Take my opinion with a grain of salt, 'cause I wouldn't have bought the game anyway (just not my kind of soup).
I watched some LPs of it and came to the following conclusion:
The reasons why DNF turned out like it did go deeper then just "OMG I can only carry 2 gunz at a time!!"
or "Gearbox ruined it!"
The Developers didn't have a proper goal when they started their work, they didn't have the right team for it, the project management failed and so forth. The Project was doomed to fail when they decided that they couldn't realize their initial goal with the technology they had at the time and decided to change the technology instead of the goal.
From the end result, it seems they spent way too much time thinking about Individual tidbits that would be interesting and radical to teenagers of the late 90s and constructing something around those nuggets of humor to hold it together somehow. Obviously they didn't think it through too much, or they would have noticed that they where building a First person shooter without much control over yourself and with little shooting.
If it was Gearbox that forced regenerating Health and a restriced Weaponloadout, then what in blazes where the developers doing before ? If there had been strong arguments for more weapons or "classic" health, then I bet that the Developers who spend at least 8 hours a day on that game could tell you WHY they did things the way they do and How exactly it impacts on the player.
If your publishers can just come in at the last minute and tell you that you got to conform to the norm because your product just has been renamed "Call of Duke" and you can't argue about that decision, then maybe youre initial system was flawed.
You see these systems in modern shooters a lot for a reason. They make Money. People like em. If you want your product to sell well - think about going with the norm.
The implementation of these modern features was beyond abysmal from what I could tell. Health beeing tied into interaction with your surrounding without any clue about wheiter or not a specific result would have an effect ? Not good enough.
Forcing players to use specific guns over long periods through ammunition? Not good enough.
Compare DNF to Gears of War 2. Only 2 (Main-)Weapons there either, but vastly superior design around that choice.
DNF stands as a tragic example how bad design can ruin a solid idea. We can only hope that the financial side of things reflects our views. Gearbox obviously just cashed in a good IP prematurely, with as little investment as possible.
Now customers have to show Gearbox that the amount they invested wasn't good enough to make a profit. We deserve better games than this, and the Duke does too.
I watched some LPs of it and came to the following conclusion:
The reasons why DNF turned out like it did go deeper then just "OMG I can only carry 2 gunz at a time!!"
or "Gearbox ruined it!"
The Developers didn't have a proper goal when they started their work, they didn't have the right team for it, the project management failed and so forth. The Project was doomed to fail when they decided that they couldn't realize their initial goal with the technology they had at the time and decided to change the technology instead of the goal.
From the end result, it seems they spent way too much time thinking about Individual tidbits that would be interesting and radical to teenagers of the late 90s and constructing something around those nuggets of humor to hold it together somehow. Obviously they didn't think it through too much, or they would have noticed that they where building a First person shooter without much control over yourself and with little shooting.
If it was Gearbox that forced regenerating Health and a restriced Weaponloadout, then what in blazes where the developers doing before ? If there had been strong arguments for more weapons or "classic" health, then I bet that the Developers who spend at least 8 hours a day on that game could tell you WHY they did things the way they do and How exactly it impacts on the player.
If your publishers can just come in at the last minute and tell you that you got to conform to the norm because your product just has been renamed "Call of Duke" and you can't argue about that decision, then maybe youre initial system was flawed.
You see these systems in modern shooters a lot for a reason. They make Money. People like em. If you want your product to sell well - think about going with the norm.
The implementation of these modern features was beyond abysmal from what I could tell. Health beeing tied into interaction with your surrounding without any clue about wheiter or not a specific result would have an effect ? Not good enough.
Forcing players to use specific guns over long periods through ammunition? Not good enough.
Compare DNF to Gears of War 2. Only 2 (Main-)Weapons there either, but vastly superior design around that choice.
DNF stands as a tragic example how bad design can ruin a solid idea. We can only hope that the financial side of things reflects our views. Gearbox obviously just cashed in a good IP prematurely, with as little investment as possible.
Now customers have to show Gearbox that the amount they invested wasn't good enough to make a profit. We deserve better games than this, and the Duke does too.
