[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.

[Tea Monster]

Yes, it takes a particular skill to do 8-bit art. Maybe nobody in the studio can do that - so you hire someone who can. This is the job of a Producer or Art Director. We aren't talking about a fan group making a mod. This is a professional game company with funds. They can hire people who can make old Duke3d levels, that means that they can hire people who can do old Duke3D art.

Lazy, didn't care, couldn't be bothered.

The big problem with World Tour is that some ass-hat on the board at Gearbox will be able to say "This is the second Duke title to bomb, why should we put any money into making a new game?" Thanks guys.

[Fox]

Randy already sort of implied that. On the other hand, he must know that Megaton sold fairly well.

[Never Forgotten]

Tea Monster, on 19 November 2016 - 07:52 AM, said:

The big problem with World Tour is that some ass-hat on the board at Gearbox will be able to say "This is the second Duke title to bomb, why should we put any money into making a new game?" Thanks guys.

But would that mean they would be willing to sell the rights? Because then maybe another company, one who'd be able to make a good Duke game, could get there hands on it.

[NNC]

I don't care how Gearbox fail, but I'm afraid we'll never see Blum and Levelord doing mapping again. This should have been a nice comeback, and Levelord even said on a forum, he will consider his return to mapping if this thing turns out to be successful, but I bet he might even regret his decision (not sure about Blum, but I think he is pretty much in the same state).

I'm not sure what people think about that here, but the work of these guys, along with Lee Jackson, was an A+ (well, Levelord was an A-), they deserve more recognition.

[Fox]

The new levels and music were praised by practically everyone.

[Sledgehammer]

You can always contact both and ask them to make more maps for Duke. I bet my 20 bucks even they do understand (deep inside at least) why WT has failed. By no means its failure is an evidence that Duke is shit and there is no hope for him or that old level designers should never make complex level design again. And it wasn't GB only product which failed, there were Battleborn and Borderlands pre-sequel. WT just proved one point: if you release overpriced lazy cashgrab no one will buy it. Megaton sales just prove this further.

I said it countless times and repeat it again, if it was HTTKC plus WT new content (good and better polished new content) and if it had the same price or bigger people would buy it like hotcakes, it would be the best DN3D version ever. Too bad it's dead and it's bad for both Gearbox (easy money plus reputation) and fans. Hopefully one day Duke IP will be in hands of duke4, he deserve better.

[Micky C]

Tea Monster, on 19 November 2016 - 07:52 AM, said:

The big problem with World Tour is that some ass-hat on the board at Gearbox will be able to say "This is the second Duke title to bomb, why should we put any money into making a new game?" Thanks guys.

I can see the board meeting now:

"This is the second Duke game in a row to bomb. Why is this? What are the common factors between the two?"
"Well, we created both of them, they have that in common."
"No, it must be something else... think men, think!"
"The public is wrong."
"Of course! It's everyone else's fault! Well, that does it. No more Duke games for them."

[Sledgehammer]

Did DNF bomb though? I always saw it as RE6, both were successful in term of sales while quality of games was questionable.

[hismasterplan]

Critically yes, financially no.

[Striker]

Sledgehammer, on 18 November 2016 - 01:51 AM, said:

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.

The latter is far better. Why some people think that green shit-spackling looks any good is beyond me. Those in denial of it being a lazy, mspaint/palswap tool-like piece of crap unworthy of AAA paid professional work also confuses me. Looks like someone remapped the colors of the freezethrower in SLADE and forgot some of the palette indexes, leaving dots of unchanged & conflicting colors... then slapped a pressure gauge on it. I've seen far better sprite work in mods, and in the Duke and Doom communities. I expect something better from an AAA company that made great things like Resurrection of Evil, especially for something that cost just as much as RoE. If I were to do something like this for a serious project, I'd expect to be fired.

[Hank]

Another shot - with the now famous incinerator

[NNC]

I've replayed Golden Carnage with a pistol start, and ran out of explosives when I was trapped by tripbomb in the first inside room. However I realized there is a mirror in there and got provided with a shrinker in the same room, so I managed to shrink myself and went under the tripbombs to the other part of the room.

These kind of little gameplay touches what made the original developers and their maps so great.

[Striker]

I don't disagree that the maps are good, because they are after all. It's just the artwork I have a problem with.

[Hank]

Striker, on 19 November 2016 - 11:08 PM, said:

I don't disagree that the maps are good, because they are after all. It's just the artwork I have a problem with.

The irony is, I only used the Incinerator once, and flushed it like the Expander. A weapon not for me type of thing; and therefore would never notice the poor workmanship, art wise.

[NNC]

The Incinerator is like the Shrinker, Expander and Freezer. All are gimmicky weapons, that can be used occasionally, and can be useful in some type of situations. Of course none of them can match the regular weapons (Shotgun, Chaingun, RPG, Pipebombs). However they are all better than the Tripbomb. That is one useless thing in the game.

[----]

Nancsi, on 20 November 2016 - 12:25 AM, said:

The Incinerator is like the Shrinker, Expander and Freezer. All are gimmicky weapons, that can be used occasionally, and can be useful in some type of situations. Of course none of them can match the regular weapons (Shotgun, Chaingun, RPG, Pipebombs). However they are all better than the Tripbomb. That is one useless thing in the game.

Shrinker and Freezer (those in the original DN3D before 1.5) are weapons that don't do direct kills and would work better in a game like Serious Sam: Spam the incoming hordes and let the enemies break the frozen and stomp the shrunk ones when running toward the player. To do that they must be more effective in shrinking and freezing them than the other weapons kill them or at least be on par.