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Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to the IGN Xbox preview of Bioware's Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic, the Xbox RPG that's now a couple of weeks away from release (and has a PC version shipping in October.) The article suggests that "..serious pen-and-paper role playing fans will appreciate all of the stat-heavy terminology deep within the game's menu system but run-of-the-mill Star Wars fans will still get a kick out of all of the Greedos, wookies and laser blasts going on", and according to another preview at GamePro, this title from the renowned PC RPG creators has a "..battle system [which] is perhaps KOTOR's most singular achievement - it looks like it belongs in an action RPG, but it's actually turn-based and not far removed from the Baldur's Gate fight engine."

Marshall writes "Today I received an email from Tux Games that I never thought I'd get: confirmation that they were shipping me Neverwinter Nights complete with Linux installer! I didn't believe my eyes, so I checked out bioware's web page, and it was confirmed, the linux client is complete. Also check tuxgames.com which states that they are completing the installer and plan to ship games on Monday, 23 June."

Thanks to GameSpy for posting an interview with Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk the CEOs of developer Bioware, about the Neverwinter Nights franchise and the success of the mod community. As Greg Zeschuk says, "It's actually kind of funny - in a sense it's a well-kept secret that some people don't realize.. the volume of [mods] is unbelievable". The article goes on to discuss RTS and even MMO mods that users are creating for the million-selling PC role-playing game, as well as touching on the Shadows Of Undrentide expansion pack, which is released on June 18th in the US.

Thanks to GameSpy for posting an interview with Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk the CEOs of developer Bioware, about the Neverwinter Nights franchise and the success of the mod community. As Greg Zeschuk says, "It's actually kind of funny - in a sense it's a well-kept secret that some people don't realize.. the volume of [mods] is unbelievable". The article goes on to discuss RTS and even MMO mods that users are creating for the million-selling PC role-playing game, as well as touching on the Shadows Of Undrentide expansion pack, which is released on June 18th in the US.

Thanks to GameSpy for posting an interview with Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk the CEOs of developer Bioware, about the Neverwinter Nights franchise and the success of the mod community. As Greg Zeschuk says, "It's actually kind of funny - in a sense it's a well-kept secret that some people don't realize.. the volume of [mods] is unbelievable". The article goes on to discuss RTS and even MMO mods that users are creating for the million-selling PC role-playing game, as well as touching on the Shadows Of Undrentide expansion pack, which is released on June 18th in the US.

GameSpy has a new Q&A up with Trent Oster and Darcy Pajak, the producer/project director and assistant producer of Shadows of Undrentide, the upcoming expansion to Neverwinter Nights. The new features of SoU, which we first mentioned a while back are touched on, including a more engrossing plot, prestige classes, new tilesets (snow! finally!), new feats, henchman inventory control, and more.

GameSpy has a new Q&A up with Trent Oster and Darcy Pajak, the producer/project director and assistant producer of Shadows of Undrentide, the upcoming expansion to Neverwinter Nights. The new features of SoU, which we first mentioned a while back are touched on, including a more engrossing plot, prestige classes, new tilesets (snow! finally!), new feats, henchman inventory control, and more.

Thanks to the nice people at Gamespot, we have an in-depth look at the first expansion to Neverwinter Nights - Shadows Of Undrentide. This add-on to the popular PC RPG title, which ships in the US on June 17th, is easily classified as 'more of a good thing', with an all-new story, prestige classes to extend your character's abilities, and the vital Bigby's Crushing Hand spell. You can find more info on the official Shadows Of Undrentide site.

WWWWolf writes "The fine folks at Bioware have opened a new For Developers section, aimed for people who make external tools for the game. At the moment they have a forum and description of one of the crucial file formats, used for packaging data in the game, with more coming." This looks pretty cool. It's been several months since I loaded up the Aurora Toolset. I might have to get back into it again. In related news, Apostata writes "It seems there's even more steam under the lid of the NWN Linux community now: the Linux client won't be shipping with any ability to play the narrative cutaway movies between chapters, due to licensing/porting problems with Bink. Many are outraged, as this obviously makes for an incomprehensible game." Apostata also notes that the Aurora toolset also won't be ported.

WWWWolf writes "The fine folks at Bioware have opened a new For Developers section, aimed for people who make external tools for the game. At the moment they have a forum and description of one of the crucial file formats, used for packaging data in the game, with more coming." This looks pretty cool. It's been several months since I loaded up the Aurora Toolset. I might have to get back into it again. In related news, Apostata writes "It seems there's even more steam under the lid of the NWN Linux community now: the Linux client won't be shipping with any ability to play the narrative cutaway movies between chapters, due to licensing/porting problems with Bink. Many are outraged, as this obviously makes for an incomprehensible game." Apostata also notes that the Aurora toolset also won't be ported.

WWWWolf writes "The fine folks at Bioware have opened a new For Developers section, aimed for people who make external tools for the game. At the moment they have a forum and description of one of the crucial file formats, used for packaging data in the game, with more coming." This looks pretty cool. It's been several months since I loaded up the Aurora Toolset. I might have to get back into it again. In related news, Apostata writes "It seems there's even more steam under the lid of the NWN Linux community now: the Linux client won't be shipping with any ability to play the narrative cutaway movies between chapters, due to licensing/porting problems with Bink. Many are outraged, as this obviously makes for an incomprehensible game." Apostata also notes that the Aurora toolset also won't be ported.

According to this story from Reuters via Yahoo News, Infogrames is now officially changing its name to Atari worldwide. The French publisher originally picked up the home rights to the Atari name after buying Hasbro Interactive in 2001, and had recently been rebranding much of its line-up (even PC RPGs) with the Atari logo alongside the Infogrames one. Lovable French ruffian and Atari CEO Bruno Bonnell will open the Nasdaq stock exchange on Wednesday morning to herald the new ATAR stock ticker symbol for the company.

valedaemon writes "Well, I thought that the world would end before this day dawned, but Bioware has finally made good on its promise of a Linux client for Neverwinter Nights. You still need a Windows installation in order to copy the game data, but the good news is that the downloadable is only 4.4 MB. I could write more, but why? Go play!"

valedaemon writes "Well, I thought that the world would end before this day dawned, but Bioware has finally made good on its promise of a Linux client for Neverwinter Nights. You still need a Windows installation in order to copy the game data, but the good news is that the downloadable is only 4.4 MB. I could write more, but why? Go play!"

nyquil superstar writes "Just thought everyone might like to know, there are a whole bunch of updates at Bioware's NWN Linux Client Page. Includes goodies like the timing of future releases and betas, how to install the Linux client and future(!) expansions, and updates on the movies and sound issues. The quick version: sound is in and they will release a Linux client before they integrate a movie player. Oh, and you'll need to download the game's resource data or use a Windows install, the CD is only good for the reg. key and Windows install. Good news though, because it sounds like it's getting close."

Sir Joltalot writes "It seems as if the NWN linux client might not be as delayed after all. From the client page: "We have just been informed by Rad Game Tools that they have Linux versions of both Bink and Miles. ... This solves the two outstanding issues with the Linux Client, and I bet we will have even more good news for you in the coming week in terms of future Betas or Demos of the Linux Client."" You'll excuse me if I opt against holding my breath ;)

An anonymous reader writes "Posted tonight on the Neverwinter Nights Linux client page: '[Dec 13 2002] There have been many questions as to why the Linux client is taking so long. The two big issues are sound and movies due to the fact that BINK and Miles are only available for Windows and Mac. BINK is the in-game movie player and Miles is the sound engine for Neverwinter Nights. We are having to find our own solution for Linux sound in Neverwinter Nights, and we are exploring possible movie options. Due to these factors, we are revising the estimated release date from Fall 2002 to Winter 2002 (Dec 22 2002 to March 21 2003), with January 2003 being the earliest date it could be out. Progress has been made on sound this week, and to re-iterate, the graphical side of the Linux client is looking excellent and is almost complete.'"

An anonymous reader writes "LucasArts has taken a great step in promoting the modification of their titles and supporting the communities that love them! According to this press release, LucasArts has teamed up with LFNetwork to open LucasFiles.com. The site is dedicated to all files that fall in the LucasArts realm." Given competing games like Neverwinter Nights, which have a phenomenal amount of user-created add-ons, this is a very smart move for LucasArts.

Gabe writes "Looks like the NWN linux client page has been updated with screenshots!. Finally, some decent proof that Bioware is coming through for us linux folks. Maybe it's time to open my copy soon :)" My replacement CPU fan is here, so I theoretically can now play NWN. Can't wait for the good modules to start being developed. In the meantime, we should use it as the prettiest IRC server ever... where you can kill your friends instead of just kickbanning them :)

Apostata writes "It's been a long, long road for those of us awaiting the oft-delayed Linux Client of BioWare's NeverWinter Nights, but finally there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel. BioWare has put up a Linux Client page which will specifically inform eager beavers on how things are progressing, and it now states a Fall 2002 release." God if only it were true- I could slaughter the villagers and read my email without rebooting. Gotta make sure I don't get that backwards.

Apostata writes "It's been a long, long road for those of us awaiting the oft-delayed Linux Client of BioWare's NeverWinter Nights, but finally there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel. BioWare has put up a Linux Client page which will specifically inform eager beavers on how things are progressing, and it now states a Fall 2002 release." God if only it were true- I could slaughter the villagers and read my email without rebooting. Gotta make sure I don't get that backwards.

Ivan writes: "Bioware has released a dedicated Linux server for NeverWinter Nights. It requires a Windows install to use, but it definitely shows that they care about Linux users and are making progress towards the Linux client."

Ivan writes: "Bioware has released a dedicated Linux server for NeverWinter Nights. It requires a Windows install to use, but it definitely shows that they care about Linux users and are making progress towards the Linux client."

Ivan writes: "Bioware has released a dedicated Linux server for NeverWinter Nights. It requires a Windows install to use, but it definitely shows that they care about Linux users and are making progress towards the Linux client."

malaire writes "Assistant Producer Derek French of Neverwinter Nights has posted the new EULA for all to see. This addresses most concerns raised by the community about user-created content for the game." Our story noting the EULA concerns makes interesting, if somewhat confusing, reading.

Oddbod writes "Hot on the heels of yesterday's gold news, Bioware has announced that IG arm MacSoft will publish the Mac version of Neverwinter Nights. They hint at porting the toolset over to Mac, which originally wasn't expected, but no promises so far."

Oddbod writes "Hot on the heels of yesterday's gold news, Bioware has announced that IG arm MacSoft will publish the Mac version of Neverwinter Nights. They hint at porting the toolset over to Mac, which originally wasn't expected, but no promises so far."

Urthpaw writes "Neverwinter Nights, the D&D based RPG from BioWare (Makers of Baldur's Gate among other titles), for Windows, MacOS and Linux has Gone gold. The game allows players to make their own "modules", or adventures, and DM them for up to 64 friends. Server-linking features allow the assembly of distributed MMORPGs."

Urthpaw writes "Neverwinter Nights, the D&D based RPG from BioWare (Makers of Baldur's Gate among other titles), for Windows, MacOS and Linux has Gone gold. The game allows players to make their own "modules", or adventures, and DM them for up to 64 friends. Server-linking features allow the assembly of distributed MMORPGs."

Urthpaw writes "Neverwinter Nights, the D&D based RPG from BioWare (Makers of Baldur's Gate among other titles), for Windows, MacOS and Linux has Gone gold. The game allows players to make their own "modules", or adventures, and DM them for up to 64 friends. Server-linking features allow the assembly of distributed MMORPGs."

Max writes "Bioware, the company who have been working on Neverwinter Nights for many years, have recently released a beta version of the NWN toolset for all to download. The toolset is a brilliant feature of NWN, as it allows players to create and script their own custom made adventures. This beta version is limited, but designed to give players an insight in to the massive customisation available in the game. The file itself is 241mb and can be downloaded from Bioware " Update: 05/19 04:10 GMT by M : Zed Pobre submitted an important note concerning the EULA of this toolset, appended below. Update: 05/19 14:16 GMT by M : Derek French of Bioware has a response below. I respectfully disagree with him; I've just read the SDK EULA's for Starcraft and Half-life, and neither of these would permit the company to redistribute your mods for their commercial gain, while Bioware's would. Update: 05/20 05:16 GMT by M : Bioware is going to take another look at the EULA.

Zed Pobre writes "Careful review of the EULA of the Neverwinter Nights Beta Toolset reveals the following clause:

• Section 4(b):

  "By distributing or permitting the distribution of any of your Modules, you hereby grant back to INFOGRAMES and BIOWARE an irrevocable royalty-free right to use and distribute them by any means. Infogrames or BIOWARE may at any time and in its sole discretion revoke your right to make your Modules publicly available."

This is more or less the same as if a company producing a compiler wrote into the EULA that by distributing any program compiled with that compiler, the company would permanently get the rights to do whatever they wanted with that program, including reselling it for profit and then forbidding you to publish it yourself.

Derek French, the Assistant Producer for Bioware, confirmed that this section of the EULA is not going to change for the final release. Although he noted in the same message that similar clauses have been used by other companies providing tools for users to create their own content, NWN has a much greater scope than any of them by far, and it's now a profoundly bad idea for someone who wants to keep control of their writing, characters, or game ideas , or use those elements elsewhere, to make a NWN module using those elements publically available.

This kind of clause falls just short of "Bioware Owns Anything You Make", since if they want to sell a module you created themselves, the clause even allows them to forbid you from distributing your original version for any reason. The sole comfort in this is that the clause apparantly does not allow them to make a derivative work of your module, so it would have to be distributed "as is" -- but if the module contained enough "objectionable" material that they wouldn't want to take it for themselves, they could still forbid the owner from distributing it.

Once again, it seems that companies are only against piracy as long as it's their material being pirated. If they can pirate some individual's material by throwing an unreadable EULA up for a second at install time, it's perfectly fine.

The full forum thread discussing this can be found here."

Max writes "Bioware, the company who have been working on Neverwinter Nights for many years, have recently released a beta version of the NWN toolset for all to download. The toolset is a brilliant feature of NWN, as it allows players to create and script their own custom made adventures. This beta version is limited, but designed to give players an insight in to the massive customisation available in the game. The file itself is 241mb and can be downloaded from Bioware " Update: 05/19 04:10 GMT by M : Zed Pobre submitted an important note concerning the EULA of this toolset, appended below. Update: 05/19 14:16 GMT by M : Derek French of Bioware has a response below. I respectfully disagree with him; I've just read the SDK EULA's for Starcraft and Half-life, and neither of these would permit the company to redistribute your mods for their commercial gain, while Bioware's would. Update: 05/20 05:16 GMT by M : Bioware is going to take another look at the EULA.

Zed Pobre writes "Careful review of the EULA of the Neverwinter Nights Beta Toolset reveals the following clause:

• Section 4(b):

  "By distributing or permitting the distribution of any of your Modules, you hereby grant back to INFOGRAMES and BIOWARE an irrevocable royalty-free right to use and distribute them by any means. Infogrames or BIOWARE may at any time and in its sole discretion revoke your right to make your Modules publicly available."

This is more or less the same as if a company producing a compiler wrote into the EULA that by distributing any program compiled with that compiler, the company would permanently get the rights to do whatever they wanted with that program, including reselling it for profit and then forbidding you to publish it yourself.

Derek French, the Assistant Producer for Bioware, confirmed that this section of the EULA is not going to change for the final release. Although he noted in the same message that similar clauses have been used by other companies providing tools for users to create their own content, NWN has a much greater scope than any of them by far, and it's now a profoundly bad idea for someone who wants to keep control of their writing, characters, or game ideas , or use those elements elsewhere, to make a NWN module using those elements publically available.

This kind of clause falls just short of "Bioware Owns Anything You Make", since if they want to sell a module you created themselves, the clause even allows them to forbid you from distributing your original version for any reason. The sole comfort in this is that the clause apparantly does not allow them to make a derivative work of your module, so it would have to be distributed "as is" -- but if the module contained enough "objectionable" material that they wouldn't want to take it for themselves, they could still forbid the owner from distributing it.

Once again, it seems that companies are only against piracy as long as it's their material being pirated. If they can pirate some individual's material by throwing an unreadable EULA up for a second at install time, it's perfectly fine.

The full forum thread discussing this can be found here."

Max writes "Bioware, the company who have been working on Neverwinter Nights for many years, have recently released a beta version of the NWN toolset for all to download. The toolset is a brilliant feature of NWN, as it allows players to create and script their own custom made adventures. This beta version is limited, but designed to give players an insight in to the massive customisation available in the game. The file itself is 241mb and can be downloaded from Bioware " Update: 05/19 04:10 GMT by M : Zed Pobre submitted an important note concerning the EULA of this toolset, appended below. Update: 05/19 14:16 GMT by M : Derek French of Bioware has a response below. I respectfully disagree with him; I've just read the SDK EULA's for Starcraft and Half-life, and neither of these would permit the company to redistribute your mods for their commercial gain, while Bioware's would. Update: 05/20 05:16 GMT by M : Bioware is going to take another look at the EULA.

Zed Pobre writes "Careful review of the EULA of the Neverwinter Nights Beta Toolset reveals the following clause:

• Section 4(b):

  "By distributing or permitting the distribution of any of your Modules, you hereby grant back to INFOGRAMES and BIOWARE an irrevocable royalty-free right to use and distribute them by any means. Infogrames or BIOWARE may at any time and in its sole discretion revoke your right to make your Modules publicly available."

This is more or less the same as if a company producing a compiler wrote into the EULA that by distributing any program compiled with that compiler, the company would permanently get the rights to do whatever they wanted with that program, including reselling it for profit and then forbidding you to publish it yourself.

Derek French, the Assistant Producer for Bioware, confirmed that this section of the EULA is not going to change for the final release. Although he noted in the same message that similar clauses have been used by other companies providing tools for users to create their own content, NWN has a much greater scope than any of them by far, and it's now a profoundly bad idea for someone who wants to keep control of their writing, characters, or game ideas , or use those elements elsewhere, to make a NWN module using those elements publically available.

This kind of clause falls just short of "Bioware Owns Anything You Make", since if they want to sell a module you created themselves, the clause even allows them to forbid you from distributing your original version for any reason. The sole comfort in this is that the clause apparantly does not allow them to make a derivative work of your module, so it would have to be distributed "as is" -- but if the module contained enough "objectionable" material that they wouldn't want to take it for themselves, they could still forbid the owner from distributing it.

Once again, it seems that companies are only against piracy as long as it's their material being pirated. If they can pirate some individual's material by throwing an unreadable EULA up for a second at install time, it's perfectly fine.

The full forum thread discussing this can be found here."

Max writes "Bioware, the company who have been working on Neverwinter Nights for many years, have recently released a beta version of the NWN toolset for all to download. The toolset is a brilliant feature of NWN, as it allows players to create and script their own custom made adventures. This beta version is limited, but designed to give players an insight in to the massive customisation available in the game. The file itself is 241mb and can be downloaded from Bioware " Update: 05/19 04:10 GMT by M : Zed Pobre submitted an important note concerning the EULA of this toolset, appended below. Update: 05/19 14:16 GMT by M : Derek French of Bioware has a response below. I respectfully disagree with him; I've just read the SDK EULA's for Starcraft and Half-life, and neither of these would permit the company to redistribute your mods for their commercial gain, while Bioware's would. Update: 05/20 05:16 GMT by M : Bioware is going to take another look at the EULA.

Zed Pobre writes "Careful review of the EULA of the Neverwinter Nights Beta Toolset reveals the following clause:

• Section 4(b):

  "By distributing or permitting the distribution of any of your Modules, you hereby grant back to INFOGRAMES and BIOWARE an irrevocable royalty-free right to use and distribute them by any means. Infogrames or BIOWARE may at any time and in its sole discretion revoke your right to make your Modules publicly available."

This is more or less the same as if a company producing a compiler wrote into the EULA that by distributing any program compiled with that compiler, the company would permanently get the rights to do whatever they wanted with that program, including reselling it for profit and then forbidding you to publish it yourself.

Derek French, the Assistant Producer for Bioware, confirmed that this section of the EULA is not going to change for the final release. Although he noted in the same message that similar clauses have been used by other companies providing tools for users to create their own content, NWN has a much greater scope than any of them by far, and it's now a profoundly bad idea for someone who wants to keep control of their writing, characters, or game ideas , or use those elements elsewhere, to make a NWN module using those elements publically available.

This kind of clause falls just short of "Bioware Owns Anything You Make", since if they want to sell a module you created themselves, the clause even allows them to forbid you from distributing your original version for any reason. The sole comfort in this is that the clause apparantly does not allow them to make a derivative work of your module, so it would have to be distributed "as is" -- but if the module contained enough "objectionable" material that they wouldn't want to take it for themselves, they could still forbid the owner from distributing it.

Once again, it seems that companies are only against piracy as long as it's their material being pirated. If they can pirate some individual's material by throwing an unreadable EULA up for a second at install time, it's perfectly fine.

The full forum thread discussing this can be found here."

H3resy wrote to us with a new preview of Neverwinter Nights. The game continues to look great - and combined with its release date being right around Warcraft III, I suspect sleep will not be an option.

Urthpaw writes: "BioWare (maker of the Baldur's Gate series of games, among others)'s D&D-based 3D, multiplayer uber-RPG, Neverwinter Nights, who's future has been recently cast into doubt by some legal trouble will be released, after all. It is currently scheduled for "Early 2002" release, on Linux, MacOS, and Windows. The press release is here."

Urthpaw writes: "BioWare (maker of the Baldur's Gate series of games, among others)'s D&D-based 3D, multiplayer uber-RPG, Neverwinter Nights, who's future has been recently cast into doubt by some legal trouble will be released, after all. It is currently scheduled for "Early 2002" release, on Linux, MacOS, and Windows. The press release is here."

Urthpaw writes: "BioWare (maker of the Baldur's Gate series of games, among others)'s D&D-based 3D, multiplayer uber-RPG, Neverwinter Nights, who's future has been recently cast into doubt by some legal trouble will be released, after all. It is currently scheduled for "Early 2002" release, on Linux, MacOS, and Windows. The press release is here."

corby writes: "Bioware Corp., developer of the highly anticipated multiplayer Dungeons & Dragons game Neverwinter Nights, is escalating the conflict with their troubled publisher Interplay. In September, they filed a lawsuit against the publisher, and now they have terminated their contract with Interplay to distribute Neverwinter Nights. The problem is, these guys need each other. The loss of Neverwinter Nights means that Interplay will lose out on substantial revenue from a surefire hit, but Interplay is apparently the only company with rights to distribute games under the AD&D license."

Over the last few months, I've had a number of AskSlashdot questions about quiet computers, what hardware to get, and other items for assembling a mega-machine that won't knock the roof off. I've put the finishing touches on my own mega machine -- if you're looking at doing the same thing, or are just curious about the hardware involved, you can find out about what I built.

My first priority was the speed and scale of the machine. I knew that I wanted to build a machine that would be able to play games very well, and look nice, but since I didn't want to totally break the bank on doing it, I decided to go with some lower-cost components in part. So, without further ado:

• The Case: This was the easiest decision to make. Thinkgeek has by far the the cooler and easiest case around to get. I went with the precut window, and put in the window, as well as ordered the blue neon light to put inside of the machine. This case frickin' rocks. Thumbscrews for everything, the drive bays, motherboard array and everything else slides out intelligently - this is the first case I've ever had where I'm *happy* to be working on the internals of the machine. However, I did replace the fans.

• The Fans: Rather then use the stock fans, I ordered the Silencer Fan from PC Power and Cooling. Three of them to be exact -- and they are as quiet as the Stereophile comment implies. Very very quiet (20 Db), and does a great job of keeping the internals cool. The fans are the standard size for an ATX case, so swapping was a breeze.
• Power Supply: In keeping with the keep-it-quiet theme, I went with the Ultraquiet 400 ATX. It's got ample power, and is incredibly quiet. Very, very nicely done.
• The Processor: Being that I was trying to be at least somewhat budget conscious, I went with the AMD Athlon. I got the 1.2 Ghz variety, as the cost difference, at the time, between that and the 1.4 were considerable, for what I saw to be very little extra additional speed. It was also at this point that I made the choice to go with a single processor machine, rather then a dual. Since I was going to be a lot of gaming on here this machine, in addition to work, and the gaming would be in a Windows 98 environment (Diablo 2, Baldur's Gate II:Throne of Bhaal, The Sims) there was very little reason to go with a dual processor machine. So, with that in mind, I ordered my single Athlon 1.2 Ghz.

• Processor Heatsink/Fan: I replaced the stock processor heatsink, and went with the ultraquiet one from PC Power and Cooling -- replacing it was no problem, and while when the case is closed, the noise difference is inaudible; when the case is open, you can definitely hear the difference between the two fans. Plus, on average, the new fan keeps the processor an average of 4 degrees Celsius cooler - from 69 C to 65 C, when running full tilt - e.g. Baldur's Gate II:Throne of Bhaal, and my little contribution to Team Slashdot, that's the temp. Running with just the OS is about 58 C. I just used the heat-sink compound that came along with the new fan to wipe down the CPU.
• The Motherboard: Originally, I was planning on going with the MSI-6380 motherboard. Tom's Hardware recommend it -- but what I quickly found out was that there was a nationwide shortage on those boards -- or at least that's what multiple vendors told me. Luckily, the folks at Teacco, who I had ended up ordering through recommend the Asus A7A266. This uses the ALi Magik 1 chipset, versus the Via KT266 Pro chipset, which the MSI board used. My assumption is that the Via chipset was in short supply. I still think the MSI was a better board, but sometimes you have to deal with shortfalls - and frankly, the Asus supported the 266 FSB, and the RAM that I wanted to use. Availability won -- and I've veen happy with the A7A266.
• The DDR RAM: Obviously, if speed is the goal, you want to get good, and a goodly amount, of RAM. Having talked the various RAM manufacturers over with ChrisD, I finally settled on the Corsair Micro CM73SD256R-2100. It had a 266 Mhz bus, and Corsair makes a good RAM chip.
• Hard Drive: My last machine had two hard drives, one SCSI and one IDE. Since the motherboard I had purchased had two ATA-100 boards onboard, I decided that rather then go through and purchase a SCSI controller, and get a SCSI drive, I would just get a ATA-100 IDE hard drive. Also based on past experiences, and knowing other people who had the same problem, I decided to go with a 5400 RPM drive, rather then 7200. Most of the 7200 RPM drives I've had, or others have had, regardless of manufacturer, or type of drive, have died after nine month or so. I also wanted to get a drive that was quiet, and reliable -- and I had been very happy with my last IBM drive, so I got the Deskstar 40GV. Heh -- good thing I didn't get the 75 GXP. With ATA 100, I'm getting around the same practical throughput as SCSI, without having an additional controller. Also, with the Deskstar, I can use my SilentDrive sleeves. More on that in a moment. But, with 40 gigs, I was making a choice not to have this be a MP3 box or anything. That's alright, because the other machine has a crapload of space, and can handle that role, easily.

• The Silent Drive: In sticking with my goal of trying to be as fast and quiet as possible, I picked up some Silent Drives from New England Digital Computer. The SilentDrive is made by Molex; it's pretty cheap, and really cuts down on hard drive noise -- and since I've used them in my other machine, I don't have much concern about them cutting the drive's life. Besides, the aim of this machine is not to be a server, but more of a gamebox, so I'm willing to live with a slight risk anyhow.
• CD-RW: Obviously, a machine is going to need some sort of CD/DVD format input device. I had already decided to forgo a floppy drive, because the motherboard will support booting from CD-ROM, and I wanted to see if it can be done. Yes, it can be done, easily. Moving files around is much easier with scp than with floppies anyway. *grin* I debated between the DVD or CD-RW, but decided to go with the latter, because I'm going to hold out for a while, and then purchase a DVD-RW for the machine. No sense in getting a DVD Drive and decoder board now, when the DVD-RW is only a few months away. I also wanted to be able to burn and rip CDs fairly fast, so I went with the Yamaha CRW2100EZ. It's a very nice, very fast drive, but has a major problem for the quiet machine: it's loud. When it's got a drive it's working on, this thing makes a huge ton of noise. So, my solution is that I don't have disks in there, and when I'm doing something with it, I just put up with the noise. Nonetheless, in the long run, this will be replaced with the DVD-RW, and thus, I'm not too concerned about it.
• Cabling: With all of these parts coming in, I had to start wiring it all up, right? The rounded EIDE cables were great. I've got two, and am happy as a clam.
• Video Card: Since this rig was being designed for gaming, my choice was pretty simple on this one -- the The GeForce 3. For all the hype out there about this card, this thing is totally worth it. I got the AGP version, of course, but one nice thing about the change in motherboards was that the Asus can handle AGP Pro, so when a good AGP Pro videocard comes out, I'll switch over, and eBay my old video card.
• Sound card: As above, with gaming in mind, as well ultimately hoping to do some home movie editing for burning to the yet-unpurchased DVD-RW drive, I went with the consumer top of the line sound card, the Creative Labs Soundblaster Platinum. This thing was a SOB to get installed, because you have to not only insert the normal sound card into the PCI slot, but also fit into the 5 & .25" drive slot the external control slot. It's pretty cool, because it comes along with a remote so that you can use the computer as a movie watching system, if you want. The front slot is also where you can a lot more inputs and outputs, versus the normal 4 inputs on the soundcard. It even has an optical in and optical out, so that you can do some PS2 gaming on the computer if you want. Very very impressive -- but getting the cable running from the external control slot to the sound card wasn't very fine, because: 1. I had a hard time getting the cables fitting together and 2. The flat grey ribbon cable ruined my esthetic of the black EDIE rounded cable. I know, an artistic argument, but dammit, this is my mega system.
• The Network Card: Nothing really exciting here -- I reused a Intel EEpro 100. Good network card; I don't use any of the remote management stuff, but it sends and receives packets. That's enough for me.
• The Mouse: CowboyNeal had been singing the praises of the Logitech Mouseman Wireless. system for a while, and I decided to take the leap. It's a remote system, but probably the first remote system that I've used that truly works. The latency between mouse and display is remarkably low, and that latency has been my major complaint of other remote keyboards/mice. I'm not sure that the mouse is appropriate for a FPS or other instant-reaction game which might expose problems at the finest levels, but it does just fine for games like BG2/The Sims. Slightly sluggish for Diablo II, but not lethally so. I recommend it, with the above reservation about FPS/faster paced games.
• Keyboard: This was one of two instances that I simply reused components from before. The keyboard that I'm using is the Microsoft Internet Keyboard. Yeah, yeah -- it's a M$ product. Whatever. The reality is that the keyboard has a good tactile feedback, comes with two built-in USB ports on the keyboard itself, supports PS/2 and USB for output, and is a full keyboard. Oh, I got it free through some promotion at CDW.
• Monitor: This is the second instance of reusing old components. In this case, I had purchased the Sony Trinitron G400 about eighteen months ago, for use on my first gaming machine. It's a great monitor -- 19", so it fits into almost any desk space, has a flat screen, and great color depth. It's been a very dependable monitor, and while other monitors have come out, I saw no reason to spend the several hundred dollars on getting a new monitor. So, I've decided to just stick with this. Maybe if flat screens or something get really cheap over the next year, I'll upgrade, but for right now, I see no compelling reason to do so.
• UPS System: We wouldn't want to be crashing in the midst of our gaming or working, now would we? I actually set up two UPS systems -- the system is on a APC BackOffice UPS, and the monitor is on a USB. I've used the BackOffice UPS's output to plug into COM2 on the system. Powerchute is APC's software hook-in. I've got the Windows version that came along with the software, and am also playing with getting the Linux version working, although it seems to be compiled against RH -- at least the version I have is.

The machine came together fairly well -- by reusing a couple components, I was able to keep the price under $2000 -- and the same system should be even cheaper now, since RAM is so cheap that we should throw away hard drives and just have RAM *grin*. Of course, then you'd better hope your UPS system works.

The point of this machine was really to create a platform for gaming and it serves that "need" admirably -- it's been a pleasure to play games on. With the prices on CPUs continuing to drop, I'll probably upgrade this to a 1.4 Athlon in the next six months, and throw in another half gig of RAM, but for the time being, I've happily created a nice, fast -- and quiet machine. Really, this thing is incredibly quiet: I don't have my decibel measuring device anymore, but my old Vaio laptop's fan is louder then this machine. Louder, and with 1/4 the computing power, and 1/4 the RAM. I consider this an improvement.

Over the last few months, I've had a number of AskSlashdot questions about quiet computers, what hardware to get, and other items for assembling a mega-machine that won't knock the roof off. I've put the finishing touches on my own mega machine -- if you're looking at doing the same thing, or are just curious about the hardware involved, you can find out about what I built.

My first priority was the speed and scale of the machine. I knew that I wanted to build a machine that would be able to play games very well, and look nice, but since I didn't want to totally break the bank on doing it, I decided to go with some lower-cost components in part. So, without further ado:

• The Case: This was the easiest decision to make. Thinkgeek has by far the the cooler and easiest case around to get. I went with the precut window, and put in the window, as well as ordered the blue neon light to put inside of the machine. This case frickin' rocks. Thumbscrews for everything, the drive bays, motherboard array and everything else slides out intelligently - this is the first case I've ever had where I'm *happy* to be working on the internals of the machine. However, I did replace the fans.

• The Fans: Rather then use the stock fans, I ordered the Silencer Fan from PC Power and Cooling. Three of them to be exact -- and they are as quiet as the Stereophile comment implies. Very very quiet (20 Db), and does a great job of keeping the internals cool. The fans are the standard size for an ATX case, so swapping was a breeze.
• Power Supply: In keeping with the keep-it-quiet theme, I went with the Ultraquiet 400 ATX. It's got ample power, and is incredibly quiet. Very, very nicely done.
• The Processor: Being that I was trying to be at least somewhat budget conscious, I went with the AMD Athlon. I got the 1.2 Ghz variety, as the cost difference, at the time, between that and the 1.4 were considerable, for what I saw to be very little extra additional speed. It was also at this point that I made the choice to go with a single processor machine, rather then a dual. Since I was going to be a lot of gaming on here this machine, in addition to work, and the gaming would be in a Windows 98 environment (Diablo 2, Baldur's Gate II:Throne of Bhaal, The Sims) there was very little reason to go with a dual processor machine. So, with that in mind, I ordered my single Athlon 1.2 Ghz.

• Processor Heatsink/Fan: I replaced the stock processor heatsink, and went with the ultraquiet one from PC Power and Cooling -- replacing it was no problem, and while when the case is closed, the noise difference is inaudible; when the case is open, you can definitely hear the difference between the two fans. Plus, on average, the new fan keeps the processor an average of 4 degrees Celsius cooler - from 69 C to 65 C, when running full tilt - e.g. Baldur's Gate II:Throne of Bhaal, and my little contribution to Team Slashdot, that's the temp. Running with just the OS is about 58 C. I just used the heat-sink compound that came along with the new fan to wipe down the CPU.
• The Motherboard: Originally, I was planning on going with the MSI-6380 motherboard. Tom's Hardware recommend it -- but what I quickly found out was that there was a nationwide shortage on those boards -- or at least that's what multiple vendors told me. Luckily, the folks at Teacco, who I had ended up ordering through recommend the Asus A7A266. This uses the ALi Magik 1 chipset, versus the Via KT266 Pro chipset, which the MSI board used. My assumption is that the Via chipset was in short supply. I still think the MSI was a better board, but sometimes you have to deal with shortfalls - and frankly, the Asus supported the 266 FSB, and the RAM that I wanted to use. Availability won -- and I've veen happy with the A7A266.
• The DDR RAM: Obviously, if speed is the goal, you want to get good, and a goodly amount, of RAM. Having talked the various RAM manufacturers over with ChrisD, I finally settled on the Corsair Micro CM73SD256R-2100. It had a 266 Mhz bus, and Corsair makes a good RAM chip.
• Hard Drive: My last machine had two hard drives, one SCSI and one IDE. Since the motherboard I had purchased had two ATA-100 boards onboard, I decided that rather then go through and purchase a SCSI controller, and get a SCSI drive, I would just get a ATA-100 IDE hard drive. Also based on past experiences, and knowing other people who had the same problem, I decided to go with a 5400 RPM drive, rather then 7200. Most of the 7200 RPM drives I've had, or others have had, regardless of manufacturer, or type of drive, have died after nine month or so. I also wanted to get a drive that was quiet, and reliable -- and I had been very happy with my last IBM drive, so I got the Deskstar 40GV. Heh -- good thing I didn't get the 75 GXP. With ATA 100, I'm getting around the same practical throughput as SCSI, without having an additional controller. Also, with the Deskstar, I can use my SilentDrive sleeves. More on that in a moment. But, with 40 gigs, I was making a choice not to have this be a MP3 box or anything. That's alright, because the other machine has a crapload of space, and can handle that role, easily.

• The Silent Drive: In sticking with my goal of trying to be as fast and quiet as possible, I picked up some Silent Drives from New England Digital Computer. The SilentDrive is made by Molex; it's pretty cheap, and really cuts down on hard drive noise -- and since I've used them in my other machine, I don't have much concern about them cutting the drive's life. Besides, the aim of this machine is not to be a server, but more of a gamebox, so I'm willing to live with a slight risk anyhow.
• CD-RW: Obviously, a machine is going to need some sort of CD/DVD format input device. I had already decided to forgo a floppy drive, because the motherboard will support booting from CD-ROM, and I wanted to see if it can be done. Yes, it can be done, easily. Moving files around is much easier with scp than with floppies anyway. *grin* I debated between the DVD or CD-RW, but decided to go with the latter, because I'm going to hold out for a while, and then purchase a DVD-RW for the machine. No sense in getting a DVD Drive and decoder board now, when the DVD-RW is only a few months away. I also wanted to be able to burn and rip CDs fairly fast, so I went with the Yamaha CRW2100EZ. It's a very nice, very fast drive, but has a major problem for the quiet machine: it's loud. When it's got a drive it's working on, this thing makes a huge ton of noise. So, my solution is that I don't have disks in there, and when I'm doing something with it, I just put up with the noise. Nonetheless, in the long run, this will be replaced with the DVD-RW, and thus, I'm not too concerned about it.
• Cabling: With all of these parts coming in, I had to start wiring it all up, right? The rounded EIDE cables were great. I've got two, and am happy as a clam.
• Video Card: Since this rig was being designed for gaming, my choice was pretty simple on this one -- the The GeForce 3. For all the hype out there about this card, this thing is totally worth it. I got the AGP version, of course, but one nice thing about the change in motherboards was that the Asus can handle AGP Pro, so when a good AGP Pro videocard comes out, I'll switch over, and eBay my old video card.
• Sound card: As above, with gaming in mind, as well ultimately hoping to do some home movie editing for burning to the yet-unpurchased DVD-RW drive, I went with the consumer top of the line sound card, the Creative Labs Soundblaster Platinum. This thing was a SOB to get installed, because you have to not only insert the normal sound card into the PCI slot, but also fit into the 5 & .25" drive slot the external control slot. It's pretty cool, because it comes along with a remote so that you can use the computer as a movie watching system, if you want. The front slot is also where you can a lot more inputs and outputs, versus the normal 4 inputs on the soundcard. It even has an optical in and optical out, so that you can do some PS2 gaming on the computer if you want. Very very impressive -- but getting the cable running from the external control slot to the sound card wasn't very fine, because: 1. I had a hard time getting the cables fitting together and 2. The flat grey ribbon cable ruined my esthetic of the black EDIE rounded cable. I know, an artistic argument, but dammit, this is my mega system.
• The Network Card: Nothing really exciting here -- I reused a Intel EEpro 100. Good network card; I don't use any of the remote management stuff, but it sends and receives packets. That's enough for me.
• The Mouse: CowboyNeal had been singing the praises of the Logitech Mouseman Wireless. system for a while, and I decided to take the leap. It's a remote system, but probably the first remote system that I've used that truly works. The latency between mouse and display is remarkably low, and that latency has been my major complaint of other remote keyboards/mice. I'm not sure that the mouse is appropriate for a FPS or other instant-reaction game which might expose problems at the finest levels, but it does just fine for games like BG2/The Sims. Slightly sluggish for Diablo II, but not lethally so. I recommend it, with the above reservation about FPS/faster paced games.
• Keyboard: This was one of two instances that I simply reused components from before. The keyboard that I'm using is the Microsoft Internet Keyboard. Yeah, yeah -- it's a M$ product. Whatever. The reality is that the keyboard has a good tactile feedback, comes with two built-in USB ports on the keyboard itself, supports PS/2 and USB for output, and is a full keyboard. Oh, I got it free through some promotion at CDW.
• Monitor: This is the second instance of reusing old components. In this case, I had purchased the Sony Trinitron G400 about eighteen months ago, for use on my first gaming machine. It's a great monitor -- 19", so it fits into almost any desk space, has a flat screen, and great color depth. It's been a very dependable monitor, and while other monitors have come out, I saw no reason to spend the several hundred dollars on getting a new monitor. So, I've decided to just stick with this. Maybe if flat screens or something get really cheap over the next year, I'll upgrade, but for right now, I see no compelling reason to do so.
• UPS System: We wouldn't want to be crashing in the midst of our gaming or working, now would we? I actually set up two UPS systems -- the system is on a APC BackOffice UPS, and the monitor is on a USB. I've used the BackOffice UPS's output to plug into COM2 on the system. Powerchute is APC's software hook-in. I've got the Windows version that came along with the software, and am also playing with getting the Linux version working, although it seems to be compiled against RH -- at least the version I have is.

The machine came together fairly well -- by reusing a couple components, I was able to keep the price under $2000 -- and the same system should be even cheaper now, since RAM is so cheap that we should throw away hard drives and just have RAM *grin*. Of course, then you'd better hope your UPS system works.

The point of this machine was really to create a platform for gaming and it serves that "need" admirably -- it's been a pleasure to play games on. With the prices on CPUs continuing to drop, I'll probably upgrade this to a 1.4 Athlon in the next six months, and throw in another half gig of RAM, but for the time being, I've happily created a nice, fast -- and quiet machine. Really, this thing is incredibly quiet: I don't have my decibel measuring device anymore, but my old Vaio laptop's fan is louder then this machine. Louder, and with 1/4 the computing power, and 1/4 the RAM. I consider this an improvement.

I lurked in the recent Linux.com Live! IRC chat with the folks from BioWare (creators of the Baldur's Gate series) regarding their development of Neverwinter Nights. The game looks awesome, and will have a Linux client. Rock. Good discussion, and the perspective of commericial companies on porting is always good.

Faw writes "In an interview at Stomped Bioware's CEO Ray Muzyka mentioned that its next game Neverwinter Nights will be available for the PC, Mac, Linux and BeOS. I think this is the first time I have heard BeOS mentioned by a mayor game company. You can check the interview out as well." For those of you who don't know, Neverwinter is supposed to be the sequel to Baldur's Gate II ^[?] - and will have functions that allow DMs to make dungeons, and much better multiplayer support. Update: 12/29 06:53 PM by H :I've been corrected - NN doesn't have anything to do with the BG2 storyline. Must have been wishful thinking on my part. *grin*

Johnathon Walls writes: "BioWare, the developers of the recently announced Star Wars role playing game, has posted a job offer for art director on the Star Wars game via IGN PC. 'Applicants must have industry experience and a strong art foundation. Submit resume with portfolio demonstrating skills in 3DSMax, Photoshop, Drawing, painting, graphic design. Superb scheduling and people skills required.' Undoubtedly you'll have to move to Canada, but I can't imagine that's going to stop anyone!" Mmmm...playing Icewind Dale ^[?] ...want Star Wars.

Ant was the first of a number of folks to write about the press release that came out from LucasArts and Bioware. Bioware, you probably remember, has done Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate with their Infinity Engine. Pretty cool stuff - the setting of the game is going to be prior to the Star Wars movies. I don't know whether that means prior to Episode I or Episode IV, but the real-world ship date is supposed to be 2002. So, donna hold your breath.

James Hills sent us the following report from the E3 Expo. Not exactly read-em-and weep, but James has pinpointed some of the highlights (and lowlights) of the current position of Linux in the gaming world. (Read more.)

This year's Electronic Entertainment Expo was a great disappointment. Not just to see the state of the PC gaming industry in the ongoing PC vs. Console war, but to see that Linux was even less prominent at this show than it was at Game Developer Conference just a few months ago. Two things can be garnered from this observation. The first is that, as Linux users know, the power of Linux comes from the people, not from the marketing guy in the corner office. GDC was a show for the programmers, artists, designers and tools manufacturers. E3 on the other hand is a show for the marketing and public-relations representatives to vie with their peers for coveted media attention. The second thing is that Linux gaming has gone nearly as far as it will go without increasing the number of Linux users who will buy Linux games.

This is not meant to be a gloom-and-doom piece, but rather a summary of where Linux gaming is today, and to point out a few of the more interesting Linux gaming products represented at the show. Several important issues still need to be resolved for Linux to be supported by mainstream companies. Today, the biggest obstacle is really threefold: It's to convince marketing people that 1. there is a market of Linux users who use the OS for more than just servers, 2. that the market is large enough to support first rate games, and 3. that the publishers can make money supporting Linux, or their developers can gain great enough non-monetary benefits to justify the expense of developing for and supporting multiple platforms.

While talking with marketing representatives from mainstream companies like Red Storm, Hasbro, and EA, each representative was familiar with what Linux was, but did not expect that they would be supporting the OS in the foreseeable future. However, nearly every developer I talked to was interested in supporting Linux. For the next year, it is important that we as a community not forget that while vast market share has been gained in the server world, the desktop is still an enigma for most marketing people. Many of these marketing people simply don't understand why anyone would use Linux on the desktop instead of Windows. The tend to share the often-correct assumption that "the Linux users all have Windows anyhow."

Only a handful of developers at the show actually promoted the fact that they supported Linux. Of these, none that I saw actually demonstrated their games running on it. However, when asked about their experience developing a game for multiple platforms, all said that it was a very positive experience. In fact, the result according to one was significantly improved code. This may be the way games come to Linux; as the standard Windows-based PC platform slowly erodes because of the ever increasing power of consoles, the Macintosh and Linux platforms have recently gained market share in the PC arena. If game developers begin designing their games for multiple platforms then Linux will be a great beneficiary, as will the quality of the code itself.

The availability of development tools and engines supporting Linux is something that I first noticed at GDC in March, and was well in evidence at E3 as well. Many 3D engines now promote the fact that they support Linux; one that stuck out as special was GameBlender, a 3D game development tool and engine from Netherlands-based Not A Number (NaN). The company is building a large community of developers. GameBlender's user-base is also growing rapidly; currently the number of registered users is upwards of 65,000, with more than 250,000 downloads to date. GameBlender incorporates a complete 3D-creation package with game design and game playback, allowing anyone to author and publish interactive 3D worlds and real-time interactive 3D animations. Unique to GameBlender is support for Linux on PPC, Alpha and x86 among other OS's The GameBlender User Conference recently held in Amsterdam illustrates the company's commitment to the community. For the event, NaN sponsored 24 developers from around the world who gathered to work with GameBlender on new projects. This engine, unlike many others available today, is not first-person-shooter specific, nor is it priced in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. GameBlender is aimed at the end user and games as diverse as mech combat, flight sims and racing games are already in production. A free demo can currently be downloaded from the Blender Web site, and the full version is planned for release at Siggraph 2000 in New Orleans this summer.

Also shown was the much-anticipated X-Box competitor from Indrema. The New York-based company is promising to change the way we think about entertainment on Linux and also to solve of the issues that game developers encounter while trying to support Linux. They plan to provide support for developers as well as a stable target platform for developers. This helps solve the issue of fragmentation that currently exists because there are so many 'standards' without support for things like sound and graphics under Linux. The company appears dedicated to open source and will be supporting OpenAL, Mesa 3D, and OpenStream for video and multimedia control. However the device will not support the standard X Window System. Instead, Indrema has developed Xtrema, a system claimed to be compatible with the X Window system components necessary to support the DRI. Therefore, existing X Window applications will be able to support Xtrema with little or no modification.

No demonstration model or screenshots of the interface were available at the show however, and no specifics available on what developers would be supporting the platform. The product is exciting nonetheless, and I look forward to a Linux-based console. They promise to unveil the first generation product in the July or August but not necessarily at Linux World Expo. The L600 will contain a PIII-600, 64 megs of RAM, a hard drive, and an upgradeable, next-generation GPU developed by nVidia. At launch, Indrema expects to have web browsing, e-mail, mp3 and DVD playback as well as at least one game title included and ready to go out of the box. The output from the device is for HDTV and standard TVs but no monitor out is planned. This is an entertainment console, not a PC. At an expected $299 MSRP, this may be the gift of choice for the geek on your holiday shopping list. I can't think of anyone who doesn't need a mp3, DVD player, and console so they can play their favorite Linux games.

Over the past year Linux has come a great distance, but it has long way to go before first-tier developers and publishers support it. Neverwinter Nights, a tremendous title that was demonstrated at the show, may be the first AAA game to support Linux out of the box. It was shown in a private booth in the back of the basement of the main hall but I am convinced it was just because they wanted to keep the secret to themselves. This title promises to take the world of the Dungeons and Dragons universe and allow gamers to develop their own adventures and share them with other gamers online. While the title is still at least a year from release, this product is amazing and deserves an entire article to itself. The developer, BioWare, is supporting several platforms with the product, including Windows. Not only is the game going to have a significant online potential, but also the developers are promising a well developed single-player game as well. Everything from the beautiful game engine to the attitude of the developers and their track record of having developed such complex titles as Baldur's Gate promotes optimism about it.

Overall, E3 this year was disappointing for Linux gamers. The enthusiasm so evident at Linux Expos, at user groups and among developers has not trickled up to the marketing people. Until it does, it doubtful that Linux will have a steady stream of first-class games like Windows does. Linux as a platform has reached the threshold where any developer who wishes to support Linux can do so fairly easily; now it is a matter of us developing the user base so that marketing people can be convinced to develop more games for us. I don't fault the evil marketing people for not supporting Linux today. In fact I am excited to hear mainstream developers remark to me, 'Wow, a lot of people are asking me about Linux,' as several did when I asked them about their plans for the platform. Over the next year, as more new developers such as Vicarious Visions and Bioware, join Loki in developing for the Linux platform, we need to remember to support them, so that they continue to make that decision for future products.

The future is still bright for Linux gaming, though. Linux is an operating system that has only recently come into the radar screen of mainstream companies. As such, there is a significant deficit of proven marketing statistics and developers with proven track records. To a great extent, it is up to us as Linux gamers to vote with our dollars, pounds, pesos, francs and deutsche marks and buy the Linux games that are available. At the same time, we must strive to increase the sheer number of Linux users in the desktop arena. Until publishers feel there is a market for Linux games then most likely there will continue to be a deficit of high quality Linux game titles.

infodragon wrote to us with the news that BioWare is going to be porting games to Linux. Linuxpower has an interview with them talking about porting Neverwinter Nights, and /possibly/ Baldur's Gate 2. I promise I'll be good if they port BG2. I promise.

Lurker writes "Neverwinter Nights is coming to Linux! BioWare, the developer of the hit roleplaying game, Baldur's Gate, recently unveiled their next big project at the annual GenCon conference in Milwaukee. Neverwinter Nights, their new title, will be a multiplayer roleplaying game based on TSR's new 3rd Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons® ruleset. Set in and around the cities of Neverwinter and Luskan, in the far northern reaches of the Forgotten Realms® gameworld, the game will ship with a strong story, a powerful editor suite dubbed the Solstice Toolset, and the ability to enter the gameworld and modify it in real-time as an omniscient Dungeon Master. Neverwinter Nights will be powered by a variation of Omen, BioWare's own 3D engine developed for their visually stunning action game, MDK2, and will be published by Black Isle Studios, a division of Interplay. Make sure to read the last line of the About NWN page "We are developing simultaneously for PC, Mac, and Linux." "