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Linux Alpha Centauri Demo
Jacek Fedorynski writes "Loki has released a Linux demo of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. It allows for 100 turns and weighs 25 MB." Yet another game I watched others play under Windows and wished I could participate in.
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I thought people had Alpha Centauri running in WINE? I know it was possible to get Starcraft running in WINE. What I really want to see on Linux is Half-Life -- is valve working on a port?
Sometimes you by Force overwhelmed are.
How is the internet play? This game is the only reason I kept one of my boxes on windows. I waste countless hours on it. Soon I'll be able to turn that box into something more worthwhile, like an mp3 player.
"My religion is to live --and die-- without regret." -- Milarepa
I have enjoyed Sid Meier's games on Dos/Win platforms and this brings the games to my OS of choice. Loki are also helping Linux become mainstream with ports like this. For example many of my friends are windows users simply for the games. They enjoy the wide variety and abillity to play the latest and greatest games but lament the bugs and crashes. As more and more great games become available in linux this is a market that may also choose Linux as their OS of choice.
I'm sure there'll be a lot of people who think or moderate this as a flamebait, but it irks me to hear "I wish I could have..." from OS-zealots.
Say I use Win2000. If a really cool game comes out for the Mac, and I want to play it, I am free (as in speech) to find somebody who has a Mac and wouldn't mind me trying out the game for a while. Personally, I don't think any game would be enticing enough to make me borrow a friend's Mac. But it's my choice.
Say I use Palm. If a really cool p.i.m. comes out for the PocketPC/WinCE that would make my work more productive, I am free (as in speech) to find the bucks to get a WinCE. Personally, I don't think any p.i.m. would affect productivity enough to make me switch model of alkaline-draining widget. But it's my choice.
Say I use a Ford. If a really cool dashboard accessory comes out for the Honda, ... But it's my choice.
If you're a bigo^H^H^H^H exclusive fan of a certain platform, then accept that you're shutting yourself off from nine tenths of all that is out there on other platforms. When you can, get things moved over to your platform, but don't whine about the things you choose not to use.
[
Well, I guess it's simply because HLINQ (Half Life is not Quake). You'd figure the following:
Well, Quake runs in Linux, Half Life is based on Quake code, when will Half Life run in Linux?
Fraid not. There's maybe 1% of the original Quake code still in Half Life (the File handling mostly). And most of the Half Life developers were young developers who'd made it big working for Microsoft and then moved on to Bigger and Better things. So most of the Half Life code deeply depends on Microsoft Foundation Classes.
So, simply put, it'd be a bitch to port. MFC's don't port nicely.. Now, I can't comment on Team Fortress II. I'd like to see Valve move towards more cross-platform code, but I might just be dreaming.
The game is what would be SMAC gold, ie SMAC+SMACX. Since SMACX was released not so long ago this means the port is not very outdated. (as opposed to if it had been only SMAC)
Here in Stockholm, Sweden games for Mac and Linux are about 20-30% more expensive than Windows games, if you don't know where to buy them cheaper.
This will be one of THE factor for retaining Windows unless you see a 20-30% performance gain real soon now for Linux.
I saw the new performance figs for Quake3 on Linux. Great! On par is great but won't quite make for the masses (with the following price drop).
Dr Ool
I know it would be a long journey to build something similar to DirectX... Not as bloaty :) Picture a moduleded API, where it only loads part neccesary for the game to run. That would optimize a little better 'eh?
Oh welps, maybe I'm just dreaming
Who's the black private dick, who's a sex machine for all the chicks?
Yet another game I watched others play under Windows and wished I could participate in.
Yeah, too bad about Diablo II, huh?
Is is possible to use the demo with the Windows version of the game? I guess all the data should be fine. They usually just port the game executable. Has anyone tried it yet? After all I already paid for SMAC...
I already own the windows version, but I'm still getting it for Linux since it includes the "Alien Crossfire" expansion pack, and I want to support gaming on Linux.
Alpha Centauri is definitely one the finest games I've ever played. It's one of those games that once you start playing you'll forget to eat, sleep and work... for days! If you like Civilization (1&2, not that Activision Power crap) or Master of Orion/Magic you're going to love Alpha Centauri. It's got excellent AI, good graphics and killer gameplay. It even runs relatively well on my old P200, and it doesn't require a 3D card.
C'mon, it's sure nice to see more games coming out for Linux, but at this delay, it should be considered worse than nothing.
Anyone who is into strategy games has already finished AC like 10 times, and unless you're a real Linux fanatic with lots of money to burn, no-one is gonna spend another 50$ for exactly the same game they already own.
And if AC for Linux sells a few thousand copies (perhaps even less) while the Windows version sold probably around a million, it won't give numbers you'd like to show to your investors when trying to bring them to produce a Linux port.
Just as I said, a one-year-late Linux port is probably worse than none at all...
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> Fraid not. There's maybe 1% of the original Quake code still in Half Life (the File handling mostly).
This is silly. I heard Yahn Bernier describe the "new networking" in Half-Life at GDC, and guess what? It was the same old Quake II networking. I think many game companies have a little too much pride to say "oh, yeah, this is mostly Quake II with a modded software rendering engine and a big new bolted on scripting engine". NIH and all that.
> MFC's don't port nicely..
In the simplest case they could just use Wine, which has a very liberal license. If you actually want to port it, it's not too hard, just a lot of gruntwork. I ported 28k lines of MFC UI code in a few months.
m.
(who does not speak for his employer)
--
"Sebastian you're in a mess. They called you King of all the Hipsters, is it true or are you still the Queen?" -- B
And if we're picking nits, the Q2 network code was mostly just the QuakeWorld network code :o)
:o)
Seriously though, they didn't leave that much behind when they made Half Life. They started with the Quake code, worked on it for a while.. Eventually their license was extended to include the Q2 source code.
I don't know if that was before or after they decided it was time to just rewrite the whole thing.. But I'll say it again, HLINQ.
If you read the wine docs you can compile MFC now with winelib. And if you think about it winelib is just a api likle GTK+ so they couold make a native port.
Free Unix? Free Windows. http://www.reactos.com
This raises an interesting question. I already have the Win32 version, will I have to pay for it again for Linux? That's the kind of stupid marketing trick some companies would try.
I wonder, if this sort of thing becomes more common will companies charge the same for all platforms or will WinDoze software be cheaper because more people want it? Could they do that, or would it be discriminating against a minority (probably shouldn't say that) group?
Lets all install linux so we can play this two year old game.
Some people don't have Windows though. Although very few of these are gamers.
A lot of people buy games, but only play them from time to time.
On the whole, of course you're right. The OS should be the least important part of the computer system for anyone, followed by RAM chip manufacturer and model of case. The refusal to use windows is more down to idealism, and a refusal to support a company like MS.
"The refusal to use windows is more down to idealism, and a refusal to support a company like MS."
I know. Ever notice how companies are constantly punished for being successful?
Bell is still a monopoly in Canada and I don't see Canadians complaining every day how much they suck.
Microsoft won't decide what shit is. Hardware comes first, then the software. Even if there is only Windows, hardware manufacturers still make the hardware THEN Windows supports it. Microsoft does't make additions to their OS's that don't even have hardware that exists to support it, trying to define the specifications themselves.
:P ). They have the power to hurt the industry MUCH more than Microsoft ever could. They ARE the hardware, and if they force users into buying expensive things they don't need (RAMBUS) it can create a big problem. A $100 copy of Windows is one thing, but a $500 stick of 128 megs of RAM is another.
The real monopoly that everyone should be going against is Intel (AOL too, but thats a whole nother paragraph
And BTW, every phone company in England sucks ass, not just Bell. Paying per minute for the Internet is the norm there.
That said, I'm not going to buy it again because I'm not exactly wealthy. If I want to play it I'll just boot up my windows partition. Sorry Loki.
There should be some way that owners of the original can get a rebate on the linux version. Loki should not have to pay royalties for those who are buying it a second time.
It ran on my friend's 486 DX2 66, sure it took like 10 minutes per turn in the later years but it was playable.
I have no problem with idealists but whiny idealists annoy me. "Oh boo hoo I can't play Alpha Centarui or Half Life etc.." You knew what you were getting into when you wiped your disk and stuck linux on there. Or you should have.
*Disclaimer* This ranting is not directed at the parent poster in particular but more at all the whiny idealists I know are out there somewhere :)
I used to think i was indecisive but now im really not sure?
>until the games start coming out for it at the
>same time or sooner than they come out for
>windows.
Do you read John Carmack's
See, iD released the golden masters for the Linux, Macintosh, and windoze versions of Quake3 ON THE SAME DAY!!! That was Carmacks plan for many months prior to the release of Quake 3. But look closer at the
Loki and MacSoft do great work. But entire distrobution / production / retail chains they are not.
Particularly telling is the fack that Loki had the production CDs completed by their own supplier, but the company supplying the packaging was intentionally witholding, from Loki, all of the packageing materials (the box, manual, jewel case, etc.) Loki worked around this by shipping Quake 3 CDs alone to those who ordered directly from them, and sending the packageing materials later. But if you perfer to shop at a conventional store, you were SOL.
Now, an exercise for the reader:
Who, in the technoogy industry, has a vested intrest in making alternative operating systems look bad by delaying the Macintosh and Linux versions of software, as opposed to the windoze version? Who has the power to bully the distrobution chain into bending to his will? And who has shown absolutely no restraint in the abuse of that monopoly power?
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Imagine all the people...
Going and stealing copy of Windows would just lower my opinion of someones ideals than if they broke down and bought a copy of Windows for the sole purpose of playing half-life. I have a windows parition on my system with only three applications. Half Life, The Realmagic DVD player, and Winzip. Why should someone be willing to bend on the principle of using Linux software if it means stealing from those who have worked on the software. It's great that people write Free Software, I release everything I write that I can, but it is still legal to sell software.
You have two choices that wouldn't compromise your position as a free software or fair competition advocate
Getting a legal copy of Windows isn't that difficult anyways, unless you built the computer yourself(a possibility) you probably already have a license for some version of Windows.
treke
(First - I'm not trolling or flamebaiting.)
I borrowed SMAC from a friend not long ago, and at the time he couldn't find the instructions. Regardless, I installed it and spent a night playing it. Having little idea what exactly I was doing, I pressed buttons, followed the guides, and generally pressed "Do it" when a advisor-type window popped up.
After several hours of playing, learning more how it worked, making some purposeful decisions, but generally just clicking "OK" whenever I could, I was clearly in the lead, with about 1/5 of the game time left.
At that point I quit. It just became tedious, and I felt that if I could just say OK to all the default options and be consistently in the lead of the game, then this wasn't going to be a very interesting game in the long run.
So do people really like clicking "OK" for 10 hours, or was I missing something big? Are there more challenging computer players that require you to actually make decisions (and make you play the game, instead of watching the game play itself)?
ShoutingMan.com
There are 10 different ones in progress and each are incompatibe with each other and still alpha code :)
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
-John
> I have put my sperm out on the GPL. ... I have also made it Open Source for all you LinuxChix out there.
I know a Big Biker Dude who is demanding to see the source of your sperm, which you of course must deliver to him since you're distributing it under the GPL.
He said he wanted to make certain moderations to your source, but I didn't ask for any details, because I'm not sure I really want to know.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Umm...then download Freeciv and stop your bitchin
Do the obvious to e-mail me.
I've got a new point of view: Pirate Windows, and use Linux, but do it because you're a dirty bastard! Not only do you enjoy the freedom and ability to reap off other peoples' work in Linux, but you also embark the dark-side glee of stealing off Microsoft's work! No rationale, just pure selfish greed. Get both your OS's free, one as in speech, the other as in beer, and live the good life like every other hoodlum! :-D
the real at&t mix
> So most of the Half Life code deeply depends on Microsoft Foundation Classes. ...) - but on the MFC? *wondering*
Could you please explain to me why a 3d Shooter would depend on the MFC, which is a widget set and can roughly be compared to, say, GTK or QT? Maybe it depends on DirectX or a subset of it (DirectDraw, Direct3D,
nc
I will not buy this software, it is scratched
Hello everyone. My name is Andrew Henderson, and I have been the lead programmer on SMAC/SMACX at Loki. I've seen from many of the posts that there is some enthusiasm over the Loki port of Alpha Centauri, and I'm very glad to see it. This project has been stealing our evenings and weekends for quite some time now, and I'm glad to finally see it come to a close.
There are a few things that I think anyone interested in this port of Sid Meier's Planetary Pack should know:
1. A PPC port is very unlikely.
I'd like to apologize to all the PPC users out there. I'd love to see SMAC on the PPC platform, but there is just too much involved in moving our codebase from Intel to PPC. There are roughly 25,000 lines of Intel assembly in SMAC, making the convertion a major undertaking. SMAC has specialized asm blitters for sprites, self-modifying asm for rendering the voxel vehicle units, and a complete asm texture mapping engine for rendering the landscapes. The costs in terms of both manpower and time in doing a PPC port are very steep.
2. SMAC/SMACX will most likely run on FreeBSD.
While it is not officially supported, we have gotten beta versions of SMAC to run on a FreeBSD box that has the Linux compatibility kernel module installed. If you have a FreeBSD box and would like to try out the SMAC/SMACX demo, I encourage you to download it. There is a good possiblity it will run for you.
3. Many bugs in the Win32 version of SMAC and SMACX have been fixed in the Linux version.
Well over a hundred bugs that were in the Win32 version have been fixed in the Linux version. For those people that want justification for purchasing the Linux version if they already have the Win32 version, here it is. This leads me to my last point:
4. The Linux/*BSD communities have some of the best beta testers out there.
I have to admit that I'm very impressed with the quantity and quality of bug reports Loki has received during the beta process of porting the game. Our beta testers were very persistant in finding and reporting bugs. The beta folks were an invaluable help in porting the game, and I'd like to thank them for their incredible time and effort.
All in all, I'd judge the port of Sid Meier's Planetary Pack a success. The programmers had fun, the beta testers had fun, and I hope that whoever tries out the demo of the game will enjoy it.
After all, we're all in this for the fun, aren't we?
Andrew Henderson
Programmer
Loki Software
Instead of making yourself look like a flaming idiot, why don't you organize your post and come up with a smarter way of saying what you want?
I understand Windows is 'the' gaming platform now. What is Linux? Is it the 'office' platform? Is it the 'development' platform? Or is it the 'waste' platform? What is mac's aim? Sound and video? A lot of the Linux developers are aimed at making Linux the 'ultimate' platform. That's normal for advocates. I'm sure there are people who feel the same way for FreeBSD and Atheos (sp?)...
Why should we get Windows if we want to play a game? Why is it soo hard to make a port for multiple platforms instead of one silly unstable platform? It's about time people migrate to a different solution instead of what Microsoft brainwashed is right. I know Taco is hypocritcal when it comes to games. He posts Diablo 2 and how he's purchased it after it's been out for .0005 seconds, yet when it comes to Alpha Centauri he 'wishes' he could participate in.
Please rethink your posts before you smack submit.
Who's the black private dick, who's a sex machine for all the chicks?
Some people are willing to face the "or else". It's easy to stand up for a principle if there's no opposition.
treke
Call to Power may have a better user interface (far superior graphics, at least... not sure about the sound yet, since I've only played the beta of SMAC). But as a strategy game I have to say that SMAC is much better.
actually, i'd rather play good ol civ2 over either one of em
There are a lot of people who agree with that. ;-)
where is the ppc demo, if I might ask?
Ports to non-x86 platforms will probably be severely delayed (if they're done at all). Sam Lantinga says there are 25000 lines of inline assembly in SMAC, so porting to non-x86 architectures will be painful to say the least.
There is a version of Railroad Tycoon II that has been available for Linux for quite some time. Granted it isn't Alpha Centauri, it is a good thinking/strategy game and does pull you in.
Okay, I'm sure this has been said a hundred times in this story by now, but: cut the crap, Rob. We all know that you have a Windows box, and if it can run Diablo II, it can run Alpha Centauri. As I've said before, these comments that are meant to insinuate that you never use any Microsoft products are childish and are not doing anything postive for the perception of GNU/Linux, OSS, or yourself. They also do nothing to harm the "evil empire". The immature tone in some of your recent stories has led me to believe that your UID really has been cracked. Honestly, what was your motivation for saying that? Did you think it was "interesting" or "insightful"? Or, like so many moronic teenagers on this site, did you feel a need to say something, anything, but didn't have anything meaningful to contribute? Even a solemn "Schweet." would have been better. There's no need to push it down our throats that you prefer GNU/Linux to Windows, and making comments like that is silly because, once again, we all know you play other Windows games. Diablo II, Everquest, older Quakes... cut the crap.
HTH!
(Tip to moderators: reasonable moderation for this comment would be either "Flamebait" or "Troll". HTH too!!)
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All generalizations are false.
--
I like to watch.
You may want to check out the Simple DirectMedia Layer at www.libsdl.org. Essentially, it is a wrapper for cross-platform development -- aside from having multiple language bindings, it currently supports Win32 (DirectX), Linux (OSS / DGA) and BeOS. Not only that, but it abstracts basic system-level functions to minimize porting requirements.
>Bell is still a monopoly in Canada and I don't see Canadians complaining every day how much they suck.
I disagree - my adsl connection has been great with very little downtime. As long as you don't have to talk to tech support (where do they find those people anyways??) I certainly can't complain. Besides, I believe they are/have upgraded the connection speeds to 2meg down/ 512 or so up. (Can't remember where I saw that, on some US gaming site I believe...) After upgrading to win2k from 98 my connection speed has gone through the roof (much better tcp/ip stack). Wish I could convince my better half to go with linux though...
You work for an internet company.. you must be able to steal about 10 copies of Windows from work without anyone even caring. It's easy to install too, just click next about a dozen times, I've heard they trained a monkey at the Bronx Zoo who can do it, but for legal reasons they could not issue him an MSCE.
Carmack was quoted as saying he wasn't pleased with the delay of the release and encouraged people to hold off purchasing the Linux version of the full release until it actually shipped rather than buying the Windows version and downloading the Linux binaries.
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
I recall this very distinctly. Is what something Id was actually unhappy about.
They did purposely delay the release of the Windows->Linux conversion patches until well after the Linux version hit the stores. This was to try to get people to hold off on buying the Windows version and simply wait for the Linux version to show up.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
You can get it with a new hard drive or motherboard. Just see a vendor in your area.
treke
But, now that I have both Alpha Centauri and the Alien Crossfire expansion pack for Windows, I don't think that I will shell out the money a second time for a Linux version (I assume that it won't be free). It would be nice to be able to get a port of a game you already own for free, or for a nominal fee.. like the cost of CD and shipping.
I wonder, is any company doing that, or has ever done this before? I don't buy (or play) games very often, so I'm kind of ignorant when it comes to those issues.
"The reason that every major university maintains a department of mathematics is that it is cheaper to do this than