[Striker]

Lt. Havoc deserves a cookie.

[Shax]

Lt.Havoc, on Jun 24 2009, 01:05 PM, said:

Shax, stop playing the angry old man, that wont do anything. Do you know Gorge and Scott personally, do you worked for them, do you ever ran a company, did you ever devloped games? You may not give 2 shits about the contract because you are not involved, but a contract is a legal bound obligation that both sides have to agree on, if one sides brakes it then the other can get in trouble, thats what happend here, but its not clear if the contract was broken or not and wihch side caused it.

We know jack shit what really happend, all we have are a bunch of legal documents and press relases that only tell us one side of the story and if that all goes to court, its up to the lawyers and judges to tell who is right and who is wrong in this one and what you have to say will still not matter in any way at all, because you are an outsider and your demans are unimportant to the Court.

You know, Shax at the end of the day, we are talking about a Video Game, nothing more nothing less, nothing speical, just another game among many that has the tilte Duke Nukem Forever. Do you know what that means? You are getting all worked up over thins for a danm game, that is made to be played in your spare time and to be enjoyed. There i nothing fundamental existentially important to this game, if you didnt worked for the company who made it.

That means you should start to look at it like this, this game wont change your life in any way and all your anger and frustration is wasted engery that you should put into more important things in life then a game.

In short: grow up.

I've been playing games my whole life and Duke is probably my all time favorite character. I remember wanting to get everything I could find with Duke on it when DN3D came out, expansions, standees, shirts, soundtrack, you name it. I do get defensive when there is an issue I care about and ya sometimes I get worked up. However, I love lots of games not just Duke, I'm not some wacked out nut lol. I really believe Duke has a lot of untapped potential. I just don't see 3DR maximizing the IP this is why I would like to see it go to another company that has more resources.

[Jimmy]

I'd rather have no Duke than some polished turd from TakeTwo and random first time developer.

[Sangman]

Lt.Havoc, on Jun 24 2009, 11:05 PM, said:

Do you know Gorge and Scott personally, do you worked for them, do you ever ran a company, did you ever devloped games?

How is that relevant? I'm not a cook but I know when I dislike the taste of a certain kind of food. Are you saying that it's acceptable if results on a project (concerning video games of course) only get shown after a 12-year development cycle? We don't own any video game developing companies but surely it's not that hard to realize that's not really an optimal situation there because many great games have been released over the past decade with development cycles of 4 to 5 years at most (and even that might be stretching it a bit).

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its up to the lawyers and judges to tell who is right and who is wrong in this one and what you have to say will still not matter in any way at all, because you are an outsider and your demans are unimportant to the Court.

Yes of course but the bloke was just offering his opinion (like what we all do on a daily basis). You must be a real party pooper when it comes to discussions if you say "well your opinion is irrelevant so you might as well shut up".. If that were true we might as well have to lock the entire Duke Nukem Forever forum and many topics in General Talk.

People should be allowed to offer their perspective on a situation even if their view doesn't matter.

Quote

You know, Shax at the end of the day, we are talking about a Video Game, nothing more nothing less, nothing speical, just another game among many that has the tilte Duke Nukem Forever. Do you know what that means? You are getting all worked up over thins for a danm game, that is made to be played in your spare time and to be enjoyed.

I suppose the guy was really really really looking forward to it and is just really disappointed. Like when Fox canned Family Guy and Futurama.. but hey why should people have gotten worked up over that, they were just TV shows, right?

Beats me why you're targetting Shax with the whole "it's just a game, your opinion is irrelevant, shut up" thing while you could as well be addressing much of the forum, hell, even much of all internet gaming communities..

[mide7]

Sangman you destroyed three peoples snarky comments in one swoop. Nice.

[Raziel]

Shax, on Jun 24 2009, 03:08 PM, said:

I've been playing games my whole life and Duke is probably my all time favorite character. I remember wanting to get everything I could find with Duke on it when DN3D came out, expansions, standees, shirts, soundtrack, you name it. I do get defensive when there is an issue I care about and ya sometimes I get worked up. However, I love lots of games not just Duke, I'm not some wacked out nut lol. I really believe Duke has a lot of untapped potential. I just don't see 3DR maximizing the IP this is why I would like to see it go to another company that has more resources.

Dude, I can see where you're coming from, but your arguments still make no sense. Do you know why Duke is your all time favorite character? Probably because a great company stood behind him all this time. If atari made it, despite being a good company, it probably wouldn't be what it is today. And yes, I agree with you, Duke has a lot of potential, possibly untapped, but this is where our thinking differs. I believe 3DR realizes this as well and is doing a lot to maximize the IP without taking it too far in one step. 3DR likes keeping an eye on its 3rd party titles, so they can't start 100 Duke projects all at once and keep a close eye on those projects.

Right now there is at least 7 3rd party Duke games currently in production, well, depending on whether you count Duke Nukem Trilogy as 3 or 1, but never mind the small details. Furthermore, there is a lot of evidence to suggest that DNF was making good progress. 3DR even intended to have Duke Begins in production which I assume would have been for PCs & consoles while working on its own flagship title Duke Nukem Forever. So far I am not seeing anything here that suggests they don't know how to maximize the potential of the IP.

This is where the problem comes in though... Take-Two, their publisher... Firstly, they apparently postponed or cancelled Duke Begins, which is major if you consider it was a Duke title 3DR wanted to have in production in the mean time. Furthermore, as I've stated in my earlier post, Take-Two severely screwed over 3DR when at the last minute they changed the funding agreement to only 2.5 million after promising 5 million after 3DR requested 6 million to complete the game. I don't know how you think (to be honest, I don't want to know), but in the business world, if something requires 6 million to be completed, then 2.5 million is just not going to do it. And I can guarantee you the funding agreement would have had a final development end date on it. With less than half of the required funding and only a few days notice before Take-Two was supposed to start funding the project, no one can blame 3DR for what happened here. If Take-Two was honest about how much they would fund instead of making false promises, none of this would have happened because 3DR would have had time to find additional funding. But since 3DR only found out about this April 22nd and then tried to renegotiate with Take-Two, it really didn't give them much time until their money ran out...

So if you want to blame someone for DNF not coming out, blame Take-Two for not being honest and/or funding the game properly. As for Take-Two, I can't see the IP being better off in their hands when they couldn't even stick with Duke Begins properly for a year, whereas 3DR at least stuck with DNF for 12 years with the intention of getting it out soon. I agree it is a long time, but I am sure that if Take-Two funded it as per the original agreement, then by the time it came out, it would have been amazing.

Oh, and the purpose of this 'wall of text' is to tell you that your opinion that 3DR should lose the IP is bullshit. They made the IP and have done lots of good first and third party titles with it, if not for their funding issues (which Take-Two is largely responsible for, whichever way you look at it), they would have had another great first party title behind their name. And no, Take-Two wouldn't get the IP anyway because they are not requesting it as part of their case, which you would also know if you read the document and therefore makes your original post completely pointless...

[PokeThePower]

If there is one thing I've learned in this industry (and it is true of any industry)... this is very important:

If you don't have it in writing...

YOU DON'T HAVE IT.

If you do have it in writing...

YOU NEED TO HAVE A BACKUP PLAN ALREADY IN PLACE IN CASE OF THE OTHER PERSON'S FAILURE.

The second part is what catches most people (for very honest and legit reasons... it's not always possible to have said backup plan at all times for all circumstances).

[ThePinkus]

If it hasn't already been pointed out, most (if not all) of the ex employees have already found new jobs.

Epic, iD, Lightbox, Volition, Gearbox, Guerilla and Sony.

No idea about Joe though.

[Altered Reality]

Captain Awesome, on Jun 25 2009, 01:31 AM, said:

I'd rather have no Duke than some polished turd from TakeTwo and random first time developer.

"Polished turd" is just fanbullshit. I'd rather have some Duke games than no Duke games at all. If you don't want any Duke game (thus you're actually a Duke hater), you can just not play any of them, while Duke fans will. Win-win.

[ThePinkus]

Well we haven't gotten a FPS Duke game since Duke 3D (not counting all the ports it got) and all the games since then (Zero Hour, Time to Kill, Manhattan Project etc etc) Have only been teasers essentially, a small step towards the ultimate goal: Duke Nukem 4.

Getting Duke games is nice, yes, but the ultimate prize would be the sequel to Duke 3D, not a bunch of spin offs.

Not that someone other than 3DRealms isn't capable of doing a Duke FPS. Who knows what Duke Begins was going to be?

Though I don't think they ever intended to make a FPS Duke or anything, it shows that when someone else makes a Duke game, they make it in their vision, not the 3DRealms Duke 3D successor-like vision.

[Raziel]

ThePinkus, on Jun 25 2009, 03:06 AM, said:

Though I don't think they ever intended to make a FPS Duke or anything, it shows that when someone else makes a Duke game, they make it in their vision, not the 3DRealms Duke 3D successor-like vision.

I totally agree with you... I'm not saying any of the 3rd party Duke titles suck, but if people want a true sequel to Duke3D they better hope 3DR's internal development starts back up (and finishes DNF for starters - but it is looking more and more difficult at this stage). If the IP moves to a different company (like take-two for example, which as I've stated before, I can't really see happening), people will just get the 'other' Duke games, not a game that really feels like a true sequel to D3D. Even if someone else does attempt a Duke FPS, people will probably end up being pretty disappointed when they discover the game just isn't what they expected...

It is exactly the same thing as switching to a different director for a movie's sequel (eg. Mortal Kombat -> Mortal Kombat Annihilation - I probably don't have to point this out to anyone, but that is what a switch to a different director can do to a movie). People can say what they want about George, but in the end he is basically the director and I think it would be difficult to make a proper sequel without him. Where did he go wrong, well, perhaps his vision was simply waaaaay too ambitious to realistically implement in a standard game's development cycle. That pretty much puts us where we are now.

[Jimmy]

Altered Reality, on Jun 25 2009, 05:48 AM, said:

"Polished turd" is just fanbullshit. I'd rather have some Duke games than no Duke games at all. If you don't want any Duke game (thus you're actually a Duke hater), you can just not play any of them, while Duke fans will. Win-win.

You miss the point. Halo with the Duke name slapped on it a Duke game does not make.

[John]

Captain Awesome, on Jun 25 2009, 11:37 AM, said:

You miss the point. Halo with the Duke name slapped on it a Duke game does not make.

Take2 has never had anything to do with Halo. Games they have published -

BioShock, Civilization IV, GTA series, Mafia, Max Payne series, Serious Sam, etc.

If anything, I'd say Duke Nukem falls in line with Take2's usual repertoire moreso than any other publisher.

[Raziel]

John, on Jun 25 2009, 12:03 PM, said:

Take2 has never had anything to do with Halo. Games they have published -

BioShock, Civilization IV, GTA series, Mafia, Max Payne series, Serious Sam, etc.

If anything, I'd say Duke Nukem falls in line with Take2's usual repertoire moreso than any other publisher.

I don't really care who publishes it, but just looking at the list of games above, I really hope they find someone better than these guys to work on Duke Begins - well, assuming it isn't cancelled. The only half-decent games listed there is Max Payne and Serious Sam - and neither companies could do a Duke game that matches 3DR's internal work imho. I would list BioShock if not for the fact that it is basically System Shock 2 with its balls removed, everyone I've met that have played the original System Shock 2 has said BioShock sucks, I sadly agree. If you want the real deal, play System Shock 2, it is one of the most underrated games of all time, in contrast, BioShock is one of the most overrated games of all time.

[Sketch]

Woooooooooah hold up, TakeTwo did not influence the games they only published. Take Max Payne and Serious Sam, they were developed by Remedy and Croteam respectively, who are not capable of publishing games themselves. TakeTwo just put the games on the shelves nothing more.

[John]

Sketch, on Jun 25 2009, 05:26 PM, said:

Woooooooooah hold up, TakeTwo did not influenece the games they only published. Take Max Payne and Serious Sam, they were developed by Remedy and Croteam respectively, who are not capable of publishing games themselves. TakeTwo just put the games on the shelves nothing more.

Yeah... that's kind of what I said. "Games they have PUBLISHED", "Take2's usual repertoire moreso than any other PUBLISHER"

They can't control the content or quality of the games they publish but do you think they just pick games at random to publish or do you think there are guys who are actually paid to find the best games that they believe will sell? I doubt publishers just throw darts at a board and build their resume off that.

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The only half-decent games listed there is Max Payne and Serious Sam

That's your opinion. My opinion is that along with those, Mafia and GTA are freaking awesome.

[Jimmy]

John, you're just playing devil's advocate, and you know it. You knew very well what I meant with my post. I knew for a fact that TakeTwo had nothing to do with Halo, I'm not like The Fly or something.

[PokeThePower]

Raziel, on Jun 25 2009, 08:09 PM, said:

everyone I've met that have played the original System Shock 2 has said BioShock sucks, I sadly agree. If you want the real deal, play System Shock 2, it is one of the most underrated games of all time, in contrast, BioShock is one of the most overrated games of all time.

System Shock 2 is possibly my favorite gaming experience ever. That said... BioShock is FAR from suck. It's a damn fine game, and in many ways (polish and presentation in particular) superior to SS2.

John, on Jun 25 2009, 08:37 PM, said:

They can't control the content or quality of the games they publish but do you think they just pick games at random to publish or do you think there are guys who are actually paid to find the best games that they believe will sell? I doubt publishers just throw darts at a board and build their resume off that.

Publishers have pretty significant control over the content and quality of most games they publish. They are typically footing the bill so it goes with the territory. If a publisher doesn't like something in a game they generally can push the dev to change it. Not always of course, there are some lucky (skilled) devs out there who are able to fully resist publisher pressure, but they are the minority.

[John]

Captain Awesome, on Jun 25 2009, 07:11 PM, said:

John, you're just playing devil's advocate, and you know it. You knew very well what I meant with my post. I knew for a fact that TakeTwo had nothing to do with Halo, I'm not like The Fly or something.

Yeah I know what you mean't, every modern game sucks and nobody, except for 3D Realms, could ever possibly make them like they used to, eh? Ofcourse I'm messing with you but you left yourself open.

Quote

Publishers have pretty significant control over the content and quality of most games they publish. They are typically footing the bill so it goes with the territory. If a publisher doesn't like something in a game they generally can push the dev to change it. Not always of course, there are some lucky (skilled) devs out there who are able to fully resist publisher pressure, but they are the minority.

Ah okay. Thanks for the information weider.

[Babe]

So whens the first hearing, any date yet ?

[Raziel]

Wieder, on Jun 25 2009, 06:13 PM, said:

System Shock 2 is possibly my favorite gaming experience ever. That said... BioShock is FAR from suck. It's a damn fine game, and in many ways (polish and presentation in particular) superior to SS2.

Well yes, I guess I was a bit harsh there... I'll rephrase that a little bit and say BioShock sucks in comparison to System Shock 2. For me, a game has to really draw you in and make you feel like you're part of the world the developers built. System Shock 2 is probably the best I've played in this regard. It made me feel like I was really there, BioShock is a good FPS and retained many of the features from SS2, but it simply didn't draw you in like System Shock 2 did and therefore it will never be anything more than an average FPS to me. I agree with it being well polished and having good presentation, it is also very original in many ways, but that's about it.

Some other games that have accomplished this process of drawing me in is Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time/Twilight Princess, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Resident Evil 4 and of course Duke3D . I don't know what it is about these games, but they just manage to draw you in and make you feel like you're part of the adventure. Strangely enough, RE5 doesn't manage to draw me in like 4 does. I would have added the Final Fantasy series in here as well, but every time I hit a battle sequence it instantly kills the effect of me being drawn in, I really think they should stop developing the fighting engine and adventure engine as two separate things that are hacked together and instead combine them properly into something more unified - but hey, that's just my opinion. Even Street Fighter (2, 3 and 4) have managed to draw me in to some degree, but it is a different feeling compared to these other games.

You need to feel the magic!!!

[Kathy]

Raziel, on Jun 26 2009, 10:49 AM, said:

I really think they should stop developing the fighting engine and adventure engine as two separate things that are hacked together and instead combine them properly into something more unified

They've stopped.

[Raziel]

Lotan, on Jun 26 2009, 01:23 AM, said:

They've stopped.

No they haven't, they still do that in Final Fantasy XIII. You'll see it goes dark and then it switches to a different environment where you do combat and stuff, then it returns back to the basic game. Have a look at what I mean here: http://www.youtube.c...h?v=9mIwt2h6rlk

It should just be seamless, you run into an enemy, combat starts taking place on the spot without load-times or switches to different environments which breaks the flow of the game. Once finished you should be able to continue on from where the battle ended instead of where it started before you entered the obviously separate battle arena.

[Kathy]

Oh, that's great. I thought they've abandoned this once and for all since XII. Even in Crisis Core it was somewhat seamless.

[Sinisterambo]

I played system shock 2 twice (when I say play, I mean tried to play) but found it too difficult. I did find it engaging. Bioshock is easier but less engaging, although still quality and instead of putting it down because of difficulty, I just lost interest. I may put the bioshock disk in again oneday soon to complete it before the sequel arrives, which I am looking forward to.

Mafia 2 on the other hand is must for me as I loved the first one (even more than GTA). I remember my girlfriend at the time being annoyed with me for completing it when she wasn't there to see the story complete (and she didn't like games). After completing mafia, there were humerous and inspired extra missions, I would have loved to have seen more of these but my skill couldn't get me past the speed mission (some of you may know which one I mean).

[Raziel]

Lotan, on Jun 26 2009, 02:03 AM, said:

Oh, that's great. I thought they've abandoned this once and for all since XII. Even in Crisis Core it was somewhat seamless.

Now that you mention it, you're right, they did abandon it in FF XII, unfortunately it's back with a vengeance . I still expect it to be a great game regardless and this 'issue' won't stop me from buying it. I do think it somewhat breaks the flow of the game though... I dunno, maybe I'm just picky but it is stuff like this that I find really annoying - it won't ruin the game for me, but I think it could have been done better and I sure as hell wouldn't pull something like this in anything I ever do unless someone holds a gun to my head.

Ideally you would get a single team to implement both adventure and combat seamlessly into the same game engine, but this just feels like two different teams worked on the two aspects of the game and then some perl coder came along and hacked the two engines together, it's just messy.

p.s. No, you wouldn't actually do it in perl, but perl is... well... UUUUGGGLLLYYY, so I thought it would leave a bigger impression of how hacky I trust this glue code is .

[Raziel]

Sinisterambo, on Jun 26 2009, 03:11 AM, said:

I played system shock 2 twice (when I say play, I mean tried to play) but found it too difficult. I did find it engaging. Bioshock is easier but less engaging, although still quality and instead of putting it down because of difficulty, I just lost interest. I may put the bioshock disk in again oneday soon to complete it before the sequel arrives, which I am looking forward to.

Well, System Shock 2 is not an easy game, but it is awesome and very intense, even with its now-rather-shitty graphics ... On the plus side there are community projects now that have enhanced the original graphics so it looks a bit better.

My experience with BioShock was similar to yours, I started playing it and it was interesting, but it just didn't grip me like System Shock 2 did and eventually I just lost interest and uninstalled it. As a SS2 fan, I think it is really sad because I honestly thought this game would be amazing, I did not expect it to live up to System Shock 2, but I didn't expect it to be this far behind it either. It was good, but not great, meanwhile all the gaming sites were going on about how incredible and groundbreaking the game was, it does make me wonder how many of those reviewers actually played System Shock 2, the game from which BioShock was derived. I'm going to keep an eye on BioShock 2, I really hope they figure out what was missing from the first one and add that little bit of magic that SS2 had.

[hornoxe]

Raziel, on Jun 26 2009, 04:02 PM, said:

I'm going to keep an eye on BioShock 2, I really hope they figure out what was missing from the first one and add that little bit of magic that SS2 had.

Seeing as you play as a big daddy I'm afraid that ain't gonna happen. An important factor in SS is that you're this fragile/weak person trying to survive. This is enforced by giving the player limited resources. Being this mech-like big daddy, with his bend-over-and-I'll-shove-my-huge-ass-drill-where-the-sun-don't-shine-arm, totally contradicts that. Even if they would make him weak with limited resources, it "ruins" that feeling on a mental/immersion level.

It may by all means still be a decent, well produced game, but hoping that it will be the "missing link" between SS2 and BS will likely lead to disappointment.

[Babe]

I thought we are supposed to discuss Duke Nukem Forver and it's future here after Take 2 decided to take 3DR to court ?

[Master Fibbles]

Babe, on Jun 26 2009, 12:25 PM, said:

I thought we are supposed to discuss Duke Nukem Forver and it's future here after Take 2 decided to take 3DR to court ?

Hi, you are on the internet.