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Tribes2 Patch for Linux Out
Tom writes "After Dynamix went under, Tribes2 was unsupported for a while, then Sierra signed a contract with GarageGames (the company formed by several Ex-Dynamic guys), but only for the Windows version.
Those of us who bought the Linux version ported by Loki were left out in the cold -- until today. Linuxgames has the story. Sam Lantinga of SDL fame did the port/patch."
I noticed that hte patch in question was being hosted by Loki. Given the high cost of bandwith (at least en masse) and the fact that theyre bankrupt, why are they still hosting patch downloads? Or did I miss something in this whole Loki debacle....
Anyways, Im glad that support for Tribes 2 has continued for Linux (Can you still buy it?)....But are there any other companies that are doing what Loki did?
There was a petition out where you could sign up for demanding a Linux version of the upcoming patch, and I'm sure this has been one of the reasons why they will support it.
The Tribes 2 community has proven very, very strong, and even long after Dynamix (the creator) was closed by Sierra, Tribes 2 still lives on.
Tribes 2 is a game that is VERY different from most other 3D shooting games - it's almost closer to football than Quake once you've learned to play it right. Teamwork is everything, and it's almost unsuitable for playing without a clan membership.
Dybdahl
-=EEF=-Offence leader
http://www.euroeliteforce.net/
Not really relevant to the current article, but I really wished Dynamix wouldn't have gone under. Back when I got my first machine (an IBM PS/1, 486sx, 20mhz) the first couple games I got were by Dynamix, and they were the best I had played. The aces series were just amazing. I even fell in love with the manuals for them. Full color plans of each aircraft, and a great historical reference (for a game manual). I even used cited it in a research paper I did in 5th grade on WWII aircraft. I even kept the manuals when I discovered my box full of old computer games, as they might come in handy for modelling some 3d aircraft.
Ah, nostalgia.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
Sam Lantinga is one of the coolest guys in opensource today. Hes done a lot for gaming on Linux and his SDL library is being used by hundreds of projects now. I really look up to this guy.
Sigs are awesome huh?
It's actually a pretty interesting relationship. GarageGames was founded by the dev team of Dynamix with the idea of making a deal with Sierra for the source code of Tribes2. I don't know what sort of royalties they pay, but $100/developer for a license of the source is a damn good deal, if you ask me.
Because the Torque Engine (used to be called the V12 Engine, but someone had previously trademarked it) is based on the Tribes2 engine, many of the fixes require very little work to make it back into the Tribes2 tree. A great amount of work is going into the Torque Engine for cross platform support, and thus the Tribes2 linux patches are born. =)
Will
Slashdot conveniently forgot this, but Sam works for Blizzard Entertainment now. Yes, the evil DCMA people who sued bnetd.
But Blizzard gave the goahead for Sam to work on the Tribes 2 Linux patch during work hours. So Blizzard supports the Linux community! But they're Evil! But they're Good! *smoke*
The team interface allows great team coordination. Huge maps allow huge team games to be really fun. More importantly, the larger the map, the more team interaction is required. For instance one must use infantry-transport vehicles to bring in the heavy guns (they move really slowly). Fun fun fun.
When I saw this story, I immediately ran loki_update, an app (for those who
don't know) that interactively downloads patches for any installed loki games,
plus Unreal Tournament for linux and applies them. I couldn't find this. I
had to go directly to the ftp site and grab the patch. Does anyone know if
this will be placed for the loki_update app to work, or is it discontinued?
It's a very useful app, seeing as how you can just run it, select what games
you want to check for update and leave. I hope that they don't discontinue its
use.
SealBeater
-- Its survival of the fittest...and we got the fucking guns!!!
all patches, FAQs, newsgroups and other online support services will continue to operate with a third party host. The Loki domains will be redirected to point to the new host, so you won't need to make any changes to continue to use these services.
Moderation Totals: Flamebait=2, Troll=1, Redundant=1, Insightful=6, Overrated=1, Underrated=1, Total=12. (not mine)
Dynamix didn't exactly 'go under'. They were profitible in fact; it's just that when Vivendi bought Sierra, they decided that it'd be even more profitable to not pay Dynamix anymore, and keep all the Tribes 2 sales money for themselves. Hurray for quarterly earnings reports!
Everything that was once directly lived has receded into a representation. -debord
It's a beta patch, so it won't show up when you update normally. In fact, do not install it unless you know what you are doing.
Dybdahl.
-=EEF=-Offence leader
http://www.euroeliteforce.net/
UE's still, Netcode is laggy... No regular drops... Still waiting and waiting on drops that never arrive to test. Whats the point of beta testing if there are no regular drops?
REQUEST: Somebody code a T2 mod for UT2003 engine, PLEASE!
Once its out sierria can do nada.
----- Whats wrong with this picture? http://www.revoh.org:1234/whatswrong
Is this patch #24834?
/. moments before I signed on to go play Tribes2 on Linux. Is this is a patch for an upcoming version? Mine seems to work fine.
I literally was checking
"Now I know I can count on Slashdot to tell me whenever my games get patched, because isn't that why we are really here?"
;)
Only if it's a Linux version of an ancient game.
"Derp de derp."
"When will Loki be resurected!?
Never. Not unless they make new games for Linux.
The problem is that the game market is a novelty market. Lots of companies make games that will be interesting for about a month and then move on. If memory serves, Loki ported games that had already been out for a while.
The problem is that this means Loki will never really hit mass market. The people who buy the games buy them right away. If it takes a year (for example) to port the game, then it's lost nearly all of it's value, even if it's a classic like Quake 3.
What we need is for a couple of risk taking companies to start making games strictly for Linux. (Maybe port to PC a little later...) Get the game market started on that OS, and you'll start to see more concurrent development.
As the Mac has already proven, an OS is not going to get lots of 'me-too' games. If Linux users really want to play games, I'm sorry to say it, but they're going to need to build a Windows box.
"Derp de derp."
"A game company released a patch. That's front
page news."
Somebody made a "it's not newsworthy!' post without considering the ramifications of the article. That was worth reading.
"Derp de derp."
"Why, then, is there a linux version of Return to Castle Wolfenstein?"
Because the only absolute in our world is that all humans require oxygen to survive.
*sick of people acting like I'm either extremist or absolute.*
"Derp de derp."
Only saw 7 games running when I went online with this new patch. I'm assuming it's only showing servers running with the patch beta?
Anyone know?
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
Yes, Loki did port established titles. But a better question is whether their failure was caused by this, or the fact that Scott Draeker, the guy in charge, was funnelling money out of the company into his own account (as reported over at linuxandmain here.)
Thank you for rehashing the same argument that was beaten to death on here for months.
-transiit
"Thank you for rehashing the same argument that was beaten to death on here for months."
A.) I don't care if it's talked about as much as making beowulf clusters out of everything, I didn't participate in that argument. I have no interest in Linux as a gaming platform so I don't know why you think it's a prerequisite for me to know what agruments have gone on about it. Thank you for rehashing the argument that arguments are rehashed when they could be avoided by dedicating your life to knowing about it.
B.) A game that sells 10,000 - 40,000 copies is not a success. It's pathetic. I don't care how much money was funneled away into somebody's account, those #'s are scary to somebody saying "Let's start a Linux game company!".
C.) Regardless of Loki's internal problems, they had 0 chance of becoming big if they established themselves as a port company. You could replace 'Loki' with any other company/management, the poblem is the exact same.
To summarize, no matter what happened to Loki, my comment still stands: Linux is not a market for the game industry to cater to. If you're going to argue with me, argue that since it was my point.
"Derp de derp."
Maybe this is true if you're somebody like EA, or Blizzard, or ID, or whatever. You never hear about people complaining about Ferrari not having the same sales volume as Volkswagen. 40,000 X $50 really isn't that bad if you're a company of around 10 employees, especially considering they didn't really have to do the hard parts: design, art, etc. And when they were selling games through their site, yes, they were getting $50 a copy, so a cut for the distributor isn't really an issue in that case. Pay off the title's original owner, and the rest can go back into the business. Sure, 40K units isn't a lot for the Windows game market, but how does that compare against the Mac games? Or other Linux games? Different market, different yardstick. Really. So companies don't fail because the management is stealing all of the money, they fail because they didn't get the memo that porting companies have no chance of success. Do you think you could provide a few more examples of similar companies that have failed? Maybe you could also throw in some about all the other Linux-centric game companies that have failed, thus proving there's no way to pull off such an endeavor? So where was that point again? You started off on the original post I replied to that Linux needs platform-specific titles, and then concluded with Linux users should just use Windows instead. Would Linux exclusive titles be a good thing? Sure, but they still stand about as much chance of success on their own as any other game thrown into the market (the vast majority of which aren't big-sellers).
I think there are a couple flaws in your basic premise. First, things like what Transgaming is trying to do makes porting relatively trivial. Second, the gaming industry is a big nasty place, and one company's failure (which easily could be attributed to more fundamental problems) is hardly enough to use as a precedent. Third, there's a vastly different culture associated with the different platforms: Linux and Unix tend to be used by engineers, scientists, programmers, other researchers, and generally anyone who wants a stable machine, but isn't afraid of the learning curve. The Macintosh is often used by designers, content creators, pretentious artists, etc. Windows has long been used for business/home desktops as a general purpose environment, and as a toy.
-transiit
Because Id software happens to have at least one programmer who is quite influential and loves Linux. In fact if I remember from the readme from the Linux version of quake it went something like
the only reason we do a Linux port is because Linux gives me a hard-on. We make absolutly no money on this version and please don't send us bug reports because it costs us money and I get ragged on for doing Linux ports anyways
please don't take this as being even close to the origional wording but I believe that I've transmitted the idea pretty well. Suffice it to say the wonderful people at Id are the exception and as a result they arn't the best example.
I stole this Sig
Only if it's a Linux version of an ancient game. ;)
no, only if it's an AAA game for Linux that was going to the trashcan because of lack of updates, and now doesn't.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
"So let me see if I've got your argument straight: You have no interest in Linux as a gaming platform, thus it will fail." -- Heh, no. I was reinforcing the point that I didn't participate in the 'rehashed argument'.
...they fail because they didn't get the memo that porting companies have no chance of success. -- Yes. The word 'duh' comes to mind.
You never hear about people complaining about Ferrari not having the same sales volume as Volkswagen. 40,000 X $50 really isn't that bad if you're a company of around 10 employees, especially considering they didn't really have to do the hard parts: design, art, etc...
there's a vastly different culture associated with the different platforms: Linux and Unix tend to be used by engineers, scientists, programmers, other researchers, and generally anyone who wants a stable machine, but isn't afraid of the learning curve...
In other words, the best they can do is ride on the success of another game and market it to people who aren't big game players. How do they decide which game to port? Well. it sold a million copies. Dontcha think the people who really want the game already have it? If a Linux user (who can't/won't run Windows) wants the game, why isn't he/she equipped to play other games too? Either that game in particular strikes a chord with them, or they're very masochistic with respect to playing games.
First, things like what Transgaming is trying to do makes porting relatively trivial. -- Obviously it's not that trivial. Even if it's as simple as 'press this button and a Linux version will get pooped out', there's still the issue of packaging it up for sale. That's where significant money goes. There's new boxes, a different run of CD's burnt, customer support for Linux users, and so on. Given what I said earlier, most companies really won't care to go through that just to 'appease noisy Linux users' because it's not clear that they represent a significant number of gamers. Is it good logic? I don't think so, but this isn't about what I think.
So where was that point again? You started off on the original post I replied to that Linux needs platform-specific titles, and then concluded with Linux users should just use Windows instead. -- No, I didn't conclude that Linux users should run Windows. I said that as long as Linux gaming is going to be ports, gamers are better off using Windows. I suppose I could have made that a little clearer. *Shrug*
"Maybe you could also throw in some about all the other Linux-centric game companies that have failed, thus proving there's no way to pull off such an endeavor? -- Don't need to, it's common knowledge if you're a gamer. (Macintosh... Sega Saturn...)
Why don't you show me a success? You're arguing with me in concept, but you're conjuring up nothing to give me any clue why porting games will ever be successful on Linux.
Meanwhile, the most successful game companies (Nintendo, for example...) build dedicated audiences by continuously providing innovative games. The N64 did very well against the PSOne. But the Saturn, which had several months head start, died miserably. This isn't because the Saturn was underpowered (Remember Virtua Fighter 2?), but because the games were mainly ports of games that had been out for a year.
Sega lost a system to that. So why should I believe that a company like Loki had any chance of entering Linux into the gaming market? Provide information, not theory.
"Derp de derp."
For a PC game, that is ancient. PC games have a shelf life of roughly a month. (if that) They're not like console games that can last over a year.
That's why companies that make console games do so much better even though a console only has 5-10 million people on average that own one.
"Derp de derp."
I think there are enough Linux games players now who would buy a Linux version of the game, but of course only if it comes out at the same time (and is as good) as the Windows version. The problem at the moment I think is that SDL is not up to the capabilities of the DirectX suite, am I right?
"When why do about 50,000 people play CS/Half-Life? It's older than Quake3."
Oh, you're right. You found one rare example (afterall, we don't live in a world of absolutes) so my point is 100% negated. Every single game is a classic forever and people buy millions of copies every day.
"Derp de derp."