[Tea Monster]

Dude has a point.

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[ck3D]

Ninety-Six, on 10 May 2020 - 06:05 PM, said:

Okay I know I commented already but I have a few questions.

1.) Racism? How? Some island temple that never showed literally any sort of "primitives" at all ever?

2.) Sexism? The women in bikinis? The vanilla game had actual strippers that you could tp to get them to open their tops. And Forever, which Gearbox published had actual topless women and you take offense now?

3.) If there was concern about political incorrectness, why did Gearbox buy the Duke Nukem franchise and publish several games with it?

4.) What the fuck does any of this have to do with D.C.?!

I'm sorry; I usually don't get this heated. But the more I think about it, the angrier I get over how bumfuck braindead this is.

I naturally started reading your post in Beavis and Butthead's voices from the highlighted typo onwards, because of the angry tone it was really fun!

[Ninety-Six]

ck3D, on 11 May 2020 - 06:51 PM, said:

I naturally started reading your post in Beavis and Butthead's voices from the highlighted typo onwards, because of the angry tone it was really fun!

i aim to please?

[ck3D]

Ha I didn't mean to tease you, I just thought it was funny and jokes aside, the points you make are very valid.

Personally I'm just jaded on the subject, I've just completely given up on the people currently in charge of the IP (just as much as they seem to have given up on it themselves), I never expect anything from them, I tend to look at it from the perspective that Duke lives on in the imagination of the community now and it's the current devs/modders/mappers that really direct (or have the potential power to direct) where his spirit goes, in a way. Official ownership of the name only means so much when the best-selling game of the franchise has been out and open to modifications for 20+ years, I think. Most of AWO was directly influenced by the style and tricks of user maps released all over the world in said timespan as well like they only cared that much about the concept. Really I just wish everyone into DN3D gave mapping or modding a try, because it's the most direct way for a fan to try and 'right the wrong' on their humble scale, if that makes any sense.

Now if you ask me, maybe you're trying to make way too much sense out of their bullshit excuses not to do shit with the franchise (and that's exactly what they expect fans to do with such announcement, too, in order to keep them waiting for something that will never come). Maybe I'm just too used to reading between the lines but if I put my business talk glasses on, the basic truth I can grasp from their announcement is 'we've been allowing budgets to completely different stuff and here's a random potential reason that might resonate with you', blaming political correctness instead as it's a strategic topic right now in order to keep their own grave clean, and the fans on hold for literally nothing. If anything they're waiting for the winds to be favorable to the franchise again to try and re-milk it, but Duke isn't getting any younger so that time might never even come.

In general I'm also very wary of the tendency humans have to miss stuff that was never there and will never materialize the way they imagine it, as opposed to being content with the qualities of what luckily already exists. So to be honest, I haven't done that much research on the topic and just play/map for Duke 3D instead. From my naive perspective, if I trust anybody's work and output these days when it comes to keeping Duke's namesake alive, it's eDuke32's team, miles over Gearbox's.

[Ninety-Six]

ck3D, on 12 May 2020 - 02:49 AM, said:

Ha I didn't mean to tease you, I just thought it was funny and jokes aside, the points you make are very valid.

To be fair, it was less that I felt like I was being teased and more very mildly confused over the declaration. But no harm no foul.

ck3D, on 12 May 2020 - 02:49 AM, said:

Personally I'm just jaded on the subject, I've just completely given up on the people currently in charge of the IP (just as much as they seem to have given up on it themselves), I never expect anything from them,

I don't really either, and despite what aspects I tend to defend, I don't really have any hesitation in saying that the IP in Gearbox's hands has been so horrifically mismanaged that you would wonder if they weren't actively trying to kill it. But I believe in "never mistake for malice what could easily be explained by stupidity, but don't rule out malice," and I think there's plenty of evidence towards "gross incompetence" over malice.

ck3D, on 12 May 2020 - 02:49 AM, said:

Now if you ask me, maybe you're trying to make way too much sense out of their bullshit excuses not to do shit with the franchise

Always been a problem of mine, to be fair. I get extremely hung up on details, because when they don't add up I refuse to let anyone go until sense starts being made.

Naturally I'm a riot at parties.

ck3D, on 12 May 2020 - 02:49 AM, said:

Maybe I'm just too used to reading between the lines but if I put my business talk glasses on, the basic truth I can grasp from their announcement is 'we've been allowing budgets to completely different stuff

And in accordance with the above, I do have to wonder just how expensive it could possibly be to release the three expansions. They have to make no new content; not even a new episode like AWO. They already have an existing engine, buggy as it is. I know it wouldn't be free on their part, but I just can't see how it would be that expensive to be an incredibly low-budget rerelease of pre-existing content.

ck3D, on 12 May 2020 - 02:49 AM, said:

blaming political correctness instead as it's a strategic topic right now in order to keep their own grave clean, and the fans on hold for literally nothing

Unfortunately, given some of the stunts they have pulled in the past, inconsistent as it may be, I am cynical enough to believe that Gearbox has their heads so far up their ass that they can easily believe their own bullshit.

ck3D, on 12 May 2020 - 02:49 AM, said:

In general I'm also very wary of the tendency humans have to miss stuff that was never there and will never materialize the way they imagine it, as opposed to being content with the qualities of what luckily already exists. So to be honest, I haven't done that much research on the topic and just play/map for Duke 3D instead. From my naive perspective, if I trust anybody's work and output these days when it comes to keeping Duke's namesake alive, it's eDuke32's team, miles over Gearbox's.

Oh, most certainly. But I'm more concerned for other people. People who might actually be interested but haven't had the chance to play some of these add-ons. Caribbean and especially DC. I know I'm in a minority when I say that DC is my favorite of them (even going so far as to say it's my favorite commercially-released episode in any capacity), but even those who favor Caribbean can probably relate to maybe wanting to get friends to play it without having to resort to piracy.

And more than that, a single all-in-one Duke 3D package containing all the important stuff is a dream of mine, to really showcase the flexibility of Duke 3D's engine and assets and to demonstrate why Duke was a household name back in the day.

[necroslut]

Honestly, after the success of Doom 2016+Eternal, and how the PC stuff has way less of an impact now than a few years ago, I'd think now would be the time for a new Duke game. I'm honestly surprised there hasn't really been any real competition for Doom yet.

[Ninety-Six]

necroslut, on 12 May 2020 - 03:55 AM, said:

Honestly, after the success of Doom 2016+Eternal, and how the PC stuff has way less of an impact now than a few years ago, I'd think now would be the time for a new Duke game. I'm honestly surprised there hasn't really been any real competition for Doom yet.

You'd think it would, but in my experience companies tend to be a few years behind the times, so while most everyone else is officially fed up with the PC crap, companies still think everyone isn't (not that they really weren't to begin with but that's neither here nor there).

[Tea Monster]

necroslut, on 12 May 2020 - 03:55 AM, said:

Honestly, after the success of Doom 2016+Eternal, and how the PC stuff has way less of an impact now than a few years ago, I'd think now would be the time for a new Duke game. I'm honestly surprised there hasn't really been any real competition for Doom yet.

The point I made earlier in this thread is that:

1. Machine Games have had a huge success with the revived Wolfenstein series,
2. Shadow Warrior, which nobody thought could be revived due to the amount of racial stereotypes, is now on it's second sequel.
3. Serious Sam never really went away in the first place.
4. Commander Keen got a reboot, though we don't really speak of it due to quality issues.

With all these old 90's game characters coming back and (most of them) rampaging up the charts, Viewed with his former compatriots, Duke is now extremely conspicuous by his absence. He was always arguably the greatest of them all, if not flat out the most fun.

[Ninety-Six]

Albeit technically Sam is a 2000s character, TFE coming out in 2001, well into the post-Half-Life/"Silver Age" era, but I guess that really shows the strength of his series that he stands equal among the 90s greats despite coming out in an era where they had already more or less disappeared.

Spoiler

Of course if you want to be a pedantic type development started in 1996 but it's heavily debatable at what exact point the game we ultimately got started to even remotely resemble it in its prototype stages

More to the point, you could argue that the reason Duke has been absent has been due to his own quality issues, though it has also been nine years since the last game that actually showed up on radar, so you could probably make a counterargument that it's probably not too early to try again.

But on a third hand, Gearbox is owned by 2K, so to say that reasoning solely applies to Gearbox may be underselling the other grubby pair of hands on Duke's balls.

[Kristian Joensen]

Ninety-Six, on 12 May 2020 - 06:17 AM, said:

Albeit technically Sam is a 2000s character, TFE coming out in 2001, well into the post-Half-Life/"Silver Age" era, but I guess that really shows the strength of his series that he stands equal among the 90s greats despite coming out in an era where they had already more or less disappeared.

Spoiler

Of course if you want to be a pedantic type development started in 1996 but it's heavily debatable at what exact point the game we ultimately got started to even remotely resemble it in its prototype stages

More to the point, you could argue that the reason Duke has been absent has been due to his own quality issues, though it has also been nine years since the last game that actually showed up on radar, so you could probably make a counterargument that it's probably not too early to try again.

But on a third hand, Gearbox is owned by 2K, so to say that reasoning solely applies to Gearbox may be underselling the other grubby pair of hands on Duke's balls.

This is news to me, when did 2K acquire Gearbox?

[Ninety-Six]

Kristian Joensen, on 12 May 2020 - 06:42 AM, said:

This is news to me, when did 2K acquire Gearbox?

It's possible I misunderstood something, then. All I know is 2K (Or Take-Two? I get them mixed-up a lot) is definitely involved somewhere.

[Kristian Joensen]

Ninety-Six, on 12 May 2020 - 06:49 AM, said:

It's possible I misunderstood something, then. All I know is 2K (Or Take-Two? I get them mixed-up a lot) is definitely involved somewhere.

Yes, they are the publisher of DNF. That is it. Although they happen to also have been Gearbox's publishing partner on some other projects.

[gemeaux333]

Gearbox is pretty much independant, and 2K only have the rights for DNF, 2K havee no say on the rest on the Duke IP

[Ninety-Six]

Ah, alright then. I stand corrected.

[necroslut]

Tea Monster, on 12 May 2020 - 06:02 AM, said:

With all these old 90's game characters coming back and (most of them) rampaging up the charts, Viewed with his former compatriots, Duke is now extremely conspicuous by his absence. He was always arguably the greatest of them all, if not flat out the most fun.

The reason I named Doom especially is that it seems to be the most popular and successful, and also the most "old-school". Doom is very much gameplay-over-story; it's fast, vertical, challenging, "gamey" and even somewhat "anti-PC".

I also think there's a lot more of value in the "Duke IP" than just name recognition and the character, and a truly great game could be made from its DNA if someone was willing to take some risks.

Ninety-Six, on 12 May 2020 - 06:17 AM, said:

More to the point, you could argue that the reason Duke has been absent has been due to his own quality issues, though it has also been nine years since the last game that actually showed up on radar, so you could probably make a counterargument that it's probably not too early to try again.

Yeah, DNF didn't exactly have people screaming for a sequel... But there's also been the various legal issues likely preventing much from being done.
I think it's a shame they stumbled on the finish line with World Tour, which kinda ruined the reception of what was at its heart some supreme fan-service, and should have been some sort of steppin-stone for the series.

[gemeaux333]

Randy said in an interview with IGN after the visioconference we got on this forum that the next Duke must be gameplay and not story (after all it will either be about an alien or robotic invasion no matter on what)

[Ninety-Six]

necroslut, on 12 May 2020 - 08:28 AM, said:

I also think there's a lot more of value in the "Duke IP" than just name recognition and the character, and a truly great game could be made from its DNA if someone was willing to take some risks.

Oh, I agree. But "risks" to companies is like roaches to boots. One completely destroys the other, typically followed by holding a cross and screaming at the walls for the evil to begone.

necroslut, on 12 May 2020 - 08:28 AM, said:

I think it's a shame they stumbled on the finish line with World Tour, which kinda ruined the reception of what was at its heart some supreme fan-service, and should have been some sort of steppin-stone for the series.

I couldn't agree more. A buggy unoptimized engine that didn't fix any of the original's issues, terrible sound quality that never should have made it to release but passed through anyway, a new episode that at least I thought was great but will admit needed a bit more time in the oven and seemed like Levelord and Blum were forced to turn in maps that had been only mostly finished yet (at least the ones closer to the end), all wrapped up in a package that contained only eight new levels for $10 more than the discontinued megaton. Legal issues or not that was a major slap in the face.

It seemed like someone, whether it be Nerve or Gearbox, wanted WT out the door as soon as possible to meet some arbitrary deadline, thinking name-brand alone would sell the product and wouldn't only appeal to hardcore Duke fans.

The obnoxious part is that I'm not even sure what was so important that it needed rushing. It was a budget rerelease. What was wrong with another month or two in development? To meet the Christmas rush? It came out in October!

I still think AWO is a fine addition to Duke 3D and the music was, of course, stellar, but I never said that I didn't find WT as a whole package to be a serious letdown. It could have been so much but it fell so agonizingly short due to either laziness, incompetence, or most likely, both.

/rant

Spoiler

I'm sorry I'm still just so irritated at not only how Duke himself is being handled by Gearbox but also the way they handled 3D, which is one of my personal favorite games of all time, beating out every other FPS I've played. Public perception has not only turned against the franchise but against 3D itself, ignoring the contributions it made to the genre and looking at it as just surface-level edgy schlock and the way Gearbox handles it only adds to that perception...

[necroslut]

Ninety-Six, on 12 May 2020 - 10:22 AM, said:

Oh, I agree. But "risks" to companies is like roaches to boots. One completely destroys the other, typically followed by holding a cross and screaming at the walls for the evil to begone.

To be fair, I don't think Gearbox is the most risk-averse dev/publisher out there today. I'm not much of a Borderlands fan but it wasn't the safest of bets, and they are an actual developer consisting of actual enthusiastic people which is more than can be said for many other game companies these days...

Quote

It seemed like someone, whether it be Nerve or Gearbox, wanted WT out the door as soon as possible to meet some arbitrary deadline, thinking name-brand alone would sell the product and wouldn't only appeal to hardcore Duke fans.

The obnoxious part is that I'm not even sure what was so important that it needed rushing. It was a budget rerelease. What was wrong with another month or two in development? To meet the Christmas rush? It came out in October!

My impression, and I don't have any real insight, is that they (GBX or Nerve or both) underestimated how much work the actual port (renderer and all that) would be, eventually realizing they'd spent too much and then wrapping the whole thing up quickly.
Which, if true, is a real shame because the renderer kinda sucks – it performs poorly and the mixing of sector- and dynamic lighting looks kinda awful, just like it does with Polymer. They should've just used EDuke32 and spent the money on doing things of actual value rather than reinventing the wheel. It was the second (or third) wasted shot at a definitive Duke 3D version...

Of course, they'd already earned some significant badwill over things like Aliens:CM, but that means you have to try harder; you can't afford to half-ass things when you're already under scrutiny.

[Ninety-Six]

necroslut, on 12 May 2020 - 11:33 AM, said:

To be fair, I don't think Gearbox is the most risk-averse dev/publisher out there today. I'm not much of a Borderlands fan but it wasn't the safest of bets, and they are an actual developer consisting of actual enthusiastic people which is more than can be said for many other game companies these days...

Point.

necroslut, on 12 May 2020 - 11:33 AM, said:

My impression, and I don't have any real insight, is that they (GBX or Nerve or both) underestimated how much work the actual port (renderer and all that) would be, eventually realizing they'd spent too much and then wrapping the whole thing up quickly.

If that's the case that would at least make some sense, I suppose. It's conceivable they'd be naive to think they could build a renderer more cheaply than purchasing the license for an existing one only for them to blow a large portion of the budget on it.

Still a waste regardless...

necroslut, on 12 May 2020 - 11:33 AM, said:

Of course, they'd already earned some significant badwill over things like Aliens:CM, but that means you have to try harder; you can't afford to half-ass things when you're already under scrutiny.

And yet that still seems to be GBX's M.O. with Duke. They legitimately seem to think that Duke is still as profitable and recognized as he was back in the late 90s. I wish that was the case but complete fumbles like this is why he isn't.

Well, we say Gearbox but it's really its braindead execs.

hi randy

[ck3D]

necroslut, on 12 May 2020 - 03:55 AM, said:

Honestly, after the success of Doom 2016+Eternal, and how the PC stuff has way less of an impact now than a few years ago, I'd think now would be the time for a new Duke game. I'm honestly surprised there hasn't really been any real competition for Doom yet.

Would make sense for now to be time for a new good Duke game, fashion is cyclic and people's interest in things works in twenty-year cycles in general. I've said this before in another thread, but just a few years back there was close to literally no Duke 3D video on YouTube whereas now one searches yields to thousands of results, mostly due to the popularity of Ion Fury and AA but I can sense there's a resurgence in attention when it comes to the game and the Build engine - it's become old enough to become a historic curiosity more people than just the original fans are paying attention too. Honestly though, I feel like maybe another strategic time to drop such a thing would have been pre-DNF, especially if they expected DNF to sort of flop or damage the image of the franchise, but of course that wouldn't have been realistic and at least the current influx in attention seems organic and not orchestrated. I was watching a playthrough of the Serious Duke 3D mod just the other day and the whole time, I was under the impression that the overall acclaim of it could make for an accidental proof of concept for how good a both quality and faithful entry in the series could still be well received.

Ninety-Six, not letting go when something doesn't seem right isn't a bad trait, if anything it's only logical and essentially a healthy one. Thing is, Gearbox doesn't seem much of a transparent company and in cases like this, they most likely won't ever let you, the average potential customer, know what isn't right to begin with; in fact, just to keep your interest up, they might even make up then drop imaginary politics, when the reality is just that they won't allow a budget or even schedule time to Duke right now for whatever internal reason but business-wise it's more presentable to sugarcoat an excuse (especially with trending hashtags and/or pointing fingers at categories of people), I'm used to marketing practices in different fields than video games and the more backwards people and companies play with the average Joe all the time (on the other hand, the best ones realize that the average Joe is ultimately someone they need, so they hold no horses when it comes to actually developing a sincere relationship with each and every customer). So here, you're completely justified in feeling like something is wrong, but in reality the game is probably so rigged you might find yourself scratching your head for a long time trying to make sense of it if you believe its rules.

People who tend to blame others for their failures are bound to just keep failing; the announcement this discussion originated from acted as one more disqualifier for me when it comes to those guys' credibility, if anything. I mean, we're their community and we're trying to do their market research for them right now; that's not even distress anymore at this stage, it's despair to the point of laughable.

I'm not even trying to sound like the 'Gearbox sucks' archetype, if one day they ever surprise us with good Duke stuff then that's cool. But in reality, right now it's just not happening (which the guys themselves admit), and words from companies are nothing.

[hismasterplan]

Maybe someone here can help me remember where this was, but there was a streaming interview with Randy Pitchford. I think it was one of his episodic podcasts... Nirvana something? Anyway, the last update he gave on a Duke game is that he has the concept but the issue now is finding funding.

[Player Lin]

Oh, screw those SJWs. Shitload of weird excuses...

necroslut, on 12 May 2020 - 11:33 AM, said:

Of course, they'd already earned some significant badwill over things like Aliens:CM, but that means you have to try harder; you can't afford to half-ass things when you're already under scrutiny.

It's actually puzzled me about since A:CM disaster, they should be learned something but they still half-assed their WT port.
Yeah, it may because spend too much so they had pulled out but leave their product like that won't help at all...
At least they didn't made their flagship become a totally disaster...

Still, there still have very little hope but...I don't want to "hope".

[Radar]

Player Lin, on 13 May 2020 - 07:56 AM, said:

It's actually puzzled me about since A:CM disaster, they should be learned something but they still half-assed their WT port.

The only thing they learned from A:CM is that they can get away with it as long as Borderlands sells. Nothing will change until Randy's funding is cut off. It seems the latest Borderlands game was pretty popular, but no franchise is successful forever. One day Gearbox will release a bad Borderlands game, and when that happens Randy will be in trouble. Here's hoping he sells off the Duke IP then.

[gemeaux333]

From what I have read, it seems the sound quality issue in WT is due to the interpolation playing all the sounds (no matter how low their rates are) at the highest rates (44100hz), so the solution would be to add an option enabling/disabling the sound interpolation...

[Darkus]

Mr. Tibbs, on 09 May 2020 - 10:45 PM, said:

Randy chatted about the Duke Nukem Collection again on a livestream recently:

https://twitter.com/...010192659771393

He's saying there's content that Gearbox's head of publishing, Steve Gibson, wouldn't feel comfortable publishing over concerns of racism and sexism in the external expansions/adds-on from Sunstorm and reiterated that the DNF builds aren't what people imagine them to be.

Despite that, he says he's made an effort to reach out to people involved in the project to package it up (though he suggests they lost enthusiasm after realizing how much work it would be) and claims to be "putting his thumb on that scale" to move the project ahead.

Aw crap, I already started to fix and regroup those addons to EDuke...

[Tea Monster]

The level creators did their job well. The programmers who did the 'next gen' conversion did a passable job. No documentation, no mod support, but meh...

The sound was a complete mess. The final art for the bosses was literally emailed in by other people as the guys at GBX literally could not be bothered to do anything for it. Same with the graphic design. Nobody at Gearbox noticed this or flagged these problems. I have no idea how the sound issues got past Gearbox internal QA, let alone the various console quality programs.
The problems with the creature artwork I have no idea what was going on there. Someone was given a job to create it with no time? They couldn't be bothered? They thought the sound was supposed to sound like that? They hated Duke Nukem? Don't know. But whoever was his boss didn't see anything wrong with the work supplied and signed off on it.

Lazy, can't-be-arsed, couldn't-care-less game creation from a handful of people at Gearbox and it ruined the whole release.

[Ninety-Six]

ck3D, on 13 May 2020 - 02:10 AM, said:

Would make sense for now to be time for a new good Duke game, fashion is cyclic and people's interest in things works in twenty-year cycles in general. I've said this before in another thread, but just a few years back there was close to literally no Duke 3D video on YouTube whereas now one searches yields to thousands of results, mostly due to the popularity of Ion Fury and AA but I can sense there's a resurgence in attention when it comes to the game and the Build engine - it's become old enough to become a historic curiosity more people than just the original fans are paying attention too. Honestly though, I feel like maybe another strategic time to drop such a thing would have been pre-DNF, especially if they expected DNF to sort of flop or damage the image of the franchise, but of course that wouldn't have been realistic and at least the current influx in attention seems organic and not orchestrated..

I didn't realize AA was that big. I'm not complaining of course, and good on the AA team for making something to help grab attention to this game. And IF as well.

ck3D, on 13 May 2020 - 02:10 AM, said:

I was watching a playthrough of the Serious Duke 3D mod just the other day and the whole time, I was under the impression that the overall acclaim of it could make for an accidental proof of concept for how good a both quality and faithful entry in the series could still be well received.

I got a similar impression for it as well. But in fairness, it is a mod for a game that's 9 years old. There's acclaim but I'm wondering how much is from semi-average gamers and how much comes from old school FPS fans.

ck3D, on 13 May 2020 - 02:10 AM, said:

I'm used to marketing practices in different fields than video games and the more backwards people and companies play with the average Joe all the time (on the other hand, the best ones realize that the average Joe is ultimately someone they need, so they hold no horses when it comes to actually developing a sincere relationship with each and every customer). So here, you're completely justified in feeling like something is wrong, but in reality the game is probably so rigged you might find yourself scratching your head for a long time trying to make sense of it if you believe its rules.

The sad thing is most of the guys in charge of those same fields in game companies also don't have much experience in marketing games than any other product.

Nevertheless, for that same reason your explanation probably holds up. It does explain the inconsistency regarding DC. A generic, poorly thought-out excuse to try and keep people off their backs while ironically it's so mindbogglingly stupid it gets us on their backs more.

ck3D, on 13 May 2020 - 02:10 AM, said:

People who tend to blame others for their failures are bound to just keep failing; the announcement this discussion originated from acted as one more disqualifier for me when it comes to those guys' credibility, if anything. I mean, we're their community and we're trying to do their market research for them right now; that's not even distress anymore at this stage, it's despair to the point of laughable.

I'm not even trying to sound like the 'Gearbox sucks' archetype, if one day they ever surprise us with good Duke stuff then that's cool. But in reality, right now it's just not happening (which the guys themselves admit), and words from companies are nothing.

I don't want to be that archetype myself and I usually try to keep an optimistic outlook, but there are limits and if a company repeatedly demonstrates a lack of understanding, care, or outright malice (that last one isn't so much a GBX thing as it is for other companies), then I really can't help it if I become cynical about them as a result.

I, too, would welcome a new Duke product from GBX so long as it's good.


However, I'm certainly not holding my breath.

Player Lin, on 13 May 2020 - 07:56 AM, said:

It's actually puzzled me about since A:CM disaster, they should be learned something but they still half-assed their WT port.
Yeah, it may because spend too much so they had pulled out but leave their product like that won't help at all...

gemeaux333, on 13 May 2020 - 08:36 AM, said:

From what I have read, it seems the sound quality issue in WT is due to the interpolation playing all the sounds (no matter how low their rates are) at the highest rates (44100hz), so the solution would be to add an option enabling/disabling the sound interpolation...

Tea Monster, on 13 May 2020 - 01:35 PM, said:

I have no idea how the sound issues got past Gearbox internal QA, let alone the various console quality programs.

One of the main reasons I can't trust Randy is because of these two things. A:CM but specifically that typo in the code that broke the Alien AI. Far from its only problem, of course, but if it went through any QA testing they should have detected that the aliens were just bumbling around. Someone should have noticed it. Just like someone should have noticed the awful WT sound quality.

"I think it should have been like a 7/10." He repeats this, and I have to conclude that he's either lying about ever looking at the game at any point, or he saw it once in prep-production and somehow judged the quality on that.

Tea Monster, on 13 May 2020 - 01:35 PM, said:

The final art for the bosses was literally emailed in by other people as the guys at GBX literally could not be bothered to do anything for it.

Source?

[Player Lin]

RADAЯ, on 13 May 2020 - 08:35 AM, said:

The only thing they learned from A:CM is that they can get away with it as long as Borderlands sells. Nothing will change until Randy's funding is cut off. It seems the latest Borderlands game was pretty popular, but no franchise is successful forever. One day Gearbox will release a bad Borderlands game, and when that happens Randy will be in trouble. Here's hoping he sells off the Duke IP then.

It sounds like very dangerous to them if they don't have other IPs when Borderlands fucked up so bad...

But I guess they would try so hard to not let that happens, so who knows.


(I'm not expect/hope Shovelware sell the Duke IP again, because we may get very, very bad of result, like EA or WB got the IP...... )

[ck3D]

Ninety-Six, on 13 May 2020 - 03:34 PM, said:

I didn't realize AA was that big. I'm not complaining of course, and good on the AA team for making something to help grab attention to this game. And IF as well.

It seems to be pretty big, maybe not as much as Ion Fury but a lot of people seem to enjoy it either perceived as stand-alone or as an extension of the original Duke 3D, as opposed to just one more mod out there, so it's kind of getting the type of special treatment and mass appeal DNF the mod was receiving for a while when it first came out. From my observation and interpretation of what I see, of course.

Ninety-Six, on 13 May 2020 - 03:34 PM, said:

I got a similar impression for it as well. But in fairness, it is a mod for a game that's 9 years old. There's acclaim but I'm wondering how much is from semi-average gamers and how much comes from old school FPS fans.

Not to play devil's advocate but old-school FPS fans aren't realistically getting something big that's tailored exactly for them anytime soon, unless Ion Fury initiated a trend amongst indie devs that we might or might not see the consequential results of sometime or people keep pushing the retrogaming trend. Most companies going for a game nowadays wouldn't compromise part of their potential audience (especially the easiest one) for another; I assume that's basic business logic nowadays (now, what I think about it is something entirely different...), times are different from twenty plus years ago back when you could still have sincere, niche games and remain competitive on the market (if that's just as much your goal as keeping making such games). In general and not just video games, mainstream success often equals a decrease in quality in the subsequent production as the author(s) start(s) feeling different expectations from a new crowd and more often than not succumbs to those (because it takes strength not to); Duke has been a mainstream franchise for a while now, I'd say not just the people in charge of the IP have had all those years to adjust their own vision of Duke to those, but also most people who would otherwise get the IP were it to become available somehow, just in different ways.

So although that Serious Sam 3D mod and its reception made me think quite a bit, realistically I think it's a mistake to expect something cool the way we original fans can be tempted to imagine it, unless we make it ourselves in a way (and I reckon that's pretty much what a lot of the community has been trying to do for two decades with all those ports, mods, maps, graphics...). Serious Sam 3D was like catching a reassuring glimpse that people would still dig something official in the same basic style and that was validating to observe, but now I think it's just obvious that Gearbox is sleeping on the franchise till more strategic times (if those ever come) business-wise - and also that they seem terrible at communication/marketing with Duke fans and don't take them seriously.

Gotta think of company announcements like politics (because that's exactly what they are, just directly from the industrials), there's what you're told and then there's the whole bunch of private reasons you'll never hear of or maybe twenty years from now in post-termination interviews, if one lacks hindsight and chooses to spend that time believing everything advertisers throw at them they're in for a world of confusion (and frustration), when that time could be spent enjoying what's actually out or even learning to make things for it.

Ninety-Six, on 13 May 2020 - 03:34 PM, said:

Nevertheless, for that same reason your explanation probably holds up. It does explain the inconsistency regarding DC. A generic, poorly thought-out excuse to try and keep people off their backs while ironically it's so mindbogglingly stupid it gets us on their backs more.

I don't want to be that archetype myself and I usually try to keep an optimistic outlook, but there are limits and if a company repeatedly demonstrates a lack of understanding, care, or outright malice (that last one isn't so much a GBX thing as it is for other companies), then I really can't help it if I become cynical about them as a result.

I, too, would welcome a new Duke product from GBX so long as it's good.

However, I'm certainly not holding my breath.

We actually seem to be on the same page as far as recognizing their bullshit doesn't make sense, regretting the unavailability of even a simple pack with all the commercial add-ons (DC was also my favorite, I grew up with that episode almost on the same level as I did with the original episodes) and even perspectives for the franchise; maybe I have a different hindsight because I'm not a hardcore gamer and don't really keep up with every news, so my nose is kept distant from a lot of the tension but at this point I find it quite observable on my end that Gearbox views OG Duke fans as nerdy lost causes and basically want us to fuck off (but stay loyal) while they're busy doing other stuff, most of us just don't want to see it in order to keep believing in the phantasmal (never a good thing). So I'll be just as detached myself, focus on what the people who actually still appreciate and care for the Duke legacy create instead and if something official and cool ever drops again one day, then good for everybody. In the meantime, sometimes hopes can be something unnecessary one would be better breaking free of.

[Jimmy]

Just pirate anything related to Duke Nukem.