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Vendetta works under Linux. More of a space shooter with role playing elements than the traditional FPS which you seem to be looking for, but the guys at Guild Software have spent a good amount of time making sure it works well under a wide variety of hardware configurations.

Where are the commercial game ports for Linux? No one wants to make them, obviously, save for the FPS crowd (and there's only an Unreal Tournament for Linux because Epic passes the buck to Icculus to get the job done, not because they have the in-house talent to do it themselves). There are a few commercial games for Linux, yes, but only a few, and there's very little variety between them. In the open source world we have a few good games (the majority of them being FPS's, what a surprise), Battle for Wesnoth if you like strategy games (turn based ones, that is). Then we have the unfortunate, ugly ripoffs like "Secret Maryo Chronicles," and other games that look like they were developed for a C64. Plenty of selection, not a lot of quality.

The following publishers develop comemrcial linux games:

http://www.pompomgames.com/
http://www.garagegames.com/
http://www.introversion.co.uk/
http://frictionalgames.com/
http://sillysoft.net/
http://www.basiliskgames.com/
http://www.guildsoftware.com/
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/
http://www.rune-soft.com/
http://grubbygames.com/
http://www.caravelgames.com/
http://www.planewalkergames.com/
http://www.graalonline.com/

There are also the high profile ones such as neverwinter nights, the doom and quake series, unreal, etc.

There are many high quality independant titles such as neverball, you mentioned wesnoth, crimson fields, flight gear, torcs, the spring project, total annihilation 3d, tecnoballZ, powermanga, tile racer, pingus, clonk, freeciv, ultimate stunts, planeshift, scorched3d, VDrift, silvertree (not complete, but being created by the wesnoth guys so likely will not be vapor), ufo: alien invasion, scourge, etc.

http://spring.clan-sy.com/
http://www.wesnoth.org/
http://torcs.sourceforge.net/
http://www.flightgear.org/
https://icculus.org/neverball/
http://ta3d.darkstars.co.uk/
http://linux.tlk.fr/games/
http://tileracer.model-view.com/
http://pingus.seul.org/
http://www.clonk.de/
http://freeciv.wikia.com/
http://www.ultimatestunts.nl/
http://www.planeshift.it/
http://www.scorched3d.co.uk/
http://vdrift.net/
http://www.silvertreerpg.org/
http://ufoai.sourceforge.net/
http://scourge.sourceforge.net/

Many of these are very impressive independently made free games. Perhaps they lack the multi million dollar marketing budget and won't make your geofrce 8800 gtxz 45 x super elite ultra melt, but theya re *fun* games, and they are numerous. Also keep in mind this publisher and free game list is only what I could find in 1 hour of searching.

Then there are freed older commercial games such as warzone 2100, homeworld, descent 1 and 2, doom, quake, etc.

Lets not stop t

As an indie game developer myself, working on what we (and most of our players) believe to be a *very* innovative MMOFPS/RPG, I was seriously annoyed to read the blurb (no I didn't RTFA), and quite pleased to see the post I'm replying to was at the top.

Vendetta Online is our game, and it is already an excellent twitch-combat space-sim. It's also already a decent RPG (solo and group missions of various sorts, character-building, etc). Unlike most game's, though, VO will not reach its intended feature-set and then either stagnate or require expansion-packs. For us, the game of our dreams will always be a hard six months of coding away:) Player ownable capital-class ships and stations are coming, as well as a crafting system, and revamped economy/reputation systems. Eventually we want the ability to walk around in stations and then on procedurally generated worlds. Without investors or publishers to answer to, the sky isn't even a limit:)

Michael Warnock Guild Software Inc.,

Interesting. That must be why more games get ported to Linux than the Mac, because Linux has a bigger desktop share... Oh, wait...

This is a pititful excuse by game developers who don't want to change their attitudes or outlooks. All that make your game easily portable requires is dumping all the DirectBlah BS and using an API that doesn't make you Microsoft's whipping boy.

Heck, if the API is inadequate, you could even add a bit to it for whatever it is you needed and release the changes back. It might make it easier to make games, which would make a bigger market, which would probably make things better for everybody.

As it is, I tend to buy games from small independents (Garage Games, Guild Software, Introversion Software, the list goes on) instead of the big publishers because the game developers who work for them have minds of their own and tend to make Linux versions of stuff. As opposed to people like you who stick their fingers in their ears and chant 'Marketshare' over and over again.

The first great (FREE) game is called Legends. It is very similar to Tribes and is based off the Torque engine. Fun gameplay, cool maps and an integrated map editor. Get it for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X at http://hosted.tribalwar.com/legends/

The second game is Vendetta. It is a space combat MMORPG, and since it's a pre-beta game it's free. Don't let that scare you away, though. The gameplay is spectacular, as are the graphics. The community's even fairly decent. Get that one at http://vendetta.guildsoftware.com.

Sadly, neither of these games include source code. Draw your own conclusions.

It'll be released as a proper RPG once they're happy with the game code. Windows & Linux (maybe Mac too?) Enjoy!

(Today I lost 1/2 my credits in Vendetta attempting to get to hidden sector 18.)

I like Vendetta.

The closest you're gonna get is Vendetta. http://vendetta.guildsoftware.com

OS X AND Linux clients fully supported! And it's free for now (now being the indefinite foreseeable future - the game is nowhere near done)

Note: I am not a dev...just a Vendetta player.

I was just at ATI's driver site Sunday (well, and Saturday, and Friday, and Thursday...) looking for a driver supporting X 4.3.

Vendetta looks a lot better with the ATI binary driver and maybe Racer will crash less with it.

I am suprised that this list doesn't have Vendetta on it. Even though still in beta stage, the game is very very very enjoyable and has amazingly beautiful graphics and great linux support. Granted, it's not Open Source, but roughly half the players use it under linux.

Plus, it is a great experience to play with the developers and take a real part in the development of the game.

I agree... And even then, it is still rediculous that they can't package the game with a fully-functional install script. It takes 15 minutes to write one. It is crazy to require an installation of WINE (or better yet, Windows) to install a game. Scratch that- It is downright idiotic.

They think that they are doing us some favor by releasing this game. I know that someone is going to say "Well, they don't owe you Linux users anything!"... Maybe so... But the least that these guys could do is not mislead people into buying their stuff. I might sound angry about this whole thing. I am angry, because I am sick of excuses.

So, Epic. I appreciate the fact that you are claiming that you will release these binaries. Maybe all of those posts on happypenguin about disgruntled gamers claiming that they wouldn't run your servers if you didn't release a client program made some sense. But don't try to get us to buy the game and then turn around and release it 6 months later (Ahem... BioWare, no excuses can make your customers any happier about it).

Perhaps if developers would start *designing multiplatform games from the ground up* then they could increase profits and help make alternative OS's (e.g. non-Windows) viable platforms for gaming.

"It's really easy to support all 3 OSes if you start from the beginning with that in mind." -Raybondo of Guild Software.

Check out screenshot of their *multi-platform* demo for a space MMORPG called "Vendetta" at Guild Software's Vendetta Page.

Another great game that is available on all three platforms is Space Tripper. Developers; Take a note from this 2 man development team on how to make *excellent* multi-platform OpenGL games. I played the demo, and within 10 minutes I was ordering the full version from them.

All we need now is a Linux version of ReBirth 338 and the distro should be complete.

I know of Open Sound System's, "a set of device drivers that provide a uniform API across all the major UNIX architectures," answer to ReBirth: Gsyn. It's a good start but more needs to be done before we get to the professional level.