Duke Nukem Forever Metalist

Posted byRandall 218 Comments on Duke Nukem Forever Metalist

Now that the Duke Nukem Forever project is dead (until it’s sold off and picked up by someone else), there’s a lot of renewed interest in the hilarious list of things that took less time than the Duke Nukem Forever development process.  It lists things such as the Beatles’ entire music career and World War II plus the Manhattan Project.

What struck me was that the list itself has been around a long time.  I was laughing at it years ago, and though it was updated just today, most of the items on it still date back to the original list (circa late 2005/early 2006, I think).

So I present to you — and read this carefully; it’s not a mistake — a list of things that happened since the List of Things That Have Happened Since Duke Nukem Forever Was Announced was written.

  • Barack Obama announced his candidacy, slogged through the longest Presidential campaign in American history, and was elected.
  • Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans and wiped out much of the Gulf Coast.
  • Ehud Olmert came to power in Israel, pursued a war against Lebanon, and was succeeded by Netanyahu.
  • Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito have had their entire Supreme Court careers since the list was written.
  • The world panicked over bird flu, calmed down, panicked over swine flu, and apparently dodged a bullet.
  • The iPhone was announced, released, and developed to the point where it could make fart noises.
  • Windows Vista was released, sputtered a bit, and is now reaching the end of its life cycle.

Additionally, the List of Things That Took Less Time Than the Duke Nukem Forever Development has been circulating for longer than each of these things took:

  • The release of all three Lord of the Rings movies
  • The painting of the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel (or, will be true in a few months)
  • World War I (nearly; age of list is uncertain)
  • The development of Windows 95 from Windows 3.1
  • The construction of the Empire State Building
  • The entire run of the original Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers show plus the first movie.
  • The premier of Firefly, its cancellation, its growth into a geek classic, and the subsequent greenlighting, filming and release of Serenity.

218 replies on “Duke Nukem Forever Metalist”

  2. Man, all this talk about DNF makes me want to pick up Duke Nukem again… Will I ever have time for studying?

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  4. > slogged through the longest Presidential campaign in history

    [pedantic] American history, you mean. (Or American Presidential campaign, or whatever)

    > The development of Windows 95 from Windows 3.1

    Not so sure here; Windows 95 might not have started only after 3.1 was released.

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  6. Inspired by Christophe’s comment, how about a List of Things That Will Happen Before Everyone Finally Accepts the Demise of Duke Nukem Forever.

    Starting with:
    • Serbia will recognise the independence of Kosovo
    • Turkey will join the European Union
    • The pound sterling will start to recover
    • The state of Alabama will remove anything relating to Intelligent Design from the science curriculum
    • There will be a release of Internet Explorer that is as good as the contemporary Firefox*
    • Wikipedians will stop bitching about articles relating to Pokémon
    • BBC iPlayer will stop using DRM
    • There will be an xkcd comic with a feelgood ending

    *Actually, I reckon this could happen surprisingly soon – the gap between the two has narrowed quite a bit in the last couple of versions.

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  8. Things that have happened since the list of things that have happened since the List of Things That Have Happened Since Duke Nukem Forever Was Announced was written was written:

    – Around 20,000 children were born.
    – I took a shower.
    – Over 6 comments were posted on this blog.

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  9. “List of Things That Have Taken Longer than the Duke Nukem Forever Development”

    Is this a typo or is there another list I don’t know about? (This list would probably be much less interesting.)

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  10. Adam: It’s the second link at the top of the article — what the first two paragraphs are discussing.

    Edit: Oh, I see what you’re pointing out. Oops! Thanks 🙂

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  11. Err, I’d hope there’s no “List of Things That Have Taken Longer than the Duke Nukem Forever Development”.

    It’d be an awfully big list.

    I hope this comment box accepts some html.

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  13. I hope this comment box accepts some html.

    It does – the footnote of my comment originally had “heresy” tags around it, but the monkey has interpreted that as actual markup. The html specification has obviously become a lot more comprehensive since I last looked…

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  15. Randall,

    Those are lists of things that have taken *less* time than DNF. As Jonas suggests, the list of things that have taken *more* time would be very large (and as I mentioned, much less exciting).

    List of Things That Have Taken Longer than the Duke Nukem Forever Development:
    – The Cretaceous Era
    – The Renaissance
    – The Hundred Years’ War

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  16. “*Actually, I reckon this could happen surprisingly soon – the gap between the two has narrowed quite a bit in the last couple of versions.” – Of course, both are now under threat from Safari and Chrome (depending on platform) and Opera.

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  17. “Internet Explorer,” “Firefox,” “Opera,” “Safari,” “Chrome?” What is all this? Aren’t we all still on Netscape Navigator here?

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  19. I last used Netscape Navigator when it came free with my first Internet connection – in 1997, before DNF was even announced.

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  20. More things that have happened since The List was written:

    -Two new James Bond movies have come out

    -Ron Perlman has done voice work in 11 video games

    -The XKCD webcomic was created, developed a large fan base, and then shut down after the artist responsible was arrested on charges of ferret fraud (or, will be true in a few months)

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  23. I just read the conspiracy story posted by an ex-3DR developer (here if you haven’t read it – http://gamingisstupid.com/2009/05/06/the-chair-story-revival/)…

    I find it most amusing that despite the author writing the word “story” in conspicuous bold type at the top of the page, everyone is still debating it’s validity and saying they never thought Cliffy B could do such a thing.

    There really is no substitute for attention to detail is there ?

    One thing is for sure… DNF will now, even more so, become the stuff of legends. Perhaps this is all part of the ploy.

    “Things which have happened since DNF began development… DNF became the most famous and talked about video game in history, and then disappeared into the mist like Bruce Banner hitching down the road at the end of an episode of The Incredible Hulk.”

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  24. Ferret fraud: the use of a ferret in a manner inconsistent with its labeling, or the removal of said ferret label.

    what?!? your ferrets don’t have labels?

    someone call the cops!

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  28. Things that have happened since the list of things that have happened since the list of things that have happened since the List of Things That Have Happened Since Duke Nukem Forever Was Announced was written was written was written:
    -CNN reported on Republicans criticizing Obama’s proposed budget (surprise!)
    -A hideously complicated multi-timeline mashup of xkcd comics was posted at http://echochamber.me/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=22741
    -I ate a large handful of chocolate chips
    -I walked my dog
    -Randall Munroe had a sudden urge to read my blog again.
    -ReCAPTCHA decided “goulding Jacksonville” would be a good name for a rock band.

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  30. My first thought on reading the title was something like, “Is a metalist the same thing as an alchemist?” After reading the entire post, I was like, “Oh! meta-list!”

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  32. Oh god, does Mason have a point.

    Also Randall, don’t forget that it isn’t *dead*, but just in deep coma, development hell, or development heaven, or whatever the hell you believe.

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  35. “Don’t forget Chinese Democracy by Guns N’ Roses!”

    That really should be mentioned. “Chinese Democracy by Guns N’ Roses was pushed back to the point where noone thought it would ever happen, and was released before Duke Nukem.”

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  36. DNF should never be released, but something is wrong with the universe if it’s not in development.

    I therefore propose that a philanthropist should set up a trust to fund DNF development in perpetuity, as a performance art project. It would be the appropriate legacy for future generations.

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  39. How about this one for the list: Napoleon’s entire reign over France was shorter than Duke Nukem Forever’s development failure.

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  40. The site you linked to has a preorder receipt on it. I wonder if the guy got his money back?

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  43. “Keep pushing the Firefly dream, we’ll get there eventually..”

    We could name it “Firefly forever”.. just as a working title…

    B

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  45. 4chan has been raping the internet (and real life in some cases) for less time then Duke Nukem Forever has been in development.

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  46. This is very amusing. Almost as amusing as “the Race”, which has had me in stitches in my office every morning for the past few days. Comedic genius, thank you. ^___^

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  47. Is it a coincidence that Duke Nukem Forever has the same acronym as that used in cross country races DNF, which stands for “did not finish.”

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  48. Ever notice how Duke Nukem: Forever has the same initials as Did Not Finish?

    …

    I know right

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  49. Hey someone should totally point out that DNF also stands for “did not finish.” I think I shall be the first… Surely no one else has noticed.

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  50. Ever notice how four different people, in less than 24 hours, have pointed out the same alternate acronym for DNF? We read it once. Knock it off.

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