Interview with the guy who does Duke's Voice

[zergwatch]

I was a huge fan of the original Duke Nukem 3d and when we launched our new news & industry interview site last month I found it only fitting to pay homage to the guy who brought us some of the greatest one liners in the history of gaming (of course written by the 3d realms guys).

I thought everyone here might find this interesting.

Read it here: Interview with Duke Nukem (http://www.zergwatch.com/News-958/An-Interview-with-Duke-Nukem-Balls-of-Steel.html)

I hope 3DR keeps Jon St. John as the voice of duke if the game ever comes out!

[Mr.Fibbles]

Interesting read. No real new info but still interesting read.

[Micki!]

Ooh, nice interview...
I always find such things interesting, and i'm glad not only duke related questions were asked and answered... :)

The news are up on Duke4.net as well, redirecting to your Website ;)

[peoplessi]

Great read, great interview. Nothing new, but everything is interesting that has something to with DNF, no matter how small :)

[81 Z28]

ok what i dont understand is that 3DR said its pretty much done just polishing and then John says there still a lot to be done.

[peoplessi]

ok what i dont understand is that 3DR said its pretty much done just polishing and then John says there still a lot to be done.

It is not like he could divulge anything regarding that, so he said what he said, politically correct answer. He is not at liberty to say anything I'd presume. Also, polish takes time, and we haven't really heard that it would be only polish left to do.

[hark]

There is a lot of polishing to be done. Interesting interview. That Duke voice service he has sounds cool. Though I don't think I have a spare $50 for Duke to say thirty seconds of almost anything I want him to say.

[Tim. Just Tim.]

Also, polish takes time, and we haven't really heard that it would be only polish left to do.

Actually if I recall correctly, GB said a looong time ago (cant remember how many months) something like "Monsters are done, levels are done, weapons are done, sound is done, were just pulling things together and polishing".

Ive been under the impression that polishing was pretty much all that was left. I'd really love to hear another mini-status update like that. I think they take this WID stuff too far. I completely understand why they dont want to give a release date, because they've missed that so may times. But theres no harm in telling us where you are at right now. You cant get that wrong and no one will hold it against you.

[trackit]

nice interview!

although i dont like that "quite a bit of work to be done" part :D

Zergwatch: If Duke Nukem Forever ever comes out, the game would be ruined without you doing the voice of Duke Nukem. Have you been in contact at all with Take-Two Interactive or 3D Realms about this project?

Jon "Duke" St. John: Well...thank you so much for your support! I would like to think that I am the one and only voice of Duke. And yes, I have been in touch with George Broussard at 3DR who tells me that it will be released when it's ready. He says there is quite a bit of work yet to be done...but if you have seen the trailer, you know it's going be worth the wait, 'cause this one is gonna to ROCK!

[Lutzifer]

i really love jon st. johns voice :love:

thanx for the link =)

[Kristian Joensen]

Tim. Just Tim. This is probably the quote you where talking about:

I think it'll be out when pigs fly. But it's definitely going well now. Things are together; we're in full production. We're basically just pulling all the pieces together and making the game out of it. There's a lot that's finished. All the guns are finished. Most of the creatures are finished. And as I said, we're just basically pulling it all together and trying to make it fun. We've kind of got all these disassociated elements that make up a game, and you put them together and things happen. And then you just tweak it and polish it until it's fun, and that's kind of the phase we're in now, just trying to make something that is really fun to play and interesting. - George Broussard, January 31st, 2006.

Notice that he doesn't say that levels or sound is done or even ALL the enemies just most of them.

As far as levels go, AFAIK this is the latest word on that:

I think there are two levels we haven't started yet. And some others are in pretty advanced states, so it mostly balances out. I wouldn't worry too much about it.(Emphasis mine) - George Broussard, June 26th, 2005.

When answering the question(from Firefly): Alpha requires that all levels be in-game and nearing completion, nearing alpha?.

[Sang]

- George Broussard, January 31st, 2006.


Been 2 years, some developers produce entire games (that don't always suck) in 2 years.. Surely it can't take 2 years to polish a game? Or was the original content of such low quality to begin with that there was A LOT to polish?

Or perhaps the game is so complicated that it takes time to polish it. Or maybe 3DR is underpowered. :o

[Kristian Joensen]

Sang, the quote doesn't exactly say polishing(in the sense you are likely thinking about) was all the where doing back then, for instance even if they started the 2 levels he mentioned in the other quote right after that quote, I doubt they would be anywhere NEAR done by January.

But even then you can have all the level geometry done and still be far from having anything that even remotely resembles a game. You could basically have empty levels. You still need to do stuff like scripted sequences, story events, dialog. Gameplay stuff and what not. Imagine a game where all the levels are done. But there is not one single enemy, not one single NPC, not one single weapon, not one single inventory item, not one single interactive item, not one single scripted sequence, etc.

Well even though that game would have every single level "done" would you say that game was in any sort of advanced state and that it was almost complete ? No, not exactly.

Now I am not at all saying that DNF was in exactly that state back in January 2006. We know from that quote that the weapons where done and most of the enemies and stuff like that.

However those things existing are not exactly the same as those things populating the levels. If you understand what I mean.

So just because all the levels exist and maybe even are "done" doesn't mean there can't be a HECK of alot of stuff left to do.

Even when you have the weapons and most of the enemies done, in that case there might still be a lot of NPC's left to do for one thing, as well the rest of the enemies, populating the levels with this stuff, scripted sequences, various environmental art(and art in general for that matter, like replacing place holder art with final art assets), gameplay balancing and optimization in the levels and what not.

This is not even counting stuff on the game play programming side. You might model and animate an item but that in and of it self won't make it "do" anything. You need to program all your gameplay mechanics and items in the world and what not. Now they probably also had alot of THAT stuff done.

But again even then for every item/NPC/Enemy you have left to model, animate and texture/skin you have alot of programming to do. In the case of Enemies and NPC's you have got scripting and AI programming to do for instance.

All of this before you even get to the stage I think most gamers would connect with the word "polish". Namely bug fixing, optimization and final game play tweaking/balancing.

As far as games that take 2 years and don't suck ? Well many/most of those games are by studios that have 100-200+ people instead 30ish people like 3DR and it certainly helps when thinks go 100% smoothly and you don't encounter a bumpy ride.

My point with all of this is that the game industry is complex and game development is a very complex process and even when a game might seem done from the eyes of a gamer, it might still have a long process ahead.

[MusicallyInspired]

Excellent! An interview. I'll read that later on. Nice job.

I think it'll be out when pigs fly.
So does the fact that the April fool's joke with the flying pigcop picture being released strike anyone as....interesting?

RUMOUR MILL CHURNED.

[Tim. Just Tim.]

Uh, that pig wasn't flying dude.

;)

[MusicallyInspired]

Ah. So it wasn't. Thanks for putting me in my place. For some reason my mind's eye mixed up the thought bubble above his head with wings.

Carry on...

[Malgon]

Nice interview. :) JSJ comes across as a friendly and cool kind of guy. No one could replace him as the voice of the Duke. :cool: