2000

This is a sub-page of Prerelease:Duke Nukem Forever.

To do:

Sources for the random developer comments/responces throughout this article.
Some cleaning-up could be needed in future.

After the release of new screenshots at the end of last year, 3D Realms quiets down once again outside of many interviews with staff by various sites being published.

Just like the year prior, major news would be revealed towards the end of the year with a brand-new publisher announced for the game.

January 2000#

January 3rd#

Both Broussard and Miller would be interviewed by Geoff Keighly for GameSpot's Millennium Gaming: 20 Gaming Visionaries Usher in the Next Millennium of Gaming series of articles.¹ ²

When asked what differentiates the two of them from other game developers, Miller cites his "emphasis on thinking in uncharted directions" and drive for innovation. He then brings up two ideas he suggested for Duke Nukem Forever.

For example, in Duke Nukem Forever, I pushed hard for the idea that Duke can hold two weapons at once, each with its own fire button. This would let the player have two unique weapons, maybe a shotgun and a pipebomb, for example. This would open up a new type of gameplay in which having the right combination of weapons for a situation would lead to greater success. Plus, it's just damn cool to think of Duke holding two weapons and chopping down a roomful of aliens - this idea fits Duke perfectly. Unfortunately, this idea was voted down within the company for being too different. But for me, that's the entire point! Who wants to keep playing games the same way over and over and over again?

Another "radical" idea I very recently suggested for Duke is that he not shoot women in the game. After all, it just doesn't fit Duke's character to shoot strippers or other nonthreatening women - Duke is not a chick killer, he's a chick protector. Anyway, here's another idea that met with heavy resistance within the company because it "takes away from the realism of shooting whatever and whomever the player chooses." Of course, this is faulty thinking because it's actually more realistic for Duke not to shoot nonthreatening females. Also, I suggested that this would even add gameplay in that certain enemies might use women as shields, and Duke couldn't just blow both the female and the enemy away. Instead, Duke would have to make an expert shot that only hit the enemy. Hopefully, I can still get this idea accepted....

In the last question of the interview, Miller brings up Duke co-creator Todd Replogle and his brief involvement with the development of Duke Nukem Forever.

January 21st#

The source code file CpjFmt.h in October 26/Cannibal features a description of the .CPJ file format written by Chris Hargrove that is last modified on this date.

Voodoo Extreme would post an image as a part of their "Developers at Work" series from Charlie Wiederhold's desktop, with a level being worked on in DukeEd.³

Charlie Wiederhold, Duke Nukem Forever level designer, working on a level for 3DRealm's highly anticipated first-person shooter, Duke Nukem Forever. This was going on while Charlie was negotiating a marriage settlement between Natalie Portman, and Britney Spears' restraining order against him.

January 29th#

Planet Duke holds an interview with Broussard on the anniversary of Duke Nukem 3D's shareware release.⁴

January 29th happens to be the four year anniversary of the Duke 3D demo release. Count 'em -- four years! Can you dig back in your memory banks and give us a few choice moments from the days leading up to the demo release?

Hard to recall all the madness that happened as we were about to ship the shareware version, but I'll try. A leaked beta got out maybe a week or so before our real release. We were really upset when we heard this and Joe Siegler set me up in an IRC channel where people were talking about the game. To our amazement people loved the game. There were virtually no negative comments from the leaked beta that was over a month old at that point. That relieved a lot of stress and worries over whether people would like the game or not. As we knew we were a week away and that the new version was even more polished than what people were playing.

It's amazing how many things go in at the last second. Duke 3D was never much of a "story" game, but the in essence it was "Space aliens are after our chicks". The pod girls that begged for you to kill them were dropped in literally a couple weeks before we shipped, as just something else to do and find. And something that solidified our "story", such as it was, a little bit more.

How did it feel over the next few days when the damned thing took off like a nuclear chain reaction?

We were pretty sure the game was going to be liked from the response to the leaked beta, but still you never really know, until the masses get it. I remember finishing the final version of the game at like 7am in the morning and only me, Allen Blum and maybe one other person was still there (recording demos as I recall). So I went home to sleep since we'd worked at 20 hour day or so.

When I woke up I checked UseNet (the ultimate source of gaming comments) and was stunned at the threads. People really liked the game. It was overwhelmingly popular. So that really boosted team morale to hurry up and crank out the full version of the game, which wouldn't ship until about mid May (3 and a half months after the shareware release).

Duke Nukem strikes a massive chord with his fans (which clearly number in the millions from the numbers on Duke Nukem 3D alone, not counting the console market). Have you got a single sentence on why this larger-than-life hero, who takes no shit from anyone has gone on to become (arguably), the biggest male game character in the history of the industry?

Simple. Because he's a character. Something virtually every other first person game neglects. Duke has personality and attitude. You're not just a faceless marine/hero running through the game. Sure it can be said that "you" are the hero and a personality gets in the way, but that's nonsense. People play games to get away. To escape. To not be themselves.

You and the team did extensive research in Nevada for Duke Nukem Forever. If Duke were making HIS choice--which strip club in Las Vegas is the best available today and why?

Haha, we didn't go to them all, but the Crazy Horse 2 was certainly fun and good for research.

After having been your producer at GT for your stuff for about four years, the most common question about you guys is what are you like. I never answer this question with anything but the words "Driven, constantly driven." What are you like? What would you do if you weren't doing this gig?

If I weren't helping create games, I'd be playing them in my spare time and hating some other job I had. The thing that really makes the team here click is that most of us are die hard gamers. We play everything, and learn from other games. We all really enjoy making games. It's not just a job. Everyone here has one desire. To make the best first person shooter to date. Period. That's why the game isn't out yet, and why it won't be out until it satisfies the team. We are our worst critics.

We all have massive expectations about Duke Nukem Forever. I mean massive. Huge. Immense. (No pressure.) We know that the fan-base IS NOT GOING TO BE DISAPPOINTED, and that it will be worth the wait. What gamers actually care about is something they have yet to see in a truly 3D title -- will it have single and multiplay that are equally kick-ass? When we get to play DNF, are we gonna want to play both?

George: Yes. I think we delivered that in Duke 3D as well. It's definitely harder to do and adds tremendous time to the schedule. I think it's obvious that most fps games have tacked on multiplay. In reality it's more important than single play. By far. Everyone plays the single play and you are done in a week. With good multiplay, people roll into that and the game lives on for 2 or more years. An online community is formed. Mods are made for the game. It's amazing.

The problem is that most multiplay in games simply sucks. Bad design, bad weapon balance, bad maps, bad net performance, etc. The reason for that is the same reason there are really only a few good FPS games (and sales bear that remark out). They are very hard to get "right", especially in the DeathMatch department.

So, yes, you can count on Duke Forever DeathMatch as being something that will grab you and keep you playing for months after you finish the single player game. We know everyone says that, and we don't expect you to believe us. Just wait for the game ;)

Scott Miller (Apogee/3DRealms): There are several reasons players should look forward to Duke Nukem and our future games:

[1] We have a great deal of experience playing and making games, going back to the late 70's. And in this industry, experience is invaluable in making good game design decisions.

[2] We are driven to innovate, and do things in a way that they've not been done before. No one wants to play a game that's a clone of a previous game, and we know that.

[3] We're not afraid to take risks, nor are we afraid to upset a few people. Look at Duke Nukem 3D, the major first game to use curse words, and have it's hero take a dump on-screen!

[4] We pay close attention to all the little details, the things that make a game seem real, complete and alive.

If you could put any guy at 3D Realms up against our best over here at GameSpy who would it be? And what game?

We're probably a bit rusty at the moment, but in practice I think we can hang with the best out there. There are many great players here: Charlie Wiederhold, Matt Wood, Brian Cozzens, Steven Blackburn, myself (hehe). All these guys could probably compete professionally if we didn't have 12-hour-a-day jobs ;)

But we've become bored with the state of DM play lately. Mainly because it and the weapons haven't changed much in 3 years. We care much more about class/team based games now like Team Fortress and Counter-Strike. Nobody here really plays much Quake 3 or even UT because we've all been there, done that.

Who is the gamer in the family? You or Scott?

Nearly everyone here plays games. Scott and I come from the old Space Invaders days. We've played everything from then to now, learning along the way what (hopefully) makes a fun game or not. As I said above, most of the team are die hard gamers. We download all demos and check them out and play most full versions of cool games.

(Continuing on the next webpage.)

There were three weapons in Duke Nukem 3D that changed my view of games forever (to coin a phrase): the Freeze Gun, the Shrink Ray, and the Microwave Gun. Are they coming back? Can we expect the joys of shrinking and popping our lowlife opposition while proving our skillz in DukeMatch?

I think fans can expect some of the old favorites back and updated. With the Shrink Ray this time around you will be able to fight back once shrunk (maybe doing less damage since you are shrunk). I can't imagine the DeathMatch thrill of someone shrinking you and you end up killing them. Talk about "in your face". Of course there would still be ways to counteract the shrink affect (ala the Steroids in Duke 3D).

The Freeze Ray and the Pipe Bomb/Laser Trips will be back as well, as they just add too much to gameplay. It's been a little amusing to watch DeathMatch the last 3-4 years. For some reason it's all been the same 5-6 weapons. You certainly need the "base" weapons, but beyond that you need inventive, "fun" weapons that allow for situations that you just can't get with a rocket launcher.

There are a ton of folks that are worried that Duke won't be Duke because you went to an engine that had no embedded ability to play with stuff. Give us some hints about interactivity -- can we play games within games? Pick stuff up? Move stuff around?

We spent most of our early programming efforts modifying and extending Unreal so it can handle an interactive game like Duke Forever. I can say with relative certainty that Duke Forever will be the most interactive FPS to date. Bar none. If something exists in the world you will be able to do something with it in some way. The game will reward the player for using items and exploring. Without going into too much specific detail, let's just say that the stuff you mentioned above could be the tip of the iceberg.

Will the Jetpack be back? Will it work in DukeMatch?

We're still undecided on the jetpack. It's clearly a "Duke" item. In fact, it's programmed now, but we're not sure about it's use yet. It will probably be limited to DeathMatch because it's too easy to break maps in single play. Beyond that are framerate concerns. In Build (Duke 3D engine) you could fly really high and look down and it wasn't that slow, but these days, polygons are everything. We'll have to somehow deal with the possibilities of getting high and completely wrecking your framerate.

With the game being set in Vegas and all, can I earn money to go spend on lap dances?

This isn't an RPG, so I'm not sure we will have Duke keep a running count of his funds (although it's very possible, if it turns out to be "fun"). But yes, what point would there be to having strippers if you couldn't interact with them?

How about detail textures? If so, how have you handled them differently than other titles?

Just simple things like allowing you to set the distance on how far they are drawn. If you have a really good system you can crank up the range and the game looks much better and more "real".

One of the things that put Duke 3D on the "map" was the ability to build and edit your own. Will map editing tools be included?

Yes. We will release Duke-Ed with the final version of the game, so users can make zillions of their own maps.

How about character editing?

We will also include all of our internal character skinning tools and anything else we think will be helpful to the mod making community. This will all go out with the final CD of the game. No patches or releases later. On Day 1 of Duke Forever you can start modding the game.

Alright...the whole ball of wax. Are you going to open up the gamesource for us modders?

No, not the entire source, but clearly our script code would be available, just like Unreal/Unreal Tournament's.

We'd love to see you project movies in the body of the game--kind of an advanced version of what was in Duke 3D. Can it be done in your version of the UT engine?

We added the ability to play Flicks (.flc's) on any texture in the game. It's pretty flexible and leads to lots of cool effects and visuals.

Can we get some final comments about the state of the game industry as you see it?

Too many bad games. There must be a lot of stupid money out there to continually make million dollar games that sell 50K-100K copies. I suppose it's like movies. There are only a handful of truly great movies a year and the same goes with games. I don't think it's a talent issue though. I think it's a publisher pressure (to ship fast above quality) and having the wrong people in charge of games. Also the state of "ship now, patch later" is sad. Clearly games are complex and need patches. I'm sure DNF will as well. But I think known bugs are shipped with the intent to try to cash in on Xmas or some other date like a publishers quarter, and that's just wrong. It's stupid too, because all it does is cost sales.

Look at Ultima Ascension. I guarantee you that game would have sold better had they held it until it was near bug free. The negative impression you make with a buggy game drives sales into the ground. It's word of mouth and it spreads like wildfire. Had UA come out in March, near bug free, it would have more than made up for lost Xmas sales. It would have been this awesome game alone in the market with little competition (See StarCraft's release in March). I'm sure the marketing weenies at EA will disagree, but we all know marketing people are clueless. EA (or whoever made the decision to ship) killed UA the same way Activision killed Sin by shipping it too early.

In short, publishers and their control-freak natures over developers are the problem. Most games simply need an additional 3 months of polish to sell well, and publishers rarely grant that. Tell me 3 months of gameplay/balancing wouldn't have fixed TA: Kingdoms, Wheel of Time, Sin, Ultima Ascension or any other "almost there" title?

Nearly every good game can be traced to a developer that has control over their shipping date. id, Epic, Valve, Blizzard etc. The independent developers that have a clue will produce the best games. Not publisher controlled games.

January 31st#

Unreal Universe holds an interview with Ruben Canabera.⁵

Unreal Universe- First up, tell us a little bit about yourself, what kind of music do you like?

I like to listen to all types of music but when I work I listen to Trance and New Age. Trance when I need some fast moving motivation and New Age when I need to concentrate.

Unreal Universe- How did you get started in the game biz?

I answered a newspaper add. All the add said was looking for a computer artist. I had recently graduated from Kansas City Art Institute and had a degree in Video so I wasn't looking for a computer job. I went to the interview and to make a long story short got hired at Capstone, also known as Intracorp. That was 7 years ago. I worked on titles such as Trump Castle 3, Discoveries of the Deep, Corridor 7, Body Count, WitchHaven 2, Tekwar..... has anybody heard of any of these titles? They weny bankrupt shortly after Tekwar came out. I still have fond memmoeries of that place and most importantly the people.

Unreal Universe- How did you land the job at 3D Realms?

I was delivering pizza up to the 3D Realms offices one day and made a picture using the pepperoni's on the pizza of George's face. The second he saw it, ..... he ate it! then said in a deep Al Pacino type of voice with pizza still hanging from his mouth..... "you know, that was very clever of you to mimic my face in pepperoni.... very clever.... do you think I'm funny... heh.... do you think I'm funny". He grabbed what looked like Duke's shotgun and said "out boy". I got out quick. The next day I sent him a pizza with a picture of a women's breast in anchovies. He hired me after that.

I only sent out one resume. It was to 3D Realms. I was either going to be hired by them or look for another line of work. Duke3D is my favorite video game of all time and it would have been a dream come true to work there. I literally couldn't see myself working for any other company although I have to give great thanks to Amy Smith, who out of her kind heart tried to help me find a job during that time. I was lucky, and still am that 3D Realms hired me. The funny thing is I was hired as a mapper on Prey but that's not what I started working on. I still have those papers. I submitted a build map. It was a warehouse level. This is what they saw along with some levels I did for Tekwar and WitchHaven 2. When I made the journey from Miami to the 3drealms offices, things were a little hectic because they were working on getting Shadow Warrior completed. I think the Duke team had just lost there texture artist and during all that commotion I somehow landed on Duke as an artist. At first I was going to say why am I not on Prey as a mapper?, but I wanted to be on Duke so an artist I became:).

Unreal Universe- Tell us about the process of making a really good skin.

Adding elements that reveal things about a characters personality. On the testicle (ed's note: technical (damn that spell-checker!) side and without given away too much, I start really big. I never work at the resolution that the accual piece of art is going to be. This way I can disguise all my handwork.

Unreal Universe- From the released DNF screenshots the wonderful textures and skins really do impress! Does having that amazing level of detail impact the overall speed/frame rate in the game? Are there any special tricks you use to keep the frame rates fast and furious?

wow... thanks, but credit also goes to artist Brian Cozzens and Steve Hornback. The skin sizes I am using are 4 X 256's same as unreal tournament's. There is no greater frame rate hit thans unreal tournaments skins. The level of detail is achived on how the baseframe is layed out. I wish I could go more in depth on that, but you know.

Unreal Universe- Do you use real-life people/ places / things to inspire your textures and skins?

All the textures in the game started from digital source. The goal here is to make a realistic immerse environment. You can't beat digital source for that type of look. All the artist have cameras and we take pictures of everything, from dung on the floor to slime on the side of some wall. We did our research on Duke. A bunch of us went to Vegas and slaughtered the town of its digital beauty. man... what did I just say!

Unreal Universe- In a year do you foresee player skins being photo-realistic? What's your take on the future of skins? What does the future hold?

Yes, DN4 will hopefully usher in that era. The future of skins will be comparable if not better than special effects cg in movies. The barrier to realism has always been resolution, break that barrier and your gonna start seeing skins where you can see pores. get it..:)

Unreal Universe- Without revealing too much, how many of the skins and textures did you create for DNF?

A lot!, ... is that revealing to much?;)... We all work real hard here and the proof will be in the pudding when the game is shipped.

Unreal Universe- What did you work on?

I have done texture work for levels as well as simple environment models and currently working on characters.

Unreal Universe- Wow, Duke is four years old today and he's still an icon for action gamers today. How will Duke influence gamers in the new millenium?

In many ways I hope. Duke is a certifiable franchise. There are actions figures, ports to every console, a movie in the works, and many other new Duke games and products. Its only gonna get bigger and better, hummm .... maybe there will be a real Duke Burger some day?

Unreal Universe- When Duke Nukem Forever is released and people have had a chance to play it, what feelings/memories would you like them to carry with then long after they've played?

Great question! I will probably get drunk the day DN4 is released. I have never been drunk. I would want them to have spent their money and told a friend., just kidding. I hope they have fun with it. Its that simple! FUN

Thanks Ruben, and good luck with Duke Nukem Forever!

February 2000#

February 2nd#

A readme found in the 2001 prototypes located in October 26/dnWindow. the readme explains the dnWindow module is "To provide windowing support not found in UT for DNF".

February 28th#

Shugashack posts an article announces that it will hold an interview with Broussard.⁶

March 2000#

March 10th#

⁷ ⁸

Shack: With the major focus primarily on single player (which I totally like), how will the replayability factor of the game be? What I mean is, if I play the game with an awesome story line, what will make me want to go back and play single player again when I know how the story turns out? (Will there bemultiple [sic] endings?)

Broussard: Multiple endings are something we are playing around with. We certainly love how good colsole [sic] games like Resident Evil reward the player for finishing the game twice. But the ending has to be worth the effort of seeing it in the first place, or it shouldn't be there.

As for replayability: What makes you play any game over and over? DNF will be very interactive and there will be a lot to do and play with, so I'm sure that will be a factor in replayability. I'm not sure many people (other than the die hards) will play the game from beginning to end multiple times, but I do expect almost everyone to re-load maps and look at specific cool things they saw or did. Strippers come to mind. And the goal is for every single map to have visual or gameplay things that make you say "Wow" and want to see then again.

If you don't load parts of the game to show your friends when they come over, then we've failed.

Shack: Engine licensing: Do you think it's worth the investment of so much time, money and energy to develop your own engine when there's already a good handful of quality engines out there to license? Clearly (in my mind, anyway), even when 3DR used its own engines such as Build, the true strength of the company lies in design and content. Do you see the company returning to in-house engine development, or continuing on this new path of licensing technology?

Broussard: I've said for a couple of years that I thought the playing field would be levelled by 3D hardware. There are now 3 really good engines available in Quake 3, Unreal Tournament and LithTech 2. It really makes little difference which one you use. The average end user won't even be able to tell the difference between them. Only the die hard 5% online.

Realistically one of those engines can do the game you want to. Content and gameplay almost always win over technology. If you can have both, good gameplay AND good technology, then you have a blockbuster hit.

We will decide on licensing vs developing and engine on a project by project [sic] basis. There are positives and negatives to both.

Shack: How robust will DNF's multiplayer component be out of the box? , How many different multiplayer modes will DNF ship with? , and How many multiplayer maps will the game ship with?

Broussard: Very robust. We do not believe in shipping now and adding functionality later. Patches should be for bug, not gameplay. I think we are planning 10+ multiplayer maps, but really we have to get down to making Click to enlargethem and seeing how much time we have. But I think anything less that 10 is a waste of time.

As for multiplayer modes, we're still talking about options. We want to do a couple of different things other than DeathMatch, but we haven't decided yet. Some form of class based team play is appealing to us.

Shack: Click to enlargeTo what extent do you feel interactivity lends to gameplay? Is your aim with DNF more to the immersion quality of gaming or to the action/cinematic feel that makes the player more of a spectator to his surroundings?

Broussard: Interactivity is everything in a game. Everything. Without things to "do" and interact with, you are Click to enlargereduced to walking around, shooting stuff. That kind of gameplay was ok 3-5 years ago, but it's stale now. The world needs to be deep and rich with things to do and interact with. You want to draw the player in so they play for 6 hours before they look at the clock. In DNF you will be a spectator as well as a participant.

Our thoughts are that running around killing guys is the boring stuff you do in between doing cool things. It's pure filler.

Shack: Realistically, what sort of system will DNF run on acceptably? , and will Will DNF have software mode?

Broussard: Software is a debate now. It think it will go away, but we will see. Put it this way. If software gets in our way at all, it's gone. Dead and burried. We aren't going to spend time making things run fast or look great in software.

As for system specs, look for Unreal Tournament for a good exmaple. I think something like a P2/400 with Voodoo 2-3/TNT 2 and 128 megs would be a good base system for the game. A P2/600 with Voodoo 4/GeForce and 256 megs would be better.

Shack: What games take up your free time?

Broussard: EverQuest. Period. There is no other. It's the most significant/important game of the decade. You can say Doom/Quake all you want, but EverQuest has as average of 50,000 people playing it's been out less than a year. And these people pay $10/month to play. You cannot compete with a virtual world that has thousands of real life breathing people in it to talk to and play with. Hail the future of online gaming baby!Shack: Do you think we take these gaming related issues too seriously and desperately need to lighten up? Or do we serve the purpose of generating valuable feedback for the development community?

Broussard: Click to enlargeDevelopers do read message boards. It's like anything else. You ignore the lamers and flamers. And sometimes you find a really good post from someone that is really trying to help and suggest a way to make things better. But the bulk of messages and newsgroup traffic is "noise".

Shack: What do you say to the media, the government (any one will do) and old people in general that criticize games involving violence for contributing to youth violence around the world? Allthough most gamers take everything with a grain of salt, it would seem that the world at large doesn't. Is there anything that you and other game makers can do to combat the negative images that parents are getting?

Broussard: Click to enlargeI think the bulk of mankind knows that blaming games for violence is stupid. Just like the net, the vocal minority gets heard. Bottom line is parents need to look at what their kids have access to. If your 8 year old kid is listening to parental advisory cd's, playing mature games and watching nekkid chicks on cable, then you suck as a parent.

Shack: LichTech vs UnrealTournament, why did you make the choice you made?

Broussard: LithTech wasn't a consideration. There wasn't a game out with it, and we were already a done deal with Epic by the time we saw Lith.

Shack: Will there be hordes of scantily clad strippers in Duke4 to provide us with sensory overload and consequently a richer gaming experience?

Broussard: Yes. But love us for more than our bodies. We have a mind too..

Shack: Would you do Buffy in the pooper? (heh, sorry)

Broussard: This question is better suited for Jack Mathews.

Shack: Will the city levels be big? Big meaning, will the level have dozens of city blocks with dozens of buildings that the player will be able to enter and explore?

Broussard: No, probably not. That's more suited to an adventure/RPG style game. There will be big, large areas, but you aren't going to be presented with "Here is a city, now go any direction and explore it". That is, however, a great idea for a future game.

Shack: You said that there may be drivable veichles in DNF. If so, will these veichles be in DNF's multiplayer games?

Broussard: Probably not. We REALLY want to do driveable vehicles in DM, so you can have a gunner and driver etc. But DNF is already huge in scope and I just don't think we have the time to do it, and do it right. Doens't rule it out for a sequel game or add on though.

Shack: Do you think that Duke should be spending more time in the game or in the comments section here at the Shugashack nuking posts?

Broussard: We can't control Duke and the guy does what he wants. Who's going to tell him what to do? I personally think he enjoys nuking messages though.

Shack: How many weapons will be in Duke Nukem Forever and can you give us an overview of the weapons that will return or be from Duke3D?

Broussard: There are about 13-14 weapon designs we are working on now. I know the Shrink Ray and Pipe Bombs will be back from Duke 3D. But beyond that, it's too early to talk about specifics..

Shack: Are you planning on implementing secondary fire for the weapons in DNF?Click to enlarge

Broussard: Already in. Every weapon will do something when you press the alt fire key. It simply adds too much gameplay and fun to not have alternate firing modes. Sometimes you have a really cool weapon idea, but it doens't justifiy it's own weapon. But an alt fire is the perfect spot for it.!

March 11th#

All grammar and leetspeak written as is.⁹ ¹⁰

Shack>>Why did u guys say the reason u switched to the Unreal engine is becuz u didn't want to have to do heavy modifications like y'all were doing with the q2 engine, and then shortly after saying that you guys immediatley started to do heavy modifications to the unreal engine? Was that a lie or did u guys just fuck up?

Broussard:We just made a different set of changes. Unreal all in all had a better tech base than Quake 2 did. Period. Net code aside of course. But we still wanted to add things like skeletal animation, and better brush/world geometry manipulation that Unreal had. Most of our changes have been gameplay/game system based and not raw rendering tech. Although there have been some improvements there as well.

Unreal was a better choice for the game we wanted to make, but even that engine needed modifications for what we wanted to do.

Shack>>Don't you think your game will look dated if you don't finish the game this year? Hell it's gonna look dated anyways no matter how many cool textures you guys use. But If it's not out before all the q3 engine games don't u think u ppl will have missed ur technology window?

Broussard:This is a very narrow, elitist 5% online gamer view. Your mass market player (that will push a game over 1 million sales) can't even tell between UT and Q3A tech. In fact a lof of die hard gamers don't even care. Further, there isn't that huge a leap betweeen the two engines. They both do different things, and each do things the other doesn't do. In my opinion it's a draw and a toss up.

If you think someone will look at a UT based game, then a Q3A based game and say "ugh, I'm not buying that because it looks dated", then you are simply wrong.

Shack>>will duke4 EVER COME OUT?

Broussard:Yes.

Shack>>Will Duke4 be 3dfx's Bi@tch!?

Broussard:Clearly the Unreal tech was based on Glide. That's a fact and not much can be done about it.

Shack>>How is Duke4 performing on D3D based 3d cards?

Broussard:D3D code is the same as UT's now. Clearly it needs work, and we'll see what we can do about performance. Also bear in mind that by the time DNF ships, cards will be even faster, so I'm not sure performance is a critical issue. DNF on a GeForce/Ultra card blazes.

>>Is the current state of the UT engine a good indication of the performance we will get, or is more work being done to get D3D or OpenGL working better?

See above.

Shack>>Why didnt he answer these questions.....

Broussard:Because they weren't sent to me. Steve pre-filtered the questions.

Shack>>Have you gotten rid of the "cheap" feel of the Unreal Engine? Unreal engine technology plays like shit, especially online (yes, UT netcode is still a joke) I would hate to see it spoil a promising game.

Broussard:This is just flat out wrong. UT net code a joke? Tell that to all the servers running UT (which seems to always ne neck in neck with Q3 servers). If it's crap, there wouldn't be all those servers. We play UT online all the time and it's just fine.

Shack>>Broussard: "EverQuest. Period. There is no other. It's the most significant/important game of the decade. "
Oh please, how ghey [sic]. MUDs been around much longer. Hell, I hear NetTrek is still going strong.

Broussard:See here's the deal guys. It doesn't matter who's first. It matters who brings a whole ne genre to light. There were FPS games BEFORE Doom. But it executed things so right that it blew the lid off and created a whole new genre.

EverQuest wasn't first, but it's the best, most popular and more mass market. That's why it's significant. UO was ok, but it was a die hard game. Hell my girlfriend, and some of the guys wives here play EQ daily! What does that tell you?

EQ appeals to lot's and lot's of people. Die hard and casual gamers alike. In the future massively multiplayer games will huge. Sit back and watch it happen. We are all going to move from playing 1 on 1 and 16 player servers to rich, complete worlds with thousands of people playing at once.

Shack>>My question is: do you think we will ever get to the point with an engine where you can use it for several games without having to go back and redo a lot of engineering on the engine? It seems to me that the bottleneck right now is how many polys and fillrate current 3d hardware can do. If an engine was scalable enough that you could just keep using it and scale up the poly count and number of texture passes (surface properties)

Broussard:This is the way of the future for engines. You want to create an engine with many pieces that link together. Then as time goes on, you wimply update the piece that's out of date or needs freshening up.

You will see engines get more modular in the future. So that only the rendering engine needs to be updated. Or the networking layer etc. But there is little need to start from scratch each time and re-invent the wheel over and over.

Shack>>Very Good point, but I have many co-workers and friends who ask me what I play and I show them and they like them too. I don't show them unreal... And I haven't heard of any of them buying it. I know it's personal experience and all, I'm just saying that the enthusiast market must have some filtering on the rest of the market... Shit, Netscape got so popular without a single advertisement in the olden days, simply word of mouth and eye candy...

Broussard:No doubt. Game sales are all word of mouth, just like movies. My point is that regardless of engine, if we succeed in making a cool game that makes you want to show your friends when they are around, then we've done our jobs.

You aren't going to load a game and show a friend "oooh, look at these shiny textures". Well you might, but more likely than not it will be to show them some kick ass gameplay in the game that makes them "oooh and ahhh".

The bottom line is that UT, Q3A or LightTech 2 are all good enough to compete and make gmaes for a couple more years. Period. It will all come down to gameplay and execution. Not which engine you used.

>>#69, My god, I can't believe you read this thread. Don't the flames ever get to you?

Heh, not really. Why would some flamer bother me? They just do it for reaction. We read and answer the boards to get info to those of you that care and have a clue.

The flamers are easily filtered out. Eventually they will grow out of it.

Shack>>line - the technology is there, but do you feel its really sitting on everyone's desk

Broussard:No, we don't. Most of the team are on P400/450's and either voodoo 2's/voodoo 3's/or the odd GeForce. Most systems have 256 megs (but that's because of running UnrealEd).

We aren't upgrading dev systems, because we want to develop on "real" systems, so the broadest base can play them. These days you can't really even buy less than a P500.

But it's been part of owning a PC, that you almost need to update every 2 years (3 at the outside). It's unfortunate, but people want bigger and better games each time. Larger levels, higher res textures, higher poly counts etc.

That all comes with a pricetag. But just know that we aren't developing on Uber systems, for the sole reason of we want to keep our heads out of the clouds, so the game will run as well as it can on average systems.

May 2000#

Take-Two Interactive acquires Gathering of Developers.

May 19th#

Brandon Reinhart will be joining us next week as a programmer on Duke Nukem Forever.

Previously Brandon worked at Epic for two years and on such projects as Unreal Tournament. We're very pleased to welcome him as a new member to the DNF team and his Unreal experience will allow him to be immediately productive here.

We will not be doing further interviews or plan updates on this, as there really is nothing more to say at this time.

Thanks for understanding.

June 2000#

June 14th#

¹¹ ¹²

Although we do not have a release date--it is almost impossible to have accurate pre-alpha status release dates unless the developer is creating a less-than-ambitious game or is willing to cut out parts of the game to maintain the date--I can say that DNF is making fast and impressive and exciting progress due to having all the major code subsystems in place--allowing content creating to proceed unbounded.

June 15th#

^{Source Needed}

Yes, we will lock out offensive material. In the end the game won't be rated R and will be closer to PG-13-ish at best. But language, violence and adult material will be locked out to a degree, that we think it would be suitable for a 10 year old to play it with parental supervision.

June 22nd#

Xbox fan site MSXbox asks Scott Miller if Duke Nukem Forever will ever come to the Xbox, to which Miller responds with.¹³ ¹⁴

Guy, this is something we've considered, and we're looking into the possibilities. But nothing has been determined for sure either way yet, and likely will not be for some time. Generally, we'd like to see DNF on the X-Box, and we will try to make that happen.

June 23rd#

Radiated would conduct an interview with Scott Miller called "Scott Miller On...", were Miller is asked about ¹⁵

Scott Miller On... Duke Nukem Forever:

1. What is your active roll in the production of DNF?
George Broussard, my partner, is the project leader on DNF. My contribution to that game is limited to talking directly to George about my suggestions. I do have some influence over the game, but generally I let him make the final calls because he’s much more in tune with the team and the project than I am.

2. How will 3DR go about trying to thrawrt [sic] pirates? What methods do you think would work?
We have a few plans to lessen casual piracy, but the more persistent thieves will always find a way to steal the game, and justify their actions as they do it.

3. By the time DNF will be done, it will have been in development longer than Daikraptana [sic], what are you guys doing to ensure that DNF doesn't suffer the same horrible fate?
Where making a great game, one that sets new standards, looks and feels cutting-edge, and has gameplay that's never been seen before. We also don't have burdensome sidekicks.

4. Do you think DVD would be a good medium for DNF?
We've talked about this, but remember that the DVD market is a subset of the CD-ROM market, and since DNF will not be a huge multi-CD game (well, maybe two CDs, we're not sure yet), we'll probably stick with CD media only.

5. Is DNF now what you envisioned it being at the start of production? If not, how does it differ?
It's seriously better than we originally hoped. And much of this improvement comes from the individual developers coming up with great new gameplay ideas and map design ideas.

6. Are elements of Max Payne finding their ways into Duke and vice versa?
Yes, such as the photo-source texturing originally done in DNF, which then became a key design goal of Max Payne. There are several cross-over elements like this.

(Continuing on the next webpage, where Miller is only asked a single question pertaining to Duke Nukem Forever.)

4. What game(s) (past or present) do you think is (are) influencing DNF, besides all the previous Duke Nukem games?
We learn from nearly every popular game released, even if it's learning how not to do something. I don't think any game particularly influences us, though. We're probably more influence by comics, TV and movies.

June 26th#

^{Source Needed}

99% (if not all) of the cinematics in DNF will be in game. Not pre-rendered. And we intend to keep the story in game (and not take control from the player) as much as possible.

June 28th#

^{Source Needed}

These will change as we near release and optimize things, but it's what I'd suggest for the moment. We play now on P2-400 or 450's, Voodoo 3, and 128 megs and it runs fine. We'll probably be slower than UT [because] UT is a basic game. Pure DM, not many items or single player code running, and less complex levels. But we won't ever be as slow as Deus Ex, or even close.

Chris Hargrove would discuss system requirements^{Source Needed}

In terms of system requirements, we can't state for certain what the minimum would be officially, but you can figure that most of us are developing on machines in the P3/450 range, with a decent amount of RAM. If we're *developing* on these systems, then one can guess the requirements won't be excessive. You will definitely want a decent video card though, and preferably 128MB RAM

July 2000#

July 6th#

Broussard would announce in his .plan that Chris Hargrove would be leaving 3D Realms.

July 14th#

^{Source Needed}

After talking to Brandon a bit, I think we'll be keeping the mutator system for DNF. As such, we had the most fun with InstaGib, so I would expect that one to stay. We'll know more as we get closer to release.

July 28th#

^{Source Needed}

Our lip synching is much more convincing than Deus Ex's. We have several bones for the mouth that are all controlled by code according to the amplitude of a WAV file. The end result is pretty realistic. Lips move to reveal teeth, the edges of the mouths move around etc." "Actually the final touches of putting MP3 support in DNF should be about done today. We do plan to allow users to map their own MP3's to ours via some jukebox feature in the menus. Wanna frag to Metallica? Go ahead.

July 29th#

^{Source Needed}

Yes. When a character "speaks" a WAV file it's all automatic. Down to pain sounds in single player. If you look closely the guy you just shot with a shotgun screamed and his mouth moved appropriately.

August 2000#

August 1st#

Charlie Weiderhold.^{Source Needed}

...the Unreal engine allowed us to focus on the gameplay we wanted to do. We couldn't create the situations we wanted to in the Quake engine due to limitations in the Quake engine (not enough world space, engine slowing to a crawl when you create larger areas or more complex maps). The added bonus is we also get a visual improvement, but the switch was for all the stuff we could get from Unreal that allowed us to make the maps and situations we wanted to make.

Broussard.^{Source Needed}

We've completely redone the decals to use our particle system. They are faster to render, and have nothing in common with UT's decals anymore,

August 19th#

Charlie Weiderhold^{Source Needed}

There is a HUGE difference between making a co-op map and a DM map or any other teamplay or DM based map. The complexity is along the same lines of a single player map, and if you intend to do anything remotely cool (beyond having the players shoot at monsters) I'd say co-op maps are even more complicated than single player maps. Considering the amount of man hours that go into each single player "map" will be more months than you would believe, it should be obvious why co-op isn't something on our list. We wish we could offer co-op, it's cool... but it's just not reasonable. DM maps and teamplay maps can be worked on on weekends, after hours, and any other extra time we have. The primary thing with those sort of maps is just having everyone playing them for hours and hours to make sure the balance and flow is right, but the actual construction is fairly short compared to single player or co-op maps. And no, we aren't going to make a type of co-op where you just run through and kill bad guys through static levels. If you want that just setup a team game with your friends of you against the bots.

September 2000#

^{Source Needed}

We're going to shoot for 100 megs or so (for the demo), but we have no idea as the game isn't to demo stages yet. But the smaller the better.

September 5th#

With Brandon's approval, I'd like to make a correction to the article that he wrote for GameSpy a couple of days ago....

You can link to the original article here.

In it, Brandon says, '3D Realms has a motion capture studio in-house and brings in external actors.' This is only half true ;) The only external actors we have ever brought in have been female. The reason being, we currently don't have any females working at the company and I seriously doubt I could act out the subtilty of female movement on my own. Along with the fact that I'm sure most of you would probably oppose to knowing that the sultry dancing being performed by the girl you'll see on stage was actually performed by a guy. I know I would. It would just ruin the whole mood, wouldn't it? ;)

So in closing, all of the acting/movement for DNF (so far) has been done in house except for the girls. And thank goodness for that too!

October 2000#

Brandon Reinhart^{Source Needed}

We aren't developing a Linux client right now, but we'll see how things go later on. I am not above doing a Linux client as a side project in the future, but I am also not particularly interested in the Linux platform. Also, there is always Loki. I know Dan Vogel fairly well and they do a kick ass job there. I believe it is highly unlikely a Linux client will ship with the game. There will most likely be a Linux dedicated server. We'll see how things go. Right now the Duke Nukem team is focused on the single and multiplayer game, crossplatform issues will have to wait.

October 3rd#

Broussard makes various comments about the game.^{Source Needed}

Our philosophy on music is to not really have music. That is to say, nothing with a beat while you play. We are trying to create an experience and a sound track distracts you while you play. We are opting for lot's of ambient sound effects and noise tracks/moodtracks playing in the background to create the proper mood. You aren't going to hear loud rock music while you are playing. For menus or end level screens, sure, but not for gameplay.

No T&L. It's really not possible with the current Unreal engine. There also isn't a critical mass of video cards that support T&L at the moment, so it won't even be an issue until a year after critical mass. That's the time you will be required to have hardware T&L.

We stopped engine updates with the released UT code, and have taken to making our own modifications now. it sets you back every time you have to patch in new Unreal code (especially if you are making engine changes like we are). So, at some point you lock off your tech and finish the game, and that's what we've done.

October 9th#

Testing 1...2..3... Is this thing on? Well today is my first day at 3D Realms. It was a tough decision for me to leave Ritual Entertainment, and I have had a great 3 years working there.

I'm really looking forward to get started on the Duke 4 multiplayer code, but it looks like I'll have to study this Unreal code a bit before I jump in. It's kind of a shock to be working with Quake tech for 3 years, and then jump over and work on Unreal. Well at least I get to see how both systems really work.

October 11th#

^{Source Needed}

Doubtful for the reason that I don't see it as wise to support something that's not a "standard". Also there's no way we're taking the time to create 10,000+ textures (or more in the game now) to higher res versions. Just not for this game. Next game, I'm sure high res textures will be standard.

October 31st#

^{Source Needed}

...We're striving for a fairly realistic game and something like that is a little arcade-y. But I think we're still in favor of end level stat screens telling you how you did. May not be realistic, but it is gameplay in terms of stats and rating yourself with other players.

We do intend to release new DM models at a regular rate after the game ships. I'd like to do what Total Annihilation did all those years ago and offer a new DM model at least every month. But we'll see how things pan out.

November 2000#

November 9th#

^{Source Needed}

...[Our] models have skeletons and bones. We also have per-poly hit detection. So if you hit a poly, the game asks 'what bone is the poly assigned to?' For there [it] assigns damage, plays an animation or makes other determinations based on where you hit the character...

November 20th#

Unreal Center holds an interview with John Anderson.¹⁶

Finally we've got the change to talk to John Anderson, level designer at 3D Realms. We talk about Duke4Ever and level design. UC: Could you tell us something about yourself? What's your job at 3DRealms? How did you find yourself in the gaming industry?

JA: My name is John Anderson, I’m 34, but still a kid at heart, I’m married have 2 incredible kids and my wife is currently pregnant. I am a level designer here at 3D Realms and I am currently making levels for Duke Nukem Forever. Before my job at 3DR I was doing structural mechanical design work for Lockheed Martin, it was technically challenging but not creatively fulfilling. I have always loved video and computer games and was really blown away by Duke 3D. First person games became an obsession and the thought of actually working on one sounded like a dream. When I heard that 3DR was hiring I created a Quake Deathmatch map and single player map and also submitted a couple of my better Duke maps and some miscellaneous stuff to show I enjoy doing many different things on a computer. The single player map included 2 new creatures that I designed, textured, created sounds for and made their AI, it also had a number of meshes being used as world items and decorations. My wife’s voice was actually the sound of one of the creatures dying, she made this strange noise that I altered and it just sounded very cool. I figured that if I was seriously going to go for it, I had better send them everything I thought might impress them and I’m glad I did. They narrowed the mapper search down to 6 people, boy was I surprise when I got that email, and then gave us a final deathmatch map test to complete. When all was said and done they offered me a job and all I had to do was convince my wonderful wife, pregnant with child number 2 at the time, that I wanted to move to Texas to make computer games, and here I am.

UC: If you had one paragraph to sum up Duke Nukem Forever. What would you say?

JA: Take all the action, suspense and thrill of you favorite movie, mix it with a healthy dose of Duke attitude and then tie it in with an incredible story and allow it to unfold under your complete control.

UC: Could you give us a development update on Duke Nukem Forever? What are you guys working on? How's everything progressing?

JA: You know we’re keeping a pretty tight lid on the details, the reason for this is because we don’t want to spoil the surprise and thrill of that first play experience. We want the game to speak for itself. Rest assured every person on the team wants to make the best FPS ever, and we’ve played them all and understand what that means. Duke has got a lot of very loyal fans and we don’t intend to disappoint anyone, we are a bunch of hardcore gaming perfectionists working very hard on finishing up this game. All of the mappers are working on levels the artists are creating art, texturing meshes, mo-capping animations and making cool stuff for the game. Everything is progressing very nicely and coming together just as we had envisioned.

UC: 3DRealms is focusing more on DNF single player then DNF multi-player. Wouldn't it be better to focus just as much on multi-player as well as single player?

JA: Actually we are not focusing on one more than the other, we definitely feel both are equally important. The single player is very important and we intend to make a great single player game that tells an incredible story. The multiplayer game adds longevity to a product and it gives us something cool to play. There are not a lot of surprises in the single play for us, we kind of know what’s going to happen.

UC: How much weapons will DNF feature? Could you give us their names?

JA: You really don’t want to know how many or what they are that would spoil the game.

UC: What inspires you to create a map?

JA: I draw inspiration from everything, places I’ve been, movies, TV, talking to friends, my imagination.

UC: What's your opinion on DukeEd/UnrealEd? Do you like it?

JA: I like DukeEd very much. After using something for a very long time you get used to it and know all the little tricks and secrets. It’s far from perfect but it gets the job done and I think the community will enjoy creating things with it.

UC: What is the most important advice that you can give to starting level designers?

JA: Practice, make maps, try new things, make something different. Look at the best maps others have created on the net and ask yourself how can I top that? A lot of people have made tons of really cool maps. There are also many maps that I’ve looked at and said, “Why do I care about this? I’ve seen this a hundred times before.” I’ve said this to both user maps and professional maps that have shipped with games. You also need to understand the limits of the engine you’re trying to create maps for. The most important things you should keep in mind is frame rate and fun. You can’t have one without the other. There are a million things that make a level fun, well designed architecture is only a small part of it.

UC: If there is one thing you could change/add in Unreal Tournament. What would that be?

JA: UT is a really well polished game that is fun to play. Anything I might want to change about it I would simple push to have added to Duke.

UC: What part of level designing is the most fun? What is the worst part of level designing?

JA: All of it can be fun and a drag, the good thing is I can do what interests me at a given moment. If I’ve done a lot of texturing and lighting one-day I might work on some event scripting or new geometry construction the next. There is so much to do in a map that you can really mix it up and not get bored doing the same old thing day in day out.

UC: people want to start designing maps for Duke Nukem Forever. Should they keep certain things in mind, so that the map fits good into the Duke Nukem Forever style? If so, what?

JA: Think real world places and make something cool that people will care about and can relate to. Give people a sense of place with proper scale. Also like I said above, watch your frame rate. Many variables affect frame rate and it’s different from one engine to the next. People have been making maps for a lot of years now and a lot of stuff is just the same old boring thing done for the millionth time, avoid making more of the same.

UC: Is there anything else you would like to say?

JA: Thanks for you continued support and interest in Duke Nukem Forever, we are all working extremely hard to make the best game possible and to not let the loyal Duke fans down. You guys deserve a great game and we want to give it to you! If you’re interested in a really great single-player gaming experience give System Shock 2 a try, it’s a lot of fun! It’s one of my favorite games of 1999. One final thing we won’t be releasing any more information about Duke or doing any more interviews until at least after E3.

December 2000#

^{Source Needed}

When I hear people talk about the main strengths of DNF they quickly mention, "INTERACTION". What does this really mean? Like driveable vehicles? Like healing other team members? Like blowing through walls? Like choppin down trees with my chainsaw? Like kicking down doors? Like bullet holes that remain longer than 3 seconds? . . . Like NPC[s]?

Broussard: Yes, merry Xmas.

December 4th#

Gathering of Developers announces that it has acquired publishing rights to Duke Nukem Forever.¹⁷ 3D Realms republishes G.O.D's press release on their website.¹⁸

Duke Nukem Turns His Life Over to g.o.d. Gathering of Developers to Publish Duke Nukem Forever

Dallas, TX, December 4, 2000 -- Developer-driven computer and video game publisher Gathering of Developers (g.o.d.) announced today that the company has acquired the PC publishing rights for the highly anticipated Duke Nukem Forever game, as part of a broad reaching deal made by Gathering's parent company Take Two Interactive and former Duke Nukem publisher Infogrames. Duke Nukem Forever is being developed by 3D Realms and will be released by Gathering of Developers in the second half of 2001.

In addition to Duke Nukem Forever, Take Two has acquired the complete catalog of already-released Duke Nukem products for multiple platforms including PC, Playstation, Nintendo 64, and Nintendo Game Boy/Game Boy Color as well as certain rights to future products.

"As we have been committed to publishing cutting-edge games, it's obvious that Duke Nukem Forever belongs on the g.o.d. label," said Mike Wilson, CEO of Gathering. "Between this game and Max Payne, 3D Realms will be regarded as the undisputed king of both first-and third-person shooters by the end of next year. To be part of that has been a dream of Gathering's since our inception."

Taking place in and around Las Vegas, Duke Nukem Forever is the latest game in the incredibly popular Duke Nukem series and will feature Duke's infamous off-the-wall wisecracks. Using Epic Games' Unreal engine, Duke Nukem Forever strongly pushes the limits of gaming and gameplay for the first-person action genre, establishing new standards in interactivity, variety and pure fun. In keeping with the cinematic aspirations of 3D Realms, the game will be one of the first to support wide screen format and Dolby Digital surround sound.

3D Realms is also developing, in conjunction with Remedy Entertainment, the highly anticipated Max Payne. A hard-core 3D-action shooter with a gritty, unfolding storyline, Max Payne places gamers in the role as a lone hero who goes up against a horde of stone-cold murdering mobsters, drug-enhanced killers, bad cops, professional assassins, corrupt politicians, and other diabolical masterminds lurking in New York City's seedy underworld.

"Chicks. That's what I like about Mike and his god gig," said a smiling Duke as he chomped on his cigar. "It's nice to be hooked up with an organization with similar tastes. Hail to the new king, baby."

About 3D Realms 3D Realms Entertainment, a division of Apogee Software, Ltd., founded in 1987 and headquartered in Garland, TX, develops and manages the development of 3D software entertainment for the PC and consoles, and is best known for the best-selling Duke Nukem series. To learn more about 3D Realms and its games, visit 3drealms.com.

About Gathering of Developers Founded in Dallas, TX in January 1998, Gathering of Developers is a developer-driven computer and video game publishing company, and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc (NASDAQ: TTWO). The company's mission is to be the worldwide leader in the development and delivery of commercially successful computer and video game software designed for a range of platforms. The company's pioneering partners are industry leaders and proven hit makers 3D Realms, Epic Games, PopTop Software, Ritual Entertainment, Terminal Reality Inc and Edge of Reality. For more information visit Gathering of Developers Web site at http://www.godgames.com.

December 5th#

Stomped would publish a small interview with Miller about the change of publisher.¹⁹ ²⁰

After the announcement today of Take Two Interactive and Gathering of Developers's acquiring the rights to publish Duke Nukem Forever, Stomped contacted 3D Realms president Scott Miller to find out from him why Infogrames will no longer be publishing the first person shooter: Stomped: First, why the change in publishers? Did Infogrames want to get rid of the Duke Nukem franchise or did Take Two simply offer them a deal they couldn't refuse?

Miller: When Infogrames bought GT Interactive, they did seem to lean a little more toward family oriented games, and though that was a small concern for us it wasn’t the impetus for this deal. It was really just a case of both companies, through discussions that began near six months ago, realizing we were no longer the best fit for each other and that the best thing to do was find a new publisher.

Take-Two was an obvious choice for us because of our existing relationship with them, including our other big production, Max Payne.

Stomped: How does this change in publishers affect the actual development of Duke Nukem Forever?

Miller: Other than an internal meeting that lasted about 10 minutes, there really is no delay or other effect related to this deal.

Stomped: The press release we received stated that DNF will be published in "the second half of 2001". Can you confirm that the game will be released in that time frame?

Miller: That’s as good a guesstimate as any other I’ve heard.

Stomped: Can you give us a brief status report on DNF, Max Payne, and also Duke Nukem: Endangered Species?

Miller: All three of these games are proceeding along at a good pace, and all three look like they’ll live up to or exceed fans’ expectations.

Stomped: Will the Duke Nukem franchise appear on any next generation consoles? If so, which ones and in what kinds of games?

Miller: Currently developer n-Space is working on an original PS2 title. That’s it.

December 12th#

Brandon Reinhart makes a post discussing DiecrtX8 support for the game.

For us to discuss what we are and are not supporting only confuses the issue at this time. If you are concerned about our ability to "learn DX8's new features and implement them" don't be. Nick and I have both had access to DirectX 8 for several months. Remember, we are developers and get beta APIs long before the end product is released.

As George implies here, our goal is to focus as much on DX8 as possible and that includes any engine modifications necessary to achieve great framerate. We've already made SIGNIFICANT changes to the Unreal engine's span buffer based occlusion model to increase framerate. We are also making changes to the mesh pipeline and other elements of the engine to take advantage of DX features like hardware transform.

We really want to focus on a single API. Having to focus on both DX and Glide is a pain because render level features (like certain special effects) have to be ported to both. If we focus on a single API we can spend that much more time optimizing and improving the quality of special effects and framerate dependent features. It would be a mistake for us to not focus our "tech" efforts on improving our game for DirectX. DirectX gives us the largest hardware base, the best feature base, and the largest user base.

The Unreal engine is heavily CPU bound, so our focus on optimization is more on releasing that CPU tension. For example: the Unreal engine uses span buffering for occlusion. This approach has a lot of benefits, but is CPU intensive. We have saved a lot of framerate by reducing the complexity of the span calculations and reducing the number of required calculations. This kind of optimization is unrelated to the render API layer.

Personally, I don't mind Direct3D. There are a LOT of things OpenGL does easier and certainly OpenGL code is cleaner and easier to maintain, but Direct3D 8 is a definite improvement over Direct3D 7. Other than the obvious new features like pixel and vertex shaders, the real interesting improvements of D3D 8 are sort of under the hood programmer stuff (like the simplification of setup code).

The bottom line is that we have to focus our support on DirectX because 1) it is the API of choice for user-base reasons 2) focusing on a single API means better developed features.

APIs are tools...not something you fall in love with. At the rate at which the DirectX API changes, you can't afford to become comfortable with a particular version. It is critical to work with the API a lot if you really want to learn the deep magic. Both Nick and I work on private projects in our spare time to keep up to date with things, learn new technologies, and stay in practice. Nick is a much better and immensely more experienced 3D programmer than I am, but we are both capable and certainly able to make the optimizations necessary for Duke.

I hope this clarifies things a bit better. I guess one thing I wanted to stress is that our focus on optimization ranges a bit wider than just "choice of API" but that at the same time we are interested in collapsing to a single API and optimizing for it as well.

Also, Nick Shaffner is the programmer in charge of tech development and optimizations. I contribute what I can when I can, but my focus is on the single player gameplay development, physics, interfaces, and tons of other misc stuff. (And just so I don't leave anyone out, Jess Crable is working on Artificial Intelligence and Scott Alden is doing some gameplay and the multiplayer gameplay.)

And for some reason I am now maintaining the tools. :P

December 20th#

²¹

I'm vowing to go to a gentleman's club every Wednesday until Duke Nukem Forever comes out.

December 31st#

3D Realms would publish a message wishing everyone a happy holidays, included were images of 3D Realms' company Christmas card for the year as well as links to their previous cards from 1998 and 1999. The card promised a 2001 release date for Duke Nukem Forever.²² Visit here to view the card on the original webpage.

Screenshots#

TBA

References#

To do:
Incorporate/reference this information below into article.

Broussard on a Linux port:

Linux DNF is not a priority for us. Not to shun the Linux community, but we have our hands full with the Windows version and that will be done.

I doubt we will have the free time to port it ti Linux for fun, and to give away, and I doubt there is enough money to be made to warrant a commercial Linux version.

Those are just the realities of the situation.

https://web.archive.org/web/20060506073621/http://finger.planetquake.com/3drealms/plan.asp?userid=georgeb&id=14270
https://web.archive.org/web/20060506073713/http://finger.planetquake.com/3drealms/plan.asp?userid=georgeb&id=14529
https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.3drealms.com/ubb/*
https://web.archive.org/web/20010201175300/http://duke.stomped.com/shared/nsystem/comments/10020_35_page_1.php
duke4.net old news (note: Can't seem to link to specific pages themselves. duke4 doesn't play nice with Wayback)

Shacknews articles: Don't use if you can find the original posts/sources.

Shacknews chatty posts

3D Realms News Posts

Interview with Scott & George - 3D Realms, January 3rd 2000↩︎
Page 1, Page 6 and page 8 of Interview - GameSpot, January 3rd 2000↩︎
3DRealms' Charlie Wiederhold Work - Voodoo Extreme, January 21st 2000↩︎
Duke Nukem: Past and Future Hero page 1 and page 2 - Planet Duke, January 29th 2000↩︎
Duke Nukem Forever - interview with Ruben Cabrera - Unreal Universe, January 31st 2000↩︎
Ask Broussard - Shacknews, February 28th 2000↩︎
Shugashack Interview: George Broussard (page 1, page 2,page 3 and page 4)↩︎
George interviewed about Duke Nukem Forever - 3D Realms, March 10th 2000↩︎
Shugashack Document - Shugashack, March 11th 2000↩︎
More George - More Duke - March 14th 2000↩︎
3D Realms on Duke Nukem Forever Release Date The Adrenaline Vault, June 14th 2000↩︎
Duke4 In 2001? - Skacknews, June 14th 2000↩︎
Duke on Xbox? from June 2000 News archive -MSXbox, June 22nd 2000↩︎
X-Box Duke - Shacknews, June 23rd 2000↩︎
Scott Miller On... (page 1 and page 2) - Radiated.net, June 23rd 2000↩︎
1 - Unreal Center, November 20th 2000↩︎
Duke Nukem Turns His Life Over to g.o.d. - Gathering of Developers, December 4th 2000↩︎
Duke Nukem Turns His Life Over to g.o.d. - 3D Realms, December 4th 2000↩︎
Scott Miller Q&A - Stomped, December 5th 2000↩︎
Scott Miller Q&A - Shacknews, December 5th 2000↩︎
Developer's 2001 Resolutions - 3DActionPlanet, December 20th 2000↩︎
Merry Christmas from 3D Realms - 3D Realms, December 31st 2000↩︎