It's a sad day in gaming history. It seems to be quite true at this time.

I don't buy into the '3DRealms was just stress testing Epic's engines' with DNF though. That ex-employee can't really be trusted, as he also claims to have been nearly beat up by people from Epic during the E3 2001.

If it were a marketing stunt though, I am guessing the website wouldn't be down and the forums wouldn't have 'server too busy' errors popping up all the time.

I'd definitely rather believe it to be a marketing stunt. Especially because the webmaster has a habit of blowing things up being usually left out of the loop when it comes to the real info. (For example back when Duke Nukem Manhattan got released)

Of course, unfortunately it doesn't look like a hoax to me either.

R.I.P 3DRealms.

Lets hope DNF gets released eventually by Take2 though.