[Mr. Tibbs]

The August and October builds (plus the editor and source!) is already much more than I ever expected. I get wanting everything, we're all obsessed with the game afterall, but if this is it that's more than enough. I can't stop playing it.

[TerminX]

Radar, on 14 May 2022 - 06:26 AM, said:

Is there any indication that it was actually refered to as "1.7" though? That it had an actual release plan rather than just work done while killing time at the studio? I think that's the myth part.

I don't know about it being referred to as "1.7", but the work on the voxels started a week after the art for 1.4 was finished. With the creation of the voxels beginning directly after 1.4 and the work on ROR starting around the same time (early enough to make it into 1.5 undocumented), it's a reasonable assumption that an additional patch was planned. What ended up happening, though, was that the artist doing the Duke voxels, Dirk Jones, was moved over to Shadow Warrior, and no further work on Duke3D was done, with modeling work on the Quake engine version of DNF beginning around the same time and being done in parallel with the work on the voxels for Shadow Warrior.

[ryche]

TerminX, on 14 May 2022 - 02:20 PM, said:

I don't know about it being referred to as "1.7", but the work on the voxels started a week after the art for 1.4 was finished. With the creation of the voxels beginning directly after 1.4 and the work on ROR starting around the same time (early enough to make it into 1.5 undocumented), it's a reasonable assumption that an additional patch was planned. What ended up happening, though, was that the artist doing the Duke voxels, Dirk Jones, was moved over to Shadow Warrior, and no further work on Duke3D was done, with modeling work on the Quake engine version of DNF beginning around the same time and being done in parallel with the work on the voxels for Shadow Warrior.

Fascinating. Never knew they were working on voxels for Duke3D or that RoR made it in v1.5. I guess the typical player wouldn’t have noticed since none of the levels would’ve utilized it unless redone.

[Ninety-Six]

I'm actually extremely curious where ROR would have been utilized, if they would have indeed needed to redo several levels or what. I can't actually think of too many places where ROR would have even been able to fit. Maybe just underwater areas...?

[Benjamin Foley]

I assume this was a jab at Randy?

Attached thumbnail(s)

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[necroslut]

Chewbarta, on 14 May 2022 - 10:03 AM, said:

This is the Ryle of remake that Duke 3D needs I my opinion.
https://steamcommuni.../?id=1432570016

The first level of that mod melds three (?) different levels together so seamlessly. It relays on the Serious Sam gameplay (aka more arena fights) but it expands on areas giving them more depth. That legitimately is the best interpretation of a modern Duke3D.
But this is mostly because I don’t have as much reverence for the older style. I find it pretty difficult to get into a 90s shooter and have always felt that Duke3D revels in a much larger scope.

Serious Duke is trash and a good argument for why you shouldn't remake old games.

[Phredreeke]

Jimmy, on 13 May 2022 - 08:03 PM, said:

Nah. This ain't it chief. They did a great job considering how much they were being paid. The fact is 3DR was being cheap. There was like one dude working on it. (Nice guy who cared about the product, too.)

Yeah, people seem to look back at 3D Realms with rose-tinted glasses following Gearbox’s acquisition of the franchise.

[jkas789]

Jimmy, on 13 May 2022 - 08:58 AM, said:

If anything, what World Tour should have been maybe, is you put together a team of Duke's best indie devs. You come up with a design document. Basically, how can we make this game sexier. Keep your remake on Build. Add dynamic lights that look more like something from the 90s (Powerslave/Saturn Duke) using them in conjunction with sector shading, a good fusion. Expand and beautify the maps, a map like Hollywood Holocaust is arguably perfect, but there are many that could do with some improvements. Expand the arsenal and enemies. Implement voxels, tasteful ROR and translucent water. See what you could implement from beta builds and early design documents. Some of the levels looked a little better before they started compensating for framerate issues on lower end machines. Etc etc etc. It could be done. Just take great care to keep the spirit of the original game. Make the myth of the 1.7 edition real. That's what people really want. A full fledged Duke3D remake in UE5 would never be completed. You might get a close approximation of Episode 1 ala Serious Duke. But the amount of work it would take to remake it? Never gonna happen. You'll get a partial remake of episodic content that never gets completed, or you'll get a lackluster "reimagining" that covers a little bit of familiar ground but then goes off into its own thing.

I would kill for this. If this happened I would absolutely go insane. Unfortunately I think the closest we may got to this would be maybe Alien Armageddon? And it doesn't make changes to the levels AFAIK, only to the enemies. And it adds saving babes, one of the best additions of Duke Nukem 64 IMO.

[Ninety-Six]

jkas789, on 15 May 2022 - 10:31 AM, said:

Unfortunately I think the closest we may got to this would be maybe Alien Armageddon? And it doesn't make changes to the levels AFAIK

Nah, there are some changes to the levels too. New decals, some new enemies like riot tanks in RLD, and even some new rooms and areas in the expansion episodes.

[Jimmy]

Alien Armageddon is great in it's own right, but it does not heed the original spirit of the game. It goes off into its own thing with lots of original ideas or things that eclipse the scope of anything that would have been released in the 90s. Duke's community has really neglected more vanilla style maps and mods for a long time, I think the demoralization of DNF is to blame.

[PikaCommando]

Did the whole "kick the guy harassing a stripper" part in Slick Willy get reworked into the "punch not-Christian-Bale" scene in Lady Killer in the final?

[Benjamin Foley]

There is grounds for a remake of DUKE3D into Unreal engine, Just not in the way that most of you are thinking.

[Ninety-Six]

Benjamin Foley, on 15 May 2022 - 04:53 PM, said:

There is grounds for a remake of DUKE3D into Unreal engine, Just not in the way that most of you are thinking.

In a perfect world I would be somewhat interested in a faithful remake of DN3D in the style of Crash N.Sane/Spyro Reignited. This is not a perfect world, however, and I still don't trust anybody to do it right.

[Jimmy]

Benjamin Foley, on 15 May 2022 - 04:53 PM, said:

There is grounds for a remake of DUKE3D into Unreal engine, Just not in the way that most of you are thinking.

While this is an interesting proof of concept or good starting point for a larger project, this is in no way better than the original game.

[Scarred]

PikaCommando, on 15 May 2022 - 01:21 PM, said:

Did the whole "kick the guy harassing a stripper" part in Slick Willy get reworked into the "punch not-Christian-Bale" scene in Lady Killer in the final?

noticed the guy who is harassing the stripper is named George?

[The Kins]

Scarred, on 15 May 2022 - 10:19 PM, said:

noticed the guy who is harassing the stripper is named George?

Pretty much all NPCs that don't have explicitly-defined names are randomly named after developers.

[Altered Reality]

Jimmy, on 15 May 2022 - 08:24 PM, said:

While this is an interesting proof of concept or good starting point for a larger project, this is in no way better than the original game.

That is patently not true as the extreme detail in graphics and sound make it way more immersive. I can only imagine what it would be like in VR... feeling like I'm actually in rural Arkansas.

The Kins, on 15 May 2022 - 11:54 PM, said:

Pretty much all NPCs that don't have explicitly-defined names are randomly named after developers.

Yeah, emphasis on randomly. The name will be different the next time you play it. Shame this is also true for the babes, so if one dies, you read a male name.

[EvilEmperorZoRG {GR}]

Has anyone managed to fully complete it and make a small guide? The parts that are possible to complete at least.

Most maps seem dead end to me though I've read that at least the parts till the hoover dam are fully playable from start to finish (meaning you can go from start to end see a loading screen then switch to the next level).

The sewers as example I still haven't figured out what I have to do. I did find an exit with ghost mode activated but all it does is return me back to the streets.

[Roger Wilco]

Are there any 1997 or 98 builds that are known about?

[TheZombieKiller]

EvilEmperorZoRG {GR}, on 16 May 2022 - 07:24 AM, said:

The sewers as example I still haven't figured out what I have to do. I did find an exit with ghost mode activated but all it does is return me back to the streets.

You have to turn off the water flow, then swim back through the pipe. That will take you back to the streets, and then you have to walk onto the road and make your way to a building further up ahead all while dodging traffic.

[Altered Reality]

Roger Wilco, on 16 May 2022 - 07:30 AM, said:

Are there any 1997 or 98 builds that are known about?

Unfortunately not.

[NNC]

Ninety-Six, on 14 May 2022 - 06:23 AM, said:

Well, that, plus being even buggier and less stable than the original release, having absurdly high system requirements, charging $20 for only 8 levels (double what Megaton charged for far less content), shattering the moddability, having inexcusable sound quality issues on launch....

That's (sadly) right. In addition, despite being an anniversary release, where you would expect a long, epic adventure with polished levels, many of the maps were half baked in retrospect.

Actually I didn't say the opposite. I want to say the opposite, but I can't. I was just stating the fact that Gearbox's and Randy's intention was the new episode, everything else was just an afterthought. In fact, it would have gotten a better reception if it was like Sigil. No new weapon, monsters, maybe some new art and new music (from Lee), but all the focus is on level design. With the shit they invented in the port, everything of value was lost.

[NNC]

ryche, on 14 May 2022 - 06:00 PM, said:

Fascinating. Never knew they were working on voxels for Duke3D or that RoR made it in v1.5. I guess the typical player wouldn’t have noticed since none of the levels would’ve utilized it unless redone.

AFAIK Blum also created some test levels with ROR. He said it during a DNF pre-release podcast in 2011.

[Jimmy]

Altered Reality, on 16 May 2022 - 01:25 AM, said:

That is patently not true as the extreme detail in graphics and sound make it way more immersive. I can only imagine what it would be like in VR... feeling like I'm actually in rural Arkansas.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

ITS JUST THE SAME SHITTY GAME WITH A BUNCH OF GAY GRAPHICS ENHANCEMENTS ALL THE SAME PROBLEMS ARE THERE AND YOU'RE AMAZED BY SOME FUCKING SHINY GRAPHICS YOU ARE SO CRINGE HOLY FUCK

[Radar]

TerminX, on 14 May 2022 - 02:20 PM, said:

I don't know about it being referred to as "1.7", but the work on the voxels started a week after the art for 1.4 was finished. With the creation of the voxels beginning directly after 1.4 and the work on ROR starting around the same time (early enough to make it into 1.5 undocumented), it's a reasonable assumption that an additional patch was planned. What ended up happening, though, was that the artist doing the Duke voxels, Dirk Jones, was moved over to Shadow Warrior, and no further work on Duke3D was done, with modeling work on the Quake engine version of DNF beginning around the same time and being done in parallel with the work on the voxels for Shadow Warrior.

I was under the impression that the non-used ROR implementation stemmed from compiling the game against Ken's latest Build engine module, which I assume SW and Blood were also using at the time. Excuse my geeky rationalizing if that wasn't the case.

[Phredreeke]

I think ROR would still have to be set up gameside. Also didn’t some of the SW protos have ROR despite running on an earlier engine version?

[Altered Reality]

Jimmy, on 16 May 2022 - 09:45 AM, said:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

ITS JUST THE SAME SHITTY GAME WITH A BUNCH OF GAY GRAPHICS ENHANCEMENTS ALL THE SAME PROBLEMS ARE THERE AND YOU'RE AMAZED BY SOME FUCKING SHINY GRAPHICS YOU ARE SO CRINGE HOLY FUCK

Go back to playing your games with the screen turned off because graphics don't matter.

[Jimmy]

An asset replacement can't make a bad game good.

[Mr. Tibbs]

Some chat about the leak on Digital Foundry:

DF Direct Weekly #61

[The_Sentinel]

Is anyone having an issue getting the Rooftop level of the first chapter to load? It does not seem to work for me, as soon as I climb up the ladder, there is only an empty rooftop and nothing else...