[Jimmy]

>Nerve Software's art has gotten nothing but criticism for pages and pages

[HMNuke93]

Nancsi, on 15 November 2016 - 11:41 PM, said:

We have different tastes then. Recolour or not, it fits the original art style pretty well, while that Carribean Shotgun would look awful and get massive criticism if it was used in a commercial product. The same goes for that awkward Cycloid I've seen couple of pages ago.

I like the incinerator , and its sprite kinda fits since the beta flamethrower used the Freezer sprites but....the recolor could've been better.

[axl]

HMNuke93, on 16 November 2016 - 04:08 AM, said:

I like the incinerator , and its sprite kinda fits since the beta flamethrower used the Freezer sprites but....the recolor could've been better.

I agree. The incinerator fits nicely in the game. It's the same like the shrinker / expander weapon. The thing I do not like however is the reaction of the enemies when hit with this weapon (for example when they are on fire). Powerslave and Blood did a far better job at this

[Micky C]

Nancsi, on 15 November 2016 - 11:41 PM, said:

We have different tastes then. Recolour or not, it fits the original art style pretty well, while that Carribean Shotgun would look awful and get massive criticism if it was used in a commercial product. The same goes for that awkward Cycloid I've seen couple of pages ago.

People aren't saying it's bad because it's a recolour of the freezer, people are saying it's bad because it's a shit, lazy recolour of the freezer. IIRC Fox made his own version that looks pretty much identical, but looks much, much cleaner.

Quote

Tried to make a better Incinerator than Nerve Software.

Overall it's good, but I can't shake the feeling that the barrel is at a slightly different angle to the rest of the gun.

[NNC]

Micky C, on 16 November 2016 - 02:35 PM, said:

People aren't saying it's bad because it's a recolour of the freezer, people are saying it's bad because it's a shit, lazy recolour of the freezer. IIRC Fox made his own version that looks pretty much identical, but looks much, much cleaner.

This sprite was originally the flamethrower, it later became the freezethrower. Keeping the sprite intact and replacing yellow with red is perfectly fine in this reincarnation.
There is no need of fixing something that isn't broken. If we want to criticize the art for just the sake of criticism, the new art of the Amsterdam level is a more suitable aim. Those look rather out of place for the game's style, although they give their level a distinct look.

[Fox]

The problem is not that they replaced yellow with red. You can see the problem here, right?

[Micky C]

^^

That's what I meant by shit and lazy. If the recolour was actually done with some care then people wouldn't be complaining about it. Similarly people aren't complaining about the final boss for being a lazy recolour of the cycloid emperor so much as they are because it's completely ineffective from a gameplay perspective.

Don't get me wrong there's plenty of nitpicking happening in this thread, but the flame thrower isn't one of them, along with a few others.

[TheZombieKiller]

The funniest part is that Fox managed to make a higher quality (read: not shit) version of the Incinerator from screenshots in less time.

[Jimmy]

Nancsi, on 17 November 2016 - 09:58 AM, said:

This sprite was originally the flamethrower, it later became the freezethrower. Keeping the sprite intact and replacing yellow with red is perfectly fine in this reincarnation.
There is no need of fixing something that isn't broken. If we want to criticize the art for just the sake of criticism, the new art of the Amsterdam level is a more suitable aim. Those look rather out of place for the game's style, although they give their level a distinct look.

All of the art in this mod is shit.

[Hank]

Another shot, a bit from Moscow

[Sledgehammer]

TheZombieKiller, on 17 November 2016 - 05:26 PM, said:

The funniest part is that Fox managed to make a higher quality (read: not shit) version of the Incinerator from screenshots in less time.

And for free.

[NNC]

Jimmy Gnosis, on 17 November 2016 - 05:29 PM, said:

All of the art in this mod is shit.

Bollocks. The supporting art in Mirage Barrage for example (all the 5th element references and other pyramid art) is great, and so is the supporting art in Golden Carnage for example. The city stuff could have been better, but I think the new posters in Tour de Nukem are fine (although some said they are not correct at the french language). Only the High Times art looks out of place IMHO, but even that is OK, if you think about them as faithful buildings of the city.

This salty nitpicking and bashing gets pretty annoying. Just because Randy is an a**hole, it doesn't mean the work of other people should be ripped into dust, instead of some joy you got some quality maps by the original devs after 20 years. I start to feel some people here can't be pleased with anything at all, unless it's a community project, then it is great and fine even when it isn't.

In my opinion, the only really flawed thing in this new game are the new enemies, particularly the boss, because coders didn't realise their weapon has a limited range and the enemies can be useless if the player gets out of the range. This indeed needs some fix.

[Jimmy]

You have no standards. This mod's art is SillySoft-tier.

[Hank]

Nancsi, on 18 November 2016 - 12:11 AM, said:

This salty nitpicking and bashing gets pretty annoying. Just because Randy is an a**hole, it doesn't mean the work of other people should be ripped into dust, instead of some joy you got some quality maps by the original devs after 20 years. I start to feel some people here can't be pleased with anything at all, unless it's a community project, then it is great and fine even when it isn't.

Bullshit. 'tis got nodding to do with Randy.

First map, has a one way end, can't turn back, so you better have collected all ammo and weapons. Then, while going in circles to reach the exit, weapons appear and so do the new enemies, fireflies. Eventually you figure out that all you need to do is to step back, and use your shot gun, bang, bang, two well aimed shots, they explode and take some of their buddies with it. And so on. Who on earth play tested those maps? Did they even test them?

As for the looks, I know some artist here could have done better. Fine. I like the new stuff, overall. If you look close, game over, lack of detail, but I don't really care about details that much.

Now to the incinerator: It is a useless weapon. You can fry the little fry, since those actors don't run back when a deadly flame approaches. This is no fun. Give me a bit of a challenge. Say, I am holding a weapon filled with fuel of some sort, make me explode once in a while if some actor shots a rocket at me.

[NNC]

Jimmy Gnosis, on 18 November 2016 - 12:44 AM, said:

You have no standards. This mod's art is SillySoft-tier.

So here comes the personal insults, when someone doesn't concur with your agenda.

[Sledgehammer]

While all the community work sometimes is not only better but also free so ugly art in this case indeed doesn't matter, WT cost 20 bucks and is commercial product, we aren't even talking about indie devs here, it's Nerve Software for fuck's sake. Pretty sure if this episode was free nobody would complain about shit art, however, the person who did this was also paid for this job. "The rest art is good" isn't excuse for shitty job, that's why developers actually test their works, moreover, they even "leaked" screenshots with some ugly parts, including exactly the same flamethrower and people complained, they had plenty of times to fix this before release and they did nothing. I mean, look at this, it's like the guy tried to recolor it in Paint by Paint Bucket and after several attempts said "fuck it, they'll eat it anyway".

Fox, on 17 November 2016 - 10:05 AM, said:

I wish I had the same job, getting paid for doing nothing must be really great.

If it's okay, they shouldn't fix bugs either and they have to rollback the patch. I mean everything else is decent and works, why should they make something better quality? People don't deserve better, companies owe us nothing, right? Because it's not customer who keeps companies afloat, it's vice versa.

[NNC]

Hank, on 18 November 2016 - 12:59 AM, said:

Bullshit. 'tis got nodding to do with Randy.

First map, has a one way end, can't turn back, so you better have collected all ammo and weapons. Then, while going in circles to reach the exit, weapons appear and so do the new enemies, fireflies. Eventually you figure out that all you need to do is to step back, and use your shot gun, bang, bang, two well aimed shots, they explode and take some of their buddies with it. And so on. Who on earth play tested those maps? Did they even test them?

As for the looks, I know some artist here could have done better. Fine. I like the new stuff, overall. If you look close, game over, lack of detail, but I don't really care about details that much.

Now to the incinerator: It is a useless weapon. You can fry the little fry, since those actors don't run back when a deadly flame approaches. This is no fun. Give me a bit of a challenge. Say, I am holding a weapon filled with fuel of some sort, make me explode once in a while if some actor shots a rocket at me.

There is no problem with the layout of the 1st map, it's the first one that use 720 degree corridor since Lunatic Fringe. I agree that Fireflies shouldn't explode as it makes them quite useless. I said the enemies weren't tested well.

The Incinerator is not at all a useless weapon, you can use it quite often, especially in Levelord maps, where the scale is smaller, and more pigs and enforcers hover around.

[NNC]

Sledgehammer, on 18 November 2016 - 01:11 AM, said:

While all the community work sometimes is not only better but also free so ugly art in this case indeed doesn't matter, WT cost 20 bucks and is commercial product, we aren't even talking about indie devs here, it's Nerve Software for fuck's sake. Pretty sure if this episode was free nobody would complain about shit art, however, the person who did this was also paid for this job. "The rest art is good" isn't excuse for shitty job, that's why developers actually test their works, moreover, they even "leaked" screenshots with some ugly parts, including exactly the same flamethrower and people complained, they had plenty of times to fix this before release and they did nothing. I mean, look at this, it's like the guy tried to recolor it in Paint by Paint Bucket and after several attempts said "fuck it, they'll eat it anyway".

I wish I had the same job, getting paid for doing nothing must be really great.

If it's okay, they shouldn't fix bugs either and they have to rollback the patch. I mean everything else is decent and works, why should they make something better quality? People don't deserve better, companies owe us nothing, right? Because it's not customer who keeps companies afloat, it's vice versa.

I wish you as well to have the same job only to get bashed by other armchair experts who attach lo-res pics of a pixelated old game to prove their point.

[Jimmy]

Nancsi, on 18 November 2016 - 01:10 AM, said:

So here comes the personal insults, when someone doesn't concur with your agenda.

Thats not an insult. It's verifiable fact. You have no standards.

[NNC]

Jimmy Gnosis, on 18 November 2016 - 01:22 AM, said:

Thats not an insult. It's verifiable fact. You have no standards.

And it's also a verifiable fact that you have no class. Grow up little boy.

[Sledgehammer]

Nancsi, on 18 November 2016 - 01:19 AM, said:

I wish you as well to have the same job only to get bashed by other armchair experts who attach lo-res pics of a pixelated old game to prove their point.

Paid professional from AAA studio:

Free work from duke4 user:

No difference.

Actually, no, Nerve is better because people want only community work since they're biased.

[Jimmy]

Nancsi, on 18 November 2016 - 01:37 AM, said:

And it's also a verifiable fact that you have no class. Grow up little boy.

You're a fucking Plebeian. Class is for boys, Imperium is for men. Get a life, Nancsi. Your ivory tower is made of dried up dog turds.

[Tea Monster]

The reason that people are upset with Nerve, or GBX, or whoever was responsible for the decisions made, was that they ARE professionals. The work turned in was lazy at best and not up to the standard of what should be expected of any professional game company. The fact that fans can do a much better job than a pro game company by cutting together existing sprites is damning.

It just highlights the fact that the people responsible for the weapon and monster sprites really didn't give a damn. That goes triple for the people who were managing the project that let that crap slide by to release.

[axl]

I wonder if we are gonna see a new patch... they are still in the possibility to fix many things:

- the endboss;
- the akward mouse aiming;
- the terrible weaponwheel (they should make this optional or remove it all together);
- include backtracking in the levels... this is what made the original maps so damn great;

I also wonder why the new episode only includes 8 levels. Every Duke Nukem episode, except for the shareware episode 1, had 11 levels... was it that hard to include 3 extra levels? This way it doesn't really feel like an actual official episode.

Apart from these issues, I'm still glad we got something official after 20 years... but it could have been so much better... One of the best and most important FPS titles of all time deserves better. A missed opportunity...

[Fox]

Nancsi, on 18 November 2016 - 01:19 AM, said:

I wish you as well to have the same job only to get bashed by other armchair experts who attach lo-res pics of a pixelated old game to prove their point.

I am sorry, but why are you being so overprotective of Nerve? People paid for the product, it's within their right to complain.

In case you didn't know, Nerve did use some of the sprites I created for the HTTKC like the extended RPG weapon, so I think that makes me more than an armchair expert, right? Also I didn't attached a low resolution picture, that's a lossless sprite rip. If I knew they were actually going to use my sprites, I would have fixed the Incinerator for them.

[Micky C]

Nancsi, on 18 November 2016 - 01:19 AM, said:

I wish you as well to have the same job only to get bashed by other armchair experts who attach lo-res pics of a pixelated old game to prove their point.

Uh, you realize that the attached image is much higher res than the actual art itself? Otherwise it'd be around the size of a square inch (complete guess, possibly smaller) and you won't be able to make out much.

Perhaps someone who didn't notice something like this shouldn't be able to comment on art quality, let alone being oblivious to those ugly green patches

Having said that, I think a lot of the art in WT is decent enough and does the job. Does it match the original game's art style exactly? No. Is the average gamer going to notice or care? No. Would any professional game studio today have the skills needed to properly match the art style? Probably not. So most of the art is "ok". The flame thrower at least does stick out like a sore thumb though.

[HulkNukem]

The inconsistency of that flamethrower is the same as the classic map easter eggs in the new Doom; majority of people won't care or notice, but when you do see it, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

[termit]

axl, on 18 November 2016 - 06:54 AM, said:

I wonder if we are gonna see a new patch... they are still in the possibility to fix many things:

- the endboss;
- the akward mouse aiming;
- the terrible weaponwheel (they should make this optional or remove it all together);
- include backtracking in the levels... this is what made the original maps so damn great;

I also wonder why the new episode only includes 8 levels. Every Duke Nukem episode, except for the shareware episode 1, had 11 levels... was it that hard to include 3 extra levels? This way it doesn't really feel like an actual official episode.

Apart from these issues, I'm still glad we got something official after 20 years... but it could have been so much better... One of the best and most important FPS titles of all time deserves better. A missed opportunity...

Doesn't look they gonna fix those issues. Sales are pretty low (at least for PC) compare to Megaton. According to SteamSpy in a first month they sold around 10k copies, Megaton did 136k in the same period.

[Sledgehammer]

Considering multiplayer is dead on consoles too, it sold likely the same if not even worse.

[Micky C]

HulkNukem, on 18 November 2016 - 04:14 PM, said:

The inconsistency of that flamethrower is the same as the classic map easter eggs in the new Doom; majority of people won't care or notice, but when you do see it, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

It's a bit different in that it's takes relatively niche skills to create really good looking low-res, 8-bit art. With Doom, they knew exactly what the areas are meant to look like, and had all the assets handed to them on a platter. They had all the skills and assets they needed to make it look half authentic, but simply didn't bother. I was trying to argue that Nerve simply didn't have the know-how to make the Incinerator look good, regardless of how much they cared.

termit, on 19 November 2016 - 12:37 AM, said:

Doesn't look they gonna fix those issues. Sales are pretty low (at least for PC) compare to Megaton. According to SteamSpy in a first month they sold around 10k copies, Megaton did 136k in the same period.

They only have themselves to blame for that. Between some lazy design, the steep price for remarkably little fresh content, and being released so shortly after Megaton (which was already the "big comback" Gearbox obviously hoped WT would be), they've shot themselves in the foot. They could have at least given Megaton owners a 50% discount.

The final boss is arguably the most disgusting laziness of the game, since it doesn't take any special skills or insider insight to realize there's a problem and fix it quickly and easily. I'm still waiting for this fix in particular (and a sale) before I consider buying it.