Duke Nukem Forever |
Duke Nukem Forever ( DNF ) is a yet-to-be-released first-person shooter video game being developed by 3D Realms, and is the next game in the popular Duke Nukem series. It is notorious for its protracted development, which has been ongoing since 1997.
=Plot=
Although two teaser trailers and a series of screenshots have been released, the game s plot remains only vaguely defined, as most of the publicity is now out of date. Fans speculate that Doctor Proton, Duke s original nemesis, will return. Originally it was planned that Duke would be teamed with a female sidekick named Bombshell, who appeared in a 1998 trailer for the game. However, she did not appear in a later trailer released in 2001, and it has yet to be confirmed if she still plays a role in the developer s plans.
=Infamy for delay=
Full scale development work on Duke Nukem Forever began in late .
Indeed, .
The game has been jokingly referred to in gaming circles as Duke Nukem If Ever or Duke Nukem Taking Forever among others. By far the most common wordplay on the title used by gamers is Duke Nukem Whenever . Another source of humour is the common abbreviation DNF for both Duke Nukem Forever and the sports term Did Not Finish, which indicates a competitor who was unable to complete a race.
Many speculate that this title will never see the light of day, although the developers continue to insist that it will ship when it s done. [http://www.3drealms.com/duke4/] Rumors in April 2005 suggested that the game might appear at the 2005 E3, along with 3D Realms previously cancelled Prey (computer game) , but they turned out to be false. [http://pc.ign.com/articles/617/617251p1.html]
Internet forum comments made by lead designer George Broussard in 2004 suggested that development was progressing reasonably well, even though he later said that almost all of the previous generation of game content had been scrapped as of early 2003 [http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/showflat.phpCat=&Board=UBB10&Number=605754&Forum=,All_Forums,&Words=&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Main=605699&Search=true&where=&Name=38&daterange=&newerval=&newertype=&olderval=&oldertype=&bodyprev=#Post605754].
3D Realms cites several factors which have contributed to the game s late release. They primarily blame the delays on several project restarts (starting the project from scratch), as well as engine changes, in order to take account of the swiftly-advancing pace of home computer development. These engine changes, they say, demand that content (art, levels, animations) must be reworked as well to keep up with the new possibilities the updated engines offer. They also lay some early blame on attempting multiple in-house projects, which split internal focus too much for such a small developer. 3D Realms also claims that they have been short on manpower (especially in programming), which has slowed the development process.
Some gamers have reacted to the quality justification with a great deal of skepticism. They show examples of games with a much shorter development time which have been commercial and critical successes ( Doom 3 and the Unreal Tournament series, among others), and point out that long development delays often augur poorly for the finished result. The most cited example of this is Daikatana , a game which began development on April 17, 1997. While Daikatana was initially expected to come out by the end of 1997, it was not released until April 21, 2000 and was a commercial and critical failure. (Other similar failures included Dreamworks Trespasser (game) and, historically, such 8-bit titles as Mike Singleton s Eye of the Moon and Rare (video game company) s Mire Mare , both which were eventually cancelled).
On September 14, 2004, 3D Realms announced that they have replaced the Karma (physics engine) physics engine with one designed by Sweden developer Meqon [http://www.meqon.com/news/20040927.php]. Several sites have also speculated that DNF will be using [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.phpaid=7322 the latest generation] of this technology, designed for next-gen consoles.
3D Realms has also announced that DNF will likely use a Steam (content delivery)-like delivery system known as [http://www.gamexstream.com Games XStream] in addition to traditional distribution.
Because a great deal of fan arguments occur over the topic of DNFs development, it is interesting to note that most delay-related discussion is [http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/showflat.phpCat=0&Number=772514&an=0&page=0#772514 no longer tolerated on their forums]. Critics speculate that this is because, historically, earlier delay-related criticisms exposed developer comments that they would prefer people to forget—notably assurances that the game would be released by a certain year. The official reason given is these discussions often degenerate into heated arguments, treading the same topics that regular readers of the forums no longer wish to endure, since the delays and mistakes with release dates are now common knowledge and openly admitted by 3D Realms. The company still drops hints about the game s progress, in terms of engine specifics, gameplay specifics, and size (as of October 05, Broussard reported the game build to be 9.6 gigabytes.) [http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/showflat.phpCat=&Board=dnf&Number=962274&Searchpage=1&Main=962251&Words=+George+Broussard&topic=&Search=true#Post962274]
==Engine changes and restarts==
The game has undergone one complete change to its , which were later replaced anyway.
3D Realms continued to receive updates from Epic for their newly licensed engine, and in 2000 they moved to the Unreal Tournament technology branch. However, in mid 2001 they cut themselves off entirely from Epic and went their own way [http://ve3dboards.ign.com/message.asptopic=15544548].
2002 marked the start of what is widely considered to be the second project restart. After hiring several new programmers, the team completely re-wrote the renderer and other game engine modules, beginning work on a new generation of game content. Broussard estimates that around 95% of the previous level design work has since been scrapped. The engine is now for the first time, supposedly complete, and supports features such as pixel shader, normal mapping and High dynamic range imaging.
George Broussard has stated several times that the only parts of the Unreal engine that are still part of their code base are UnrealScript, the networking code, and the level editor. Everything else has been written from scratch by 3D Realms. The principal technical reason given by Broussard for the extensive delays was the unstable tech base. Now that this problem seems to have been solved, 3DR have expanded their team considerably, from 22 to 31 members, marking what many hope to be the final stage of the development cycle.
When a major game comes out, it is humorously suggested in many fan circles that Duke Nukem Forever will be switching to the engine of that recently released game.
=Conflicts with Take Two=
There has been a degree of tension between that Take Two needs to STFU imo —internet parlance for Take Two needs to Shut The Fuck Up, In My Opinion. [http://money.cnn.com/2003/06/11/commentary/game_over/column_gaming/index.htm]
Later in the year, December 18, 2003, an article from GameSpot revealed that Jeffrey Lapin had a recent conversation with 3D Realms. Discussing a revised released date with the developers, he was told that Duke Nukem Forever was expected to be finished by the end of 2004, or the beginning of 2005. [http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/dukenukemforever/news_6085889.html] 3D Realms s CEO became infuriated with Jeffrey Lapin for releasing confidential information regarding Duke Nukem Forever , and had neither denied nor confirmed the information that Jeffrey Lapin revealed.
On September 9, 2004, GameSpot published a conversation between Take Two CEO Rich Roedel and UBS analyst Mike Wallace which alleged that Duke Nukem Forever had switched to the Doom 3 engine. Many gaming news sites mailed George Broussard to have him confirm or deny the rumor, but after receiving no answer from him, they published the rumor as fact, ending the article with Attempts to contact 3D Realms for comment were unsuccessful as of press time. Later that day, George Broussard explicitly denied the rumor and explained that he was not able to answer the emails only because he was working elsewhere in the building. As of May 2005, it is believed that Rich Roedel had mistaken DNF for Prey (computer game) , which Human Head (supervised by 3D Realms) is developing with the Doom 3 engine.
Fans speculate that the strained relationship between 3D Realms and Take Two Interactive is based on the fact that the success of earlier Duke Nukem games, along with proceeds from the wildly successful in 2002.
3D Realms CEO Scott Miller denies that relations have been strained at all. [http://www.quartertothree.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.phpp=84551&highlight=#84551]
=Development Timeline=
==1997==
==1998==
==1999==
==2000==
==2001==
==2003==
= External links =
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