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Then I have two words for you: Sarien and FreeSCI (uhh ok so FreeSCI is an acronym). Both of them are GPL, both of them run in Linux, and both of them seem pretty polished.

Ricky, have you checked these two Web sites yet?

Linux Games
The Linux Game Tone

Having talked with several employees that worked for Loki, I feel I can honestly say that several of them were terribly idealistic and sold on the idea that Linux had a bright future on the desktop. Not only that, but that Loki was at the forefront of capitalizing on that bright future and that happy days were just around the corner. For someone that has even a modicum of idealism and a love for Linux and the future of free software, this wasn't hard to believe. Just look at the timeline and you can see that in the first year, things looked amazingly positive. Several games published. Quake 3 Arena in tin boxes. UT also being published (albeit not by Loki) just added more credence to the idea that Linux and the idea of Linux gaming were coming of age quickly.

As has been said before, Loki did several things correctly. That is, if a company has to appeal to the Linux community, then they should follow Loki's lead. Contacts in IRC and on newsgroups. Good tech support. The whole crazy LokiHack idea. They were all great ideas and pulled the community into the SDURF (Scott Draeker Un-Reality Field). If you have ever visited these forums where Lokiites could be found, you would have found out how enthusiastic everyone was about what was going on. These people believed and were willing to be poor but doing what they loved to make it happen.

Unfortunately, Loki seems to have been terribly mismanaged. It is unwise to go into details, but suffice to say that it could not sustain itself with the leadership that it had. Look at the timeline again, and you can see when people started to give up and leave for real paying employment. Look at the frequency of games after the beginning of 2000. Look at the SMAC debacle. Look at the crap that was released at the end (i.e. Postal Plus). Sadly, some gave up later than others, and suffered even more for that sacrifice.

Sometimes a dream means more than money or even family. In the case of Loki, it appears that those dreams were sold and exploited, hurting both the talented people that ported the games and provided the support and the people in the Linux community that bought the products. On a larger scale, the image of Linux has been tarnished as well, and it will make it even harder to move on from this fall.

Having talked with several employees that worked for Loki, I feel I can honestly say that several of them were terribly idealistic and sold on the idea that Linux had a bright future on the desktop. Not only that, but that Loki was at the forefront of capitalizing on that bright future and that happy days were just around the corner. For someone that has even a modicum of idealism and a love for Linux and the future of free software, this wasn't hard to believe. Just look at the timeline and you can see that in the first year, things looked amazingly positive. Several games published. Quake 3 Arena in tin boxes. UT also being published (albeit not by Loki) just added more credence to the idea that Linux and the idea of Linux gaming were coming of age quickly.

As has been said before, Loki did several things correctly. That is, if a company has to appeal to the Linux community, then they should follow Loki's lead. Contacts in IRC and on newsgroups. Good tech support. The whole crazy LokiHack idea. They were all great ideas and pulled the community into the SDURF (Scott Draeker Un-Reality Field). If you have ever visited these forums where Lokiites could be found, you would have found out how enthusiastic everyone was about what was going on. These people believed and were willing to be poor but doing what they loved to make it happen.

Unfortunately, Loki seems to have been terribly mismanaged. It is unwise to go into details, but suffice to say that it could not sustain itself with the leadership that it had. Look at the timeline again, and you can see when people started to give up and leave for real paying employment. Look at the frequency of games after the beginning of 2000. Look at the SMAC debacle. Look at the crap that was released at the end (i.e. Postal Plus). Sadly, some gave up later than others, and suffered even more for that sacrifice.

Sometimes a dream means more than money or even family. In the case of Loki, it appears that those dreams were sold and exploited, hurting both the talented people that ported the games and provided the support and the people in the Linux community that bought the products. On a larger scale, the image of Linux has been tarnished as well, and it will make it even harder to move on from this fall.

The screenshots look impressive. It would be cool if I could play that on my platform. And however I realize, that I belong to the minority of gamers (which is good, like Mark Twain has already said, "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect."), I still think that when they would wisely program this game for many different gaming platforms and few desktop ones, it'd be a piece of cake to release other version. But I'm affraid that they would prefer us to use other options, unfortunately...

Oh, well, I gues I'll just have to wait for Mason, or Warewolf, or Sands of Syllus, or Archipelago, or Catacombs, or Belchfire, or Acid Tempest, or Phoenix...

Should work now, at least for most browsers, including Netscape 4.x. Check the LG front page for a direct link to "simplified" version or hit the link to the regular timeline and you should be redirected.

liB

Lets be realistic. Linux isn't great for games.

Agreed, but if you're willing to run Wine, it's now getting pretty decent, even without Transgaming's DirectX extensions. What's nice about Wine is that it doesn't actually require any installation of Windows. So you install Linux, install Wine, and you can get away with never spending the cash on a Windows OS. Some of the great sites that are soooo helpful for this include:

• Linux Games, Wine compatibility list (with screenshots & tips for making games work, pretty handy).
• Frank's World, Windows Games on Linux
• But the best, by far, is this nice, nice Codeweavers Wine Application Database (my link goes right to the games section). Right now I'm going over their tips for getting Diablo II to run on Linux. They have a total of 175 Windows games in their database so far. If you have tips, please contribute.

You missed a few.

You missed a few.

You missed a few.

Looks like they (LG) were too optimistic about Loki pulling out of the bankruptcy nosedive in that article.

One has to wonder: where does this leave the support for the games that are already out there? What happens when a new glibc causes old games to fail to start? What happens when an incompatibility with SDL or XFree86/OpenGL or anything else crops up? Do those games just die?

And what does this mean for future games, like those whose engines are already ported to Linux (like Unreal/Unreal Tournament and Quake 3)?

Looks like they (LG) were too optimistic about Loki pulling out of the bankruptcy nosedive in that article.

One has to wonder: where does this leave the support for the games that are already out there? What happens when a new glibc causes old games to fail to start? What happens when an incompatibility with SDL or XFree86/OpenGL or anything else crops up? Do those games just die?

And what does this mean for future games, like those whose engines are already ported to Linux (like Unreal/Unreal Tournament and Quake 3)?

Yes, this is going to burn my karma but I am very upset about it being rejected from slashdot. Fuckedcompany has just leaked a memo sent out that said Loki has gone out of business. It's on Linuxgames too. Yep, LOKI is out of business. I can't BELIEVE /. rejected this story. What is wrong with it lately? I really want to talk about this! Doesn't everyone else want to, too?

http://lhl.linuxgames.com/howto.shtml

Linux can play games, just not all games. But, that's the whole reason why I dual boot 2K on my laptop - starcraft and Counter Strike,

It's interesting that you mention particularly Starcraft and CounterStrike (Half-Life mod), as both of these are known to work well under Linux with Wine. See the StarCraft under Wine HOWTO and the HOWTO on the Linux Half-Life page. I can verify that Half-Life and the Counterstrike mod work fine on my Linux machine. Not that this information is anything particularly new, but if you haven't tried using Wine before, it might be worth giving it a go now.

Hope that helps, :)

Pete.

Linux can play games, just not all games. But, that's the whole reason why I dual boot 2K on my laptop - starcraft and Counter Strike,

It's interesting that you mention particularly Starcraft and CounterStrike (Half-Life mod), as both of these are known to work well under Linux with Wine. See the StarCraft under Wine HOWTO and the HOWTO on the Linux Half-Life page. I can verify that Half-Life and the Counterstrike mod work fine on my Linux machine. Not that this information is anything particularly new, but if you haven't tried using Wine before, it might be worth giving it a go now.

Hope that helps, :)

Pete.

check out Half Life under Linux and CS...!

Counter-Strike under WINE all the way! Ohh and Q3A and Return to Castle Wolfenstein rock to...

My vote goes to Return to Castle Wolfenstein without a doubt.
Even tho the single-player binaries have not yet been released, the multiplayer part will keep you busy for a while. It's being ported to single player as we speak, and the binaries can be found on iD Software's FTP server...
Support gaming under Linux; buy Return to Castle Wolfenstein from TuxGames!!

I have also enjoyed numerous games ported by LokiGames. Go to their site, and browse thru their catalog.
Titles I have enjoyed in 2001: Rune, Unreal Tourney, FAKK2, Soldier of Fortune, Tribes 2 and Alpha Centauri...

But RTCW [Return to Castle Wolfenstein] is still no. 1 ;-)
Get progress reports on Castle Wolfenstein port on LinuxGames and Christian Antkow's .plan file.

It's been a very good year for gaming in our favourite OS, let's hope it gets even better in 2002!!

Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

Return To Castle Wolfenstein Linux Binary Released - Tuesday Nov 27 23:30:38 2001 - Updated by Michael

id Software has released the multiplayer Linux binary for Return To Castle Wolfenstein. The announcement was made in Christian Antkow's .plan file. Big ups to Timothee Besset. The 4.57M download is available at:

ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/wolf/linux/wolfmp -linux-1.0.b2.x86.run.

Disclosure: I am an employee of Activision, Inc.

Here are the install notes:

This setup will install the linux binaries for Wolfenstein Multiplayer in /usr/local/games/wolfenstein (or any other location you request). It WON'T INSTALL ALL THE FILES REQUIRED TO RUN WOLFENSTEIN MULTIPLAYER. You will need to manually copy a number of files to the /usr/local/games/wolfenstein/main directory.

From a win32 Wolfenstein installation, copy the following files to your /usr/local/games/wolfenstein/main directory:

63211149 Nov 13 22:14 mp_pak0.pk3
4449596 Nov 13 13:45 mp_pak1.pk3
1118 Nov 13 16:59 mp_pak2.pk3
315823656 Nov 13 12:50 pak0.pk3
293887431 Nov 12 17:20 sp_pak1.pk3
11026123 Nov 12 17:27 sp_pak2.pk3

ENTERING THE CD-KEY:

The first time you run the game, you will need to go to 'Options', and click on 'Enter CD Key' button. Enter the CD key (it's on your CD Jewel case).

NOTE: you don't need to give a CD key if you are installing a dedicated server.

SINGLE PLAYER:

This release doesn't contain the single player binaries of the game. The menu command to switch to single player is present in the interface, but it is completely inoperant.

Useful files in this installation:

- see CHANGES for a summary of wolfenstein linux changes
- see QUICKSTART for quick instructions to configure your dedicated server
- see Docs/Dedicated Server Notes.html for more dedicated server information

How to get help and report issues:

- A FAQ with known issues and information about the linux binaries of Wolfenstein Multiplayer is maintained at the following address:
http://zerowing.idsoftware.com/linux

ttimo@idsoftware.com

Over at LinuxGames, a multi-day flamewar is starting to cool down a bit after a biting discussion of whether WINEX is good or bad for Linux gaming (or Linux as a whole). We should be discussing those same issues here.

In a nutshell: WINEX potentially gets more Windows people into Linux where they can use WINEX as a crutch to play the games they need while using a "better" operating system. (good) However, WINEX also promotes the use of Windows software and insulates programmers from cross-platform considerations. (bad)

Over at LinuxGames, a multi-day flamewar is starting to cool down a bit after a biting discussion of whether WINEX is good or bad for Linux gaming (or Linux as a whole). We should be discussing those same issues here.

In a nutshell: WINEX potentially gets more Windows people into Linux where they can use WINEX as a crutch to play the games they need while using a "better" operating system. (good) However, WINEX also promotes the use of Windows software and insulates programmers from cross-platform considerations. (bad)

Check Linuxgames for more info and another mirror.

There is already a buttload of discussion on this topic here at LinuxGames. Lots of what y'all are going to post here has probably already been said. :^)

One big expense for sure is licensing the 3d engine. Not to mention the art, music and sound. Any word on how the free Crystal Space engine is doing?

If you check the Linux Half-Life page you will find the HOWTO.

Full disclosure: I tried this once and I couldn't get it to work. However, I run a bleeding-edge Debian "unstable" system, and perhaps WINE was unstable that day. I plan to try this again soon.

By the way, Starcraft and other fun games run well under WINE. You can check the WINE app database to see if other people have had success running a particular game.

Good luck and happy gaming!

steveha

If you check the Linux Half-Life page you will find the HOWTO.

Full disclosure: I tried this once and I couldn't get it to work. However, I run a bleeding-edge Debian "unstable" system, and perhaps WINE was unstable that day. I plan to try this again soon.

By the way, Starcraft and other fun games run well under WINE. You can check the WINE app database to see if other people have had success running a particular game.

Good luck and happy gaming!

steveha

If you want something to check your favourite servers with, I suggest XQF CVS.
You also might want to peruse the Linux Wolfenstein FAQ while downloading.
If that doesn't help you, check the Linux Quake 3 Arena FAQ for similar problems.

I think it's actually important to realize here that the FSF is not RMS and that RMS is not the FSF...

Many times people hear RMS's (sometimes ;-) flippant or (occassionally ;-) arogant remarks, and assume that everyone inside the FSF must feel the same way (or be as arogant or whatever...) There are many people inside the FSF movement (and this really includes anyone who publishes GPL/LGPL code) who patently disagree with many of his statements. So we need to be very careful not to judge the FSF just on RMS alone.

On RMS- the simple fact of the matter (the one thing that everyone always fails to realize when criticizing RMS) is that he is undoubtedly a brilliant person. He is very bright. The trouble with people who are "very bright" is that they can have a hard time dealing with people. This can prove especially troublesome when they have strong personal convictions (such as RMS has ;-)

While he has done some things I personally feel are horrible (such as this and this exchange) and very detrimental(sp?) to the FSF... I have respect for him and the strength of his convictions. Unlike a lot of people (hrm... many /.'s [not necessarily the original poster] ;-) he does hold to his ideals in the face of wavering support and hostile opposition.

for your informatrion, the LINUX version of the multiplayer test is currently in the THINKING ABOUT IT stage.. but the porter at ID, TTimo, has said to "hopefully expect on in a few days".. with the dedicated server to be out TONIGHT.

here is the source.. but i've also spoken to him in person on IRC to furthur confirm that he's been raising ideas of client ports.

I'm a GPL advocate, and I agree with you. I will always argue that the GPL is the better license. But I will also alway agree that it's your choice, as a developer, to choose your own license.

Nice ta' meet you. You are the type of GPL advocate that I like to talk to! (In fact, you are the type of GPL Advocate that I talked to in the first place that explained the GPL to me fairly completly, pros and cons included. That got me into supporting projects like Alliance OS Project, Crystal Space 3D, PHPSlash, and a couple others that I've thrown my hat in with, either by using them or being and active member. Now could ya convince others to become 'good' advocates? :-)

It might seem rather Orwellian, but my great fear is that these sometime unruly discussions about software licensing may, in fact, wend their way to the Senate floor. They have, in fact: witness the DMCA. To anyone who has stinking rightious bug up their ass (which, ahem, includes me), I'd just like to say: let's remember which principles matter most. Good life, health, and happiness. Let's keep these cauldrons of principled "screw-you" stew from boiling over into misguided legislation. Really. Legislation, by definition, defines what is and isn't criminal . Let's not go there.

I totally agree. This should never become an issue of legislation, and the DMCA should have never happened (jees, I can't remember talking to anyone yet that actually even so much as plays Devil's Advocate for DMCA in a discussion!), and most certainly it should never get any more draconian than it is now!!!!!

And if we're not going there, then let's not get so uptight about disagreements about software licensing. I mean really. What are people afraid of?

Religion. :-) It's like anything else - when someone suggests that thier believe system may be flawed in any way, some people go on the attack. Then there are those that take thier system of beliefs and automatically apply it to others (I've been guilty of that one before - but, as I got older and started traveling alot, I saw the light. Live and let live.) But in all honesty, to some people the GPL isn't an issue of rights, but an almost full blown religious issue, no less powerful than some overzealous Christians views of other religions! (Luckly, not all 'bad' GPL advocates are that way. A very small (but vocal ;-) percentage is that way.)

Oh, and add one more group to my list of people who piss me off - people who say there aren't any over zealous GPL advocates out there! (Just kidding...)

Where did you hear Loki will be porting halflife? That's news to me.. As far as playing halflife in linux, it runs almost perfectly under wine and there is a nice little howto for you to read at lhl.linuxgames.com. If you are keeping windows around just to play halflife/cs.. you could have deleted your windows partition long ago..

I cannot find a copy of the Press Release on the Loki site, but there is a copy of it here at linuxgames.com.
While I am on the subject, Tux Games is expecting our latest stock of Kohan to arrive with Fed-Ex later today, so order now and you should get it shipped tomorrow morning.

Check out FreeSCI. It runs Sierra games with better-than-original graphics on a multitude of platforms. If it was an AGI game, rather than SCI, check out Sarien. That is, if you ever see this post, considering how old the article is.

I think SDL is a great piece of code, I like it alot. But for mostly 3D apps, I think it might be worth to consider CrystalSpace, a powerful LGPL 3d engine. It works on Linux, Windows, MacOS, BeOS, and more. A PS2 port is in the work, too. I must admit that I have so far not used it; but I heard so many good things about it, i believe it is wort checking it out, if you intend to write a 3D applcation for many platforms.

"But I could imagine that a PS2 wrapper that supports some standard interface used on other machines might make SONY extremely unhappy, because of encouraging people to write their software portably instead of writing it specifically for the PS2. Making them unhappy seems like a good thing given the circumstances."

WTF!? Closed implementations are bad, but if it pisses a commercial developer off it's OK? All in all I think he is right though, people DO confuse "Open Source" and "Free Software". It's a good thing for RMS to, I realize this is going to be marked as flamebait, but I think if people knew what a bigot RMS was, they would be much less likely to support "Free Software".
And thank-you btw CmdrTaco for using "Linux" and not "GNU/Linux".

Also, LinuxGames did a retrospective article the night that the Loki news first broke. It covers history, achievements, difficulties, and the possible future of Loki. Read it here

Also, LinuxGames did a retrospective article the night that the Loki news first broke. It covers history, achievements, difficulties, and the possible future of Loki. Read it here

Also, LinuxGames did a retrospective article the night that the Loki news first broke. It covers history, achievements, difficulties, and the possible future of Loki. Read it here

Scott Draeker (President of Loki) sent a comment to linuxgames.com which said:

People should not confuse this with a Chapter 7 liquidation, where you close the doors and sell off the assets. That is not what we have done.

We filed a Chapter 11 reorganization. This will allows us to deal with our creditors fairly and equitably and at the same time continue to operate the company. We are still shipping products and porting new games and expect to be doing so for a long, long time.

Scott Draeker (President of Loki) sent a comment to linuxgames.com which said:

People should not confuse this with a Chapter 7 liquidation, where you close the doors and sell off the assets. That is not what we have done.

We filed a Chapter 11 reorganization. This will allows us to deal with our creditors fairly and equitably and at the same time continue to operate the company. We are still shipping products and porting new games and expect to be doing so for a long, long time.

This is not the end of Loki yet. Their president issued a statement that they will be continuing operations and putting out new titles, while trying to pay off their debt. I don't know if they'll pull off or not, but best of luck to them.

thats not really a lot of details
thats not realy a big post!

For those interested:
http://www.shackes.com and http://www.linuxgames.com have more information.

And 3D Monster Maze for the ZX-81, of course.

...that Sam Lantiga left Lokigames and is now working for Blizzard? But he is still developing SDL, as it seems. Look here for more details.

Reading the Linux Quake HOWTO is always a good place to start.

http://www.linuxgames.com/quake/

--
Delphis

Then use Qstat or XQF, a Gtk+ frontend :)

It could probably use a few 3D artists to get a few awesome levels and so forth.