Slashdot Mirror
Last Word on Loki
A random reader sent in: "Loki's public CVS and FAQ database are now being hosted at icculus.org. The information, and a bit of evangelizing about Loki's demise can be found on icculus.org." You might take a look at the Linux Gamers' FAQ while you're there. Update: 01/25 21:05 GMT by M : Scott Draeker sends word that there will be an "official" repository of Loki code, including apparently some projects that weren't finished, hosted by SEUL in the near future.
... is the SDL. Made by a Loki employee (forgot which one, someone help me here) to help the porting process for DirectX, I believe. Its a nice package for any linux developers that want to make games...
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
What I have to ask is: what about the other stuff Loki did? I'd hate to see knowledge lost.
make Linux, not Microsoft. sin(beast) = -0.809016994374947424102293417182819
No. They can't, because they don't own the rights, most likely. The original game publisher will retain exclusive right to the licencing of the game product -- all Loki owns is the Linux-specific stuff that got written for the port, and parts of *that* are even probably unreleasable because it'd expose too much of the game's underlying, proprietary, operations.
It's a damn shame, I played the hell out of Tribes and there were a couple other games I was considering buying when a few bucks came my way... guess I waited to long.
But at least we get access to some of the great work they did release -- most notably SDL.
R.I.P Loki.
So if Loki is going to shut down on 31 Jan 2002, which is six days from today, will they fully process any game orders made today?
I haven't seen any termination warnings on their site to dissuade customers from ordering products.
I figured I'd probably want two or three games over the next year, but this is making me think of buying some now before they're gone.
[
I think if Loki was just getting started today their chances of success would be much higher. That's often the way it is in technology; the true innovators (Amiga, anyone?)are lost in the rush to succeed. It would have been nice to see Mandrake hire these guys to develop for their Gaming Edition. Loki may have been the first, but they won't be the last..The best is yet to come!
But I can't help but think on how some folks helped push them over the edge in a twist on the tradgedy of the commons scenario. Everyone can have some free software only so long as no one gets greedy about taking advantadge of the good will of others, especially when the goodwill is provided by people whose side you are on. sort of. kinda. maybe.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I think the biggest problem about loki is that they were ahead of their time. In another 2 or 3 years I'm sure they would have no problem of making a go of it
I'm sure another company will be able to step in and take over where they left off, expecially since loki has already made all the tools needed.
This seems to be the trend for open source software companies, they make a product go out of business leaving their products available for the community. It's bitter-sweet, but I hope in the coming years that open source will be able to make a profit.
Unfortunately I couldn't read any further of your comment as I was helpless with laughter ;)
"With java games, or maybe new technologies, Mac, Linux, Windows, Playstation, etc can all play the same games...."
And they can all be crappy, lowest common denominator games.
I am a game developer, and there is a reason why games usually target only one platform. It's the only way to make a truly great game.
Let's examine a scenario of a game developed to run on every system:
-game can't use more than 24 megs of memory (gamecube)
-game can't use high res textures (PS2)
-game can't have high poly counts (PC with budget video card)
-game can't have complex interface (consoles)
-game can't have detailed GUI (consoles/TV)
Now what do you have left after this? Web games. I'm sorry, but web games will never match a true game.
And you can't tweak a game to be optimum on every system, because there are major constraints. A lot of the time to optimize for a target platform, it requires specific art. For every other platform, if you want it to be the best, you basically redo all art development. Nowadays art and content are the longest thing to do, so you basically add another full development cycle for each platform.
Platform independant (real) games are a pipe dream.
If you vote with your wallet, I don't think it makes much of a difference:
1. If the company is HUGE, one person not buying their product isn't going to hurt them. Something that would hurt would be a class-action lawsuit or something similar.
2. If the company is small, one person isn't enough when they vote with their wallets.
I think in the grander scheme of things, (Loki's demise aside, and how the big companies continue to get away with crimes), corporate lobbying must be curtailed, campaign reform laws must be enacted, and the right of the government to revoke corporate charters should be fully reinstated.
Oh and I am no hypocrite. I have bought many titles from Loki games. I fully supported their goals and vision. Sadly they are gone, but I hope a new company can take their place and do a better job at managing the funds, or at least try to change the perception of the "BIG BOYS" games companies (Blizzard comes to mind) that Linux ports are A Good Thing (tm).
-fialar
Unfortunatley it looks like linux / unix isnt enough a a gaming market yet, look at the usage numbers in you logs, Hell writing mac games is more profitable and thats sad. Its also sad there arent more linux games
:)
I bought RTCW, first game in 10 years at LEAST i bough, actually doom was the last and bfore that the Original Castle Wolfenstien, that said Im not a big gamer, but when I found out Linux binaries would be available, I plugged and bought RTCW, I am thrilled, games are a whole lot more fun than they used to be IMHO, Maybe Im just getting older an smaller things amuse me
(SEMI)PORTABLE games are the ticket, OpenGL has shown this with the ease RTCW was ported and others have run under Linux.
I looked at Loki's games, I certainly wasnt impressed enought to buy any, I demod the SOF, and found it....lame as hell, graphics sucked , and i was just early 90's blah. IMHO
I wonder how much of Loki's failure was not related to their limited market but rather their poor offerings, its a chicken and egg thing, If you come out with the most Killer game seen at first for linux only, drag a little on the windows version, you are sure to gain converts if nothing lse to play that game, BUT to come up with such an animal takes big bucks and marketing dollars, distributin channels, and you cant get the cash without a killer game, vicious circle.
Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
"I am failing to come up with words to describe how foreign this statement is to me. Why should I wait again? Like he said, its just a game, I'll buy it when I want to play it."
He's referring to those gamers who ran out, bought the Windows version, and then expected Linux binaries for free since they'd already paid for the Windows version. He's also referring to those whiners who now want those ported games released for free since Loki's gone; they wouldn't support the company while it was struggling to survive, but they'll happily pick apart the corpse.
I guess it's pretty clear that Linux users don't want good games, since they're not willing to support programmers long enough to port or create them. That's too bad, since so much hard work has been put into nice desktops by the GNOME, KDE, Xfce, and other teams, all for naught since the home market will never develop without games. Talk about wasted time. Talk about spitting in the face of the programmers who busted ass to provide good software, only to be told "I want it now, I want it good, and oh, I want it for free."
Keep this up, and you won't have an alternative OS to play games on. If Linux development halts, along with development of user-friendly interfaces, don't go crying to the programmers you wouldn't support.
...we should start helping out the guys at Transgaming - they're doing great work, and for me it was worth the $5 subscription :)
His point is, if you want linux games, don't buy windows ones. He's not advocating that everyone stop buying windows games, he's just saying this is something that needs to happen if you want linux ports to be a viable alternative.
Let me prefeace this by saying that I'm an avid linux user, and an avid game player. I'm (presumably) the target market that Loki was shooting for.
Yet I didn't buy any games from them. Why?
Simply put, they didn't release anything that I wanted to play. I had Quake 3 and UT - I didn't need any other FPS games. I had played Heroes III before (yes, under Windows), and while it's a nice game, it's not something I would be willing to purchase a copy of for linux - it just didn't enthrall me that much. I was a fan of the old Descent games, but for me they lost some of their flavor after Descent 2, regardless of the eyecandy that was added.
I will admit - I was SORELY tempted to buy Rune - but after playing the demo, I wasn't totally impressed by the gameplay. Sure, melee is fun - but it got old after about an hour.
What I would have bought (and still will buy, if anyone makes them), no questions asked:
Ports of Bioware's Infinity Engine games (Baldurs Gate I/II, Icewind Dale, Planescape Torment) - these are, quite simply, incredible games. They have metric tons of gameplay, replay value, and storyline. That's why they're still fun today.
Ports of Diablo II and Starcraft - yes, I know these are from Blizzard, who will never, ever, release a linux version - but they were DAMN good games that are still loads of fun now, well after the release.
I don't feel bad about not buying their games - I refuse to buy something I don't want, even to support a company that *might* in the future produce something I would like to buy. While I support *what* they were doing, I think their choice of games to do it with was poor (albeit probably the only choice they had in this world of "Intellectual Property" lawsuits)
To my mind, writing software is a SERVICE, with the end result free for all to use.
Sure. But what's the difference?
What the hell, it's only Karma.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
SDL is wonderful, and is evidence that Loki's existance was good for Linux as well as other platforms. But also don't forget about the Loki Installer, used by Codeweavers for the Crossover plugin (as well as RTCW, among countless others), SMPEG, OpenAL, and *free* binaries to Quake3 and Unreal Tournament. Yes, there was a time when Q3 was box-only, but Loki supported Q3 well after that point.
It brings me great sadness Loki is going. But thanks to Icculus, id Software, Loki, and all the countless volunteers we now have a much better platform.
I'd say no. Every copy of a game that Loki sold sent money back to the original company. You can't give it away because the original authors wouldn't get paid. You should buy the games while you have the chance if you really want it.
I read the internet for the articles.
A company is a legal structure, its nothing without its employees.
The people that made this company great are going to still be around, and more than likely we're going to see some tangible benefits.
A lot times a "company" is actually a limiting factor to creativity and certainly productivity -- the market-pressures to produce X instead of Y
There is no doubt that the work done in the last couple of years by folks like Indrema and Loki have had an impact -- have they changed the gaming world? NO, but I don't know that should be a goal.
With the advent of Linux on the Playstation I believe we are going to see a next essential stage in the evolution of games
For anyone that has ever spent the time writing a game you come to a love hate relationship with device drivers
The beautiful thing about the consoles is that when I write and distribute my UberPong game, I know that I can count on the bounce to be consistent for every consumer of my tasty e-ware.
Tech support == overhead. the more overhead you have the less profit margin you have.
So the company might be dead, but the technology and the people that can drive it are still viable
Old age and treachery almost always overcome youth and skill.
You are ignoring the context of the remark. "Don't buy Windows games" is a perfectly logical and sensible answer to the question, "What can we do to help?"
The whole page is based on a premise, which you arrogantly dismissed with your "This isn't a religeon is it?" flamebait remark. Of course when you dismiss the premise, nothing on that page makes sense. Duh.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The author of the faq says "You aren't going to get Warcraft 3 on Linux, which means that you should never BUY Warcraft 3, even though it will no doubt be a great game.
Why the hell shouldn't I enjoy a great game! Games are for having fun, relaxing after a hard day at the office, or for modern multiplayer games, for playing with and making friends. Games are not about what platform you support, I mean can anyone imagine saying I don't want to play Milton Bradly games because I can't use Hasbro miniture characters with them. No, of course not, you just play the game with the parts it came with. In a similar fashion, most people that are serious about pc gaming, and enjoy linux, tend to dual boot to windows for much of their gaming. This is the reality of the marketplace, and a large part of why Loki failed.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
You could even, in theory add Windows to that list. If you design the application around SDL and OpenGL, it should be minimal work to get it to work under Windows as well as other platforms. One huge problem with the approach you suggest is that the game would have to cater to the lowest common denominator for all platforms. Running a linux layer on top of PS1 would not leave much room for game performance, and thus every version would have to look essentially as crappy as the PS1 version. In any case, for all but the most popular games, one platform is enough and further platforms aren't really worth degrading your flagship platform for. So in essence, it is possible, but I don't think you would have any takers with good games...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
And they can all be crappy, lowest common denominator games.
Lowest common denominator != crappy.
game can't use more than 24 megs of memory (gamecube)
No, 40 MiB (24 CPU + 16 PPU). PlayStation 2 has 36 MiB (32 CPU + 4 PPU). Xbox has 64 MB (shared), but its stripped-down Windows 2000 OS might diminish the advantage its extra RAM gives.
Consider that some fun games have been made on only 4 KiB of RAM and 40 KiB of ROM (Super Mario Bros. 1 for NES) and that T*tr*s has been done twice on the Atari 2600, which had only 128 bytes of RAM and half a scanline's worth of VRAM.
game can't have high poly counts (PC with budget video card)
Street Fighter style games use only about ten quads on the screen, one for each player, one for each player's fireball, one for each player's status bar, and a few for the backgrounds, but that's about it.
game can't have complex interface (consoles)
"Complex" meaning what? What do you need for a first-person shooter? Two joysticks (one for move and one for turn), a couple triggers (fire and jump), and a couple other buttons (switch weapons, etc)? Want a sim/rts interface? SimCity for Super NES and C&C for PSX showed that sim/rts games can work on consoles. Or are you trying to make glorified chat rooms such as EverQuest?
I'm sorry, but web games will never match a true game.
If by "web games" you refer to games written in the Java programming language, I hereby direct your attention to BoycottAdvance Online. It emulates real games for a real system, namely Game Boy Advance.
Platform independant (real) games are a pipe dream.
No, you have that backwards. Pipe Dream is a platform-independent game :-)
Will I retire or break 10K?
If you are making this remark then you obvisually aren't one of the people who wished there were more games for Linux. The whole point is if you want Linux games then don't get the Windows version instead, otherwise the end effect will be that games companies rightly asking 'Linux users buy Windows games, so why bother developping for Linux?'
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
For one, transgaming. Full porting takes too long, while you port, the market buys up the windows version. By 6 months, the market was saturated. With transgaming, they have a chance to get to the market before it *completely* dries up.
Another, Linux-based dedicated game Distros. You pop in the CD and boot, start the game, no install required. Make the PC into kinda a game console. The wide variety of PC hardware makes this not work that well however...
Finally, a really good game maker with exclusive Linux releases. A manufacturer willing to essentially shoot themselves in the foot in the name of Linux popularity. Not happening, but wouldn't it be neat to see, say, Squaresoft Linux exclusive titles?
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Set you cvs client to Read-Icculus
Am I the only one who got the old Phish reference?
;oP
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
This isn't going to happen.
Linux doesn't have any of its own proprietary APIs for games. (Indeed, that would be very antithetical to Free Software ideals. It is never going to be able to leverage any sort of network effect to gain marketshare. You just can't do that with GPLed software; it's virtually impossible.) If you want to write a Linux game, you're going to end up using SDL, OpenGL, etc. And if you do that, porting your game to that other platform, will be pretty darned easy, because those are cross-platform APIs. I'll say that again: the best gaming APIs for Linux, happen to be cross-platform APIs. So the situation where Linux has a game, and Windows doesn't have it, so that a Windows user will reboot into Linux to play a game, isn't likely to happen.
...at least, it won't happen for availability reasons. Other reasons, such as performance, stability, security, etc. could still apply. (i.e. a person reboots into Linux to play a game, because the game happens to run faster or it doesn't crash as often.) And there are other reasons to use Linux as well. But the validity of all these reasons, has already been covered in a thousand Linux advocacy discussions. No reason to digress into here as well, eh?
Anyway, the only way you're ever going to see someone reboot into Linux to play a game for availability reasons, is if you make a non-open API for Linux games, and deliberately avoid letting it be cross-platform. I think such an effort would be a complete failure. There are lots of people who use Linux for Stallmanesque reasons, and you would be in direct opposition to them.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Did you miss the part about not buying windows games?
Windows games DO NOT SUPPORT Linux.
Paying five dollars a month to extend the directx gaming monopoly to our platform is most certainly not supporting Linux.
But anyone who doesn't understand that the gaming business is 80 percent marketing and 20 percent gaming will have problems.
Say what you will about The Sims under WINEX (Transgaming, which you can buy with a bundle from Mandrake - Linux plus a game!) - but the reality is that they understand WHAT the market WANTS.
Sure, we ideally want native Linux games.
But we're all gamers - if it comes out on Windows first, we'll buy it.
If we had releases with special add-ons for Linux, that would have been a killer app. But instead we got a port.
If we have Geek Party for The Sims coming out on Linux first, then released for Windows 60 days later, that would be a killer app. Since it's already coded for Windows, it would be a great marketing ploy.
Buzz will save you. But you still need a good game with balanced play and scalable levels so you don't get bored.
-
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Every gaming company Windows/Mac/consoles is either huge or small. And yet there are examples of both company sizes which are still profitable.
Loki failed, not because of their size, but because of people didn't buy their games.
They had great games. Well, these games were successful for their windows version. Yet for Linux, it didn't sell.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Some companies won't be willing to deal with the support, but if even 1 of the companies is willing to give away the linux 'player' part of the package, and sell the data on the windows game CD, then it will be better than the products disappearing forever.
As important and life altering as Loki is in public message forums there's still hardly anything in my life which they had a meaningful impact in. I never used their multimedia libraries. I never played their games. If the Loki brand was responsible for adding some feature to some library somewhere it was probably nothing that couldn't have been done under another brand name.
Even if I played their games it would have been the porting, the final step in the game's creation which they did. Even if I used their libraries the functionality in those libraries would have only been shrinkwrapping for functions that other groups already implemented, whether it was the frame buffer device, the console, GLX, or OSS. There was nothing in their libraries that made them necessary if you wanted to access the functionality at all.
The business model of the 90's was shrink wrapping and Loki did exactly what they were supposed to do to get popular in the 90's. Shrink wrapping and porting isn't enough to sustain a business nowadays but creating enough new functionality to sustain a business is impossible for most people.
I have a question which I haven't seen answered anywhere. What about all of the game patches? Is someone going to host those? I don't care whether I have to use the loki installer or just download them, but I don't know of any place to get them save loki...
No, they were imported from backups made of Loki's CVS repository yesterday. If you take a look at the cvs repository (http://cvs.icculus.org) you'll note that its more than just a single version in their. The past modifications to the projects are there also.
That there are people willing to do the ports practically for free, and still let the owner companies pocket all the revenue from the games, if only they'd be allowed to port it. And yet game companies are so worried about letting valuable secrets slip out that they won't let ANYONE see the code, NDA or otherwise. The silly notion is that even if someone picks up on a great idea, by the time that idea can be implemented into some other game, it'll be a good year later at least, and by then there will be new technologies and new hardware and the old stuff won't matter as much anymore. ID knows this, which is why they GPL the code for older games.
Perhaps the linux community isn't a huge source of revenue. WHO CARES? If the porting can be done for you for free, then its all gravy. Same with device drivers. Nobody sells device drivers, they sell the hardware the devices interface with. And if they can pick up a new market without any investment of time or money and not even have to support it, how can that be anything but a benefit.
And yet they hold on like there's some dangerous secret that might leak out and put them out of business. I must be missing something obvious here.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Another thing to keep in mind is that most mac users could not dual boot to play the new PC/Win game that they just purchased the week it came out. If I had a Mac -- I had to wait until the Mac version came out if I wanted to play. (Much different that dual booting on the same machine.) I think Loki would have survived if 3 things were in place:
A...If dual booters were really hardcore linux fans -- and refused to dual boot (even for games) -- Sales go up 50% for Loki -- because people would not have already purchased the "windows version".
B...If Loki were able to offer Linux games closer to the time they were released for the other platforms....(nothing like getting a "new" Linux game 12 months after the windows version had hit the cut out boxes for $9.99. -- Sales go up 25%.
C...If they had been able to port the games that people wanted to buy...The Starcrafts, Warcrafts, C&C, Red Alert, Diablo...Sales go up 75%
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
First off you get access to a set of tools that doesn't cost you huge licensing fee's in terms of upfront tool costs and ongoing royalties -- which means that its more accessible to a lot more people
Second off you still get the ability to have your games run on other linux distro's with relative ease
Old age and treachery almost always overcome youth and skill.
I think they used Java as their scripting language, but, underneath, had a C/C++ engine for rendering and AI.
The only Loki game I ever got was Civ:CTP, and it's no coincidence that this is also the only one where there was good information ahead of time that a port was coming, so I *knew* there was a reason to wait. Plus they used channels that got the game physically present on store shelves instead of trying to rely on on-line sales.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
I agree with what you said and I did read your article. I just think it is a little easier of a temptation for someone to dual boot and maintain 2 software solutions -- rather than having to purchase a whole new computer (or have 2 computers).
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
I find it very interesting that you feel that using Linux means doing without gaming nor coding. Let me guess: You live in the United States (more details on why I have this theory below).
Linux has had a large number of games ported to it; I believe Loki ported 20 or so before going under. I find that this is enough games for me to waste far too much time playing; my open source coding project would not be in its current state if I spent any more time playing games on Linux; and I only have two games which I regularily play on my Linux laptop. I have not had time to finish either game.
As for coding, I find the coding environments of Linux extremely usable and powerful. For example, the Perl interpreter allowed me to create, within one day, a new unified documentation format for all of my program's documentation when people who translate my documentation requested this.
When someone says "Linux does not have a usable coding environment" what that person is saying, in effect, is "I am not willing to take the time and effort to learn the excellent coding environments the Linux has". Which I find very strange.
Programming, after all, is not like playing a video game. Programming is a discipline which takes time and effort to learn. The effort to learn, say, the Emacs environment or the most common Vi commands, is trivial compared to the effort required to learn how to write a usable and maintainable computer program.
My general experience is that Europians are generally more willing to take the time and effort to learn the language of Linux; most of the people who are helping me out with my open-source project are from Europe. I think this is because most Europians have had to learn one or more foreign languages; learning a foreign language makes one intently aware of the time and effort needed to accomplish something truly worth accomplishing.
Programming code is not like watching "Allie McBeal" on TV; my general experience is that people who need automated tools to generate code write code that is inefficient, difficult to read, and unmaintainable.
Linux is not a charity case
The free software foundation is, in fact, a charity.
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
Now although it's true that the OpenAL website points to the Loki CVS, one should note that the website (which is hosted at Loki) hasn't been updated for at least a year. Also, unless someone saves it, it might very well go offline with the rest of the Loki websites on January 31st.
- Neo
Doing speculative software development, where you produce a program upfront then sells copies makes up about 5% of software development (money wise). This model works best if you consider software a product, which you shrink wrap and ship. It also encourages consolidation of all software companies into one, which uses its size and distribution channel to force the others out of business.
Sharing of software hurts software manufactures potential profits. They are incompatible with Free software.
The rest is done on a service contract basis, where you pay for it up front or as you go. This works best when the software is considered a service. It can be done by employee's, or by contractors. It encourages multitudes of small companies and indviduals, who offer lower rates, as well as larger companies who offer name-recognition.
Sharing of software help software service providers. They work best with Free software, where it's available.
Which of these two business models has a brighter future? Exercise for the reader...
So I'm just curious...do you use assume all idiots (like the poster) to be Americans?
This seems to be a very popular among the English, who badmouth Americans for being violent while their own fine English football fans murder people in stadiums. Then they talk about how Americans are crude and stupid while they let their elderly citizens die forgotten on a hospital trolly waiting 60 hours for treatment of a stroke.
There are 260 million Americans, give-or-take. Perhaps you should not paint us all with the same brush.
Stupid Americans started the Open Source movment, wrote Unix, and provided most of those neat tools that Linux was later based on. Not to mention the bloody internet you are using now.
...except it isn't quite happening like that. While people like you are poo-poo'ing the idea of "real java apps", "real java apps" and games are slowly being developed. Meanwhile, systems become remarkably faster as do VM implementations.
Java just may yet end up being a "sleeper hit" in this area.
Besides, there wasn't anything wrong with Corel office that a bit more speed wouldn't have fixed and CPU's have gotten more than 20x faster since then.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
As for the elderly citizens being left forgotten, you should see the furore at the moment where one woman's case has been hijacked as a political pawn by the main parties. Bloody politicians...
I hope you get to see this, but Bioware will be releasing Neverwinter Nights with Windows, Mac and Linux binaries simultaneously. I fully intend to buy it (of course, I have to resize my /opt partition first, RtCW takes up almost 1 Gig).
Mart"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?