[Hendricks266]

LeoTCK, on 27 May 2017 - 11:04 AM, said:

Not just Joe said it was finished however I'm sure what he got you wasn't the final stuff, hell its kinda proven now that Crista had at least some more bits of work, though that didn't include the first level which was the only one in the pack you couldn't end by default. The only one. So in a sense yes most of the maps were finished and just needed some debugging.

However given the state of the first map and it having originally no ending, plus the fact that roger has done modeeling work/sequences and they are missing, that's all enough proof it isn't all that was there.

There is no proof. All we have are claims.

[Hawke]

LeoTCK, on 26 May 2017 - 11:37 PM, said:

It also mentions in one of these pages that Deadly Kiss was finished and I do believe that. It really was likely that it was, just what you guys got wasn't the entirely complete package and indeed crista's levels were more up to date.

I thought that for a while too, but now i'm not so sure. It is true that various people who worked on it think it was completed, but when you look at everything as a whole it becomes more doubtful. Deadly Kiss was being worked on at the same time as Nuclear Winter for Duke which was released on the 30th December in '97, and it was initially thought Deadly Kiss would be ready for the Christmas period too. At the same time all this was going on, Sunstorm was working on Wanton Destruction, which was also set to be ready for Christmas. However neither SW addon made it. Wanton Destruction was held back with a new release date of February 15th '98, this was announced in January, but of course by the time February got there WD was nowhere to be found. I'm not sure if any of the companies involved announced its cancellation, instead it looks like all involved chose to quietly forget about it.

This leaves the question of what happened with DK. All the data that has been recovered so far is from late '97 iirc. As aforementioned it wasn't ready for Christmas, but 3DR did post work was continuing on it in January '98. Problem is that update is the last time DK seems to be mentioned by any party involved at all. Bear in mind WD would be canceled despite as we all know being finished just a month later. Nuclear Winter was poorly received and honestly feels unfinished itself, there's nothing to say more effort would have been put into DK.

I like to think there's more recent revisions from '98, sadly there is no solid proof, and barely any ways to find out.

[icecoldduke]

Hawke, on 27 May 2017 - 05:22 PM, said:

...

There does exist the possibility that SillySoft lied to 3drealms and the publisher. SillySoft might have said they were further along with development then they actually were. Joe might have been regurgitating the info that was passed along from SillySoft. Its possible the money SillySoft got from whoever was investing in the product(3drealms or the publisher) and used that money on some other project(Nuclear Winter maybe?) and neglected DK.

Based on what you guys have said thus far, id be willing to bet you have everything.

[LeoTCK]

Hendricks266, on 27 May 2017 - 11:32 AM, said:

There is no proof. All we have are claims.

I'm sorry but those claims come from people who have been not known to lie, especially when it comes to personal websites like that etcetera. There wouldn't be a lie about Roger etc. You can't just assume everyone was dick about it because it just isn't the case.

I find it ridiculous how people are doubting everything these days. You could say quite frankly that there was no further steele dawn content even though there is direct evidence and claims to the contrary, moreover it was claimed not to be 100 percent finished at the time of cancellation, and that matches with reality and with the map i've seen from crista, still it was close. But Roger's work, his gun models and that enemy model he did, its lost but was shown either in public or in the private screenshot archive saved by crista...

But seriously, you just have to take it for granted in this case.

Instead I see theories popping up about things being lies or fakes when there's nothing to really back that up.

Such behavior is quite frankly toxic. And I've seen it happen elsewhere and I certainly don't want this to evolve into that kind of mess.

EDIT: Nuclear Winter was more disorganised/rushed than this even was. Yet even that mess got the cutscenes modelled by Roger. It also happened with DK, it's just WE DON'T HAVE THEM. It doesn't mean they don't exist, whether it's actually easier for you to accept or not. They DID exist.

[Hendricks266]

I didn't say anything about lying. I'm talking about faulty memory. The Sonic 2 beta research efforts are familiar with this.

Remember, Joe Wilcox told me this:

Quote

I believe it's a dump one of the development drives directly after we shipped it off to WizardWorks.

It is abundantly clear to both of us that this is wrong. It was 12 years then and it's 20 now.

[LeoTCK]

Yes, but I was replying to more people at the same time not just you.

See, he said "I believe", he wasn't sure at this point. It's clear it wasn't everything. Yet, people take this as example to then point out "see someone said it was everything". No, someone said he believes this is all there is, without properly checking. That's what.

That's something different than saying "This project is done, this guy did this and that".

This is way past the event and if someone else noted that Roger has done this and that work it has to be taken for granted and it means that work existed. Besides there's a difference between the managers like Wilcox basically was and the people doing the work.

[icecoldduke]

LeoTCK, on 27 May 2017 - 11:15 PM, said:

I'm sorry but those claims come from people who have been not known to lie.

Your not getting it. In the game industry developers lie to publishers all the time. The people in the "need to know" on DK might have actually believed the project was complete, but in reality, someone, somewhere lied to them. Then they told the lie to everyone else. I'm not saying that's what happened here, but I've seen some shady shit in my time in the game industry.

I have to agree with Hendricks on this one, what you guys have is probably all there is.

[LeoTCK]

icecoldduke, on 27 May 2017 - 11:32 PM, said:

Your not getting it. In the game industry developers lie to publishers all the time. The people in the "need to know" on DK might have actually believed the project was complete, but in reality, someone, somewhere lied to them. Then they told the lie to everyone else. I'm not saying that's what happened here, but I've seen some shady shit in my time in the game industry.

I have to agree with Hendricks on this one, what you guys have is probably all there is.

Hendricks doesn't even literally say that. Besides, as I told you, this was different time/different situation/company than the 2000s where much more shady shit started to happen or really big conglomerates. 3Drealms wasn't that deep yet, besides this is even lower profile, this is an expansion pack developed by SillySoft. There was no need to lie here.

[icecoldduke]

When there's money on the line, people lie; that's just the bottom line.

[LeoTCK]

Roger did the animation/modelling work, fairly sure of that. Whether it ended up in this or not(not) is another thing. There's already proof what Wilcox sent wasn't everything by Crista's files, and she didn't have everything there was in the Wilcox package either. Also I'm speaking from experience and having for example received 5 to 6 different package dumps from unreal psx developement. All of them had bits of different content, some abundandly missing something else. It all depended on people grabbing or not grabbing stuff out of ftp, especially if people were often working from home those days, even on SW most of the time Eric Reuter did work was to send the files to them. You can see it in one text file in one of the builds. The work flow and all was very different back then.

So for sure there was more done at some point. We just didn't get that material, get over it.

This is how things went for those games. I saw into that developement and it's consistent with similar games of the time. You see when mapper A or texture artist A concentrates on his work, he doesn't need to make sure he's got packages of mapper E for example who worked on completely different part of the game that doesn't even connect with his map. It's all documented and consistent.

This wasn't something done by SVN either where if you connect you automatically get updated...

[icecoldduke]

I hope your right

[Hendricks266]

LeoTCK, on 27 May 2017 - 11:48 PM, said:

Roger did the animation/modelling work, fairly sure of that. Whether it ended up in this or not(not) is another thing. There's already proof what Wilcox sent wasn't everything by Crista's files, and she didn't have everything there was in the Wilcox package either.

Disregarding unrelated leftovers, each dump contains the same maps and art as the others, just at slightly different times. Crista's art is definitely earlier because it lacks some tiles at the end of where they stopped in the last file. I don't remember what Daedolon's and my conclusions were about the map versions. Any differences were extremely minor, despite the gaps in modification dates.

[cybdmn]

Hawke, on 27 May 2017 - 05:22 PM, said:

I'm not sure if any of the companies involved announced its cancellation, instead it looks like all involved chose to quietly forget about it.

If i remember correctly, there was some sort of cancellation at least for WD, due to the fact, that SW didn't sell as well as expected. Don't know if that where on 3DRs website, or somewhere in their old forums.

[LeoTCK]

Yes fairly sure. When updates couldn't be automatic some people just didn't get everything or couldn't. Sometimes the only reliable way to get something latest was to contact the person who worked on the map and hoping he would still have the files. And it turned out to be true. For example Elya's maps on UPSX, everyone had his Episode 3 maps but nobody but her had the Episode 2 maps which he made later after someone else stepped down from the project. And boy what a difference did it make. Because they are one of the more detailed maps. Then there were the missing and elusive "full builds" which ran on psx hardware but which didn't have everything either as it would have contained only the maps that were optimized well with care acording to specification. There was still a lot to go before a complete package would be assembled.

Now Deadly Kiss had it a little easier because there was no console porting/modifying to be done, but otherwise the story seems fairly similar

I'm also sad that none of those models I saw on screenshots were dug up, but such it is...

When only a couple of people had them to begin with due to the hassle of sending it over or it not being important for the mappers because those models would only appear in the psx hardware builds in practice and the "normal" stuff would just use dummies.

[LeoTCK]

Hendricks266, on 27 May 2017 - 11:53 PM, said:

Disregarding unrelated leftovers, each dump contains the same maps and art as the others, just at slightly different times. Crista's art is definitely earlier because it lacks some tiles at the end of where they stopped in the last file. I don't remember what Daedolon's and my conclusions were about the map versions. Any differences were extremely minor, despite the gaps in modification dates.

Yes the differences weren't that great in this case, but yes so Crista had in the end more on the end of mapping, Wilcox had more in the end of art. We only have two sources here, not 5 or 6 but still, bet if there was third it would follow similar pattern and voila suddenly the end cutscene would be there for example or the first map would be more finished.
EDIT: I would be sceptical too I guess if I didn't have that unique experience I had. There is the word of people something more was done, then there is some evidence of screenshots and more, for example there are screenshots from the fuzzy looking hardware build on playstation of Unreal, the maps that are shown are all what we have except one map is there that was the special optimized version and that specific one was lacking (in case someone is familiar with it, im talking about the maps beginning with "Epic" or "Nick" etc for the Epic showcase version). Once I received from two sources very similar looking packages/maps but most of the sources had something really unique that the other lacked. It's unfortunate that more people couldn't be tracked down in DK's case.

[LeoTCK]

I'm sorry for being mistaken about a couple of things. I did suffer a memory loss in 2014 too and I assumed before that the first map of deadly kiss was unfinished while dk1 was not the latest version of the map and I thought it was finished by Nacho or whoever...

I really feel embarassed about all this.


EDIT: About Roger, I took a look at the DKiss dev. material again, it seems there have been accidentaly included the scene for Nuclear Winter and so on, Wilcox probably didn't look at it when he sent the files. That stuff could have been accidentaly switched. So yea we get sillysoft's duke addon movies frames there instead.

[LeoTCK]

Either way, the thing is that for Deadly Kiss, while all the main levels were finished there were two secret levels that really need some work, especially one of them.

[Hendricks266]

The one secret map that was defined in the EXE has a finished version, I think, and if not then it just needs one sector tag fixed (the exit is present). We're not sure if the other map you're speaking of is even part of DK or if Crista just happened to have it.

[LeoTCK]

Hendricks266, on 03 June 2017 - 12:29 PM, said:

The one secret map that was defined in the EXE has a finished version, I think, and if not then it just needs one sector tag fixed (the exit is present). We're not sure if the other map you're speaking of is even part of DK or if Crista just happened to have it.

I remember it was practically not finishable without cheats since an explosion rocks your face at some point and its also unplayable in coop. So yea it did need fixes. I don't remember the other map from TD myself or something and then theres the DK multiplayer map for ctf which takes part of an existing sp map plus some new areas.

But given that the map I was speaking of shares theme with the official secret map it makes me think the two are related.

[Jimmy]

LeoTCK, on 28 May 2017 - 12:03 AM, said:

Yes the differences weren't that great in this case, but yes so Crista had in the end more on the end of mapping, Wilcox had more in the end of art. We only have two sources here, not 5 or 6 but still, bet if there was third it would follow similar pattern and voila suddenly the end cutscene would be there for example or the first map would be more finished.
EDIT: I would be sceptical too I guess if I didn't have that unique experience I had. There is the word of people something more was done, then there is some evidence of screenshots and more, for example there are screenshots from the fuzzy looking hardware build on playstation of Unreal, the maps that are shown are all what we have except one map is there that was the special optimized version and that specific one was lacking (in case someone is familiar with it, im talking about the maps beginning with "Epic" or "Nick" etc for the Epic showcase version). Once I received from two sources very similar looking packages/maps but most of the sources had something really unique that the other lacked. It's unfortunate that more people couldn't be tracked down in DK's case.

Here's the difference: There's absolutely no evidence that anything else existed.

[LeoTCK]

Jimmy, on 03 June 2017 - 05:22 PM, said:

Here's the difference: There's absolutely no evidence that anything else existed.

And you always need an "evidence" in life? The thing is, I myself didn't know of existence of those models if it wasn't for the biggest pack of data that I received and only then I saw screenshots of them actually existing rather than rumored. Before that there was even less "evidence" than here, where you have statement of a couple of persons. And yet it isn't enough.

You're just in denial. Nothing more simple. Known people like that.

EDIT: the models I'm referring to are of unrealpsx, simply comparing the two situations here and its clear to me that the data for the movies was swapped. Its safe to say Roger did make them at some point.

[Hendricks266]

LeoTCK, on 04 June 2017 - 04:42 AM, said:

EDIT: the models I'm referring to are of unrealpsx, simply comparing the two situations here and its clear to me that the data for the movies was swapped. Its safe to say Roger did make them at some point.

Faulty reasoning. You can't jump from "renders of the NW cutscenes were on that disk" to "they were accidentally switched with the DK cinematics". What is more likely? The computer was being used for both projects and was not kept organized.

[icecoldduke]

LeoTCK, on 04 June 2017 - 04:42 AM, said:

And you always need an "evidence" in life?

Yes

Hendricks266, on 04 June 2017 - 12:29 PM, said:

Faulty reasoning. You can't jump from "renders of the NW cutscenes were on that disk" to "they were accidentally switched with the DK cinematics". What is more likely? The computer was being used for both projects and was not kept organized.

+1000.

[Forge]

LeoTCK, on 26 May 2017 - 11:37 PM, said:

what you guys got wasn't the entirely complete package and indeed crista's levels were more up to date.

But it really seems unlikely at this stage to recover more.

Claims there's more material - with no real evidence that there is beyond an 'assumption'.
Even admits there's likely no chance to get this elusive and possibly imaginary material anyway - yet insists on arguing about it.

Insists on repeating it over and over like a LP stuck in a groove.
Nobody's convinced.
Proof is for suckers - I'll just keep saying it anyway.

And you all found Robman unbearable........

[LeoTCK]

Invalid argument - if that's indeed the case then why wasn't more NW content on the drive? And bravo, you erased my leaving message. :x

[Hendricks266]

There was more NW content on the drive. For example, there was some artwork that never made it into the final product. http://svn.eduke32.c.../extra/betaart/ I'm currently travelling so it would take me some time to dig my backup/travel portable hard drives out of my luggage to look more at the original data dump. (BTW I plan to release all original found data along with our finished product.)

[LeoTCK]

Just a bit of art in loose files, yes I saw it. Forgot a bit about it though. However no maps or other content, meaning they perhaps wanted to reuse some of that art in dk and didn't get around to it.

Again no maps or other NW content. Perhaps the rest of the DK content was on another drive then?

[Hendricks266]

Possible.

[LeoTCK]

Well, we can agree on that at the very least. Very good.

[icecoldduke]

LeoTCK the bigger question is how much longer do you want to wait for this other data? Based on what little I know of DK, I would argue you guys should work with what you have, and finish up the gaps your way. I think you guys will make it a better product.