Scott Miller Interview - The Man Who Would Be King?
Hmm, my kind of party! Wish I had time…
Duke Nukem: Manhatten Project - the last Duke game for PC...at the moment.
It would be rash of YouGamers to miss a great opportunity to ask Scott some questions about Duke Nukem Forever - perhaps the most famous game that’s not available…yet! The first thought we had though was ‘why?’ It’s been nearly 5 years since the last Duke game on a PC was released and although it was critically accepted, it was perhaps not the Duke game many fans were expecting; is it not a case that Duke’s time is now long gone? Scott: First, we fully admit we’re screwed up the development of DNF, and it’s now an industry joke. I laugh (and cry) when I think about it, too. Our fault is that we set the bar too high, and we tried too hard to make the game to beat all games. In the last 18 months we’ve taken a much more realistic look at the project, we’ve hired a truckload of experienced help, and I personally believe we are now on the right track…finally. As for the question of Duke’s lasting appeal, I believe strongly that it doesn’t matter at all. DNF will succeed or fail not because of the Duke brand, but solely based on whether the game is great, or not. The original Duke Nukem 3D didn’t have a large fan following, and yet it succeeded. DNF will have to stand on its own just the same.
Now it’s not unheard for games to have development times of several years (Half Life 2 being very notable, as an example) but it’s perhaps fair to say that none have had such an ‘interesting’ progress as Duke Nukem Forever! We asked him to be as brief as possible and here’s what Scott had to say about just why it has taken so long just to get to the point they’re at now: Scott: As I said above, it comes down to our desire to not let fans down with anything less than perfection. However, perfection is not possible – that’s the biggest lesson we’ve learned. No game is perfect. Well, maybe Tetris. ;-)
DNF is also famous for its use of engines but the truth on the matter is: Scott: We started with the Quake engine, but within six or so months we switched to the Unreal engine. However, I’m reminded of the story about the man who claimed to own the axe that George Washington used to chop down the cherry tree. The man said, “Yeah, it’s the same axe alright, but the head and handle have both been replaced a few times over the last 200 years of use.” The same applies with the Unreal engine we licensed so long ago.
Translation? Still on the ‘Unreal’ engine but nothing like the same version that they started with all that time ago! Licensed engines are just one part of the whole middleware package and the growth of tools for developers has been quite noticeable over the past 5 years or so - one would think that this would make life easier for a typical developer but is this being too naïve? Scott: It’s true; these tools can make life easier. Just not as easier as the middleware providers like to hype. There are nearly always problems to overcome or modifications that are needed. Still, they shake out as a big net positive for the most part.
Scott: Our general approach is a common one, I think: We try to support all of the newer, cool whiz-bang graphics features, but at the same time we try to make it so the game will run on middle-range machines, too.
Fans of Prey will hopefully remember the aliens’ choice of music, which made sense when Scott had this to say about the importance of scores and audio effects in a modern game: Scott: We believe strongly in the power of music, and we used award-winning composer Jeremy Soule (and his brother, Julian) for Prey, which had three hours of original music, plus over an hour of licensed music, like Don’t Fear the Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult. I hope we have something equally as impressive for DNF.
Cynics may not believe this but Duke Nukem Forever is in full development and has a team of 33 people working on it; surely the history of its production would scare off potential workers, yes? Scott: You would think so, but not at all. In fact, in the last year especially we’ve dramatically upgraded the level of experienced & talented developers in-house, hiring key developers from several blockbuster projects. These new developers have made a stunningly positive impact on the project. And we continue to hire. I think when any developer visits our studio, meets the people already here, and sees what we already have in place…well, it becomes an easy sell.
Given the publishing experience of 3DRealms and their willingness to tackle difference platforms, it made sense to enquire as to what lies ahead for DNF too. For example, are Take 2 Interactive Software still publishing Duke Nukem Forever? Given the amount of experience 3D Realms has in the production area, it might make more sense for 3DRealms to do this themselves: Scott: Possibly, but Take2 has inherited the agreement we originally signed with GT Interactive back in the 90’s. This agreement does allow us to direct sale the game, such as through an online digital service, and we plan to take full advantage of this.
The point about using a digital service is a good one as we’ve seen a huge increase in its usage for shipping games; the two most well-known being Steam and Direct2Drive. Finally, concerning DNF, we enquired as to what platforms the game is being planned for: multiple or PC only? Scott: The plan is definitely to bring DNF to multiple platforms. We have not announced which ones, yet.
Which should come as no surprise really - consoles are more than powerful enough to run against some of the latest hardware, so we should hopefully see few compromises between the different platform versions of Duke Nukem Forever.
Related StuffTags |
 
 
See if your PC can handle the latest games:
 
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
News: 
