10th January 2017, 10:31 PM
That's fair. You're probably right and I said too much based on my initial assumptions there.
You really can't blame those investors from being that mad though. I'm sure from their perspective, "sucking up money without actually doing anything" is exactly how they saw the situation. I'm all for the "long project", but when you're a team getting paid, something's gotta give. It's too bad they just plain outsourced it to some company that didn't really know what they were doing.
By all accounts, while Doom aged surprisingly well as a formula, Duke Nukem didn't. Everything Duke says and half the things he does are wince inducing. Doomy Mc Doomington has no voice, so he can be as bigoted or as progressive as you want to imagine him to be (except when it comes to demons, because he hates demons forever, because they're demons). Duke Nukem has a voice, and while I remember him being kinda funny when the game first came out, now I just want to play the game where I shut him up. I recall seeing a let's play on youtube where total excitement turned to disappointment and revulsion within the first level. I didn't have that issue with Doom.
Based on what you've said following the game's development, I think ultimately the problem was they tried to make the game do too much and exceeded their grasp. Miyamoto once said something to Retro's developers during DKC Returns that has stuck with me. "Just because it's a good idea doesn't mean it has to go in the game." What they needed was focus. What are the core ideas you're trying to accomplish here? Everything else just needs to serve that. If it doesn't, cut it. If it's a really cool idea, but it's a distraction from the rest of the game, cut it out, stick it in a folder and expand on it in another project. It doesn't have to be in THIS game. Heck, this piece of advice could really work in just about anything. TV series could learn this lesson. Far too many decide to just start writing completely different stories than the one they were telling from season to season, and it all becomes a disjointed mess (I'm looking at YOU, Once Upon A Time, you ripped my heart out one too many times... also your writing is terrible). Save that amazing story idea for some later project where it'll actually fit, and get back to the story you were supposed to be telling in THIS series. Don't suddenly make Rumpelstiltskin a hero and then have him turn into the dark one again inexplicably! (Sorry, that show peaked with the evil Peter Pan story arc and then just nose dived and I haven't gotten over it.)
Anyway, that's Forever's problem right there. It never found a focus, and when it came time to rush it out the door, the team responsible for that couldn't really figure out where the design focus should be either. Also, Duke Nukem himself is a completely unlikable jerk store.
You really can't blame those investors from being that mad though. I'm sure from their perspective, "sucking up money without actually doing anything" is exactly how they saw the situation. I'm all for the "long project", but when you're a team getting paid, something's gotta give. It's too bad they just plain outsourced it to some company that didn't really know what they were doing.
By all accounts, while Doom aged surprisingly well as a formula, Duke Nukem didn't. Everything Duke says and half the things he does are wince inducing. Doomy Mc Doomington has no voice, so he can be as bigoted or as progressive as you want to imagine him to be (except when it comes to demons, because he hates demons forever, because they're demons). Duke Nukem has a voice, and while I remember him being kinda funny when the game first came out, now I just want to play the game where I shut him up. I recall seeing a let's play on youtube where total excitement turned to disappointment and revulsion within the first level. I didn't have that issue with Doom.
Based on what you've said following the game's development, I think ultimately the problem was they tried to make the game do too much and exceeded their grasp. Miyamoto once said something to Retro's developers during DKC Returns that has stuck with me. "Just because it's a good idea doesn't mean it has to go in the game." What they needed was focus. What are the core ideas you're trying to accomplish here? Everything else just needs to serve that. If it doesn't, cut it. If it's a really cool idea, but it's a distraction from the rest of the game, cut it out, stick it in a folder and expand on it in another project. It doesn't have to be in THIS game. Heck, this piece of advice could really work in just about anything. TV series could learn this lesson. Far too many decide to just start writing completely different stories than the one they were telling from season to season, and it all becomes a disjointed mess (I'm looking at YOU, Once Upon A Time, you ripped my heart out one too many times... also your writing is terrible). Save that amazing story idea for some later project where it'll actually fit, and get back to the story you were supposed to be telling in THIS series. Don't suddenly make Rumpelstiltskin a hero and then have him turn into the dark one again inexplicably! (Sorry, that show peaked with the evil Peter Pan story arc and then just nose dived and I haven't gotten over it.)
Anyway, that's Forever's problem right there. It never found a focus, and when it came time to rush it out the door, the team responsible for that couldn't really figure out where the design focus should be either. Also, Duke Nukem himself is a completely unlikable jerk store.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)