[Newken]

Hendricks266, on 04 January 2018 - 12:56 PM, said:

No. This Red Hammer installation guide offers two methods. The first applies if you have specific editions of the game that come with the RH game data. In that case it's just a file copy. The second method is analogous to the Duke expansions. If you own an edition of the game that does not include their game data (which is the case for WT, the only remaining edition of Duke for sale), the guide's solution is to pirate the data.

What's wrong with the first method?

I forgot about things like the new Duke Talk in WT. Gearbox would not trouble to enhance unofficially supported expansions anyway.

[Hendricks266]

Newken, on 04 January 2018 - 02:26 PM, said:

What's wrong with the first method?

It's not relevant to the current state of affairs in Duke-land. That method is analogous to EDuke32 finding and loading the expansions included with Megaton.

[Newken]

Is there a lawsuit going on or something? Why WT cannot be like EDuke32?

[Hendricks266]

Newken, on 04 January 2018 - 02:33 PM, said:

Why WT cannot be like EDuke32?

I'm not sure what you mean. Are you asking why Gearbox would not add code to World Tour's duke3d.exe to load and play the expansions if the user has Megaton installed? The answer to that should be obvious, but such a question misses the point: the expansion game data is no longer for sale anywhere, and the public has not gotten a satisfactory explanation.

[Newken]

Hendricks266, on 04 January 2018 - 02:45 PM, said:

the expansion game data is no longer for sale anywhere

Second-hand retail discs still can be bought.

[Hendricks266]

Newken, on 04 January 2018 - 03:01 PM, said:

Second-hand retail discs still can be bought.

That has always been true. Your point?

[Sanek]

HellFire, on 04 January 2018 - 06:57 AM, said:

The add ons were never a property of 3d realms or gearbox, wizardworks owned them but they fucking dissolved and sold the assets to atari. Shit is very confusing but the add ons are now in copyright limbo and it is impossible to know who owns the rights. Devolver digital could never have included the add ons in megaton.

If Atari bought Wizardworks, they also acquired the company's catalog? Isn't there a person(s) up there who can clear the situation? Or Sunstorm itself?

[Fox]

Sometimes it's just not possible to clarify the legal status of a work.

[termit]

HellFire, on 04 January 2018 - 06:57 AM, said:

The add ons were never a property of 3d realms or gearbox, wizardworks owned them but they fucking dissolved and sold the assets to atari. Shit is very confusing but the add ons are now in copyright limbo and it is impossible to know who owns the rights. Devolver digital could never have included the add ons in megaton.

I'm very interested to know where this information comes from?

[Phredreeke]

Wizardworks published the Duke 3D expansions
GT Interactive acquired Wizardworks in 1996
Infogrames acquired GT Interactive in 1999
Infogrames was later renamed Atari in 2003

So Atari would be the owner of the expansions, assuming there's no contract reverting ownership of them to Sunstorm and Simply Silly Software

[Fox]

The add-ons were factually not property of 3D Realms:

[Hendricks266]

Even if the manual claims the copyright is assigned to WizardWorks, we can't know what redistribution rights 3D Realms had without knowing what their contracts said. We also don't know what the contracts between WizardWorks and Sunstorm/Simply Silly said.

[HellFire]

termit, on 05 January 2018 - 11:30 AM, said:

I'm very interested to know where this information comes from?

Scott miller signed the contract with Devolver to license the add ons.

Interested in how I know this?

[Forge]

Not a subject matter expert, but I was under the impression 3DRealms had distribution rights (for the expansions) up until the day gearbox acquired full control to the duke nukem i.p.
The "illegal" part Randy was talking about was the continued sale of megaton on steam - since the contract between 3drealms & digital was now void.
Randy could have easily made a new contract with digital and megaton could have continued to be sold.
(and douchy mcdouchface could have made a new contract to continue going forward with HTTK, but greed and ego being what they are.......)

I could be wrong.

does gearbox have to make a new contract with atari for distribution?
(copyrights lasting 95 years)

[Fox]

Randy posted a few more tweets about it. IMHO he implies that there was something wrong with Megaton from the beginning.

[Steve 64]

Fox, on 05 January 2018 - 02:54 PM, said:

Randy posted a few more tweets about it. IMHO he implies that there was something wrong with Megaton from the beginning.

Please do tell I like to know what he has to say about Megaton, it is to cheap to much content for low price.

[Fox]

https://twitter.com/...rc=typd&lang=en

[Steve 64]

Fox, on 05 January 2018 - 04:51 PM, said:

https://twitter.com/...rc=typd&lang=en

I'm sorry if I sound rude but when I read this In my mind I think it is bullshit, I don't know what goes though Rand mind.

[Forge]

Randy was pretty vague, other than "it can't be explained on twitter".
That could mean anything.

He said he was "nice" and left it alone until WT was about ready to be released. If his company is responsible for the i.p. and leaving megaton up - then he'd be responsible for any legal recourse if there were a licensing issue with atari.
I personally don't think Randy has the balls to leave it on steam if there were any chance of litigation being brought against gearbox. Especially after all the crap they already went through wwith 3dRealms & Sega.

Mere speculation though.

[termit]

Forge, on 05 January 2018 - 01:44 PM, said:

Not a subject matter expert, but I was under the impression 3DRealms had distribution rights (for the expansions) up until the day gearbox acquired full control to the duke nukem i.p.
The "illegal" part Randy was talking about was the continued sale of megaton on steam - since the contract between 3drealms & digital was now void.
Randy could have easily made a new contract with digital and megaton could have continued to be sold.
(and douchy mcdouchface could have made a new contract to continue going forward with HTTK, but greed and ego being what they are.......)

Exactly!

[Forge]

Then I would hazard a guess that it's only a matter of money and paying someone to make the expansions compatible with the WT lighting & engine that are holding Randy back.

He kept going on in twitter that if people wanted duke with the expansions (megaton) then they'd already have it.
He was being dodgy about the expansions, which indicates he feels if he spends money to add them to WT, he won't make up the costs.

I would also hazard a guess that if there were truly anything "illegal" about megaton, in relation to copyrights, licensing, and distribution, not only would it get yanked from the sales floor, it'd be removed from people's libraries.

Randy probably had the funds to upgrade & include the expansions while working on WT, but funneled the resources to Battleborn.
(cynical suspicion)

[necroslut]

Forge, on 06 January 2018 - 07:31 AM, said:

Then I would hazard a guess that it's only a matter of money and paying someone to make the expansions compatible with the WT lighting & engine that are holding Randy back.

He kept going on in twitter that if people wanted duke with the expansions (megaton) then they'd already have it.
He was being dodgy about the expansions, which indicates he feels if he spends money to add them to WT, he won't make up the costs.

I would also hazard a guess that if there were truly anything "illegal" about megaton, in relation to copyrights, licensing, and distribution, not only would it get yanked from the sales floor, it'd be removed from people's libraries.

Randy probably had the funds to upgrade & include the expansions while working on WT, but funneled the resources to Battleborn.
(cynical suspicion)

He's also voiced concern that the lower quality of the expansions might harm Duke's image, like if someone starts with playing the Nuclear Winter expansion.

[Forge]

necroslut, on 06 January 2018 - 09:18 AM, said:

He's also voiced concern that the lower quality of the expansions might harm Duke's image

also one of the bullshit excuses he used to kill the HTTK project.

He's probably going to sit on the expansions until he uses them to get some attention for a game release. Then he can cook his books and write it off as advertising costs.

[Fox]

Forge, on 05 January 2018 - 01:44 PM, said:

The "illegal" part Randy was talking about was the continued sale of megaton on steam - since the contract between 3drealms & digital was now void.

That would make it an extreme case of circular logic, since Randy was responding to someone asking why Gearbox didn't continue to sell Megaton.

But I don't believe that's what he meant, he also said that Megaton "had to be delisted until it can be correctly sorted".

[Phredreeke]

I doubt we'll see Megaton Edition again and even if they worked out the legal issues I doubt they'd release the expansions for World Tour at this point.

[Forge]

Fox, on 06 January 2018 - 10:31 AM, said:

That would make it an extreme case of circular logic, since Randy was responding to someone asking why Gearbox didn't continue to sell Megaton.

But I don't believe that's what he meant, he also said that Megaton "had to be delisted until it can be correctly sorted".

I don't see it that way. Randy wanted megaton off of steam and Duke3D off of gog so he could push WT as the only "authorized" version of the game moving forward. It cuts out all the modern ports and middlemen so gearbox is the only one profiting from it.
It's also why Randy Killed HTTK. No middlemen making money off his i.p.

If there were "legal" issues with the distribution of the expansions, megaton would have been pulled immediately after gearbox took the rights from 3DRealms. Instead, he left it alone until he figured out his gameplan to maximize his ownership & profits. It would have been a PR mess if he pulled it right away with nothing to replace it. He's doing the same thing now with the expansions. He'll sit on them until he figures out how to make people pay for them, or he can write them off as a business expense.

just speculating.

[DustFalcon85]

Good thing I'm still hanging on to my Duke Nukem 3D add-ons (manuals included). There's not a lot of physical copies of them on Amazon and eBay.

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[Steve 64]

I have manage to get one freaking MP game on the xbox one version, after that the game went to shit.

[Poorchop]

I played a little more World Tour just to see some more of the new lighting and to get more used to aiming, and I'm surprised at the bugs that still haven't been fixed. I completely forgot about it before but I keep having an issue where the use key doesn't work. If I'm trying to flip on a light switch, open a door, or use a key card, nothing happens. I usually need to walk around for a while and mash the use key on other objects until it eventually starts working again.

The performance can also be questionable at times. I was playing a user map just now and the first few times a pig cop tank exploded, it caused the video to essentially freeze for about a second. I don't understand why a game from 1996 is having any performance issues in 2018. My PC has some old components but it runs eduke with Polymost at a consistent 60fps.

I've just been trying to get used to the mouse look in preparation of playing the fifth episode. In spite of all this release's shortcomings, I'm stoked that some of the original mappers got together to release new content. That's also how I felt when I read that Romero was releasing new Doom maps not too long ago, which ended being extremely good. I just don't understand why the fundamental issues and bugs aren't patched - give us standard options like being able to bind mouse thumb buttons and let us disable the disgusting new mouse wheel system. The regression in these areas makes no sense.

[NNC]

The looping sound problem (most obvious in Abyss) is still there. Also, rocket explosion sound is somewhat screwed as well, especially underwater.

I also don't like that sharks and eggs are not count as enemies, and don't reflect to night vision.