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Um, do you mean this Heroes of Might & Magic III? It's ported. It's available. It's on sale at EBWorld (search PC for Linux). Yeah, it's $30, but it's worth it! Oh, man is it worth it...

(BTW, there is a demo available of the Linux version. It's 93M, so hope you have time and/or bandwidth...)

If it's a smooth MPEG player, try SMPEG from Loki.

Betcha it keeps getting developed =)

If it's a smooth MPEG player, try SMPEG from Loki.

Betcha it keeps getting developed =)

Loki has released several Open Source projects:

• SMPEG
• Setup
• SMJPEG
• Fenris

Loki has released several Open Source projects:

• SMPEG
• Setup
• SMJPEG
• Fenris

Loki has released several Open Source projects:

• SMPEG
• Setup
• SMJPEG
• Fenris

Loki has released several Open Source projects:

• SMPEG
• Setup
• SMJPEG
• Fenris

Loki has released several Open Source projects:

• SMPEG
• Setup
• SMJPEG
• Fenris

Loki has released several Open Source projects:

• SMPEG
• Setup
• SMJPEG
• Fenris

The game engine is a direct 3d game engine. They are going to have a hard time. Since they are probably going to port it to openGL they can probably also get an openGL version for windows.

Myth II, ported by Loki Software from the original by Bungie Software, ran under Direct3D in the Windows version (I have no idea what it ran on the Mac version), so this sort of problem has already been solved at some level. I note that Lithtech already have ports to platforms other than Windows anyway (Apple Mac and Amiga) due to a deal made with Hyperion Software in April 1999, so there must be a reasonably clean level of separation between the graphic rendering side and the underlying engine.

Cheers,

Toby Haynes

I saw this first on the linuxgames.com website: pre-order s for a Loki port of Heavy Gear 2. Finally, some killer action games! (I like strategy games, and I know they were the easiest to port, but I was waiting for some action. [sorry, I just don't dig the quake-style FPS games, although I know those are 'action' too...])

No, I got mine pre-ordered from lokisoft. Go to any electronics boutique, they should have it, or go here.

Aside note, anyone know if you can download the windows binaries anywhere? (ducks)

No, seriously. Since I had to take my Voodoo2 out of my system to make room for a SCSI adapter, I can't play Q3A on my TNT2 under linux, tho the demo under Win32 works ok. I had heard that you would be able to download the binaries for Linux or Win32 or Mac if you had bought the retail CD (kinda like how it worked for Q2 - you could buy Win32 CD then download the Linux Binaries)

I just want to be able to play it until the 3D support for TNT2 gets better under XF86.

(ok, flame if you must, but if you have an actual solution to let me play Q3A under Linux with my nVidia card, that would be more productive) :-)

You can order it here.

Sendy

I hope that the support is good for these games. I've been trying to get Quake III to run properly for days now. I just asked Loki support to help via email and they seem to have decent support services. I doubt that the average end-user would be able to trouble shoot anything with the sparse documentation that comes with the game, however.

Just the thoughts of a frustrated gamer

DAMMIT! It worked in preview... REAL post follows:

Why would anyone and I mean anyone actually care about a stupid solitaire game? Let alone for a software company to actually port that game from one OS to another?

Uh, I do? EUS is vastly under-rated. PySol may have more games, but EUS has a much slicker interface.

And my wife likes it a lot better, too, and anything that gets her on the Linux bandwagon is cool by me =) It's a good non-geek program to have. I bet I could get my grandmother to switch if I showed her EUS...

(Don't knock it until you've tried it. Seriously. Now, if the EUS interface was combined with PySol's complete set of game types, you'd have the best solitaire game of all time...

Why would anyone and I mean anyone actually care about a stupid solitaire game? Let alone for a software company to actually port that game from one OS to another? Uh, I do? EUS is vastly under-rated. PySol may have more games, but EUS has a much slicker interface. And my wife likes it a lot better, too, and anything that gets her on the Linux bandwagon is cool by me =) It's a good non-geek program to have. I bet I could get my grandmother to switch if I showed her EUS... (Don't knock it until you've tried it. Seriously. Now, if the EUS interface was combined with PySol's complete set of game types, you'd have the best solitaire game of all time...)

I dont think Loki deserves all this moaning...

From http://www.lokigames.com/prod ucts/civctp/updates.php3:
Updates and patches
Civilization: Call to Power 1.1 Update
Intel x86 and compatibles (3.8 MB)
PowerPC* (2.7 MB)
Alpha** (5 MB)

And from http://www.lokigames.com/about/faq.php3 :

What Linux distribution do you use as a base? Do you include an installation wizard to support many distributions?

We would like to support at least the major distributions, but many of the details still need to be worked out. We have released an Alpha version of Civilization: Call to Power, and are exploring the possibility of Sparc support; thanks to our partnership with Terra Soft Solutions, we will also be supporting the PowerPC. Linux is growing, changing and adapting to users needs on a daily basis. We'll keep pace with the current industry standards and work with publishers and game distributors to produce quality products that respond to users needs as closely as possible.

If you were talking more generally than Loki I do understand you though....but I seriously doubt that the x86 platform will die anytime soon...

I dont think Loki deserves all this moaning...

From http://www.lokigames.com/prod ucts/civctp/updates.php3:
Updates and patches
Civilization: Call to Power 1.1 Update
Intel x86 and compatibles (3.8 MB)
PowerPC* (2.7 MB)
Alpha** (5 MB)

And from http://www.lokigames.com/about/faq.php3 :

What Linux distribution do you use as a base? Do you include an installation wizard to support many distributions?

We would like to support at least the major distributions, but many of the details still need to be worked out. We have released an Alpha version of Civilization: Call to Power, and are exploring the possibility of Sparc support; thanks to our partnership with Terra Soft Solutions, we will also be supporting the PowerPC. Linux is growing, changing and adapting to users needs on a daily basis. We'll keep pace with the current industry standards and work with publishers and game distributors to produce quality products that respond to users needs as closely as possible.

If you were talking more generally than Loki I do understand you though....but I seriously doubt that the x86 platform will die anytime soon...

From http://www.lokigames.com/about/faq.php3

Are you a public corporation? If so, on what exchange and what is your stock symbol?

Our stock is not publicly traded, and it is unlikely this will change any time soon. While we are interested in hearing from qualified investors, we are sadly unable to entertain any small investments. This is primarily a result of U.S. federal and California state securities regulations, which make it prohibitively difficult to sell unregistered securities to most private investors.

Ordered some brain teasers from hotbox back on the 20th of Nov. Received an email saying we'd receive them within 2 weeks. Waited, nothing appeared. Emailed them again, they "guaranteed" that the package would be here by christmas. Needless to say, nothing at all. They apologized, said no one was working there during the holidays, and we should contact them again about it in early Jan. Won't ever be buying anything from them again, to be sure.

Ordered quake 3/linux from Loki when it was announced (early dec?). Due to a CC failure, was postponed. Provided them with correct info again 3 weeks ago. No news from them, no package. I thought they were receiving the gold master from ID before the 27th, but somehow that can't be right, as I would've had it by now.

Ordered a Dust Puppy doll and a Pitr coffee mug from userfriendly. Was made aware that it wouldn't be here for christmas. As they said, it's not, but it's for myself, so it's all good. At least they notified people that packages wouldn't likely be received before christmas prior to any orders. My best experience with online shopping to date ;)

Every one of my friends loves linux. It's stable, fast, secure, and looks better than any GUI. Problems is, you still can't play Rogue Spear on it. Or Falcon 4. Or Homeworld. Or almost any current game, save Quake 3 Arena. This is the only thing that makes me keep 500 megs of VFAT on my system.

Oh, and don't make me bring up WINE. It just doesn't cut it, ok?

Head over to this page and check out the preorder deal... You get the cd shipped to you FedEX 2day when Loki recieves the master from id. Which should be like a day or so after the Windows version ships. Then when Loki is ready to release the Linux version (Dec. 27) you'll get the box and shit mailed to you.

sf

I mean, just look at mpg's, the only decent player out there is mpgtv and it really doesn't work that great.
Then don't use one that sucks. SMPEG (aka play_mpeg) works great, and is even released under the LGPL. It is produced by the lovely people at Loki.

Why not ask those classy fellows at Loki Entertainment Software to port it to Linux

I sent them an email asking for a Linux port of Blizzard's StarCraft and I recieved this reply within a couple of hours:

>Please port StarCraft by Blizzard to Linux.

Blizzard has taken a "wait and see" approach to Linux gaming. If the sales numbers are up there for our current releases, then they will be more willing to negotiate with us to port their great titles to Linux.

We hope you'll be happy with our upcoming announcements. We expect to port 16 titles next year alone.

Cheers,

Kayt Sorhaindoh
Loki Entertainment Software

So lets all buy up the current selection and lure more gaming companies to Linux!

And Wolfenstein was and still is awesome :)

Why not ask those classy fellows at Loki Entertainment Software to port it to Linux

I sent them an email asking for a Linux port of Blizzard's StarCraft and I recieved this reply within a couple of hours:

>Please port StarCraft by Blizzard to Linux.

Blizzard has taken a "wait and see" approach to Linux gaming. If the sales numbers are up there for our current releases, then they will be more willing to negotiate with us to port their great titles to Linux.

We hope you'll be happy with our upcoming announcements. We expect to port 16 titles next year alone.

Cheers,

Kayt Sorhaindoh
Loki Entertainment Software

So lets all buy up the current selection and lure more gaming companies to Linux!

And Wolfenstein was and still is awesome :)

A solid, stable, pretty, glitzy GUI is needed first.
As many have mentioned before, see KDE or WindowMaker or Enlightenment w/ Gnome

The OS needs to be usable to a new user - on the same level as Windows.
Again, see above comment, and Corel Linux
Linux needs to be easy to install, easy to uninstall, able to sense hardware without the user needing to open the PC to read numbers off of chips.
Yet again, see Corel Linux
Linux needs to support the latest and greatest hardware, like USB (USB2), firewire, parallel port scanners, WinModems...
Again, see.... er.. wait. Damn, we don't have these. Linux needs to have GAMES!
See Linux Game Tome and Linux Games and Loki Games
End see

And of course there's Eric's Ultimate Solitare which is (according to reviews) pretty good, the kind of thing to get your Mum using Linux.

EUS rocks! It's also great for getting wives to play (although I'm lucky(?), mine also likes Civ:CTP). I was not expecting EUS to be all that great, but I got very addicted during the beta =)

Meanwhile I want, make that need, a copy of RRTII - the number of hours I lost to Transport Tycoon when I should have been writing up my degree project is quite disgusting - but fun :-)

RT2 also rocks. I lost way too much bloody time to that last night. I'm afraid it's going to be a pattern. "Yeah, boss, I stumbled into work late and bleary-eyed because I was play... uh, my wife was sick last night... yeah, that's the ticket!" Geez. Three hours of sleep. I can't do that any more...

And of course there's Eric's Ultimate Solitare which is (according to reviews) pretty good, the kind of thing to get your Mum using Linux.

EUS rocks! It's also great for getting wives to play (although I'm lucky(?), mine also likes Civ:CTP). I was not expecting EUS to be all that great, but I got very addicted during the beta =)

Meanwhile I want, make that need, a copy of RRTII - the number of hours I lost to Transport Tycoon when I should have been writing up my degree project is quite disgusting - but fun :-)

RT2 also rocks. I lost way too much bloody time to that last night. I'm afraid it's going to be a pattern. "Yeah, boss, I stumbled into work late and bleary-eyed because I was play... uh, my wife was sick last night... yeah, that's the ticket!" Geez. Three hours of sleep. I can't do that any more...

And of course there's Eric's Ultimate Solitare which is (according to reviews) pretty good, the kind of thing to get your Mum using Linux.

EUS rocks! It's also great for getting wives to play (although I'm lucky(?), mine also likes Civ:CTP). I was not expecting EUS to be all that great, but I got very addicted during the beta =)

Meanwhile I want, make that need, a copy of RRTII - the number of hours I lost to Transport Tycoon when I should have been writing up my degree project is quite disgusting - but fun :-)

RT2 also rocks. I lost way too much bloody time to that last night. I'm afraid it's going to be a pattern. "Yeah, boss, I stumbled into work late and bleary-eyed because I was play... uh, my wife was sick last night... yeah, that's the ticket!" Geez. Three hours of sleep. I can't do that any more...

And of course there's Eric's Ultimate Solitare which is (according to reviews) pretty good, the kind of thing to get your Mum using Linux.

EUS rocks! It's also great for getting wives to play (although I'm lucky(?), mine also likes Civ:CTP). I was not expecting EUS to be all that great, but I got very addicted during the beta =)

Meanwhile I want, make that need, a copy of RRTII - the number of hours I lost to Transport Tycoon when I should have been writing up my degree project is quite disgusting - but fun :-)

RT2 also rocks. I lost way too much bloody time to that last night. I'm afraid it's going to be a pattern. "Yeah, boss, I stumbled into work late and bleary-eyed because I was play... uh, my wife was sick last night... yeah, that's the ticket!" Geez. Three hours of sleep. I can't do that any more...

lokisoft just leads to a teaser page, with a broken link on it (connection refused), but www.lokigames.com seems to be working now.

I personally wouldn't call Heretic II a strategy game, and I doubt anyone would call Soldier of Fortune a strategy game - apparently it is a Quake II-engine first person shoot-em-up with more and/or better gore than any other game ever. Or something like that. And of course there's Eric's Ultimate Solitare which is (according to reviews) pretty good, the kind of thing to get your Mum using Linux.

Meanwhile I want, make that need, a copy of RRTII - the number of hours I lost to Transport Tycoon when I should have been writing up my degree project is quite disgusting - but fun :-)

I personally wouldn't call Heretic II a strategy game, and I doubt anyone would call Soldier of Fortune a strategy game - apparently it is a Quake II-engine first person shoot-em-up with more and/or better gore than any other game ever. Or something like that. And of course there's Eric's Ultimate Solitare which is (according to reviews) pretty good, the kind of thing to get your Mum using Linux.

Meanwhile I want, make that need, a copy of RRTII - the number of hours I lost to Transport Tycoon when I should have been writing up my degree project is quite disgusting - but fun :-)

Actually in my opinion this was the biggest waist. It could have been a good idea, but instead I think it just shows some of ESR's misguided beliefs. From this Loki source the libertarian government he envisioned was...

Libertarian goverrnments will not be able to move military units outside of their home territory, but will receive large science and production bonuses. Once a libertarian government is chosen, all fascist and communist civilizations will immediately declare war on it.

What kind of cinderella notion of Libertarianism does that represent? I'm a libertarian, and it seems to me that the main cost of libertarianism is more civil unrest, and less population growth, and much less production and wealth. Unless the populace is very educated. Think of all the drug addicts, and other things this society would have since it didn't consider anything as evil if it only harmed the person doing it (as proliferated in the current Libertarian platform).

If anything the Ecotarian "back to the earth" society is already a pretty much a good embodyment of Libertarianism of that order(IMHO). But it could be extended...

If one wanted to grant the benifits ESR suggested they should be more costly. It should require the same happiness level as a democracy (if not more), but require even more education to maintain a productive society. Potential rebellion would be greater also.

And definately, I don't think that communist and fascist governments really care about a libertarian order next door. It would be much easier to conquer a country where no one had to join the military anyway. In fact they tend to come in and fill a vacuum left by the lack of leadership from a week government. Remember the Articles if Confederation?

(Btw, not to sound like I'm haranging my party. I am Libertarian because I believe a government is a collaberation inside a society built to preserve the liberties of those in that society. And that less is more when it comes to government on average. Not becuase of unrealistic beliefs that if the government removes its laws and consequences then we can truely be free and without law.)

And kudos to those who did enter, on the most part I really liked hearing about the cool things they did with the code.
^~~^~^^~~^~^~^~^^~^^~^~^~~^^^~^^~~^~~~^~~^~

Here's something I came across while looking a Loki's account of the contest

"As if that weren't enough, Eric Raymond has dropped by! After meeting and greeting the hackers, Eric sat right down and started working on a Libertarian government option for CivCTP. It's an ambitious project, and we're really hoping he can finish in time. Fingers crossed!"

It'll be interesting to see that one.

Just as SMOFs miss the halcyon days when everyone read every SF book available, so will we soon reach the day when it's
no longer possible to buy every Linux game; the rabble will well and truly have crashed the party.
If Windows stays the main development platform for a while and the Linux game developers only port the games that have proven to be a market success we might have the chance of getting a higher quality level, allthough at the cause of later release dates, for linux games - which could do some good.

Loki also has been working on open-source projects to improve how well Linux handles JPEG graphics files.
Eh? Can someone explain this one to me?
They published an open source installer for Linux and (methinks) also some libraries for showing mpeg films. Check out their website for more information.

So I gather from this that the source to Civ will not be opened up to anyone other that the select few who are chosen to compete? This whole contest sounds just a little too much like "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" to me, and we all know what happened to the select few who were allowed into that contest. I'll bet the selected cadre chosen to compete will have to sign all sorts of legal 'non-disclosure' and 'intellectual property' agreements before they can even smell the source code.

Well, I could probably enter this contest. And I could possibly win it. Having another parallel computer would be sort of cool. Seeing my name in the game credits would be pretty cool. Looking at the Civ source would be even cooler. But NONE OF THIS is worth having to deal with the sort of legal entanglements Activision and Loki Software will require of the contestants.

Why do you think Loki is limiting the number of contestants? I think it's because they themselves recognise the 'intellectual property' legal issues involved in letting 'outsiders' see their now and forever closed source code. They want to minimize the legal hassles here by limiting the number of contestants. And 'intellectual property' agreements are allways more of a pain for the person signing them than the party requiring them.

If people want the computer that badly, by all means they should enter the contest. But they need to realize the full cost to themselves before entering it. TANSTAAFL!

Thank you Scott Draeker and Loki Software for having this contest and offering the masses a prize and an opportunity to see your stuff. It's a lot better than the nothing we see from most other commercial software vendors. Even so, I have searched the Loki website up and down looking for the legal ramifications of entering this contest. I haven't seen a single thing.

So, Scott Draeker, can we get some specific info on just what the real requirements are for entering? Or even some specific info on just what the heck the prize computer actually is? But even if the prize is one Manly Mother of A Box (tm) (and I have seen no stats on whether or not it is), I, for one, think I will choose not to participate in this opportunity.

----
"Just because we give away free software doesn't mean we're stupid!" - or naive

When I do a project, I certainly intend to be there for the long haul, and intend to keep my clients as long as I can. It's to my benefit to do so, since my clients will be happier with me, and my name gets spread around as being someone who does good work--meaning I can charge more later when demand picks up, plus I can choose my projects.

I consider myself to be the specialist who does an excellent job and is at the peak of his field, and I am more flexible in my time planning and production than most (if not all) employees. I'm also not afraid to say my opinion of how the job should best be done--no simple "yes, sir" from me, but rather I'll help my client make sure that he/she gets what they need, not just what they want.

Anyone who slags a contractor as being the shlep who skulks in the door only to collect his/her paycheck needs to think harder about. A contractor always knows that he/she can be fired in an instant, with no severance pay or other lasting benefits. The only benefit a contractor gets is to simply do a good job and get paid--because there will always be a day when there is no work to do at all, and no money.

Best regards,

Ethelred

According to Linuxgames the source code has already been released.

SMJPEG documentation

SMJPEG source code

BlueSky

According to Linuxgames the source code has already been released.

SMJPEG documentation

SMJPEG source code

BlueSky

Civilization CTP 1.1 is barely playable on Celeron 300 with 64 MB. The game slows to a crawl in late levels and there are significant bugs: some paratrooper manipulations can crash the game hard, and preferences are not save across sessions. Add to that the 350MB install and you have yourself a good game with severe annoyances. Before you flame me for wanting good performance out of this sub optimal gaming platform, consider that CTP is a 2D game with very little movement.
I suspect that Blizzard could do a better port than Loki. For one thing they already do good Windows and Mac versions of their games so their code base is probably reasonably portable. Starting a port early in the development process is also a plus since it makes for better design decisions.
I'm willing to give Loki the benefit of the doubt. CTP was their first foray into porting. They were on a tight schedule and have limited resources. The developers are accessible and responsive and they even have a Bugzilla page. I just hope their new releases are more professional and that they continue to fix the annoying bugs in their already released games.
--

I vote for the radio show as a topic (to be filtered in/out by interested/disinterested persons), although a SlashBox would also be cool. Silly me, I completely forgot to check for a new episode until today =(

I love the show. My wife doesn't "get it", but too bad =) More is naturally better, but only as long as it continues to be as fun to listen to as it is at present. It's like chatting with and listening to some of my geekier friends =)

I do have one question: Are the Myth II crashes mentioned by Hemos related to glibc+voodoo+pthreads? Or is it a different issue? Just curious, I just picked up a Voodoo3 for my brand-spanking-new box (which currently has Q1/Offering, Q2/Colossus, and Civ:CTP on it) and am probably going to get Myth2 soonest. Don't forget Fenris for Loki bug-tracking, and a newsgroup.

(Not that anyone will see this -- it's a week after the episode, and it's really buried...)

I think it would be a mistake to diverge from X, it's networkable capabilities are unique and is one of the reason's I'm interested in Linux.

<OFFTOPIC>First, I did not leave the Berlin Consortium for any political reason, and am still very in-favor of what they are doing. Basically (to make a long story short) I significantly over-extended myself. For example, right now I am:

• I am working "full-time" as a software developer for a commercial software firm. (No... not M$)
• I am involved in three theatrical productions:
  • I am playing Constable Loche in "The Music Man"
  • I am playing Herr Sessman in "Heidi"
  • I am runnig audio tracks for "Bye Bye Birdie"
• I am involved in 3 Linux related computer clubs:
  • I am marginally involved in Orange County Linux User Group
  • I am (or at least was) reasonablly active in Unix User's Association of Southern California
  • I am supposed to be in charge of the Linux/Unix SIG for North Orange County Computer Club (If anyone is interested in taking over this group, please let me know)
• I am going to be beta testing Railroad Tycoon 2 from Loki Software
• and... I'm trying to get back into school to finish my BS

In response to Jordy's remarks:

1) To develop for X you have to be an X Consortium member which costs about $50k/year to do any real work. This is why so much work is being done on layers above X, because no one can actually submit the kind of radical modifications to X that are needed to bring it into the 90's.

2) The X consortium maintains full control over X itself... meaning they can (and have at least once) change the licensing to kill off any free implementations such as xfree86.

3) The software is extremely dated with over a decade of backwards compatibility which no one even uses any more bloating the code base.

4) C... Object Oriented environment.. please. I'm sure a lot of people will bash this, but writing GUI programs in an OO language is simply easier. And before you start on the OO toolkits out there, read the next point.

5) Of course there are C++ and Java toolkits out there, but until they are standard within X, it's a big war. I have roughly 15 X toolkits on my machine to run a total of 8 programs and a window manager. Doesn't anyone else think this is silly?

6) Sluggish. I have AccelX and I have to admit the entire experience is still very slow. Netscape flickers gray every time I scroll up and down, windows take ages to redraw when switching between them, etc. I multiboot to Windows and don't have any of these problems, everything is quite snappy... even if it crashes every 8 hours :)

7) Inconsistant. With all the toolkits out there, it is so very hard to get a nice consistant desktop. I wouldn't even claim that Windows is consistant, but it is pretty close. MacOS is better.. but at least both environments are intuitive.

Once you understand the basics, you can switch between different applications and automatically pickup that the scisors in the toolbar means cut or that the file menu will have an 'exit' entry or even that ctrl-c will copy the selected text (most of the time at least :)

So in short, I'm not saying that there should be one "true interface" that all GUIs should be modeled after, but rather that the user should be able to select a style of GUI that (s)he is comfortable with, and have all the apps reflect that. (i.e. I could want all the "File" menu text to be in red... in all my programs.)

Additionally, a few things that Jordy didn't mention include:

1. X only supports black-and-white (or more specifially "two-tone") fonts... This might sound fine to someone who doesn't know alot about graphics rendering, but this totally precludes the possibility of anti-aliasing, which can make text much more readable... especially with smaller fonts.
2. Besides the concept of a "window" X has no concept of GUI "widgets" (like buttons, scroll-bars, edit boxes, etc. ) Whenever you press on a "button" (that, lets say, depresses when you press the mouse on it) the server sends the press event accross the "network" to the client, who has to send back instructions over the "network" for how it should be redrawn to look depressed. For something as trivial as a button press, this is a terribly in-efficient use of network bandwidth. With something like Berlin, the logic of how these buttons respond can be sent to the server, so all the GUI look-and-feel issues can be handeled on the server, then it simply needs to tell the client: "I've been clicked on... do whatever you are supposed to when I'm clicked on..."
3. X lacks real support for any 3D, video rendering... esspecially WRT hardware accelleration... the typical X way to do this to hand off a chunk of the screen for rendering to a program who knows how to handel the acceleration itself, not only is this a cludge, but it may tend to introduce security issues.
4. no support for alpha channels (semi-transparency)... or other similar effects.
5. (I may be wrong on this last point but...) There doesn't seem to be any global color-correction settings in X... for people in the publishing industry, this could prove a real headache.

Thanks again to Jordy (and Graydon, and all of the gang) who are helping with Berlin,

According to the Loki web site, the wholesale price of the Windows and Linux versions of Civilization: Call to Power are the same, but Loki has no control over retailers' pricing and expects the Windows version to be sold for less by some retailers. I was pleased to see this was not the case at Beyond, which is selling the Linux version for $46.45 and the Windows version for $48.95. The downside is that the Windows version is shipped right away while the Linux version takes up to 2 weeks.

Loki and Activision sell their respective versions of Civilization: Call to Power independently of the other. In addition, we pay royalties to Activision based on sales of the Linux version. We currently have no plans to provide a Linux 'upgrade' for purchasers of the Windows version, but will announce an upgrade policy on this website should that change.

guess i'll have to wait...but i still want the box damn it! heres the link to the faq if yr interested.

Last week they released a major patch, beta3, which incorperates much of the new code added when Activision pushed their release date. This patch was 30MB, so some of the beta testers may have dropped out. In order to test you need the CD and want all the patches.

See their beta test page if you want...

This game is going to be very good. I've already pre-ordered a copy.

Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1999 00:12:45 -0800
From: Kayt Draeker
Subject: You Made It!

Thank you for offering to participate in our upcoming beta test for the Linux version of Civilization: Call to Power. We chose you from a list of over 2,000 interested users!

We will snail mail the beta software this weekend, and will end the beta period on Friday, March 26.

Please let us know if you will be unable to thrash the software during this period, so that we may offer the chance to someone else.

We appreciate your cooperation and your continued support.

Sincerely,

Kayt Draeker

-------------------------------------------------- ---
Loki Entertainment Software
17602 17th Street #102-245, Tustin, CA 92780
Phone (714) 609-3455 Fax (714) 505-3247
www.lokigames.com