[necroslut]

Zaxx, on 30 December 2019 - 10:11 PM, said:

I don't think you understand what I mean when I say that the gunplay looks bad. I don't mean the combat encounters or the quality of the gameplay because you really can't judge that without actually playing the damn thing. What I mean is that what's there looks really boring: the pistol has the most basic animation imaginable, the movement is basic as hell too, there's just no good visual feedback or anything that would immerse you into shooting stuff.

I'm going to cheat now and show something that's beyond the scope of what was possible 20 years ago but it's great to illustrate what I mean: (video here)
See this? Do you FEEL it? Amazing gunplay even with Half-Life 2's admittedly not super unique arsenal and movement, the whole thing just feels right, you want to shoot those weapons right the hell now. I'm a simple man, I judge the core of most first person shooters by the quality of their gunplay and really the core mechanics should feel right even at a pre-alpha stage. So the fact that I'm not seeing any of that while I do see signs of lots of less important features there is telling me that this version of the game suffered from the same lack of focus that plagued the 2011 product too. If you make a shooter where Duke Nukem does the shooting then the first thing you should focus on is making the gunplay worthy of the guy instead of designing the vending machines.

Yeah, maybe we were talking about different things, then. While audiovisual feedback etc is definitely important in a game, I really don't think that has to "feel right even at a pre-alpha stage" – that kind of stuff is rather superficial and can easily be adjusted and added to late in development. Hell, you don't even need to have weapon models and sounds in "pre-alpha". But, true, those parts look rather unfinished in the snippets; but they are unfinished.

I also weren't particularly impressed with that HL2 mod video – I didn't "FEEL it" – but then I always felt Half-Life 2 had pretty weak gunplay to begin with.

Quote

And btw. that's why I've grown to hate most discussions about DNF: they're never about what's important for a good gameplay experience (gunplay, level design, enemy design etc.) but always about the frankly worthless, megalomaniac features that ultimately add nothing to the core of the game. It's always the level of interactivity, the graphics, vehicle driving etc., you know, the extra things you're happy for if they are well implemented but it's just stuff that simply don't make a game good.

While I kinda agree with you here, I don't think interactivity needs to be superficial at all. Interactivity also includes those things like blowing up walls to create new passages, or environmental attack options. Even in Duke, it wasn't all flushing toilets. And if we're talking interactivity as destruction, then that's something I think can be almost as important as gun animations, and something that's really lacking in most modern games.

[Jimmy]

ITT: Zaxx pretends he isn't just doing the mirror opposite of what he claims other people are doing.

[Zaxx]

necroslut, on 30 December 2019 - 10:51 PM, said:

While audiovisual feedback etc is definitely important in a game

Eh, I think this is why you keep giving me the minuses all the time: you don't stick to what you read but instead add a bunch of stuff to it to the point where the original argument is altered. Sure, audiovisual feedback is part of what I'm talking about (though keep in mind that I never mentioned audio since that's missing from the DNF videos so there is nothing to compare there) but what's important is the overall feel to it all. For example Quake 3 is a very simple game when it comes to audiovisual feedback, it's very standard stuff yet mechanically it feels amazing to play. That's what I'm not getting here when I look at the DNF 2001 footage and hell, even something like the super janky early pre-alpha or whatever version of Postal 4 looks more like an FPS I'd love to play than this thing.

As for interactivity yeah, I agree that something like destructible environment and the ability to blow up walls would be more important: environmental destruction improves the feel of the core gameplay + if you can destroy walls then that improves the level design so that's the kind of interactivity that enhances the pillars of a good shooter. We don't see much of that here though, it's the fucking vending machines again, yay, you can push buttons...

[Zaxx]

HorseDongSub69, on 30 December 2019 - 11:10 PM, said:

ITT: Zaxx pretends he isn't just doing the mirror opposite of what he claims other people are doing.

Well, I'm yet to absolutely lose my shit so much that every time the other guy cracks a joke at my expense I do all of this:

- change my nickname to some other dumb shit
- change my signature to some other dumb shit
- change my avatar to represent my edgelordness
- write a long post about jerking off, coming on myself and eating it
- write some random bs at the guy's profile.

I mean doing one or two of these is fine but ALL of them?

[Jimmy]

>thinking I'm doing anything other than having fun at your expense

You really take yourself seriously, mate.

[Jimmy]

By the way please PM me pics of your pussy

[necroslut]

Zaxx, on 31 December 2019 - 12:21 AM, said:

Eh, I think this is why you keep giving me the minuses all the time: you don't stick to what you read but instead add a bunch of stuff to it to the point where the original argument is altered. Sure, audiovisual feedback is part of what I'm talking about (though keep in mind that I never mentioned audio since that's missing from the DNF videos so there is nothing to compare there) but what's important is the overall feel to it all. For example Quake 3 is a very simple game when it comes to audiovisual feedback, it's very standard stuff yet mechanically it feels amazing to play. That's what I'm not getting here when I look at the DNF 2001 footage and hell, even something like the super janky early pre-alpha or whatever version of Postal 4 looks more like an FPS I'd love to play than this thing.

Having looked at the clips again I'm fairly certain that most of the bad impressions I got was from the guy playing like an idiot, and I think that makes the movement look "boring" too. Though it's tough to say when it's just a few seconds of blurry footage.
It (DNF) does look a little slow in the movement department, but at this point I'd almost wager Fred simply didn't press the run button... Anyone to confirm or deny?

I'm not convinced that, if you'd never played Quake III, watching a two second clip of someone playing it poorly, without sound and with unfinished animations (and without your own experience to fill in the gaps) would "feel right" at all. Also, while Quake III might have pretty "tame" a/v feedback, it has very high quality sound effects, animation etc. That stuff really matters.

I do kinda agree though that movement should be tight very early in development, even if things like animations aren't.

Quote

As for interactivity yeah, I agree that something like destructible environment and the ability to blow up walls would be more important: environmental destruction improves the feel of the core gameplay + if you can destroy walls then that improves the level design so that's the kind of interactivity that enhances the pillars of a good shooter. We don't see much of that here though, it's the fucking vending machines again, yay, you can push buttons...

To be fair, we don't really see much of anything. It's just a few ultra-short clips of shooting the same guys in random corridors with the pistol.

[necroslut]

Let's also remember that even if Fred's 90% assesment is correct (and, let's face it, we've heard Fred make such estimates before, so let's say 80-85%), 90% done means there's still months of full-time work by a full team that remains, at the least. It's not gonna be polished.

[Zaxx]

As for another franchise that's never coming back here's your daily HL3 update:

The guy's making a video every single day.

[Zaxx]

necroslut, on 31 December 2019 - 01:15 AM, said:

I'm not convinced that, if you'd never played Quake III, watching a two second clip of someone playing it poorly, without sound and with unfinished animations (and without your own experience to fill in the gaps) would "feel right" at all.

That is if Fred is playing poorly on the video... but is there anything to play well there? All I'm seeing is a bunch of maps, most of them overly ambitious for the time and there are barely any enemies, there is not much to play well or poorly there.

Also: when it comes to being skilled in FPS Fred is fine, hell, he's even better than the avarage player (mainly because the avarage player is just awful but still), what the horsefucker says is mainly coming from hate.

[necroslut]

Zaxx, on 31 December 2019 - 03:12 AM, said:

That is if Fred is playing poorly on the video... but is there anything to play well there? All I'm seeing is a bunch of maps, most of them overly ambitious for the time and there are barely any enemies, there is not much to play well or poorly there.

Also: when it comes to being skilled in FPS Fred is fine, hell, he's even better than the avarage player (mainly because the avarage player is just awful but still), what the horsefucker says is mainly coming from hate.

I don't know much about Fred's game skills or lack thereof, but I notice things like not crouching when it would seem like a good idea, or just standing there and getting blasted in the face rather than trying to dodge. But it's really difficult to tell when the clips are so short, there's not a lot of context.

[OpenMaw]

Thing with HL2 that a lot of people may not immediately realize is that combat wasn't really... combat. it was another form of puzzle solving. That's why a lot of the guns feel very... Utilitarian. Functional. Very few of HL2's weapons actually step out and present. The shotgun, the grenades, the magnum... That's about it. The Crowbar feels nice, it got a compelling upgrade from HL1. The rest though? They work, but they're not winning awards.


As to Duke, I hope you aren't including me in that rant Zaxx. I've always talked about how Duke needed to take its Doom-inspired roots and keep expanding out. Take the action-movie concepts and evolve them. Interactivity is a key piece of the core loop in Duke. In single player it's where you find a good number of secrets, and in both SP and MP it offers means of strategic maneuvering and changing the balance of the battle. Boxed in? Blow open the crack in the wall over there and create an alternate route... etc...

[PokeThePower]

HorseDongSub69, on 29 December 2019 - 11:06 PM, said:

Just imagine what random shit, in jokes, etc are left among DNF's bones.

EDIT: When getting the Duke3D/SW code ready for release, I had to review every file top to bottom because there were phone numbers, addresses, personal life notes, etc. scattered in random places. Even code files.

[OpenMaw]

Yeah, someone who had looked through the files had said at one point the biggest difficulty in the release process for a DNF prototype would be cutting out all the personal, sensitive, and even some of the odd porn left in places.

"What a mess!"

[Zaxx]

Commando Nukem, on 31 December 2019 - 05:18 AM, said:

Thing with HL2 that a lot of people may not immediately realize is that combat wasn't really... combat. it was another form of puzzle solving. That's why a lot of the guns feel very... Utilitarian. Functional. Very few of HL2's weapons actually step out and present. The shotgun, the grenades, the magnum... That's about it. The Crowbar feels nice, it got a compelling upgrade from HL1. The rest though? They work, but they're not winning awards.

That sums it up pretty well though I have to say that I always loved HL's gunplay especially because of how utilitarian it is: the correct weapon always gets the job done there and I very much enjoy the "fake realism" of its presentation. A lot of people don't like how the weapons and enemies are balanced on hard difficulty because everything becomes spongier but to me that's what makes the combat more interesting: avoiding hitscan is hard in both games, you will get hit so if you combine that with enemies having more HP then the whole "puzzle" aspect becomes stronger. It's not about skill but about resource management at that point, basically you're fighting for HP, armor pickups and position in both HLs, that's what makes it awesome.

The thing that makes it not so awesome is that because of that "fake realism" you expect certain things to be there that just aren't. Crouching giving you less weapon spread? Nope. Iron sights? Nope, barely a thing so even though the weapons have more firing modes they really only work one way and it's just hitscan. That's why I highly recommend playing HL2 with MMod, because on top of a full animation revamp it finally has things like weapon spread, your bullets being projectiles with bullet drop and whatnot instead of hitscan etc.

Anyway did you notice that whenever HL2 gets shit on for having weak gunplay nobody ever mentions the gravity gun, the archlion bait or even the crossbow? Especially the gravity gun is the best thing in an FPS since the introduction of the rocket launcher yet apparently HL2 has bad gunplay now. The crossbow is shooting heated iron rods that stick enemies to walls and it's an amazing weapon, the tracking functionality of the rocket launcher is there since 1998 and it never stops being fun and overall almost every single weapon just feels good to shoot.

Quote

Interactivity is a key piece of the core loop in Duke

Yes it is but for example if you look at DNF 2011 what you'll see is that it's not treated as such. The game's full of stupid stuff like you being able to lift weights, play air hockey, there's even a goddamn pinball machine in there, meanwhile pretty much half of the arsenal feels bad to use (anybody ever used the alien weapons in DNF? anyone?). You just don't get why 3DR wasted so much time and effort on some mediocre pinballing instead of polishing up the weapons, the movement, the enemies etc. That's the same feeling I get when looking at DNF 2001 sadly: sure, the vending machine is great, the Vegas skybox looks for amazing for the time, the maps seem quite open and explorable but that core gameplay loop, minute-to-minute gameplay or whatever you want to call it is just no there sadly.

For example most people say that Doom 3 had mediocre gunplay and boring gameplay in general, what they don't say is how awesome it was playing Super Turbo Turkey Puncher or that it was quite the thing to be able to "realistically" push buttons on consoles and computer screens. That interactivity is fun for 5 seconds but once those 5 seconds pass you realize that you're stuck with 20 hours of mediocre FPS... So yeah, interactivity is important for a Duke game but it should be stuff that dresses up the gameplay, I dunno, let me kick up a table to use it as cover, give me the most detailed melee system in an FPS where I can kick aliens in the dick if I want to, something that I'll use more while playing the game instead of just looking at it once.

[PokeThePower]

Commando Nukem, on 31 December 2019 - 12:10 PM, said:

Yeah, someone who had looked through the files had said at one point the biggest difficulty in the release process for a DNF prototype would be cutting out all the personal, sensitive, and even some of the odd porn left in places.

"What a mess!"

• Unreal license issues
  
• Third party software issues
  
• People/privacy issues

[OpenMaw]

Yeah I think one of the weirder ones I heard was someone had put their SSI and Credit Card info in there at some point or something. All I can wonder is what events lead up to that.

[Zaxx]

Knowing 3DR I'd just love to see their version of "fagbag" in DNF 2001 because that must be something else. Imagine the articles that would come out of that stuff!

[PokeThePower]

Zaxx, on 31 December 2019 - 02:44 PM, said:

Knowing 3DR I'd just love to see their version of "fagbag" in DNF 2001 because that must be something else. Imagine the articles that would come out of that stuff!

[EvilEmperorZoRG {GR}]

Hello everyone : D
long time not see u all... happy 2020... with a cool "leaked" 1998-2001 build : D

in all seriousness... a buddy in a game told me a password protected build has been leaked... is that true? lol

im too lazy and too drunk to search about it myself rite now : S

[PokeThePower]

Commando Nukem, on 31 December 2019 - 02:39 PM, said:

All I can wonder is what events lead up to that.

It's not hard to understand. It was home for some folks.
I didn't unpack my apartment for about 5 years.
Extrapolate from there.

Note: I'm now one of the hardest anti-linking your personal life with your work in ANY WAY perspectives in the industry.

[Kyeb]

Nah, just some clips from a stream of DNF2001 Fred did have been posted is all.

[EvilEmperorZoRG {GR}]

Yeah the clips I saw...
Funny in most game sites they only talked about the 2 clips and completely ignored the rest...

[AlektorophobiA]

[hiczok]

Lazy Dog, on 26 December 2019 - 11:14 AM, said:

?

they show for me

https://i.imgur.com/hPYlKWW.mp4

https://i.imgur.com/5ytXsgx.mp4

here's the source:

http://boards.4chann...hread/490244172

IS IT HAPPENING ?!
Looks like UE2 engine build not 2001 though
This one

[hiczok]

maxiebunz31, on 27 December 2019 - 05:00 AM, said:

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE
https://i.imgur.com/R9nEJmR.mp4
https://i.imgur.com/e34yNlF.mp4
https://i.imgur.com/7fHeRSQ.mp4
https://i.imgur.com/Xumxze7.mp4
https://i.imgur.com/wSxoLJC.mp4
and
https://i.imgur.com/s7VKmQN.jpg

OH MY GOD I was mistaken. THIS IS THE 2001 build?!
WILL MY LIFE BE COMPLETE IN 2020 ?!

[DisgustedGrunt]

hiczok, on 01 January 2020 - 08:13 AM, said:

IS IT HAPPENING ?!
Looks like UE2 engine build not 2001 though

I don't think the game was ever in UE2, even the final game runs on an upgraded UE1.

[PokeThePower]

hiczok, on 01 January 2020 - 08:13 AM, said:

IS IT HAPPENING ?!

No.

hiczok, on 01 January 2020 - 08:13 AM, said:

Looks like UE2 engine build not 2001 though

No.

hiczok, on 01 January 2020 - 08:15 AM, said:

OH MY GOD I was mistaken. THIS IS THE 2001 build?!
WILL MY LIFE BE COMPLETE IN 2020 ?!

No.

[OpenMaw]

OccludeOlga, on 31 December 2019 - 04:54 PM, said:

It's not hard to understand. It was home for some folks.
I didn't unpack my apartment for about 5 years.
Extrapolate from there.

Note: I'm now one of the hardest anti-linking your personal life with your work in ANY WAY perspectives in the industry.

Oh I get that, certainly. I've seen the pictures of people literally camped out in their offices and at their desks with sleeping beds and stuff.

I just wonder why stuff like that wouldn't be kept in a seperate folder that would be easier to access. I'm no stranger to making a mess in my HDD's though. So I can understand that, too.

OccludeOlga, on 01 January 2020 - 09:43 AM, said:

No.

Seeing these clips of the game, is there anything that comes to mind from your time working on it? Anything you recognize or any kind of emotional connections you make? I can't quite imagine what it would be like to see that stuff again after all these years. For us it's like finding buried treasure, but for someone who actually made some of the stuff we're looking at? Any... Any thoughts?

[Mr. Tibbs]

George, when reflecting on how rough the decade was for him personally and professionally, briefly engaged with someone about the 2001 era DNF, which he said wasn't ever close to a shippable product.



I still want to see as much DNF content as possible, because it's one of the most interesting development stories ever, but I hope the 2020s are better for him than the 2010's.