Are Duke Nukem 3d mods dead?

[xenoxols]

This is a serious question, I very rarely see any mods for duke3d, much less for eduke32. Sure there are plenty of maps but they are usually just one level, and completely vanilla. So if someone can tell me if I'm missing something, please do.
I Know of:
WGRealms 2: SiegeBreaker
AMC TC
DukePlus
Nuclear Showdown
Weapons of Mass Destruction
War of Attrition
Duke 64 TC
Duke Nukem Eternity
Duke Nukem Forever 2013

[NeuralStunner]

Where are you looking? Duke4.net looks pretty lively.

[jdredalert]

You'll find a lot of interesting stuff here. From sprite edits to even some interesting active projects.

http://forums.duke4.net/

[Viscra Maelstrom]

you list a Duke mod from 2013, and question the game's mod activity?

also, check NS' link. the latest update is a Duke TC compilation of 60 TC's in one Eduke package. i don't know a lot about Duke mods myself, but i'd figure that's the best place to start looking.

[xenoxols]

There are a lot of posts on duke4.net; not a lot of them contain project releases. Also all of the mods in NS's collection are over 2 years old. I think newest duke mod I've played was duke64tc, and that's over a year old. What I meant to saw is that nothing new is getting released. At least compared to zdoom.
EDIT: Actually Duke Hard is this year, but as I said It's just (well made) maps, little new content.

[Cage]

Sorry guys, but you just totally outnumber us Dukers when it comes to the number of people actively modding the game - not to mention the community itself! The biggest reason why I'm involved in Doom projects is the ability to actually build a decent team, and so, raise the chance that project will get complete - IMO, it's a lot harder to find people for a Duke mod who would be interested, have time and also knew what they're doing. That's why there's not many Duke releases, especially big in scope - AMC TC took few years and big team, and still, only the first episode has been released so far.

Besides, not sure if that's still true in the age of source ports though, but I think that modding for later games, like Duke and Quake requires more time/effort due to more sophisticated engines and larger amount of features. I've did some mapping for both Doom & Duke, and Doom seems to be a lot quicker - general standard for map layouts is a lot more abstract and Duke has a lot of features that you simply have to use to make a good level - scaling of textures, floor alignments, spritework, slopes as standard, lighting setup requires a lot more manual action, etc... Similar case with Quake.

Also, keep in mind that interest for the games diminishes over time. I'm sure that there's not many releases for Quake, or Half-Life 1 now, despite the modding community being very big at the time. Doom is one exception, but it's a game that is revered as a legend, holds its position as an iconic classic.

[Nash]

Making content for Doom is soooo much easier and faster. A lot of people ask why I bother making things for (G)ZDoom, "bro u should get unity" but I just love how I can put together a working prototype for any kind of game I want with (G)ZDoom much faster than FancyEngineTech. Granted, I'm not really out to make games with AAA grafic's but my point is... Doom's modding popularity is owed to the fact that you can make things in Doom so much quicker and easier.

I've tried to mod Duke and especially Quake SEVERAL times over the last 14 or so years.. In all attempts, I lost interest in less than a week due to lack of documentation, an inactive community, code-hoarding and just general annoyances to make anything.

[Enjay]

I would like to associate myself with the comments by the previous speaker.

[MetroidJunkie]

Yeah, I really wanted to switch over to Duke 3D modding at some point but, for some reason, I keep going back to GZDoom just out of convenience.

[Jblade]

since this is pretty relevant, hopefully nobody minds the bump - we just released episode 2 of the AMC TC so if you're curious as to the capabilities of Eduke32 and Build than that's a great place to start.

[xenoxols]

Oh yeah, I already saw that. It's pretty awesome. Although the sprites are in a wide variety of styles, so many look out of place and most of the weapon graphics are pretty bad. But still, it's very good.

[BFG]

missed one of the finest mods: http://misfittechstudios.duke4.net/NR-IotDM/

[Hisymak]

Are there actually any "modern" Duke3D/build engine map editors, not just those strictly based on the original "build"?
The original "build" editor indeed brought a brand new and superior map editing feature into 3D-gaming world: the 3D-editing mode. On the other hand, "build" is pretty HARD TO USE, especially in terms of the user interface (at least for me). Please correct me if these things actually can be done somehow but I did not figure out how to.

- There are actions, which you can do only in 3D editing mode and not in 2D mode. For example setting sector heights: in 3D editing mode you must move the cursor to a sector floor/ceiling and by pressing PGUP/PGDN you move their heights. You must press them as many times as you need. There is no way to set them DIRECTLY (by a numeric value) in sector properties (if there is even any interface to view/edit them).
- Same applies to sector/wall lighting. You must press +/- to adjust light level, but you don't know the actual light value and you must guess the correct light. At least, here you can use copy/paste, which makes this easier.
- Sprite scaling was always a BIG nightmare for me. When I inserted some sprite (i.e. some item or enemy), it appeared too big in the editor and I had to correct their scale by pressing another keys precisely 16 or 32 times (I don't remember correctly). And somehow, actually in-game some sprites appeared in correct scale, no matter what they were in editor.
- You can edit sector/sprite/wall properties through certain keys or key combinations (usually CTRL+something or ALT+something). You must remember, which key edits which property, some of them are really not intuitive and you must discover them by experimenting. For long time I did not know how to change sprite palette (which is ALT+P). AFAIK, there is no menu or interface, where you can view or edit all the properties at once.
- And the most notably: Scripting everything via tagging and inserting special sprites. Even for making a simple door, you must read a tutorial, otherwise you have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how the things are made and what the special tag numbers actually mean. Compared to Doom map editing, there are perfectly named linedef actions and you know exatly what one does.

Yeah, later I used Mapster32, which came along with Eduke32, which made several improvements, like you can at least display all the properties of sprites, sectors, etc, but it was still based on the original build and suffered from still the same problems.
That at all was, what discouraged me from making maps for Duke3D, because using Doom Builder was WAY VERY, VERY MUCH easier, especially in terms of editing user interface.

If any map editor for Build engine was made in the modern way, where you can simply edit all sprite/sector properties in some window (like Doom Builder), and meanings of all special tags are well shown/explained in the interface, then editing for Duke3D would become at least as simple as for Doom.
I did not make any maps for Duke3D for ages, so correct me if there actually is something new which I don't know about.

[xenoxols]

Last time I opened up mapster32, I saw a grid and pretty much nothing else. I also couldn't do anything with the mouse.

[MetroidJunkie]

For me, map making was simple enough but I couldn't figure out how to do anything else, like custom weapons or enemies. Map making is good and all but I like using (G)ZDoom to make my own kind of game rather than just my own levels.