Slashdot Mirror

What's wrong with dark, depressing and dystopian? I like dark, depressing and dystopian!

It is true that many mind-less first person shooters have spawned into existence since the release of Doom, but certainly this is not the only sort of game that is unleashed upon humanity today.

As for 3D adventure games, I liked Under A Killing Moon a lot. It has a compelling storyline, great graphics and yes, a dark, depressing and dystopian 3D environment. It's awesome!

More recently, I finished Sierra's Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned. It too has beautiful 3D graphics (for its time) and a great in-depth plot. Lots of things to explore and figure out, and I think it does justice to the old adventure genre in that respect.

As for RPG's since Doom, you may have forgotten about Baldur's Gate, which is-- God forbid-- a 2D game, as is it's successor Baldur's Gate II, but if you want 3D exploration, let's have a look at Neverwinter Nights or maybe you've got more interest in mindless hack & slack ala Dungeon Siege. Let's not forget the more recent hits in mindlessness; I think good fun can be had with Grand Theft Auto 3, despite it being mindless, but if you want something more intelligent in that vein, have a look at Mafia.

So, no. I don't think the gaming industry is totally down the drain. It could be better, it always can be. There's no such thing as the perfect game for everybody.

Contains an 3-D RPG Engine with toolset to create your own campaigns. Supports it's own C/C++ like scripting language, and includes a good integrated environment for developing maps, Non-Player Characters, and source code changed.

So go get creative...

WRT the previous post. Sure "I" could charge a MAC and play with it for two weeks but I'm not going to get the money back I pay to try MS office for OSX or other applications. Idealy, Someone should be able to walk into an Apple store and be able to take home an iMac loaded with applications [and information on buying said apps] for a trial basis. "rent a mac" or something. Since the biggest concern I have and this is probably synonymous with other users is "Can it run xyz and where can I get it?"

The author of the article obviously didnt have the funds to go and buy a Mac even if he wanted to? He's running a 233MHz PC today.

I don't play 'that' many games but the ones I do are already available for mac or will be soon. I want to jump ship from Windows completly.

I completly understand and agree with the longevity of owning a mac, however. Considering the rock botton prices of PC hardware and that the apps available for both platforms cost the same. Moreover the technolgy advancement of Apple's side has been anything but revolutionary. The Xserve uses the same parts as a powermac [chipsets etc].

What I configured for myself at the Apple store wasnt outrageous. An 800MHz G4 with a GF4 [Id take a GF3 ti200 if they offered it, from what I hear about the GF4MX . The G3 Ti is better] and the superdrive. I past $2000 dollars. On the otherhand I just ordered a Dell for work with 1.8Ghz P4 1/4G RAM with a raedeon and a CDRW drive for $650.

If Apple could offer what I configured for 30%-40% less I would seriously consider it 'and' it would become an option for machines at work as well. I don't need the superdrive or graphics at work but I still dont want to pay $1600 for the base model G4.

Question about your G3 box. Could you upgrade to a G4 processor? I'm open to to upgrades not available from Apple as well.

Finally to the post after this one :-). I can't have a monitor since the Mac will have to coexist with my Alphas on the KVM [I know I'll need USB converters]. If I buy mac I could then run Linux on my Intel machine for the first time in 5 years :-) Thanks.

Peter

Just a reminder to those of you who are boycotting Blizzard, but still want your fantasy gaming fix.
Neverwinter Nights will be coming out this summer, and while it is an RPG (rather than RTS), it should do a good job of filling the void left.

Though, personally, I was more excited about NWN than WC3 even before the lawsuit.

I'm still hoping that someone will get the MMORPG right in the not so distant future.

Cross your fingers. If Neverwinter Nights turns out to be any good, it has the potential to be a peer-to-peer MMORPG. You can supposedly interconnect realms hosted on various machines through 'portals'. Granted, you may not be able to get 1000 users in one specific realm if some schmuck is running it in his basement on an overclocked 486, but with sufficient linking of portals, you can really pretend it's a huge single realm.

-Andrew

The plot has something to do with the City of Neverwinter, and a mysterious disease. Very little other info has been given out, mostly about the background that the story is set in. Bioware s keeping the plot of this one very quiet.

Besides which, one of the main features of NWN is the editor.. Although a great deal of time is being spent on the story that will ship with the game, the thing most gamers are excited about is the ability to create their own storylines easily within the game.

As for cinematics, there has been one released... you can find it under the "multimedia" link on the NWN website. It has absolutely nothing to do with the gameplay, and no one knows what it may have to do with the game, but it's fairly decent.

Neverwinter Nights, baby! Yeah!

In other news, the coming of Dungeon Siege numbers the days for DiabloII. Dungeon Siege is much prettier and more immersing while offering the same kind of hack and slash gameplay, character advancement and 'finding nifty items' that was first pioneered in games like Rogue.

Well, I thought so, too. But then it came to my mind that Dungeon Siege doesn't offer one essential thing: generated maps. Those are one of the major factors in Diablo's almost unlimited replay value. I can't think of another game that me and my friends did play ofer such a long time and I don't think that would have been the case it we'd had to run across a never changing landscape killing never changing monsters. The most amazing thing about this is the fact that this is the case in spite of a plethora of game balance issues, technical glitches and blain ol' bugs, so there's got to be something.

What I'm really waiting for is Neverwinter Nights. With it's Dungeon Master(TM) mode it's hopefully the next Thing To Be. Anyway, have a look at the trailer, it's well worth it. Although it doesn't tell too much about the game, it's just cool to look at.

Oh, and I almost forgot: if everything fails, play Bleifuss Fun. It's plain fun from the point where the installer asks whether it should install DirectX 3. But afterwards, it offers very stable and quick gameplay. I have yet to encounter a single crash or hang.

Everyone knows that Bioware is doing a native linux version(and they were talking about the possiblity BeOS port as well) of Neverwinter Nights, but has anyone actually asked their motivation for it?

I'd certainly like to know. Is it that they see a potential in linux gaming, or are they doing it out of good will? I'm unsure but it looks like they've snubbed directx and direct3d completely in favor of OpenGL.

(before anyone asks "when is it coming out?" go here)

"The only shortfall to the whole thing has been the lack of mmog's to play under linux."

Two words: Neverwinter Nights

It will be out end 2000/early 2001.

in Half-Life it is only my skill which changes my ability to get a weapon. And if it is gone, I just wait for a while and it will be back. And if not I just kill the next sucker standing by and get it. But now for the serious comment. Besides playing stupid online shooters I still play MUDs (Multi-User-Dungeons), the good ol' text based ones. We are definitely not as massive as these new Ecoquest, Ultima Online, and whatever but we see the same problems. People offering (virtual) money for swords, to kill somebody, a quest or whatever you can achieve in the game. We don't carry it out on ebay, though. If virtual money (which belongs to the game) is offered, I do not see any problems with that. You earn the money in the game and everybody has basically the same chance to do so. In the real-world (and please no "that's capitalism" replies now) not everyone has the same chance. And some people might get incredible powerful in a very short time. And that kills the fun in the game (IMHO). In those MUDs I play, you have admins that take care of it. You even have a player council that might take care of it. I am looking forward to play Neverwinter Nights, an RPG that will allow 64 simultaneous players. I can run my own server and if people wreck the game, they get banned (/evil grin).

Bioware's next game, Neverwinter Nights, will use OpenGL for cross platform compatability. (They will ship for Windoze, Mac, Linux, and BeOS, and all on the same CD to boot!) If the game is a success (and averyone expects it to be), then maybe this might turn a few heads in the gaming industry, and a more serious look at cross-platform gaming (and thus using OpenGL) might happen.....

Some companies are doing things for linux gamers. Bioware is releasing Neverwinter Nights, which could arguably be the best rpg ever released, is going to be released for linux as well as windows, and most likely it will use opengl(is there another graphics api that does 3d in linux?). Nvidia is giving full OpenGL support in their chipsets. And let's not forget the guys at ID love opengl as well. Even if their numbers are few, there are people who still want to keep OpenGL alive, and they are pretty big names is the gaming industry.

You really believe delta-compression was invented with Q3, don't you? :-\

Sorry, but this is getting boring. Technically the engines are great, but... Wolfenstein, Doom, Doom 2, Quake, Quake 2, Quake 3/Quake 3:TA, "Return to Castle Wolfenstein", Doom 3, Quake 4... it's getting a little bit repetitive.

The Looking Glass people did it right with Thief. Red Storm built Rainbow Six around good gameplay, but a crap engine and the worst netcode I've experienced (well, that's a lie -- I'm not counting Operation Flashpoint since I consider it Beta). Couldn't ID take their tech to the tactical level?

I've been waiting for ID to whip up a real good CRPG using a state-of-the-art 3d-engine for some time now... I hope those people over at ID can enjoy games from some other genre than just straight action-FPS, or they'll fade away... I'm not seeing myself buying any of their FPS anyhow. <shrug>.

Ah well, guess we have Bioware and Gas Powered Games to refine and put out some great gameplay for us.

Chris Taylor and John Carmack teaming up, now that could be interesting. Or maybe Jane Jensen doing another Gabriel Knight using Carmack-o-tech. Anything BUT ANOTHER FPS!

In the MMORPG genre, I'm retty excited about NeverWinterNights (official site here) by BioWare, the ppl who brought you Baldur's Gate. It's RPG style online game, big and 3d, but it will have the possibility to build your own Worlds with an included kit. You can then connect your worlds with others, so the release of the game is really just the first step. They kinda promised to pre-release more tiles (building blocks) to create worlds. Woh...

What I find TOTALLY cool about NWN as a D&D fan is that NWN is based on 3rd Edition D&D and you will be able to let your Game Master create a world (a town, a desert or a whole planet), and only let his players join. This way I can play D&D over the net, just with my friends. If we feel like it, we can portal to other worlds, and, as a team, slay other ppl. My RPG group has been looking for remote playing software forever, since we live pretty far away from each other.

Disclaimer before I get flamed to hell: take all of this with a pinch of salt. The general attitude of BioWare seems to be "maybe we will have this or that, I can nearly guarentee it", so I know, it's not for sure we will see ALL of this functionality.
btw, ETA for NWN is Spring 2002.

-Kraft

In the MMORPG genre, I'm retty excited about NeverWinterNights (official site here) by BioWare, the ppl who brought you Baldur's Gate. It's RPG style online game, big and 3d, but it will have the possibility to build your own Worlds with an included kit. You can then connect your worlds with others, so the release of the game is really just the first step. They kinda promised to pre-release more tiles (building blocks) to create worlds. Woh...

What I find TOTALLY cool about NWN as a D&D fan is that NWN is based on 3rd Edition D&D and you will be able to let your Game Master create a world (a town, a desert or a whole planet), and only let his players join. This way I can play D&D over the net, just with my friends. If we feel like it, we can portal to other worlds, and, as a team, slay other ppl. My RPG group has been looking for remote playing software forever, since we live pretty far away from each other.

Disclaimer before I get flamed to hell: take all of this with a pinch of salt. The general attitude of BioWare seems to be "maybe we will have this or that, I can nearly guarentee it", so I know, it's not for sure we will see ALL of this functionality.
btw, ETA for NWN is Spring 2002.

-Kraft

Courtesy of Fargo at Gamespy (who is a very, very funny man).

Preparing for Star Wars Galaxies

Personally, I'm waiting for Neverwinter Nights

Moller

If Tribes 2 fails on Linux (and there's a fair chance it may) we may have missed the last effort of this level to bring Blockbuster games to our OS at the same time as win players, and the ONLY way to make sure companies have a reason to release Linux games is to back up our talk with our cash.

That's not quite true; there's still Neverwinter Nights, by the people who brought you Baldur's Gate. There will be a Win, Linux, BeOS and Mac version, to be released at the same time (there was even talk of having the Linux & Win versions on a single disc). If I remember correctly, they're developing on Linux; they've built an abstraction layer that makes it easy to use SDL on Linux and DirectX on Windows without too many porting hassles.

Linux for my Desktops, FreeBSD for my Servers, OpenBSD for my Firewalls/Gateways, MacOS for Fun, and Windows for a Coaster.

Now the question is why do i use Linux for my desktops, and not FreeBSD. Applications, The same reason that Windows users say they can't leave windows. More of the "Upcomming Apps" are being created for Linux. And most of the Apps comming from other OSes are being ported to Linux. Yes I know that BSD has the linux compatability API's that let you run linux apps, but why run something emulated when you can run on the accual OS they are written for. I find little difference between my RedHat Desktop and my FreeBSD servers. If someone could tell me a reason to use FreeBSD as a desktop over linux then I could put up with the emulation. But for now they seem about the same, except for the Apps.

I do know several people who use OpenBSD for their desktops. They use it because of the built in crypto and extra security functions. Thye feel that this is worth the trade off in functionality that they loose by not using one of the more "Mainstream" *nixes. I've found this trade off to be mostly in device drivers and, again, apps.

I think that marketing is going to be the reason that more things keep coming out on linux first. more people hear about linux, more people try linux. Developers say "hey, we should develop this for the larger user base". Thats why Neverwinter Nights is coming out for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It's a very self propetuating system. Just like why there are more Apps released for Windows than the mac.
=================
macbert@hcity.net

Two words:

Neverwinter Nights

Dungeon Master, Wizardry, and like games, started a tradition of dungeon crawl RPGs that are currenly best explemfified by Diablo II on one end of the spectrum, and Baldur's Gate II on the other. But it looks like Bioware's Neverwinter Nights is about to take the crown.

You're right... it's all OpenGL.
Learn more @ www.neverwinternights.com

While its not Open Source, people might also like to look at Neverwinter Nights which is a 3D multi-player client/server architecture roleplay game due out sometime this year (based on AD&D 3rd Editon rules). They are promising multi-platform support, including Linux, and the movies showing the current version of the game, and scenario toolkit look very impressive. As someone that ran an LP MUD all through his undergraduate days (a few years ago now it must be admitted) this looks like something that could finally give you the same sort of atmosphere, but with decent graphics.

I will not ever buy a game ported by Loki.
Sure, they've got a great installer, and perform excellent porting of even the most complex of games, but I refuse to pay for a game twice. You see, I run Windows AND Linux. The only reason Windows resides on my machine is for multimedia and games - mainly because it has a wider selection, and very little of my game collection has FREE Linux binaries available. And until recently (I upgraded), hardware acceleration was not an option for me in Linux. (Which is a whole other rant entirely).

As such, when I buy a game, I buy a windows game.
IMHO, Loki is just adding to the problem of a lack of Linux ports - there are too many people of my point of view to make it financially viable to ever take the Linux gaming market seriously. If Loki really wants to increase Linux market share, then they should stop asking the gamers to pay for their games a second time. Release the binaries for free (as in beer), or at a minimal cost (preferably less than 1/3 of the original). Of course, how would Loki then gain income? It's a gamble, once the market share is there, then perhaps companies will start to pay them the required funds.

In a similar token, I will never pay to play a game I payed $70 (CDN) for.
Bring on Neverwinter Nights!

-Medgur

Whilst I know that I'm going to find scant support amongst a demographic known for its irreverance and disdain for tried and tested knowledge,

and a plethora of trolls who wouldn't know tried and tested knowledge if it bit them on the butt.

(But hey, I'm bored...)

I have to say that I'd honestly thought that Dungeons & Dragons had gone the way of the dodo many years ago.

That's why there's not one but two computer games based on the game system, with more to come?

When was the last time that anyone heard anything about D&D or its equally dubious successor, Magic the Gathering?

Well, Wizards of the Coast will be releasing the 3rd edition for Dungeons and Dragons in about 2 weeks, so expect to hear more about it. As for Magic the Gathering, well, they show the tournaments on EPSN2 of all places.

I had thought that roleplaying was an eighties fad whose time was thankfully past,

Not bloody likely.

Now the cycle of fantasy starts again, as this is sure to turn more youngsters from wholesome persuits to playing a game which teachings that violence and dark arts are tools for success, and that the acquisition of wealth makes you a better person.

God would I have loved to have been the first to post with the NFL crack, but there was a good point -- there are far more "socially acceptable" hobbies and interests which teach some rather poor morals.

In fact, Tracy (Dragonlance trilogy co-author) Hickamn wrote an excellent essay on morality and role-playing that I show to people whenever this topic comes up.

I'm with BADD on this one - these games teach dangerous morals to the people that are most vulnerable.

It's funny you should mention BADD -- Michael Stackpole (genre author and part of the Industry Watch segment of GAMA, the gaming industry's trade association) compiled The Pulling Report which investigates the claims of Pat Pulling (the founder of BADD) and rather expertly debunks her allegations and attacks her credibility as a "cult crime investigator".

For more on GAMA's point of view, check out their Q&A about role-playing games, with the rather interesting factoid:

"One of the more persistent claims is that role-playing games has caused teens to commit suicide. The Center for Disease Control conducted an extensive study of teen suicide and found no evidence to link role-playing games with suicide. Investigations by the Association of Gifted and Creative Children (Dublin, CA), the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (the Bronx, NY), and the American Association of Suicidology (Denver, CO) have likewise found no evidence that games encourage suicide.

Moreover, researchers point out that the most heavily weighted factor in determining a child's suicide potential is whether or not he is a loner. Participation in a group activity of any sort sharply reduces that potential. It also provides a circle of friends who can pick up on any unusual behavior and encourage their friend to get help when there is a crisis."

Jay (=

Think about it, either cooperative play where puzzles require two players to work together, or a competitive situation where one player serves up for another player. This could be an excellent use for the Neverwinter Nights engine and the Aurora toolset.

The gaming industry is what we make of it as consumers...and right now multiplayer games glut the market. Why? Because they offer replayability and unique experiences from game to game.

PrimalChrome

I can answer that. Or at least partially answer that. I can't speak for Loki but Never Winter Nights is a MMRPG that is being developed by Black Isle. Talk a look.. it's very, very, very, very, cool (D&D third edition rules).

If the (Linux) numbers sold become very high, the original software companies are going to realize this and say "hell, we could do the port ourselves and keep all the money!". It seems to be a balancing act for Loki.

However, as the number of copies sold increases, Loki has to charge less and less to make money also. It's the same for an in-house port. "Keep all the money" doesn't make sense, because there is still of the cost of doing the port, so you never get to keep all of the money. It still comes down to, can Loki port a game for less money than an in-house development effort?

Of course there's other things to look at like, how long will it take to do the port, quality of the end product, customer satisfaction, etc. Having never purchased a Loki product (yet), I can't say how they compare in these areas. Anyone care to comment on the quality of Loki's ports?

One thing that you might start to see more and more of is a simultaneous development of games for both platforms. For instance Black Isle is developing Neverwinter Nights for PC, Linux, and Mac at the same time. Diablo II for Linux would be the killer-app that gets me to buy a Linux-only pc capable of actually playing games. A game like NWN would make it that much easier of a descision.

Neverwinternights on the other hand looks to be very interesting. One of the players is a DM who guides the others through a storyline. He can create monsters on the fly, speak through an NPC to give you clues, yada yada. Best of all, they are working on a version for Linux.

Neverwinternights

-=-=-=-=-

I may be wrong on this (If I was at home with my trusty bookshelf of AD&D manuals within reach, I could confirm...) but I think the big confusion over the height of elves in the D&D universe is that in the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance worlds (made by TSR, based off of D&D), Elves are as tall or taller than humans. Yet in the original D&D manuals and books (as well as the AD&D rulebooks, I imagine) they list elven height as being generally much shorter than humans.

A lot of readers of "D&D fiction" , ie, Dragonlance and FR (yes, there are more worlds than that, but they are the most popular 2 D&D universes) think of the elves from these works of fiction (and the numerous and beautiful artwork that can be found for them) when they think of elves.

I'm pretty sure thats where the confusion over the height of elves comes in. Does anyone have any manuals handy they can check out to confirm? (I'll have to investigate after my workday ends.....)

And I dont know about other AD&D fans, but I'm really looking forward to seeing the AD&D 3rd edition rulebooks comeout, I'm interested to see how they revise the rules-sets this time around. Especially since NeverWinter Nights will be using this ruleset.
--
Chris Warden
Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards for you are Crunchy and taste good with Ketchup.

Now where'd I put that 11th level thief...