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Loki Porting Alpha Centauri, Sim City 3k and More
kato writes "Loki has just announced that it will be porting the following games to linux: Alpha Centauri, SimCity 3000, Soldier of Fortune, Interstate '82, and Heavy Gear II. Pre-ordering should begin soon at the standard places: Loki, Handeye, etc. No word on exactly when they'll be released, though. "
So the real question is this: When will Loki go public? They are probably the single hottest Linux company out there in the sense that games are the only sure-bet out there today. People may buy databases at work, but for every database there's 50 employees who go home and play SimKillMyCo-Workers. And then they buy the expansion pack, sequal, cheat books, etc. If Loki can convince the gaming biz to let them do all of the ports, their profits may require a new set of units (the yottabuck may not be sufficient).
;-)
That leaves me to wonder when I'll be allowed to buy in. Either that, or are they hiring?
My oppinion on games under Linux is very simple.
Linux still needs some improvement to make it just as good for games as Windows or DOS.
Compare Windows/DOS with Linux
Windows/DOS :
Single user: no security problems, so coders have much more freedom in accessing hardware
Good libraries: I can tell you many bad things about Windows, but DirectX is a good library
Good hardware support: nuff' said
Linux (or any other unice)
Multi user: coders have less freedom because of kernel design which prohibits direct access to the hardware unless run as suid root.
Libraries: I've got to admit: mesa is getting better and better. It wouldn't be bad if we had mesa as standard for every game developed under Linux
Hardware support: Get's better and better (look at nvidea's fast driver support for it's latest card)
Looking at the differences: Linux is not far from it's goal as gaming platform. But do we really _need_ those games? I don't know for sure, but for as far as I know, most gamers still use Windows as their main platform, and I think they don't really see the need for changing to another os.
This is a replacement signature.
Out of respect for not posting the name and info from a private e-mail I will not list the company or personal name of where I got this information. In the process of e-mailing the V.P. of engineering for a well known game company (on a topic other than games) I asked him about his take on Linux support/development. Note, this was not anyone associated with Id Software as might be implied below.
:)"
"Glad to hear you have enjoyed some of our games. I think Linux has a
chance...but it will be slow going until sales and profits convince
publishers that it's a wise investment to do Linux versions. Currently what
happens, is a Linux porting group will offer to do a port of a Windows game.
The porting group gets a decent royalty for Linux sales and the original
developer and/or publisher don't have to pay for the port...so for them,
it's basically risk-free. (note that this doesn't apply to Id Software
since they mainly support everything for the fun of it (their words, not
mine) because they can).
So everybody support Loki as best as we can and the game makers will respond by making games on Linux.
Do really dense people warp space more than others?
It supports Win32 (either through Visual C or Cygnus's cross-compiler), Linux, Beos and the Mac (although the latter two need some more work). There's lots and lots of goodies in its API: threads, tracked music playback, MIDI playback, CD playback, MPEG music and video libraries, multiplayer net code, threads, hooks to OpenGL (it's possible to write an SDL program which is hardware accelerated under X f.e), hooks to GTK+, and fast access to X framebuffers through a linear surface which can be converted to any colour depth.
In short , if you're looking to write a game or any multimedia kind of app, SDL is the way to go. It is possible by changing a single switch at autoconf time to have your app recompiled for Windows 9x + DirectX 5 or better.
Another great thing is that this lib is being used for Loki's commercial games so it's real-world and any improvements made there go straight back into the source. Likewise all the testing and feedback makes it possible for all those games to be ported to Linux :) I know you have it already but anyone who wants to have a look can find it here
if you like Civ type games Alpha Centauri is a must have, if simply to see what Reynolds and Meier have done this time. I played it through a few times and now try to avoid it, unless I have tons of time to play. It (a true sign of good games) can make entire evening disappear. The tech is cool, the CGI is nice, there's even some inside jokes about M$, all the different factions are really different and should be played that way, the vehicle design and upgrade app is cool, battle is nice and simple, the voice-overs are well done, and there is a plotline. Tweaking your own type of government is fun. The bottom line is that it is very much a sequel to Civ2, the gameplay is nearly identical, just more polished and with all new stuff (albeit does out in much the same way).
+&x