[Jimmy]

I'm actually inclined to believe Randy Pitchford for once. Randy is a liar, at times, but because of their blinding hatred of him, most people tend to forget that above all Randy is quite the narcissist. So being the person who spearheaded the release of Duke Nukem Forever? This is an invaluable title for him, why do you think Gearbox bought Duke Nukem Forever? I mean, really think about it. Gearbox wasn't big enough to out bid a larger company like EA or something. Nope. No one wanted the game. Except for Randy. With his ties to the series, he knew it'd be a badge of honor to pick up this gauntlet, and succeed. I'll give him credit. Without him and Gearbox, we never would have saw DNF in any form. When he says he wants to release DNF prototypes and is actively working toward that goal, I believe him. He has no reason to lie because if he was lying and not trying to achieve that, it just makes him look like shit. Which is not what he wants. Randy does things that make Randy look good. A normal person doesn't sing the Bigot Song, but someone who wants to virtue signal to a particular group of people they want to market toward does. Gearbox/Take-Two Interactive/Randy have made mistakes concerning Duke, but I don't think he takes those mistakes lightly. At the end of the day, he wants to be seen as a major player when people think of Duke Nukem. He wants those thoughts to be positive.

I honestly believe that some of the major flops concerning DNF have more to do with Triptych and Take-Two Interactive than Randy or Gearbox. Take-Two Interactive nixed the console, mod tools, etc and I believe they are trying to stop the release of the prototypes as well. This is standard procedure for Take 2, and people who want to blame Randy are either ignorant or blind to the fact that Take 2 does this shit all the time. Take-Two Interactive appears to have found mods to be a liability ever since Hot Coffee. Don't forget about what they did to GTA V. Rockstar hated it. Take-Two Interactive is the enemy here, not Randy Pitchford.

[MusicallyInspired]

I've always believed this was a Take Two issue.

[Player Lin]

While I agreed Jimmy's point(s), and Take Two would be the biggest one source of all the problems for sure.

But, since Randy cannot do anything to "resolve" it, I would not surprised everyone would throws their hatred shit to Randy, and I still not changed my mind, I still hater of him, but not because of DNF, it's all other shit like laziness/rush works/no updates on the 20th port, and lack of shit about DN.

[knopparp]

What is odd is that there seems to be so many contrasting views on the content from the people who have actually played it. Some say it's close to completion, some say it's naff and broken, some say the truth lies in the middle.

I'm kind of inclined to believe Randy about the state of the build, to be honest. I remember back in the day on the 3DR forums when one of the devs came out and broke down the 2001 trailer scene by scene, saying which bits were made for the trailer and which bits were fully playable and I think I remember him saying that the majority of it was built for the trailer. I reckon playing it would probably be kinda like what playing the Half-Life 2 alpha leak was like way back when that dropped. Bits will work, bits won't and it'll be broken, buggy and far from polished. And I'm also inclined to agree that people will be disappointed.

The 2001 trailer for DNF was the most excited I'd ever been for a game when it came out. It looked phenomenal. In most of our heads, we built an expectation of what THAT game would've been and as much as I'd love to get hold of it and play it, whatever state it's in, deep down, I know I'll be disappointed.

[Jimmy]

The thread you're thinking of isn't even that old, and was posted right here on Duke4.net by lead developer Charlie Wiederhold. Out of the people who have spoken publicly and in depth about the prototypes, the number one authority on DNF 2001 is Charlie Wiederhold. Randy Pitchford and Frederik Schreiber were not part of the dev team. They might have looked at every piece of available content, but they don't understand what DNF2001 was supposed to be more than Charlie, perhaps even more than George Broussard that game was his baby. He really doesn't get the credit he deserves for pouring years of his life into that game. This thread is pretty much all you need to know and is required reading for anyone who wants to speculate on what DNF2001 is.

[knopparp]

 Jimmy 4k, on 29 August 2018 - 02:22 PM, said:

The thread you're thinking of isn't even that old, and was posted right here on Duke4.net by lead developer Charlie Wiederhold. Out of the people who have spoken publicly and in depth about the prototypes, the number one authority on DNF 2001 is Charlie Wiederhold. Randy Pitchford and Frederik Schreiber were not part of the dev team. They might have looked at every piece of available content, but they don't understand what DNF2001 was supposed to be more than Charlie, perhaps even more than George Broussard that game was his baby. He really doesn't get the credit he deserves for pouring years of his life into that game. This thread is pretty much all you need to know and is required reading for anyone who wants to speculate on what DNF2001 is.

Thank you for linking this. Funny what memory does, could've sworn it was on 3DR but I knew I saw it on a forum somewhere.

Edit: Just had another read of his post. There's a lot more on it that's playable than I remember, actually.

SAD FACE!

[Player Lin]

Weird, for some reasons I totally missed that thread...

[icecoldduke]

 MusicallyInspired, on 25 August 2018 - 08:14 AM, said:

Just because it's new doesn't mean someone has the build. That's definitely a highly compressed low-res video stream. If he had the build there's no reason why he couldn't take a normal screenshot.

It could be DNF 2001 rendered into a lower resolution framebuffer and was upscaled to match the resolution of the back buffer. Not saying that's what's going on here, but its possible.

As a side note, I personally believe Randy, and you guys should as well. Just because files exist for other levels in a project doesn't mean they are completed, fun, or even usable. Just by looking at a directory structure of a project doesn't give any insight to the state the project.

[Mark]

I think that most of us don't care what or how much is put together. We want the stuff and probably have guys to patch things together to make something of it. Its the not knowing that bugs us the most.

[Hendricks266]

 icecoldduke, on 31 August 2018 - 08:25 AM, said:

It could be DNF 2001 rendered into a lower resolution framebuffer and was upscaled to match the resolution of the back buffer. Not saying that's what's going on here, but its possible.

Come on, the images in question clearly show signs of lossy compression artifacts due to being streamed.

 icecoldduke, on 31 August 2018 - 08:25 AM, said:

As a side note, I personally believe Randy, and you guys should as well. Just because files exist for other levels in a project doesn't mean they are completed, fun, or even usable. Just by looking at a directory structure of a project doesn't give any insight to the state the project.

I believe Fred over Randy, and Charlie over both. At least Fred has directly handled the materials, even if he exaggerates his claims. I don't believe Randy would have found out any other way than the usual game of corporate telephone up and down the middle management chain to some intern who doesn't know what they're looking at.

[icecoldduke]

 Hendricks266, on 31 August 2018 - 12:57 PM, said:

I believe Fred over Randy, and Charlie over both. At least Fred has directly handled the materials, even if he exaggerates his claims. I don't believe Randy would have found out any other way than the usual game of corporate telephone up and down the middle management chain to some intern who doesn't know what they're looking at.

I've worked with people like Randy, hes a business man, and I get why you would think that. However in this case, my belief is your hypothesis is wrong. I believe most of that e-mail. I doubt Gearbox is putting much effort into getting the build out to the public, but Randy's analysis of whats there makes sense. If Gearbox releases the code/assets and lets the community fix it up, that would be fantastic. Short of that, we'll probably see a "best of whats there" compilation app, which will likely be very disappointing.

[HulkNukem]

Randy says there is hardly anything there, so like 5%

Fred says it was 95% done

Willing to bet the game was 50% done

[icecoldduke]

 HulkNukem, on 31 August 2018 - 03:11 PM, said:

Randy says there is hardly anything there, so like 5%

Fred says it was 95% done

Willing to bet the game was 50% done

Doesn't work like that . We'll just have to wait and see.

[The Battlelord]

Me too, i think that DNF was almost complete, and i'll try to say why.

The follow are obviously my own opinions and theories, you are free to agree or not and correct me if am wrong as well (so much time has passed after all).

We are talking about the start of the 2000s, many games were very good that times, oh my, remember Street Fighter (zero series as well), Tekken (1-2-3), Killer Instinct (1-2), Painkiller, Super Smash Bros (64-Meele) and a whole lot more...(sorry if your favourite game is not in the list, but would be insane to list them all, also is pretty obvious as is the reason we are here ).

But new gens, new engines and new games were in the air. i'll use Call of duty as main example (a copy 'n paste of the same game for the next 2000 years, coming out almost every year).

Then..."hey guys, a new engine came out and new gens prefer to watch best graphics (like if games are movies...) and funny-comedy things in a slow paced way with just very few weapons, than to play a frantic COMPLETE and COMPETITIVE game with a big arsenal carried by a badass character! So, put DNF (WIP) badass version in the trash and let's start it on a new engine, making him more funny", taking sh*t from the bathrooms and listen 10 mins a guy that is talking into the screen is funny isn't it?...

Now look at some of the successors from the above listed games; no more gore/brutality, slow paced, a no sense input lag added (try sm4sh and come here to proof that this is not true!!!), funny-comedy stuff and not so many paths to proceed .

Ofc everything is not crap, i did enjoy Doom 2016, not the best game ever ok, but it is a good game imho (exception for the multiplayer).
New gens enjoy too much about the graphics and special effects or even watch games on youtube instead to enjoy and play the games, and slowly the marketing became: Graphics/resolution=Badass videocards/Pc, then 120 fps, then screen/multi screens over 120hz, what next? "My holograms are bigger than yours"?

As reminder: this is my own opinion, is not intended to offend anyone, and i hope that the free speak is toggled ON, 'til is nothing personal or too heavy.
More than this i hope that , what i wrote is understandable .

[HulkNukem]

 icecoldduke, on 31 August 2018 - 05:25 PM, said:

Doesn't work like that . We'll just have to wait and see.

Mate, it was a joke

[necroslut]

Fred's overselling - as he's been known to - and Randy's underselling in response to keep expectations down. Hell, he probably doesn't even know if he can release it, yet he will be the one to take the blame if it falls apart rather than 2K.
And Randy's "9%" shouldn't be taken literally - it's obviously just a flip of 90%, saying "it's more like 9%" in direct response to the 90% number.
But even if Fred is spot on for once, 90% done is not "almost complete" - that's still months of full-time full-team work away from done. People hear 90% and they think "99.99%", like there's just the final title screen and some textures missing. Much of people's experiences with "betas" is from versions sent out to press and such very close to release.

And then there's the matter of how to quantify the completeness of something that never had a set end goal. You can't really estimate how complete and incomplete build for DNF is if there's no specification of a "100% build" to compare it to. As far as we know, they never really finalized the game design, which makes it very difficult for "outsiders" to estimate how done it is because they don't know what's even supposed to be there.

[icecoldduke]

Randy is a salesman. If there was something there of value there, he wouldn't be shitting all over it. That e-mail was down right shitting all over the demo data. Fred on the other hand, took a more business style approach, and seemingly, oversold what's there. This is a common tactic when your trying to get money from investment people. Keep in mind, even if Fred has a lot of money, its always best to spend someone else's money, and not your own . Fred seemingly, was also trying to rebuild the brand. Hyping shit up is a good way to do that, and investment people like that as much as the community does.

Here is what I expect to be there: One or more demo maps that have all of the demo trailer content. Some events might be playable, some might not be(like if it was developed just to be recorded). The rest of the maps probably don't have much of anything. Maybe a small section of a outside environment, maybe a map with no more then a few rooms in it.

What's more interesting is what's completed on the code/art side. Are the enemies fully flushed out(timing, damage, health, animations, etc)? Are the weapons fully flushed out(timing, damage, animations, etc)? Basically is it in a state were the community can pick it up and do something with it, or is it completely worthless? That we don't know, and I wouldn't expect Randy/Fred to know either. Someone has to do a deep dive and figure it out.

[Zaxx]

 Jimmy 4k, on 28 August 2018 - 04:54 PM, said:

Without him and Gearbox, we never would have saw DNF in any form.

And that would have been so much fucking better.

[Player Lin]

 Zaxx, on 01 September 2018 - 12:13 AM, said:

And that would have been so much fucking better.

No, for me it's not much better.

Yes, it's not a great game, even without DN on it. But to me, it's still good game, just some flaws and something I didn't like.
I can't imagine if Randy and Gearbox never pick up the game/IP, then DNF never happened.

But, I suppose that means if DNF will never released and then 3DR will still have Duke IP without follow-up shitfests after post-DNF released like now, then I guess well, maybe that's would better but I would not think too much about that, since shit already happened, then that's it. Randy/Gearbox and 2K still part of this mess(maybe 3DR too) and nothing changed that totally.

[Zaxx]

 Player Lin, on 01 September 2018 - 01:52 AM, said:

No, for me it's not much better.

Yes, it's not a great game, even without DN on it. But to me, it's still good game, just some flaws and something I didn't like.
I can't imagine if Randy and Gearbox never pick up the game/IP, then DNF never happened.

Sure but that's your inner Duke fan talking.

Here's how I see it: there is no point in releasing a new Duke game if you're burying the IP with it = don't release a Duke game that's bad because that means the franchise will be fucked in the ass big time. It's a "you're fucked if you do and you're fucked if you don't" situation, I know: if Randy and 2K shut down DNF and restarted it from scratch then Randy is the guy who killed DNF, a game we all thought of as the second coming of Jesus Christ. On the other hand if the game is released we get what we got: a dead franchise that can only hope for a movie adaptation that's half decent so a publisher won't think that investing in it is an idiotic idea.

The thing is though that DNF should have been the Doom 2016 of Duke Nukem because that's the only thing that can put Duke back on the map. Look what Bethesda did when they had a long, hard look at Doom 4: "Okay guys, this is nice and all but it doesn't feel like Doom and it's just not good enough. How about you restart and make an actual Doom game?" The result: a great fucking FPS that put the Doom franchise in a position where they can confidently pour money on it so the bigger and more expensive stuff you saw in the Doom Eternal reveal is now possible without compromise. You don't have to wait another 12 years for Doom 5 like you had to wait for Doom 4 after Doom 3 since Doom 2016 was good and it was successful so Eternal is cooking in the oven already.

What can Duke fans hope for? If the movie makes some money we'll get a new Duke game around 2025 and if that miracle - the movie being good - doesn't happen then seeing how much of a shit show Gearbox is lately then it's done, over... and you have DNF to thank for that.

So sure, it was nice to play game called DNF and it had a few maps that were actually enjoyable but the reality is that we should have never played that fucking thing. I don't blame Randy though since I'm sure that 2K was busting his balls about it: they already blew a lot of money on the development of DNF so from their perspective it was all about cutting losses. They generated some hype around it, marketed it like the best thing ever, hoped that fans will buy a lot of collector's editions before the reviews drop and afterwards they can just go to the bank laughing since everything that happens with the IP afterwards is Randy's problem, not theirs. Yep, if you think about it real hard DNF was a scam.

[hismasterplan]

Here's the problem that lies behind that Duke movie. Hollywood is waiting for Gearbox to make a successful game and Gearbox is waiting for Hollywood to make a successful movie. Studios aren't interested in launching new ideas without a built-in audience or something to guarantee their money back. They just need to make a new game, that's it. Borrow unused ideas from the old builds and call it "Duke." The chips will fall into place after that.

[Player Lin]

Sadly, I never really cared about DN Movie at all, since...
I'm not movie guy anymore(almost never see any of movies at all, but still watch TV series if I have interests on something),
so for me it's nothing about if they finally make the DN movie on theater, because I don't care about it.

Most of game-based movies just so-so or badly, so I won't hold my breathe on it, even, it may become hit...but, just like the new DN game, I don't care until it actually happens...you can hope but just don't put your expectations on super high level, it may become very disappoints like DNF if they make something very wrong.

[necroslut]

I can't really see a Duke movie being good if made today. Hollywood hasn't made the kind of movies Duke was inspired by in a long, long time. If it had been made right after the launch of Duke 3D, maybe then it could have been worthwhile.

[Ninety-Six]

 necroslut, on 01 September 2018 - 08:32 PM, said:

I can't really see a Duke movie being good if made today. Hollywood hasn't made the kind of movies Duke was inspired by in a long, long time. If it had been made right after the launch of Duke 3D, maybe then it could have been worthwhile.

Especially not today, with the way they keep trying to """""""""""""" """""""update"""""" """""""""""""" "" properties.

[HulkNukem]

If the Duke movie ends up being made, I wonder how much Gearbox would want to have on the character/direction of the movie.

I can't tell which would be better, them having involvement or them having zero involvement.

[Zaxx]

 HulkNukem, on 01 September 2018 - 10:26 PM, said:

If the Duke movie ends up being made, I wonder how much Gearbox would want to have on the character/direction of the movie.

I can't tell which would be better, them having involvement or them having zero involvement.

There is that Twitch thing Randy is doing nowadays and there he basically said that they will have zero involvement, the only thing they have control over is to approve the base concept or not as license holders. And we all know they'll approve almost anything since they are in a desperate situation with the IP.

Anyway there's not much point in discussing the movie now as even the script is not finished yet.

[PokeThePower]

 Sgt Nate V, on 28 August 2018 - 04:17 PM, said:

So crazyflyingdonut said this over at Doomworld:

Assuming this is a genuine outsider looking in to the varied builds through the years, I find little to quibble with.

A game at 90% looks to most customers as a 4/10. A game at 80% is a 1/10. crazy seems like a reasonable dude.

Where we disagree is the premise of most content existing "for specific shots". That severely limits what I think they've seen.

[PokeThePower]

 Jimmy 4k, on 28 August 2018 - 04:54 PM, said:

I'm actually inclined to believe Randy Pitchford for once.

100% Randy truly without any hesitation or doubt wants to Make Duke Great Again.

He's got a harder task than Trump.

 Jimmy 4k, on 29 August 2018 - 02:22 PM, said:

...lead developer Charlie Wiederhold.

Not true once ever. At *most* a railroad laying earth moving foundation providing premonition of Brian Hook. And a LOT of code/UnrealScript that doesn't belong in polite company.

 Jimmy 4k, on 29 August 2018 - 02:22 PM, said:

He really doesn't get the credit he deserves for pouring years of his life into that game.

Nope... account perfectly balanced. I will overtly reject more.

[knopparp]

 JumpJuneJump, on 03 September 2018 - 11:57 AM, said:

Assuming this is a genuine outsider looking in to the varied builds through the years, I find little to quibble with.

A game at 90% looks to most customers as a 4/10. A game at 80% is a 1/10. crazy seems like a reasonable dude.

Where we disagree is the premise of most content existing "for specific shots". That severely limits what I think they've seen.

Is it fair to say that you partially disagree with RP in regards to what the 2001 build actually is and plays like? It sounds like it to me. RP seems to be saying 'everything in that version of the game was built for show, ala trailers and screenshots' and you seem to be saying 'not quite. Bit more to it than that'. Obviously I don't want to be putting words in your mouth but that's how I read it.

What I can gather from your post way back where you broke down the trailer is there is more of a game there that IS playable than RP is making out at the minute. Maybe less content than that Frederik dude is making out but I'm just REALLY interested to know what is there. It's so sad. Seeing these 4chan leaks of folders of the game executables and low quality screenshots...it's like it's OUT THERE and JUST out of our grasp but we just can't quite touch it.

I know it's illegal and pretty frowned upon but I hope that dude on 4chan that says he has it and is willing to release it should it not come out in an official capacity by the end of the year is telling the truth because at the end of the day, we're just gaming nerds wanting to have a bash at playing a slice of history that we all thought was going to be something special. We just want to see what was there and what it could've been. It's really not much to ask.

I hate all the legality and IP owning nonsense because it's simple really....2001 build exists. Community want. People willing to release. NO YOU CAN'T HAVE BECAUSE REASONS.

Horse shit.

[mrDUKE!zone]

Somebody at 3DR just needs to go undercover and leak one of the builds online. This is a joke