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A Loki Timeline

Posted by timothy on from the intelligent-observation dept.

Al "Alkini" Koskelin writes: "Matt Matthews, with the help of the LinuxGames staff and some ex-employees of Loki, has put together a Loki timeline. The timeline is an attempt to document every major event in Loki's past, starting with the announcement of SDL and the Launch of the Loki Website through today, when Loki is officially ceasing operations." They're also looking for more information to make the timeline more complete.

6 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. Link to timeline by prototype · · Score: 4, Informative

    The link to the actual timeline is here:
    http://www.linuxgames.com/articles/lokitimeline/

    liB

  2. Not insane... actually happening. by clump · · Score: 3, Informative

    I invite you to get acquainted with an ex-Loki employee named 'Icculus' located at icculus.org. Among his famous Loki work is a port of Serious Sam, a port of the Build engine of 3dRealms/Duke Nukem/Shadow Warrior/... Not to mention hosting of former Loki technologies all for free.

    We love our platform. Commercial support or not, we will make happen what we want to happen... Even if that means playing games.

  3. Re:this couldn't work by theoddone33 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Tribes 2 was announced long before the Windows version was out. There was a slight delay shipping it, but if you bought the Windows version instead of the Linux one, it's your own fault.

    The real people who should be complaining about Tribes 2 are those that had to spend an extra $100 on a video card to make it even run.

    I'm not privy to information regarding the financial situation surrounding Unreal Tournament, but I believe Loki was paid by Epic for their involvement with the game. The real loss for Loki on UT was the time of support staff spent helping people get a charity product running.

  4. Re:Deus Ex? by tjwhaynes · · Score: 3, Informative
    Rumour has that the problems lay with Ion Storm, rather than Loki. But like all rumours, facts are extremely sparse. There definitely was a working demo of Deus Ex - it was on display at one of the Linux shows. So at least the principle part of the coding was done. Then there were layoffs at Loki - maybe (probably) key personnel left. The port gets mired down, contractual problems crop up. NDAs stop anyone saying anything and we are all totally left in the dark.

    To be honest, the delays in Civ:CTP were probably similar - it must be frustrating to be a developer stuck in contractual problems with potential buyers wanting to know what is going on/ETAs and not being able to give any information out...

    Cheers,

    Toby Haynes

    And no - I don't work for Loki. I just bought their games and read their newsgroups.

    --
    Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
  5. Re:this couldn't work by vogel · · Score: 2, Informative

    Loki was payed by Epic for maintenance and support.

  6. Re:this couldn't work by theoddone33 · · Score: 3, Informative

    True, but then the next problem arises: the Windows version of Tribes 2 was sold everywhere for a reasonable price, the linux version was much harder to find and usually with a hefty price tag.

    No computer game is sold for a "reasonable price" ever. Warez drive up game prices, then more people warez so as not to pay such unreasonable prices. Such is the PC gaming spiral of death. Lots of people point out the price differential between Windows games and Linux games, and I'm sure it was a valid reason for many people to not buy from Loki, but every birth comes labor pains. The birth of commercial Linux gaming is no exception.

    Continued patching is indeed an annoyance of simultaneous Windows and Linux development. Luckily, Dynamix had some excellent coders. In most cases, the lag you noticed was due more to communication between companies than it was to converting the patch. Loki's understaffing later in its life cycle certainly contributed some also, considering they were working on Kohan, Postal, FAKK2, Deus Ex, and various patches with a programming staff that hovered between two and three persons.