Online Store Update Coming

[Joe Siegler]

Hey gang..

While I don't work at 3DR anymore, I did participate in what I'm about to talk about before I walked out the door. The project will be finished by Bryan Turner (who is still at 3DR for the time being), but I was given the OK to talk about this.

As I've kind of hinted at in other forum posts, there is a big update coming for the 3D Realms Online Store. For the last two days I worked at 3DR, I did nothing more than one final major remaster of the product line. I took all the files that we were selling as downloadable items and remastered them. I put DOSBox wrappers around them. This is probably less of an issue for folks on these forums, but the majority of tech queries we got were from people who had zero idea on how to install a DOS program, much less run it. So they all got DOSBox wrappers.

But it didn't stop there. I took all the games that we sold as CD media only, and created downloadable installs for them, too. That includes Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, Death Rally, & Terminal Velocity. So these games will be available in our store.

But it didn't stop there, either. I also hit some other games. We will be selling Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project as a download for the first time, and we will also be selling something we have not sold in several years now. BALLS OF STEEL! This is basically every game that we can still sell that hasn't been released as freeware. They'll all be available in the new store update that is coming.

But I saved the best for last. Long time 3DR forum members will remember me talking about a ROTT CD master that never got made. It was to combine the Site License ROTT CD with the EROTT CD, as well as a pile of user created things. Well, that CD never got pressed, and the version we've sold in the store for awhile was a lesser version. NOT NOW! This new ROTT download (which is 48.3Mb) has everything you can think of. It's every single stinkin thing that Apogee ever released for ROTT back in the day. It also includes a pile of user created things. Also, given my personal love for ROTT, I tossed in a few surprises for people who buy that.

Redoing the product line with a DOSBox wrapper, as well as bringing back and/or adding several things to the online store was my final act as an actual employee of 3DR. I saved ROTT for last. It was mastered between about 6:40PM and 8:15PM Central time on Friday May 22nd.

Now the part I have to say I don't know is when. It's supposed to be this week, but I can't tell you exactly when - and I won't be involved with the actual launch, either. My part in all this was to remaster the product line. That was quite a challenge, as I had to learn a new install program, go over the whole product line, make sure everything was there, build the installs, test them - it was QUITE the whirlwind, I tell you.

These downloads come with those PDF manuals and the hint sheets (where available), as well as with Windows icons, it's all quite nice. It was a freakin whirlwind for me to get 26 game files remastered. I did one and a half on Thursday (mostly to get the structure right, and to learn the install program), and did the remaining 23 and a half on Friday. Man, that was one long day. But it was my last, and I've always considered game installs my baby, so I'm glad I got to do this one final time, and make the installs something nice.

The complete list of stuff that will be available for sale through the new 3D Realms store site update is:

Balls of Steel
Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold
Commander Keen Galaxy
Commander Keen Vorticons
Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure
Crystal Caves
Death Rally
Duke Nukum
Duke Nukem II
Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition
Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project
Hocus Pocus
Math Rescue
Monster Bash
Mystic Towers
Paganitzu
Planet Strike
Raptor: Call of the Shadows
Realms of Chaos
Rise of the Triad (or as I call it, Ultimate ROTT)
Secret Agent
Shadow Warrior
Terminal Velocity
Wacky Wheels
Wolfenstein 3D
Word Rescue

I have no idea what the pricing on this stuff will be, so don't ask. That was all stuff handled this week, after I've left. I was just given permission to talk about the remastering stuff and that it will be available shortly.

This will be in a new store - Yahoo store won't be active anymore for new sales once the new stuff goes up. But at this point, you're probably better off waiting for the new store downloads.

From a technical standpoint, I used the Inno Install program, which uses LZMA compression routines, so things are packed more efficiently. This is an in issue as I'm including DOSBox with every install, too.

[grimely]

Thanks Joe. I also registered to give a big thanks for Duke Nukem 3D especially. Playing Duke was the highlight of my childhood. I still keep the disk (along with jewel case and instruction manual) in my shelf - it's one of those things that I know will accompany me through my entire life. Yours too, I'm sure. Also thanks for posting up the group photo to the main site. It was interesting to compare it with the one on the back of the Duke Nukem 3D instruction book.

[sb742]

Cool. Gonna get me some Shadow Warrior

[shiranui]

Splendid!

Hope they gave you a nice bonus for all that work, Joe.

What happens with Shadow warrior, which, if I recall correctly, used CD audio for the soundtrack?

[sb742]

Originally Posted by shiranui

Splendid!

Hope they gave you a nice bonus for all that work, Joe.

What happens with Shadow warrior, which, if I recall correctly, used CD audio for the soundtrack?

Not a problem, because in dosbox you specify in the conf folder for it to mount a particular folder and emulate that folder as a cdrom.

I think its: mount x "x:\folder\audio" -t cdrom -ioctl

[Bad Sector]

Awesome, i'm probably going to get Shadow Warrior :-)

[Kennerado]

I already have Manhattan Project from GOG but I will buy Balls Of Steel for sure. Oh yeah also the ROTT pack sounds amazing. Thanks for all your work on this Joe.

[shiranui]

Originally Posted by sb742

Not a problem, because in dosbox you specify in the conf folder for it to mount a particular folder and emulate that folder as a cdrom.

I think its: mount x "x:\folder\audio" -t cdrom -ioctl

Yes, but what happens to the soundtrack, will it be mp3, or, even better, do they have the original midis for all the non-shareware levels?

[yossa]

Great news! Lo wang, here I come!

[Stense]

Thats great, thanks for the heads up Joe. May finally get Shadow Warrior.

[Nukkus]

as usual, Joe is the king of awesome.

[PimPamPet]

Balls of Steel! Awesome! Never got the chance to buy that.

The ROTT pack sounds interesting, but is there any new content? Apart from the Site License CD version of the game and the contents of the Goodies Pack?

Anyway, glad to know this is finally going to happen.

[Phayzon]

That sounds AWESOME!!

Also, as mentioned above, what about Shadow Warrior's CD audio?

[Flaose]

Yes, yes, yes! Finally, the last few games can be mine Complete Apogee/3D Realms collection here I come!

[AllAmericanJBert]

Great news!!!

I am totally going to buy Duke3D and all the Commander Keens available!

---------- Post added at 07:15 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:07 AM ----------

Do you know if the merchandise like the Duke3D mouse pads are going to be sold?

[Kennerado]

oh my goddddd

Dude, ITS DOWNLOADS ONLY!

How is that not clear?!?

[SpinX]

balls of steel!!! whooooo! best pinball game ever made, without any doubt...

[dan2091]

Well Balls Of Steel and Extreme Rise of the Triad are impossible to get, so that's nice. And you're right about the CD. The CD had the soundtrack, without it you couldn't play the music..... . I hope it comes with the game in some format... Anyways I have my physical copy of SW .

[Bludd]

Good on ya, Joe. Shows your dedication and love. Thanks.

[Joe Siegler]

Originally Posted by shiranui

What happens with Shadow warrior, which, if I recall correctly, used CD audio for the soundtrack?

Shadow Warrior won't have music - the cda tracks are not included, as it would make the download like 500Mb. There won't be any music, but as I saw, you can use DOSBox to mount a CD and play your own music. The game doesn't understand mp3's at all, so that's not an option.

Originally Posted by AllAmericanJBert

[/COLOR]Do you know if the merchandise like the Duke3D mouse pads are going to be sold?

Please re-read my post.

[BadScout]

That's good news! Well, I guess I might get my hands on some of those older titles, missed out on a few.

[IceColdDuke]

Originally Posted by Joe Siegler

Shadow Warrior won't have music - the cda tracks are not included, as it would make the download like 500Mb. There won't be any music, but as I saw, you can use DOSBox to mount a CD and play your own music. The game doesn't understand mp3's at all, so that's not an option.

Please re-read my post.

Would it be possible to have the music has a seperate download? Joe I know you don't work there any more but do you guys have MIDI versions of the music? Or does anyone know if theres remakes for the Shadow Warrior music? For me the music always added to the ambience of any game .

When it launches im buying Blake Stone and Raptor , I had a really wierd dream about a 3d version of raptor last night :|.

Also I hope your doing well Joe...

[vincentdante]

will you need dosbox or will they be compatible with the latest operating systems?

[Hendricks266]

The loss of SW's music is too bad... I wonder if something can be done about that. The same thing goes for the Grabbag track on the Duke 3D CD.

[MusicallyInspired]

Awesome! I'm particularly intrigued by "Ultimate ROTT!" I've never ordered anything from the store before but I may just grab that!

Also a sad thing about the Shadow Warrior soundtrack. Not really a huge loss, but still. I suppose there's no way 3DR could offer the soundtrack for free on the website in MP3, Vorbis, or maybe even a lossless format like FLAC?

Still, for the amount of work you went through to get all this done it's pretty much not that big a deal at all! Thanks for your hard work, Joe!

[SveinT]

Originally Posted by Joe Siegler

The game doesn't understand mp3's at all, so that's not an option.

But dosbox does...
http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Cuesheet
Look at the section called Compressed audio tracks.

[Jeffpiatt]

I was kind of hopeing that the bulk of apogee's lineup could go on gog.com. since most people would not want to play with dosbox to configure a DOS game to run in windows NT 5.1 and 6.0.

[Rösti]

Awesome work Joe. While I have no credit card and thereby am not eligible for purchasing those downloadable games, I think it is a great resource for those who want to re-enter those classic games. Especially Shadow Warrior I find interesting.

[IceColdDuke]

Originally Posted by Hendricks266

The loss of SW's music is too bad... I wonder if something can be done about that. The same thing goes for the Grabbag track on the Duke 3D CD.

I just put in my duke3d atomic cd I never even knew that was there .

---------- Post added at 02:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:13 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Rösti

Awesome work Joe. While I have no credit card and thereby am not eligible for purchasing those downloadable games, I think it is a great resource for those who want to re-enter those classic games. Especially Shadow Warrior I find interesting.

What about the prepaid cards you can get at WalMart, or Vons or w.e....

[Joe Siegler]

Originally Posted by IceColdDuke

Would it be possible to have the music has a seperate download? Joe I know you don't work there any more but do you guys have MIDI versions of the music? Or does anyone know if theres remakes for the Shadow Warrior music? For me the music always added to the ambience of any game .

The game only understands CDA tracks. It doesn't play midi or mp3 or anything like that. It would have to be mounted as CDA stuff, and it would be a few hundred meg to download - the decision was to offer it this way. You could put your own CD in there if you wanted.

Originally Posted by vincentdante

will you need dosbox or will they be compatible with the latest operating systems?

Did you not read what I wrote?

Originally Posted by MusicallyInspired

Awesome! I'm particularly intrigued by "Ultimate ROTT!" I've never ordered anything from the store before but I may just grab that!

Well, "Ultimate ROTT" is a nickname I gave the thing. It's still technically "Rise of the Triad", just with everything we've ever put out, and a ton of user files, too.

Also a sad thing about the Shadow Warrior soundtrack. Not really a huge loss, but still. I suppose there's no way 3DR could offer the soundtrack for free on the website in MP3, Vorbis, or maybe even a lossless format like FLAC?

The game wouldn't understand any of that. It only understands CDA.

Originally Posted by Jeffpiatt

I was kind of hopeing that the bulk of apogee's lineup could go on gog.com. since most people would not want to play with dosbox to configure a DOS game to run in windows NT 5.1 and 6.0.

See above! Man, doesn't anyone read what I write? THEY'RE ALL IN DOSBOX!

[AllAmericanJBert]

Originally Posted by IceColdDuke

What about the prepaid cards you can get at WalMart, or Vons or w.e....

I believe those cards are valid debit cards.

[MusicallyInspired]

Originally Posted by Joe Siegler

Well, "Ultimate ROTT" is a nickname I gave the thing. It's still technically "Rise of the Triad", just with everything we've ever put out, and a ton of user files, too.

I know that, I'm still intrigued by the additions and the couple surprises you said you added.

The game wouldn't understand any of that. It only understands CDA.

Yes I realize that, but as has been stated above DOSBox does and you can mount a BIN/CUE CD image as a CD-ROM using MP3s as CD Audio tracks in DOSBox so that the game thinks they're CDA tracks. DOSBox has a command called IMGMOUNT where you can mount CD images as actual drives.

But that's not even why I said it. I meant for personal use just so they aren't lost forever. Or even for the people who DO know how to put it all together in a BIN/CUE CD image (or even burn to an actual CD) to use with the game.

See above! Man, doesn't anyone read what I write? THEY'RE ALL IN DOSBOX!

I think he might have meant that people wouldn't want to mess with the DOSBox settings to get it to work correctly (although I can't see what you'd need to set to make it work since you did all that already). But isn't that what GOG does too? Use DOSBox? In that case, yeah he didn't read your post.

[hightreason]

Awesome. Nice one Joe.

[Thief]

I'm sure this has been asked many times, but is it a pain and a half to get Duke 3D to run on modern systems, or is today's hardware still too scared to screw with Duke's spritey awesomeness?

[FlashBack]

THIS IS IT PEOPLE! THIS IS IT!!!!
This is the official Duke Nukem Forever donation that we were all waiting for.
Buy 10 copies of each of these games in order to fund the further development of DNF. The power is yours! /Captain Planet

[zwieback]

Originally Posted by FlashBack

THIS IS IT PEOPLE! THIS IS IT!!!!
This is the official Duke Nukem Forever donation that we were all waiting for.
Buy 10 copies of each of these games in order to fund the further development of DNF. The power is yours! /Captain Planet

i lold



joe, thanks for all the great time and your unlimited patience with us forum users
all that quality time was great - and this final announcement is just perfect. i wish you all the best and i hope that you'll find a new job very soon.

[Phayzon]

Originally Posted by Joe Siegler

The game only understands CDA tracks. It doesn't play midi

The shareware version has MIDI music. I dont see how the full version wouldn't support MIDI Also, ProAsm's SWP has an option for either CD or MIDI music ingame.

Originally Posted by Joe Siegler

Hey gang..

[AWESOME ].

Well played, 3DR.

Well played.

[Wamplet]

pretty cool. wonder if there might be an option to buy everything at a discount mayhaps.

[MrBlackCat]

This is great!

So Joe, what games will be included in the store? Maybe you could package DOSBox with the older DOS games! Will they still work in DOSBox or do you have to have Windows? One last thing, will the FreeWare games be for sale in the store too?
(just kidding, sorry, could not resist <EG>)

Thank you for all your hard work Joe.

MrBlackCat