Quest for Perfectionism

[Kristian Joensen]

"That would be...uhm insane interactivity"

Well isn't that exactly what they have promised us ?

[Ivan]

Kristian Joensen said:
Last I knew Duke Nukem 3D actually exists. That falsifies your claim.

You should be the first person to know that a perfect game doesn't exist.

[Kristian Joensen]

Why do you say that ?

Duke3D was perfect for me. I am expecting DNF to be better than it, heck MUCH better, but not "demanding" it. I am not even demanding it to be just as good.

[SyntaxN]

Kristian Joensen said:
"That would be...uhm insane interactivity"

Well isn't that exactly what they have promised us ?

Yeah... (the example with the rat is going to be in the game imo, George used this one twice)
Let´s hope such things won´t happen only 1 or 2 times in the game, the overall quality should be the same in every level, that´s something many devs can´t provide us

[Ivan]

Kristian Joensen said:
Why do you say that ?

Duke3D was perfect for me. I am expecting DNF to be better than it, heck MUCH better, but not "demanding" it. I am not even demanding it to be just as good.

There's always place for improovement. I am sure there is something in the game that you thought could have been better. Don't reply by saying "no" 'cause I am sure there was.

[Kristian Joensen]

Yep and when mentioning and example of a prop in the game, he mentioned a microwave.

[FireFly]

SyntaxN said:

"Who would I have thought I would by chance run into someone with inside connections at 3D Realms. I was actually really surprised that they would let a lowly tech who set up their upgraded network infrastructure bring a friend to play this game pre-release".

[BioHazard]

I think the problem's up to now have been caused by some incompetent management on 3drealms' part, though I think they are only just beginning to rectify that now.

I don't think there's a quest for perfection, they just want to make a great action game, and that's all I'm expecting.

[Kristian Joensen]

Nope you are wrong their problem was that they had too few people on the team and thefore couldn't get tech finished, that was rectified in 2002.

[BioHazard]

Kristian Joensen said:
Nope you are wrong their problem was that they had too few people on the team and thefore couldn't get tech finished, that was rectified in 2002.

That's a part of the incompetent management. (i.e. not hiring enough people at the right time).

[Kristian Joensen]

I don't thinks so when DNF started development teams where MUCH smaller, sure the team was small when they started but doubt they where much smaller than other teams at the time.

There was no reason BACK then to think that they needed more people on the team, another thing that did wrong which also seemed like a good idea at the time was to license an engine instaed of write one from scratch.

With as high ambitions as 3D Realms have it doesn't really make sense to license an engine, but at that time it DID seem to make sense. I don't think anyone else could have avoided those things back then.

The change to the Unreal Engine also made sense considering how little progress they had made when they made that decision.

Also they genuinely believed that they could keep much of what little content they had made when they switched engines that didn't turn out as expected.

Another thing was that they game suffered from much the same thing as HL2, in that the engine was in constant flux, read this.

[FireFly]

Where does it say that Half-Life 2's engine was in a constant state of flux?

[Kristian Joensen]

I think you are misunderstanding me, I am saying that becuase DNF's engine was in a constant state of flux 3D Realms encoutered some of the same problem that Valve did. I am not saying that Source was in a constant state of flux.

Here is a quote to demonstrate what I am talking about:

By early 2003, the cabals were cranking away on game design, working on countless levels and collaborating with Laidlaw to make sure all the levels would fit into the larger storyline. Still, there were struggles during the early days of production. Namely, the core game technology was unstable and unfinished. Unlike Half-Life's development, in which Valve licensed the fully working Quake engine and built a game on top of it, Half-Life 2's development employed the Valve-created Source engine, which was a constant work in progress. In-game vehicles, for instance, weren't working when the cabals first started the design. That led to much frustration. "We needed levels built for vehicles but we didn't know how the vehicles would work," Newell says. "For instance, we didn't know how high off the ground the buggy could bounce." But since vehicles played a major role in the game, the cabals had to make assumptions about how they'd work."Unfortunately, those assumptions often turned out to be wrong," Newell says.

3DR suffered from similar problem prior to the restart and probably until the tech was locked in by early 2003.


Another similarity is found in this quote:

By mid-2001, Valve had been working on Half-Life 2 for almost two years in complete secrecy. And what did it have to show for all its hard work? Not much. There was a rough script, a bunch of concept art, and tons of experimentation being performed with the technology. Now it was time for the team to try to blend all that technology together--the characters, the physics, and the new Source engine.

This sound almost EXACTLY like DNF, perhaps even worse. George said that some levels have remained from the 2001 version but they where only "early shells" any way. This quote makes it sound like Valve hadn't got ANY levels AT ALL by mid 2001.

There was ofcourse also the scrapped demo reel from 2002. Btw, there is also a similarity to the development of Half-Life:

"In a way, the failed proof-of-concept reel mirrored another failure in Valve's past. In the fall of 1997, Newell played through an early version of Half-Life, only to realize that the game wasn't any fun to play. So Valve scrapped the game and almost completely redesigned it in 12 months"

That last part also supports my point that game development was MUCH different when development started on DNF.

[Zaarin]

FireFly said:
Well in a recent post on the Shack he said:

"You left out the part about picking up a rat and putting it in a microwave, turning it on, watching it spin then explode, or picking up a piece of paper, pressing use and making a paper airplane and throwing it across the room with physics."

Hmm...both are relatively easy to make happen in game these days. I would gladly see these thing in DNF.

George, confirmation requested. Do tell us, please?

[hell-angel]

Most game developers (and I assume 3DR as well) strife for perfectionism in their games, no one will every achieve it but I think that 3DR will come very close is terms of gameplay. Just as long as they keep their target audience the same during development.

[Cerberus_e]

I hope there are lot of scripted sequences so the environments seems alive. (like in HL2: you were battling the striders but at the same time lots of scripted sequences showed rebels fighting in the distance etc, or also firing a rocket at the strider, and in call of duty there are constantly scripted sequences everywhere to make it seem you're in a battle)

I want that too for city levels.
yes, Duke is the one saving the world, but that doesn't mean he's the only one fighting, the others are trying

I don't like the feeling of fighting aliens alone in a huge city like vegas.
I want scripted sequenced god damn it , they make levels perfect for me (think of stalingrad for call of duty, you don't fight a single guy there, but the level was perfect )

judging from George making the "scripted sequences" thread, I guess that feature will be in, of having the feeling you're not alone fighting

it depends on the setting though.
in quake, it fits that you are alone. in the mines levels of DNF, it fits as well.
but not in las vegas

[SyntaxN]

I wouldn´t worry about that...but I would worry about overused scripting sequences, HL2 did a good job because big events don´t happened every 10 seconds

[hell-angel]

As long as Duke is in the lead, I don't mind.

[Cerberus_e]

hell-angel said:
As long as Duke is in the lead, I don't mind.

but fighting alone in vegas would be the most unimmersive ting ever

[SyntaxN]

Cerberus_e said:

but fighting alone in vegas would be the most unimmersive ting ever

There have to be some characters, at least for saying: "Hey pal, what are you going to do? Safe the world all by yourself?"

[hell-angel]

Cerberus_e said:

but fighting alone in vegas would be the most unimmersive ting ever

True, that is why I agree with you on this one.

SyntaxN said:

There have to be some characters, at least for saying: "Hey pal, what are you going to do? Safe the world all by yourself?"

That's a must.

[roryok]

I've been thinking about the hype/perfectionism thing for a while now.

On one hand, I think the game could actually live up to (most) of the hype, and be worth the wait. HL2 pretty much lived up to the hype. So it is possible.

On the other hand, duke has more hype. It'll never live up to everyone's expectations, since everyone is expecting something different, and unfortunately the world is full of people who live to give out about everything.

In my case, I'm looking forward to it because at this stage, as long as its duke, on Ue2.5, even if it sucks, there will be thousands of mappers and modders out there ready to jump all over it and produce more content.

That said, I think it'll rock. Too many games these days are rushed (Boiling Point is a great example - its just a f**king beta in a box) and any company thats committed to spending more than a decade developing a single title, and starting over several times, gets my vote.

How often you think EA delays a game to make it as good as it can be?