsight is 20/20 ....

[Kathy]

Let us not forget how 3dRealms was also trying to develop Prey with an ambitious in-house engine. Understaffed and over-ambitious. Perhaps they had hell of a people who could do lots of work quick but without management it would have been worthless.

[Micky C]

Wasn't there only 1 guy actually working on the Prey engine? No wonder work was slow and eventually abandoned.

[MYHOUSE.MAP]

Prey is interesting because it seems no actual genuine gameplay was completed by the time it was originally canned. Sure, there are a ton of level images and clearly-posed character models standing in the maps in later images, but no actual action or any sense of how the game would play. Even Daikatana had actual gameplay footage in summer 1997; three years before it would be released.

In retrospect, it was a big sign that 3DR couldn't handle the growing complexities of game development in their current state, but hindsight is 50/50.

Quote

Wasn't there only 1 guy actually working on the Prey engine? No wonder work was slow and eventually abandoned.

Yeah, it felt like 3DR clearly bit off more than it could chew when making Prey. Their big problem was that they hadn't made their own tech in years, and then out of the blue they tried making an engine from the ground-up that was supposed to have all sorts of weird tricks in it. It was clearly out of their league.

[OpenMaw]

MYHOUSE.MAP, on 02 December 2014 - 09:47 PM, said:

Prey is interesting because it seems no actual genuine gameplay was completed by the time it was originally canned. Sure, there are a ton of level images and clearly-posed character models standing in the maps in later images, but no actual action or any sense of how the game would play.

Erm. No.

[oasiz]

That is true, what helped was that HL2 did have the advantage of HL1 as base but the world it did have about over twice the amount of weapons at one point for use.
I think one difference is that the snapshot of HL2 that we have is pretty late, closer to '95 Duke snapshot it seems as most of the major features are there, just missing a bunch of content to tie the mess together.

Duke's enemies are still stereotypes however. Pistol guy / Shotgunner / Chainhunner / "Big chaingunner", almost like a minigun / etc.. They do have some nice twists to their A.I. however, I think it was all part of somewhat linear evolving.
All the enemies in LD somewhat ended up in the retail with just more refined A.I. and maybe alternate fire.

[Jblade]

Commando Nukem, on 02 December 2014 - 10:46 PM, said:

Erm. No.

Did you bother to read what MYHOUSE actually said? Gameplay - running around levels showing off tech stuff isn't gameplay. I didn't see any actual fighting or gameplay in those videos.

[pjVgt]

MYHOUSE.MAP, on 02 December 2014 - 05:32 PM, said:

Part of DN3D's success was that it came right before Quake, but you're downplaying how good and revolutionary it is. It's the first game managed to portray "realistic" locations instead of the abstract levels, one of the first games that made the world really feel alive, with touches like usable toilets, barrels blowing up chunks of the wall near them, mirrors that you could see yourself in, and cameras, a character that actually talked, weird weapons that didn't fit the standard set by Doom, and having locations people had never experienced in FPS games before, like strip clubs, banks, movie theatres, restaurants (Raw Meat, and later, Duke Burger), high-rises, and slummy areas.

I think You are forgetting TekWar and Terminator Future Shock. Also it can't be said that we didn't get "realistic locations" because we had to wait for DN3D to do it - as with example of TekWar it was because there was no need for these locations. Most of the games happened in the future or in the fantasy world where they were not needed for the sake of gameplay. Weapons were fit in the standard way of Doom almost until the last weeks of development (pipebombs were the exception but we already had grenades in Dark Forces). Destructible objects were in ROTT, inventory in Heretic, destructible walls in Terminator Future Shock - DN3D wasn't revolutionary because all those things were done by somone's else game already, but evolutionary dead end that mixed all those things together well just to be stomped by Quake.

[X-Vector]

pjVgt, on 03 December 2014 - 01:39 AM, said:

Also it can't be said that we didn't get "realistic locations" because we had to wait for DN3D to do it - as with example of TekWar it was because there was no need for these locations. Most of the games happened in the future or in the fantasy world where they were not needed for the sake of gameplay.

That applies to Dark Forces as well - it uses a fantasy scifi rather than a real world setting, but it does take a relatively realistic approach to level design with diverse environments that are fleshed out with lots of individual character.
It also manages to create a genuine feel of purpose, by using interactivity, mission objectives, briefings and cutscenes to make the player feel like part of a larger enterprise in stead of just a level cleaner.
In addition, DF features in-game voice acting by both Kyle Katarn (the player) and his sidekick Jan Ors, though only at a few set places.
There's a fairly lengthy write-up at GiantBomb which demonstrates that, a year before Duke Nukem 3D, Dark Forces was a lot more than just a Doom clone.

[pjVgt]

X-Vector, on 03 December 2014 - 02:30 AM, said:

That applies to Dark Forces as well - it uses a fantasy scifi rather than a real world setting, but it does take a relatively realistic approach to level design with diverse environments that are fleshed out with lots of individual character.
It also manages to create a genuine feel of purpose, by using interactivity, mission objectives, briefings and cutscenes to make the player feel like part of a larger enterprise in stead of just a level cleaner.

Yeah I forgot to mention DF which is also the FIRST commercial game with Z-plane and room-over-room function - Descent released at the same day had 90 degree rotation cube based engine so it is a bit cheating with the true Z-plane. There were lots of other games (I don't remember which but also the camera function I saw somewhere else) with innovative functions but DN3D only blended them succesfully not being revolutionary as most people think.

[Kathy]

Micky C, on 02 December 2014 - 08:53 PM, said:

Wasn't there only 1 guy actually working on the Prey engine? No wonder work was slow and eventually abandoned.

If I remember correctly it was Corrinne Yu who was quite young, but super talented programmer. She's working at Naughty Dog now. That's what I was talking about when I said they scattered great talent. Sure, royalty fee was a big deal, but without proper management there would no games, thus no royalties.

[X-Vector]

Before Corrinne Yu, William Scarboro was Prey's engine programmer; apparently he wasn't too fond of the portal experience in the end.

[MrFlibble]

MYHOUSE.MAP, on 02 December 2014 - 01:00 PM, said:

FPS with weapons copied straight from Doom

I've always thought that all the Doom-like elements were conscious references/homages/tips of the hat, rather than lazy (?) design.

MYHOUSE.MAP, on 02 December 2014 - 03:11 PM, said:

In Duke, even the simple "grunt" enemy overwent a major overhaul from "dude in spacesuit with pistol" to "Dude in spacesuit with a giant crest and a pistol" to "lizard man that looks like a cat at times that has a laser pistol and has various recolors". It seems to me the only consistent things about DN3D through the various phases are the environments, a handful of the weapons, and one of the enemy types.

I guess that at some point the dev team decided to go for references and homages all the way (the Assault Trooper's design being a nod to Predator). IIRC Duke3D was actually the first FPS game to have a level of pop culture references comparable to The Simpsons.

[Richard Shead]

X-Vector, on 03 December 2014 - 07:57 AM, said:

Before Corrinne Yu, William Scarboro was Prey's engine programmer; apparently he wasn't too fond of the portal experience in the end.

That post was from 1999 and he sadly passed away in 2002. I seriously wonder how he would've felt about the final 2006 product based on the DooM 3 engine(aka id tech 4).

[hogsy]

MYHOUSE.MAP, on 02 December 2014 - 09:47 PM, said:

Prey is interesting because it seems no actual genuine gameplay was completed by the time it was originally canned. Sure, there are a ton of level images and clearly-posed character models standing in the maps in later images, but no actual action or any sense of how the game would play.

I've covered this in my Prey bible, but the reason for that was primarily due to the fact that they never finished any functional AI for the game before development was put to a halt. They apparently brought someone in who had been working on implementing a system for capturing the players movement through a level, which in-turn could be used to help monsters navigate the environment, just before development ended during Schuytema's lead on Prey; that work was obviously never finished. Moving creatures were visible in some of the demonstrations given at their E3 preview in 1998, some of which we have barely any information on publically, that talk about creatures moving down corridors, however again they were merely following a set path.

That all said, however, the multiplayer was functional and the team would often play competitive matches internally. A lot of this was never shown publicly though thanks to a decision made by George Broussard before they began their E3 demonstration of the game.

Here's a link to my Prey bible which includes some quotes and other fun stuff from the developers. Just be aware that I'm in the process of doing a complete rewrite.

[DNSkill]

TerminX, on 01 December 2014 - 10:45 PM, said:

Yeah, Duke's personality and one-liners were literally added the month before release. The game had huge variation during development.

Are you serious? That's crazy! I've heard there were a few cut out Duke quotes that were labeled in the CON (like Duke saying "Yes", Duke inhaling and exhaling, Duke laughing, etc), were these real sound files? If so, why were they cut out? Why did they cut out the "I don't think so" sound from the leaked beta?

Also the sounds Duke makes in Lameduke, I always thought that was JSJ, it has a similar sound.

[Jimmy]

Holy shit. Prey looked better than games from 2000, 2001. Red Faction feels almost like a spiritual continuation in ways.

[themaniacboy]

Prey looked amazing for its time.
I was amazed at the amount of detail shown in that interview, it's crazy.

[MusicallyInspired]

Geez....if 3DR had focused on Prey instead of DNF they could very well have stayed on the cutting edge of innovation.

[Fox]

gerolf, on 04 December 2014 - 01:35 PM, said:

I've heard there were a few cut out Duke quotes that were labeled in the CON (like Duke saying "Yes", Duke inhaling and exhaling, Duke laughing, etc), were these real sound files? If so, why were they cut out?

DUKE_BREATHING and DUKE_EXHALING are present in Total Meltdown.

[TerminX]

gerolf, on 04 December 2014 - 01:35 PM, said:

Are you serious? That's crazy! I've heard there were a few cut out Duke quotes that were labeled in the CON (like Duke saying "Yes", Duke inhaling and exhaling, Duke laughing, etc), were these real sound files? If so, why were they cut out? Why did they cut out the "I don't think so" sound from the leaked beta?

Also the sounds Duke makes in Lameduke, I always thought that was JSJ, it has a similar sound.

They cut out all the voiceovers that played when switches were pulled because it sounded stupid for them to play over and over again if you sat there flipping the switch several times.

[Marphy Black]

Did the finished monster/Duke player sprites ever have full 8-sided rotations? I don't know what the Build engine terminology is, but in Doom engine speak, I'm referring to how the 6-8 side angles are just displayed as mirrored versions of the opposite 2-4 side angles.

Off the top of my head, I don't think I've ever seen any screenshots to suggest that the missing rotations sprites were ever implemented in-game. In LameDuke, only the Mandroid and Femanoid enemies have full 8-sided rotations.

[DNSkill]

Were these used for viewing left/right (using the feature where Duke turns his head but not his body)?

And this for underwater death?

[The Commander]

gerolf, on 05 December 2014 - 08:58 AM, said:

Were these used for viewing left/right (using the feature where Duke turns his head but not his body)?

Just an observation...

[Hendricks266]

[MYHOUSE.MAP]

TerminX, on 04 December 2014 - 10:52 PM, said:

They cut out all the voiceovers that played when switches were pulled because it sounded stupid for them to play over and over again if you sat there flipping the switch several times.

I understand why they did that, but it still sounds hilarious.