Prerelease:Duke Nukem Forever/1998

This is a sub-page of Prerelease:Duke Nukem Forever.

To do: Lots and lots of stuff: Press releases, Interviews, Screenshots Maybe move the videos to the site (not a priority though). Sources for .plan files, and pretty much everything else. Rewrite some of the stuff quickly nabbed from the DNF Museum. Identify who is in the group photo. A demo disc from issue 67 of PC Zone from September 1998 with screenshots, that may or may not be unique.

A group photo of the team working on the game during this year.

January 1998

January 21st

* Duke Nukem Forever. Where to start?

QE4 (Now DukeEd). Nick has been adding lot's of cool things to QE4, so it's easier for us to edit things. Items like:

- Build-like scaling, panning and rotation of textures, so we don't have to go through the surface inspector interface. All this works with the KBD or mouse. It's so cool to grab the mouse and rotate a texture to "just" when you want it.

-Instead of a green box for a light entity, we actually see a pyramid (denoting a light) and the pyramid is the color of the light (not just green).

- Texture lock. Thank God. You can now move brushes in the editor where you want, without the textures moving around.

- Can "fit" a texture to a brush automatically.

- Can "scale" a brush. Say you build a chair to big? No problem. Just scale it down.

- There are more planned editions, but we've got a lot of the basics we want, and now Nick will join Chris on the engine stuff.

Chris has been working on getting 16 bit skins into the game. Should be by Friday. Both Chris and Nick have been working on a new entity system to moves and control anything in the game. Will be similar to what Quake C was, so we don't have to be 100% DLL based. This should also make end user add ons simpler. Modellers all working on models and character sketches. All the mappers and texture artists are all focused on one "zone" of the game now, so everyone works from the same mindset, and we get the correct look and feel.

More later...

January 23rd

* Duke Nukem Forever stuff. Nick added lot's more coolness to DukeEd. First he got it running on Win95 (a few things to address later, but it looks very doable for end users). Just don't be surprised if you need a fast PC to pull off a decent framerate in the editor. Good texture management stuff like search and replace and texture usage counts (so you can dump lesser used textures). No hard promises, but I'd expect us to ship this editor with the game, running under Win95, when the game ships. Will be cool to make levels oout of the box like Duke 3D allowed. Only problem will be the 15-20 hour vis/bsp/qrad times you will have to suffer through ;) You should all have a deep respect for users patient enough to make add on's for this technology ;)

Sent a couple-o-screen shots of DNF for a 3D shooter round up that will appear in Strategy Plus in the near future. Look for it.

Brian is skinning weapons and, oh-my-god...(shudder)...

We welcome Chris Johnson this week as a new modeller/animator for DNF. He comes to us from over at Ion where he got caught in a lay off type deal. He fits right in, and his CD's and action figures have already begun invading his desk. Wonder what he'll do when we start putting his action figures in compromising situations late at night when he's not looking ;)

January 28th

* I vowed a long time ago to stop responding to flames that are spawned from lack of knowledge, cluelessness, or plain ignorance. *YAWN* I'm going back to work on Duke Forever now. We have important things to do there ;)

February 1998

February 1st

* Up here working on the DNF spec and storyline a little. Things are coming together nicely.

February 17th

Scott Miller is interviewed by PC Gaming World (who later become GameSpot UK).

Duke Nukem

Why has it taken so long for the follow-up to Duke 3D to get off the ground? We are not going to rush out a sequel, even though doing so would make us a lot of cash. We see Duke Nukem as a franchise that will be around 30 years from now, like James Bond, and we want to do each Duke game perfectly. Trust me, when it comes out, players will see why it took so long.

Duke Forever

Why isn't Duke Forever using Prey technology?

We want Prey to have the advantage of being the first game with that technology, giving it a big edge when it comes out. Duke Nukem Forever won't need this advantage because everyone already knows about Duke.

Other than the graphical look what other improvements have been made?

In Duke, we're beefing up the Quake 2 engine, and we expect that it'll make the best use of the Quake 2 engine when the game is released. We're also introducing several gameplay features that haven't been seen in 3D action games yet--stuff I haven't heard talked about by anyone else doing 3D games, including Valve, Ritual and Ion Storm.

Will Duke Forever be multiplayer and will there be Internet play (any chance of an European server?)

Duke will have all the functionality of Quake 2, plus stuff we're trying to add, too.

Miller is then asked about questions about both Prey and Duke Nukem Forever. When asked about who is composing music of the game, Miller states the Lee Jackson will score and when asked about the kind of humour the game will have, he says: "Duke will of course have you falling out of your seat with some of the stuff we have planned."

Miller would also have an interview with videogamedesign.com, but this one appears to have been lost.

February 26th

Nick Shaffner releases his first .plan file where he discusses the scripting system of characters in Duke Nukem Forever.

Vhelp, this is my first .plan file, so bear with me here until I get the hang of it. I'll try to get in an update every week or so, but we're starting to get geared up for E3, so free-time is hard to come by.

I recently finished integrating the new scripting system ('DukeC') into the engine codebase, it took a bit longer than I expected (always seems to ;^) ), but definantly worth it. At the moment, I'm working on replacing the Quake2 entity system with our new, improved entity system. The novel design and speed of the scripting system combined with the insane flexibility of the new entity system should make Duke4Ever one of the most user-extensible games ever released. Additionally, if there are any cool features you'd like to see in DukeEd, let me know ASAP, I've already gotten tons of great ideas from the mappers/designers, but would would love more suggestions on how to make it as powerful/flexible/easy-to-use as possible.

Chris has been slaving away on Cannibal like a mad-man for the last week and a half, and it's really looking quite impressive, it handles nearly -everything- relating to models - and then some (Plus the interface looks kick-ass).

We've been playing way too much Worms 2 around here lately. For being a rather simplistic 2d turn based engine, it sure packs a huge amount of sadistic and silly violence...

BTW, here's the URL for a nifty little toy I wrote a while back called Cheat-O-Matic. I's freeware and lets you cheat on just about everything:

http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Dungeon/5633/

March 1998

March 5th

Nick Shaffner updates his .plan file discussing the scripting system.

Thanks to everyone who sent in suggestions for DukeEd, and keep 'em coming!

Things are pretty hectic around here lateley [sic].

The new entity system is progressing nicely, the base system should be finished by Monday or Tuesday - after which I'll begin writing the core scripts and DukeEd script generation 'wizards'. For those of you who were asking: yes we will support and release source code for .DLL's in addition to the scripting system - though internally we will be using the scripting system as much as possible (since it's 90% of the speed of compiled .DLL's anyways).

Chris has been working feverishly on overhauling Cannibal's interface and part/animation sequencing features - there should be some screen-shots of it released fairly soon.

Well, earlier this week, several people (65+ I've heard) were using the 'Cheat 'O Matic' utility I wrote to do some serious cheating on Sierra's online game "The Realm". The cheaters in question were able to use Cheat 'O Matic to give themselves a huge amount of negative manna, and indirectly convert it into enormous sums of gold. Anyways apparently this had the effect of decimating the Realm's virtual economy, and Sierra had to shut it down on Tuesday to fix the problem. I had actually warned Sierra about this potential problem shortly after the Realm's initial release (not wanting potentially malicious Cheat 'O Matic users to destroy an otherwise nifty multiplayer game), but the online GM ignored my warning and promptly banned me from the Realm. Well, at least I tried... In any case, soon after Sierra had fixed the bug, I found that Geocities had canned the Cheat 'O Matic site, stating that they reserved the right to boot 'anyone for any reason' - hmmm..... Luckilly, George was kind enough to let me use the company web site as Cheat 'O Matic's new home, so look for it up there in a few days.

You can read more about the incident in the Realm's online newspaper here: http://www.public.usit.net/nrspears/news.html (See the 3/3/98 and 3/2/98 entries)

March 16th

GT Interactive produces a floppy disk with press releases and screenshots for upcoming games for the rest of 1998. A release schedule for the year is also included, giving Duke Nukem Forever a release date of November 1998.

Title	Format	Developer	Trade	Street	Barcode	Manaul	Box	Brief Description	Genre
NOVEMBER 1998
DUKE NUKEM FOREVER	Win 95	Apogee

(Source: Press Release Schedule Q1 1998.xls, GT Interactive - Press Releases, Screen Shots, And Release Schedule)

April 1998

April 16th

Chris Hargrove updates his .plan file, giving his thoughts about making Duke Nukem Forever in an existing engine.

Oh wow, it's been like a month since I updated this thing. Wow does time fly when you're having fun... although it also flies when you're in crunch time, which I think is more applicable in this case.

Been slamming away at stuff for E3. My whole experience with Cannibal has been interesting, to say the least. Between the time of my last update and now it's probably gone through some super-major changes, but it's over now. At least, almost over... I still have a couple more bits to drop in, but the guys already have the newest version as it stands and are starting to use it toward some production models. I asked George about putting up a couple screenshots, but I agreed when he said we should wait until we have a couple really kickass models using it polished so that when we put up shots they'll be more of just the tool itself; you'll get to see it in action ("bang for your buck" kinda thing). It's too bad the thing took a couple weeks longer than I wanted, but that's the way things are I guess. I think Fox needs to make a new special "When Code Attacks". :)

I'm now back into engine-side stuff to finalize support for these models so we can be done with the character system and I can move on to bigger and better things. Nick's been busy with some DukeEd DukeEd changes and fixups, as well as the game-logic side entity work. My hope is that when all this is said and done, we'll have the framework out of the way and can start in on actual game logic content. It's amazing what frustrations tearing apart an engine can cause, but that's the price of progress I guess.

I'll echo a sentiment given recently by several people at several different companies... these games take a LONG TIME. They are a hell of a lot of work, and much of a development team effectively sacrifices their lives during the time of working on a high-quality game, all for the enjoyment of you, the consumer. No decent game that wants a shelf life of more than a week gets done in less than a year these days. It just doesn't happen. I sometimes hear "but it's different for you, the engine's already done" (and I'm sure Ritual, Ion and others hear a lot of this as well). Guess what guys... that doesn't make any difference. The time we save not writing the engine is nearly matched up by the time it takes to learn and modify a framework that wasn't written with you in mind. Quake and Quake 2 were written to be Quake and Quake 2, they weren't written to be Duke or Sin or Daikatana or any of these... turning it into something it wasn't planned for is a major undertaking, so the unrealistic expectation that we should get these games done in a year or less just because we're licensing an engine is just that... unrealistic.

On another note, in my last update I mentioned I would have some materials available from my IGDN session a month ago. I apologize for the delay on those, as I said I've been in a bit of a crunch mode recently. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about you... I'll cut out that code and send it up to the IGDN guys as soon as I get the chance, which will probably be Sunday sometime.

April 23rd

To do: Find the screenshot in question.

Geroge Broussard releases a .plan file on the eve of a new screenshot being published on 3D Realms' website.

Against better judgement, but bowing to immense team pressure here, I think we will release a new DNF screen shot on our web site sometime tomorrow. ;)

This is the first public shot since last November or so, and a lot has changed (like the move to 100% 16 bit source art). I think you'll like what you'll see. We are still keeping 99% of the game shrouded in secrecy though, so don't expect too much. Just a taste of what's to come.

April 28th

Joe Siegler Goes Mad With Digital Camera!

In a photographic frenzy, Joe Siegler raided the Duke Nukem Forever offices and starting snapping shots. The Duke guys, having not seen bright light in many moons, were naturally startled and alarmed. Here are some shots of the results of Joe's abrupt and unwelcome appearance in the Duke hole.

• 

  Allen Blum

• 

  Chris Johnson

• 

  Keith Schuler

• 

  Ruben Cabrera

• 

  Gus

May 1998

May 1st

Chris Hargrove releases a big rant against 3DFX in his .plan file.

Been a while since the last update. I'll let you all know what I've been doing sometime soon, but not right now. Instead, I will take this opportunity to rant.

I have just spent the past 3 hours debugging something in ref_gl that had no business not working. I kept thinking that this must be my mistake, that I'm missing something. After these several hours of incredible frustration, I got fed up, figuring I just didn't know what the hell I was doing.

Then in an unrelated test, we ran Duke on an nVidia card under their ICD. After that, I had a bad feeling in my gut, and asked Nick to run my test stuff that I'd been trying to get working the whole evening, under the nVidia.

It loaded, and ran like a charm. Did exactly what I'd been trying to do the whole night. In other words, I'd just spent 3 hours trying to find Yet Another Damn 3Dfx OpenGL Driver Bug. This wasn't just a "that feature's not supported" bug... that'd be forgivable. This, however, was not.

A note to 3Dfx:

I love your cards. The performance is phenomenal. But that won't matter at all if you don't get some people to FIX YOUR DRIVERS. If you need to hire more people, hire more people. If people need to put in overtime, then put in overtime. Your GL implementation has been on permanent beta since time began. Is there more than one person working on this over there? I'm sorry, but there's no excuse for this. The fact that it sits on top of Glide should make this a relatively simple process.

I'm not even talking about the GL features that Glide doesn't support. I'm just talking about the ones it does. With the exception of some simple matrix transforms, there's a whole lot of GL that can be directly dealt with by Glide, quickly and efficiently. Yet even THAT stuff is screwing up. It'd be one thing if I couldn't get the accumulation or stencil buffers to work easily. That'd be understandable, since you have to emulate that stuff. But is there any logical reason why I can't do something as simple as get a texture to reload?

We've had more than our share of these driver bugs come up, but we've been patient. Nick, however, is far more patient than I am. As far as I'm concerned, this has gone on long enough.

If you don't have the time or resources to make things work that's fine, but if that's the case then at least admit it to your supporting developers and your buying public. Either that, or make the driver code available to your developers so I can try and fix things myself, instead of wasting my time finding bugs that in the end I can do NOTHING about.

I have deadlines. When stuff like this keeps happening, I can't meet them. I've been loyal to the Voodoo cards for a long time now, but if it keeps preventing me from doing my job, then that loyalty is gone.

May (Unknown)

In May, George Broussard tells Computer Gaming World that Duke Nukem Forever is "fairly well planned out" and it would be rated "probably PG-13-ish".

May 28th

The first trailer of the game ever is shown off at E3 this year, little of what is featured here would survive in the final game.

A French magazine later published a showreel with footage not featured in the trailer (and in higher quality then the trailer).

June 1998

June 10th

Broussard updates his .plan asking people to expect a major announcement soon.

1) Look for a very major announcement on Duke Nukem Forever in the next few days.

June 15th

Broussard updates his .plan informing that 3D Realms will be switching over into the Unreal Engine.

Major Duke Nukem Forever announcement time ;) We are switching to the Unreal engine to finish the game. You will be able to find a press release online at www.3drealms.com in the next 24 hours. We are very excited about this decision, and we think our fans will be as well.

We don't feel there will be a significant development delay, but there will be a slight one as we move over to the new engine. But this is analogous to people moving from the Quake 1 to the Quake 2 engine. Our game data will convert right over, without a hitch.

It's very important to note that this was a tough decision for us. It does not stem in any way from hard feelings, nor in fact, anything to do with id software. Our relationship still remains very good. This was a business decision and based on what we wanted to do with Duke Nukem Forever as a game.

Now, if you will excuse us. We have a lot of work to do ;)

3D Realms announces that Duke Nukem Forever will no longer use the Quake II engine and will now use the Unreal Engine, one of the reasons for the switch is that the Quake 2 engine wasn't great at rendering wide open areas such as those surrounding the Hoover Dam. Later, Brian Cozzens would say: "If it wasn't for Hoover Dam, we would have probably stuck with the Quake II engine."^{(citation needed)}

George Broussard assures in the press release that everything seen in the E3 Video will survive the engine change (spoiler: They didn't)

Duke Nukem Forever Switches to Unreal Engine

GARLAND, TX - 3D Realms Entertainment's highly anticipated Duke Nukem Forever, the follow-up to one of the all-time best-selling PC games, Duke Nukem 3D, will now be built around Epic MegaGames' highly praised Unreal technology.

George Broussard, project leader for Duke Nukem Forever had this to say, "The switch to the Unreal engine was simply a business decision, and it came down to what we wanted to do with Duke Nukem Forever and how best to achieve it. It's important to note that this decision has nothing to do with id software or our relationship with them, which still remains very strong."

"The game should not be significantly delayed", noted Broussard, "but it will take a little time to get up to speed with the new engine and learn how to exploit it. Fortunately, all of our game data will transfer very easily and we see being back to where we were at E3 within a month to 6 weeks."

People who have seen the Duke Nukem Forever E3 video, or back room demo voiced concerns that some of the items they saw would be lost. "Not at all" says Broussard. "If anything, the E3 demos showed what we could do with licensed technology and how we can extend it. We intend to apply the same ideas and efforts into the Unreal engine and push it until it breaks. Fans can expect all the stuff they saw at E3 to make the crossover to the Unreal engine."

In response to fans, asking about Internet play and the high machine specifications of Unreal, Broussard had this to say. "We are very confident that the Epic team will fix any and all outstanding issues with Unreal multiplay over the Internet, and see it becoming one of the most popular games over the net. As for machine specifications, Duke Nukem Forever is a 1999 game and we think that timeframe matches very well with what we have planned for the game."

In anticipation of an obvious question, "Why not use the Prey engine?," George said, "It is of utmost importance to us to have Prey be the first game released using the Prey technology. By going with Unreal's tech to create Duke Nukem Forever, we'll be able to stay on schedule to get Duke done and released before Prey."

Mark Rein, Vice President of Epic MegaGames, said: "We are extremely excited that 3D Realms has chosen to use the Unreal engine for Duke Nukem Forever. Their proven track record with the Duke Nukem series combined with the Unreal engine is an amazing combination."

Duke Nukem Forever will be commercially published by GT Interactive Software (http://www.gtinteractive.com). For more information about 3D Realms, please visit http://www.3drealms.com. For more information about Epic MegaGames, please visit http://www.epicgames.com

Broussard updates his .plan to address commonly asked questions he has received.

Geeeeesssshhhh. I've been doing interviews and emails (over 400) for the past 4-5 hours. Here's some common things I will address in the DNF engine switch to Unreal. There really are only a couple of concerns for people. This will hopefully address them.

1) Internet play. Yes, it stinks in Unreal now. Yes, Epic is working on it hard to fix it. I believe they will. Why wouldn't they? They have the #1 game in the country that is poised to take over net play. It is in their interest and their dozen or more licensees to make net play rock. Give it a little time. Even Quake 1/2 has net issues upon release. Even if the unthinkable happens and they don't, we will. There is plenty of time for that before DNF is released.

2) High system specs. Yes, Unreal likes power. That's the price of advancement folks. Sorry, but those P150/166's aren't going to cut it anymore. Unreal runs reasonably well on a P200/64 megs and a voodoo 1 cased card. I know. I've run it here on that system. It runs silky on P266/64 megs and voodoo 1. The only time it really bogs is on some maps where not enough care was taken with texture usage and poly counts. Chalk that one up to running out of time. Clearly we will optimize Duke maps for speed. We are frame rate junkies like all of you. But the bottom line is that you will need a P200/64 negs and a voodoo 1 card (at least) to run DNF. This should not be an issue in 1999. I mean don't expect Quake 3 or any other leading edge 3D game to run on your P166's either. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

3) Delay. Folks, DNF was likely a 1999 game in the first place. At least early in the year. This decision is not going to cost us 6 months or more, and if it does it means we are adding cool stuff like strippers and pool tables. The actual conversion to the Unreal engine is nearly trivial. We have Unreal code. We have analyzed it and what we need to do. We are not the least little bit concerned. What concerns us is that we can make maps MUCH larger than we were and that means more time to make them, but that's a good thing. For you.

That's it. In 300-400 emails I got "ROCK ON DUDE", or a complaint about one or more of the above 3 items. That means to me that we are on the right track.

I know this is an utter shock to most of you out there, but trust us, have a little faith, and let us do our jobs. This is in the interest of delivering you the best game we can, and we have a lot of work to do, but we are up to the task and you will be rewarded.

June 22nd

To do: Add links to the rest of Miller's posts from the thread he posted.

Scott Miller quickly writes a five-page document explaining the ideas he wants to have in Duke Nukem Forever and gives it to George. Very little mentioned here would ever end up in the game.

(Source: Post by Scott Miller (Post 1, post 2 and post 3)

August 1998

August 3th

Broussard releases a .plan file showing confidence (if misplaced) in the Unreal Engine. Joe Siegler also makes a news post on 3D Realms' website about it.

Duke Nukem Forever
==================

We're about where we wanted to be after the switch. The mappers are all 100% up to speed now and can do anything and everything with the editor. There is nothing in Unreal that they don't know how to do, and they've done some new things that make people go 'Whoa!' when they walk by their desks. The guys are all working on "real" levels now.

Textures and models have been continuing as if the switch never happened. Actually we seem to be able to have higher res textures under Unreal and still run fine, so you can expect that. We also know a few tricks to speed up Unreal and/or the maps to make it run acceptably on a P200 64 megs. I think 90% of the bog people are reporting are map abuse or texture usage related. These are things that are easy to control.

The programmers have been busy as well. We added a significant low level piece of tech I will talk about later, as well as basic stuff like the USE key. We also enhanced the Unreal keyframe, moving object system A LOT and now we seem to have nearly unlimited freedom. It's great to walk up to a switch, USE it and see something happen. Something very complex at that. Also reworked the resource system so we don't have to recompile a 10 minute file every time we add a piece of art. Very hand for fast updating of data. In short, the foundation is there, and we're ready for the new and "fun" stuff. The programmers will be moving to AI, guns, and game play type things ASAP.

Keith is prototyping his "back of the truck" map we showed at E3. This is mainly to test out the new object system and get any last little things that would keep that type of map from working.

At this point, we are really in full production mode again on the game. We expect to have gun and guys walking around any day like we never switched engines.

The progress from here should be exponential, as we just drop in new data, and the programmers focus on gameplay more than tech additions.

Don't be surprised if we're silent for awhile. We plan to just keep working hard on the game and keep our mouths shut about what we are doing.

August 19th

Paul Richards is interviewed by Processed News.

August 31st

Game-Interviews.com holds a mini-interview with Broussard.

Duke Nukem is coming back, this time powered by the Unreal Engine in Duke Nukem Forever! We talked to George Broussard, one of the head honchos at 3D Realms, to get the details on this hot upcoming game!

Game-Interviews.com: I understand that Duke will have a new ally this time. Can you tell us about Bombshell and how she will be important to the game?

George Broussard: We're leaving a lot of the details out until the game is released because we don't want to spoil the surprises. But I can tell you that BombShell is the female counterpart to Duke. She's strong, sexy and very independent. She also has a sadistic nature that makes dealing with here like dealing with a wild animal. You're never sure where you stand. Duke will interact with her in key parts of the game and their "relationship" will grow from these encounters. We aren't saying much more this early, except that DNF will be full of interesting new characters for Duke to interact with. You won't just be killing everything you see (although you will do a lot of that).

GI: Will you be able to interact with NPC’s (excluding Bombshell)? How interactive will the environment be?

GB: I expect DNF will be the most interactive environment to date, much like Duke 3D was. We are doing things that are just insane as far as interaction goes. Yes, you will also be able to interact with NPC's a good bit.

GI: How will the game deviate from the find the key/exit formula?

GB: In essence every game uses keys/doors, but you call them something else. We are defiantly not doing the find blue key, then blue door formula. DNF will play and feel like an action move from start to finish. You will be in real world places doing real world things. This might sometimes mean finding a key, but you can bet that will not be the norm, and it will be in context to the game.

GI: One of the best things about Duke Nukem 3D was the amazing variety of weapons. Can you give us some details on the planned weapons?

GB: No, as that would spoil the surprises. But it's safe to bet that we know what players want in weapons and deathmatch. We all play dmatch every day and know that balance is the key. We also know that people want variety. You want rockets and the normal bullet weapons, but you also want sneaky/stealth weapons like the pipe bombs, trip bombs, or Shadow Warrior's sticky bombs. We will give players a mix of many types of guns, all balanced for fair and interesting net play.

GI: Sources say Duke will be able to use vehicles this time around. If this is true can you tell us what they might be?

GB: We are heavily experimenting with vehicles and I think it's a no-brainer to include them in the game. As for specifics of what kind and where? You will have to wait. But Duke on a Harley or motorcycle of some kind is a very popular request.

GI: How much focus (if any) on story will there be?

GB: Lot's. There will be a reason and purpose to everything you do. But the game also will not get bogged down in something you have to read, or really care about. The plot points in the game will be presented painlessly so the player will know what's going on, then get back to kicking ass.

GI: Can we expect Duke Nukem Forever to be as controversial as Duke Nukem 3D?

GB: Yes. We're 3D Realms. What else would you expect from us? ;) If we don't keep pushing boundaries, then you will get the same game over and over.

GI: 3D Realms obviously take a different approach to making games. If Duke Nukem 3D had come out from most companies we would probably have seen 2 or even 3 Duke Nukem 3D sequels by now. So what exactly is 3D Realms design philosophy?

GB: We take the time to try and do something different. I'm amazed that people keep buying Tomb Raider every xmas, and it's maybe 10% different from the previous one. Don't get me wrong, I like the game, but it's clearly the marketing weasels that are pushing the franchise and not the developers that made it. With Duke we aren't going to crank out a game just to make $$$. We want to make sure we create something that will elevate 3D game's and Duke's franchise at the same time. That takes time and commitment to do.

GI: What is your favorite new Duke insult?

GB: We have only recorded a couple of new ones, with many, many more to come, so it's a little too early to pick a favorite.

GI: We would like to thank George Broussard for taking some of his valuable time to answer our questions.

September 1998

September 8th

Broussard is interviewed by Total Annihilation creator Chris Taylor for Loopy Games, Broussard had previously interviewed Taylor. Taylor asks Broussard questions on various topics such as 3D Realms, Prey, Max Payne and of course Duke Nukem Forever.

Only relevant questions pertaining to Duke Nukem Forever are discussed here.

Duke For-ever

I hear that Duke Nukem Forever will be the last Duke game? Is this just a rumor?

Not just no, but HELL no. ;)

There will be lots more Duke. He’s the undisputed PC character gaming champ and people can expect lots more Duke in the future. Duke Nukem: Time to Kill (PSX) will be out in Sept/Oct and is a PlayStation exclusive. This is also the first time we’ve licensed the character to someone else to make a game and the guys at n-Space have done a great job. Duke has become an icon and merchandising dream at this point. There are multiple Duke projects in the works and a feature film. There have already been action figures, with more to come, as well as novels. Our goal is to make Duke synonomous (sic) with PC games (and gaming in general) like Mario is to Nintendo, or Sonic is to Sega. As Duke would say…”Come Get Some”.

Is there going to be a lot of scantily clad girlies running around in Duke Nukem Forever? I know you can get some heat from people for this but how many complaints are there compared to fan mail saying that they really enjoy this kind of content?

There will be strippers in Duke Forever (DNF). The bottom line is we make the games we want to make and what we believe the fans want. And seeing as the #1 request for DNF is strippers, how can we deny our fans that ;) But we also will not put in mature content just for controversy. It has to make sense and be in context for a Duke game.

For Duke 3D we got maybe 5% negative response to 95% positive. The 5% was just really vocal about it.

October 1998

October 16th

Broussard is interviewed by False.com and asked 10 questions.

This week we put George Broussard of 3D Realms through the 10 Questions Gauntlet to find out what you want to know!

1. Who are you and what do you do? (So the people know.)

My name is George Broussard and I'm a partner and co-founder of Apogee/3D Realms. My job is to oversee our internal game development. Specifically I'm the project leader for Duke Nukem Forever at the moment, as well assume random day to day biz.

2. How is the production of DN : Forever going now that you've switched out to the Unreal engine?

It's been going great. We're back to adding in gameplay content and "fun" stuff like guns and characters. Overall, we're pleased with how quickly things went.

3. How do you feel this engine offers more flexibility than the Quake 2 engine as was originally planned to be used?

Mainly it was a timing thing. Quake 2 can be modified to do most of what Unreal does, but the way we looked at it was, why spend all the time modifying it, when we can just switch and save ourselves a bunch of work. Unreal does things like outside areas much better, and it has a lot of nice visual things like better lighting on models, procedural textures and the like. Those are all things we would have had to add to Quake 2.

4. What are your feelings on the Internet problems that the Unreal engine experiences?

We talk to Epic and Tim Sweeney all the time, and feel confident that they will get the Internet play in order soon. It doesn't really affect us that much because they will certainly have it fixed by the time DNF ships. I do think it hurt Unreal in the short term though.

5. What happened or is happening with the Duke movie? Is that still on the way?

Things move very slowly with the movie business. They are in the scripting process now, trying to come up with something we all like, and something that we will approve.

6. What are some of the most outstanding thing we will see in DNF?..what sticks out in your mind?

The realism and interactivity of the environment. We're not going to talk about all the little things that will make DNF stand out this early, but I think we're pretty confident that it will be different and new enough to attract players to it. People can expect all the things they loved about Duke 3D to be there, and expanded upon with 2 years of knowledge of how to make 3D action games.

7. What are your feelings on the subject of multiplayer vs. singleplayer?

We are huge fans of both, and will deliver both in DNF. I do agree that games will focus on one or the other in the future, but I don't think it needs to be that way. DNF will be extremely fun and original to play in either mode. We care about multiplay as much as single play and won't ship the game until both are rock solid. You will not have to wait 3-4 months for patches to fix either game. I don't think single play and multiplay are mutually exclusive.

8. How do you feel Duke will contend with the other giants such as SiN, Half-Life and Quake 3?

We don't fear any games coming out, but we respect a few. Due to timing, I only see Quake 3 as our real competition for 1999. Most of the other guys we are aware of will have shipped before DNF. There are always unknowns out there that spring up and come out of left field. I think as long as we do our jobs right, DNF can stand against any game in the same time frame of release.

9. Do you guys ever pat yourselves on the back and say, "boy, we're geniuses". And if not, you should. Duke 3D was brilliant and a couple of my buddies still play multiplayer religiously, even after years of playing. That's pretty significant seeing as how Quake was deleted from my harddrive a long time ago.

Patting yourself on the back leads to problems with ego's and believing your own hype. We don't do that around here. If anything it's the opposite. We know Duke 3D was a huge success and we ask ourselves everyday "How are we going to follow that up?". But then we dig in, do the work and before long we have our answers on the screen. Ultimately, everyone on the team is a die hard gamer. We play anything and everything that comes out and get influences from it all. So we're our harshest critics. When someone gets an idea for DNF it's really got to be good to get past everyone's "shit filters" and into the game. Once it's in the game it's usually something we all agree is pretty cool and unique, and hopefully the gamers that play the game will agree.

10. After Duke what else do you have planned?

More games, and definitely more Duke. We aren't about to start restingand [sic] taking it easy. There is too much work to do.

October 20th

Rick Raymo (at the time, the GT Interactive producer responsible for Duke Nukem Forever) states: "Duke Nukem Forever will ship before the next E3 with quality multiplayer." Jason "Jace" Hall (one of the co-founders of Monolith Productions) bets five dollars with him that the game would not be out. Hall won the bet after E3 1999.

October 30th

3D Realms announces that Charlie Wiederhold has joined the Duke Nukem Forever team.

Charlie Wiederhold Joins 3D Realms

3D Realms welcomes our newest employee, Charlie Wiederhold, who will be part of the Duke Nukem Forever team.

Charlie joins 3D Realms bringing his experience as a level designer after having spent this year working on Ritual Entertainment's highly touted 3D shooter, Sin. Previously to joining Ritual, Charlie had worked on several Duke Nukem level packs, such as Duke it out in D.C.

Shown to your right, Charlie started on Thursday, and is getting acquainted with his new surroundings. This picture was from his first day while he was getting set up. As you can see, he's already been captured by our crack Digital Camera squad (but it's not the first time, there's a shot of him at E3 on our site, too).

November 1998

November 11th

Fansite Dukeworld holds an interview with Charlie Weiderhold.

November 16th

Paul Richards has another interview, this time with Gamers Dimension.

December 1998

December 28th

3D Realms posts on their site the cover of their company Christmas card.

December 30th

Broussard posts an update on 3D Realms forums about aspects of the game's development. Like before Joe Seigler makes a post about this news.

I'll try to clue you in a little:

Code: Been adding lot's and lot's of neato features so our mappers can do insane, and I mean insane amounts of interactivity. Also working on things like skeletal character system, level of detail, and preparing to do a major patch to Unreal's version 220+ code base (January).

Maps: the guys have been working steadily on majorly detailed level scripts, so that we know where you are and what you will be doing on a level per level basis. This is analogous to a blueprint for a house, or a script for a movie. They are about to start on "real" maps according to the scripts we've drawn up. Major design meetings and level reviews have been taking place as we continue to refine the game.

Art: Modelers have been building some characters and smaller decorative objects for the game. We are amassing a library of items that can pop into the game at any time and they know how to react to being shot or used. Texture guys are always jamming on textures for the levels, or skins for the characters.

Concept sketches: Been working on nailing final looks for Bombshell, and storyboarding some cinematic sequences. About to start doing sketches of level locations so the mappers have a good visual to build off of. Will continue with character sketches as we refine what will/will not be in the game.

That's a brief run down of what we've been doing. The major part of the last 2-3 months has been uplifting Unreal to do a lot of what we wanted DNF to do. We are now 95% happy with the interactivity we can do and are moving to more mundane things like Unreal patch upgrades, weapons coding and neat little interactive touches.

All in all, things are going great and we're about in our stride in full production on the game. We'll also probably be building a small motion capture studio in house and getting the equipment in here ASAP (as we've done the research and demoed a couple).

We've still got an immense amount of work to do, to bring the game up to playable "game" status, but all the separate parts are coming together and we're all really, really excited at what we see forming.

Thanks for the patience and support. DNF will rock you.

December 31st

Like last year Joe Siegler posts a final 1998 news update on the eve of the new year, stating people should look forward to 3D Realms' upcoming games, DNF among them.

References

To do: Incorporate/reference this information below into article.

Random Info

• https://duke4ever.altervista.org/screenshots1998.html
• A Croatian game magazine called PC Play (specifically Issue 4, August 1998) had a PDF about the game with some screenshots and art, try to locate this.
• https://duke4ever.altervista.org/textdocs.html#interviews Interviews from 1998, some of them are mentioned in the 3D Realms posts below (and likely no longer work) so provide sources for where these came from.
  • Interviews of Broussard by Dukeworld from June 15th, 1998 and September 3rd, 1998
  • Interview of Keith Schuler from the same website.
• Some book about game development had an interview with Broussard (pages can be seen here and here). Not only find source of this, but also find/produce higher quality scans as well.
• Miller's appearance on the Daily Dementia where he discusses various Duke topics, DNF included (the second part is mostly about Prey, Max Payne and other stuff not really relevant to DNF).
• https://archive.org/details/Computer_Gaming_World_Issue_167/page/n103/mode/2up
• https://web.archive.org/web/20060506073218/http://finger.planetquake.com/3drealms/plan.asp?userid=georgeb&id=10404
• https://web.archive.org/web/20060506065027/http://finger.planetquake.com/3drealms/plan.asp?userid=keiths&id=9918
• https://web.archive.org/web/20060506081503/http://finger.planetquake.com/3drealms/plan.asp?userid=brianc&id=5972
• https://web.archive.org/web/20060506081523/http://finger.planetquake.com/3drealms/plan.asp?userid=brianc&id=6714

3D Realms News Posts

• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/01/prey_duke_nukem.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/03/when_its_done_1.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/04/george_broussar_1.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/06/the_e3d_realms_4.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/06/the_e3d_realms_1.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/06/the_e3d_realms.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/06/duke_nukem_fore_6.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/06/reaction_to_duk.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/06/more_reaction_t.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/06/duke_nukem_fore_5.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/06/avault_on_the_u.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/06/george_broussar_3.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/06/3d_realms_makes.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/07/george_broussar_4.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/08/duke_nukem_fore_8.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/08/unreal_status_u.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/08/cnn-gines.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/08/quake_ii_killer.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/09/george_broussar_6.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/09/duke_nukem_fore_10.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/09/3d_realms_at_ec.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/10/duke_nukem_fore_11.html

• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/02/scott_miller_on.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/04/scott_miller_in_1.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/05/duking_it_out_i_1.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/05/george_broussar_2.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/05/more_interviews.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/05/scott_miller_in_2.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/06/more_interviews_1.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/06/scott_miller_in_3.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/07/keith_schuler_i_1.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/07/keith_schuler_i.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/07/george_broussar_4.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/07/3d_realms_in_pr.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/08/joe_siegler_int_3.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/08/new_duke_team_m.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/08/another_intervi.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/09/scott_miller_in_6.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/10/george_broussar_8.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/11/chris_hargrove.html
• https://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/03/casefile_dr_pro.html
• https://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/05/more_polls.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/07/3d_portal_top_1.html
• https://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/07/when_its_done_2.html
• https://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/11/total_conversio_1.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/10/gathering_of_de.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/1998/12/been_here_befor.html