[OpenMaw]

Carma, on 14 January 2020 - 03:43 PM, said:

I have been following this forum for over 15 years but never posted anything. That's because my English is terrible. I can read and understand everything you guys say, my problem is writing in English.

But anyway, I find the history of DNF's development fascinating.
I have some questions:

- In 2007 when it was decided to release DNF for consoles as well, they had to cut several portions of the game to run well on the consoles. What portions and segments were cut? It was around this time 3DRealms decided to change the DNF's style from RPG to a more straightforward FPS?

I don't know if Charlie maintained inside knowledge after his depature, but I feel I can probably partially answer this.

For one, let's be clear that DNF was never an RPG. What DNF was, essentially, at that point, seems to be an expansion of the design present in DNF, with a mixture of influence form Half-Life (constant progression through levels, etc..)

As to what was cut:

-Bombshell, as a character was cut and replaced with Dylan. As a result the strip club in the final game loses all of it's subtextual meaning (the "main" stripper in the club was supposed to be Bombshell, who Duke had some kind of a thing for, given she was the one woman who had avoided his "charm" and advances.

-Area 51 and the Duke clones wdfd cut and reworked into the DLC.

-The last section of the game the "Father Ship" which featured the Death of General Graves and the revelation of the Aliens home planet for sequel bait. I'm also fairly certain the Alien Empress was originally supposed to be fought here.

- Los Angeles/Duke 3D flashback was originally during the day time. Las Vegas/Vegas Strip was originally set during the night. Vegas strip was longer with more enemy types, and more of the strip to explore.

- Duke was originally able to brawl with the pigs instead of getting stuck in a quicktime event.

- Used to be able to carry all your weapons

- Beer used to take more than just one can to get you wasted.

- The Mighty Boot section was originally much more Linear

- The "Damn it's Late" section originally featured a studio audience. Duke was going to make use of his jetpack (given to him by a fan.) and utilized a guitar to break a window.

- During the original uncut Area 51/Clone Duke section, Bombshell was going to be playable while Duke was unconcious.

Narrative flow there was much clearer:

Duke gets knocked out fighting the queen, we get a dream sequence with Bombshell, we cut to Bombshell infiltrating the base and seemingly killing Duke Nukem.

Carma, on 14 January 2020 - 03:43 PM, said:

I mean, several scenes that appears in the 2001 trailer also appear in the 2003 and 2006 gameplay videos (Duke on the speedboat, the hologram of the woman dancing in front of the hotel, among others)

But none of these scenes appear in the final game. The scenes in the 2001, 2003 and 2006 videos seem to be from the same game. But the final game does not.
I would like to know which portions, story, segments of the game were cut when they ported the game to the consoles.

They, essentially had a pretty drastic shift in 2006. Lot's of the old enemies were rebuilt around them, the big revision to Duke's model occured in 2006 (The High Poly model, the actual 3DS max file, was last edited in 2006.

Carma, on 14 January 2020 - 03:43 PM, said:

- If I remember correctly, Bomshell does not appear in any image or video from 2001 onwards.. She only appears in the 1998 Quake engine trailer.
Did she ever exist in the Unreal engine?
And Gus?

Bombshell was in the 2007-2010 version. She wore full EDF battle armor like Dylan. Honestly she looked like a temp model at that point, like a stripper head on a female EDF soldier's body. (I had a picture of her from the DNF artbook, which is somewhere in my buried box of stuff in the closet.)

Gus is seen in the 2001 trailer and pictures from between 99 and 02.

Carma, on 14 January 2020 - 03:43 PM, said:

- The final game ends from nothing. Does the game end like this because of the cuts they had to make when porting the game to the consoles?

I wonder how different the game would be if it were released for PC only.

Sorry for my english!

As above, the fathership was the original ending for what ultimately became the released game, and it seems to have been cut due to not being developed far enough when 3D realms closed their doors. As I recall from the leaked spread sheet, the maps associated with the father ship were in the very low percentile of being completed, though likely they would have reused *some* of the assets from the hive and stuff.

Your English was good.

[Jimmy]

One key thing when referring to "cut DNF content" is that a lot of it was cut before it was ever anywhere near completion. A smaller portion of the game was indeed cut and repurposed into the DLC. Triptych took a game that was incomplete and completed what was there. DNF feels incomplete because it is incomplete, but there was enough there to release something. There are things that were "cut" from DNF that never really existed in the first place.

[OpenMaw]

HorseDongSub69, on 14 January 2020 - 07:47 PM, said:

One key thing when referring to "cut DNF content" is that a lot of it was cut before it was ever anywhere near completion. A smaller portion of the game was indeed cut and repurposed into the DLC. Triptych took a game that was incomplete and completed what was there. DNF feels incomplete because it is incomplete, but there was enough there to release something. There are things that were "cut" from DNF that never really existed in the first place.

Ignoring the DLC, looking at the released version of DNF is almost like playing a beta or 2/3 of a game.

If Scott had gotten his wish and Gearbox had put a dozen guys onto DNF with the Triptych guys and actually finished the game, it might have been a different scenario. Though i'm not really convinced of that because the games flaws weren't that there wasn't enough of it. I don't agree with people when they say the DLC was better. It wasn't. It was the same core loops, just for less time. The only good thing in it, is Proton, and the look of the moon stuff. I will say this, I think Dylan works a little better in the DLC because he's played for the absolute dipshit that he is.

From everything I've seen the last time DNF was in a decent state was when Jace Hall played it, which was right before George started tweeting about cutting and shipping, because he looked at the bank and realized he was fucked.

They cut about 3 hours out of the game with the DLC. I'll say this, that was a clever move to salvage that stuff. use the whole animal.

[OpenMaw]

I hate to double post, but it won't let me edit my post.

My gut tells me that if we had gotten that late 2006-2008 version of DNF, the pre-cutting is shipping version where we had Bombshell, and all the weapons in hand, and Duke moved faster and all of those things... I think it would have been on par with another game from that same era that had the 3D Realms logo attached. I think it would have been as good as Prey. I think it would have been more focused on gameplay first. Just looking at the 2006 footage shows a much stronger emphasis on shooting dudes, which is what DNF was always supposed to be.





I bring this up because I think the big thing that was holding it back at that point was not that the team at 3D Realms couldn't pull it off, but that when they made that jump to the real time lighting, and the sheer volume of, not work, but demand for understanding how lighting works.... Okay, i'm having a hard time putting this into words. The art direction. The strong art direction of the 2001 version was obliterated. Just looking at the 2003 footage by comparison, it's muddy, murky. It does not look appealing. By 2006, I can only assume there was talk between people at 3DR on how to work with this stuff. People had to go to school on lighting and the way those things interact, because DNF in 2006 looks pretty strong in that regard. (Though you can tell in the footage Gearbox bundled with the game of the 06 version they had a lot of work ahead regarding performance at that point.)

Point being, the 2001 version had a strong art direction, that by comparison to modern games, would be easy to add onto as long as you had a decent camera, and moderate photoshop skills. It wasn't just a technical leap, it was a question of having the skills to work within the new parameters of real time lighting that I think did the most damage.

[the_raven]

Eh, I'm too late to the party, it seems, but I just wish they released the old builds, in whatever state they are, so people could finally see, and maybe even fix them.
Damn, I don't care, I'm willing to pay money if I have to, just give me the old builds!

[the_raven]

Commando Nukem, on 14 January 2020 - 07:37 PM, said:

For one, let's be clear that DNF was never an RPG. What DNF was, essentially, at that point, seems to be an expansion of the design present in DNF, with a mixture of influence form Half-Life (constant progression through levels, etc..)

As to what was cut:

-Bombshell, as a character was cut and replaced with Dylan. As a result the strip club in the final game loses all of it's subtextual meaning (the "main" stripper in the club was supposed to be Bombshell, who Duke had some kind of a thing for, given she was the one woman who had avoided his "charm" and advances.

-Area 51 and the Duke clones wdfd cut and reworked into the DLC.

-The last section of the game the "Father Ship" which featured the Death of General Graves and the revelation of the Aliens home planet for sequel bait. I'm also fairly certain the Alien Empress was originally supposed to be fought here.

- Los Angeles/Duke 3D flashback was originally during the day time. Las Vegas/Vegas Strip was originally set during the night. Vegas strip was longer with more enemy types, and more of the strip to explore.

- Duke was originally able to brawl with the pigs instead of getting stuck in a quicktime event.

- Used to be able to carry all your weapons

- Beer used to take more than just one can to get you wasted.

- The Mighty Boot section was originally much more Linear

- The "Damn it's Late" section originally featured a studio audience. Duke was going to make use of his jetpack (given to him by a fan.) and utilized a guitar to break a window.

- During the original uncut Area 51/Clone Duke section, Bombshell was going to be playable while Duke was unconcious.

Narrative flow there was much clearer:

Duke gets knocked out fighting the queen, we get a dream sequence with Bombshell, we cut to Bombshell infiltrating the base and seemingly killing Duke Nukem.

Oh man, now I want to play it even more >

[OpenMaw]

No, keep in mind what I was talking about there was the released version of DNF. that's the stuff 3D Realms was cutting out in a mad dash to get the game "done."

I have no idea what was all in the 2001 version. A lot of the stuff shown in the stream is stuff we already knew was there, just more intimately explored.

[PokeThePower]

Oh man I always feel bad missing windows when guys like you come along, Carma.

Carma, on 14 January 2020 - 03:43 PM, said:

I have been following this forum for over 15 years but never posted anything. That's because my English is terrible. I can read and understand everything you guys say, my problem is writing in English.

Я должен использовать Google, чтобы перевести все. Не извиняйся.

Carma, on 14 January 2020 - 03:43 PM, said:

- In 2007 when it was decided to release DNF for consoles as well, they had to cut several portions of the game to run well on the consoles. What portions and segments were cut? It was around this time 3DRealms decided to change the DNF's style from RPG to a more straightforward FPS?

Honestly most of the *style* of gameplay didn't change much, other than cutting back on interactivity and adding a couple halo-ish weapons. Cutting back on interactivity was pretty severe but not in a way that means much to the player experience. If they got it running because they cut a few VFX they made the right choice, etc.

Carma, on 14 January 2020 - 03:43 PM, said:

I mean, several scenes that appears in the 2001 trailer also appear in the 2003 and 2006 gameplay videos (Duke on the speedboat, the hologram of the woman dancing in front of the hotel, among others)

The only reason I think Lake Mead was cut was because I wrote it from the ground up and nobody had the desire to finish it. It was one of the most playable experiences minus VFX polish from start to finish around the time we all left for GBX. Honestly I don't think less of whoever was handed that map and said "Think you can get this over the finish line" and said no... give me something else.

Carma, on 14 January 2020 - 03:43 PM, said:

- If I remember correctly, Bomshell does not appear in any image or video from 2001 onwards.. She only appears in the 1998 Quake engine trailer.
Did she ever exist in the Unreal engine?
And Gus?

There was never a time when I was there, 1998-2006ish that Bombshell or Gus expanded beyond what you saw in the videos. They were discussed, inserted into potential future spots, but never developed past concept art that didn't translate into in-game assets.

Carma, on 14 January 2020 - 03:43 PM, said:

- The final game ends from nothing. Does the game end like this because of the cuts they had to make when porting the game to the consoles?

Of course. I think they did a good job.

Carma, on 14 January 2020 - 03:43 PM, said:

I wonder how different the game would be if it were released for PC only.

[PikaCommando]

What led to the decision to have the Duke3D cast of enemies return in DNF to replace whatever enemies were in the game at the time the decision was made? Aside from Octabrains and Pigcops, who were already in the game in the first place.

On that note, do you guys prefer the Duke3D enemies or would you guys have liked to see the 2001 set of enemies carry over to the final game? Sure, the infected EDF soldiers are functionally identical to 2011 Pigcops in both gameplay and story, but still.

[The Nate]

Definitely the latter, all the other Duke games at the time had him take on different species, right?

[necroslut]

Sgt Nate V, on 21 January 2020 - 01:48 PM, said:

Definitely the latter, all the other Duke games at the time had him take on different species, right?

There were a couple of carryover enemies, but, barring the post-3D spin-offs, it was otherwise all new fauna.
It would have been nice to have gotten more new enemies, and I never thought the DNF reworks really captured the appeal of the originals with its gray Gear of War style.

[Carma]

OccludeOlga, on 20 January 2020 - 06:29 PM, said:

Oh man I always feel bad missing windows when guys like you come along, Carma.

Я должен использовать Google, чтобы перевести все. Не извиняйся.


Honestly most of the *style* of gameplay didn't change much, other than cutting back on interactivity and adding a couple halo-ish weapons. Cutting back on interactivity was pretty severe but not in a way that means much to the player experience. If they got it running because they cut a few VFX they made the right choice, etc.


The only reason I think Lake Mead was cut was because I wrote it from the ground up and nobody had the desire to finish it. It was one of the most playable experiences minus VFX polish from start to finish around the time we all left for GBX. Honestly I don't think less of whoever was handed that map and said "Think you can get this over the finish line" and said no... give me something else.


There was never a time when I was there, 1998-2006ish that Bombshell or Gus expanded beyond what you saw in the videos. They were discussed, inserted into potential future spots, but never developed past concept art that didn't translate into in-game assets.


Of course. I think they did a good job.

Wow. Several things I didn't know. It's always good to know a little more about this legendary game.

And I would never have imagined that one day I would be talking with one of the devs who worked on the game. Internet is a wonderful thing indeed!

Ah, one last question: Did you see any old Prey builds there in 3DR?
DNF Beta builds and Prey are the holy grail of betas for me

I hope to be alive when these builds leak out someday.

[PokeThePower]

Carma, on 23 January 2020 - 07:10 PM, said:

Wow. Several things I didn't know. It's always good to know a little more about this legendary game.

When it comes to the actual game in development, all the clues are out there more or less.

Carma, on 23 January 2020 - 07:10 PM, said:

And I would never have imagined that one day I would be talking with one of the devs who worked on the game. Internet is a wonderful thing indeed!

I'm just another asshole getting through the day. I just so happen to have gotten to enjoy the 3DR theater, kitchen, internet, so much that I didn't unpack my actual apartment for like 5 years. I actually spent a Christmas break for two weeks straight at the office after a major surgery overcoming both the flu AND cold quitting my opiate pain killers from the surgery on a bean bag watching Eerie, Indiana the TV show with Stephen Cole hanging out with me at the office. He's a good man.

Carma, on 23 January 2020 - 07:10 PM, said:

Ah, one last question: Did you see any old Prey builds there in 3DR?
DNF Beta builds and Prey are the holy grail of betas for me

I never once saw an old school Prey Portal in person, only the versions that came out in the eventually shipped games. I arrived at 3DR right as the total collapse of the Prey team was making its final rumbles. Me *now* would have asked George a LOT more questions about what had just happened to Prey but me back then was just stoked to get paid to show up at the 3DR office.

Carma, on 23 January 2020 - 07:10 PM, said:

I hope to be alive when these builds leak out someday.

You will be disappointed, and then you will like what was possible.

[PokeThePower]

necroslut, on 21 January 2020 - 02:31 PM, said:

It would have been nice to have gotten more new enemies, and I never thought the DNF reworks really captured the appeal of the originals with its gray Gear of War style.

Yeah, I would have appreciated a much more faithful callback rather than just a "hintback" to the original enemies. And using that true *callback* to build from without any violation of what Duke3D presented.

I think DNF needed to be the true next game in the world after D3D and all the other spinoff ideas/thoughts/explorations were... spinoffs. But it never fully resolved and despite it approaching that mindset several times never became the defining architect the way Ayn Rand was for Bioshock 1.

[Ronin]

Is this real or a fake?

[OpenMaw]

Ronin, on 26 February 2020 - 05:29 PM, said:

Is this real or a fake?

https://www.youtube....h?v=mEvDADy3L1k

It's literally what this thread has been talking about for the last dozen pages. Yes. It's real.

[Mike Norvak]

Why everyone talks about someone called "Dylan"
I don't even remember a secondary character at all in the game.

[PikaCommando]

Mike Norvak, on 27 February 2020 - 12:42 PM, said:

Why everyone talks about someone called "Dylan"
I don't even remember a secondary character at all in the game.

Dylan is the buddy dudebro soldier that appears from time to time throughout DNF to make Gears of War references. I personally like him quite a lot, and I don't get people who were salty that he replaced Bombshell because I doubt she would be handled any better.

[Altered Reality]

PikaCommando, on 28 February 2020 - 04:07 AM, said:

Dylan is the buddy dudebro soldier that appears from time to time throughout DNF to make Gears of War references. I personally like him quite a lot, and I don't get people who were salty that he replaced Bombshell because I doubt she would be handled any better.

He made a joke that WHOOOOSHED right over your head. Not your fault though, that joke was only funny in 1999 when it was about The Phantom Menace.
About Dylan replacing Bombshell, I think it would've been hilarious had it been Bombshell delivering those lines. Especially the one about getting a boner in Beirut.

[gemeaux333]

love Dylan too... John St John have said in the past that Duke needed a politically correct sidekick to make him actual in the next game, and what about Dylan being this sidekick, although it would be a little hard to imagine him suddently becoming politically correct...

[Altered Reality]

gemeaux333, on 28 February 2020 - 10:18 AM, said:

love Dylan too... John St John have said in the past that Duke needed a politically correct sidekick to make him actual in the next game, and what about Dylan being this sidekick, although it would be a little hard to imagine him suddently becoming politically correct...

Here's how I'd handle a politically correct sidekick in a Duke game: no matter what he sees Duke doing, the sidekick states (in a voice that makes him sound like a retard) that Duke shouldn't be doing that, because it's politically incorrect and a certain category could feel offended, and then he literally goes "REEEEEEEEEEEE". Duke's response is a creative insult as he keeps doing whatever he was doing.

[OpenMaw]

Or? We could just have Duke Nukem be Duke Nukem in a Duke Nukem game and the pussies IRL can eat a bag of politically incorrect dog-shit.

Cause frankly having Jar Jar Vegan-Foam-Latte following me around is just going to irritate me.

[Altered Reality]

Commando Nukem, on 29 February 2020 - 12:32 PM, said:

Or? We could just have Duke Nukem be Duke Nukem in a Duke Nukem game and the pussies IRL can eat a bag of politically incorrect dog-shit.

Cause frankly having Jar Jar Vegan-Foam-Latte following me around is just going to irritate me.

Imagine having a game with a politically correct sidekick, where you can let him follow you around and get triggered for increasingly ridiculous shit... but then you discover that if you shoot him, you actually kill him and you even get rewarded for doing so.

[Ronin]

Commando Nukem, on 26 February 2020 - 07:27 PM, said:

It's literally what this thread has been talking about for the last dozen pages. Yes. It's real.

Thanks for the confirmation, I'm a bit out of the loop I guess and stumbled across this by chance and was too impatient so gave up trying to read the thread a few pages back. Impressed with how it looks though with some really nice touches like the sparks, traffic and sense of scale, I know it was all kind of seen before in the trailer but seeing it being played by someone makes it seem more real and not just a tech demo.

God dammit, sad about all this again.

[PokeThePower]

Altered Reality, on 29 February 2020 - 01:24 PM, said:

Imagine having a game with a politically correct sidekick, where you can let him follow you around and get triggered for increasingly ridiculous shit... but then you discover that if you shoot him, you actually kill him and you even get rewarded for doing so.

No.
You have a politically correct sidekick that winds up being right at exactly the most politically incorrect time to be right.

That's a bit more challenging to write and will take some talent.

• It is easy to write a politically correct character to kill.
  
• It is easy to write a politically incorrect character to kill.

[gemeaux333]

I didn't realize that turning Dylan into a politically correct guy would be like trying to turn a donkey into a stallion...

But then I was thinking the interactions between Duke and the sidekick could be like Leonard/Bubba in redneck rampagne : to end a level, you have to bash him with the melee attack button when the quick-time action spawn, and why not every single time the sidekick say something stupid in order to allow the game to progress ?

[Jimmy]

Or you could just make a real Duke Nukem game where the only other human characters are:

A] General Graves
B] Sex Objects
C] Mutated into pig-men

[Never Forgotten]

MARTYR, on 08 March 2020 - 03:31 PM, said:

Or you could just make a real Duke Nukem game where the only other human characters are:

A] General Graves
B] Sex Objects
C] Mutated into pig-men

EXACTLY! With maybe the exception of a competent President, not like DNF. I don't mind having the EDF in the game, just make them background characters you only see either dead or in some kind of bunker where Graves is at.

[gemeaux333]

The president in DNF is barely a character, he is just here to be the ultimate douchebag only mean to get a karmic death !

[Altered Reality]

MARTYR, on 08 March 2020 - 03:31 PM, said:

Or you could just make a real Duke Nukem game where the only other human characters are:

A] General Graves
B] Sex Objects
C] Mutated into pig-men

I once had an idea of a Duke game where the only other human characters are SJWs and Doctor Proton. The plot:
1) SJWs take over, Duke is thrown into jail for 15 years
2) In his absence, the Cycloids ravage the planet
3) Doctor Proton frees Duke because he wants to rule the world and the Cycloids are destroying it
4) Doctor Proton sends Duke back in time to the Cycloids' homeworld before they launch their attack
5) The main part of the game happens on an alien planet with no other human in sight
6) At the end, Duke returns to Earth, but he is still in the past, so he sees the event that caused SJWs to take over, and he prevents it by killing them all with a nuke