PM>  Reminds me of my cousin, who spent an awful lot of time and money
 PM>  going to school to learn to be an architect... and on his first
 PM>  day at his first job, he spilled his lunch all over a set of
 PM>  blue prints he'd been given to work on.
 PM>  They fired his butt.
 PM>  Food and computers don't mix. 
  Well, they can in some cases.  I'm drinking a Coke as I speak, and I know 
that half of all the computer companies out there are pretty much fueled on 
it.  :-)  Joe, if you're reading this, what's the caffinated beverage of 
choice over at 3D Realms?
 PM>  There are probably a ton of things they and they alone have thought
 PM>  of, so why NOT keep it a secret?  Why give the competition some
 PM>  ideas?  Make the competition worry -that's a better way. 
  But why keep it a secret anyways?  Some people are expressing doubts about 
Unreal because not much is known about it beyond MMX support, that server 
hopping and the character options.  We don't know about many of the actual 
GAMEPLAY features.
  Besides, revealing everything usually makes a game a more tempting target 
for your money than it would have been before.  Take Half-Life, for instance. 
 At first I was indifferent - it's a Quake-engine game, wheee!  Then I heard 
about 24-bit colour in hardware, the skeletal animation, the in-game 
cutscenes, and so on, and my interest was piqued.
  Of course, I AM looking forward to Duke Nukem Forever, but that's mainly 
because of 3D Realms' own reputation.  I know next to nothing about the game 
itself, beyond its using the Quake II engine and featuring Dr. Proton again.
 PM>  Maybe, just maybe... id and Shiny want to pre-sell their games and
 PM>  the engines that go with them.  Maybe they count on that to make
 PM>  back a ton of their money.  So perhaps some of it is advertising
 PM>  out of despiration. 
  Desperation?  I doubt it.  id isn't exactly cash-strapped, and neither is 
Shiny.  I guess it's that they're both "technology companies;" that is, they 
strive to provide the most viscerally intense experience they can, using the 
best engine they can.  Good gameplay just comes along for the ride!
  3D Realms is more of a design company, like Ion Storm.  They will try to 
stay on the cutting edge, but they're more interested in rounding out the 
experience.
 PM>  Stargunner is not exactly a January 1998 game.  What is it, a few
 PM>  years old now?  Duke is a few years old too.
  Actually, I believe it was out in 1996 - probably in the middle or near the 
end of that year.  But still, there were games that required anything from 
P60s to P90s back then - they could have done SOMETHING, even if it was just 
an option.
 PM>  Even so, you've no doubt read the comments about what Prey will
 PM>  require.  They sure aren't programming _that_ for a 486.  :)
  I don't know the specifics, but I know for a fact that the requirements 
will include 3D hardware.  Hopefully, the Pentium II I'm aiming to get will 
suffice!
 PM>  Surprisingly enough, a lot of people still play it in single-player
 PM>  mode.
  I know that, but companies like TEN were practically BUILT on Duke 3D - 
ditto Kali and Kahn.  You have to agree that at least a few sales were 
spurred on by the ability to play over the Internet, and with more than 4 
people at a time.
    
--- Maximus 3.01
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