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Terminus Has Gone Gold
michaelsimms writes "According to Vicarious Visions, Terminus has gone gold. CEO Karthik Bala posted the announcement this morning on the fansite Station Terminus. According to the latest news from Gonegold.com, Terminus will begin shipping to suppliers on June 10th! You can pre-order Terminus from the Tux Games Web site." The 'persistent universe' in this game is causing a lot of buzz and interest. I can't wait to play it.
I just want to clear this up before I get too much hate mail about not being able to connect to our servers!
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BTW: How can they trademark Terminus? The Second Foundation live there! (Mind you, mental control would make the court case fun to watch! :)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The problem with the persistant universe games is that the only server is centrally managed by the company that makes the game. As a result, you cannot simply join another server if you do not like some of the players that you find there. The advantage of standard games is that they genrally do not require the time commitment that the persistant universe games do, and you can join different servers, each with a distinct personality and flavor.
While this is the case with most other persistant universe games, the Terminus model is different. Anyone can run a server, and as long as the server is running, the game is persistant. Further, the game can be saved, so the server can be shut down to accomplish "real work", and turned back on later in exactly the same state that it was in. Everybody that was part of the game can come back in using the same nick's, and their game on the server is also saved. So, amass a few ships, lots of money and a good reputation, and as long as the admin saves the game before shutting down, you'll still exist and have all your goodies when you log back in.
Well, Terminus is not in any way, shape or form like Homeworld, so a comparison wouldn't really be relevant. It's a space combat game where you fly around in a space ship trading and blowing stuff up a la Elite or Privateer. Homeworld is a strategy game where you control a bunch of ships, collect resources, etc. It has more in common with Command & Conquer-style games... (though the difference is obvious, with the setting and 3D-ness). Anyone interested in a game like Homeworld might want to check out ORB from Strategy First. I did a preview of that game here . (I apologize in advance for our site's layout. It's someone's idea of a cruel joke... not really, but if you do check it out... 'nuff said).
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"My life is a patio of fun."
Just had an e-mail conversation with one of their developers (after sending a request to their VP of product development, asking them to consider the same...)- seems they're working on it, but are having "driver problems" at this point in time.
If they get it going quickly enough, they plan on making a patch available for download. However, having said this, they also implied that this was not a definite yet. I've sent a reply to the developer in question offering my and possibly the Utah-GLX team's assistance in resolving the problem. No response yet.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
There's an in-depth preview at the Adrenaline
Vault, which was published last month. It gives a pretty good idea as
to why folks are excited about this one.
at information for this game. Here's the links...
And a couple of fan sites:
This games generated quite a bit of excitement, and deservedly so.
From the inteviews at the fan sites, this is an example of a game
where the developers decided to go it alone after poor initial
reception from publishers (eg. publishers wouldn't do a lionux port,
but insisted that noone else would be allowed to do one as a
precondition), and have ended up in the position of being able to
dictate terms to the publishers now.
Oh, and it isn't massively multi-player, and that's a *good* thing:
they've gone for allowing people to create their own servers, and for
a gameplay model that seamlessly moves from single player to
multiplayer, whilst retaining lots of depth. Very ambitious, and it
looks really successful. I'm impressed.
The game is $42, and that gives you both client and server software.
Most of the development was done on the linux platform. There's
a developer journal at Station Terminus that gives lots of this kind of
information.
if there was a Windows version, it would help increase the popularity of the game
True, but if not, perhaps this could make linux just a bit more popular? Not enough to switch a die-hard windows fan, but might be able to help convince someone wavering between the two OSs. Even so, it prolly won't help much...
One of the features mentioned on stationterminus.com -
Real-time Voice communication between players using Voxware's MetaVoice technology.
This is one of the most interesting features for me - trying to type commands to other members of your team while playing the game makes it a lot harder to do when you're also pressing lots of other keys to control your craft...
Of course, on low bandwidth connections, it might suck.. but this is a step in the right direction.
~P
Supposedly free- loads of rumors to that effect.
:-)
One box handles Windows, MacOS, and Linux- it'll be guaranteed to be on the store shelves everywhere if they get the right channels selling it.
It was developed under all OSes simultaneously.
It's got a LOT of potential- and I've been eagerly awaiting it for several months now. Now I know what to hint at for Father's Day or my Birthday now...
Oh, you might want to hit Linux Games on a periodic basis- they track this sort of thing.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
a modern replacement to Elite!
I've been following it for quite some time, to be honest I dont *care* what it runs under, as long as its fun.
* Goes to check release dates etc *
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
For those of you who don't know what Terminus is about (and are too lazy to look it up yourself)...it's a Massively Multiplayer On-line RPG (MMORPG) set in our solar system. You've heard of Everquest -- the now premiere MMORPG -- but Terminus is sci-fi, not fantasy. It's mostly designed around space combat and exploration, and you can choose to be a merchant, pirate, or fighter jockey defending earth. It looks like more of a spaceship game than a character RPG, but still it looks pretty cool.
There are dozens of MMORPGs in development right now, after the success of Everquest. Not many will be finished, and even fewer will be successful. Terminus has an advantage in that it's the first sci-fi MMORPG (to my knowledge) and it's coming out before the 'second wave' of MMORPGs that will hit sometime around December of this year. For a list of RPGs coming out (a good percentage of which are MMORPGs), check out The Gamer's Alliance List.
The next big MMORPG title for Linux gamers? Atriarch. Watch for it.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
It's not just for Linux, it is Mac, Windows and Linux - simultaneous release, and ALL in the one box.
They're starting work on a demo now that the game has gone gold, and they've promised the demo will be out by the time the game is in stores. (the info is somewhere on Station Terminus, too lazy to look where exactly :)
One of the things that separates Terminus from Everquest, and that makes it beautiful, is that Terminus is not a service but a product that allows any old user to set up a persistent universe and allow other people to play within it.
In short, Terminus allows an owner of the game unlimited usage of others "universes", provides the ability to instantiate your own, or to just play solo.
Now, if only some insane fanboys out there would set up a cluster running Termins (is this possible?) so that we could have several hundred people existing the in the same universe. ;-)
<SOAPBOX>
RMS is unquestionably brilliant, but he is not always right; and while I have the utmost respect for his free software ideals, I have extreme difficulty with the zealotry which some of his supporters demonstrate.
Your first assumption is that Linux developers are not Linux users. You assume that a commercial software company's programmers aren't going to give half a damn about the operating system; you assume they're heartless, faceless, interchangeable capitalists.
News flash for you: every one of those assumptions is faulty.
The people who code under Linux, whether it be for pay or for the good of the community, are going to be familiar with Linux and the community spirit which it was built upon. When you demonize the commercial software developers, guess what? You're demonizing people you should be evangelizing to. Your approach is no different from that of any of thousands of fundamentalist Christians who loudly scream that homosexuality is evil--regardless of whether it is or not, it alienates the very people you're trying to reach.
Your second assumption is that it is an us against them situation. How can I put it bluntly?--I consider this to be a sign of immaturity. RMS may well see the intellectual-property issue in black and white, but he does not see people in terms of black and white. He has more wisdom than that.
Your third assumption is that our rules are better, high in fiber, low in saturated fat, and guaranteed low sodium. While I'll be the first to trumpet the virtues of free software, we will not achieve world domination by means of xenophobia. Without exception, every culture in history which has practiced isolationism has had its butt kicked by the cultures which did not. Do you really want the free software community to get our rear end handed to us on a platter? That's what this kind of isolationism and xenophobia will do, make no doubt about it.
If I were a Windows developer who was considering porting something (like, for instance, let's say a science-fiction MMORPG to Linux) I'd take a look at your post and say "good grief! What a strange person. Well, Marketing says there's a contingent of them who will buy games anyway, so I'll just ignore all of these Linux zealots!"
As soon as that happens, you have forever lost them to the cause.
Commercial software will not be the demise of Linux. Linux is bigger than that, and more importantly, the community is stronger than that. The only thing that can kill Linux--and destroy free software--is the community surrounding it.
And you're doing ten times as much to destroy free software as any closed-source programmer is.
</SOAPBOX>
</SH!T_KICKING>
A good number of Linux users do have 3Dfx cards, since they have a good history of working under linux. (Witness Quake 1.) Hopefully the remainder of Linux users will tolerate a dual-boot a bit longer until we can get more solid driver support for Terminus. Cross your fingers, and encourage your board vendors to cooperate with us!
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