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Parsec LAN-Test Released
A reader writes: "Linux and MacOS versions of Parsec LAN-Test have been released! Windows version will follow soon. The game will also be included on the European version of Red Hat Linux 7, with more than 50 minutes of music by Stefan Poiss. You can download the game here. Please use the mirrors."
I see...
Interesting => Offtopic
Not Slashdot => Troll
Please teach slashbot-speak! RIAA double-plus-ungood?
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You'd think they'd know better than to put a 113k animated gif on the front page.
the actual screenshots are very yummy though.
fross
God i hated those joysticks. worst designed ever. i ended up buying one of those adapters that allowed you to plug in two "regular" joysticks like Quickshot etc
I liked parsec, definitely the best game of its kind at the time, it was so colourful, and more fun than Defender et al.
Had so many TI-99/4A games... alpiner, chess, defender, pac man, donkey kong, q*bert, Adventure (with about 7 cassettes), but the best by far was one called Tunnels of Doom.
Tunnels of Doom was a cartridge for the basic engine, with cassettes to supply the actual dungeon etc.. it is comparable to something like might and magic etc, that kind of RPG. if you consider it had:
- random map generation every game
- buying/selling items
- 3d walking around view, changing to overhead (turn-based) for combat
- tons of monsters and items, weapons and armour etc
- 4 character classes, each with unique skills and attributes
- Character advancement through experience
not bad for 1982 eh? You can go check it out (along with a lot more info on the TI) here, it's just someone's homepage, but it's cool, and has a screenshot of Tunnels of Doom in itFross
If Free Speech and Free Beer are requisite criteria in your book (they're not in mine, but I wholeheartedly consider them vaild criteria) then Parsec doesn't measure up. It's a free program released by a private group of developers who want to keep their code their own. There do exist the Free BeerSpeech counterparts; support and contribute to them.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Less than twenty years ago (Jesus, I am getting damn old...) I used to play a computer video game called Parsec on a Texas Instruments 99/4a computer.
Naming a game "Parsec" sounds like copyright infringment to me.
After all, MB was about to sue a friend of mine because he was about to call his Acorn RiscPC Doom-like "Destiny" so, don't the guy who wrote this Parsec take some risks ???
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Trolling using another account since 2005.
Hey! That's my page! I'm glad I'm not the only one that remembered this great RPG on a not-so-great computer system. I played that game for HOURS on end.
What 'European version of Red Hat 7'? What's the difference between that and the US version?
(Any large institution will have users whose native language is not English... so IMHO it's best to always install internationalized versions of everything, if you have the disk space. So why not a single distribution where you pick the language at install time? Or is there a separate European version for legal reasons?)
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Now I can test my lan!
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I am the dot in slashdot.org
Anyone else remember playing this game until their hands ached from those black and orange
joysticks?
How in the world did you use the joystick to
manuever for refueling? Even sticking the lift factor on 1, the keyboard seemed to have an advantage (OK, I didn't actually own joysticks, but whatever).
Speech synthesis, 16 color graphics, and who knows where the enemy ships are going to come out on the screen? (well, we all did after we figured out the pattern, but you have to admit, the first time some of those Urbites came out the back it scared you!)
Ah, those were the days.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
Ok, so they say "We're strong believers in a coordinated development effort". Even if they give the sourcecode away they can. Just look what it is with FreeBSD. Is is highly coordinated, but the sources are free.
AFAIK some of the Parsec-guys have been at Linux-Tag 2000. Didn't you hear the speech of Stallman? :-)
I saw the following on their website...
>>After starting up the game you simply choose a ship and select the galaxy you want to be playing in. You can do this in a number of ways. You can either select the desired galaxy in the starmap, enter stellar coordinates, choose a gameserver from a list of servers, or enter the DNS/IP address of a specific gameserver manually.
Now what about those people not located in US? eg Australia, Hong Kong, EU, Malta etc... Does the gameplay depend on ping times? (we probably get lpb issues etc etc)...Do the gameservers talk to each other thus allowing players outside the US to challenge people who are in the US?
XSW is a nifty game, and has some competant people on the development team. Unfortunetely, Taura (the lead) isn't one of them. I've been on the mailing list for the last year and a half (started after doing some help w/ display support), and have been simply astounded by the level of general incompetance she's displayed. Also, the code sucks -- read it and see. XSW is one of those projects which effectively consists of duct tape and string. There are places where files are duplicated throughout the build tree because Taura "didn't want the complications" of putting them into static libraries. She repeatedly refused to use autoconf, and after permitting people to create autoconf-based packages for one version, wrote her next version w/o it and asked the same people to redo their work! There have also been several occasions (check the ML archive) where Taura has actively driven off developers, and she insists on keeping an extra, unnecessary, poorly written clause in the license (a modified GPL) which makes it potentially incompatible w/ the regular GPL. Until Taura gets a clue or the competant folks leave, I can't support XShipWars.
I'm not kidding. This is professional quality stuff (probably because a lot of the people working on it *are* professionals). I want to pay money for it, get it in a box. How can I do that? Loki are you listening?
And when I do pay for it I'd like most of that money to go into the game team's party fund, so they can fly around the world and have conferences and parties, and attract more of the kind of first-rate engine hackers, artists and story writers who can take this thing all the way to the top.
I played it, it's good. It's slick.
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Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Last time when they released the selfrunning demo they released the windows and macintosh versions first and said the linux version would come sometime during the next days.
;>
Now with the playable lan-test they release the linux and mac version first. Which is of course nice.
The only sad part is that I have to wait until I get home from work before I can try it.
Let's hope they keep up the good work and hope for the full internet playable version ASAP 'cause my gut feeling is that this will make working late hours at work worthwile with a few parsec breaks
I thought it was some kind of *really* high-end network benchmarking utility.
Anyhow, the screenshots look really neat. Hmm...
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Wow, I could have sworn you were doing better than that lately. :)
However, if I had mod points, it'd be the least I could do, provided I could have some of that cheap $3 crack too. The market seems to be flooded with it, lately.
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
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the soundtrack for Parsec is particularly cool - sort of like a techno jungle thang with a moody groove. great stuff.
I LOVE YOU
great comedy company.