Duke nukem forever 2001

Guest2 · 24 May 2022 at 08:19

Gerard said:
Looks like Miller and Broussard are having words, George has a different take on what killed the company vs the public perception that he’s an idiot that wanted more shiny shiny,

https://twitter.com/x/status/1524122762679304194

Thanks for this.

Full article - https://www.apogeeent.com/devblog/dnf-truth
FYI Apogee are back in business (2021) - https://www.generationamiga.com/2021/04/26/famous-game-developer-apogee-is-back-in-business/

Always loved / love the original Apogee intro, to me it always reminds me of Rise of the Triad

Whacky Wheels was fantastic too -

Gerard · 24 May 2022 at 15:53

Guest2 said:
Thanks for this.

Full article - https://www.apogeeent.com/devblog/dnf-truth
FYI Apogee are back in business (2021) - https://www.generationamiga.com/2021/04/26/famous-game-developer-apogee-is-back-in-business/

Always loved / love the original Apogee intro, to me it always reminds me of Rise of the Triad

Whacky Wheels was fantastic too -

I have to question Miller only realising the game was in deep trouble in 2004, at that point the game had been in the works since around 1997. So it took 7 years for him to twig at a point in time where games generally took around 2 years to come through?

He mentions not being on the project but surely alarm bells must have been ringing long before 2004?

The whole reason the 2001 version got stalled was George seen doom 3 in the early 2002 demo, and proceeded to spaff his pants so hard 3dr had to hire a pneumatic drill to get him freed. He then decreed duke needed the shadows and lighting effects, which then meant lighting and numerous other things in levels had to be redone to meet his demands putting them further behind schedule.

There's even a short internal video of the 2003 build basically attesting to this as it has a few sequences specifically showing off lighting and real time shadow effects.

I swear broussard should have been locked in a room with a lifetime supply of happy meals just to get him out of the way so the game could get done.

Simon0001 · 24 May 2022 at 17:44

No ones to blame just young lads starting families but also making loads of money off share where then duke 3d money came in.then the max Payne money.

Should have gone on new hires to ship forever but life was good and they didnt realise it was going to end one day

Gerard · 24 May 2022 at 17:54

Simon0001 said:
No ones to blame just young lads starting families but also making loads of money off share where then duke 3d money came in.then the max Payne money.

Should have gone on new hires to ship forever but life was good and they didnt realise it was going to end one day

Noones to blame? It was Broussard constantly seeing things in new games that he wanted incorporated into dnf, and on a few occasions these necessitated entire reboots of the games production so any work they had done became largely useless.

It became a running joke that anytime a big name game was released the dev team were basically expecting Broussard to show up, wanting them to take elements of the game he had just played and shoehorn them into dnf.

Broussard is basically entirely to blame for the absolute disaster that entailed with this games development (Scott Miller as co head of the company also has to shoulder some blame). It also doesn't help matters when you're publically running down your publisher who a short time later you had to go to and basically beg for money from.

Guest2 · 24 May 2022 at 17:57

Good point at @Gerard, I was thinking similar. He should have known things were not looking good in around 2001, around the time Doom 3 was in development. Well, not looking good in terms of keeping up to date with graphics.

Hell, if they finished the 2001 game how it was back then with the opening Vegas scene, I would still pay £30 for it now.

If only they had kept on develompment with the same game instead and focussed on gameplay similar to Duke 3d and a banging soundtrack instead of trying to catch up with all the graphics improvements at the time. I still listen to the Duke 3d soundtrack (midi of course, not atomic CD music) and it sounds fantastic still today.

Gerard · 24 May 2022 at 18:05

Guest2 said:
Good point at @Gerard, I was thinking similar. He should have known things were not looking good in around 2001, around the time Doom 3 was in development. Well, not looking good in terms of keeping up to date with graphics.

Hell, if they finished the 2001 game how it was back then with the opening Vegas scene, I would still pay £30 for it now.

If only they had kept on develompment with the same game instead and focussed on gameplay similar to Duke 3d and a banging soundtrack instead of trying to catch up with all the graphics improvements at the time. I still listen to the Duke 3d soundtrack (midi of course, not atomic CD music) and it sounds fantastic still today.

Said it before and I'll say it again, it's a massive irony that broussard wanted the final game to be on bleeding edge engine tech with all the latest bells and whistles, and what finally released was a game that from a tech pov was a dinosaur, and gameplay wise felt incredibly dated.

It really does baffle me how he got caught in this seemingly infinite loop of wanting new stuff added, whilst at the same time remaining blissfully unaware of how ****** off the fanbase was becoming along with the tech dating badly by the minute. Did he just think they had all the time in the world along with all the money in the world? If so his head must have been firmly up his ass for longer than thought.

Guest2 · 24 May 2022 at 18:14

Gerard said:
Said it before and I'll say it again, it's a massive irony that broussard wanted the final game to be on bleeding edge engine tech with all the latest bells and whistles, and what finally released was a game that from a tech pov was a dinosaur, and gameplay wise felt incredibly dated.

It really does baffle me how he got caught in this seemingly infinite loop of wanting new stuff added, whilst at the same time remaining blissfully unaware of how ****** off the fanbase was becoming along with the tech dating badly by the minute. Did he just think they had all the time in the world along with all the money in the world? If so his head must have been firmly up his ass for longer than thought.

Maybe it was another case of the Amiga development company in the late 80s / early 90s that went under because they were spunking all the money on office parties, holidays, cars and I expect a steady flow of nose beers for a few years!
I forget the name of the company but I watched a documentary on it recently... It seemed most devs were early 20s / late teens and just wanted a good time, which they got!