When/If It's [Ever] Done.

July 22, 2006 7:27 PM

The Duke Nukem Forever List provides a bullet-point run down of notable events that have occurred since Duke Nukem Forever was first announced back in 1997. And for those who may have missed last month's Gamespot interview, George Broussard is still saying it'll be done when it's done, insisting that 3D Realms "won't be rushed" into releasing DNF before it's ready.
posted by Effigy2000 (30 comments total)

One notable omission from the DNF List is the birth of Metafilter on July 15, 1999. And here's some further reading for you if, like me, you had forgotten all about this game until today.

Oh, and yeah, the official site is still up, too.
posted by Effigy2000 at 7:28 PM on July 22, 2006

Duke Nukem 3D was my first computer addiction, I still remember dialing up friends on the 28.8 modem, and paying those strippers money to show their boobie tastles and then shooting them and killing the pigs inside
posted by matimer at 7:37 PM on July 22, 2006 [1 favorite]

PS. If there is a way to play Duke Nukem 3D online with friends please let me know
posted by matimer at 7:38 PM on July 22, 2006

According to wikipedia, Duke Nukem 3D did multiplayer over IPX, which was this weird alternative to TCP/IP that a lot of LANs used to use, or something like that. Services like Kali exist that tunnel IPX over TCP/IP, so you can play online. Or if you have a LAN, I think you can actually still install the IPX protocol.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 8:27 PM on July 22, 2006

IPX was used by Novell networks and is actually superior to TCP for LAN use. It blows for WAN use and microsofts support was poor (shock, amazement) so TCP has taken over for both LAN and WAN use.
posted by Mitheral at 8:36 PM on July 22, 2006

Wired used to do a yearly "vaporware of the year" article. (May still do it, for all I know.) Duke Nukem Forever topped the list so many times that they eventually gave it a life achievement award and disqualified it from appearing in future articles.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 9:10 PM on July 22, 2006

I wonder if anyone will even give a shit if/when the game ever gets released.
posted by bob sarabia at 9:30 PM on July 22, 2006

I continue to be convinced that they only keep talking about DNF because it's so hilarious to see the people that still (still! seriously!) get worked up about it. Recently one of my coworkers was telling me, with a straight face, about its recent Slashdot coverage, and that "it's coming out this year. Maybe in time for Christmas!"

I was proud of myself for not laughing.
posted by blacklite at 9:35 PM on July 22, 2006

If they release it anywhere near April 1st no one will believe it.
posted by Mitheral at 9:57 PM on July 22, 2006

While humorous, this is also a neat meditation on the progress the world, especially the computer world, has gone through since 1997.

Perhaps this is what happens when the speed of the Internet meets the passage of time.
posted by zabuni at 10:05 PM on July 22, 2006

Of course, reading down, this progress is somewhat muted by the following:

United States Politics:

* The Identity of Deep Throat has been revealed.
* 40 new members have been elected to the Senate.
* The national debt has increased by over 3 trillion dollars.
* The national minimum wage has remained $5.15.
* Bill Clinton finished his presidential term, George W. Bush was elected and re-elected.

World Events:

* 4 nations have acquired nuclear weapons technology.
* 19 wars have begun.
* 5 wars have ended.
posted by zabuni at 10:07 PM on July 22, 2006

Duke 3D over IPX was great -- a couple friends and I set up the first computer network at our high school solely to play Duke 3D and Quake on lunch break. And during class, occasionally, once we got our physics teacher hooked.

I stopped believing that anyone was actually seriously working on DNF years ago; I suspect the project is solely used for intern-hazing now.
posted by infidelpants at 10:07 PM on July 22, 2006

I know I wont bob, but if they finally decide to ditch that beaten horse and develop a sequel to Shadow Warrior (taking no longer than 2 years) i'd be one happy chap.
posted by a. at 11:39 PM on July 22, 2006

they're waiting for the movie to be made first
posted by Satapher at 11:56 PM on July 22, 2006

Maybe they will package it with G&R's Chinese Democracy.
posted by Jezztek at 11:58 PM on July 22, 2006 [1 favorite]

The two Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity were proposed, authorized, announced, designed, launched and successfully landed upon Mars where they have been exploring the surface for over 2.5 years.

That pretty much says it all for me. You know you've pretty much flogged the horse bones to dust when a sclerotic bureaucracy manages to do the entire lifecycle of a project to another planet before you finish writing a goddamn game.
posted by ArkhanJG at 12:50 AM on July 23, 2006 [1 favorite]

Funny enough, I wanted to link to the outdated DN4 screenshots 3drealms has had posted for a few years but when I went to look for them I got this message:

"The screenshots and videos that were here have been removed as they no longer represent the game's current look and feel. We will put more up at a later date."

How much you want to bet that they never get replaced?
posted by bob sarabia at 12:52 AM on July 23, 2006

Are they seriously still developing this? It seems like they would need to restart development every couple of years as technology advances.
posted by delmoi at 1:07 AM on July 23, 2006

Indeed - I think that's pretty much what happened with Prey, too. Still, Prey finally did get released.
posted by greycap at 1:30 AM on July 23, 2006

Prey was released when a third party developer actually sat down and made it instead of 3D Realms. I suspect that DNF will be the same, if it is ever released.
posted by Silentgoldfish at 1:40 AM on July 23, 2006

He's still porting it from Cobol.
posted by pracowity at 4:21 AM on July 23, 2006

I think George Broussard is afraid of releasing DNF and having it flop, so he wants to stay ahead of everyone else... but he can't outcompete all the game programmers in the world. So he fears failure and doesn't release, and falls further behind, and fears failure more. My guess is that eventually he'll say "we can't make it good enough", and it will NEVER be released... when in fact he could probably have released it at several points during the dev cycle and made pretty good money.

Perfectionism can be the enemy of competence.
posted by Malor at 4:42 AM on July 23, 2006

I used to be seriously addicted to Duke Nukem 3D. All those years ago, I was working this miserable job that was actually giving me chest pains (at the age of 25), and my only relief was coming home, cracking a few beers, and pounding on those pigs until bedtime.

DN Manhattan Project was pretty disappointing, I thought. Not enough babes (which, when they were there, were pretty much too small to enjoy).

Anyhoo, I still check the 3D Realms page every now and again, just to make sure it still says "when it's done," and sometimes there'll be something mildly interesting from George or whoever on the messageboard.
posted by Gator at 4:47 AM on July 23, 2006

delmoi writes "It seems like they would need to restart development every couple of years as technology advances."

I'm hoping they are in a epic Nethack sort of enviroment where everything just works and they plan to add the eye candy at the last stage.
posted by Mitheral at 6:40 AM on July 23, 2006

This kind of reminds me of a game that my friends at Microsoft used to play, called "Longhorn or." The way that you would play this game would be to name some event in the future, such as "Iraq war ends," or "Democrats re-take the House," or "Dick Cheney indicted," and everyone else would take guesses as to whether or not Longhorn would be released before that event happens.

I guess now, they play "Vista or."
posted by Afroblanco at 8:18 AM on July 23, 2006

What would be the point at which it no longer mattered?
posted by lodurr at 9:59 AM on July 23, 2006

Heh, I've SEEN Duke Nukem Forever. There was a demo of it running at E3... eight years ago!

This was back when lens flares were the new black, and it sure had a lot of them.

Anyway, from the link:

Things that have taken less time than Duke Nukem Forever's Development:

The United States' entire program to put a man on the moon, from Kennedy's challenge to the landing.

...

Ouch.

Like...
OUCH!
posted by -harlequin- at 11:10 AM on July 23, 2006

DNF is just a tired old April Fools joke that won't go away. Same as zero-length compression and the JATO Darwin award story.
posted by five fresh fish at 1:51 PM on July 23, 2006

The beautiful thing is that once it's released everyone will buy *two* copies -- one in shrink wrap as a collector's item, and one to play to see what a game looks like when you spend 10 years developing it.
posted by Deathalicious at 2:59 AM on July 24, 2006

Metafilter: pounding on those pigs until bedtime.

I'm so sorry.
posted by slimepuppy at 3:59 AM on July 24, 2006