Idea : FreeNuke, Duke Nukem 3D Replacment Assets

[Frost-Core]

So all of you know about Duke Nukem 3D, its a game with the build engine, which is also used in Blood, the source code was released on April 1 2003 (no joke), just like Doom and Doom engine based games, the source code is only code and not the assets, while we have FreeDOOM and Blasphemer in the doom engine world, why not a game called FreeNuke, a game with the build engine and the duke nukem 3d source code, this is a great idea as no attempt on this has been made (maybe privatley made), i hope anybody makes an attempt publicly on making this project!, also license assets as BSD License.

Edited April 4, 2022 by Frost-Core

[Gez]

This was attempted a loooooong time ago with a project called Dave 3D.

[Frost-Core]

Just now, Gez said:

This was attempted a loooooong time ago with a project called Dave 3D.

It's a dead project, no longer up for download, we really need a revival to it.

EDIT : wait what?, these are the assets!, the dave3D assets were archived, also somebody on the duke4 forums said : "IIRC this was by leilei, I remember hearing the project had to be nuked (pun not intended)", why would it be nuked?

Edited April 4, 2022 by Frost-Core

[Jello]

As leilei posted on the moddb page, 3D Realms didn't like it, and wanted to claim ownership of their original assets.

 

That was in 2008. So it sounds like it was a case of 3D Realms being 3D Realms. I guess if the last game I had made was in 1996, I might be protective of it too.

[Frost-Core]

Just now, Jello said:

As leilei posted on the moddb page, 3D Realms didn't like it, and wanted to claim ownership of their original assets.

 

That was in 2008. So it sounds like it was a case of 3D Realms being 3D Realms. I guess if the last game I had made was in 1996, I might be protective of it too.

Hmm so it looks like 3D Realms is not like id Software, id does not care about somebody remaking doom, as freedoom didnt get any profit its legal, in the source code release by id software it says "for your non profit use", but 3D Realms is strict and does not like people just making new pixels as replacments. Cmon!

[DannyMan]

I hope there are other ways to overcome that problem.

[Murdoch]

I really do not understand the purpose of this idea.

 

Almost everyone likely to enjoy Duke 3d has a copy. And for those who don't it is not like it is absurdly expensive. What possible purpose would it serve? Also a big part of Duke3d's charm is the chatacter. Finding a voice actor to pull off a copy as well would be a big ask.

[gwain]

5 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

 

Almost everyone likely to enjoy Duke 3d has a copy. And for those who don't it is not like it is absurdly expensive.

duke mods tho

[Doom64hunter]

1 hour ago, Frost-Core said:

Hmm so it looks like 3D Realms is not like id Software, id does not care about somebody remaking doom, as freedoom didnt get any profit its legal, in the source code release by id software it says "for your non profit use", but 3D Realms is strict and does not like people just making new pixels as replacments. Cmon!

Please take note that the post in question was made 14 years ago, and that present day 3D Realms is a completely different company.

 

Also take note that Duke Nukem is now owned by Gearbox, who has been rather lax in regards to fan content.

[Murdoch]

21 minutes ago, gwain said:

duke mods tho

 

I do not understand. You can run the old version in DOSBox. I have not followed the Duke 3D modding scene in probably 20 years but a quick search shows me that both Raze and EDuke can run mods (correct me if I am wrong, I may well be) so I fail to see how this helps seeing as this proposed free version of Duke would rely upon one of them to function most likely.

 

The World Tour edition appears to be the only purchasable version online now which, granted, is less than ideal but it's data files can still be used by sources ports as far as I can see. Any new player is more likely to find a source port after a less than happy experience with that version's executable than they are to find a fanmade free version.

[Goat-Avenger]

I think at this point, it would be more useful to just do a total conversion (and possibly sell coppies).  It would achieve the same goal, basically, it would remain free as in freedom, as to the license, and anyone who wanted to purchase a copy/donate would be able to do so.

 

That'd be a pretty herculian effort, though, unless you had a small group of some insane talent to do the sprite and texture work.

 

I'm not a huge fan of software clones in the free software community.  I'm not sure why so many people go to such effort to produce something, usually of lesser quality, that no one will want to use, unless they are motivated by the principles of free software.  A clone should only be done when it's needed, and there is no other way to get that type of functionality without a clone (ie: the OS itself, office utilities, tax utilities, video editing, audio editing, etc.. etc..)  And if a clone is needed and done, the goal should be to outperform the competing software, such that, people would not only want to use it, but prefer to use it, over alternatives.

 

For example, Strawberry Music Player, is, not really a clone.  Yes, it's a software music player, and that's been done before; but, it's not a direct free software replacement for any particular music player.  So, it does it's own thing, and does it well.  I personally prefer it, over alternatives, and it does it's job well.

 

Not a bad idea, I just think, if one was to go that kind of distance, you might as well just do a total conversion.  You'd avoid doing a clone, get to keep your free software license and free culture game assets, possibly make some money, and provide the overall community with more assets to work with.  If you are going to start from scratch anyway, might as well bring something new to the scene.

 

Duke, as a brand and trademark is so fucking awesome anyway, no clone could ever come close; better just to do your own thing with the engine, and if it's done well enough, there will be some fans out there.

 

 

Edited April 4, 2022 by Goat-Avenger

[7Mahonin]

I don’t like this idea really. Part of what makes Duke Duke is… Duke. Taking Duke away and replacing him with someone else so it’s legal… might as well just make an entirely different game at that point. That, I am all for. The build engine would definitely lend itself to a new IP. Just look at some of the more elaborate TC’s and Ion Mai- I mean Ion Fury. Someone has even used the stand alone BUILD engine to make a series of games called Shaw’s Nightmare, which is entirely free of any assets or code from DN3D, and is legal to distribute. 

[Xaser]

The amount of time and effort it would take to do something like this (and make it not suck :P ) would be much better spent making a new game.

[Murdoch]

37 minutes ago, 7Mahonin said:

Shaw’s Nightmare

 

*googles*

 

Oh dear God it's like Build, MS Paint and an Atari 2600 somehow gave birth to a horrid, misshapen baby.

[7Mahonin]

14 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

 

*googles*

 

Oh dear God it's like Build, MS Paint and an Atari 2600 somehow gave birth to a horrid, misshapen baby.

Yeah lol, it certainly isn’t the best, but it does show that it is absolutely possible to make things with BUILD without using another game as a base.

[Frost-Core]

Everybody is a fan of Duke here, i mean yeah he is a absolutley awesome character, and people like doomguy too, because his game is awesome, but if you tell me somebody hates freedoom cause it does not have doomguy, thats because of legal trouble, what can you do about it, Dave 3D was made by some on the OpenArena Project, and OQPlus too, the OpenArena Project Team has made some seriously cool stuff that has been dead, now their main focus is openarena (but openarena is kinda absent, no new versions in 2022), if someone follows one character in a game, then goes to a game with the same codebase but different assets and character, he will still enjoy the game, since its almost the same!, i even enjoy freedoom.

[Doom64hunter]

On a completely different note, I wonder what the legal situation of the GAME.CON, USER.CON and DEFS.CON files is?

 

These scripts are contained within DUKE3D.GRP, and they contain the names of possibly trademarked characters, including Duke Nukem himself. Hence this could be considered copyrighted game data that would need to be replaced by a hypothetical FreeDuke.

 

These scripts are however essential to preserve the behaviour of the game's actors, so unlike in Doom and Freedoom's case, replacing these scripts would be very difficult, as many of its functions are tied to hardcoded details and technicalities (for example, palette 1 being the frozen state for enemies). Doing so would almost certainly lead to altered gameplay, which was easily avoided in Doom's case as all actor behaviour is hardcoded within the Doom engine.

 

Fortunately though, it seems that the Duke 3D CON scripts were also packaged with the source release under the subfolder `testdata` complete with a GNU license text file. This seemingly indicates that these files are licensed under the GPLv2, and could be reused.  The situation is unclear however, as the README does not indicate whether this is merely test data, or whether it is a proper re-release of the game's CON scripts.

 

See: https://github.com/videogamepreservation/dukenukem3d/tree/ef609159bd352985a0c63734a11241d86c873fe5/testdata

 

Does anyone with more legal knowledge than myself know whether using these files would hence be legit in a hypothetical FreeDuke? Or whether mods are permitted to reuse the CON files, as long as they are released under the GPL?

[Frost-Core]

Also, i was thinking of a Keen Dreams Asset Replacment, since keen dreams is now open source.

[Murdoch]

You still haven't answered the most pertinent question... why?

 

12 hours ago, Frost-Core said:

Also, i was thinking of a Keen Dreams Asset Replacment, since keen dreams is now open source.

 

Again... why? Months and months of work to replace a 31 year old niche market platformer with a very limited audience that is easily downloaded (albeit legally dubiously). What purpose will it serve?

16 hours ago, Frost-Core said:

if you tell me somebody hates freedoom cause it does not have doomguy

 

Duke is an actual character. Doomguy in the original games is the sketch of a character. Not a remotely reasonable comparison. 

[Frost-Core]

7 hours ago, Murdoch said:

You still haven't answered the most pertinent question... why?

 

 

Again... why? Months and months of work to replace a 31 year old niche market platformer with a very limited audience that is easily downloaded (albeit legally dubiously). What purpose will it serve?

 

Duke is an actual character. Doomguy in the original games is the sketch of a character. Not a remotely reasonable comparison. 

Yeah, let's just stop there, this idea's not turning out good for me, since there is not anybody who plays Duke Nukem 3D anymore, its just a game with random stuff, movie lines, etc, that would take tons of hours to replace, as Duke Nukem 3D is bigger than doom!, also ignore the keen dreams one, too. because there isn't a source port in the commander keen world.

[MrFlibble]

On 4/5/2022 at 1:36 AM, Goat-Avenger said:

I'm not a huge fan of software clones in the free software community.  I'm not sure why so many people go to such effort to produce something, usually of lesser quality, that no one will want to use, unless they are motivated by the principles of free software.  A clone should only be done when it's needed, and there is no other way to get that type of functionality without a clone (ie: the OS itself, office utilities, tax utilities, video editing, audio editing, etc.. etc..)  And if a clone is needed and done, the goal should be to outperform the competing software, such that, people would not only want to use it, but prefer to use it, over alternatives.

I would not completely agree here, or rather I'd say that when it comes to games, the situation differs case by case. Generally, there's nothing wrong with a game being a replica or a clone of another game: unlike other types of software, a game is essentially defined by its rules/gameplay, not by its functionality (e. g., two media players may have differing internal structure and feature sets, but both provide the same functionality of playing back media files; while two strategy games may have entirely different rule sets, effectively being two different games altogether). In fact, historically, games have always copied, replicated or cloned one another fairly often, which is not limited to the free software scene -- there's an almost infinite variety of Tetris, Arkaniod, Boulder Dash, Snake, etc. versions, but even as games got way more complex than these, they still frequently borrow features from one another.

 

I'm inclined to think that more often than not, this kind of cloning also encourages creativity and results in new games that are an improvement or at least an interesting variation on the source material. Of course, I'm not talking about cheap attempts to cash in on the popularity of some hit title as could be often observed in the 90s.

 

Here's an interesting discussion on this topic.

 

I do agree though, that in the case of Duke Nukem 3D, a project similar to Freed∞m seems on the whole rather impossible and superficial at the same time. The sheer amount of detail, gimmicks and the Duke character himself inevitably doom this kind of effort to either become a poor, second-rate imitation, or a more or less completely different game, which could have been the primary objective from the start as others here have already noted.

 

The latter option is not a bad idea though, we could use more free Build engine games I guess. Given available free time and motivation, one could start by slowly replacing the Duke3D assets with free equivalents to create a working prototype, and see where it goes from there. There are some unused angled weapons in the Freed∞m attic, and if such a project were to actually start going somewhere, I suppose it could be attempted to negotiate the use of some character sprites and other assets from the AMC Squad, Demon Throne and/or Alien Armageddon. Of course, this could end up being just an exercise in modding and game design though.

 

On 4/5/2022 at 6:57 PM, Frost-Core said:

Also, i was thinking of a Keen Dreams Asset Replacment, since keen dreams is now open source.

There's a free stand-alone Keen-esque game called Planet Cloudius IX, which runs on a replica of the Keen engine (with some enhancements, AFAIK), which I suppose fits that niche.

[ax34]

On 4/6/2022 at 2:18 PM, Frost-Core said:

... because there isn't a source port in the commander keen world.

cough https://clonekeenplus.sourceforge.io/ cough

[MrFlibble]

On 4/5/2022 at 3:27 AM, 7Mahonin said:

Someone has even used the stand alone BUILD engine to make a series of games called Shaw’s Nightmare, which is entirely free of any assets or code from DN3D, and is legal to distribute.

Ironically, Shaw's Nightmare is a deliberate imitation of Doom/Doom II, down to minutest details. Not only do all monsters and weapons have direct counterparts in Doom/Doom II (and the HUD/status bar is basically a copy of Doom's, something seen only in Quiver out of the original Doom clones from the 90s IIRC), but even the version numbering closely follows the succession of Doom releases, there being v0.99, v1.0, v1.2, v1.4, v1.5, v1.6, v1.66 and finally v1.9 of Shaw's Nightmare. And the "official" FAQ supplied with the game is written to resemble Hank Leukart's Doom FAQ, up to identical section names in some cases.

 

But, with all that, Shaw Nightmare's developer wanted it to be on the Build engine (as originally provided by Ken Silverman, not the 3D Realms modifications), so it is a Build game, while being a Doom clone at heart. The game would be more playable if it were less sluggish I suppose.