Prey Development Update #3

[Evil Avatar]

3D Realms has posted their third Prey Development Update (http://www.3drealms.com/news/2006/01/prey_weekly_dev_1.html), this week talking about their Prey Press Trip.

[Dirty Harry]

3drealms, has been in business since 1991. Never has had a loan. Never has had layoffs. Extremely stable and successful environment. Has a small knit team of 30 or so members and they focus all their efforts on one killer title at a time. When its done is the motto and mantra of 3drealms, they feel games should be released when they feel done, not when the next holiday season is approaching. Every employee of 3drealms receives medical and dental benefits as well as other perks plus competitive salary, based on skill and experience. Signing bonuses for new members based on previous experience in the game industry. An interesting tidbit is that they share in the profits of every dollar we make, on the games "you" ship, as long as "you" are employed here.

These are some of the reasons 3drealms deserves more respect that is given, hell being a company that treats its employees like humans is a great asset.

To leave you with some wisdom, from the honorable Scott Miller,

"Game development is not an endeavor that can be finished within arbitrary financial quarters. It requires ongoing research, testing, polishing and even tossing away of work and ideas that don't work after being implemented. Because of game development's inherent unpredictability, we never attach a release date to our games until we're within a few days of launching, and even then we won't hesitate to miss the date if it means improving the gameplay."

Thanks im here all day :P

[Paranoia]

3DRealms trying to give the illusion that they are doing something worthwhile? Sounds desperate.

[Dirty Harry]

3DRealms trying to give the illusion that they are doing something worthwhile? Sounds desperate.
What exactly have you done paranoia?, can you provide some examples of game work that showcase your skillset?. Would you also care to elaborate a little on why you hate 3drealms so much?.

[Suicidal ShiZuru]

I become less interested in this game every day.

[Paranoia]

What exactly have you done paranoia?, can you provide some examples of game work that showcase your skillset?. Would you also care to elaborate a little on why you hate 3drealms so much?.

I guess we're not allowed to hate 3DRealms, eh? Wouldn't want to dissapoint their most fanatical fanboys whose still have high hopes for DNF. :rolleyes:

[fndarkone]

it must be nice to come up with an idea, farm it out to another company and sit back and profit from it.

to paraphrase southpark:

1: come up with idea
2: have someone else do the work
3: profit

it sounds like they do need to have some layoffs if they have a team that cant come up with a good game in 10 years.

[Conner Dain]

What exactly have you done paranoia?, can you provide some examples of game work that showcase your skillset?. Would you also care to elaborate a little on why you hate 3drealms so much?.


I'd guess he's done something besides sit on his butt FOR THE LAST EIGHT YEARS. If 3DR actually has a staff of 30, what the hell have they been doing? If 30 people can't finish a game in eight years, they need to seriously think about changing jobs. That's just sad.

[Taco]

Are the people who give 3DR a hard time now the same ones who were giving them a hard time 4 years ago? I mean I was sick of these nitwits then, I figured they'd be sick of themselves by now.

It's not clever, new or interesting.

[EGO]

I tend to agree, but riddle me this...

No hate for Valve. Hell, they're revered and can do no wrong.

So... Half-Life 2, 7 years in development. Should they pack-up/lay-off/get out?

I personally would never take 7+ years to make a game, because I think you'd loose focus and how can you be profitable after all that deveopment cost (people + time = $$$), but that's just me.

[Dirty Harry]

I dont disgree that the dnf was a mess in the past, but i have some real high hopes for the upcoming future of 3drealms.

[bone4ahead]

I tend to agree, but riddle me this...

No hate for Valve. Hell, they're revered and can do no wrong.

So... Half-Life 2, 7 years in development. Should they pack-up/lay-off/get out?

I personally would never take 7+ years to make a game, because I think you'd loose focus and how can you be profitable after all that deveopment cost (people + time = $$$), but that's just me.

Half-life 2 was six years in developement. Half-life 2 wasn't announced until 2003. DNF was announced in 1997. That is before HL 1 came out. Valve took six years and released the most inovative FPS since Half-life 1. That's why nobody has "hate" for Valve.
I'd much rather wait another six years for Half-life 3 than have six crappy James Bond games from EA.

[jadkins555]

A lot of the 3D Realms' hate doesn't stem from how long DNF has taken to develop -- I was looking forward to it in middle school; I am now in my 4th year of college -- it has to do with how ego centric the higher ups are, such as Scott Miller.

They used to regularly post on their .plan files how other games sucked while DNF was going to be the greatest game ever made.

Sure, it hasn't happened in a while not, but that doesn't erase the past.

From George Broussard's .plan (http://finger.planetquake.com/plan.asp?userid=georgeb&id=8523) file:

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.

[Taco]

There was plenty of Valve hate within 6 months after they announced HL2.

People are idiots. There are no exceptions.

[Sl1pstream]

Are the people who give 3DR a hard time now the same ones who were giving them a hard time 4 years ago? I mean I was sick of these nitwits then, I figured they'd be sick of themselves by now.

True, I mean, look at all the 3DR releases in those 4 years. How dare they question 3DR's ability to produce quality titles.

[Taco]

I can't tell if you are just an idiot or a troll.

[Sl1pstream]

Their site is filled with two things: Prey and Apogee.

Prey is something they're publishing and the last Apogee game came out at least ten years ago. Pardon me if I question their ability to make new, high quality, top selling games.

[Taco]

Ok, idiot it is

I never said it wasn't true, I said it's old, boring and dumb. It's like calling a particular retard stupid every day for a decade. It's annoying. No one disagrees, but it's still irritating.

[Sl1pstream]

Ok, idiot it is

I never said it wasn't true, I said it's old, boring and dumb. It's like calling a retard stupid every day for a decade. It's annoying. No one disagrees, but it's still irritating.

I didn't say it had to be a Duke Nukem game though, any game would do.

[Taco]

I didn't say it had to be a Duke Nukem game though, any game would do.

Right... and your point it?

[Rook]

I find it hard to believe that anyone can have so much anger or love towards 3dr. Prey is a game made by Human Head. 3dr has as much to do with game development as the BestBuy salesman that sells the game to you.

I suspect Taco and Dirty Harry are either employees of 3dr or employees of some viral marketing company. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_marketing

On a side note, I can't wait to play Prey. The gravity switching stuff seems like it will be awesome.

[jadkins555]

I never said it wasn't true, I said it's old, boring and dumb. It's like calling a particular retard stupid every day for a decade. It's annoying. No one disagrees, but it's still irritating.

I think it's still good for a laugh. If you don't like it, move on.

[Taco]

Show me the love I have for 3dr please. Must of been when I professed my hatred for Scott Miller.

I just loathe these dead horse jokes. People who find them amusing for longer than, say, one month should be embarassed of themselves.

[Taco]

As a side note. I love the Penny Arcade effect on the net. PA makes a comic about something and people all over the world rush to adopt their thoughts as their own. So much so that they register an account just to espouse it.

Read: Viral Marketing.

[Rook]

The reason the jokes are so funny is because 3dr is still around pretending they are game developers. I don't see to many Dia Kantana jokes anymore.

Enlighten me Taco, how can you like George B. yet hate Scott Miller? Why the hell are they even on your radar to like or dislike? Do you run a comic shop and is this the worst thread evar?

[F3nyx]

Show me the love I have for 3dr please. Must of been when I professed my hatred for Scott Miller.

I just loathe these dead horse jokes. People who find them amusing for longer than, say, one month should be embarassed of themselves.Maybe a year ago, people used to trot out "Duke Nuke Fornever" catchphrases regularly. But it's passed beyond the realm of humor. Nowadays, it's a serious reason to ignore/loathe 3DRealms. And it's perfectly reasonable to mention it when the very first reply is a bizarre dissertation on the dental benefit that 3DRealms gives to its employees, as if that has fuck all to do with its merit as a developer, and the third reply makes the ever-popular argument that "If you can't do better you should just keep your mouth shut!" Please, any toddler can recognize the blatant illogic of this kind of statement.

On topic, whenever I see a new preview or interview or whatever for Prey, I consider reading it, but then just watch the E3 trailer again, because that does such a fantastic job of showing off this game's cool features.

[mixuk]

Judge a company by the games they make, not how they make it or how long it takes. Those things should be irrelevant to you.

[Qoz]

Judge a company by the games they make, not how they make it or how long it takes.

Excatly. But its not so easy to use this logic with 3Drealms as they have released one mega-hit and several other very good games far in the past. So the question everyone has to ask themselves is "do I still believe 3Drealms can make great games in the 3D era?".
First they couldn't and scrapped the game - twice.
But now they are on track and I really believe they will succeed.
As DirtyHarry pointed out they take care of their employees and they strive to make a great game for you!! It's not like you have some kinda subscription where you are entitled to a game now and then. Please try an put 3Drealms in perspective.. I remember other developers failing horribly when they needed to convert the build pseudo 3D to full blown 3D. Blood2 is a good example of a great build-game and one stinking bugfilled POS sequel that got released. 3Drealms could have done the same thing, but they didn't because the wanted to do more. They didn't want you to spend your hard earned money on crap, so they re-did the whole thing.

I don't really follow these guys, but sometimes I check their forum. Everytime the Prey forum has ½ the people online reading than DukeNukemForever and Prey is currently being hyped to the skies. DukeNukemForever still retain that buzz in the community - I don't know why except because Duke3D was such a fantastic game. I'll just play the games that are out and one day Duke is here.

[Sl1pstream]

I'll just play the games that are out and one day Duke is here.

And except for the fans it will sell like shit because to the new generation of gamers, Duke Nukem doesn't mean a thing. Which sucks.

Besides, if a game comes out these days that'll let you kill naked strippers, it'll be AO, making it even more impossible to buy.

[Taco]

nd it's perfectly reasonable to mention it when the very first reply is a bizarre dissertation on the dental benefit that 3DRealms gives to its employees, as if that has fuck all to do with its merit as a developer, and the third reply makes the ever-popular argument that "If you can't do better you should just keep your mouth shut!"

Eh true, that first post was bizarre and out of no where and I 100% with you on the "what have you done better" argument.

[Beelzebud]

I just think it's funny that 3DR's "developer" diary is about a game another team is, well, developing. :D

[Dirty Harry]

Its funny taco, you think people have a right to criticize people for their work when they do no work of their own. Its an interesting opinion but personally i dont think its stand to be a moral and fair person. Who am i to judge, is what i ask of everyone to consider. This company while being quite inactive for half a decade is starting to shift its role as a game maker as you have notice into being a producer\publisher of sorts. While personally i think in ways this is very genius to be able to profit from games that 3drealms had their hands on slightly (less work = same profit or more). Now i can assure you that 3dr does work on its own games it publishes it just leases studios to do the majority of the work for them. Prey was a 3drealms creation which starts around late 96\97, the concept and how the game played was their own idea, there is no denying this. The game got shelved for many years then it got passed onto human head studios and you know the rest. I think personally this game is going to be stellar and i cant think of any other game that deserves to "sell well".

[Taco]

People can criticize me for the work I do. However, that is not building games and luckily for me not very public.

[Qoz]

You can easily state that 3Drealms suck at some part of game developing - the part about planning the process and getting tech done. They suck so badly at this, but like most people they probably learned from their mistakes.

It is foolish though to then assume that 3Drealms are poor game developers. Both Duke3D and Shadow Warrior are on my top 10 games of all time. They were great in the days. Have they lost their touch? Perhaps. No-one knows for sure.

They suck at making games (the planning part), but they are great at making games (the gameplay part). Thats why they are good at "helping" companies like Human Head to tweak the important details making the gameplay fun.

I can understand why people would dislike George an Scott because they had very active and arrogant .plan updates regarding other peoples work. Ironically this point (don't judge others if your work isn't good) is what DirtyHarry is trying to explain, but DH try to understand that 3Drealms did this alot some years ago. And they were sitting on a trainwreck of a game while bashing other projects. This is why people hate Geaorge and Scott and I guess it's justified. But sometimes these anger-freaks mix it all up and claim foolishly they are bad gamedevelopers (no-one knows yet !!).

These bad vibes will all fade away or explode (and then fade) when the game arrives.

[XxSATANxX]

All time Game Idiots:

# 3 Dawreck I'm a PhD Smart

# 2 John Romero Ion Diakantana I'm your bitch It's all your fault game god

# 1 Longest game development EVAR I've gained 400 lbs George Blowupassard

I have an unopened copy of Daikatana priced at .99 cents. I'm sure DNF will be added to the collection.