New DLC Announcement: The Doctor Who Cloned Me

Press release (Source):

" A brand new downloadable add-on is coming to Duke Nukem Forever next Tuesday, December 13, delivering a new single-player campaign, new multiplayer maps and more!

Titled The Doctor Who Cloned Me, the new campaign pits Duke against Dr. Proton deep in the heart of Area 51. Alongside new enemies and bosses, the add-on packs new weapons and new interactive objects across the new environments, plus new achievements and trophies.

Four new multiplayer maps are also included, which can be played across all of the multiplayer modes including those of the Hail to the Icons Parody Pack:

Sky-High: The alien-infested corporate offices of Pooty, Inc. near the center of Las Vegas. This map includes three indoor floors taken over by the aliens and two rooftops, jump pads, stairwells, and building-to-building combat.
Command: EDF command center with an imprisoned BattleLord at its core! A two-level map featuring winding stairs, straightaway corridors, and jump pads
Drop Zone: Rooftop of Duke’s Lady Killer Casino featuring indoor and outdoor combat and stairwells for platforming, an EDF dropship on landing pad, and a bottomless pit.
Biohazard: Fight in the Breston Plant Nuclear Power facilities and compete across multiple floors in locker rooms, restrooms with showers, control rooms, and the nuclear waste storage room.

Releasing Tuesday, December 13, Duke Nukem Forever: The Doctor Who Cloned Me will be available on PC and PlayStation 3 for $9.99, and Xbox 360 for 800 Microsoft Points. For more details, check out the official site: http://www.dukenukemforever.com/drwhoclonedme "

"Report – Gearbox to reboot Duke Nukem after Colonial Marines wraps"

 

Gearbox is reportedly set to reboot Duke Nukem after development on Aliens: Colonial Marines ends, according to the same OXM rumour wrap that cited Fable IV for a 2013 release this morning. The reboot will come with Duke Begins, the project that Gearbox was working on before taking over development on Forever after being in dev hell for 15 years. After announcing it took over development on DNF, the Texan developer said it had became the rights holders of the IP. Via CVG.

 

Source: http://www.vg247.com/2011/08/22/report-gearbox-to-reboot-duke-nukem-after-colonial-marines-wraps/

First DLC and patch news announced!

New maps and modes are coming to Duke Nukem Forever in the Hail to the Icons Parody Pack! Arriving on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC this Fall, the add-on packs four new multiplayer maps (each with a new weapon) and three new multiplayer modes, and will be FREE to all First Access Club members who registered their FAC membership before Duke Nukem Forever launched in their country (subject to availability).

The Parody Pack includes:

• Three All-New Modes – Freeze Tag provides some of the most fun team gameplay in Duke Nukem Forever. Players cooperate to freeze and shatter their opponents in succession for huge point streaks and combos. See who can hold on to the babe the longest in Hot Potato and play free-for-all Duke style in Hail to the King.


Call of Duke – Duke engages in modern combat in a war-torn city. Foes don’t stand a chance against the Duke when he spams the map with the N00b T00b.
Sandbox – Players take the role of mini-Duke in a giant sandbox with two bases at either end made out of children’s toys. This map features Sticky Bombs.
Inferno – Time machine engage! Duke does combat in a hellish landscape of lava and teleporters. Who turned on the 16-bit graphics, and more importantly, where did this DFG come from?
2Forts1Bridge – Hats? Duke doesn’t need no stinking hats. Give him a minigun and he’ll beat off all comers.


Don’t want to wait to get your hands on the new content? You’re in luck! 2K will be hosting Multiplayer Dukematches at their headquarters in Novato, California on Thursday, August 4. For details on how to register for your chance to attend, visit the    2K Blog

Hail to the King, baby!

Source

The development team has been hard at work combing through the feedback provided here and elsewhere, with updates based on this feedback currently in the works for all three platforms.

Among the changes coming to PC are a new expanded inventory option that allows you to carry up to four weapons in the single-player campaign, Valve Anti-Cheat System (VAC) support, push-to-talk voice chat, the ability to adjust FOV plus other fixes and improvements that are still being tested.

We’ll be sharing more details about the updates, including those coming to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, as they’re finalized. Thanks again for your support!

 Source

Duke Nukem History of a Legend part 4

The fourth part of the History of a Legend series has been released!

Watch here

If you missed the older parts look for it here, here, and here.


If you wonder why I was soquite in the last weeks, the reason is that I had and still have a lot on my mind!
I can't wait for the upcoming DNF DLC's though! :)

Lets hope Gearbox delivers also on the patch side soon, its about time!

Zelnick: `You will see future Duke IP` at Take Two

Take Two president Strauss Zelnick has said in a Forbes interview that more Duke Nukem will be coming from the publisher in the future.

“We don’t really talk about it in detail but you will see future Duke IP coming from this company,” he said in the chat.

Zelnick got a little more vague after that, though.

“Part of it is the economic opportunities that interact with entertainment are so huge. Part of it is that we are very creative folks in control. Part of it is we don’t want to ever be in the position of dumping something down just to make another buck,” he added.

“If we can take some of our intellectual property and bring it to another medium in an extraordinary high quality way, that delights consumers and represents an interesting commercial opportunity for us, we will. We have certainly considered doing that with BioShock and with other titles. So far we haven’t brought anything to market, but stay tuned.”

Take Two had the publishing rights for Duke Nukem Forever, released nearly two weeks ago after 14 years in development, through 2K Games.

However, it does not own the IP. That honor belongs to Gearbox, who announced at PAX last year it had bought the rights to Duke from 3D Realms.

Thanks VG247.

Well thanks Duke4.net. :)
http://www.duke4.net/news.php?extend.514.5

PC Action DNF BETA-REVIEW

Enjoy, though its german. :P

 

DNF is arriving!

If you have pre ordered the game via steam directly you can already preload the game. It's about 7 GB big and already on some fans hard drives. WOW you can say you already have the game. 2 more days and all people in Europe can play it. It's here guys..after all these years! :)

I will go dark very soon. But I will keep on updating dukewatch as soon as I experienced the game in it's fullness!

Let's rock!

IGN gives DNF a 9.5??????

 UPDATE: IT's FAKE!!!
IGN rates DNF with a 9.5 out of 10?!

Either this is fake or freaking IGN has turned upside down!

9.5 HOLY MOTHER OF BUDDHA!!!!

Demo released, Pregnator concept art, and home stretch podcast

If you haven't already played the demo get it on steam with your FAC code. 2K also released concept art of the pregnator alien. And finally there is a new podcast waiting for you.

 

PODCAST SEVEN: THE HOME STRETCH

Download audio

May 20, 2011

ELIZABETH: Welcome to the seventh episode of the Duke Nukem Forever podcast series. I’m Elizabeth Tobey, and today I’m talking with Randy, David, Allen, Kristen, and Chris again. We’re discussing what I like to call the “home stretch” – not too long from now, you’ll all be playing Duke Nukem Forever, and these guys are the ones who brought it back to life.

RANDY: I’m Randy Pitchford, President of Gearbox Software.

DAVID: This is David Riegel, I’m President of Triptych.

ALLEN: This is Allen Blum, I work at Triptych as a Level Designer.

KRISTEN: I’m Kristen Haglund and I’m Triptych’s Managing Partner.

ELIZABETH: This game has been in development for over a decade. Can you talk a little bit about the early days; bring us back to that world when Duke Nukem Forever was just fledgling in your minds? And then go and talk about the development cycle through to today.

ALLEN: Well really the whole thought was just to get Duke into a location that Duke would go to, so of course: Vegas. Everything from that point on revolved around Vegas; what would happen, where would Duke go, what areas would be cool to play in? You’d want to go to a strip club, a casino and eventually you’d go to to Hoover Dam, stuff like that.

RANDY: I remember back when we were working together, like when we shipped the Atomic edition? I don’t even remember there being a debate. It was just like of course there’s going to be a sequel and we just kept doing stuff. And Al was tinkering with the build engine and there were some things that were going on that Ken Silverman did to the engine to allow voxels; to add voxels to the engine and some things some guys had done to allow us to fake 3D with room over room and stuff. And everybody just kept doing stuff. Like Allen started building maps in a kind of upgraded Build engine, I remember Brian just started making weapons and crap with voxels. And then I remember one day George just showed up and “Oh I licensed Quake” and we were like, alright, and handed us the disk.

ALLEN: It’s hard to even remember back that far; but yeah like the voxel thing and room over room stuff.

RANDY: Yeah, there was some cool stuff you were doing.

ALLEN: Yeah, with Build it was actually programs and stuff. The room over room stuff they eventually used for Shadow Warrior, which was was interesting.

RANDY: Right, it was really cool. It allowed us to fake 3D back when everything was just 2½D. But it’s like weird, in my memory we’re all just sitting around making stuff, and yeah of course there’s another Duke game. I remember though…remember when Keith joined the company and he had that 2D side scroller with the 4; Duke 4Ever? And we like, “Yeah that title is really clever.”

ALLEN: Yeah, George liked the 4. I thought it was cheesy…so cheesy.

ELIZABETH: So let’s skip in time to 2001 when that famous trailer happened. Can you talk about created that trailer and what the time period for the game really like? What shape was the game in?

ALLEN: Back then the game was in really good shape. We had a lot of maps, there was a lot of game you could play through. It was definitely a highlight of everything we had at that point. Work still needed to be done past that, obviously. So everything in that trailer; there’s a lot of good stuff. Mostly a lot of concepts. There was that one scene when you’re driving down the street and that big army ant or whatever was chasing you. We had just recently got that in at the time so we had a horrible animation of him kind of patting his head ant-style that was kind of weird. But as far as the state of the game, we had a lot of content but most of the stuff needed a lot of polish.

CHRIS: That was and correct me if I’m wrong, but that was one of the only times that Bombshell actually appeared.

RANDY: No the 2001 trailer didn’t have Bombshell. I think that was the earlier one with the Quake engine. She like ran up a ramp into the back of a dropship. But that animation, she was like this…

ALLEN: Yeah, she had arms straight out.

ELIZABETH: For all of you listening, that was an amazing stiff-arm animation by Randy.

ELIZABETH: So skipping forward in time, when 3DR closed, what was the state then, with the game?

KRISTEN: David talked about it a little earlier, relevant to Duke and bringing Duke back to life, there was no narrative, there was no story; there was nothing. There was no ending. There was sort of this planned general idea of how the game was supposed to end; we had a bunch of levels that looked great, but there was nothing to move you between them. So in terms of bringing Duke back to life, one of the major components was we have to have a story, we have to have dialogue, we have to get all of this in and then we have to do all the animation and mo-cap to support that, get the head tracking, get the eye tracking and actually tell the story. We’ve got all the guts and all the pieces but we don’t have anything to make it compelling beyond, “Ooh, I just blew it up and that’s cool; but why did I blow it up?” So we got started on that right away. We started July 9th, that was our first day and I think we flew Valeta (Wensloff) in I think July 13th and that was like instantly we were like: we gotta do that. Because there’s everything that goes along with that, the lip syncing, the mocap and everything has to go with it and so that’s gotta get done.

DAVID: We took over the game July 9th officially and at that point it was really about coming up with a schedule to complete the game in a very short amount of time--in terms of content. We didn’t have the staff at that time to do console ports or multiplayer but the goal that Triptych originally had when we took the game was to finish the content for single-player. And so we had we had a very strict schedule to get the narrative done, get the voice acting recorded, get the NPC behavior done, just a whole list of things we needed to really tie the game together at that point. Because the game was really fun and had all the basic game play and we wanted to make sure that all the ground work from 3D Realms was intact and it’s still intact today. Most of the game is really the 3D Realms version of the game, but we had those very specific challenges to get it done and to tie everything together.

So as Kristen kind of alluded to, one of the fun facts about the game is that the narrative is actually written primarily by two women. Valeta Wensloff and Kristen herself and by myself and some of the rest of the team members too. So that’s really kind of a fun fact.

KRISTEN: Yeah, Valeta and I had never met before. She was someone David knew from a previous project and she came down and helped us out. A lot of the heavy lifting on the writing was done by her and she’s fabulous. Then, David and I, she flew back and we did a lot of the tweaking of the dialogue and what not and then once that was in place, we did two playthroughs as I remember, in our living room with like 10 people in our living room and our flat screen. Randy has seen our fabulous demo room.

We did two play throughs and everybody just threw out these ideas for these one liners and there were some pretty epic one liners that were born from that mad---we gotta have some funny stuff here what with NPCs and what not. I don’t think it was the tradition writing process with a bunch of people sitting around the….I wonder how people will react to know that this Duke was written by two Duke fans who are also, well, there was of course David, but primarily by two Duke fans who were women. I don’t think anyone has picked up on the changes in Duke. He’s as bad as ever in the demos.

DAVID: We had a lot of great lines that are traditional Duke lines that come from George, Scott and Al that …

KRISTEN: Didn’t you maintain a list of them? Like there was a list, a collection of them.

DAVID: Yeah there were the old lines and then we had a lot of great lines from Al and from the guys on the team and a lot of small revisions that have happened in the past few months. Like here at Gearbox some of the stuff that’s come out of PAX and the lines that have kind of come to the forefront that have been driven by trailers and marketing and all these other things, when we present the game to the public, so the writing at this point I think is very polished and I think that everybody is really happy with it.

CHRIS: Randy can you talk about what it was like, from your perspective, to be sitting in that room in David’s house with everyone else, watching the playthrough?

RANDY: It was just as Kristen described, there was amazing stuff but like the spare pieces. It was always cool, but there was like this level and that level and I got the sense, when I finally visited these guys at their house, that they had actually done it: they wired it all up and they connected it together.

And it’s such a great experience and the whole world…anyone who plays this game and loves it owes you guys a lot; and should feel that gratitude for that commitment because I know how hard it is. I remember when we started Gearbox and a very similar kind of thing---there were just 8 or 10 of us. My wife was pregnant. She wrote, my wife wrote the story to Opposing Force and wrote all that…

KRISTEN: Oh awesome.

RANDY: I mean she was pregnant with our first kid and she’d sleep on the floor in my office and take naps in the middle of the day and we’d work until midnight. Because it’s just such an inspiring thing and so much great stuff comes from it, when you’re that deep and that in it. You don’t even think about anything else but making sure you can pull it off.

KRISTEN: Yeah well nobody told us we couldn’t do it …except everyone around us!

DAVID: The whole world.

KRISTEN: The whole world.

DAVID: The whole world thought we were nuts and I don’t take it personally because even my Mom and my Dad didn’t believe we could do it.

KRISTEN: Yeah, his parents would call us and say, “What are you doing? You need to buy real estate” and our friends thought we were crazy. Our house was covered in tape; we had desks everywhere and had to rewire stuff so we could like distribute all of the computers.

DAVID: It was crazy, but it was a fun time. Al and one of our other guys, Ben I think would get there sometime between 8-9 in the morning and then we’d have a couple guys like our contractors who would work their day jobs and not leave until 11-11:30 at night for those 6 or 7 months it was nuts.

KRISTEN: And our cats got used to them and would wait for them at the door. They would get stressed and play with the cat on the floor with the feather thing. It was definitely crazy.

DAVID: But it was great. We had a really good feeling at the end, when everything was coming together. We didn’t have a real distribution plan. We talked to Scott and George a little bit and had some crazy ideas about how to get the game out there. We were grateful at the end that we could work with Gearbox and the game could really be presented to the public the way that it deserves to be presented.

KRISTEN: Because we had some crazy ideas about boxing it up old-school style and selling it like that. I mean, we’re talking really…and everyone was like, “All right!”

RANDY: Duke Nukem Forever: Bootleg Edition.

KRISTEN: Yeah! And the thing about it was that was amazing was we were coming up with these crazy ideas and we did our own trailer because we didn’t know at that point…

DAVID: We didn’t know the extent of Gearbox’s involvement…

KRISTEN: We didn’t know any of this was coming so there was a trailer that we did that was pretty awesome, I think….

DAVID: It’s in the Extras on the game, so people will get to see that.

KRISTEN: I think the thing that was amazing was we were coming up with these crazy ideas because a lot of angles were closing as to how we were going to get this thing to market. And whatever ideas we were coming up with the entire team was like, “All right. Let’s do that!”

RANDY: Whatever it takes!

KRISTEN: One of the crazier ideas was we were going to put a web cam in the 3DR offices showing the Triptych team like boxing up the game and sending it out. Like pay $5 and the Triptych team member of your choice will sign the box. We figured Mica and Al---Mica being our cat---would be the most popular. But we just had….and nobody flinched, which was really I think a testament at how amazing the Triptych team is.

ALLEN: Well what’s interesting is history repeats itself, because that’s basically how Duke 3D was. It was a garage band, just doing it, getting it all going, putting it together and when it was all done we were packing boxes.

KRISTEN: Yeah, well I think that’s where the idea came from was that you told us that’s how you did it. We were like, “We could do that.”

ALLEN: Yeah, direct sales back then. It eventually made it into the stores and all that but a lot of the direct sales were there in the office, packing…

RANDY: Just picture Allen, and like Doug and Dirk, like Richard and those guys, Todd and like they’re done with the final build and they’re taking manuals and disks and folding the cardboard and putting them in. Just imagine that; picture that.

KRISTEN: I want to tell you I was grateful when you came along because I was like “I’m going to starting having to call UPS to set up deliveries”. So thank you. Thank you for coming along, because our plan was not a very good plan.

RANDY: Well fortunately, when you have a world class partner helping you — publishing partner, that really knows how to market and distribute the game worldwide, it changes everything. And now your work, what you created can reach millions of people. And that’s really exciting.

KRISTEN: I think it’s a much, much better alternative than us and the ….

RANDY: Logistics is actually a limiting factor.

KRISTEN: It is. We actually did the math on it and we were, “Oh this is not going to be…”

RANDY: Just think how many boxes you can pack…

KRISTEN: Yes we were like, “All right, we’ll pack this many boxes in an hour and I’ll have the UPS guys coming in every 6….and this is not going to work.

ELIZABETH: So I guess that brings us to the last question and chapter which is how Duke Nukem Forever came to the home of Gearbox, how many people do you think overall worked on the game and how many are working on it now?

KRISTEN: I don’t know how long the credits list is right now.

RANDY: Right now there’s probably close to right around 100 people that are doing things between the Triptych guys, the Piranha team and all the…we’ve rallied a lot of support from within our technology groups at Gearbox to help land the game. So there’s probably about 100 people involved right now. Overall it would be difficult to hazard a guess; but there’s several credits in the game: Triptych’s credits, Piranha’s credits, and Gearbox’s credits. George and Joe and Scott those guys got together and tried to do the best to create the definitive 3D Realms credits and we have those in the game. We’ve also created a web page which invites people we may not know about. The game’s been in the hands of several publishers and there’s some guys who probably put a lot of effort into thinking about how to market Duke Nukem Forever when it was at, for example, GT Interactive. We’re trying to find out who those people are.

When you think about a game like Duke, and especially for anybody who’s been a part of 3D Realms, you don’t get involved in that thinking like you’re just going ride; kind of jump in and ride something. You get involved because you love it, you want to be a part of it and you want to contribute. And Duke is larger than life so you want to add to that in some way. So for most of people who’ve ever been involved, especially at the development side, most of the people didn’t get to the end zone. It’s just, I think Allen is probably the only one who was there from day one to the closing day. He’s the only one.

ELIZABETH: You win the prize.

ALLEN: I did thethe math and when it finally ships in a month or so, I will have worked 2 years long than anyone else on the project.

CHRIS: Oh wow. That’s incredible.

RANDY: And like who are the second place people? Probably guys like Keith and Stephen Cole and those guys?

ALLEN: Yeah, they were around for a long time, probably 8 years. George had been around…

RANDY: George, of course, to 2009.

ALLEN: Yeah, so I got 2 years over him.

KRISTEN: We’re going to have to throw you a party.

RANDY: Well if you count the time you’ve been like talking on forums, you’ve probably got him beat by a long shot. There’s a lot of George in the game and obviously we wouldn’t have it without him either. George deserves, I mean no one can take anything away from his commitment to this property and to Duke. I’m really thankful that he trusted us. I know it was really hard. I mean there was a time where, you look at the decisions they made, they’d rather burn their own house down than let something bad happen to it. So the fact that George and Scott trusted me and Brian Martel and trusted Gearbox with the brand means a lot to me and it’s my commitment to be worthy of that trust.

CHRIS: How did that come about? How did Duke go from 3D Realms and Triptych to Gearbox?

RANDY: The deal that Triptych and 3D Realms did was one that 3D Realms sort of engaged Triptych to finish the game and there was an incentive there, for Triptych to do that. The deal that 3D Realms and Gearbox did was an acquisition of the property; the game and the brand. That took a while, I mean, that deal we talked about that and negotiated that deal for about 6 months. Finally closed it right at the end of 2009 and then we were able to take these next steps. One of the most odd parts about that from my point of view was that I kind of went into it at the beginning…some of the feelings I had were that story ending, the way like it felt like it was going to end in May of 2009, it was a terrible ending. That’s not a story we should….Duke Nukem was the first commercial game I ever was involved in. So I feel that character is part of my legacy. Part of why I’m a game maker was because I trusted George and Scott and I just wanted to work with Al and those other guys and learn from those guys. And I feel that Duke is part of my legacy too so I didn’t want to…on a personal level, I didn’t want the story to end that way.

So when I parsed the brand and the situation with Duke, it felt like there was a business case to be made; that it was a rational business decision as well. When you think about where it is today, it seems like a much more sane business decision but you can imagine back in that second half of 2009---there’s a lot of people who would look at that and think that that was a terrible business decision. And fortunately, I disagreed and so did Christoph, who once I had completed the acquisition and I went to him and told him what I had accomplished there---Christoph is the President of 2K Games, he was excited. Because what it meant that finally this game that we had all been waiting for, finally this thing that’s supposed to happen, there was a path so it could happen. He got behind it instantly as well. His commitment, belief and faith is the reason why we get to have this as well.

CHRIS: So last question: Why do you think it survived all these years? How did it survive all these years?

RANDY: It survived because of people like George and Allen and even David and Kristen. Everybody that’s ever gotten involved and believes in it and thinks it’s special and rare and important. And it is. There’s no other entertainment like it. It’s a very weird, interesting, rare, unique mix of things both from the interactive space and storytelling space so it deserves to exist. That’s what I think.

KRISTEN: I think it’s because Duke is both a satire and a stereotype, and yet he is extremely compelling because I think there is a little bit of Duke that lives in everyone. Everybody kind of sort of wants to do what Duke does and wants to be. I’ve said it before, that I think Duke is a very guilty pleasure that we all sort of enjoy indulging just a little bit and I think that it’s because it’s so simple and it just says, hey that’s what it is and you like it and we know it and we’re just going to let you have it. I think that’s why Duke survives and will continue to survive.

RANDY: What do you think Al?

ALLEN: For me personally? After Duke 3D and everybody enjoyed that and everything, the fans just want a sequel. And for me personally, I just want to finish it and give people what they were waiting for. They’ve been waiting for it for too long. When you think of the movies you’ve seen and you’re like, “Oh I can’t wait for the sequel of that” and things happen and it never comes out and it’s just disappointing.

For me personally, working on it from the beginning, I think people deserve that and it’s probably not the right thing for me to do; to devote so much time and energy to it, but I think in the end, it’s worth it.

RANDY: Your commitment to your customers is unparalleled, literally.

ELIZABETH: So Duke is alive today because of you guys. How does that feel?

RANDY: Pretty good. My hope is that the fans love it and my hope is that everyone who ever put any bit of sweat into it feels gratified by the fact that there’s a happy ending to the story.

ELIZABETH: Thanks guys. This concludes the second-to-last episode of this podcast series, at least until the game releases. Thanks for listening.

Gearbox SHOP opens!

COME GET SOME Merchandise!

http://shop.gearboxsoftware.com/

These are the articles available so far

DNF demo: I can already smell it!

If you are a FAC member TODAY is the day the demo goes live!!!

WOOT

 

Duke4.net is on it too! 

DNF LAUNCH TRAILER!

COME GET SOME!

The trailer is fucking awesome, but I miss grabbag :(

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FV9ZF621uc&feature=share

IT'S DOOOOOONNNNNNEEEEE!

Source

Press Release:

2K Games and Gearbox Software Announce Duke Nukem Forever® Has “Gone Gold”


Vaporware no more! Gaming’s most legendary hero makes his triumphant return this June


New York, NY – May 24, 2011 – 2K Games and Gearbox Software are proud to announce that Duke Nukem Forever®, one of the most anticipated entertainment properties of all time, has “gone gold” and will be available at retailers on June 10, 2011 internationally and on June 14, 2011 in North America. The road to gold was paved over the course of 15 years and its legendary path climaxes on the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system and Windows PC. Gamers who pre-order the title from select outlets will ensure that they are among the first to experience this legendary piece of gaming history when the demo* launches on June 3, 2011 for all platforms, exclusively for Duke Nukem First Access Club Members.


"Duke Nukem Forever is the game that was once thought to be unshipppable, and yet here we are, on the precipice of history,” said Christoph Hartmann, president of 2K. “Today marks an amazing day in the annals of gaming lore, the day where the legend of Duke Nukem Forever is finally complete and it takes that final step towards becoming a reality.”


Created over the span of 15 years, Duke Nukem Forever was first developed with the intense passion and commitment from an inspired group of dedicated designers, artists and programmers at 3D Realms under the direction of game industry icon, George Broussard.


“Duke Nukem Forever and its journey to store shelves is legendary,” said George Broussard, creative director at 3D Realms. “It's an epic tale of four game development studios that banded together and did the unthinkable and shipped the unshippable. When you play this game you will be reminded of that epic journey at every turn and in every small detail of the game. The character, attitude, interactivity, gameplay and political incorrectness combine to make a Duke Nukem game a unique gaming experience. In the timeless words of Duke Nukem it's finally time to 'Come Get Some'. Come be a part of gaming history.”


In 2009, after many believed that Duke Nukem Forever would never be completed, a small team of intrepid developers, known as Triptych Studios, resurrected the dream. Through their inspiring and steadfast commitment to the game and their exemplary talent and skill, they finally assembled the pieces to create an incredible, epic and cohesive gameplay experience. Under the production of Gearbox Software, Triptych Studios, Piranha Games and many other contributors joined together in a heroic effort to complete the long awaited game as a polished, full-featured triple-A title.


"Always bet on Duke, I did," said Randy Pitchford, president of Gearbox Software. "I bet on all of the developers who have ever been a part of this legendary project and I bet that none of us want to live in a world without the Duke. I've played the final game and it is an incredible experience - a once-in-a-lifetime opus of interactive entertainment that reminds me once again why Duke Nukem is our King. The developers of Duke Nukem Forever at 3D Realms, Triptych, Piranha and finally at Gearbox deserve our thanks and respect for never giving up and have truly shown us that they have balls of steel!"


Strictly for the biggest Duke Nukem fans, the First Access Club grants members exclusive access to the pre-release demo on June 3, 2011 so that they are amongst the first to experience gaming history in the making. There are multiple ways fans can join the exclusive First Access Club, by pre-ordering the game from select retailers or by purchasing the Borderlands Game of the Year Edition on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 system and Windows PC.


True Duke Nukem die-hards will want to get their hands on the Duke Nukem Forever Balls of Steel Edition. This package is spilling over-the-brim with legendary content that is not to be missed by those who want the ultimate experience of this historic arrival. Premium items, such as a Duke Nukem Bust and an art book that chronicles the development of Duke Nukem Forever, flank a package that is overflowing with content. Check out www.dukenukemforever.com/preorder/ to see exactly how much stuff could be crammed into one box.


Apologizing to no one, Duke Nukem Forever is the high-octane video game equivalent of a Hollywood summer blockbuster. Starring the legendary lady killer and alien slayer, Duke Nukem Forever brings gamers back to a blastastic time when games were filled with head-popping, bone-rattling action, brazenly crude humor, impossibly statuesque women dying for affection, and catchy one-liners meant to make you laugh out loud.

Duke Nukem Forever is rated M for Mature by the ESRB. For more information on the game, including where to pre-order, please visit www.dukenukemforever.com.

FINALLY...this moment is history right there!

Guys and Gals it was a wild trip, thank you for walking the walk with me.

Podcast Six: Multiplayer released

The latest and last podcast heavily spoils multiplayer tactics. Reading these makes me sooo want to play it with some friends!

Download

Transcript:

PODCAST SIX: MULTIPLAYER IN DNF

May 20, 2011

ELIZABETH: Welcome to the sixth episode of the Duke Nukem Forever podcast series. I’m Elizabeth Tobey, and today I’m back in Plano with some of the guys from Triptych and Gearbox to talk about multiplayer – from weapons to modes to maps. Before we get started, let’s let the team introduce themselves, and then we’ll get to the meat of this podcast.
JAMES: James Lopez; QA Lead
NICK: Nick Wilson; Central FX at Gearbox
BRAD: Brad Jacobs; Level Designer at Triptych Games
ANDREW: Andrew Baker; Level Designer at Triptych Games
ELIZABETH: So today we’re talking about multiplayer in Duke Nukem Forever which I know is going to be a huge topic for the fans; everybody loves multiplayer. Can you talk about how multiplayer came about in Duke Nukem Forever?
ANDREW: Well the multiplayer had always existed. It was always planned, even when we were incredibly single player focused and working entirely only on the single player game back in the 3D Realms days, multiplayer was always functional, it always existed. But it wasn’t until this last year or so that a lot of it became finalized. And we started off with bringing back that basic multiplayer functionality up to speed a little bit. Triptych’s lead programmer, Rob [Faison], went in and did some quick clean-up for it and we started putting together some test maps. I remember Brad made the first couple of test maps.
BRAD: Yeah.
ANDREW: And we just started playing those and even with all the incredible glitches, complete craziness and sometimes non-functional things that would happen when you’re dealing with a very, very beta thing—we were having a blast.
BRAD: Yeah, it was fun right off the bat.
ANDREW: So we were really excited when we got Piranha [Games] to finish it and bring it to completion.
JAMES: Yeah that’s something that when Gearbox got involved and we were looking at all the design documents and the idea of what is this game supposed to be; when we got to the multiplayer portion of it everything was about attitude and faithfulness to the brand. Does this “feel” Duke? Does this feel like this is unique to Duke? It was never about matching what anybody else was doing; it was always about “does this fit with the single player?” “Does this fit with the idea of what a Duke multiplayer should be?” I’ve been on the project for about a year, and we’ve been looking at multiplayer on a daily basis and it’s still fun to pick up the control. And that’s something that’s really unique, because there are people that work on so many different games where they don’t like what they’re working on, because it burns you out looking at it every day. But we still have a lot of fun. We’re always just teasing each other, like “Aw in your face” or “No, you can’t get me if you’re shrunk, can you?” So it’s still a lot of fun and all very Duke appropriate.
ELIZABETH: We’ll talk a little bit before we get into game play, modes and maps about the people making multiplayer. Who are the studios, who are the minds, who are the brains and what are they doing?
BRAD: Well after we got our rough multiplayer stuff going, Piranha came along and was hired by Gearbox to do the multiplayer portion of the game and they really grabbed that by the horns and took it in a really good direction. I think one of the most satisfying things for me was working on single player and we would take breaks to play multiplayer and see how it was progressing. We designed a couple of maps, the layouts for a few maps and to play that and see “Oh I’m unlocking something, I’m getting experience, I’m getting these in” to find ourselves addicted to our own game, even though we didn’t design that from the ground up. That whole system was Piranha, so that was very assuring to us.
ANDREW: Yeah, I remember it was great to play it as new elements of the game came in and became functional in multiplayer, that was really exciting. We tried to help them with environments. We worked on a couple of maps to bolster their maps, their group of maps and then handed them off to them when they got to a certain point where we couldn’t continue anymore; we had to go back to single player. And they’ve done a great job. They took all those maps and made them their own. I think people are really going to like it. It uses a ton of elements from the single player game I think in a way that people are going to find interesting; weapons and other abilities Duke has.
JAMES: I play a lot of multiplayer games and I always get kind of annoyed when I go to a map I never saw in the single player campaign. I’m like, “I feel no attachment to this. Why do I care about this map,” aside from “Oh this is a sniper map or this is a good grenading map.” You know, everything that you’re in for multiplayer is something that in some form or fashion was in the campaign. So it always has this familiarity to it; it feels like you should be there.
NICK: You’re probably looking for missing features too. There’s always something in the single player that’s not in the multiplayer experience, but that’s not the case in Duke. You have all the same weapons, all the same items, etc.
JAMES: Yeah, that’s a good point.
ELIZABETH: Before we jump ahead to weapons which I know they’re going to be dying to start dissecting, let’s talk about the modes of multiplayer. What are they? What can you do?
JAMES: There are four modes. There’s “Duke Match”, which is a free for all; there is “Team Duke Match”, which is team deathmatch; there is “Hail to the King”, which is a king of the hill mode so there will be a ring that you have to control and you want as many of your people there to defend it because the multiplayer is very brutal. The multiplayer forces you to be active. You can’t just hide in the corner. If you’re hiding in the corner, you’re not contributing. You have to be involved. The other mode is “Capture the Babe” which is a very refreshing take on “Capture the Flag”. You go to the enemies spawn point and you grab their babe and you have to take the babe back to your place and you score a point. She will put her hand in front of your face and you can’t see where you’re going; you can’t see anything. And it’s really good, because during this time you can still defend yourself but it’s with a little small but powerful Derringer which is great. Because even as people are chasing you, they might think they have you and then you one shot them and they’re gone. But you’re very vulnerable during this time because one: you have this giant target on you; and two: you can still be shrunk as you’re carrying this babe and you don’t want that to happen, because she will crush you. So it’s really awesome. It’s very funny and is probably our favorite mode in the testing department.
BRAD: In my opinion why that’s one of the funniest modes too because there’s a lot of opportunity for dialogue. There’s a lot of dialogue in the multiplayer and there’s a lot of multiplayer specific dialogue. So there’s a lot of humor that you’re going to miss out on in the game if you never play multiplayer.
JAMES: You know that’s a great point actually. I haven’t really thought much about but a lot of multiplayer games don’t have dialogue. It’s just on your headset, if you use that at all. But there’s a lot of engagement in multiplayer.
ELIZABETH: So about weapons. What are the weapons and is there anything in multiplayer that’s unique to multiplayer?
JAMES: There is actually one item that’s unique to multiplayer and that’s the jetpack. The jetpack is something that’s not in the single player game. It is an item that you pick up that when you follow the button prompt you can fly around. But it’s not something that you automatically fly up, it’s more the direction you choose to go. So if you activate the jetpack but don’t tell it where to go, you’re wasting fuel while essentially standing in place or hovering, that’s what it would be. So that’s something unique. But all of the other weapons you’ll find also in the single player game like the 1911 which is a strong side arm pistol.
CHRIS: And based off something that was actually a real weapon.
JAMES: Yeah.
CHRIS: Both that there was a real weapon, there was actually a 1911 pistol, and the one in the game is actually based on one that George Broussard bought and brought into the office.
BRAD: Same with the shotgun. At 3D Realms, the shotgun from Duke 3D is a real shotgun.
JAMES: So George just has this pistol gripped shotgun he brought in?
BRAD: Actually I think it was in the animator’s office for a while.
ANDREW: Yeah, yeah.
BRAD: That was one of the coolest things for me, going to 3D Realms for the first time: seeing that.
ANDREW: One of the coolest things, exactly, was coming into the studio for the first time and seeing their prop department. That’s how a lot of the art for games was created before Photoshop was a sophisticated as it was and digital photography was as sophisticated as it was. If you needed to model a pair of boots for Duke and do the art for it, you went out and bought motorcycle boots. There actually are Duke Nukem’s boots in George Broussard’s possession: the ones that they were based on for all the first games and even Duke 3D.
BRAD: I will say this. It was very obvious early on in our multiplayer testing, that Shrink Ray play is awesome and we started trying to capitalize that within the design of our own maps. One of the maps I worked on, a construction [yard], there’s a lot of tables and there’s holes in the wall with the studs still intact in the walls. So if you’re shrunk, you could slip through there. So you’d be in a room, having a battle with someone and they’ll shrink you and they’ll run over to step on you and you’ll give them the slip by slipping through a mouse-sized hole in the wall and going around and then they try to go around and you can cut back through the other way. So it really turns in to this cat and mouse game, because when shrunk, you’re on a timer until you get enlarged again. And if you get enlarged, while you’re shrunk in a space you can’t fit in, you’re dead. So if you shrink someone and they run under a table and you’re shooting at them and you’re large, trying to nail them with your pistol and they’re dodging you all around, they know they have to get out from under that table pretty quickly or they’re going to die. It really changes the gameplay for that amount of time. It really twists everything on its head.
ANDREW: An additional thing is when you’re shrunk, it scales your gravity and weight as well so you can make your escape sometimes by leaping what people would think is to your death, but you settle slowly to the ground the way an ant would fall out of a skyscraper.
JAMES: Those are great points because the shrunk gameplay is really unique and it’s fraught with peril. You have to be really aware of your surroundings, because you’re not going to make your stand out in the open, shrunk. That’s ridiculous. Everyone will—especially in Duke Match, a free-for-all, if you’re shrunk, everyone forgets what they’re doing to come over and stomp on you.
BRAD: Just to do it, yeah.
JAMES: So yeah, you have to know where you are because there are tables everywhere and there’s some outdoor maps where there are rocks. If that rock’s jutting out at all, you might die underneath it when you grow up. So you have to be very careful and very aware of your surroundings while also remaining on the move. It goes back to the thing I was saying earlier: the multiplayer forces you to be involved. You can’t just stand still. If you stand still, someone’s going to destroy you.
NICK: The shrink ray, even in Duke 3D, that was the same reaction everybody had. There was this distinct “worrroooh” sound when someone shrunk and everybody stops to go chase this dude down and step on him. And like everyone’s laughing maniacally about it and really there’s one point to be gained, but that’s the testament to how fun the multiplayer is in Duke games.
CHRIS: Something that stands out to me when I play, when the shrink ray’s in effect, is that it almost feels dishonorable to use a pistol, or a shotgun or a rocket launcher and it’s really weird because a kill is a kill, right?
JAMES: Right.
CHRIS: You get that point regardless and there’s nothing in game that says, “Oh you’re a jerk” or “What a cheap death” or like “Come on grow a pair”. No, it’s just there’s something in your mind, or at least in my mind—maybe I’m broken — but there’s something in my mind that when I see somebody shrunk ,I’m like “Nope, gotta step on them. Gotta step on them.”
JAMES: Gotta step on them.
BRAD: Gotta step on them.
ANDREW: Yep. It sounds like the same thing that happens to me with the Freeze Ray, if I can mention that. When you freeze somebody, you can switch to another weapon and give a shotgun blast and just shatter them. Or you can get up close and personal and kick their head off and shatter them.
JAMES: Or you can plant a trip mine on them.
BRAD: Yeah, that’s the ultimate.
ANDREW: So there’s almost this subconscious desire to kill with a little bit of style.
BRAD: Yeah. I think planting a trip mine….the first time I planted a trip mine on somebody’s face while they were frozen that might be one of the most memorable moments I’ve had playing multiplayer. Because they can see….half of their screen is filled up with this trip mine on their face and they know they’re just waiting to die.
CHRIS: I love the trip mine so very much because it’s such a call back to the older days when I would just go home and play demos of games on MSN Game Space. But like proximity mines and remote mines and all that are such a wonderful staple of like chaotic, evil multiplayer and being a jerk. It’s so much fun to just throw it on a launch pad or throw it somewhere you know someone is going to walk but place it just right so that they don’t see it or avoid it or they’re going to land there.
ANDREW: What I love, instead of doing the typical thing you might do if you’re in one of the more enclosed spaces; a lot of the maps have interior/exterior spaces with back hallways and some basements and things you can go into. And whenever you go into those back hallways, you’re always aware, “Oh, I could possibly encounter an enemy at any moment” so a lot of times, you want to have your close up and personal weapons when you’re in those small spaces, like the shotgun. I completely gave up on the shotgun in small spaces. I keep my hand over the key I have bound for the trip mine. And that is probably the best thing is running through a base, having a quick encounter with someone when they pop out of a doorway and you’re like “eh, eh, eh” and then bam! They’re just covered in trip mines and you run away. It’s great and you just hear the damage behind you.
JAMES: Definitely don’t want to give away too many things, because--- not out of confidentiality, but I want people to figure this out on their own. There are some very devious things you can do with a trip mine. Chris mentioned one of them and we didn’t actually think of that immediately. It took us a little while. We’ve got this guy on the test team named* Tim Lohrenz, who is this really nice, soft spoken guy; but he is a menace in multiplayer and he just found every spot where you cannot see around the corner and he’d plant a trip mine there. Every jump, he’d figure exactly where you’d land and plant a trip mine. You don’t want to put it on the jump pad, because someone might see it there. You want to put it on the destination, so they think they got away from you scot-free and then they realize they’re plummeting to their death and it’s their fault.
CHRIS: And you can’t do anything at that point. Like all you can say is, “Oh shit there’s a trip mine there.”
BRAD: Yeah.
CHRIS: You can’t be, “Oh yeah, I’m going to steer clear of it” unless you’re fortunate enough to…
ELIZABETH: It’s just like, goodbye.
BRAD: Well not to give another strategy away, but trip mines are easily disposed of with pipe bombs. So it’s not like it’s an over-powered broken thing. I mean if you’re careful, you’re not going to get killed by a trip mine.
ANDREW: If you’ve committed to a jump pad jump and you’re incoming on a bunch of trip mines and you can get your RPG out in time, you can clear your way. And that adds more depth to the game.
JAMES: The pipe bombs are another very great thing. Someone may think they have this unassailable position and you just lob that thing up there and go 3, 2, click.
ANDREW: Yeah, we’re pretty happy with the way they bounce.
JAMES: Oh yeah, yeah. That’s one of the great points is they have great bouncing to them.
ELIZABETH: Yeah, can you talk, before we wrap up, about the customization options? Because it’s not just a bunch of clones with different shirt colors running around.
ANDREW: No, no, no. We have eyewear. We have headgear.
BRAD: Eyewear, hats, all sorts of stuff you can unlock. There are a lot of unlockables. I don’t know if we can get into the My Dig stuff. That’s a whole other realm of unlockables specific to multiplayer, which doesn’t even have anything to do with the customization of Duke. But yeah, there are different shirt colors, there’s different kinds of shirts you can wear; lots of ways to make your own Duke.
JAMES: Yeah, and not all of them make you look cool. Some of the accessories you can put on make you look goofy, which to me that’s my favorite thing. Whenever one of these guys is on a frenzy, just killing everything around him and he’s got on some jerkwad tank top or some goofy hat. Like everyone knows who that guy is and they all want to take him down, but they just can’t. They really start to hate that Duke.
BRAD: Yeah, that guy with the double rainbow shirt…
ELIZABETH: I know that we could probably talk endlessly about multiplayer, but I think that you’ve given everyone a good overview. Thanks guys.
BRAD: Thanks Piranha!
JAMES: Yes, thanks Piranha!
ELIZABETH: If you guys are anything like me, you could probably listen to these guys talk about multiplayer for a lot longer than this podcast has lasted – but we had to let the team get back to doing what they do best: making the game awesome. But don’t worry – when the game comes out, these guys will be online and I’m sure you’ll be able to get in a match or two with them.

DNF demo exlusive for FAC on June 3rd

Watch the announcement video here

Leaked video of the internet demo?!

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbR3qVGUgs0&feature=player_embedded

Wow nice intro with the companies logos on the dices! But the demo is the same as the Pax one. Didn't Randy said the demo for the internet will be different?!

We will see soon enough. I predict DNF demo early next week! :)

UPDATE: Crystal ball says: DNF: Shrinkage video upcoming

I predict a DNF video being released about Shrinkage in the next few hours.

Watch this space.... ;)

UPDATE: DNF shrinkage footage!

DNF system requirements revealed!

Wow, DNF should run glorious on old pc's

Minimum Specifications

• OS: Windows XP/Vista/7
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.0 Ghz / AMD Athlon 64 X2 @ 2.0 Ghz
• Memory: 1 Gb
• Hard Drive: 10 Gb free
• Video Memory: 256 MB
• Video Card: nVidia GeForce 7600 / ATI Radeon HD 2600
• Sound Card: DirectX Compatible

Recommended Specifications

• OS: Windows XP/Vista/7
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.4 Ghz / AMD Athlon 64 X2 @ 2.6 Ghz
• Memory: 2 Gb
• Hard Drive: 10 Gb free
• Video Memory: 512 MB
• Video Card: nVidia GeForce 8800 GTS / ATI Radeon HD 3850
• Sound Card: DirectX Compatible

OTHER REQUIREMENTS & SUPPORTS
Initial installation requires one-time internet connection for Steam authentication; software installations required (included with the game) include Steam Client, Microsoft DirectX, Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable (ATL), Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable, and AMD Dual Core Optimizer. (AMD optimizer required only for specific AMD processors to run the game correctly, but installs for all of them.)

Software license terms available at www.take2games.com/eula. Non-transferable access to special features such as exclusive, unlockable, downloadable or online content, services, or functions may require single-use serial code, additional fee and/or online account registration (13+). Access to special features may require internet connection, may not be available to all users, and may, upon 30 days notice, be terminated, modified or offered under different terms. Online play and download requires broadband internet service. User responsible for associated fees.

Source

Massive update: new podcast, battlelord concepts, screenshots and papercraft revealed

Download the new podcast

PODCAST FOUR: ATMOSPHERE IN DUKE NUKEM FOREVER

April 27, 2011

ELIZABETH: Welcome to the fourth episode of the Duke Nukem Forever podcast series. I’m Elizabeth Tobey, and today I’m with some of the guys from Triptych to talk about what goes in to making the atmosphere in DNF. Through art, level design, and an array of different audio tricks, these guys bring their version of Vegas to life.
ERIC: My name is Eric Von Rothkirch and I’m Audio Director at Triptych Games.
BRAD: My name is Brad Jacobs and I’m a Level Designer here at Triptych Games.
ANDREW: My name is Andrew Baker and I’m a Level Designer here at Triptych Games.
CHRIS D: My name is Chris DeSimone and I’m a CG artist at Triptych Games.
ELIZABETH: For today’s podcast we’re talking about atmosphere and location and everything that goes in to making the world of DNF believable. So let’s start with the broad and obvious. Where does Duke Nukem Forever take place and why did you choose to put it there?
CHRIS FAYLOR: The answer here is Vegas, by the way.
CHRIS D: The game Duke Nukem takes place in a variety of locations but mainly Vegas is the backdrop for the game and that’s something that was decided a long time ago, before my time; back when they first started in ’97.
ELIZABETH: More than just the where of the game, could you talk about when it takes place and sort of the liberties that you took with that “when”?
ERIC: It’s always been kind of a “near future” not really a specific time, but near future.
BRAD: I think it’s more specifically 12 years since the last game; so it’s kind of an alternate universe thing.
ANDREW: Absolutely. It takes place after Duke 3D. It is sort of a sequel. So you imagine the world of Duke 3D which is kind of an alternate United States---imagine what’s happened in 10-15 years, since then.
BRAD: Yeah.
ELIZABETH: So on a more granular level, can you talk more about some of the locations and places that you’ll see in Duke Nukem Forever and why did you decide to build out those spaces? Now I’m not just going individual levels or maps, but also indoor versus outdoor and how that really translates to the mood and also to the game play.
CHRIS D: Well, like I said before there are several different locations and mainly one of them is Vegas and of course if you’re in Vegas, you want to see a casino. And of course, in our game, Duke owns a casino so you’ll get to see what kind of a casino Duke would actually own. As well you’ll also get to see the outside and there was actually a little bit of fighting going on between what to show as far as the exterior of Vegas: should it be at night or should it be during the day? And we felt it actually looked better during the day because we could get better results from the way it looked ‘cause at night you just don’t see as much. And I know that people want to see Vegas at night, but we kind of went the other route with that. And then we also have a lot of terrain maps as well as the Hoover Dam, which of course you know is near Vegas. There’s also, I don’t know if I can say it-- there’s also kind of like an alien environment which the gamer will eventually see. I’m not going to reveal too much.
ANDREW: I know one thing I wanted to add real quick was as well as Duke’s casino, you get to see other Duke themed businesses and projects throughout the game—and I don’t want to give anything away but you go to a couple of other places that Duke may or may not be involved with his franchises and projects which were pretty interesting and cool.
CHRIS F: What I thought was interesting is that those aren’t just---well obviously the brands and franchises are made up---but the locations and even most of Vegas in the game is based on real world Vegas and then just flipped, like “what if Duke really owned Vegas?” Because he saved the world and became such a phenomenon that he could do anything he wanted.
ANDREW: I remember a funny thing was that George [Broussard] goes to Vegas or went to Vegas a lot and he brought back a whole bunch of photos from the strip that helped a lot of people. Basically he cruised the streets in his Lamborghini and took photos for a while so it gave us a good basis for a lot of locations and backdrops.
CHRIS D: Yeah that was back in ’97 or ’98 but none of us were there. Al [Blum] was. Yeah and he actually took a lot of the guys who were working at 3D Realms to Vegas and they actually stayed at a bunch of the different casinos and took reference pictures.
ELIZABETH: Yeah I’ve seen pictures of people at the Hoover Dam too.
BRAD: Speaking about Vegas streets, going back to what you were saying about daytime, a lot of games do Vegas at night and us doing Vegas during the daytime not only made it fresher, but it shows off the war a lot better, during the daytime. It’s sort of like the morning after the worst Vegas party there could possibly be; it kind of has that vibe to it and I always thought that was really fitting to Duke.
ANDREW: The alien ship showed up and turned everybody into Pig Cops.
BRAD: Yeah, that kind of thing. It’s a bad thing, yeah.
ELIZABETH: People often focus on the look of the world, in general, and you know the concept art of the big vistas; but what makes the gaming world to me are the little details, the brands that you were talking about ---the sounds, either ambient or the noises you’re actually hearing during combat. How did you guys make that realistic yet fantastical? What did you aim for and what did you focus on when making every little detail that brought the world to life?
CHRIS D: I would say that it wasn’t exactly entirely planned. I mean there were parts where like with Vegas, you kind of knew what we wanted to do and in some instances they would kind of give---I’ll just give a for instance---like a task for you to do; like another casino.
ANDREW: Yep. We approached it from both directions. We had designers that would work kind of grey box basic designs up and then artists would try and bring those to life. But we also had artist do kind of 3D concept art for us and just build the places and then we’d look at it and say, “OK well you can cut this here so I can separate these here to make this modular” and then make levels from that and they both worked.
CHRIS F: And then that 3D concept art the artists made, that wasn’t just some guy that came off the street; that was someone who actually had a background in architecture.
ANDREW: Right, one of them, Andrew Kerschner.
BRAD: Speaking to the humor and the art, like I think a lot of the humor in the game; there’s so many hidden pieces of art to find that have little jokes on them, little labels to read. There’s just jokes everywhere. I think that process really worked to the game’s favor because you had all these artists that said, “Oh I really get to put jokes in everything?” So they would just sneak in jokes whenever they could and we would just be play testing our maps and find a new piece of art and find a new joke. It was just adding value to the game, all the time.
ERIC: Speaking to some of the character and the details, what you were talking about; the mixture between real world and more over the top stuff, audio-wise, that’s always been kind of a struggle and a fun challenge. Like say you have a desert environment. Out in the desert it’s arid and windy and things like that. You don’t want it to be too realistic; you want it to be comical with little elements, like the tumble weed blowing in the background and things like that: the classics.
ANDREW: Yeah, like cliché it up, which is a good thing.
ERIC: Yeah. You almost can’t go too original with the iconic stuff. You have to bring in elements that people recognize, so we tried to do that as much as possible throughout the levels, when designing the environments.
BRAD: That’s really helped the flavor in general, I’d say.
ELIZABETH: How about casting the characters and the voices, the sounds that you hear? There’s a lot beyond just Duke’s voice that you hear that adds to the mood of the game.
ERIC: There’s a lot of dialogue in the game. You mean the NPC’s? The NPC’s we cast a lot of them at Triptych and as it turns out some of the voices were the same voices that are in Borderlands, but we didn’t know that. We did not know that; didn’t plan that.
That was just a funny coincidence, and when Randy came and looked at the game the first time, he actually recognized some of the voices and said, “Oh, I know that voice.” That was pretty funny. We went with people who could or who were willing to go over the top and were comfortable going over the top. Some people turned us down saying “This is just too goofy” and that’s fine. So we ended up finding a lot of people who had more of a silly side and wanted to do more silly stuff in their acting. That ended up working out really well for the actors that we chose.
ELIZABETH: Going a little bit into the history of the game and the long dev cycle, how did the levels change over time---either as tech change or the direction of the game changed? Is there anything that stayed pretty consistent or do you have an example of anything wildly different?
BRAD: A lot of the overall game locations and concepts stayed the same. Like the overall idea that we want this type of environment, with these types of things in it stayed the same, more or less. But yeah, like how levels were built. Several different approaches were tried.
ERIC: The general progression was the same too---not to give too much away. You started out in Duke’s casino then went out into the environment and explored those. That has all remained consistent.
ANDREW: Yeah, it’s been pretty consistent for about 5-6 years. There haven’t been any huge tech changes since then. One of my first jobs in 2005 was to take levels that were built kind of in the 2000 era with a very brush oriented mentality and convert them into more static meshes and patch mesh art. That’s what I did for the first few months I was at the office, to literally take stuff that already existed and modernize it for a while. A lot of that was cut, though. That’s one thing too; the game’s gone through multiple cuts and moments where production would literally look at the game as a whole and then start over from the perspective of what’s going to have us wind up with the best game and plan out new cuts. We would pull levels apart and put them back together; more than once. And I think that’s helped the pacing and the feel of the game immensely.
CHRIS D: Yeah, the game was definitely huge in scope. There were a lot of levels and we kind of had to just pick certain ones that we really wanted in the game and say “OK, the rest we shouldn’t do because it would take forever to make it.”
BRAD: Or really just compromise the quality of the rest of the game and this game is about customization anyways. So in order to achieve the level of customization we have in our game, you have to at some point, become very focused on those locations only. Like speaking, the game is a more linear first person shooter. It’s not like an open world type game so it’s going to be more focused.
ELIZABETH: When you talk about customization, what do you mean?
BRAD: I mean there’s so many different surprises. So many of the games these days are set in a war. Our game is set in a war, but it’s an adventure in a war and that’s not very common anymore: adventure and first person shooters have kind of fallen by the wayside. There’s probably no better universe to have an adventure in than Duke’s universe and that allowed us to do a lot of things to surprise the player. I don’t want to give anything away but I mean almost every level has something that’s going to surprise you. There’s something funny, there’s something exciting, there’s something…there’s little to know just grinding through another combat sequence in our game. It’s very much like, “Oh here’s a twist here, here’s something new that happens here, here’s a funny scripted sequence, there’s something here.”
CHRIS D: That’s what I like about it. You know, you’re not being forced through the level. You can stop and look around and like you’re saying, you can interact with things. You’re not just getting from A to B and that’s it. I mean it is a little linear, but there’s little side shoots, little areas you can explore.
BRAD: Yeah and that ties in, like you said, to the interactive side of the game. Again, I can’t give anything away, but there are so many cool, interactive things in the game and no one really does that kind of thing anymore. We have a full blown, working pinball machine in game and it works exactly like a real pinball machine. It’s not a quick and dirty mini-game. It’s a full working pinball machine. It keeps your high score, it does everything.
ANDREW: Yeah and it’s not simulated. It uses the same physics as the rest of the game. That was really hard to actually get to work and there were moments when we were like, “Why don’t we just simulate this? We can’t really do it.” But we persevered and I think that’s how a lot of the elements in the game feel: united, together because they’re all from the same thing.
I was going to go really quickly to the technical side of customization. We’ve got a few things a few technologies in the level making process that are kind of unusual, I think for game development now; in that there are a lot of tools for the level designers to customize areas with blending textures from surface to surface. We have patch mesh tools which are very much like rudimentary modeling tools in the editor. They’re kind of like the, if people will remember, patches and patch meshes from id Software’s Quake, things like Quake 3 and things like that but five years on. What would it be like? What would those tools be like? And both the artists and level designers use that together. But I think that’s why the environments feel like they do is it’s not just a series of sets of static meshes and art that you’ve seen reused and repositioned. We tried to keep things unique. If not completely unique, at least one or two things you would note as being as new like “Oh I haven’t seen this yet” as you go through the game.
ELIZABETH: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Duke Nukem Forever podcast series. We’ll be back next time to explore aliens in DNF.

BATTLELORD CONCEPTS

April 27, 2011

By now, you probably know the Battlelord very well (or his crotch, at the very least).

These are some early concepts of the Battlelord as the team tried to decide the look of his head.

And while not the final render, many of you will recognize this guy from trailers we’ve released in the past!

 New released screenshots

BADASS DUKE NUKEM FOREVER PAPERCRAFT

April 27, 2011

As you may know, we're including an exclusive papercraft Duke in the Balls of Steel edition. We've fielded several requests to see this figure - and today, we're unveiling what Duke will look like – right now, in fact!

Now, a sneak peak of the Balls of Steel papercraft is awesome, but we're all about instant gratification, so we've made an additional DNF papercraft that you can download and make now. Check it out: