Topic: 3D Realms closes down

[idolminds]

Its true.

I am sad panda.

[K-man]

Can't say I'm terribly surprised.  Sad though.  Definitely the end of an era if that's true.

[MysterD]

I was really hoping DNF would wind up finished by 3DR and released before I died. Bah! Really sucks.

So...hmmm....is Human Head still doing Prey 2?

So is any company going to go buy the Duke IP now or what?
Like...Take 2, maybe, since they been trying to get 3DR to finish this damn thing?

I'm sure somebody wouldn't mind pumping out more games under the Duke IP in say 3 years than say 3DR has done in over a decade.

[iPPi]

I'm sure there were people holding onto some sliver of hope that DNF wasn't going to be vaporware... but I think this seals the deal.

[MysterD]

3DR's Forums are getting pounded with hits and traffic.
Sometimes, I can connect.
Sometimes, no dice.

[scottws]

Wow, no way?  A developer that hasn't released a game since 1997 is closing down?  That's impossible!

Well, I guess that isn't fair.  They published some titles too, but only about one a year.

I can't say I am surprised if this turns out to be the truth.

Edit:  Ouch.  I just read some of the article posted by idol.  Take Two is not funding DNF, but they have the rights to it.  Basically, it's free to them.

[idolminds]

Just seems odd coming now. They've actually started talking about it again. Some people think this might be some publicity stunt.

[scottws]

Just seems odd coming now. They've actually started talking about it again. Some people think this might be some publicity stunt.

I don't know.  I bet they are done.  There is no way they can afford paying people for this long with little to show for it and if people were working for low wages or even for free I'm sure they've tired of it over the last 12 years.

[MysterD]

Update 2: Duke Nukem Forever publisher Take-Two has confirmed to Shacknews that it was not funding development of the 3D Realms project.

"We can confirm that our relationship with 3D Realms for Duke Nukem Forever was a publishing arrangement, which did not include ongoing funds for development of the title," said Take-Two VP of communications Alan Lewis in a prepared statement.

"In addition, Take-Two continues to retain the publishing rights to Duke Nukem Forever," he added.

Since Take-Two is claiming they have full publishing rights to DNF, if DNF is near completion, maybe Take-Two will hire a company to finish the game...?

[W7RE]

I'm just completely baffled that they kept going as long as they did. Assuming 2 years per game, 3DR could have produced 5-6 Duke titles in the same amount of time. I've actually read that they have switched engines and essentially started over like 2-3 times. I guess you're gonna work that slowly, yea, new tech is bound to come out before you finish.

Here's some perspective on how long it's been since they announced DNF. These games all came out the year that it was announced:

Diablo
Mario Kart 64
Turok: Dinosaur Hunter
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
MDK
Star Fox 64
Goldeneye
Final Fantasy VII
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee
Ultima Online
Fallout
Grand Theft Auto
The Curse of Monkey Island
Tomb Raider 2
Diddy Kong Racing
Quake 2


These games are all classics now. Hell GTA became a top selling franchise with 6 games under it's belt in the time it's taken them to not finish DNF.



http://duke.a-13.net/
-When Duke Nukem Forever was announced, the fastest processor available to consumers was a 233Mhz Pentium
-In 1997, the fastest consumer internet connection was a 33.6 kbps modem (even Idol is faster than that! ... barely )

[MysterD]

Hmmmm....so, who's going to be the new 3DR?
Remedy?
We're still waiting on Alan Wake here...

It's amazing that we've already seen TWO STALKER games before DNF.
And we'll see #3 this year, too.

[Ghandi]

Duke Nukem Forever? More like Duke Nukem NEVER!!! AMIRITE?!

[MysterD]

Duke Nukem Forever? More like Duke Nukem NEVER!!! AMIRITE?!

Could be.

Unless Take-Two hires someone to finish this game or restart the title from scratch.
They are right now claiming they own the rights to publish DNF period.

[W7RE]

You know, I probably would have bought DNF when it came out, regardless of reviews or how bad it looked. (well, if it looked like a REALLY bad game, I would have waited a week for it to drop in price) I'm just so damn curious to see what they've actually produed in 13 years of development. I mean, is it mind blowingly amazing and they don't want people to steal their ideas? Or did they sit around watching porn and playing other games for 13 years? Is the DNF source code more than 10 lines long yet?

I just don't feel like I can be satisfied with this as a punchline, I need to see waht they actually got done.

[MysterD]

I remember when I first saw this trailer.
Goddamn....this trailer kicked ass back then.

Like you, I really want to see what the hell 3DR actually got done with this thing and wanted them to just get this done.

God, #DR makes Valve look like the fastest game-makers in the world...

[idolminds]

The story on shacknews got updated.


Confirmed.

[MysterD]

Joe Siegler of 3DR confirmed it.
Bleh.

[MysterD]

Dunno how true or not this all is, but if it is true...
This could kind of explain a lot...

By: Mourningstar

Crosspost from SA:

Channel_F, a previous employee of 3DR, posted some interesting info:

In my best interest, I'm going to be somewhat candid for now. I will, however, elaborate a bit on some things:

The 2001 trailer was 100% scripted cinematic, and not actual gameplay. They built specific demo maps just to record video from to make a trailer. Everything you see in that trailer was phony.

The typical work flow there went something like this:
Designer would be assigned a task (build a new map, rebuild an old map, polish a bit of a map, etc.). Designer would work on said task for two, three weeks, a month, all the while lower management would be looking over it and making sure it was going in a "good general direction." Designer would move on to another task. A month or two later upper management would finally look at the work and say, "It's all wrong, do it again." Rinse, repeat.

Entire maps would be done from the ground up, almost to beta quality, and then thrown out simply because no one would make decisions early on in the process. (Read up on Valve's 'orange box' method of design -- that's how you make games)

Another example of WTF is the fact that there was one part of one map that was being worked on before I started working there. Nineteen months later and the same designer was still working on the same part of that same map... I'm not blaming the designer, it wasn't his fault.

I think the biggest problem that the company had in general is being self-funded. When you're a developer working directly with a publisher and you have milestones to meet it's a whole different ballgame. If you don't meet those milestones, you don't get any money. That right there will keep your project on schedule. If, however, you're funding it yourself, you don't really have anyone to answer to except yourself and you can quickly lose sight of just how much money is going out the door.

[Quemaqua]

Crazytown.  This makes me sad.  But like everyone says, it doesn't come as a particularly huge surprise.  But that doesn't make it any less sad.

[Xessive]

Woah.. sad to see them go.

[Pugnate]

So DNF wasn't a joke... 3D realms were just totally fucking incompetent. Can't say that I am sad.

[MysterD]

Crazytown.  This makes me sad.  But like everyone says, it doesn't come as a particularly huge surprise.  But that doesn't make it any less sad.

I couldn't have said it any better, Que.

No, it ain't a surprise -- but it still sucks. Sucks to see now all the designers out of work. Hope they all can get back on their feet and all. And hopefully, get onto a project that'll wind up completed and all.

So DNF wasn't a joke... 3D realms were just totally fucking incompetent. Can't say that I am sad.

Yeah, sure sounds like it. I was still hoping that some miracle would come up and they'd just at least finish it.

Well, I guess John Romero can say that Daikatana at least got finished...

[MysterD]

"Chair Story"
Just read this "story", guys...
This is known as the "chair story".
From one of the past 3D Realms developers.

EDIT:
A List of Stuff Happened During DNF's Development
Ahhh, the list...gotta' love the list.

[scottws]

My favorite item on the list is this one:

World War II and the entire Manhattan Project. Yes, even the complete development of the atomic bomb took less time.

Now that's putting it in perspective!  Science conceptualized, theorized, researched, tested, and used something entirely new to human kind... human thought even.  3D Realms couldn't even make a game with existing technology.

[MysterD]

Eurogamer looks back on DNF's History

[PyroMenace]

"Chair Story"
Just read this "story", guys...
This is known as the "chair story".
From one of the past 3D Realms developers.

EDIT:
A List of Stuff Happened During DNF's Development
Ahhh, the list...gotta' love the list.

That chair story is fucking crazy. Though it sounds like hes full of shit, he does bring up some interesting things. DNF as a huge publicity stunt could be true, I mean DNF has turned Duke into more of a gaming icon than Duke3D ever did, and there was never a game that came out of it.

[MysterD]

Yeah, the "Chair story" is crazy -- I don't what is true and what ain't. Who knows if some of it's true, none of it's true, all of it's true, or what. It's just ridiculous.

Here's a post from Tramell Isaac from his blog.
He is a former 3DR Employee, who apparently is showing off some DNF screenshots

[W7RE]

You know what's funny? I've been trying for about 5 hours now to install Duke Nukem 3D from the original discs, and still can't get it fully working.

There's eduke (from 3DR) and eduke32 (fan version I guess), where you just copy the files from your CD into the eduke folder and run it, but that doesn't work with the Plutonium Pack CD, because it's got data that modifies the existing install files in the Duke3D folder. With the regular Duke3D CD, or the Atomic Edition CD, you just copy the files, but there's no option for the early adopters who bought the Plutonium Pack and didn't blow the cash on re-buying the game when they released it all on one CD (Atomic Edition).

So with eduke being the only support from 3DR and it not working with my Plutonium CD, I installed DOSbox and tried to install the old fashioned way. No go. The base game installs fine, but the patcher for the Plutonium Pack gets an error and tells me to delete all files and reinstall the base game before trying the patch again. So the only thing I can think of is if I setup a DOS partition on my PC and dual boot (I'd have to look up how to do that and I don't think I really care enough), or if I can get my hands on an Atomic Edition CD. I tried finding a torrent, but every Duke3D download is witht he shitty "high rez" pack that gives it really bad looking 3D models and effects.



This sort of reminds me of Warcraft 2. I bought the original base game, and I bought the expansion. The game will not run in windows, unless you're running the Battle.net edition of the game, which was fixed up to run in Windows and add Battle.net support. But you know what? There's no fucking patch to upgrade to that version, you have to go buy it again for $20. Yea, that's not that much, but fuck them, I paid for the game back when it was new.


I would have made a new thread, but I thought a rant about how little they've supported their only major game release sort of belonged in a thread about them closing due to pissing away 13 years of development time.




ok, rant over. I needed to vent. Anyone with an Atomic Edition CD willing to zip/rar it up and send it to me? I just want the raw files from the CD, or an ISO of it. I could take pics of my legit CDs if it makes you feel better about me wanting to "steal" the files.

[MysterD]

You know what's funny? I've been trying for about 5 hours now to install Duke Nukem 3D from the original discs, and still can't get it fully working.

There's eduke (from 3DR) and eduke32 (fan version I guess), where you just copy the files from your CD into the eduke folder and run it, but that doesn't work with the Plutonium Pack CD, because it's got data that modifies the existing install files in the Duke3D folder. With the regular Duke3D CD, or the Atomic Edition CD, you just copy the files, but there's no option for the early adopters who bought the Plutonium Pack and didn't blow the cash on re-buying the game when they released it all on one CD (Atomic Edition).

I got it going, not too long ago.

3DR did fix this issue, a while back.

Basically, you need to run Patch 1.5 with either Plutonium Pak disc in the disc drive OR Atomic Edition disc in the disc drive that fixes this issue entirely -- namely, so you can get it going on Win XP (or newer OS's), after you install EDuke32.

That's right. Even having Atomic Edition on disc (Version 1.4), you'd STILL have this file issue b/c you'd still need to update the game to Version 1.5 to get it going correctly.

Let me go find the thread.

EDIT:
Ahhh, here's the thread on how to get Duke3D going from installing with the Plutonium Pak disc and Patch 1.5!

Basically, if you have DN3D on disc (Version 1.3) + Plutonium Pak on disc (Version 1.4) OR the DN3D: Atomic Edition on DISC (V1.4)...

You will need to install DN3D.

Then, download PPatch15.exe and put it in your Duke Nukem directory on your hard drive and run that WITH ALSO whatever newest CD version of the game you have in your disc drive that you own, to get Duke updated to the final version (1.5).

The ONLY other solution, if you want to avoid all this installing and patching mess entirely, is probably to buy DN3D: Atomic Edition off GOG (which is Version 1.5), download it in full, and then install EDuke32, then run the game under EDuke32.

[W7RE]

I actually tried installing 1.3d, then running the 1.5 patch with the Plutonium Pack CD in the drive, and that didn't work. When it got to the non graphical process of patching each file, it said "bad command or file name" and then prompted me to press any key again. that was under DOSbox though, I'll give it a try under XP.

EDIT: Yea that worked once I did it in XP instead of DOSbox. Thanks.

[Quemaqua]

I think it's pretty ridiculous to expect any company to offer support for a game that was released 13 years ago, regardless of what they've been doing with their time.

[MysterD]

I think it's pretty ridiculous to expect any company to offer support for a game that was released 13 years ago, regardless of what they've been doing with their time.

Agreed.

Usually by that time, especially during this age and era, The Mod Community has taken over as the life support for a game on newer OS's and whatnot.

I mean, sheesh -- look what the Mod community has done to preserve and/or enhance games like Vamp: BL, what Drogtooth has done for Arcanum, The Circle of 8 Patches did for Temple of Elemental Evil, etc etc.

It's still amazing to me how Blizzard stands behind their classic games like StarCraft, some decade or so later.

And I think it's great GOG does their programming magic to get old stuff working on new systems.

[scottws]

And I think it's great GOG does their programming magic to get old stuff working on new systems.

I'm fairly certain for many of the games that they just wrap them in little self-contained emulators.

[Quemaqua]

They do, but it does take a fair bit of tweaking for some of them, and they're pretty good about supporting the process thus far.

[W7RE]

I think it's pretty ridiculous to expect any company to offer support for a game that was released 13 years ago, regardless of what they've been doing with their time.

Really, my complaint is less about lack of support for Duke3D and more about not caring about the people who bought the addon pack. Its' the mentality of, "well who cares about the people who bought the Plutonium Pack, they can just buy the atomic Edition and that'll work fine." Or how about, "We're sorry but your retail copy of Warcraft II and the expansion, but if you want to play in Windows you'll just have to line our pockets with more money by purchasing a second copy of the game."

Also I think any company with a game as big as Duke3D, and haven't produced anything else of real significance but is still in operation, should at least support that ONE product. I could understand if a company has 15+ games and doesn't have the time or funding to fix them all, but we're talking about ONE game here.

[Quemaqua]

One product or 2,000, no one has any right to expect support from the company after this much time.  It'd be lovely if they did update the game on a yearly basis so it could run on any computer at any time, but that's an insane expectation.  Besides, you got the game to work by installing it straight up without using 3rd party software, leaving me to wonder what you even have to complain about.  Install, play.  How is that a problem?  Your mistake was attempting to install it in DOSbox.  DOS installs work perfectly fine most of the time, it's usually just gameplay that's a problem.

And eduke isn't really from 3DR, if I remember right.  It was from a guy who worked there or something, but I'm pretty sure it's never been given any official status.  eduke32 is simply an enhanced version by someone else, drawing from other source projects like (notably) JFDuke3D, which was one of the original ports.

[W7RE]

Well, it's one product, and it would require one update, not one every year.

You know, I would have had no problem if I'd been able to find info on their site about how to upgrade to 1.5. I even found a 2-3 year old post complaining about the exact same problem I was having. The other posters were telling the guy to try DOSbox, and then finally a 3DR employee chimed in. All he did was explain the difference between "Atomic Edition" and "Plutonium Pack" and state that they don't sell the Plutonium Pack anymore. So the company created a solution (installing 1.3, then running the 1.5 patch with the PP CD in), but failed to tell anyone about it? Yea, I'll go ahead and praise them for their grade A customer service.

[MysterD]

3DR does have a page dedicated to help with DN3D Tech Support.

The guy should've sent him there.
Basically, that solution is in there...

I never tried running DN3D outside of EDuke32, though.
EDuke32 is just fine for me.

[Quemaqua]

Apparently D rests my case for me.

[W7RE]

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YLHALVVM

Demo reel from one of the artists at 3D Realms. It's 3 minutes long, all DNF stuff, including some gameplay.