Slashdot Mirror
RTCW Single Player Demo & Linux Binaries
Ant was fastest on the mouse to report that Id Software has a single-player demo and a set of linux binaries available for Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Blue's News has some more information and a mirror.
However... is this sort of release really going to be downloaded and used a lot (outside of Slashdot)?
/. and other geeks downloading it just to see how it works, but this is as a novelty, IMO. You download it, get it working, say "this is cool I am gaming on Linux" and get back to work never to touch it again.
If it was used only by the people on slashdot that'd still be a pretty large audience. This site has a big base of regulars, posters, and lurkers. Why do you think that within minutes of a small to mid-size site link being posted here the server ends up going down?
I can see people from
People who would do that weren't really that interested in playing it in the first place. It's the same thing as people who download the PC demo, try it for five minutes, and move on. I'm guessing there's a large segment of Linux users who do a lot of gaming on their Windows machines, but would rather be doing it on their Linux box (I know I fall into this category). For them, it's a godsend. And in terms of appeal, I'm sure the percentage of Linux users who will stick with it is probably proportional to the amount of PC users who will.
If you need to interpret my post, then you don't get it.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
How else is Linux Gaming going to get popular, then? I too am someone who only uses Windows for the games, and would definitely like to see Linux with a stronger video game selection. However, the only way this will ever happen is through support, and part of that support comes from downloading demos, giving feedback to the developers, and passing it on. It will only remain a noveltly as long as people let it.
I live in a Windows-free world, so I guess I'm a Linux gamer.
The downside is that there's not much in the way of games. The upside is that those that are there are pretty good.
My "game machine" is a P1-233 with a PCI GF-MX200 in it. Plays Q3 just fine. And I've been making my way through the Loki ouvre and having a ball with it.
I'm almost finished SOF, and then there's Descent 3 waiting in the wings.
Am I typical of the bleeding-edge, overclocked, 3000 FPS gamer that Windows seems to attract? Hell no. But I AM using Linux as my gaming OS, and I AM having fun with it, and I'm using a machine that's over 5 years old.
Which is pretty cool, as far as I'm concerned.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Despite poor sales of their Quake3 linux port, the release of a demo for linux shows the future of commercial gaming on linux platforms is still possible...
I have a couple of friends in the computer game industry and Linux games, as commercial ventures, are usually nightmarish. Providing support is difficult and expensive while compatability issues abound due to the number of distributions and versions of Linux out there. While many in the Slashdot community claim that Linux users are the technical elite, many Linux users are just kids with no understanding of programming or even how to get around in a Unix shell.
Then you get the dark side of the open source mentality -- "I've never written a line of code in my life but I want to download gigabytes of software for free." If half of the people that decry the lack of quality commercial Linux games actually bought bought the games that were offered for sale, there would be a booming market. As it is, companies, bouyed up by e-mail campaigns requesting that they release their game for Linux, actually do release the game and it sits on store shelves gathering dust.
I watched Quake III, in the tin-box for Linux, sit on the shelves of Microcenter for months. It was eventually marked down to $9.99 and had a sticker slapped on it saying that you could download what you need to play it on Windows!
Linux is a viable, thriving market for computer games. Yeah. Right.
Just so you know, the version of Windows used was Windows XP. Windows XP has been known that it can perform slower than Windows 2000 or 98 in tests.
(see The Register for an article discussing Win2k vs XP performance)
Also, since both OSes achieve framerates higher than 60, its not going to make much difference when actually playing the game.
A difference of only 7.5 fps is not insignificant, but its not very significant either. I am willing to believe that the same tests can be repeated by others, and get results that show the same, and the opposite from what The Register saw.
So what can you conclude from the Register article? That both systems play the game well.
Greg
Um, maybe because Halflife isn't Return To Castle Wolfenstein?
Honestly, do you know how stupid your suggestion sounds. Thats like saying "Hey, we already have Doom, why waste the money on Duke Nukem 3D/Quake/Shogo/Thief/Max Payne". Halflife has already had its day, and I don't think that there is anyone (except you) out there who isn't bored to death of it already.
Basically, I find it helps to realise that Half-Life is effectively the R-Type of the FPS genre. Developers can now go on and make more graphically impressive, complex, realistic, deep and engaging FPS games, but millions of sad pedants will come back with "ah, but it's not the same as Half-Life, now there was a game..."
Let's let people make their own minds up. There's a place for Half-Life as well as RtCW. Plus scads of other sub-genres of the FPS. It's not such a tragedy that Wolfy doesn't do anything stunningly new, at least it does what it does very well (and for that matter, name another FPS - ack! except HL! - that has stealth, survival-horror, objectives, big big levels and kick-ass multiplayer out of the box?).
Just my dual helping of minor currency.
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