[Kristian Joensen]

Tea Monster, on 28 December 2019 - 01:21 PM, said:

Yeah. that's a complete restart from the ground up. All assets, all textures. And you have to make two of everything, a high and a low poly and bake down every single asset and texture in the game.

I can't see how they didn't see that was going to be needed before committing to the new renderer though. "It's black, we have to start over." (Magically fixes renderer) "Oh shit, look at this mess, we have to start over!" Same deal either way.

Well surely you can keep gameplay code, scripts, basic level layout and level geometry as well as sound effects, music, and the actual design of objects, weapons, characters etc. But yes, in any case we talking about a big undertaking.

My understanding is that this is not something that caught them by surprise, they knew it would involve new assets. I guess an analogy would be if Polymer and the Duke3D HRP were created during Duke3D's development instead of years. It would taken alot of resources and definitely had delayed the game. But the level geometry in the .map files and the con scripts etc would be unaffected. I assume sssets would gradually be replaced to suit the new renderer + all new assets would have the needed diffuse + specular + normal maps created for them from the get go. Without a doubt a huge project, but it would not involve throwing everything away from one day to the next.

[Futuretime23]

Also one thing to add regarding the undertaking of updating the assets is that 3DR in 2003 had like what, 17-18 people? It was (and this can be seen in the wired article which covered dnf's dev) a team that was still operating under a 1995 mentality, and games were becoming big budget affairs with huge teams of like 50 people or so. You basically had a small dev playing catch up to what the big name games were doing technically.

[Kristian Joensen]

Futuretime23, on 28 December 2019 - 03:13 PM, said:

Also one thing to add regarding the undertaking of updating the assets is that 3DR in 2003 had like what, 17-18 people? It was (and this can be seen in the wired article which covered dnf's dev) a team that was still operating under a 1995 mentality, and games were becoming big budget affairs with huge teams of like 50 people or so. You basically had a small dev playing catch up to what the big name games were doing technically.

There are lots of references by both Scott and George in the thread that I linked earlier to understaffing :https://forums.duke4...-quotes-thread/

Like for example in these two quotes by George:

"Yeah, but just the overall structure. Editor, scripting language, networking etc. We've completely gutted and written our own AI system, rendering, particles, skeletal animation and more so it won't look/feel like an Unreal game at all I don't think. In hindsight, I don't think licensing an engine was a smart move for us. We're pretty uncompromising in what we want to do, so we don't like having limitations. What killed us was not having the programming staff to do what we wanted to do effectively and not recognizing that for a long time. Chalk that up to inexperience." and:

"Yes, in hindsight, writing our own engine would have been the way to go, but that wasn't an option once we were so deep into things. We basically stepped back in early 2002, said "This just isn't going to work or be what we want" and spent most of 2002 re-writing things to get us where we needed to be, once and for all. Most of 2003 was spent on content creation and hring new people. Once we were able to make progress, content creation bottlenecks emerged that needed to be dealt with. So, it's been an interesting journey, but one I do not recommend be repeated, by anyone, ever Haha..."

[OpenMaw]

Kristian Joensen, on 28 December 2019 - 02:35 PM, said:

Well surely you can keep gameplay code, scripts, basic level layout and level geometry as well as sound effects, music,

Yes.

Kristian Joensen, on 28 December 2019 - 02:35 PM, said:

and the actual design of objects, weapons, characters etc.

Nope. Unless you're talking conceptually, then no. The only way you could keep the "low poly" assets would be to use the low poly models to create the hi-poly models, but even then that would depend on what we're talking about, and you would still have to redo all the textures for those assets anyway, so you'd be better off starting clean.

Kristian Joensen, on 28 December 2019 - 02:35 PM, said:

My understanding is that this is not something that caught them by surprise, they knew it would involve new assets. I guess an analogy would be if Polymer and the Duke3D HRP were created during Duke3D's development instead of years. It would taken alot of resources and definitely had delayed the game. But the level geometry in the .map files and the con scripts etc would be unaffected. I assume sssets would gradually be replaced to suit the new renderer + all new assets would have the needed diffuse + specular + normal maps created for them from the get go. Without a doubt a huge project, but it would not involve throwing everything away from one day to the next.

Nah. It's not like that. I'm sure they were aware there was a lot of work to be done, and you would have to rework maps in certain respects to take proper advantage of the new lighting engine too. The 2003 build shows a game that is halfway between what it was and would it would be. 2006 shows just what they had to go through to get the game to where it ultimately ended up, after 2006-2007 is when things started to stick and stay. Indeed, some of the images that were shown off in the final release from 2006, and some of the stuff that was leaked by developers, demonstrates that things basically started locking down in 2007. That's five years from the lighting upgrade, with entirely new assets.

Futuretime23, on 28 December 2019 - 03:13 PM, said:

Also one thing to add regarding the undertaking of updating the assets is that 3DR in 2003 had like what, 17-18 people? It was (and this can be seen in the wired article which covered dnf's dev) a team that was still operating under a 1995 mentality, and games were becoming big budget affairs with huge teams of like 50 people or so. You basically had a small dev playing catch up to what the big name games were doing technically.

Some additional resolution. Look at id from around that same time (2001-2003, the bulk of the dev time for Doom 3) and the size of the id team. They were basically the ones to bring it forward first. They aimed to have that in their project from "go" though. So it's apples to oranges. Even having a modest team of a dozen, could have pulled it off... But it's as Wieder said, the endless iteration. They basically redesigned the concept of the game after the new lightning engine went into play. We went from the infamous stuff seen in the trailer to stuff slowly creeping back to the Duke3D characters and weapons. All of that of course had to be recreated from scratch, too!

Kristian Joensen, on 28 December 2019 - 03:29 PM, said:

Like for example in these two quotes by George:

"Yeah, but just the overall structure. Editor, scripting language, networking etc. We've completely gutted and written our own AI system, rendering, particles, skeletal animation and more so it won't look/feel like an Unreal game at all I don't think. In hindsight, I don't think licensing an engine was a smart move for us. We're pretty uncompromising in what we want to do, so we don't like having limitations. What killed us was not having the programming staff to do what we wanted to do effectively and not recognizing that for a long time. Chalk that up to inexperience." and:

The released game doesn't really bare that out though. The bulk of the engine is still Unreal 1 technology with some shit bolted onto it. The animation/skeletal system, model format, etc is all basically the same as Unreal. Same for AI and how it's handled.


They may have done a lot of scripting and reworking on that front, but reprogramming the engine? No, I don't think so. It just doesn't track with the structure of the files. Do I think they fennegled with things which causes the formats to differ? Certainly.

[Kristian Joensen]

Surely you could keep file format compatibility to a large extent even though the actual underlying systems were re-written. There are lots of examples out of there of engines which support file formats from other engines.

"Nope. Unless you're talking conceptually, then no"

Yes, I am talking conceptually. It probably wouldn't help all that much, but still, it is there.

Edit:

For example someone could write an engine from scratch but choose to use Quake 1's .mdl format for the model format or maybe more realistically choose to use the same model format as Unreal Engine 4. Hasn't the official Unreal Engine itself in many ways had similar file structurces through some pretty big changes?

[OpenMaw]

Kristian Joensen, on 28 December 2019 - 03:50 PM, said:

Surely you could keep file format compatibility to a large extent even though the actual underlying systems were re-written. There are lots of examples out of there of engines which support file formats from other engines.

Well, but that's not what they did is what i'm saying. Like the skeletal mesh system that's in DNF is hardly different from what was already there. It's literally the same file formats. Which is why people have been able to rip out all of DNF's content so easily.

The way they hacked other aspects of the engine, however, do lead to incompatibilities. For example, you can't use any version of Unreal ED that exists to load DNF maps and edit them. Someone was trying their ass off to make that happen, but it's just not doable.

If they had rewriten the way that the data was processed and used to the degree that George said, you wouldn't get any kind of compatibility. It's the difference between a Quake 1 MDL and a Half-Life MDL. Valve rewrote the mdl format to be completely different. Same extension, completely different guts.

The DNF formats "guts' are more or less the same.

Kristian Joensen, on 28 December 2019 - 03:50 PM, said:

"Nope. Unless you're talking conceptually, then no"

Yes, I am talking conceptually. It probably wouldn't help all that much, but still, it is there.

The big problem with DNF conceptually is they basically threw the kitchen sink at the concept. If we're talking the pie-slice of the development that makes up the 2001 build of the game, you could totally port that over as it was. Though, like I said up thread, the way that the 2001 version looked was part of the style with which the assets were made. Photosourcing a lot of stuff. That can't be replicated easily with a real-time lighting system. Especially back then.

[Kristian Joensen]

"If they had rewriten the way that the data was processed and used to the degree that George said, you wouldn't get any kind of compatibility."

Where did he say a word about data processing or file formats?

Edit:

Office suites are another example, there are tons and tons of Office suites that support the file formats of Microsoft Office. That doesn't mean that they mostly(or even at all) consist of Microsoft code.

Edit2:

From John Pollard's linkedin.com profile:

"Duke Nukem Forever:
- Wrote and maintained all aspects of the graphics engine.
- Implemented and maintained 3d volumetric AI pathing system.
- Wrote the terrain editor and renderer.
- Implemented normal mapper tool to generate the difference between hi and low poly meshes"

From Brian Hook's recommendation of Brian Lawson on linkedin:

"To sum up Brian, let me put it this way -- we had two engine programmers responsible for 360 and PC graphics, multithreading, streaming, memory management, animation, performance optimizations, and all the other tasks associated with building core engine tech.

And he was one of them. Most companies have eight or more engine programmers, yet we only had two.

He built our entire core animation pipeline, both in-game and the associated tools. He worked with the animators on technical and workflow issues, and when he was done with animation he went straight onto some of the most difficult tasks in engine coding -- retrofitting an inherently single threaded engine to have multithreading support, and then getting a predominantly PC engine running on the 360.

Brian's a great programmer that never shied away from the hard technical tasks, yet he was never afraid to get the input from others."

And Tramell Isaac's:

"I've worked with Brian on multiple projects at 2 different companies. Brian is consistent in his work ethic, drive, and determination. He has always been a go to guy on the programming side. I bore witness to his greatest as he took over a "frozen" code base that was in desperate need of a overhaul. Brian revamped it, made it more efficient, and made it possible for us to port the game to X360. He is a brilliant mind and I would be honored to work with him again."

[Jimmy]

Commando Nukem, on 28 December 2019 - 07:24 AM, said:

The style of the 2001 version is just that... A style. It's striking and it feels like the natural progression of the Duke 3D look.

It might be hard to believe at first, but if you really look at 2001 DNF with no biases and you know Deus Ex well, then you will see that 2001 DNF was the true successor to Deus Ex. It topped everything Deus Ex did stylistically.

[OpenMaw]

Jesus is King, on 28 December 2019 - 07:12 PM, said:

It might be hard to believe at first, but if you really look at 2001 DNF with no biases and you know Deus Ex well, then you will see that 2001 DNF was the true successor to Deus Ex. It topped everything Deus Ex did stylistically.

Seeing more and more of the game in action, I definitely believe it. Just the way things move, and the way the menu's and everything look and feel. That plus the layers of interactivity on display. It's quite remarkable and a little uncanny how close DNF is to what Deus Ex felt like at its best.

[knopparp]

While I appreciate these new snippets have come to light, why can't someone just dump a full video of them somewhere anonymously for us to see?? WHY TOY WITH MY EMOTIONS LIKE THIS???

[stumppy84]

Yeah I don’t get it either..should be pretty easy.

[Radar]

Because 4chan anons need to whore for attention.

[Kyeb]

From what I've read a few people have video of the full stream Fred did. Why cocktease with a few clips on 4chan every now and then and not just dump the full video is a mystery... hmm 🤔

[Mr. Tibbs]

Kyeb, on 29 December 2019 - 01:05 PM, said:

From what I've read a few people have video of the full stream Fred did. Why cocktease with a few clips on 4chan every now and then and not just dump the full video is a mystery... hmm 🤔

Commando Nukem mentioned on the last page that he knows a few people with hours of footage, and suspects it might surface in the near future. I guess there might be fears over legal fallout or reprisals, but I doubt anyone will care if just footage gets out in the wild. Demo reels for employers leak all the time.

[Mark]

Its plain and simple. Releasing in bits gives the person a feeling of power over the masses. Everyone gets worked into frenzy when something is released. It makes that person feel important to be the source so they spread it out to make the feeling last longer. After it's all been released they go back to being nobody.

OR...
Its someone in the industry trying to gauge the market by browsing for responses in various forums.

I'm more likely to believe the first scenario.

[Zaxx]

Yeah, releasing only snippets of the video can gather more attention mostly because carefully chosen snippets of gameplay can paint a more positive picture of the whole thing. You know that it's an unfinished game, you see that it must feel like shit to play yet some of those clips do seem awesome. Just look at this thread: lots of posts, some of them very hopeful or very long even though you just fucking know that what is there is unfinished garbage so it's simply not worth the attention.

[stumppy84]

Yeah I think you’re right. People get off on just giving little enough info on that kinda of stuff.. prolongs the ‘high’ I guess.

[Kyeb]

Mark, on 29 December 2019 - 01:45 PM, said:

Its plain and simple. Releasing in bits gives the person a feeling of power over the masses. Everyone gets worked into frenzy when something is released. It makes that person feel important to be the source so they spread it out to make the feeling last longer. After it's all been released they go back to being nobody.

OR...
Its someone in the industry trying to gauge the market by browsing for responses in various forums.

I'm more likely to believe the first scenario.

Think your bang on the money there. Who ever leaked the clips from the past few days will be most likely be the same person who leaked those screenshots from the stream last year in 4chan too.

[OpenMaw]

Gonna blow your mind there Zaxx. Very little of that stream demonstrated "unfinished garbage."

Most of it is was very complete. Shockingly complete.Lot's of stuff. These little snippets don't do it justice, honestly.

[Zaxx]

Commando Nukem, on 29 December 2019 - 04:30 PM, said:

Gonna blow your mind there Zaxx. Very little of that stream demonstrated "unfinished garbage."

Most of it is was very complete. Shockingly complete.Lot's of stuff. These little snippets don't do it justice, honestly.

I don't think we watched the same thing then.

Edit: Oh, you've seen the full stream? Okay but why generate this "hype" for it though? I mean you were always so positive about this mess that you're something I'd call an "unreliable narrator" in this case. Most of what's on the "leaks" look quite unfinished so I sure as hell don't believe that the full thing will change my mind so that I could become an acolyte for the cult of DNF 2001.

Honestly somebody should just upload the whole stream or even better: the game. We deserve closure. Anway I don't care anymore, honestly fuck everyone who ever worked on DNF and made me think it will be awesome (but especially George).

[Jimmy]

oLd GaMe BaD! NeW gAmE gOoD!1

[OpenMaw]

Zaxx, on 29 December 2019 - 05:36 PM, said:

I don't think we watched the same thing then.

Edit: Oh, you've seen the full stream? Okay but why generate this "hype" for it though? I mean you were always so positive about this mess that you're something I'd call an "unreliable narrator" in this case. Most of what's on the "leaks" look quite unfinished so I sure as hell don't believe that the full thing will change my mind so that I could become an acolyte for the cult of DNF 2001.

I'm not generating hype. The vast majority of what was streamed was completed content. I wasn't saying it was literally going to blow your mind how teh-awesome DNF 2001 is. I was saying, the several hours of streamed content was all completed, or mostly completed stuff.

When exactly was I uber-positive about anything DNF? I have thrown cold water on people constantly over the last bunch of years, and the franchise as a whole post-DNF's release.

The 2001 version of the game was a superior game, no doubt. No doubt at all. We know what they were making, and how they were making it. We have written testimony and visual evidence to back it up. It would have been the far superior experience.

All I was pointing out is that if you're expecting the stream to be composed of dev boxes and shit, it isn't. It's a lot of playable game. My shock with these little clips is they're not really highlighting the big set pieces that are on display, but more focusing on walking through some of the random hallways.

Zaxx, on 29 December 2019 - 05:36 PM, said:

Honestly somebody should just upload the whole stream or even better: the game. We deserve closure. Anway I don't care anymore, honestly fuck everyone who ever worked on DNF and made me think it will be awesome (but especially George).

Well, that's fucking shit. 90% of the developers had no say in how things went down. You do know about the mass exodus of people that left 3D Realms and basically forced George to start making cutbacks right? That a great number of those people got screwed royally, because they worked for less on the promise of getting a slice of the profits? It wasn't their fault. There was no way they could change that situation.

[Zaxx]

Commando Nukem, on 29 December 2019 - 06:46 PM, said:

Well, that's fucking shit. 90% of the developers had no say in how things went down. You do know about the mass exodus of people that left 3D Realms and basically forced George to start making cutbacks right? That a great number of those people got screwed royally, because they worked for less on the promise of getting a slice of the profits? It wasn't their fault. There was no way they could change that situation.

But that's my point: I don't care and on top of that:

- Fuck Fred Schreiber for showing off something that he won't ever be able to release.
- Fuck Randy Pitchford for not releasing it and ultimately double fuck him for wanting to make money off of it if DNF 2001 does get released in some shape or form.
- Fuck the asshole who has the whole stream but instead of just dumping that somewhere he decided to whore for attention because oh boy we sure as fuck need another round of the "DNF tease" shitshow.
- Fuck me for talking about it and acting as if it was relevant when if it's not.

Sure, it wasn't their fault (except for George) but ultimately they created a monster, the idea of this legendary game that apparently would have been the true successor of Deus Ex now even though Deus Ex was a wonderful RPG that had terrible core FPS mechanics (because it was a fucking RPG and not an FPS) and a Duke game based on Deus Ex wouldn't have ever worked out well (one based on Kingpin though... GET ON IT RANDY YOU FUCK). The monster of DNF is so fucked up that even though we got a bad game 10 years ago we still have this goddamn idiotic mindset of "but that 2001 trailer was cool, I wanna play that!"

Learn from the devs who participated in that mass exodus you mentioned: learn how to let go. LET... IT... GO, it's been 20 years, you're 40 now and there is no going back. Stop sucking the dick of an idea!

[Jimmy]

You're really delusional and in denial.

[Zaxx]

No, you are the one who's delusional if you dare to compare that piece of shit to Deus Ex, arguably one of the greatest games ever made.

[Jimmy]

You're so mad you can't play DNF and Fred gets to.

[Zaxx]

I don't hate Fred, I just get this urge to punch him in the face whenever he's trying to establish continuity between their 3D Realms and the original studio. "We made Duke Nukem 3D" - no, you didn't, stop saying that, I know your intentions are not bad but it offends me.

[OpenMaw]

Zaxx, on 29 December 2019 - 08:29 PM, said:

But that's my point: I don't care and on top of that:

Huh....

Zaxx, on 29 December 2019 - 08:29 PM, said:

- Fuck Fred Schreiber

Zaxx, on 29 December 2019 - 08:29 PM, said:

- Fuck Randy Pitchford

That's all you really gotta say.

Zaxx, on 29 December 2019 - 08:29 PM, said:

- Fuck the asshole who has the whole stream but instead of just dumping that somewhere he decided to whore for attention because oh boy we sure as fuck need another round of the "DNF tease" shitshow.

Well, it's not just one. There are several. One of which I know well enough to know he's not an asshole at all and in point of fact cared a great deal about this community.

Zaxx, on 29 December 2019 - 08:29 PM, said:

- Fuck me for talking about it and acting as if it was relevant when if it's not.

Then make a choice. Either you don't care, or you do care, and it brings your blood to a boil and you want to talk about it. I don't know why people on the internet act like getting upset or angry over things is weird. This is our fucking hobby. We love this character. Why wouldn't we get mad? Especially for some of us who spent half of our lives living with it in some way. Being immersed in, yes, our own little pocket of culture here.

Zaxx, on 29 December 2019 - 08:29 PM, said:

Sure, it wasn't their fault (except for George)

Then why would you say it? No. they didn't "Create a monster." They were trying to create a fucking great game and they were kept form doing that.

Zaxx, on 29 December 2019 - 08:29 PM, said:

but ultimately they created a monster, the idea of this legendary game that apparently would have been the true successor of Deus Ex now even though Deus Ex was a wonderful RPG that had terrible core FPS mechanics (because it was a fucking RPG and not an FPS) and a Duke game based on Deus Ex wouldn't have ever worked out well (one based on Kingpin though... GET ON IT RANDY YOU FUCK). The monster of DNF is so fucked up that even though we got a bad game 10 years ago we still have this goddamn idiotic mindset of "but that 2001 trailer was cool, I wanna play that!"

Ah...Ju-- Whatthefuckman... Nobody, neither Jesus is King, Nor I, said it was going to play like Deus Ex. It doesn't. What it does do is take some of the best aspects of Deus Ex and puts them into the Duke Nukem framework. Weapon mods/modes, an inventory system stealth and combat options, multiple(more than two in several areas) choices in level design, lots and lots of interactivity.

Zaxx, on 29 December 2019 - 08:29 PM, said:

Learn from the devs who participated in that mass exodus you mentioned: learn how to let go. LET... IT... GO, it's been 20 years, you're 40 now and there is no going back. Stop sucking the dick of an idea!

30 and i'll suck its dick as much as I feel like. I'll take that ideas' throbbing shaft all the way down, mushroom cap to my tonsils; puke out of my nose. I'll let go and stop sucking when it's balls are emptied.

Zaxx, on 29 December 2019 - 09:08 PM, said:

No, you are the one who's delusional if you dare to compare that piece of shit to Deus Ex, arguably one of the greatest games ever made.

Zaxx. Take your meds.

[Hank]

@ poor Zaxx
Man, dude, relax.
You just stated yourself, that 3DR never had the option to release any of it.
In fact they have a court restriction against them, about anything Duke Nukem related.
It is the new 3DR who are probably thoroughly pissed that they lost anything Duke. Don’t fall for their traps.

As for closure? Here is mine
The King is dead – long live the Queen.

[Jimmy]

Funny you mention Ion Fury. The events that make a sequel unlikely are similar to the reasons 2001 DNF will never be released. You know how Randy said DNF would need QA to be released? Just imagine what random shit, in jokes, etc are left among DNF's bones.