[Zaxx]

necroslut, on 19 August 2017 - 08:48 AM, said:

Overpriced compared to what?

To the history of Duke 3D releases. I mean just think about it:

- Duke 3D was one of the first titles made available through GOG, it cost around 5-6 bucks.
- Duke 3D was also part of a GOG promotion where they gave away the game for free for at least a week.
- Megaton Edition was priced at 10 bucks at launch...
- But next to nobody paid that 10 bucks because people who owned Serious Sam games instantly got a 50% off coupon, the game was also bundled a lot, it went on sale very often, you could get it very cheap at least 4 times a year.

So the base game got devalued over the years, basically it was treated the way any 15-20 year old classic is treated. You can't outdo that and if you look at WT what value can you find there: basically the new episode and the new source port with the graphics improvements. That's not worth 20 bucks, that's worth 10.

[NNC]

necroslut, on 19 August 2017 - 04:04 AM, said:

So you want them to remake all the graphics to modern standards and sell it for 20$ or give it away for free? That sure sounds realistic...

Indeed Megaton was never a great port and the amount of "love" it gets these days is both unwarranted and surprising. The only thing it ever had over EDuke32 was multiplayer - it was a fork of a decade-old source port where 95% of it's features were already for free.

The people that criticize World Tour's mousewheel should probably remember how it worked in the original game (as well as Megaton). It was changed in EDuke32 to allow scrolling through multiple weapons quickly, but the original way was pretty useless for scrolling more than one slot up/down, as you had to let each weapon fully draw and lower, making it really clunky to go from, say, the shotgun to the shrinker, using the wheel.
With World Tour being intended to be played on a console, with a controller that doesn't have room for hotkeys*, it wouldn't really have been playable.

*The often-ridiculed numpad was the one good thing the Atari Jaguar brought to the table, I honestly think it's a shame no other controllers ever used that idea. It could be incredibly useful for inventory management, something that is often very clumsy on consoles.

The price wasn't the point of my post. I just think this is the way to handle this game for a definitve edition.

I think creating proper 3D models from sprites are necessary, because in renderer mode they look stupid when yook up or down. True 3D emulation is just incomplete without this in a commercial game.

[Tea Monster]

After 20 years, having a new episode by the original creators with all new art was worth 20 quid - even with all the weakness from Gearbox. That is just my own opinion though.

[necroslut]

Zaxx, on 19 August 2017 - 09:57 AM, said:

To the history of Duke 3D releases. I mean just think about it:

- Duke 3D was one of the first titles made available through GOG, it cost around 5-6 bucks.
- Duke 3D was also part of a GOG promotion where they gave away the game for free for at least a week.
- Megaton Edition was priced at 10 bucks at launch...
- But next to nobody paid that 10 bucks because people who owned Serious Sam games instantly got a 50% off coupon, the game was also bundled a lot, it went on sale very often, you could get it very cheap at least 4 times a year.

So the base game got devalued over the years, basically it was treated the way any 15-20 year old classic is treated. You can't outdo that and if you look at WT what value can you find there: basically the new episode and the new source port with the graphics improvements. That's not worth 20 bucks, that's worth 10.

Do you know why GOG version and Megaton was cheap? Because it was all old content. It had paid back its development costs years ago - at that point it was almost pure profit. World Tour, on the other hand, cost actual money to develop - money that it still haven't made back. It is 100% unreasonable to expect something that is cheap to make and something that is expensive to make to cost the same. You must take the cost of production into consideration. Your idea of "worth" is just an arbitrary number you pulled out of your ass.

Nancsi, on 19 August 2017 - 11:17 AM, said:

The price wasn't the point of my post. I just think this is the way to handle this game for a definitve edition.

I think creating proper 3D models from sprites are necessary, because in renderer mode they look stupid when yook up or down. True 3D emulation is just incomplete without this in a commercial game.

Well, then it would be a 30-40$ release instead. Would you pay that? How many would? It would take a lot of work and a lot of money to get that done, and that needs to be paid for somehow.

Tea Monster, on 19 August 2017 - 11:40 AM, said:

After 20 years, having a new episode by the original creators with all new art was worth 20 quid - even with all the weakness from Gearbox. That is just my own opinion though.

Well, I certainly agree, and those who don't, well, they don't have to buy it or play it. But I'd jump at the chance to get another episode like it for 20$.

[Sledgehammer]

Let's be honest, had they used EDuke32 and made it on the level of HTTKC with new ep, people would receive such release way better in both Steam forums and outside, even if price tag would be higher, after all it would be the definitive version of Duke 3D. And that would probably cost them less time and money considering they did almost everything from scratch in WT. That was the biggest mistake Gearbox made about WT aside from no open source release.

[necroslut]

Sledgehammer, on 19 August 2017 - 12:50 PM, said:

Let's be honest, had they used EDuke32 and made it on the level of HTTKC with new ep, people would receive such release way better in both Steam forums and outside, even if price tag would be higher, after all it would be the definitive version of Duke 3D. And that would probably cost them less time and money considering they did almost everything from scratch in WT. That was the biggest mistake Gearbox made about WT aside from no open source release.

Well, that's what they should have done, of course. Really... that's what Devolver should have done back in 2013 also.

[Zaxx]

Tea Monster, on 19 August 2017 - 11:40 AM, said:

After 20 years, having a new episode by the original creators with all new art was worth 20 quid - even with all the weakness from Gearbox. That is just my own opinion though.

Sure, from a sentimental perspective it can be worth it but this is not about sentimental value but about the realities of the gaming market. For example in my region World Tour cost 20 euros and it was released very close to Shadow Warrior 2, a brand new, nice looking indie FPS that was priced at 23 euros in retail. Guess which game I picked up on day 1 and which one ended up in the "wait for a sale" category. And honestly 20 bucks being a high price for an old game was just half of the problem, the other half was that people easily got irritated by the fact that the game costs 20 bucks and that created a grudge against the game that will make it hard for Gearbox to earn back WT's development cost even in the extended, discounted revenue cycle.

Anyway honestly I just find it a bit funny when people try to justify overpricing from a sentimental perspective and basically blame the fans for not caring enough about the game at that price. I think that the fact that World Tour was a flop certainly points in the direction that something must have gone wrong and it's pretty clear that the price tag and the time of release are the two main culprits of that.

[necroslut]

Zaxx, on 19 August 2017 - 01:44 PM, said:

Sure, from a sentimental perspective it can be worth it but this is not about sentimental value but about the realities of the gaming market. For example in my region World Tour cost 20 euros and it was released very close to Shadow Warrior 2, a brand new, nice looking indie FPS that was priced at 23 euros in retail. Guess which game I picked up on day 1 and which one ended up in the "wait for a sale" category. And honestly 20 bucks being a high price for an old game was just half of the problem, the other half was that people easily got irritated by the fact that the game costs 20 bucks and that created a grudge against the game that will make it hard for Gearbox to earn back WT's development cost even in the extended, discounted revenue cycle.

Here's the thing though: World Tour wasn't really an "old game". It had a large chunk of newly developed content. That's why it can't be sold for an "old game" price. Maybe it could have been somewhat cheaper, and maybe it would have sold enough additional copies then to make up for the reduced price, but people seem to think an expansion for an old game should be dirt cheap even when it's newly developed, with all the costs that come with that. With that line of reasoning this kind of releases won't ever be able to be made.
And, for what it's worth, I found World Tour more enjoyable than Shadow Warrior 2. --

[Zaxx]

necroslut, on 19 August 2017 - 01:49 PM, said:

Here's the thing though: World Tour wasn't really an "old game". It had a large chunk of newly developed content. That's why it can't be sold for an "old game" price. Maybe it could have been somewhat cheaper, and maybe it would have sold enough additional copies then to make up for the reduced price, but people seem to think an expansion for an old game should be dirt cheap even when it's newly developed, with all the costs that come with that. With that line of reasoning this kind of releases won't ever be able to be made.

Look, I get it, you value the new episode that much but the problem really is that the only thing new in WT is a level pack composed of 8 maps. You can't sell that content for 20 bucks, it's just not worth that much on the market, it's "DLC" for a 20 year old videogame. For example Age of Empires 2 HD Edition regularly releases new full-on expansion packs for AoE2: they cost 10 bucks each yet the quality and amount of new content is on the level of Age2's original campaign or of The Conquerors in each of them. AoE2 HD is widely successful but even MS knows they can't charge more than 10 bucks... for expansions as large as the base game.

[Hendricks266]

necroslut, on 19 August 2017 - 12:45 PM, said:

Do you know why GOG version and Megaton was cheap? Because it was all old content. It had paid back its development costs years ago - at that point it was almost pure profit. World Tour, on the other hand, cost actual money to develop - money that it still haven't made back. It is 100% unreasonable to expect something that is cheap to make and something that is expensive to make to cost the same. You must take the cost of production into consideration. Your idea of "worth" is just an arbitrary number you pulled out of your ass.

Do you really think paying Levelord, AHB, and Lee for their work is the bulk of the WT budget? Of course not, it went to Nerve for several full time people to do the art and making a modern stable source port out of 1996 code. XBLA and Megaton were cheap because they were based on JFDuke3D (and didn't even pay JonoF anything for either until we intervened), and GOG was even cheaper because it was a DOSBox wrapper.

[necroslut]

Hendricks266, on 19 August 2017 - 05:04 PM, said:

Do you really think paying Levelord, AHB, and Lee for their work is the bulk of the WT budget? Of course not, it went to Nerve for several full time people to do the art and making a modern stable source port out of 1996 code. XBLA and Megaton were cheap because they were based on JFDuke3D (and didn't even pay JonoF anything for either until we intervened), and GOG was even cheaper because it was a DOSBox wrapper.

Well, I meant to say that too.... I seem to have missed putting in that, quite important, part. The point is still that World Tour cannot reasonably be as cheap as those options because, unlike those, it cost much more to develop. Both the port and the content. Though it can be discussed whether some of that was well spent money....

[Zaxx]

necroslut, on 19 August 2017 - 05:19 PM, said:

Well, I meant to say that too.... I seem to have missed putting in that, quite important, part. The point is still that World Tour cannot reasonably be as cheap as those options because, unlike those, it cost much more to develop.

Though from the perspective of the customer that simply does not matter.

[necroslut]

Zaxx, on 19 August 2017 - 05:52 PM, said:

Though from the perspective of the customer that simply does not matter.

If that is true, where "old" has to mean cheap, then that kinda creates a deadlock situation where things like World Tour, and possibly Ion Maiden, might not be able to be commercially made. I certainly hope that isn't the case.

[Dan]

Well Ion Maiden is a new game with retro graphics that's a bit different. Duke Nukem 3D has been released so many times that pretty much anyone who wanted the game already has it, and you can't really expect people to pay 20 bucks for a game they already own when the only new gameplay is a handful of levels that take less than an hour to beat,

[necroslut]

Dan, on 20 August 2017 - 02:09 PM, said:

Well Ion Maiden is a new game with retro graphics that's a bit different. Duke Nukem 3D has been released so many times that pretty much anyone who wanted the game already has it, and you can't really expect people to pay 20 bucks for a game they already own when the only new gameplay is a handful of levels that take less than an hour to beat,

There's a difference... but there's a lot of gamers who, by a similar logic, thinks "old-looking" games should be cheap because old games are cheap. "I can get <classic x> for 3$, why should I pay more for this?" But I certainly hope it does sell well, I'm looking forward to it a ton.

Have you even played World Tour though? Because I've replayed the new episode a bunch ofl times and it still takes a lot more than an hour. Eight maps might sound short, but the maps are both long and detailed. It's an expansion of good size.

[NNC]

Can we just stop this "new episode is shorter than the others, because 8 is less than 11, look ma, I'm sooo good at mathematics" BS?

Alien World Order is easily the LONGEST episode of the game, taking two hours to beat. Most levels match the size of Dark Side and Derelict, which were curiousities back then. Heck, even if you count E2 and E3 together (as they came in the same package), they don't take much more time really. E3 has ridiculously short levels with little to zero innovations, E2 shows it's cards early on (in terms of new stuff, sounds, enemies, basically everything around Warp Factor) and wasn't that big either.

E4 as an addon pack was also shorter, it took 1.5 hours to beat normally. It also had two new enemies and a new weapon, well, much better utilized, but in terms of content, no more than E5.

You can criticise some out of place graphics, poorly designed enemies, even some levels for being "usermappy", but saying the episode is short or lacks enough new content is BS.

[Zaxx]

Nancsi, on 20 August 2017 - 02:58 PM, said:

E4 as an addon pack was also shorter, it took 1.5 hours to beat normally. It also had two new enemies and a new weapon, well, much better utilized, but in terms of content, no more than E5.

But here's the thing about E4: the Plutonium PAK was a free patch to people who already owned the game if I remember correctly.

[Never Forgotten]

Are people still complaining about the price? Look, Gearbox is a company, companies gotta make money... Hence the price. I'm not saying that 20 bucks was the best option, given it was less than that on Steam, but they knew it wasn't going to be a great seller, so they bumped the price up. I spent nearly 30 bucks on the physical copy, and I'm very happy I did. I would also have been more than happy to buy the digital copy for 20 bucks if they didn't do the physical one.

[necroslut]

Zaxx, on 20 August 2017 - 03:40 PM, said:

But here's the thing about E4: the Plutonium PAK was a free patch to people who already owned the game if I remember correctly.

No, it wasn't. It was a commercial expansion pack. So there's no "thing" here.

[Zaxx]

necroslut, on 20 August 2017 - 03:51 PM, said:

No, it wasn't. It was a commercial expansion pack. So there's no "thing" here.

You're half right and I'm only half wrong! I looked into it and found this on the 3D Realms legacy website:

Quote

Until November 1996, the only registered version of Duke Nukem 3D was v1.3d. We created a new version that had a new fourth episode, and we changed the version to v1.4 - We also gave that a new name - "The Atomic Edition". In order to upgrade customers who had the registered v1.3d CD, we created a patch that could be purchased - that patch was called "The Plutonium PAK".

So it was a patch, you just had to pay for it. Anyone remember how much it cost?

Anyway I confused PP with The Ultimate Doom, that was the one you got in a free patch if you already had a registered version of Doom.

[Zaxx]

Btw. I remember that here in Hungary when I was a kid I could only play the Atomic Edition by getting my hands on a pirated copy that had Hungarian voice acting (well, if you can call some random dude swearing a lot more than what was in the original game voice acting - the mystery: nobody knows who that guy was, some journalists even searched for him a few years ago, still couldn't find him). Oh, all the new kinds of swearing I learned!

[Dan]

necroslut, on 20 August 2017 - 02:27 PM, said:

Have you even played World Tour though? Because I've replayed the new episode a bunch ofl times and it still takes a lot more than an hour. Eight maps might sound short, but the maps are both long and detailed. It's an expansion of good size.

Actually I haven't. I was just basing the times on YouTube videos. Even if it's 2 hours that's still not great for 20 dollars, as I can find games that take over 10 times the amount of time for the same price.

Zaxx, on 20 August 2017 - 04:12 PM, said:

So it was a patch, you just had to pay for it. Anyone remember how much it cost?

It was $19.95 and even than it still had more new stuff than Alien World Order. Two new enemies instead of one, a final boss that wasn't just a recolor and a proper game ending, and you have to remember not everyone had high speed internet back than. So they couldn't easily download hundreds of user levels.

[Zaxx]

Dan, on 20 August 2017 - 05:10 PM, said:

It was $19.95

That's funny, so Gearbox is selling the remaster for the same price the expansion cost 20 years ago? Well okay, guess inflation had its toll, we can't compare 1996 money to 2017 money.

[MusicallyInspired]

I was under the impression that 1.4 was the Plutonium Pak specifically and then later the full package 1.5 Atomic Edition was released? I didn't think the Atomic label was around before that.

[NNC]

Dan, on 20 August 2017 - 05:10 PM, said:

It was $19.95 and even than it still had more new stuff than Alien World Order. Two new enemies instead of one, a final boss that wasn't just a recolor and a proper game ending, and you have to remember not everyone had high speed internet back than. So they couldn't easily download hundreds of user levels.

Don't forget that The Birth was a reshaping of existing scraps of maps, half of them were Levelord's work, who were left at that time, and his maps were finished by hacks for the worse. AWO at least had new maps from scratch, not just glued levels from unreleased old stuff.

I agree the new enemies sucked, the new cutscene was a joke, but E5 was bigger, and was more thematic. Also WT had a new renderer, dev commentary and rewind feature. So in terms of content, it clearly surpassed PP. If some of those features were truly necessary, like the WT renderer instead of EDuke's polymer, is a different topic. We're comparing the contents here, and WT didn't lack in that department.

[necroslut]

Zaxx, on 20 August 2017 - 04:12 PM, said:

You're half right and I'm only half wrong! I looked into it and found this on the 3D Realms legacy website:

So it was a patch, you just had to pay for it. Anyone remember how much it cost?

Anyway I confused PP with The Ultimate Doom, that was the one you got in a free patch if you already had a registered version of Doom.

It was referred to as a patch, but it was an expansion pack, sold in a big box in stores, for around 20$ as someone said. I suppose it was a "patch" in that it upgraded the game to a different version, rather than - like many third party expansions - being a separate thing to launch.

Dan, on 20 August 2017 - 05:10 PM, said:

Actually I haven't. I was just basing the times on YouTube videos. Even if it's 2 hours that's still not great for 20 dollars, as I can find games that take over 10 times the amount of time for the same price.

It was $19.95 and even than it still had more new stuff than Alien World Order. Two new enemies instead of one, a final boss that wasn't just a recolor and a proper game ending, and you have to remember not everyone had high speed internet back than. So they couldn't easily download hundreds of user levels.

It takes longer than two hours also. I agree that the new enemy and boss are lame, but there is a lot of level there, each one with new art and music. And, being Duke, it's quite replayable too, so how do you measure that?
And, eh, the majority of user content back then, even if you had "high-speed internet", was no competition to professionally created levels. I'd claim very little still is.

[Steve 64]

Ran into another bug today on eps 1 level 3 I had 49 kills I shoot an alien with shotgun and he falls should have been 50 when I killed him but it says 49 still, going to edit the video to show what I mean.


After watching the replay again I notice that he did not fall into water so I don't know what happen

[Steve 64]

Question is there suppose to be aliens hidden inside wall on eps 1 level 2 RedLight Distract?

[Hendricks266]

Do you mean specifically to World Tour? I haven't heard that, but I haven't looked either. Is the total enemies count any different from Atomic? If not, and you're judging by an inability to kill all enemies in the level, it's a bug in the game where the mapper tried to spawn RECON sprites with a RESPAWN sprite, but that doesn't work.

[Steve 64]

Edit: Im guessing this is what happen Kill count board must have think one of the dead bodies was alive and it counted as a kill

it like this
https://youtu.be/57U6cXTyobo