[OpenMaw]

Aleks, on 05 December 2020 - 08:18 AM, said:

I on the other hand found both Dylan and Holsom twins characters to be spot on as what they were intended to be - an over the top parody. Duke's role - similarly to DN3D - was mostly limited to 1-liner points which were badass and "Clint Eastwood" style, so it was good to see a contrast like Dylan babbling his mouth non-stop as a mock-up of "dudebro" characters. And twins played quite an important role in the plot and led to the actually only scene where Duke kind of "cracked" being in rage for their death, plus his pick-up line "When did you two get back?" in "My Digs" was perfectly tongue-in-cheek.

Yeah, no. Just no.

Dylan works, functionally as a character, in the DLC, because he's actually a complete tit compared to Duke. He get's shit on his face, narratively speaking, in the DLC. in the main game he's just there to plug in the holes that Bombshell's absence leaves.

The Holsom twins were ill-conceived from go, and because they're basically unused in anyway to comment on Duke, they're just airheaded bimbos and that's it. Annoying sounding airheaded bimbos at that. Duke should be bedding women that all men would generally want to bed. IE: Bond girl types. By and large they're genuinely sexy women with something in their heads. The Twins are the kind of girls that DUDEBROS, ironically, are looking to score with when they go on a cruise.

Also, re: Duke's rage. Yeah. he gets angry for exactly one line, and then when he finds them in the hive he makes a joke that is completely in opposition to any kind of drama. That anger might have been good if Duke had maintained that tone through the rest of the game, or at least the chapters leading up to their demise.Duke's inconsistency as a character throughout DNF is one of its biggest failings. Aside to it just not being all that fun to play.

[Jimmy]

Not to mention that the Holsom Twins feel like pedo-bait.

DNF is the Jelly of the Month Club of the Duke Nukem franchise. It's the gift that keeps on giving.

[ETPC]

you could probably make the arguement that while dylan is annoying, everything regarding the holsom twins is what killed the franchise.

[Aleks]

OpenMaw, on 05 December 2020 - 09:24 AM, said:

Yeah, no. Just no.

Dylan works, functionally as a character, in the DLC, because he's actually a complete tit compared to Duke. He get's shit on his face, narratively speaking, in the DLC. in the main game he's just there to plug in the holes that Bombshell's absence leaves.

If Bombshell was really a "buddy movie" type of character or someone to compete/verbally spar with Duke, it wouldn't work IMO, because Duke in his universe is a kind of over the top ultimate badass character that it wouldn't really make sense. And here's where Dylan comes in handy - he's the "super soldier" guy who still looks like shit compared to Duke.

Quote

The Holsom twins were ill-conceived from go, and because they're basically unused in anyway to comment on Duke, they're just airheaded bimbos and that's it. Annoying sounding airheaded bimbos at that. Duke should be bedding women that all men would generally want to bed. IE: Bond girl types. By and large they're genuinely sexy women with something in their heads. The Twins are the kind of girls that DUDEBROS, ironically, are looking to score with when they go on a cruise.

Wasn't Duke always about scoring with hot "model type" of girls rather than Bond-type girls with character? In DN3D we were tipping strippers and hookers (who were somehow the only people left on an alien-invaded Earth for some reason...), in Manhattan Project we saved random bimbos from GLOPP, in DNF Duke gets excited about porno magazines. Holsom Twins are exactly the type of girls you'd expect to be around Duke - all about looks and not giving shit about his narcissistic personality. Duke isn't really based on Bond, and adding a more complex female character for a longer part of plot would take himself out of the center of events, which isn't what this game is really about. Maybe Dr. Valencia was a bit a Bond type girl - and Duke probably ultimately failed to score with her.

Quote

Also, re: Duke's rage. Yeah. he gets angry for exactly one line, and then when he finds them in the hive he makes a joke that is completely in opposition to any kind of drama. That anger might have been good if Duke had maintained that tone through the rest of the game, or at least the chapters leading up to their demise.Duke's inconsistency as a character throughout DNF is one of its biggest failings. Aside to it just not being all that fun to play.

He does get angry when get killed too, that's the line I meant more than the first one when they were kidnapped. And personally I find the "Looks like you're fucked" conversation hilarious and one of the better ones in the game - they just went so over the top with it and probably knew it would piss off/disgust a lot of people, but they still kept it, which is quite amazing.

@Jimmy, if you think Holsom Twins are pedo-bait, then I bet you haven't seen that Chastity chick in "My Digs"

[Outtagum]

Here's part of an interview from the official DNF website where they talk about Dylan.

http://www.dukenukem...ranscript1.html

Quote

KRISTEN: And there is one in particular that is an old buddy of Duke’s. He and Duke get along; you can see why they get along: they go far back. That’s one of my favorite characters.

ALLEN: Yeah, Capt. Dylan.

KRISTEN: I love Dylan.

DAVID: The thing I always think about Dylan….we were talking about what kind of language the characters use and which could swear and which couldn’t and I think it was you Al that said couldn’t we focus that on one character? So one character would represent all the foul mouthed attitude….

KRISTEN: Yeah that was the idea because we had a lot of profanity peppered through the script and it was Al’s idea to have one character to have every third word was something profane or just vulgar and yeah, I would say Dylan is definitely….

ALLEN: Well that’s the thing when you’re trying to incorporate comedy into an action script, whether you’re talking about film or television or games is that you have to know when you’re going too far. And I think that with the very early drafts of the script that we had some of the team thought we were going a little bit too far that it was a little bit too silly. We wanted to re-establish some of the serious characters in the beginning of the game, then we needed to have an exaggeration and we needed to focus the comedy in particular points. So we had this one character, Duke’s friend who has a history with Duke according to the fiction of the game that you meet about two hours in and we just decided to focus all the profanity and exaggeration on him. It’s pretty hilarious for people playing the game for the first time.

KRISTEN: Like all things in Duke, he’s a man who deals with things seriously but it’s hard to take him seriously and Dylan highlights that you can’t take this too seriously and I think it’s just hilarious.

CHRIS: I like to think that Dylan’s just actually the result of Duke Nukem; like Duke got this fame and fortune for doing all these over the top things and Dylan saw it and was so influenced at a young age and said, "I’m going to join the army; I’m going to do all this" and he ends up meeting Duke and they hit it off because in a weird sense, Dylan is Duke.

KRISTEN: Yeah, I agree but like Dylan is the guy that misunderstood what Duke was going for.

ELIZABETH: Just missed the mark.

KRISTEN: Yeah, just missed the mark and took it too far. But he’s funny anyway.

[Jimmy]

"Missed the mark." Irony coming from those two.

[stumppy84]

Hahahaha, so true.

[jkas789]

Quote

CHRIS: I like to think that Dylan’s just actually the result of Duke Nukem; like Duke got this fame and fortune for doing all these over the top things and Dylan saw it and was so influenced at a young age and said, "I’m going to join the army; I’m going to do all this" and he ends up meeting Duke and they hit it off because in a weird sense, Dylan is Duke.

KRISTEN: Yeah, I agree but like Dylan is the guy that misunderstood what Duke was going for.

Quote

I like to think that Dylan’s just actually the result of Duke Nukem; like Duke got this fame and fortune for doing all these over the top things and Dylan saw it and was so influenced at a young age and said, "I’m going to join the army; I’m going to do all this" and he ends up meeting Duke and they hit it off because in a weird sense, Dylan is Duke

This is cancer.

[Futuretime23]

"Dylan is Duke"

Great, thanks, I hate it.

[OpenMaw]

"Serious characters" really gets me.

Where? When? The president is a farce, Dylan is a farce, the women are a farce... Even Graves has moments where he crosses into comedy with lines like "They're taking our women Duke... I think you know the implications." What, implications, Graves? RRRRAPE?

Dylan would have worked great as a gag if right after we met him he ended up like Leroy. In fact that would have made that whole bit tens times better, and actually funny. Dylan is trying so hard to be cool and impress Duke. He walks Duke over to the power armor. Duke gives his infamous quip. Dylan: "Uh, yeah! I fucking knew that! Fuck that power armor. Let's go!" And as he runs off he gets blown up. "Guess he won't be in the sequel."

Boom. I just made that one aspect of DNF ten times better and fixed a stupid character. Now if we could just fix the whole game like that, including the gameplay.

Shit, imagine if instead of having to do 15 minutes of walking around the Duke Cave entrance was inside Duke's apartment and he just went straight down after the news report, and the action started within 5 minutes, instead of having to walk through those un-Godly painful scripted events. I mean, for fucks sake, as TotalBiscuit said in his second DNF video "Why doesn't The Duke Cave have any guns in it!? That's a terrible Duke Cave!"

I'm getting off topic. To pull it back in, I'd like to think from everything we've heard this is closer to how the 00-02 version of DNF would have been. That's the worst sin in released DNF of all, the amount of time it wastes on the player's behalf.

[jkas789]

OpenMaw, on 06 December 2020 - 02:44 PM, said:

I mean, for fucks sake, as TotalBiscuit said in his second DNF video "Why doesn't The Duke Cave have any guns in it!? That's a terrible Duke Cave!"

TotalBiscuit



Rest in pepperoni Cynical Brit.

But yes I agree with you as well OpenMaw. Dylan should have died at the start.

[PokeThePower]

PikaCommando, on 04 December 2020 - 09:29 PM, said:

Huh, Dylan never seemed like something that was put in because they thought fans wanted a dudebro sidekick to me. I always thought he's only in the game to mock dudebro characters in other games, namely Gears of War.

The ladies and guys following those ladies thought Dylan was what Duke fans are like. So obviously... they think the people they are trying to write a character for... think Dylan is super cool. Because that's how they see Duke fans. Allen in the linked interview did his damned best to quarantine the cancer.

PikaCommando, on 04 December 2020 - 09:29 PM, said:

With that said, I don't see how Bombshell's inclusion over Dylan would've improved the game beyond providing an additional set of eye candy.

Here is where I think that George, since pre-Duke3D release, was more right than all of us. George *always* saw Duke as a serious world, a serious character dealing with serious problems. The inclusion of one liners and world pop culture jokes were meant to contrast the dominant thread of the fight against the alien invasion. Now... it's of course no holocaust affirming black, white, and red sort of story... but he consistently argued to many of us on the dev team that the humor was taking too much priority. In hindsight, seeing how after a couple steps removed devs and writers interpreted what they had to work with from our jokes... he was right and I regret some of the "funny if discovered, terrible if required" hooks I helped create.

The microwaveable rat and throwable poo being the easiest to summarize.

Jimmy, on 05 December 2020 - 10:01 AM, said:

Not to mention that the Holsom Twins feel like pedo-bait.

That term is abused and I'm surprised to see you abusing it. However... I'm inclined to agree partially because the entire point of the joke... which had an expiration date far before DNF's release and should have been cut by the time DNF was released... was mocking the hypocrisy of the Hit Me Baby One More Time era of MTV.

[PokeThePower]

OpenMaw, on 06 December 2020 - 02:44 PM, said:

"Serious characters" really gets me.

This is where we all failed George. Kinda... he also played his part.

I can reflect in hindsight how the side jokes I/we intended to supplement his "Sure George... Duke is a serious story" development effort ultimately wound up being amplified in ways that make me cringe.

Bombshell was both an obvious corporate attempt to create a new IP... and a serious character in a serious story. As the seriousness of the game became harder to maintain, her character became less coherent.

[Ninety-Six]

I remember someone here on duke4, I forget who, saying that George was a great creative director but a terrible producer, or something to that effect. That all there just seems to fall further in line with that assessment.

[PokeThePower]

It's come up a few times that George was at his best providing creative direction but needed to be released from the production responsibilities. One of the last conversations I had while still part of 3DR was essentially "Go on a 6 month cruise, come back for a couple of weeks and provide feedback, and go on another 6 month cruise and then we'll have a game we can ship".

[Jimmy]

InnervateInna, on 07 December 2020 - 06:37 PM, said:

Here is where I think that George, since pre-Duke3D release, was more right than all of us. George *always* saw Duke as a serious world, a serious character dealing with serious problems. The inclusion of one liners and world pop culture jokes were meant to contrast the dominant thread of the fight against the alien invasion. Now... it's of course no holocaust affirming black, white, and red sort of story... but he consistently argued to many of us on the dev team that the humor was taking too much priority. In hindsight, seeing how after a couple steps removed devs and writers interpreted what they had to work with from our jokes... he was right and I regret some of the "funny if discovered, terrible if required" hooks I helped create.

Duke was flanderized like the 80s action films that inspired his creation. Dropping the occasional wisecrack was just a quirk of the character, a notable trait but not the only one. As the industry changed and FPS games basically became interactive movies or military deathmatches, all the other traits that made up the series was lost in the sauce.

InnervateInna, on 07 December 2020 - 06:37 PM, said:

That term is abused and I'm surprised to see you abusing it. However... I'm inclined to agree partially because the entire point of the joke... which had an expiration date far before DNF's release and should have been cut by the time DNF was released... was mocking the hypocrisy of the Hit Me Baby One More Time era of MTV.

I'm hardly the prude as anyone knows. I don't throw that term around lightly. The characters between their name and dress have always just seemed a little gross to me. Duke Nukem likes real women, strippers and whores who smoke cigarettes.

Ninety-Six, on 07 December 2020 - 10:48 PM, said:

I remember someone here on duke4, I forget who, saying that George was a great creative director but a terrible producer, or something to that effect. That all there just seems to fall further in line with that assessment.

I have been vocal for YEARS that George is the great filter of what is and is not Duke Nukem, the character or game to be a vehicle for the character. He never would have let ship what shipped as DNF. Could he have guided the game to completion? I'm really not confident he could have. Scott Miller should have restructured the team and put George in charge of the creative team and somebody else in charge of the development so it would actually get finished.

[Kyeb]

InnervateInna, on 08 December 2020 - 07:34 PM, said:

It's come up a few times that George was at his best providing creative direction but needed to be released from the production responsibilities. One of the last conversations I had while still part of 3DR was essentially "Go on a 6 month cruise, come back for a couple of weeks and provide feedback, and go on another 6 month cruise and then we'll have a game we can ship".

Fred said a while back that looking through the builds you had tried to re-make the 2001 build with the new render up until 2004. If this is true, do you recall why George wanted to scrap it and start again while chaging pretty much the design of the game.

Something I always wondered was, apart from the obvious Quake to Unreal, was if the following "resets" were ever "hard resets". Meaning, was it a conscious decision to scrap things or was it things slowly over time been changed and molded to were the game was different from say a few years before hand.

[Ninety-Six]

Jimmy, on 08 December 2020 - 09:31 PM, said:

I have been vocal for YEARS that George is the great filter of what is and is not Duke Nukem, the character or game to be a vehicle for the character. He never would have let ship what shipped as DNF. Could he have guided the game to completion? I'm really not confident he could have. Scott Miller should have restructured the team and put George in charge of the creative team and somebody else in charge of the development so it would actually get finished.

I recall you saying that before. It very well may have been you I was thinking of above. Regardless, after everything I've seen regarding DNF's development as well as CW's own anecdotes, it's definitely a viewpoint I've subscribed to.

[PokeThePower]

Jimmy, on 08 December 2020 - 09:31 PM, said:

Duke was flanderized like the 80s action films that inspired his creation. Dropping the occasional wisecrack was just a quirk of the character, a notable trait but not the only one. As the industry changed and FPS games basically became interactive movies or military deathmatches, all the other traits that made up the series was lost in the sauce.

Ninety-Six, on 09 December 2020 - 04:18 AM, said:

I recall you saying that before. It very well may have been you I was thinking of above. Regardless, after everything I've seen regarding DNF's development as well as CW's own anecdotes, it's definitely a viewpoint I've subscribed to.

It was just too much gravity of jokes like finding the Doom marine, the Terminator body, etc... and their equivalents in DNF... being interpreted by the team that shipped DNF as necessary to customer enjoyment therefore required to proceed. I can think back on evenings talking about these and see how it wound up that way.

It wasn't properly communicated that all of these crazy interactive options were ONLY good if they weren't advertised or necessary to satisfactorily finish the game. They should ALL be the stuff you find out you could have done (and *then* might go seek the secret achievement) but otherwise were buried under layers of user interaction and putting 2+2 together to try something that normally wouldn't work... again such as chasing down a rat that is running away from you (what shipped was a static rat... bad)... and then happening to realize you get a prompt from the microwave while holding the rat (what shipped was an overt achievement you were basically instructed to do).

However I can accept blame for how all of that stuff was developed and communicated to the devs who did amazing work just getting the game out at all, etc.

Jimmy, on 08 December 2020 - 09:31 PM, said:

I'm hardly the prude as anyone knows. I don't throw that term around lightly. The characters between their name and dress have always just seemed a little gross to me. Duke Nukem likes real women, strippers and whores who smoke cigarettes.

Meh. If you use the term Pedo to talk about obviously of age consenting virtual women role playing, you are reducing legitimate pedo complaints. Not good.

That's why I think you are abusing it... the Wholesome Twins are a flagrant mockery of fully capable women taking advantage of the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for their own personal profit and benefit. Pedo is an evil on an entirely different level than what MTV did when it put put Britney Spears front and center in the late 1990's.

That said, by the time the game shipped the joke was long sailed and should have been cut.

[ETPC]

a modern duke would absolutely be a duke who shoots cops who harasses sex workers, imo

[PokeThePower]

I can't agree with that.
First, Duke shoots aliens.
Second, Duke shoots aliens.

[Ninety-Six]

It's definitely what he probably would be if released today


But not even remotely what he should be.

[ETPC]

alien cops. just go full prey 2. duke is trapped on Alien Earth!

[Aleks]

There's Pig Cops already in the original game, ain't that enough? Anyway, I'm also against Duke killing humans - it was always about aliens or some mutants/robots, and getting punishment for shooting strippers/hookers. Same as being apolitical.

[ETPC]

i guess it's all fantasy anyway, i doubt we will get another duke game unless the ip is sold or given up. or someone can just finally make that goddamn game that we all have in our heads from 2001.

[jkas789]

FunFilledFaith, on 09 December 2020 - 08:21 AM, said:

It was just too much gravity of jokes like finding the Doom marine, the Terminator body, etc... and their equivalents in DNF... being interpreted by the team that shipped DNF as necessary to customer enjoyment therefore required to proceed. I can think back on evenings talking about these and see how it wound up that way.

It wasn't properly communicated that all of these crazy interactive options were ONLY good if they weren't advertised or necessary to satisfactorily finish the game. They should ALL be the stuff you find out you could have done (and *then* might go seek the secret achievement) but otherwise were buried under layers of user interaction and putting 2+2 together to try something that normally wouldn't work... again such as chasing down a rat that is running away from you (what shipped was a static rat... bad)... and then happening to realize you get a prompt from the microwave while holding the rat (what shipped was an overt achievement you were basically instructed to do).

However I can accept blame for how all of that stuff was developed and communicated to the devs who did amazing work just getting the game out at all, etc.

This is something that kills me. Also tying some of those interactions to ego gain... some of those honestly I though were so crass I would not see anyone gaining ego, ever.

Quote

It's definitely what he probably would be if released today


But not even remotely what he should be.

If, IF by some unholy pact Duke Nukem ever gets a new game it will be produced and developed by Gearbox. The same Gearbox who developed the tonal monstrosity that is Borderlands 3. Think about that for a second. And let me make this clear, I actually like looter shooters. Of all the looter shooters in the market, I consider Borderlands 3 (to my greatest shame and self loathing) the best of it's genre gameplay wise.

And I would not want for them to work on it at all. I would prefer to sunset myself before playing the failed abortion of a game they shat out.

Yes my expectations are that low. Borderlands 3 completely destroyed any little fate I had in the studio.

[Ninety-Six]

I don't think there's anyone here who really disagrees with that. I think we all accept that Gearbox would be the ones to make it, and it's a fact we generally dread. They have handled the franchise exceptionally poorly.

But, saved by the devil, it's also unlikely they'd ever make a Duke game again. So we kinda lose either way.

[Jimmy]

I would consider the absolute death of the franchise a good thing.

[ck3D]

^ Yeah, I understand all the frustration about the franchise but honestly I feel so detached. In a PM exchange with RunningDuke I told him the following, posting it in case anyone cares about my personal perspective.

Quote

You know about your frustration with the Duke franchise, I think everything in this world has two sides, the reality that people actually live that no one can claim to buy or sell on one side, and the version of that reality companies try to capitalize on on the other side. I think the actual reality of Duke really belongs to the community now, that's where its spirit really resides, originally Duke might have been a (formerly) successful franchise and one with commercial potential but in the end this only affects us so much as players - we're not the businessmen or the game devs so we don't have to care. What would we earn from the franchise being successful again anyway? Look at what's successful nowadays, it's all stuff that sucks, when it comes to games people are into Fortnite and whatnot. It's all viral stuff and there is no quality, and in a way when you think about it everything that sucked about DNF was every time the devs wanted to achieve something like that, at the expense of the original substance and soul of the game. If the franchise was rebooted I'm sure we'd get nothing but this type of stuff with Duke's face on it, and I know personally I don't really care about seeing more DNF's, what I'm into is Duke 3D as a great game that's available and has been out there for over two decades (I find it important sometimes to remember the positives that do exist and not just focus on the ones who don't/could maybe exist). Honestly, I think Duke 3D was a miracle and a labor of love that was only possible to make happen in the 1990's - or nowadays but as an indie developer working on small games that try to be good and not just pursue mass appeal. What I meant by 'the community keeping Duke alive' is I feel like the image clearly belongs to the fans now; Duke 3D is a classic game that came out at the right time, I don't think the devs could make something as grand happen again if they tried especially in the present context; it was a one-in-a-lifetime type of deal. But what I think matters is the game is actually out there and has been for a while, we can enjoy it, we can mod it, and if whoever legally owns the IP on a piece of paper no longer cares then there's still dozens of people who do so why even look elsewhere.

tldr; the real DNF may be the friends we made along the way?

[jkas789]

The more learn about Duke Nukem Forever's development the more I am glad it is dead in the water.

THE FACT THAT AT ONE POINT, THEY THOUGH IT WOULD BE A FUNNY/GOOD IDEA TO HAVE DUKE MOTHERFUCKING NUKEM RECEIVE A BLOWJOB FROM A DONKEY VOICED BY JON FUCKING ST JOHN CONSUMES MY MIND.

WHY.

WHY!

DID NOBODY ACTUALLY STOPPED FOR A MOMENT AND SAID "MAYBE WE HAVE ENOUGH DUMB SHIT WITH BOTH THE HOLSOM TWINS AND DYALN WHO IS DUKE" !

There is nothing more I want in my life than getting all the devs/producers/writers every single fucker involved in this thrash fire and extract the info of the though process that went into making DNF. Than probably write a book a la Masters of Doom as a treatsie of how not to develop/market/whatever a game and make it part of the curriculum for every dev out there.

There, rant over.