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Linux Descent 3 Demo
Dustin Reyes writes "Loki Entertainment Software has released a
demo of
Descent 3, the 3D
action game developed by Outrage Entertainment (who
were also responsible for the initial Linux porting work). Featuring 3 levels
(one single-player and two multiplayer),
the demo weighs in at 42MB (the README is available here, which includes command line options and known issues). Mirrors: Loki, 3D Downloads" My copy should ship any day: descent is probably the one game that I probably should take dramamine to play.
Here is where all of the /. "Elite" harp on and on about how crapy games are. They will rant and rave about how games require too much resources now adays, how they aren't efficient with memory, how they shouldn't require 3d accelerators, how the cpu requirements are ridiculous ("it should run on a 386!") and how the hard drive requirements are through the roof ("I could do it with only 12megs of hdd!"). Some of these folks will take the next illogical step and say it is a conspiracy to keep consumers buying hardware, others will say it is programmer lazyness. On top of that, most of them will say it doesn't matter anyway because nothing will ever be better than [Insert OLD dated game here, that ironically required cutting edge hardware to run when it came out].
Seriously folks, here is how it is. PC gaming is the cream of the crop for gaming. It costs more, and it takes more effert to get going, but the rewards are more too. Sure, it's cutting edge, but I LIKE cutting edge. THAT is why I play PC games, to me it's like constantly living on the edge of the future. When the future comes to the rest of you, us cutting edge PC gamers will say "Yeah.. I finished that one last season..".
The manufacturers wouldn't be making these games if there weren't a market for them. If you don't like the way the games are made then you aren't a part of the community, and have nothing to do with the market. Go mind your own business.
Sigs are awesome huh?
Not a profit? That's a shame, I though this was a very fine game indeed.
It certainly kept me amused for a good few weeks.
dave
But dramamine works by gelling you inner-ear, doesn't it? It's for when your view is not moving but your body is (like when you're on a rocking boat but looking at the steady horizon). Unless you're shaking your head a LOT while playing Descent, I don't think dramamine is going to do you any good.
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Return /. to it's past years of glory, when most of the posts were vaguely on-topic!
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
Jeff Slutter, one of the programmers on D3 took on the challenge in his own time to port D3 while we were still developing the windows version. He really deserves most of the credit for D3 being ported to Linux (although I helped out with a few things). He's a kick ass programmer (I hope you are reading this Slutter!).
Software isn't something you should really be able to own and charge for
Small point: software IS something you should be able to own and charge for, if you so wish to. If you want to go the free/open source route, you can, and it's possible to still make money. But just because someone writes a piece of software doesn't mean that it MUST be free.
Which is why we have to pay for software.
And the very worst part is that the game is now so old and outdated (I got the full windows version for free with my video card over a year ago) that nobody will buy it, and game companies will say "see, there is no interest in games on linux"
I've probably got it somewhere with one of my video cards too, however since I don't run Windows, Descent 3 is certainly new to me, that's why I ordered my copy straight away. Don't assume everyone uses Windows for games and Linux for the rest - I've never had my own WindowsPC in my life.
For your right!
To ban AC spam!
t_t_b
(I'm expecting to get bitchslapped for this...)
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
Okay I have been on slashdot crap I dont know a long while. Using linux way longer and I really believe in the push behind FreeBSD, and a few really good Linux Distro's I prefer to use.
Ive stuck a DNS server and even a qmail server up when a Linux box was just perfect for it and we did not want to pay anything for our software (DNS and mail for a 20 person office on a p5-133 with 128MB of ram), its great for that.
I DO NOT use it as my Desktop at home. I have two FreeBSD boxes sitting here, I run an X server to play with a few xterms and do my Mud Programming in KDeveloper or whatever and just display it on my windows machine.
The point Im getting at may seem vague but Here goes.
People who know enough to do that kind of setup and or even brave enough to use a *nix for their desktop are just so few and far between I do not see why you people find it disappointing a company is porting a game?
Disappointing it took to long to port a game to the lowest percentage of the market were talking 10% of ppl MIGHT use Linux or their only desktop.
And yet I see people complaining...? What is up with that I think what has happened within the Linux community is something really awesome.
Linux got the respect of one of the most well known gaming companies and got a Simultaneous!! Port of the thing
OH no that was not good enough the small 10% or less of the gaming market wants EVERY game??? Its just not going to work people, I do not know why you find it disappointing a company decided to do *anything* For linux. Its good stuff and shows that they respect the platform even a little. And oh my god SO what, you have to use windows to play a video game its not like its a sin.
I Bought the windows version of QIII and I will continue to buy games in windows only. Why? I work closer to 50 hours a week and do not feel like sitting down trying to fiddle with drivers for my G400 for half a day just to play a Game that installs and just works on my windows machine.
Okay so maybe if I were more proficient at setting up a machine it would not be so bad but EVERYONE has to learn how to cinfigure a system in order to do it fast and its just not something I have time for
I play QIII as a distraction not something to make me crazier trying to get it to run at a decent framerate... anyways
Thats just a minor point on top of the larger issue of why I use windows and why I think windows is always going to be around.
I love my Unix machines but I cant bring myself to converting my desktop machine to a Unix box so I cant bring myself to see why such a minority of people are complaning so much.
Yes I realize the reasons are not related but I just wonder why people find they can complain. Not everyone does but enough people do to make it kind of annoying. Its why Linux community has this kind of elite feel to it.. anyhow
Jeremy
If you think education is expensive, try ignornace
Under XFree 3, a process needs root permissions in order to use Direct Rendering. It's that simple.
"You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help" -- Calvin
FYI, Loki abandoned Sim City 3000 in favor of Sim City 3000 Unlimited!... SC3KU shipped for windows less than 2 months ago... As a beta-tester, I can say that the Linux version of SC3K looks really good!
Loren Osborn
... And just about everyone is, so what's your point?
Groan... I meant SC3KU looked really good on Linux... (And yes I did use preview)...
Loren Osborn
I'm on the beta team for D3-Linux. it's very cool. My name even appears in the credits, but you have to wait a long time to see the linux beta testers list.
Also play on PXO. very cool. My copy should be here soon too.
-- DuckWing
I agree with you, CrusadeR. I'm just glad that the games are being made. Sure, the delay is pretty long for some of them, but the games are really good.
You have to give Loki credit for even doing games that didn't sell all that well (Heretic II, Heavy Gear II). They noticed the quality in those games and they did them. There has not been one game yet from them that has been disappointing.
That's a lot for an OS that was never inteded to play games. They've done so many things for the linux gamming community that people don't even know about. Better yet, they even take those tools and release them to the community.
Heavy Gear 2 is a directX game and they completely made the conversion, flawlessly I might add.
"Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely."
I'd like to see you defend that. Software is something I make. It is not an idea (now that would be silly, I'll charge $50 for the idea of a fast, free, lightweight open source OS) but an actual product. What should be able to be sold? Work should be able to be sold. Just as a service is work (the expenditure of engergy for a given length of time) software is work (the expenditure of energy required to code it for the coding time.) Further, it can be though of as a service (I'm programming your computer for you.) Ideology holds dear the ability to make statements without any reasoning. However, given some reasoning, you can say that software is just like a service and can be charged for. If you wish, you can also think of it this way. Sex is kind of like software. Even though you can get it for free, in all accounts it is a service and can be charged for. More importantly, it involves the expenditure of energy for a given length of time, and can thus be considered "work" and very few people argue that you shouldn't be able to charge for work. Of course, just like sex, there are those who insist on giving away software for free, but you cannot say those who charge for it are morally wrong because they aren't giving it away free.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
A lowly AC troll who is entirely off-topic here manages to get himself moderated up.
-John
YIKES! That does not look healthy.
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
(Oh, great. I leave town for the weekend, and my project hits Slashdot. :) )
Hi, I'm the Descent3 developer at Loki.
You CAN install the game in less that 500 megs, but the default expects that much space. If you put the movies to disk, it's a gigabyte of space (and not worth doing, unless reading the movies from the CD on-the-fly is too slow.)
Most of the game can be played by swapping CDs at runtime. This at least halves the install space requirements. If you've got two CD drives (ie. - DVD-ROM and a CD burner), you can put one disk in each drive, and Descent will never nag you to swap disks, and you can have a minimal install on the hard disk.
--ryan.
Don't say, "don't quote me," because if no one quotes you, you probably haven't said a thing worth saying.
No... you can use a loadable module instead. Playing as root is fine if you're disconnected and you wrote the game, otherwise it's not likely to happen 'round my house. Fortunately, the demo doesn't require it (nor does any other loki game I own).
And a pair of 75GB hard drives. And my Ghz Athlon makes my testicles so much bigger than yours!
Sadly, the linux port was 90% done when the windows version shipped. It's taken this long not because of technical reasons.
:(
Anyway, I hope you all go out and buy to to both support Loki, and to support the companies like Outrage (who lost a lot of money on D3, and isn't likely to make anything off of the Linux port), who ported the game to linux in order to support the linux community.
I think D3 was an example of a developer trying too hard to make the community happy. I spent 2 years working at Outrage on D3, and we added features which people wanted, not just thinking about if this will help us sell the game. D3 has a lot of cool user requested features, and it cost a lot of money to make. In the end though, it just didn't sell enough copies to make a profit.
...using the binaries from this demo and the data from the Windows retail version?
--
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
but the market has to start somewhere.
:).
There have been several simultaneous ports [Unreal Tournament, Quake III: Arena, Terminus, Theocracy, the next Doom game, Anarchy Online (a non-fantasy-based MMORPG), Neverwinter Nights (the multiplayer AD&D RPG), Tribes 2 (well, nigh-simultaneous), and probably some I'm not thinking of off-hand] shipped or announced in the last 12 months, and the only way to maintain momentum is if you, the community, vote with your dollars.
Moreover, one of Loki's more recent ports, Soldier of Fortune, shipped only 4 months after the original Windows version, so the lag time on porting should hopefully be decreasing as well.
The gaming industry is ruled to a large degree by inertia, so it'll take time and effort to ensure a viable and diverse Linux gaming library, but I intend to do what's necessary to ensure that for all of us
:wq
It cracks me up. Really. The whole idea of Linux as being "independent" of Big Corporations. You do remember who owns Sladshdot, don't you? And Freshmeat? That's right: a Big Corporation.
Between the huge number of Linux web sites owned by VA Linux, Internet.com, IDG, and others, it's laughable that anyone could consider these sites to be less biased than say, CNet or ZDNet. They still have advertisers, and they are still responsible to their stockholders to bring in huge profits. I think it should be well known to Slashdot that they idea of a "socially responsible" corporation is laregly a myth. VA Linux wants to sell you Linux machines, and if that means promoting it in an unethical way,
But is it more than just the media? Think of how many Linux "celebreities" work for Big Companies: Torvalds at Transmeta, the huge number of people at Red Hat (Alan Cox, etc), Larry Wall working at O'Reilly ("the biggest parasite on Open Source", according to Bruce Perens). Are these people truly independant? It's hard to be when you know where that check is coming from.
I really think that this whole "no bribes here" attitude, especially coming as it does from the supposedly "community-based" Linux sites, should be taken with a grain of salt the size of a Buick.
What would you give in trade for the disk space? Seriously, it's that large because people wanted very detailed, well lit levels, with good quality textures and good digital music. It all adds up very fast.
If we had left out music, or made the levels smaller and less detailed, or no lightmaps, or something, people would have laughed at us for shipping a game from 1994!
If you want lot's of features and detailed games, you have to make a trade off of higher system requirements.
Anyway, you can buy a 20gig drive for $150, so what's the big deal about 500megs?
RedHat on the other hand are merely getting by with profits from other companies they bought. Whats that nasdaq report that says they will be profitable in 7 quarters. Thats nearly 2 years time!!!
90% done? That is pretty impressive considering only id seemed to be porting their games to linux when D3 was released.
I remember when the D3 demo came out. I downloaded it and played it. I was very impressed by the engine, the graphics, and the special effects. But I didn't buy the game. Why? Because, frankly, I have never really enjoyed the Descent series of games. Descent 1 I played to death because it was the first game I had seen to give true 3D (even DOOM, a Descent 1 contemporary, was not true 3D). But I have always been more of a Doom/Quake guy than a Descent guy.
My brother swears up and down that Descent 3 is an amazingly cool game. And I believe him. Many games that do not sell so well turn out to be amazingly cool (all of Looking Glass's games.. who just went bankrupt). I suppose the problem is that the market is saturated with games and you have to choose just a few to spend your time with.
As for Loki porting Descent 3, I think it's a great move. People will look at linux and say, "Wow, it's got all kinds of mainstream games available for it now: Quake 3, Soldier of Fortune, Descent 3, Heretic 2, Unreal Tournament etc." Though D3 might not sell well under linux (if Windows is any indication) much good will still be done simply by having it available. People will take linux more seriously with each port that Loki does. More power to them.
So I guess movies should be free? How about books? I suppose the Coke should give out their secret recipe, as well as Pepsi. The government should also tell us all of their secrets, as well as providing information on how to make an atomic bomb.
You dont realize that a game is not only an idea but ALSO a service. Until you make Quake 3 or Half-Life or any other game by yourself then you just have an idea. The game is an idea. Making the game is the service.
I like this game. I will pay money for this game. Therefore, Outrage will make money. Thus, there is interest in games on Linux.
One of the big reasons I will pay for this game is because the previous versions of Descent have had their source code released. It is because of that that I can play D2 under Linux. And I'm buying D3 keeping in mind that the source code will most likely be released sometime in the future. And this time, it will be native Linux code, instead of having to port it over ourselves. WTG Outrage and Loki. Keep up the good work.
For your right!
To ban AC spam!
t_t_b
When over 80% of posts are spam, you know it's Spamdot!
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
The porting of Tribes 2 to Linux is the best news I have heard in a short time (heh, the GPL'ing of Star Office was cool too). About the only reason I have kept a Win32 box around was to be able to keep playing Tribes.
For those not in the know, Tribes is multiplayer only shooter that came out way before Q3 and it fetures seamless indoor-outdoor, *huge* landscapes and an unmatched possibility to interact with you environment. It feels more like strategy squad warfare than a shooter. Like you're playing a RTS but you're one of the units.
When I heard they were using OpenGL for their brand new engine (which will make use of geometry acceleration that is now sleeping on our cards), I was secretly wishing for a port and now this.
bye bye Win32...
For your right!
To ban AC spam!
Isn't anybody besides me getting tired of this crap?
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
I've probably got it somewhere with one of my video cards too, however since I don't run Windows, Descent 3 is certainly new to me, that's why I ordered my copy straight away. Don't assume everyone uses Windows for games and Linux for the rest - I've never had my own WindowsPC in my life.
While I still have Windows 98SE on my hard drive, games like Descent 3 for Linux continue to erode the reason for having it there. So as soon as I get that Xfree86 4.0 install done and the NVidia drivers up and running, I shall be posting a cheque in the direction of Loki. Along with the Quake series, the Doom series, SimCity 3000, there is less and less reason to waste 11GB of hard drive space on Windows. What I need now is a decent driving game for Linux with force feedback support :-)
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
For your right!
To ban AC spam!
t_t_b
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipi^H^H^H^H^Hproblem!
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
For your right!
To ban AC spam!
t_t_b
Power to the People! Smash the fascism of AC Spam!
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
Well, I haven't seen D3 in the bargin bins, and D2 is still available. I bought D2 ($6.95, CD only) a couple days ago, since it works under Linux using the Descent 2 port.
The bargain version did require you to install it under DOS to extract the data files, though there may be an easy way around this. (I didn't bother...VMWare is ideal for this kind of thing.)
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
its at the loki portal page http://loki.linuxgames.com
Natas of
-=Pedophagia=-
http://www.mp3.com/pedophagia
Also Admin of
Natas of
-=Pedophagia=-
http://www.mp3.com/pedophagia
Also Admin of
http://loki.linuxgames.com
I didn't see any posts like that at all. You missed the most obvious ones for this type of article, tho: "It sucks that it's coming out so late!" and the "It's progress for the platform."
The streets shall flow with the blood of the Guberminky.
This game was never that great. Personally i would get alot more enjoyment if halflife was ported. oh well
With any luck, they'll port dramamine to Linux.
Minimum System Requirements
Hard drive : 500 MB uncompressed hard drive space
<SARCASM>Why yes, I _am_ made out of hard drive space, thank you very much.</sarcasm>
Seriously, someone needs to knock some sense into game designers - hell, all commercial programmers - and remind them that while _they_ may not have anything on their hard drives but the project they're working on, that's not what it's like out in the real world. I mean, you might want to have Star Office on there too...
descent 3 is long out of sales on windows, it's not even in the bargain bin anymore. This one game was a story on slashdot when the porting was announced, it is a story now, and it will be a story when the retail ships. If you think about that, you will realize how bad the state of linux gaming is in.
It's nice that they are porting the game, but so little so late.... definitely not somethign the linux community should be proud of.
And the very worst part is that the game is now so old and outdated (I got the full windows version for free with my video card over a year ago) that nobody will buy it, and game companies will say "see, there is no interest in games on linux"
________
Descent was always my favorite. The full 3D movement was fun, and the controls were very challenging. How fast is it on un 3D accelerated linux?
-- Moondog
It's wonderful that some truly great games (apart from Quake and mindrover) are finally making their way to Linux. If this keeps up, gamers will finally be able to get rid of that MS partition.
What worries me though, is that the ports seem to be trailing behind rather significantly. Descent 3 has been out for ages, and most of the gaming public has moved on. If the majority has already bought and played the game for Widnows, why should they invest in an extra copy to play under Linux, especially since hardware support still tends to be wobbly ?
"I like to sit and cry in front of my T.V." -- T.V. Song - Moondog Jr.
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(Just kidding.. I don't wanna hear about CmdrTaco OD'ing on motion-sickness tablets).Wow! Only $3.73 + S&H for those puppies.
On a more twisted note, this site is devoted to the hallucinogenic/deliriant drugs contained in over-the-counter motion sickness pills. And, of course, The Dramamine FAQ. Here's the only thing you need to know, though from the site:
Enjoy!
They seem to only have Linux games? Is this profitable, or do they go the same way as Corel? Down the drains, that is.. I certainly hope not, but reality looks different..
-- Rogier
Considering the views of yourself and a lot of Slashdotters in this thread, if Descent 3 sells 100 copies we should call the pope because its a miracle. Then again, if you have a really good game (by the majority's standard) like the next Doom or Quake, there is no reason you can't make a profit. So this is NOT bad news.