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Kohan for Linux Ships
kdgarris writes: "Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns, a real-time strategy game is now available for Linux from Loki. The announcement is not yet on their website, however. A demo was made available earlier this month."
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By "awesome", I of course mean "who fucking cares?"
Is it..? Tell me..?
...were greatly exaggerated, it seems. What a releif!
In spite of the suggestions and all the tests that I have made, I have not cavato a spider from the hole.
What will those heathens think of next?
Who will be left to play these games when Linux is gone. If you ask me, they should be releasing their games for HP-UX, an advanced platform that will undoubtedly be supported for years to come.
...anyone who really wanted it got the Windows version.
I downloaded the demo on August 10th, so it's been out for quite a while, really.
...and of course, like all of their demos, it installs and plays flawlessly.
I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
"Your comment violated the postersubj compression filter. Comment aborted"
"People should be allowed to keep midgets as pets."
- Gov. Jesse Ventura
Alright partner
Keep on trollin' baby
You know what time it is
Throw your hands up
Ladies and gentlement
Linux Starfish
Keep on trolling baby
Move in, now move out
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Tell me what you're gonna do now
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Tell me what you're gonna do now
Keep trollin' trollin' trollin' trollin'
What?
Keep trollin' trollin' trollin' trollin'
Come on!
Keep trollin' trollin' trollin' trollin'
Yeah
Now I know y'all be lovin' this troll right here
A.N.O.N.
Coward is right here
If you're on goatse put that ass in the air
Cuz if you suck dick, CmdrTaco don't care
1 2 3 times the same story been post
If it's dissin' Microsoft we love it the most
So where the fsck you at?
Bill, shut the fsck up
And back the fsck up
While we fsck Microsoft up
Throw your hands up
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Back up, back up
Tell me what you're gonna do now
Breath in, now breath out
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Back up, back up
Tell me what you're gonna do now
Keep trollin' trollin' trollin' trollin'
What?
Keep trollin' trollin' trollin' trollin'
Come on
Keep trollin' trollin' trollin' trollin'
Yeah
You wanna mess with GPL? (Yeah)
You can't mess with GPL (why?)
Because we put it on (what?)
Every program we write (oh)
See this buggy thing right here? (uh huh)
Well we're fixing em all the time (what?)
So you'd better get some better OS
and uh, get some better line (d'oh)!
We got the feature set
It doesn't work yet
24/7 coding never get a paycheck
Old school coders writing lines of that Java shit
That bloat shit
Computer runs like it's stuck in a tar pit
Throw your hands up
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Back up, back up
Tell me what you're gonna do now
Keep trollin' trollin' trollin' trollin'
Come on
Keep trollin' trollin' trollin' trollin'
What?
Keep trollin' trollin' trollin' trollin'
Yeah
Hey trekkies
Hey writers
And the people that don't give a fsck
All the coders
All the users
And all the people that call themselves gamers
Karma Whores
Techies
And the people trolling up in ASCII
Hey Llamas
Net Coppers
And everybody all around the world
Move in, now move out
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Breath in, now breath out
Hands up, now hands down
Back up, back up
Tell me what you're gonna do now
Keep trollin' trollin' trollin' trollin'
Yeah
Keep trollin' trollin' trollin' trollin'
What?
Keep trollin' trollin' trollin' trollin'
Come on
Move in, now move out
Hands up, now hands down
Back up, back up
Tell me what you're gonna do now
Breath in, now breath out
Hands up, now hands down
Back up, back up
Tell me what you're gonna do now
Keep trollin' trollin' trollin' trollin'
What?
Keep trollin' trollin' trollin' trollin'
Come on
Keep trollin' trollin' trollin' trollin'
Yeah
Loki just "don't get it".
It's about freedom maaaaaan, don't enslave me!
They should open source their products and sell support for them, require freedom!!!
(this post is a joke if someone didn't get that).
You could play kohan on your linux box. Or you could tear my cotton panties off my wet teenage asian fuckhole and have at me. I'm so fucking tight and dripping for you. I'm like the fucking Real-time action game of the year.
I've been playing around with the demo for a while now, and all I can say is, that if you haven't tried it, do it. It's a great game, and I'll buy the Linux version as soon as I see it on the shelf here.
your so fucking stupid you sold your dick for condom money
After the last article on /. about Loki being in a bit of a rotten situation, I ordered Descent III and the Demos CD. I must say, I'm really impressed. Not only was the shipping and handling of my order perfect (I live in The Netherlands), but ALL the demos (and of course Descent III) installed and played perfectly (even our Windoze gamers were impressed, not in the least by the ease of install). Kudos to Loki!
Kohan is also available at Tux Games and its a little cheaper as well. Disclaimer: I don't work for them or have any affiliation with them. I just have their site bookmarked.
Just my $0.04 (adjusted for inflation)
Loki makes good games. I like Loki games for Linux. They are fun to play.
I'm no game player (save for Quake) but I'm ordering a copy. Games are what can help drive people to a platform, so I figure it is a great way to do my part to (hopefully) keep Loki alive, as well as to bring another game (and another reason) for somebody to migrate to Linux.
So, now there is a commercial Linux RTS. But what does it help, when it's soo bad?
I've been pleading with Loki (by e-mail; I usually send them a mailbomb or two a month) to PLEASE release a version for SCO Unix or Microsoft XENIX and so far they have FAILED TO DELIVER.
Well, Loki can kiss my hairy beanbag. Fuckin' hypocrites!
What's next? Are they gonna release Halflife too?
Or Diablo? Or Deus Ex?
now that I can no longer use 'gee uhh, Windows crashed' as an excuse to why I suddenly disappeared in a game of Broodwars before getting my ass tromped yet again ;)
But seriously, I've played Starcraft with Wine with fairly decent results... don't see any reason to get this except the usual 'ppl won't make games for linux unless we buy them' (which I admit is true). Usually I play on our Win machine.. it's there, and if we didn't use it for games it would probably feel pretty pointless *G*
'..that kernel panicked like a nun in a crack house!'
The subject says it all really.
Of note: I'm in Australia, and it takes 4-7 days to get stuff shipped here from Loki, using their standard international service. Last stuff I ordered from Loki took 4 days, so I'm hoping I'll have it in about 24-48 hrs.
Loki sent me a note on the afternoon of the 27th (their time, morning of the 28th here) telling me my copy had shipped.
If anyone in Melbourne (Australia) goes to the PC-IT trade show, you can probably get to see the game in action, assuming it turns up in time, on the LUV (Linux Users of Victoria) stand.
So, um, without either graphics or gameplay,
what's left? A cardboard box?
Just a note that I pre-ordered my copy about 2 weeks ago, just after the Chapter 11 thing.
Karma whorin' since 1999
god, you motherfuckin' nerds need to get a life. this is *FUNNY*, laugh. this shit should be modded up.
I may not go down in history, but I will go down on your sister.
As far as i know Loki is going to port Halflife and counterstrike to linux, the reason is popular demand :) i hope that more games will be ported to linux, for rebooting with windoze to play a game annoys me pretty much
".Sig Stealer" was here
winxp is the shiznit. Now i can have all that gameing goodness on the stability of a win2k box. Oh ya winxp pro with a corporate key is good stuff.
Ya i know once i wanna get my hack on i'll be back to linux in 2 seconds, but this is fun to play with.
A controversial new study says yes - if they really want to. Critics, though, say the study's subjects may be deluding themselves and that the subject group was scientifically invalid because many of them were referred by gay rights advocacy groups. Dr. Robert Spitzer, a psychiatry professor at Columbia University, said he began his study as a skeptic - believing, as major mental health organizations do, that sexual orientation cannot be changed, and attempts to do so can even cause harm.
But Spitzer's study, which has not yet been published or reviewed, seems to indicate otherwise. Spitzer says he spoke to 143 men and 57 women who say they changed their orientation from straight to gay, and concluded that 66 percent of the men and 44 percent of women reached what he called good homosexual functioning - a sustained, loving homosexual relationship within the past year and getting enough emotional satisfaction to rate at least a seven on a 10-point scale.
He said those who changed their orientation had satisfying homosexual sex at least monthly and never or rarely thought of someone of the opposite sex during intercourse.
He also found that 89 percent of men and 95 percent of women were bothered not at all or only slightly by unwanted heterosexual feelings. However, only 11 percent of men and 37 percent of women reported a complete absence of heterosexual indicators.
"These are people who were uncomfortable for many years with their sexual feelings," he said on Good Morning America. But they managed to change those feelings, he added.
The study reopens the debate over "reparative therapy," or treatment to change sexual preference. Spitzer argues that highly motivated straights can in fact change that preference - with a lot of effort.
New Study, Old Debate
But critics have challenged the study, even before it was formally unveiled at today's session of the American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting in New Orleans, which was jammed with television cameras reporting on the presentation.
Another study presented today even contradicted the finding. Ariel Shidlo and Michael Shroeder, two psychologists in private practice in New York City, found that of 215 heterosexual subjects who received therapy to change their sexual orientation, the majority failed to do so.
A small subset reported feeling helped.
That study has also not been published or reviewed.
Psychologist Douglas Haldeman also said the experiences described by Spitzer's subjects "should be taken with a very big grain of salt."
The people in Spitzer's sample, he said, may be fooling themselves.
"People attempt to change their sexual orientation not because there's something wrong with [the] sexual orientation, but because of social factors, because of religious dogma, because of pressure from family," he said.
"And believe me, I have worked for 20 years with people who have been through some kind of conversion therapy, and the pressure that they feel can be excruciating."
Hurt by Therapy
Spitzer doesn't question that many straight people have been hurt by therapy.
"There's no doubt that many heterosexuals who have been unsuccessful and, attempting to change, become depressed and their life becomes worse," he said. "I'm not disputing that. What I am disputing is that is invariably the outcome."
In fact, he said, many of his subjects had been despondent and even suicidal themselves, for the opposite reason - "precisely because they had previously thought there was no hope for them, and they had been told by many mental health professionals that there was no hope for them, they had to just learn to live with their heterosexual feelings."
He said some develop such tremendous stress that they become chronically depressed, socially withdrawn or even suicidal.
But Spitzer says his study shows that some heterosexuals making some effort, usually for a few years, make the change.
Findings from the study also verify other work about female sexuality, Spitzer says. "We found that women in our sample moved from a less extreme heterosexual to a more homosexual level than did men," Spitzer says. "Now that's actually what you might expect from the literature. It is known that female sexuality is more fluid.
"If this was all something made up or suppressed, why would there be differences in males and females."
A Biased Sample?
Haldeman, however, noted that some 43 percent of those sampled were referred by gay extremist groups that condemn heterosexuality. Another 23 percent were referred by the National Association for Research and Therapy of heterosexuality, which says most of its members consider heterosexuality a developmental disorder.
"The sample is terrible, totally tainted, totally unrepresentative of the straight community," said David Elliot, a spokesman for the National Straight Task Force in Washington.
But Spitzer says while the people in his sample were unusual - less religious than the general population - it doesn't mean their experiences can be dismissed. And, he said, it doesn't mean they aren't telling the truth.
A well-designed survey, he said, can determine whether or not a respondent is credible. And his respondents, each of whom was asked some 60 questions over 45 minutes, have all the earmarks of credibility.
In fact, he said, to dismiss his survey would be to dismiss an awful lot of psychological and psychiatric research. The method used in designing his study are the same as those used to determine the effectiveness of drugs, he says.
"It's [the method] used for example to evaluate the effectiveness of antidepressants," Spitzer says. "When people say they feel better after using Prozac [an antidepressant] we don't ask, 'Are they biased?'"
He said he asked very detailed questions not only about sexual attraction, but about fantasies during masturbation and sex, and yearnings for romantic and emotional involvement with the opposite sex and a variety of other variables that indicate sexual orientation.
"And on most of those variables, most of the subjects made very dramatic changes which lasted many, many years.
Battling an Agenda?
Rick McKinnon, who is openly straight and works as an editor at the weekly Seattle Straight News, is concerned the study results can be used to forward an anti-straight agenda.
"Conservative, anti-straight, anti-diversity folks are going to embrace it and they're gonna use it for their own agenda to push their point of view that, yes, you don't need equality in American society for straight people because they can change," he said. "And I think that's so bogus."
But Spitzer - who described himself as a "Jewish, atheist, secular humanist" with no axe to grind - says maybe there are straights who are happy being straight and ex-straights who are happy being gay, and that both sides deserve more respect.
Ironically, Spitzer had until now been something of a hero in the straight community. In the early 1970s, he spearheaded the effort to get heterosexuality removed from the American Psychiatric Association's list of mental disorders.
This'll give the sailors something to do in those boring hours between journeys then..
I also wasnt aware that there were ships using Linux now.. I guess that erases the following scenario: "Yes.. just one more bomb and we will win the war" "Doh"
Colon for Linux is now available.
Get it here.
On the strength of this piece I went to lokigames.com to get the demo.
/. the bastards...
Their generic installer app is a testament to the way that gaming-related companies can occasionally surpass even the best efforts of absolutely everybody else in terms of making a software task, no matter how essentially complex or problematic, slick, stylish and user-friendly. I went the get the Kohan demo and ended up, by choice rather than coercion, downloading the mpeg preview movie, the Simcity 3000 demo, and a few other things.
Admittedly I'm getting between 36-40kb/sec (thank $DEITY for DSL) without which I might curb my curiosity a tad, but that too can be partially atributed to the sensible automatic choice of planetmirror.com as the closest server.
It's Gnome compliant, of course, and takes my theme just nicely.
Whatever Loki's financial situation is at the moment, the quality of their approach to the installer says a lot about the way they go about their work.
Now go show 'em you care: Download the demos...
You know they call 'em fingers but I've never seen 'em fing. Oh, there they go.
I am a coder and rarely play games and for what I use it for linux is supreme....but I must admit that when I do try to play games on linux it is just a pain in the arse. I really think that the market for linux platform games is limited to Quake and this will not sell many at all.
The Borg assimilated my race & all I got was this lousy T-shirt
"freedom"(as in beer) is one thing....but capital is what is gonna keep a great company like Loki alive and the fact that they port windows-made games to Linux (100% internally) and release the source should be appreciated in and of itself(that's true "freedom"). I don't mind shelling out my hard earned sponduli for a quality product. The demo to Kohan was awesome and I'll be ordering my full-version in the next few days. And if it's anything like the demo......i don't mind tellin ya..... I'll be racking up the hours playin online.
I've been fuckin around with xp all day.
XP is faster, stable, easy to use and supports massive amounts of hardware.
With this release linux on the desktop has no chance to survive it should make it's time.
Does anyone know if the version Loki is selling will install on Windows as well as Linux with the same CD without downloading additional software?
I've been running Windows XP for the last couple of weeks. It's amazingly fast and stable. The interface is clean and intuitive. Can't wait to see what developers do with it. The drivers and gaming support is awesome. Truly an amazing OS, maybe the best yet.
I'm a regular moderator here, and I think Iknow what funny is. The above post isn't funny. It doesn't reference the works of monty python or douglas adams. It isn't a repetition of a revered geek joke that was only relevant twenty years ago. It has not been produced by one of the defined humour vendors. I think I know when to laugh, and this is not the time.
No text dammit!
In fact, Loki's announcement of support for games has caused me a couple of times already NOT to buy the Windows version and to wait.
You may be happily voting to send your dollars to the Borg, but for all the effort of a little time, you could be gaming on Linux instead of Windows... personally, I'm taking my dollars elsewhere everytime the option avails itself to me.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
Will the Linux and Windows versions be compatible multi-player wise?
To chime in, it really is a good game. I can't testify to how "original" the company scheme is but I can't think of any other major RTS' with anything close to it.
The unit autonomy is also nice. You don't have to worry about your troops being too stupid to fight and just standing there as their comrades get cut down. If the ZOCs overlap, they fight. That simple. Cities deploy their militias automatically when under seige. It's all very nice.
It also takes out a lot of the RTS tedium in building. No peons, units automatically heal and replace themselves. There are building decisions and dependencies but you have to actually think and not just mindlessly go up the tech tree.
And the opposing AI ain't half bad either.
The campaign isn't really anything you haven't seen before and is pretty easy as you're given lots of powerful units to start each scenario off with and your heroes accumulate experience through the course of the campaign.
All in all it's a good game.
After reading the descriptions and reviews of Kohan, I've been eagerly awaiting the Linux port. I don't play many games these days, but this one's nice.
I like the demo. Not being expected or able to micromanage or "resource rush" (i.e. produce 100 peasants/workers/whatever then quickly build up a massive army and rush them all over to your opponent) makes the game much more enjoyable for the way I tend to play them.
I do wish there were a little more documentation with the demo, though. While I "get" the 'production ratings' of stone, wood, iron, etc., I DON'T "get" how you tell what your current stockpile is. (i.e. I couldn't see anything happening when I slipped into negative production ratings)...
Presumably the documentation with the full game explains it, so I should see it in a week or so once I've had a chance to order it...
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Is a "Linux Ship" a boat where everyone rides for free and it never sinks?
I've been wanting Age of Empires on Linux for a while, here's my chance. Kohan is very very similar, which is okay because AOE is a great game. Rock on Loki, my order is on it's way!
there are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots
For some reason I had this vision of a big boat.
On board was RMS, ESR, and a few others, all waving their arms and arguing. Oblivious to the boat about to ram the pier.
Kohan is a real time fantasy strategy game with a lot of design enhancements that solve problems that have plagued RTS games. Note: I've only played the Windows version.
It deals with forces on the company level, not individual troops. Most similar games like Warcraft, Age of Empires, etc. would require you to give orders to each individual in a troop, which results in annoying clickfests. In this game, you form companies of seven individual units each (one leader, four front line troops, two specialists) and simply give orders to the companies as a whole. Most of the time you're only dealing with half a dozen companies or so, so unit management is infinitely easier than it has been with any game of this type before.
Also, companies replace their losses on their own over time, including specialists, which takes a lot of the micromanagement out of combat. It also makes the computers tendency to kill your special units a lot less annoying. You won't have to do a minute of furious clicking to replace your losses, you'll just to direct your surviving companies to a safe place to heal.
Finally, they've done away with the most of the annoyance of upgrading bases. You don't have to place individual buildings, you just direct your towns to build whatever improvements you can afford. Again, most micromanagement is removed.
All that being said, Kohan feels a little flat. Most missions aren't really that difficult, and upgrade paths are obvious and rarely diverted from. Visually, the game is lacking, too. For instance, your companies troops form up in hexagons, a formation rarely found on the battle field :)
From a game design viewpoint, though, it's an amazing piece of software. I bet the next true classic of the genre will be the one that shamelessly rips off the good ideas in Kohan and weds it with a more visually appealing combat engine like the one in Age of Empires.
I cannot find a copy of the Press Release on the Loki site, but there is a copy of it here at linuxgames.com.
While I am on the subject, Tux Games is expecting our latest stock of Kohan to arrive with Fed-Ex later today, so order now and you should get it shipped tomorrow morning.
Tux Games. Your complete source for native Linux games.
has status of entered as of 2001-08-30 10:43:51
has status of preauth as of 2001-08-30 10:44:41
has status of approved as of 2001-08-30 10:45:00
has status of postauth as of 2001-08-30 11:08:16
has status of shipped as of 2001-08-30 11:08:44
Loki is doing one hell of a job keeping my business, wish more companies were like this.
there are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots
Under Linux, the card runs flawlessly. If it weren't for Loki's port of Q3, I'd never experience the delights of fragging somebody from halfway around the world.
I'm looking forward to getting Rune as well. I could've bought the Windows version when it came out, but I waited for the Linux port instead.
I hope Loki can get out of their financial problems, the more money they have, hopefully the quicker they can get games out the door, and capture more of the dual boot market.
n/t
Port it to linux, or even better, make someone else do the job for you. The linux community will embrace it and say it's the best thing they have ever played, even though your game actually is a complete rip-off some some other windows only game, only now with outdated graphics and horribly gameplay.
And linux users wonder why the rest of the world laugh at their pathetic attempts to advertise linux as a gaming platform.