Linux Port of Disciples 2 Announced

bobz writes "Happypenguin is reporting that Linux Game Publishing has announced the next game they'll port to Linux will be Disciples 2: Dark Prophecy a turn-based strategy game that was well-reviewed but not terribly successful commercially. /me breathes a sigh of relief that it's not another first-person shooter."

Comments

Re:wow, interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh and BTW, fp.

whats wrong with first person shooters?

[JamesCronus]

they're fun, as long as you dont take them seriously, or believe that they will teach you how to clean and reload a weapon........

Re:whats wrong with first person shooters?

[JanneM]

...or actually want to be amused for more than ten minutes.

Re:whats wrong with first person shooters?

[CaptainPsyko]

The fact that theres too damn many of them.

Some of us want to play games that don't involve a first person perspective and blowing things to bits. Games that involve wider strategies, or more detailed plot structures or charachter development or improvement. Some of us just don't have the 1337 5ki11z to be good at FPS, ans prefer strategy or role playing games.

Thats whats wrong with First Person Shooters.

Re:whats wrong with first person shooters?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, let's see:

1. Not everyone wants to play them 24/7
2. So many of the games ported to Linux are FPS
3. See 1.

Re:whats wrong with first person shooters?

[djdavetrouble]

Well, editor, that may be your opinion, but to us gamers first person shooters are most 1337 game there is.
I don't have 2 weeks to play a simulation or turn based game, or figure out a plot based walker, but I do have half an hour at the end of the work day to frag my IT buddies and then turn it off and walk away.
My passion for the past year has been bzflag, the 100% open source multiplayer game made in the mold of battle zone. It is a little slower and more deliberate than the action packed quake or unreal, but I found that it takes real skill to keep your frag/death count positive.

bzflag handle: xxxl
still mourning the death of games.astercity

Re:whats wrong with first person shooters?

[Anonymous Coward]

4. ???
5. Profit!

Re:whats wrong with first person shooters?

[Indras]

Couldn't agree more.

The fact is, I'm really quite good at first person games, but the more THINKING that's involved, the better. For instance, I prefer capture the flag to deathmatch, and prefer Return to Castle Wolfenstein to Quake 3 (much more strategy, in my opinion). Even better are the games that combine the best of FPS and add RPG elements, such as System Shock 2 or Deus Ex.

What's great about Disciples II is that it's turn-based, which makes it great for the thinkers who aren't into twitch gaming, but makes network play rather tedious. If you haven't played it before, the gameplay is almost exactly like Heroes of Might and Magic, but with a dark and dreary gothic look to it. Brings out the Necromancer in you!

Re:whats wrong with first person shooters?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's wrong with those games, is that each customer only needs one of them. Why buy another FRS game when you already have a bunch of FPS games. When you're in the mood for mindless shooting, you already have what you need.

Re:whats wrong with first person shooters?

[drakkinor]

they're fun, as long as you don't take them seriously, or believe that they will teach you how to clean and reload a weapon... Or fire one in real life for that matter. Personally, I'd have to say there's nothing wrong with first person shooters when you're in the market for some mindless entertainment and you've got good reflexes/hand eye coordination. Unfortunately, the media and many other people seem to think that there is some correlation between people playing games like these and violence that takes place in real life. Can we really blame videogames or any other forms of entertainment for the actions people take? Its about time someone figure out what the real cause of all the gun violence problems are instead of trying to institute some kind of censorship. For shame.

Re:whats wrong with first person shooters?

[grub]

May I suggest giving Thief and Thief 2 a whirl? Described as first person sneakers, they require you to listen well, move with stealth and plan your actions. By far my favourite "FPS" series.

Re:whats wrong with first person shooters?

[Samus]

For a good thinking game go give Ghost Recon a shot. A game is a lot harder when all it takes is one bullet to take you out of the picture. Its based on the Tom Clancy Op Center novels I believe.

Re:whats wrong with first person shooters?

[Anonymous Coward]

Deus Ex is one of the most boring, predictable games out there. What a waste of time.

Re:whats wrong with first person shooters?

[CrazyDwarf]

I agree. I'm very disappointed about Metroid Prime. Part of the appeal of the old Metroid game was the perspective... now it is just another of many of the same boring thing.

Re:whats wrong with first person shooters?

[Anonymous Coward]

you're obviously the archetypical slashdot nerd who doesn't know his asshole from Natalie Portman's .. hers is a far far finer specimen, let me assure you!

this troll was brought to you by p00p! have a shitty day

Re:whats wrong with first person shooters?

[mnemotronic]

they're fun, as long as you dont take them seriously, or believe that they will teach you how to clean and reload a weapon.

Is there danger in those who do take the games seriously? Does practicing basketball or skateboarding make one a better player or rider? Does practicing virtual move-and-shoot hone the instincts for real life move-and-shoot (here, or here, or here)? Does practicing "kill everything in sight" desensitize one, so that the same behavior in real life is easier?

In every case, the answer is "yes". Visualization and mental repetition is a widely utilized training technique -- practice makes perfect. Anyone who wants to be a better killer has to train to kill, practice killing, and visualize killing. FPS games fulfill 2 of these requirements.

Re:whats wrong with first person shooters?

[dolson]

You forgot to mention that Al Qaeda used MS Flight Simulator to practice flying.

Re:whats wrong with first person shooters?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they are so completely boring and uninteresting? But I think he wasn't saying they are evil or bad but that he didn't have any interest for a new one... and thus few new linux titles, if they are not FPSs, are more welcome than if they were.

Re:whats wrong with first person shooters?

[ameoba]

And RTSes are any better? While there's slightly less RTS titles than there are FPSes, there's still a horde of uninspired, derivative games out there; How many times can you remake Dune 2 (or whatever you consider the seminal RTS)?

Besides, most RTSes have -some- flaw in the game balance that allows your to win, not neccessarily by applying strategy & thought but by abusing the game mechanics.

Re:whats wrong with first person shooters?

[Explo]

Well, editor, that may be your opinion, but to us gamers first person shooters are most 1337 game there is.

I think myself an occasional gamer (with too little time for it), but personally I find non-realtime games more appealing than first person shooters. It's nice to be able to take a little break by reading newsgroups, browsing web, talking to phone etc. That's just not so simple with first person shooters.

About the lack of time; the non-realtime games tend to have amazing features like "save game" too. ;) I've been playing Jagged Alliance 2 for a long time now, it doesn't really hurt if it's one battle per month or so.

Re-tar-ded!

[FortKnox]

a turn-based strategy game that was well-reviewed but not terribly successful commercially. /me breathes a sigh of relief that it's not another first-person shooter

Why in the hell would you port a game that won't bring in money? Honestly, porting games that bring in a TON of cash commercially do poorly in the Linux market, so who thinks that porting an unsuccessful game would bring in a profit?

Re:Re-tar-ded!

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe they were hoping that the linux community (being more tech-savvy etc etc) would be more inclined the play the critically acclaimed games....

i'm not sure i agree with this reasoning, but maybe that's what they were thinking...

Re:Re-tar-ded!

[Repugnant_Shit]

Because obviously Microsoft is paying them to publish games no one will buy so that Windows will be confirmed as the PC gaming system. How can you be so blind? ;)

Is there a Linux port of Daikatana?

Re:Re-tar-ded!

[Sloppy]

(I am ignorantly talking out of my ass here; I don't actually know the numbers.)

The way that it could be profitable would be if the costs were low. Even if they only sell a few thousand copies, if the porting license and porting labor are cheap then it can be profitable. A more popular game might be less profitable, if the license if expensive or the effort high.

Re:Re-tar-ded!

[Jonny Ringo]

Well the game is very simalar to "Hero's of Might and Magic". And I believe that did pretty well on Linux. I know I bought a copy.

Re:Re-tar-ded!

[Kragg]

Probably partly because there's no competition for it, but more likely because it's nearly portable already so they think it'll be easy.

Re:Re-tar-ded!

[Wordplay]

One reason is that a game that's just one of many in a genre in the Windows world stands alone more in the Linux world. If you want a commercial strategy game under Windows, you have a wealth to choose from. If you want one that runs natively under Linux, you only have a handful.

Another reason is that I'm pretty sure the porting companies pay for the right to port and resell the game. Less successful games are, no doubt, cheaper to license.

Finally, a game like Disciples 2 (which is an excellent game, btw) will likely do better among the Linux crowd than among the point-and-drool crowd. Not to be arrogant, but I think the people who are willing and able to do all the stuff one has to do to maintain a Linux box correctly are probably a little more cerebral than most.

Re:Re-tar-ded!

[StarTux]

How many games on Windows are actually profitable? Its a saturated market, with even good games being neglected as they do not get any "airtime".

Also, I was surprised how many of the developers, especially in the simulation market, are no longer around. the makers of Flying Corps, Mig Alley and Battle of Britain are no longer with us in any real sense.

Why are Tuxgames still going if there is no profit?

StarTux

Re:Re-tar-ded!

[Omnifarious]

Because if the porting cost is small enough that Linux sales exceed it, then the game has made more money than it would've under just Windows.

In fact, economically, it makes more sense for lower profit, easy to port games to be ported to Linux because they're the ones who's profits would increase by the largest percentage given a few extra sales.

Re:Re-tar-ded!

[ShwAsasin]

Because they developers live with their parents, have no social lives, and wear the same clothes, making their paychecks very reasonable when they have no overhead costs at home.

Re:Re-tar-ded!

[13Echo]

Maybe you don't play Linux games, but a lot of use that frequently visit linuxgames.com are excited about this. I suspected that this was the game thay they'd release when they hinted that the title was three words and a number, and frankly, I am pleased by this announcement.

It might not be the most successful Windows game, but it is a fabulous strategy title. Check out reviews if you are not sure. Typically, this game has been given straight 9+ scores.

Michael Simms of LGP has some great ideas. Plus, he realizes that many higher profile games for Linux just aren't practical right now. Licensing costs are just too high for many newer games. Trying to license the next big PC game (if the development house would even let them publish it) would spell certain doom for LGP. Look at Loki. It wasn't all about the fact that their sales weren't up to par. They chose some expensive titles to publish *before* they had a steady cash flow. They started with Eric's Ultimate Solitaire (bad choice for a platform that has a million free card games) but was a good choice because it was cheap. LGP is doing what they need to do... Starting small (Majesty Gold is coming soon, and Mindrover has been re-released) and working up. Big Windows game companies just don't notice them yet... But they are making ties with a few.

They are playing it SMART. Regardless of how well it sells, D2:DP (DP - I love saying that) is a good choice because it is cheap for them. They also have their own retail channel through tuxgames.com (though they consider it a seperate company with a different budget and income), but this is going to be the key for their survival, when Linux games *do* become more practical.

Re:Re-tar-ded!

[Chris Burke]

Finally, a game like Disciples 2 (which is an excellent game, btw) will likely do better among the Linux crowd than among the point-and-drool crowd. Not to be arrogant, but I think the people who are willing and able to do all the stuff one has to do to maintain a Linux box correctly are probably a little more cerebral than most.

Well, not that I wouldn't like to join your elitist circle-jerk... But I'm pretty sure that most of your -truly- discriminating gamers aren't using Linux because of the very supply problem you mention. I may not be a drooling Deer Hunter player, but I'm also necessarily less discriminating than some of my friends who simply won't use Linux because it lacks the games they want.

That said, I still think your other reasons mean that Disciples will do quite well on Linux.

Re:Re-tar-ded!

[rmadmin]

I don't even see it that way. I'm pretty small time. Plus I'm not speaking in the context of a large (Mid/small) company. I think more TINY. :-) Anyway, if I were to start another business (first one failed, fsck!), I would think more small time. For instance. If I sell 1000 copies of a game at $20/game, thats $20,000. If I coded that myself and had little to no over head, I'd be happy with that. Now lets take 'a few thousand coppies'. Lets up the price to $25.00 and say 3000 copies. Thats $75,000. I'd definately be happy with that. :-) Of course, this is only speaking in terms of theory. Real world numbers tend to be a bit more jagged. Anyway. Thats my opinion.

Re:Re-tar-ded!

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux box correctly are probably a little more cerebral than most.

That's a nice way of saying losers with no life. I love the contradiction that is Linux users. One on hand Linux is just as easy to set up and use as Windows but on the other only intelligent people can properly maintain a Linux box.

Re:Re-tar-ded!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess - you once were a dotcom millionaire.

Re:Re-tar-ded!

[Jason Earl]

This port isn't being marketed to gamers. PC Gamers run Windows.

That was the problem with Loki. They went for the AAA+ games, paid huge money for the porting rights, and then released the Linux version 6 months behind the Windows version. To add insult to injury they mostly ported games that required high end graphics cards that were barely supported under Linux. That meant higher support costs than the Windows version.

These guys strike me as being far more realistic. They are porting an interesting, but not very popular Windows game, and they waited to port until it was pretty clear that the game was a dud on Windows. Now they port it to Linux, advertise using inexpensive means (like /.'s front page :), and make a modest profit from guys like me whose other gaming alternative is NetHack.

I am not interested in running Windows just so that I can run a game. I don't have the time to deal with the added aggravation of running Windows, but I still like games.

Re:Re-tar-ded!

[Jock Kodimar]

Well, do you remember Loki Games? I'm still sad about those guys going out of business. They had the highest quality software i've ever used in Linux.

Re:Re-tar-ded!

[Sloppy]

Of course, this is only speaking in terms of theory. Real world numbers tend to be a bit more jagged. Anyway. Thats my opinion.

My disclaimer was much better. That's why I got the big markup. ;-)

Re:Re-tar-ded!

[Anonymous Coward]

I found Disciples 2 to be a more enjoyable game than Heroes IV. The graphics are pretty nice and the story is interesting. Its tactical combat system is too simplistic to really be called tactical, but that didn't really detract from game play.

I hope this will cause people to take another look at this game - I know I'll pick up a copy.

Re:Re-tar-ded!

[Anonymous Coward]

If I was a major game company, here is what I would care about:

1. I get a huge 70% cut of all profits from the linux version.

2. I must give the OK before it is released (The product should pass our own QA tests).

Otherwise I wouldn't care. After all, if I get extra money for doing nothing, with no harm coming to my product, so what?

Re:Re-tar-ded!

[thegrommit]

Finally, a game like Disciples 2 (which is an excellent game, btw) will likely do better among the Linux crowd than among the point-and-drool crowd.

Yes it is. However, it ain't no Master of Magic. I do think these guys are taking a less risky approach with games like this as they don't require top-notch performance from 3D video cards. Given that Linux is often run on "lower" end hardware, this is a good idea.

Re:Re-tar-ded!

[hackus]

I totally agree.

I want WarCraft III, I want Dark Reign 3, Homeworld 2, StarCraft II, etc for Linux...

Not no name titles that appeal to an audience that has a smaller following than the total number of RedHat servers out there.

-Hack

Re:Re-tar-ded!

[chili snow]

Because no one will wait for a big name game to hit Linux. By the time the port is done, most have already bought it for their Wintendos or played it at a friends house. Porting a relatively unknown but good game is much more practical. It's unhyped unhyped enough that the average drooling slashdot addict can wait for the port, but good enough to draw sales from said drooling addict.

Re:Re-tar-ded!

[dolson]

TuxGames doesn't port games... So therefore, they have no developers, and you are an idiot.

Amherst-Fag and the Bacon

[Anonymous Coward]

From: cptroll
To: k22320inchfan@lists.io.com
Subject: Re: [k22320inchfan] why the internet rules
Date sent: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 17:29:43 -0500
Send reply to: k22320inchfan@lists.io.com
(This is CP0037)

Did you get that from ilovebacon.com? Because if you did, then I'm disappointed you didn't note how those industrious Germans are at it again. Who else could pick up on the failure of dogs to read their 'no pooping' signs (http://ilovebacon.bla-bla.com/noway/110300.shtml) and pioneer an entirely PICTOGRAPHIC version (http://ilovebacon.bla-bla.com/noway/112100c.shtml ).

Without such innovation at home, it's little wonder Amerika is scraping
the bottom of the corporate barrel abroad.

jlb <jlb@io.com> wrote:
>http://www.d111.k12.id.us/BHS/BHS.htm

(This is CP0037)

Amhesrt-Fag and the Excellent Karma

[Anonymous Coward]

From: cptroll
To: k22320inchfan@lists.io.com
Subject: Re: [k22320inchfan] tell me when to stop
Date sent: Tue, 28 Nov 2000 13:38:49 -0500
Send reply to: k22320inchfan@lists.io.com (This is CP0039)
(This is CP0040)

Thanks, but you should give me a holler first, since I'm rarely bellow 40
(I was at 44 after a capricious 5-point mod-down with another -1 on top);
so +10 is overkill. While I'm beating this gift horse in the mouth, let
me complain that my bobo comment is still languishing at -1 and won't be
archived. ;-)

I'm still waiting for michael to get off his ass and accept this one:
2000-11-28 00:39:58 Yahoo, Mein Kampf, and Child Pornography
(yro,internet) It's been sitting in his queue for a day now.

=?iso-8859-1?q?Lunchtime=20Troll?= <lunchtimetroll@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

>I had mod points on two accounts and I gave them all
>to Anne Marie as I saw that /bots have become pretty
>obsessed with her. Are there any other accounts that
>need a boost for the next time I have points?
>
>++tlt

(This is CP0040)

Re:More Proof

[Doomrat]

/me dodges lightning
Why? Do you think that you just said something clever, rather than the weak crap that it actually is?

Amherst-Fag and the Unsafe Driving

[Anonymous Coward]

From: Ceee Peee
To: k22320inchfan@lists.io.com
Subject: Re: [k22320inchfan] Last day at work
Date sent: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 19:28:42 -0800 (PST)
Send reply to: k22320inchfan@lists.io.com
(This is CP0008)

Heh, you showed more sense than I. The last time I
tried pulling a stunt like that (revealing such
affections), the object of my affection nearly drove
off the road and into some parked cars. Everything's
still fine between us, but there were those few
fleeting moments involving a high-speed vehicle and
several tons of steel which wouldn't have worked so well.

(This is CP0008)

best yet

[becktabs]

it sure beats the hell out of MUD and Nethack...can't wait to see this in action.

Re:best yet

[Anonymous Coward]

nethack is the most complex, difficult, and enjoyable game i've ever played.

Story title misread

[MrEd]

Port 69, the Linux Port of Discipline.... mmmm.

Good to hear they're up to 2.0, I hear that version 1 had some nasty bugs.

Is it just me?

[Ma$$acre]

Or has the quality of "news-worthy" articles taken a plunge? I'm all for supporting the Linux gaming community, but is this really front page news?

Re:Is it just me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot is now worser than Pablum, they have been replaced By a small shell script!

Re:Is it just me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or has the quality of "news-worthy" articles taken a plunge?

It's just you.

Re:Is it just me?

[goldspider]

I agree 100%

A Linux port of an underachieving game makes the headlines, but news of a MySQL security hole does not.

I guess that's what they mean by security through obsurity.

Let the conspiracy theories commence!

[FortKnox]

OK, from the slashdot article:
Posted by michael, written by bobz.

From the happy penguin article:
In IRC today, evil genius Michael Simms... , this article was written by bobz.

I'll scratch your back if you'll scratch mine? I was wondering why a non-profitable game being ported to a market that has never been marketable (linux ported games) was a frontpage slashdot article. Now I know.

Re:Let the conspiracy theories commence!

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, why did you even wait for this article to be accepted, michael? You, after all, WERE the person who started 'released the news on IRC'. Why not point to the real source, not the rumor source?

Re:Let the conspiracy theories commence!

[msimm]

I know its all the rage with you kids to be cynical, but as I recollect the Slashdot community has a lot of Linux users in it *and* a lot of people who play computer games. If there is one general news blog I'd imagine this would be news this is it.

You had an interesting observation, but its still news kid.

Re:Let the conspiracy theories commence!

[gmhowell]

Let the modbombing begin!

Have you gotten a life yet, or have you merely squandered your time making Slashdot posts?

Re:Let the conspiracy theories commence!

[Zathrus]

No, it's not news. It's a port of a crappy game, it's not being done for a good commercial reason, and it's not going to set the Linux community (or even gaming community) on storm.

Furthermore, posting it without noting the relationship is bad journalism. It's a conflict of interest. At least when /. reports on stuff that their parent company or even distant cousin companies do they note the relationship. Frankly, Michael shouldn't have been the one to approve the story, and whoever did should've noted the relationship between a /. editor and the story.

Of course, it's Michael. Why is anyone surprised? At all?

Re:Let the conspiracy theories commence!

[Apathy costs bills]

I don't believe that your criticism of FortKnox is justified. He may have posted a lot of comments, but he's posted a lot of good comments.

However I must agree with Michael on this one that it's ok to post Linux game announcements on Slashdot. This is where they belong.

Re:Let the conspiracy theories commence!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are getting "Michael Sims" (slashdot) and "Michael Simms" (Tux Games, LGP) confused.

Re:Let the conspiracy theories commence!

[FortKnox]

Actually, gmhowell (a friend of mine) is refering to the infamous post where michael told me "I needed to get out more" because I had 803 posted comments total at the time.
Never got an apology or anything, and I'm willing to determine who is more in need of 'getting a life', me or michael.

Re:Let the conspiracy theories commence!

[Jason Earl]

It's not being done for a good commercial reason.

The money to develop this game has already been spent, if the Linux port isn't too terribly difficult (perhaps they used SDL in the original) then a port certainly can't hurt.

The Linux market is a lot smaller than the Windows market, but there is also quite a bit less competition in this market. I know that I certainly am interested. As much as I like NetHack I am ready for something slightly more graphical.

Re:Let the conspiracy theories commence!

[Anonymous Coward]

hence the joke.

Reread it once your humor is intact.

Re:Let the conspiracy theories commence!

[Apathy costs bills]

"Never got an apology or anything, and I'm willing to determine who is more in need of 'getting a life', me or michael."

Maybe you guys should seek arbitration (-:

Re:Let the conspiracy theories commence!

[bobz]

Furthermore, posting it without noting the relationship is bad journalism. It's a conflict of interest.

I agree! It's a clear conflict of interest when the poster of a story has the same first name as the story's subject! What the hell was Slashdot thinking???

Re:Let the conspiracy theories commence!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the same fucking person, you moron.

Re:Let the conspiracy theories commence!

[Zathrus]

Ya... I bought the troll, hook, line, and sinker.

Oops.

Re:Let the conspiracy theories commence!

[Anonymous Coward]

Except, of course, that michael@slashdot is NOT Michael Simms.

Re:Let the conspiracy theories commence!

[msimm]

So...your saying you wont buy it?

Re:Let the conspiracy theories commence!

[gmhowell]

Hope you missed the point. It was a bit of an 'in joke'. Well, not too 'in', as everyone can see FK being lambasted by michael. It's just that every time FK blasts michael (not too often anymore) I feel it necessary to give FK a poke in the ribs.

Re:Let the conspiracy theories commence!

[Nevyn]

I'll scratch your back if you'll scratch mine?

The slashdot author is called Michael Sims The CEO of LGP is called Michael Simms.

Being two different people, the conspiracy theories kind of fall flat on their face.

Re:Let the conspiracy theories commence!

[gmhowell]

It's more fun to publicly slag on michael than to seek arbitration.

Hey, it's gotta be someone now that Katz is gone. (Ironically, I spoke with Katz once or twice in email, and he's not a bad guy. But it's rather fun to pick on him.)

Re:Let the conspiracy theories commence!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he's saying that scumbags attract scumbags, and eventually they all somehow seem to wind up with advertisments on the front page of Slashdot. I believe even X10 has gotten a mention as a link on the front page in recent history.

And to think I couldn't figure out where /. was getting the money to stay alive..

Re:Let the conspiracy theories commence!

[Anonymous Coward]

And you ought to know better, Zathrus. What would your brother say? I bet people mix you guys up all the time.

Re:Let the conspiracy theories commence!

[puto]

Yo, IT is not Michael Sims. But REALLY Michael Simms. So it could be the same guy. Because Michael Simms editor at slashdot has given interviews with CNN, answered questions with newsgroups using MICHAEL SIMMS as his name.

I ain't saying it is the sam guy. But sho do look strange.

Well I am gonna post this three times, so flame on, troll, do whatever. I dont care here is what a little investigation brought back. Maybe someone here can do a more digging with this evidence.

The links are too articles and the articles are quoted below the links. Almost looks like to be the same Michael as Michael Simms from Slashdot has a uk email address in one. Isnt Linux Games UK based?

Michael Simms..

http://www.nylug.org/mlist/nylug-talk_mhonarc/20 01 -02/msg00396.html

This an excerpt from an article about a LUG that interviewed Michael and Timothy from Slashdot. Please
note Michaels last Name is SIMMS, not Sims. The same one as the Linux Gamers Guy.

Please join us for a glimpse into "A Day in the life of a Slashdot
Poster". Our presenters will be michael (Michael Simms) and timothy
(Timothy Lord) of /. fame. Timothy and Michael will discuss Slashdot's
history, what it's like working on one of the busiest sites on the Web,
and other issues of importance to the Linux and Open Source community.

http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-general/199 9- 07/msg00385.php

This is an article where Michael Simms(Michael from Slashodot)responds to a forum question about slashdot
and his return email is on a UK. Server, more wood for the fire?

From: Michael Simms <grim@argh.demon.co.uk>
To: scrappy@hub.org (The Hermit Hacker)
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Slashdot...
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 02:37:57 +0100 (BST)

> Does anyone know what you have to do to get anything on slashdot? When
> v6.5 and v6.5.1 was released, I posted something to Slashdot announcing
> it, especially considering that the new MVCC code added by Vadim...

To get anything on /. you need to have a very big stick and live close
to rob so when he doesnt get round to posting information, you can
beat him with it.
If you dont live close to him, then the chances are about one in a
billion it will get posted. You could always email linus and get him
to mail rob, that will do it too {:-)

Yep, making line Enos from the Duke of Hazzard today. I am on the case.

Puto

Re:Let the conspiracy theories commence!

[Darby]

Being two different people, the conspiracy theories kind of fall flat on their face.

Ah no, my friend.

It's kind of tough to have a conspiracy with only one person.

Re:Let the conspiracy theories commence!

[michaelsimms]

Heh nooooo I am not the same as the slashdot micjael. The fact that we have the same name is just coincidence I tell you!
Really, if I could post and approve stories to /. dont you think I'd have hundreds of stories promoting my companies by now {:-)

Re:Let the conspiracy theories commence!

[Karn]

I look forward to playing this new game when it's finished. Thanks for catering to us Linux gamers! :)

In case they get /.ed

[pardasaniman]

Product Title Disciples 2: Dark Prophecy

Available
LanguagesEnglish

Suggested Retail
Price£30.00

Product Description
Disciples II: Dark Prophecy returns gamers to the magical realm of the Sacred Lands where four races - the Empire, the Mountain Clans, the Legions of the Damned and the Undead Hordes - continue the battle for the destiny of their Gods. A decade after the First Great War, the final prophecy continues to unfold. Deep within the crevices of the Sacred Lands, the Chosen One has emerged, fated to bring salvation to some and destruction to others. Braced with renewed faith and newfound conviction, each race must once again take up the sword for the sake of their people and the glory of their God.

Disciples 2: Dark Prophecy comes in a DVD-style case on a single CD-Rom

Current Status:
Agreement signed, no development yet.
Minimum RequirementsCurrently unknown
Prerelease InformationRelease Date is currently not announced

Re:In case they get /.ed

[0WaitState]

I've played the first Disciples game--turn based limited DnD style hack-n-slash, with your party's characters standing in a 2 x 3 grid with no maneuvering, the opposing party also in a 2 x 3 grid. The "strategy" is scripted exploration of a very small maze-limited world. The "campaign" is that after you finish one maze the game takes you to the next. Bo-ring. A 20-line perl script could play this game to completion. I didn't.

Re:In case they get /.ed

[Anonymous Coward]

So your review of the 2nd version is a pan of the first version, without ever having seen the 2nd one (which was designed & written, I believe, by a different development team)?

I've actually played Disciples II - it's a good game.

Re:In case they get /.ed

[0WaitState]

Well, its not like they're going to give me my money back for the crappy first one, and I don't appreciate the unattributed plug they're giving themselves on Slashdot.

Would you care to describe the second one? ie. is a real strategy/campaign game, or are you dragged along a scripted storyline?

But

[Anonymous Coward]

Will a hurd version be released?

Re:More Proof

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not Jesus, it's RMS.

Great!

[LilGuy]

Why not a FPS though, I mean those are the games the set the standard for graphics. From there you can build any game with superior graphics.

By the way, why the onslaught of offtopic posts?

Amherst-Fag and the Gift from God

[Anonymous Coward]

From: cptroll
To: <k22320inchfan@methlab.nothing.org>
Subject: Re: [k22320inchfan] Trolling as a gift from God
Date sent: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 17:30:10 -0400
Send reply to: k22320inchfan@methlab.nothing.org
(This is CP0027)

So maybe now is not a good time to mention that I actually like that shit. TB1's ok, but TB2/3 and the Millennium Bell are great.

80md <eightymd@hotmail.com> wrote:

>
>>From: "Mendax Veritas" <mendaxveritas@yahoo.com>
>>
>>. . . the art of trolling is taught by the devil himself in a dark
>>grotto deep within the isle of Crete when the moon is full on Sam-hayn,
>>to a soundtrack of Tubular Bells and Ozzy,
>
>_Tubular Bells_! CREEPING CANNIBAL CHRIST! That
>name alone strikes more fear deeper into my heart
>than a thousand chill winds, on Crete or elsewhere

(This is CP0027)

Amherst-Fag and the GDB 1

[Anonymous Coward]

From: cptroll
To: <k22320inchfan@methlab.nothing.org>
Subject: [k22320inchfan] Let's try this one again: gbd et al
Date sent: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 18:22:12 -0400
Send reply to: k22320inchfan@methlab.nothing.org
(This is CP0030)

cptroll <cptroll@linuxstart.com> wrote:

From ??? Fri Feb 19 09: 25 Date: Thu Oct 26 2

>I've been in touch with gbd via email. (He doesn't want me to share his
>address with anyone, and I'm respecting that.) Apparently, the fellow
>has big plans, but he's aufully vague and evasive about everything, so
>it's hard to say what's what. I do have his physical location nailed
>down to a certain one of the fifty states, and it's an odd one.
>
>I asked him about his scheme of capitalization, and this was the best
>answer I could get from him: "as far as why i capitalize things i do it
>to EMPHASIZE things that should be stressed, i know that you can do this
>with html but i am too lazy, hehe."
>
>Yes, he stays true to his form, even in email. The upshot is, I gave him
>his account, and he's all squared away with that.
>
>What an odd fellow!

(This is CP0030)

The Information You Requested

[Anonymous Coward]

SIR:

This is TealMicrodot again, still filling in for my friend, the original Microdot, who is having some trouble with an IP-Ban at the moment. He was right about the rampant censorship happening here. Deleted accounts, IP bans, comments being entirely deleted rather than just hidden, weird stuff going on so that certain comments are visible when not logged in but invisible to logged in users -- this is Democracy? We have proof of all of this, and we're compiling all the evidence we get.

Anyway, here's the hyena information you requested:

Female hyenas are virtually indistinguishable from males. Their clitoris is enlarged and extended to form an organ of the same size, shape, and position as the male penis. It can also be erected. Their labia have folded up and fused to form a false scrotum that is not discernibly different in external form or location from the true scrotum of males.

It even contains fatty tissue forming two swellings easily mistaken for testicles. Authors of the most recent paper on spotted hyenas found the appearance of males and females so close that sex could only be determined with certainty by palpation of the scrotum. Testes could be located in the scrotum of the male compared with soft adipose tissue in the false scrotum of the female.

A Good Start...

[9Numbernine9]

... but is this the right approach?

I'm a gamer, I'll admit, and I love seeing the great new games that come to market. And even moreso, I love it when these games work in Linux. Currently, I can get nearly every game I want to play to work in Linux. For the ones that don't, I wait patiently...

However, I wish I could say the same for my friends - lots of them are thoroughly intrigued by the idea of Linux, and really want to switch to only Linux - but lack of support for newer games hold them back. I can certainly get what I want to play to work, but when my friends ask "But will Battlefield 1942 work?" I have to say "No." I think that work has to begin on either porting massively popular games, or convincing more devlopers to develop for Linux (although I am happy with progress so far!).

As a side issue - wouldn't it be in LGP's best interest to work on porting games that are more comercially successful? I know that there's more to it than just getting people to switch to Linux, but I'd like to ensure that they can stay in business too!

Re:A Good Start...

[Indras]

... I think that work has to begin on either porting massively popular games, ...

More specifically, I think the market we're really forgetting is MMORPG's. Subscription-based games have a continuous cashflow, even if nobody else buys the games. Not to mention, for many MMORPG's, the server does the important calculating and keeps cheaters in check, so why does it matter what OS the client is running?

That's why it was great back when I played Dragonrealms because it was basically a MUD, with a frontend client for any graphical OS.

I'm sure there are plenty of Dark Age of Camelot and Asheron's Call addicts that would be more than happy to switch to Linux if they didn't have to give up gameplay (IIRC you can get EverQuest and Ultima Online to run in Linux, even though they're not specifically (sup)ported on it).

Re:A Good Start...

[Photon Ghoul]

Probably something that will keep this from happening is simply: cost. Unlike a one-off game that may not require more than one post-release patch, a game in the MMO genre requires upkeep for years with frequent patching and constant testing.

Granted not all of the patching is done for client-side aspects of the games but it is something to take into account and could, effectively double the cost of 'maintenance'. It's probably the reason we don't already see Mac versions of EQ, DAoC and the like even though I would imagine they would be more lucrative markets relative to Linux.

And at one time there was an actual Ultima Online client for Linux. It was unofficial and maintained by programmers that left Origin fairly soon in UO's history. Worked good too.

Re:A Good Start...

[9Numbernine9]

I couldn't agree more with that point.

Currently, Everquest and Ultima Online are being run successfully by people using WineX - and surely the developers of these games can see the benefits of this! At no up-front cost to them, people who wouldn't normally be in the market for their games are buying them, playing them, and giving them additional money every month!


I'd love to see more help from these developers and publishers with aiding groups such as LDP and Transgaming in getting their games to wokr on alternate platforms.

Re:A Good Start...

[StarTux]

Simple answer...The AAA+ games are just too expensive to port right now. I know what you mean exactly, but we have to be patient and continue to support with what we have. LGP seem to be taking a different approach from Loki Games with this.

Try this, there are so many games coming out for Windows right now, no doubt your friends have missed some of them along the way, perhaps you could point out they can now play games that they may like and have missed on Linux now and in doing so they will help create a larger Linux market...Once it becomes big enough you'll see those ports come a lot faster :).

StarTux

Re:A Good Start...

[moncyb]

I think the right approch would be to convince the big game developers to use common standards such as OpenGL to write their games. That way it should be trivial to port the program to other OSs. If they just had to recompile to create binaries for Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, or BeOS, then I think we'd see many more ports than we do now.

Amherst-Fag and the Poor Judgement

[Anonymous Coward]

From: Ceee Peee
To: k22320inchfan@lists.io.com
Subject: [k22320inchfan] Sorry about that, all
Date sent: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 00:51:12 -0800 (PST)
Send reply to: k22320inchfan@lists.io.com
(This is CP0006)

Demonstrating poor judgment on my part, I lobbed
another at the k5 queue
(http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory&sid=2000 /12/20/01446/325).
It's not half as big a troll as the last one, but,
well, I guess people are still angry about the last
one. Let's just say the only thing geeks defend more
than their porn is their smokes.

JSM, I'm disappointed you didn't show some guts and
just mod it down. Have I pissed enough in your
swimming pool yet? Heck, they're slandering you in
there, equating the two of us. Even rusty's annoyed,
and he has a sense of humor (though his reasoning
isn't so hot).

I think I'll leave k5 alone for a while. I'm leaving
town in two days and won't be back for a couple weeks,
though I'll have net access in between. Maybe when I
get back, I'll have developed some maturity. 'Night,
all.

(This is CP0006)

Lightning bolt!

[Anonymous Coward]

Lightning bolt!
Lightning bolt!
Lightning bolt!
Lightning bolt!
Lightning bolt!

Re:Lightning bolt!

[Anonymous Coward]

That is fucking frightening.

Re:Lightning bolt!

[Buck2]

WTF is this?

Who the hell are these people?

WTF are they doing?

I feel stupider for having seen this video.

Amherst-Fag and the MOMOCROME

[Anonymous Coward]

From: Ceee Peee
To: k22320inchfan@lists.io.com
Subject: [k22320inchfan] gbd on #trolls
Date sent: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 22:06:25 -0800 (PST)
Send reply to: k22320inchfan@lists.io.com
(This is CP0004)

Right now, "gbd" is on #trolls. His host is
remarkably similar to momocrome's: gbd is
~gbd@adsl-63-200-62-16.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net
(george), whereas momocrome is
~natalie_p@cloaked.dsl.lsan03.pacbell.net (MOMOCROME).
Yet, he's able to present compelling evidence that he
is the one who currently holds the "gbd" usernick on
slashdot, who I do consider to be the real gbd in
light of the circumstances surrounding how I gave him
the account. Gbd's address looks like it's from SF,
whereas momocrome's is from LA, so that would suggest
they're not the same. But does anyone else have a
pacbell.net address that we know?

(This is CP0004)

Vladequacy - The Secrets Revealed

[Anonymous Coward]

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=20721&cid=4682 572
<bc> hehe
<bc> god I suck
<bc> hey FI
<First_Incision> I will not discout the possibility that you suck.
<bc> A wise move FI
<abu_zeqqzeqq> bc: if craig is as fucked up as he seemse
<abu_zeqqzeqq> that will push him to new extremes...
<bc> hehee
<First_Incision> I never understood the stone women thing. Is osm still perving around somewhere?
<momocrome> http://www.clusterlizard.org
<momocrome> osm's site ^^
<bc> yes, though who knows what he's up to
<abu_zeqqzeqq> bc: change your nick to "Abu'l Hayjeh "
<momocrome> he has a bunch of uninspired match.com pseudo-trolls
<momocrome> picking on hapless, lonely women
<bc> that irc log is hilarious
<dmg> that takest the biscuit
<bc> [bc] vlad... i'2 type 'mo ;but i drunk.
<dmg> I laughed
<momocrome> post the text to 20721
<momocrome> stir the pot a bit
<momocrome> I am going to rise to their baiting
<momocrome> even thoughI haven't been singled out
<bc> haha
<bc> I must read more now
<bc> county: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=20721&cid=4675 437
<ivan> Ignore the superfluous comma.
<bc> does that seem accurate to you?
<ivan> All of them =)
<ivan> thx
*** First_Incision is now known as fi-away
<ivan> I can't say, bc. I didn't read it.
<ivan> Should I?
<bc> Yes, you should
<ivan> Haha!
<abu_zeqqzeqq> http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_686841.html?m enu=news.weirdworld.sexlife
<ivan> It almost looks real.
<ivan> The one problem is that shoeboy is LOLing too much and Vladinator isn't doing it enough.
<bc> I'm kind of insulted. It represents me as a pathetic drunk with delusional fantasies that I'm liked by females, and that seems entirely untrue
<abu_zeqqzeqq> gratuituous kylie pictures. Proof Allah(SWT) and Mohammed (PBUH) are REAL
<ivan> It does seem entirely untrue that you're liked by females.
<abu_zeqqzeqq> bc at least you are worthy of parody
<bc> hehe
<abu_zeqqzeqq> some of us are become stalinesque non-persons.
<abu_zeqqzeqq> airbrushed out of trolling history
<ivan> abu and I didn't even get noticed :(
<bc> craig&osm&trollaxor prolly still like you, dmg
<ivan> "Where's the part where Barry Corrington slags on Jin Wicked for half an hour then kisses her ass when she logs in?"
<ivan> Has Jin ever been in here?

TBS, FPS....Linux

[greymond]

not to be a buggaboo or anything - but when will a really good RPG or Action adventure come to Linux (and don't tell me Nethack or Wyvern) - granted Neverwinter Nights is going to come out for linux and that's great - but I want to see a (IMHO) FUN RPG (like FF, DW, Septerra core, Chrono Cross, Skys of Arcadia) come out or be ported to Linux - i'd even be willing to helpout with a project like that....

but of course I guess most nix people really like TBS and FPS types....since thats most of the game's i've seen for it...

Re:TBS, FPS....Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Nitpick time.

You're confused. Neverwinter Nights comes close to being an RPG. Indeed, it is a roleplaying game, with the right DM and less dependence on scripting.

What you label as RPGs (FF, DW, etc.) are indeed the action adventures you made reference to. Following the oh-so-linear storylines of Squaresoft, Enix, Overworks, etc. is not roleplaying.

The blurb about FPS types is most amusing, since they're doing more roleplaying than any player of Square's games could ever hope to do. They're in far more control of their representative avatar's actions and final fate.

Re:TBS, FPS....Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want the greatest rpgs, get snes9x and go find some roms. Chrono Trigger and the oldschool favorites are all over the net.

BTW don't knock Disciples 2 before you've tried it. It's a beautiful, well thought out game, and a worthy successor to the underdog Disciples 1 it replaced. If you don't enjoy it, you're probably retarded and wear 'special shoes'.

Amherst-Fag and the Educated Escort 1

[Anonymous Coward]

From: Ceee Peee
To: k22320inchfan@lists.io.com
Subject: [k22320inchfan] What better way to spread the holiday joy...
Date sent: Mon, 25 Dec 2000 20:10:17 -0800 (PST)
Send reply to: k22320inchfan@lists.io.com
(This is CP0009)

What better way to spread the holiday joy than to vote
up Anne Marie's new k5 article on pornography?
(http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory;sid=2000 /12/25/225554/21&mode=mo
derate)
Pornography: it's what we do, so it's what we should discuss.

(This is CP0009)

Shameless Plug

[JohnFluxx]

Hi,
I'm currently working a 3D version of Freecraft, which in turn is a 3D version of Warcraft.
It is comming along quite nicely, and if anyone would like to give a hand with the models or coding or anything, you would be welcome.

See a kinda old screenshot at http://130.88.226.154/snap4.png
The game is progressing very quickly - trees are in now, units expected with a week, etc.

Anyway, message me through slashdot or email or anything.

Re:Shameless Plug

[Anonymous Coward]

The game is progressing very quickly - trees are in now, units expected with a week, etc.

Heh. See my neat game! It has 133+ stuff and is really cool! It will r0x0r j00 w0rlD! However, here is the only proof of my game
:: insert picture of light blue walls, black square, blue ring surrounding some cross/'y' shape::

Umm... yeah. Where can I sign up to beta test rotating your cross/'y' shape thingie?

Re:Shameless Plug

[JohnFluxx]

Sorry for replying to myself, but just a quick point about the apparent lack of game from the screenshots... The game engine and ai and everything is already done by the freecraft people.

The networking code is the main thrust of this project - the client is a kinda proof-of-concept.

This project is to show that you can make a game client-server, and then allow very rapid development.

I intend to prove the point by linking the 3D game to a game like freeciv, and aim to do that in 2 days flat!

The communications backend is being done using a lot of the worldforge.org libraries.

If anyone is trying or wanting to develop an rts game, have a look at my work to take some serious shortcuts. :)

JohnFlux

Re:Shameless Plug

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't help but think this is a little sketchy at best. You provided only one screenshot which resembles an college acid flashblack. There is no information anywhere about your project - not even a simple project homepage. Am I missing something? You say - "come see my work" - but the only thing I found was this weird html calculator. What are you really look for? A date? If so, you might re-consider posting on slashdot.

Ps - you forgot these links as well:

http://130.88.226.154/snap1.png
http://130.88.226.154/snap2.png
http://130.88.226.154/snap3.png

Re:Shameless Plug

[JohnFluxx]

well.. the thing is that I had sort of wanted to leave it until I had the gui done up a bit more - knowing how much gui's say. That's always the problem - do you advertise it too early and risk everyone shrugging it off as vapourware, or leave it till later in the project but takes you longer because you don't have any other coders.. For a few other links, since you insisted so nicely: http://130.88.226.154/practical-starting-guide-for -writing-clients.html HOWTO-Atlas.html hmm that will do for now... :)

Re:Shameless Plug

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe I am missing something, but the screen shot looks like a blury rendition of a simcity landscape... is that supposed to make me interested? It appears to be kind of like Myth and Warcraft but ugly and slow (30fps for that landscape?!?). Maybe you shouldn't advertise before the product looks good.

Maybe this is flamebait, but i think people need to think before they post. AC to save myself from silly moderators...

If you don't agree with this take on this post, reply don't mod

Re:Shameless Plug

[JohnFluxx]

Release early and release often.

After all, what do I care or lose if you are not interested?

Re:Shameless Plug

[tbarrie]

I'm currently working a 3D version of Freecraft, which in turn is a 3D version of Warcraft.

So that would make your game, what... a 9D^2 version of Warcraft?

Komm Susser Todd

[Anonymous Coward]

I know, I know I've let you down,
I've been a fool to myself,
I thought that I could live for no one else.
But now, through all the hurt and pain,
It's time for me to respect,
The ones you love mean more than anything.

So with sadness in my heart,
Feel the best thing I could do,
Is end it all, and leave forevar.
What's done is done, it feels so bad,
What once was happy now is sad,
I'll never love again,
My world is ending.

I wish that I could turn back time,
'Cause now the guilt is all mine,
Can't live without the trust from those you love.
I know we can't forget the past,
You can't forget love and pride,
Because of that, it's killing me inside.

It all returns to nothing,
It all comes tumbling down, tumbling down, tumbling down.

It all returns to nothing,
I just keep letting me down, letting me down, letting me down.

In my heart of hearts,
I know that I could never love again.
I've lost evarthing... evarthing...
Evarthing that matters to me matters in this world!

I wish that I could turn back time,
'Cause now the guilt is all mine,
Can't live without the trust from those you love.
I know we can't forget the past,
You can't forget love and pride,
Because of that, it's killing me inside.

It all returns to nothing,
It all comes tumbling down, tumbling down, tumbling down.

It all returns to nothing,
I just keep letting me down, letting me down, letting me down.

It all returns to nothing,
It all comes tumbling down, tumbling down, tumbling down.

It all returns to nothing,
I just keep letting me down, letting me down, letting me down.

Re:More Proof

[teamhasnoi]

You carry on yarnin' like that sonny, and you ain't gonna be goin' to Heaven y'hear? Hyuk, hyuk.

The Incredible Troll FAQ

[Anonymous Coward]

Although fragments of this most classic and infamous piece of troll history have been found and preserved throughout the ages, the complete document has been missing for many years and was thought to have been lost or destroyed during the last year of the previous millennium. Well, here it is: the first EVAR Slashdot Troll FAQ, dated March 16th 2000.

* * * *

God help us all ... (Troll FAQ) (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on 05:15 AM March 16th, 2000 CST (#810)

But mainly help me. I had a long, dull business trip Tues. and Wed., and as a result I wrote the following (5000 words and still unfinished) Slashdot Troll FAQ. I haven't been able to build on 80md's original due to lack of connection, but the doct. below still needs revised. Specifically, it needs to be made more entertaining. See whatcha think.

jsm

Slashdot troll FAQ

1. What do trolls do?
   
   We post inflammatory, satirical or just plain weird comments on slashdot, aiming to draw attention to ourselves and to distract discussion away from the matter at hand. We use satire, wit, art and other cultural weapons to give fun to the clueful and embarrass the clueless.
   
   1. What are the characteristics of a good troll?
      
      A good troll is a statement designed to inflame the passions of a certain type of reader. A troll is a contrary or controversial statement, which attacks a preconception of someone who is likely to read it, causing them to suspend their normal standards of critical thinking, and to fire off a combative response, without thinking that they are being had. This is the "classic" troll, aimed at enticing someone to make a fool of themself.
      
   2. Are there any other kinds of troll?
      
      Yes. The "surrealistic" troll is a piece of prose, rambling, comic or just downright weird, inserted into a discussion where it seems at once utterly irrelevant and curiously in place. The common thread linking the types of trolls is that a certain kind of personality (read - far too uptight) gets irrationally annoyed by them.
      
   3. What are "characters"?
      
      Some kinds of trollish statement have been proven to work again and again, so naturally, some trolls have taken advantage of this fact to repeat them again and again. Certain individual trolls are more or less identified with certain types of trollish statement, and thus we have the idea of a "character" - a fictitious entity which is supposed to actually hold the views which are expressed in the troll's posts. Some of these characters have distinct personalities and maintain narrative coherence from troll to troll (see the "Microsoft Linux" episode between streetlawyer and DMG); some of them show up expressing the same or similar points of view again and again (the RWM and derivatives).
      
   4. What are some of the characters?
      
      The number one maximally 1337 troll character is the RWM; the most established troll, with the most solid track record behind him. Opensource man and his creations is the oldest surreal troll; gnarphlager and auntfloyd also adopt this style. Paranoid Man is getting off the ground, and DMG and streetlawyer have their fans. Mindless Bastard is more of a style of trolling than a character per se. There are lots more people posting trolls than are listed here; these are just the repeating characters.
      
   5. What is an RWM?
      
      RWM is the Right Wing Maniac, a character with a hotch-potch of (often mutually incompatible) libertarian, Christian, and Objectivist views, who typically (mis)applies the general principles of his world-view to various slashdot topics. He tends to be keen on referring to people as "socialists", particularly if they consider themselves to be conservatives. Sometimes he's more of a religious nut; sometimes it's more the free market which rings his bell. There is also a Left Wing Maniac with a yen for spouting dialectical materialism, but he hasn't done much recently. It's worth noting that it is very rare to find a RWM troll thread in which at least one participant doesn't agree with most of RWM's views.
      
   6. What is a DMG?
      
      DMG is the Dumb Marketing Guy. He claims to have been involved in Linux for "at least four years, since the very beginning", and offers unsolicited "open source" marketing advice on Linux advocacy to the members of the community. He often takes a rather hurt tone in response to the welter of abuse which is the usual response to his advice.
      
   7. How about the other characters?
      
      For crying out loud, they ought to be self-explanatory, surely to heck?
      
   8. What's with the "cheese" thing?
      
      Buggered if I know. Lots of trolls mention cheese, and seem to indicate that cheese has some sort of significance. Maybe it does.
      
   9. Why does streetlawyer swear so much?
      
      Because he had a hard life, dragging himself up from the streets to get his fucken law degree from fucken Hah-vud, OK?
      
   10. What you said really offended me!
       
       Well, sorry. But really, nobody cares (see below). You're too easily offended. Now purge the post from your board, log our IP address and go back to drawing your "After Y2K" comic (which is shit, by the way).
       
   
   
2. What don't trolls do?
   
   We don't do boring, uncreative shit which just makes slashdot harder to read. We're not into denial of service attacks - they aren't very funny. We're probably harsher opponents of the spam bunch than you are, because anything which encourages people to browse at levels above -1 makes our work harder.
   
   1. Those cut & pastes which fill up the forums, are those you guys?
      
      Nope. Nezh.
      
   2. How about that obscene ASCII art I just saw?
      
      Nope. Nada.
      
   3. Thank God you've got nothing to do with "open source Natalie Portman", or "naked and petrified"!
      
      Errrr, well actually yes we have. Both of those ongoing trolls were written by regulars on the troll forum, and you're not going to find condemnation of them in this FAQ.
      
   4. What?
      
      Read them. Untwist your underwear, stop fulminating over the momentary interruption to your terribly important discussion about Slackware and have a look at some of these posts. Open source Natalie Portman was a fine piece of Burroughsian prose and if you don't agree that it was, then you're wrong. The whole "Naked and petrified" thing was an absolute triumph - it provoked a huge amount of reaction, entertainingly interfered with a few people's heads by sexualising the context of slashdot and is still talked about, several months after the original author stopped bothering.
      
   5. But that naked and petrified stuff was really sick!
      
      Sick to you, but that was actually the guy's genuinely held sexual fantasy. He was erotically excited by the thought of women turned to stone, and was letting the world know about it. Don't pretend that you weren't interested - it's absolutely fascinating.
      
   6. You're kidding me!
      
      Nope. I was taken aback myself, but there are several sites on the Net with active discussion boards on this very subject. It's not that very different from the subject of "The Fermata" by Nicholson Baker, where the hero has the power to stop time, effectively turning women into statues. And that is quite a common paraphilia.
      
   7. Well, I thought it was offensive to women. Wasn't it tantamount to a rape fantasy?
      
      No, it was a petrification fantasy. Which is something rather less threatening, because harder to act out (how many people really believed that anyone could actually turn Natalie Portman to stone?)
      
   8. What does Natalie Portman think about being "open sourced"?
      
      I'm sure she's not wonderfully happy about being the subject of someone else's tawdry sexual fantasies, but it kind of comes with the job. I doubt she loses much sleep.
      
   9. You keep saying I should read this stuff. How can I?
      
      Opensourceman's works (including the Star Wars series and Fat-time Charlie) are available online at: Craig MacPherson has a website at: , which probably has a few things on it to do with the petrification thing.
   
   
3. So gritsboy and scooby doo are trolls then? And Trollmastah?
   
   Wellllll .... they're a step above the cut 'n' pasters. And sometimes they can be funny if you're in a silly mood. But they don't contribute to the troll forums, and it's not what I personally would call incredibly creative. Some people like running jokes and some don't. The original Trollmastah has contributed some good material, but there's a lot of imitations about.
   

Why, for God's sake?

For a variety of reasons, but mainly to puncture the self-importance of a few people who deeply deserve it. Slashdot has a lot of very clever people posting, but vastly more individuals with a serious perception/reality gap with regard to their own intelligence. People who believe themselves to be perceptive, clueful, even deep thinkers while merely reciting lists of conventional wisdom deserve to be taken for a ride. And there's the sheer Skinnerian joy of it - if somebody, or some group of people have buttons, it's inhuman not to take delight in pushing them.

1. Why do you spend such effort on being assholes?
   
   In order to do it properly.
   
2. What's your problem with moderation?
   
   No problem. Whining about moderation is for the moderation thread. Several trolls moderate more or less frequently (and meta-moderate - be very afraid), and there is very little genuine complaint about moderation on the troll threads. Any remarks about $3 crack are meant in a spirit of fun and affection, and are usually merely cris de coeur when a finely crafted troll has been rumbled in the first few seconds and down-modded.
   
   1. What about "Portrait of a Moderator"?
      
      That was funny.
   
   
3. Why don't you go and troll somewhere other than slashdot?
   
   Where is there? We've had a token go or two at Nitrozac and kuro5hin, and an abortive attempt to troll some of the statuephilia discussion boards with discussions about technology, but it just doesn't feel right. If you ain't on slashdot, you ain't, basically, trolling.
   
4. No, why don't you fuck off? You contribute nothing to this site.
   
   That isn't even true. Several of the troll regulars have enough Karma to post with the +1 bonus when they use their regular identities, which puts them in the top decile, according to Rob Malda. And there is a definite audience for quality trolls. Have you just been trolled? Is that why you're so angry? Calm down, it'll be someone else's turn in the barrel on Friday.
   
5. Don't you have anything better to do?
   
   To paraphrase gnarphlager, yes, we have many better things to do, but we're not going to do them.
   

How can I recognise a troll?

If you want to spot a troll, then you're basically entering into a game, played against us. You have to keep your guard up, adopt a critical attitude to what you read and decide whether it is plausible that someone is actually posting that view. For our part, we will intermingle fact and fiction, invent plausible-sounding references and (always) attempt to attack your emotional involvement in a topic in order to make you drop your guard. The more ridiculous the proposition we sneak under your guard, the more we win. The angrier you get, the more we win. And you? As the computer said in War Games "The only way to win is not to play".

1. What are the characteristics of a troll?
   
   Usually, a troll will resemble a normal slashdot post, but will contain at least one thing which is not true. A good troll will contain material which obviously couldn't possibly be true, and would not fool anyone who gave it a moment's thought. The troll will also contain an inflammatory or controversial statement, designed to make sure that nobody does give it a moment's thought. Criticism of Linux, strong or offensive political views, mockery of "computer geeks", claims about the inferiority of women/Canadians/Perl, all of that stuff. Interestingly, having experimented with using outright, Bell-Curve-like racist statements to act as the controversial part of the troll, I've found that they never offend anyone, which I guess shows what a lily-white place slashdot is.

   
   Obviously these rules apply more to the classic satirical model of a troll, but there is a strong family resemblance in the surrealist model. Looking at the best work of osm, gnarphlager, auntfloyd et al., you pick up a strong sense of the underlying form. There is the (often highly tenuous) link to the subject matter, the building sense of cognitive dissonance and then the denouement in which the troll moves into the realm of pure surrealist prose (or "gets silly", depending on how you look at it). Typically, when reading such a troll for the first time, and in the context of the thread, the reader's reaction goes through stages.

   At the opening of the troll, in which the technological subject matter is being obliquely referred to, the reader is curious. There is an unconscious assumption that what is being used is a metaphor, which appears opaque but will actually make an argument clear (in such a way the surrealist trolls subvert the category of metaphor as used in scientific discussions). Then, the tension between the what the reader wants to read and what he/she sees on the page grows, but the reader still tries to hang on to the idea that he/she is reading "News for Nerds". Finally, when the reality (that is, the unreality) of the troll is revealed, the reader is outraged at having been tricked.

   
   Thus, we can see that the distinction between the classical and surrealist trolls is one of inversion; metaphor versus metonymy. The classical troll traps the reader in metaphor, creating the "character" or authorial fiction, which the reader takes as a metonymy for "The Other" - the fictional creature on the screen is espousing Microsoft, or Libertarianism, or something else which must be ritually reacted to, rather than read as if it were a metaphorical text. The surrealist troll appears to use metaphor, but creates no authorial fiction. The piling up of the metonymic symbols of trolldom (cheese, Natalie Portman, the Troll itself) draws the reader into the pure text, looking for a meaning (or metaphor) which is always deferred. The reader wants to create an authorial fiction, but this is denied - and it is this denial which is the source of his/her rage. The surrealist troll lets the reader down with a bump - the satirical troll, in its purest form, never lets the reader out at all, leaving him/her stuck in a world which is false, because he/she is being manipulated by the authorial fiction. Classical trolling is about the use of metaphor to create metonymy; surrealist trolling is using metonymy to create metapor.

   1. Wow, that's pretty deep.
      
      YHBT. YHL. HAND. (Ha ha, only serious)
   
   
2. Do you always list the trolls in these forums?
   
   Pretty much so, yeah. There's been "trolltalk", "trolltalk2", "31337troll" and a bunch of others. It's good to be able to see other people's work, to discuss trolling, and on occasion to have a way of proving for sure that something you wrote was a troll, to a particularly persistent mark.
   
3. What's the current 31337 forum?
   
   If I could tell you, I'd have to kill you. There have been a few problems with people stalking some of the trolls, and spamming the troll forums with whitespace to make them unusable. There's no big secret or anything, it's just that we'd like to think that finding the troll forum requires a modicum of commitment and ingenuity. There's one pretty well-trafficked troll forum which is listed in most of the usual indices. Look, fuck it, you used to be able to find BBSes, didn't you? This is no different.
   
4. Isn't that a bit hypocritical, to keep moving the troll forum because it gets trolled?
   
   Yada yada yada.
   
5. But if I know the sid of the 1337 forum, I can read the trolls as they happen?
   
   Welllllll ..... yeah ... I suppose that technically you can, and you need never be taken in by a troll again. But that's a bit lame, don't you think? This is meant to be a game, after all.
   
6. What should I do if I suspect a troll?
   
   Write a nice, long post, beginning with the phrase "I'm sure this is a troll, but ....", get really angry, call everyone a bunch of assholes and always reply to follow ups : -) Nahhh, that's what we'd like you to do.
   1. Well what should I do, then?
      
      The only approved, correct, 1337 way to deal with a troll is not to reply at all. Don't say anything. Just sit back and feel smugly self-satisfied that you caught the troll. Go on. People always seem to say the word "smug" as if it were a bad thing, but how can something that feels so good be wrong? Smirk. Once the troll is "dead" (once the author has taken credit for it and admitted the troll), you might want to post a message about it. You'll probably get a nice reply.
      
   2. Should I alert others to the troll?
      
      Wellllll .... if you really must, I suppose you can, but it is a bit lame and lacks eliteness. For one thing, it makes you look like a bit of a spoilsport. For another, it gives unfair clues to people who have no idea of what to do with them. For yet another, it's quite possible that the people you warn will ignore you. Either that, or start arguing with you, saying things like "Well it may be a troll but ....". In which case, you're now the one who's wasting bandwidth by starting fruitless discussions; ie, you've turned into a troll yourself. If you must go through this, however, just post up "This is a troll", or something. Don't link to the troll forum post claiming credit - that is truly lame.
      
   3. How about if I reply to the points made in the troll, but preface my post with the words "I'm pretty sure this is a troll, but in any case"?
      
      Then you should be prepared to live with being a laughing stock. We live off people like you, who simply can't stop themselves from pouring out conventional wisdom, even when they know they are being made monkeys of. And no, the "I'm pretty sure ..." disclaimer doesn't make you look ironic and knowing.
   
   
7. Why shouldn't I link to the troll forum post if I spot a troll?
   
   Well, fundamentally, it lacks class. For one thing, you're feeding the troll while pretending not to feed it, which is dishonest. For another, you're encouraging lots of enraged people to visit the troll forum. This means that the troll forum gets spammed, the trolls move, and you now will be forced to spot trolls for yourself rather than reading them off the list, lamer. Also, the trolls can't tell who it was who brought the spammer there, so all the other people who used to enjoy reading the daily trolls don't find out where the new forum is.
   

How can I start trolling for myself?

"Just do it", as that noted provider of employment to Indonesian children once said. Your first trolls are unlikely to be offensive enough to draw many responses, but once you lose your disinclination to be unpleasant, results will follow. Of course, you may incipiently be a natural trolling genius like dmg, who got huge pops from the get-go. Choose a story which will get a lot of traffic, try to get an early, top-level post, etc, etc (here might follow a whole load of shit from the Karma HOWTO which I'm not going to reproduce). And, offend. You might want to start off with a right-wing maniac troll.

1. What are the key elements of an RWM troll?
   
   RWM is the source from which it all flows. Like an origami master building everything from a folded base, or a woodworker turning a chair-leg, the entirety of the art is encapsulated in this one element. It is possible to dedicate your entire trolling career to the perfection of the RWM (troll gods 80md and 70% more or less have done). If you can't write an RWM troll, you can't write a troll.

   
   The key to the RWM troll is to realise its heritage from Usenet. Usenet trolling was all about cross-posting controversial statements to start flame-wars between different newsgroups. On slashdot, you can't cross-post, so you have to identify people who can be brought into conflict where you are. The beauty of the RWM troll is not so much that he sets rightwingers against leftwingers, but that he creates cognitive dissonance in rightwing readers, because they want to agree with his conclusions (or at least, his less obviously mad ones), but can't bring themselves to accept his reasoning (or simulation thereof). RWM also exploits the fact that a lot of people with right-wing views haven't necessarily thought out those views very comprehensively, and so are vulnerable to cognitive dissonance caused by the inconsistency of what they believe. Among the elements of right-wing mania are:

   • Libertarianism. Everything should be legalised, even obviously destructive things. All government regulations should be removed. The market will protect your privacy, as firms which don't give you privacy will go out of business. Everything which is, is for the best, otherwise the market would have got rid of it. Yes, free speech does include child pr0n. Etc.
     
   • Corporation-worship. Capitalism works, boyeee. Big companies are the lifeblood of the country and the technology industry. They're successful, so they must be good, so they should be given all those responsiblilities which currently belong to the government. Only the government can censor (it's probably in the dictionary definition), so anything a corporation can do is morally right. The property rights of companies are more important than any rights you think you have.
     
   • Religious nuttery. Everything is potentially Satanic, even things which seem quite innocuous. The liberals, relativists and communists are indoctrinating our children. There is a conspiracy afoot against Christians, and the downward moderation of this post just goes to prove it. Evolution is by no means proven.
     
   • Americanism. USA! USA! USA!
   
   Obviously, everyone who disagrees with a RWM is a socialist, even if they don't think they are.
   
   
2. What are the key elements of a "character" troll?
   
3. I think I want to do a surrealist troll, what should I do?
   
4. How much effort should I put into a troll?
   
5. How can I get more replies?
   
6. Should I "feed" my trolls?
   
7. When should I admit to being a troll?

Further information

1. Other FAQs
   
2. Useful research sites
   
3. Credits.
   

Lightning bolt!

[Anonymous Coward]

Lightningbolt!
Lightning bolt!
Lightning bolt!
Lightning bolt!
Lightningbolt!

Whiny Scott Lockwood

[Anonymous Coward]

Scott Lockwood whines just to hear himself.

"You know, I'd stay retired if these fools would just find another target."

We did. We had an agreement. We moved on to other things. Scott Lockwood didn't. Scott Lockwood couldn't STAND being left alone. He can't live without negative attention, and he's willing to do whatever it takes to atract it. He had, and still does, have the chance to be left alone FOREVAR, just by shutting the hell up. We gave him once chance, and he flat-out lied to us. We left him alone, and he couldn't stand it, so he started spamming himself all over the Internet and goading us to pay attention to him again.

We put up with it for quite a while, but the frequency and volume of his attention-seeking continued to increase. Well, if he wants attention, he'll get it.

Scott Lockwood, it's all up to you. You can stop it any time you like. You know that VladeKua5y is doomed. Stop fucking yourself over. You can end it any time, if you have willpower and honest. The problem is that you don't. You have no morality as a person.

Is this Scott Lockwood? No, Scott Lockwood is much wider than that. Is this Scott Lockwood, or is this? There are so many that seem to fit him, I just can't decide.

Oh well. On to the future. There's much to be done, and little time to do it.

Amherst-Fag and the Unsafe Driving

[Anonymous Coward]

From: Ceee Peee
To: k22320inchfan@lists.io.com
Subject: Re: [k22320inchfan] Last day at work
Date sent: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 19:28:42 -0800 (PST)
Send reply to: k22320inchfan@lists.io.com
(This is CP0008)

Heh, you showed more sense than I. The last time I
tried pulling a stunt like that (revealing such
affections), the object of my affection nearly drove
off the road and into some parked cars. Everything's
still fine between us, but there were those few
fleeting moments involving a high-speed vehicle and
several tons of steel which wouldn't have worked so well.

(This is CP0008)

Mindrover is also now available (again)

[StarTux]

You can also purchase the 1.07 version of MindRover and buy an update for the original version of the LokiGames release (which will also enable you to get future updates.

Information here:

http://www.linuxgamepublishing.com/info.php?id=9

Finally, got my own linuxsimulations.org site going, to help cover Linux Simulations that run on Linux, which is a neglected area at teh moment.

StarTux

I love FPS games too.....

[sawilson]

But yeah. Plenty of them out there. The reason I
like them is that there is no time commitment. You
are in and out and it's over. No need to find the
mystic jewel of donut or anything like that. What
I'd REALLY like to see is a kickass multiplayer
online racing game. Something that's as good as a
playstation2 racing game. Need For Speed 8, where
you race against online players through super
realistic maps of real life cities. Twould (yeah,
invented a word) rule to blow by other online
players in a ferrari spyder with the top down on
lakeshore drive, or US 1, or route 66.

Ummm...Why?

[jayhawk88]

OK, don't take this as a troll (and no I'm not just saying that to Karma Whore), but what kind of a choice is this for a Linux port? Having never played the game myself, I won't comment on whether it's good or not, but I can comment on the interest this will recieve with your average gamer: 0.

Seriously, if you're going to go to all the trouble of porting a game, why wouldn't you want to port a big-name title that might actually generate some interest? Where's The Sims? Where's Civilization 3? Where's Warcraft 3? Where's Unreal Tournament? Hell, where's the Half Life client?

Is it just the developers that make this difficult? Are the small guys (or obscure games) the only ones willing to play ball? Are there GPL issues at work here? I really can't understand how a developer/publisher would object to some company wanting to port their game to another platform, assuming they could work out some kind of deal where the original developer/publishing house would get a portion of profits made. Is it a fear of quality control? (Which, if true, is really funny if you've patched...er, played a major release video game in the past 5 years).

Seriously, this is not meant to be an anti-linux troll or flame. I'm really interested in what the major road-block here is. Sorry to any Disciples 2 fans out there, but releases like this will do next to nothing to generate interest in big-time Linux gaming.

Re:Ummm...Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to ask, "Where's Quake 3?"

Re:Ummm...Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Unreal Tournament? What the fuck, the client's been available for ages. And that's BOTH the original and 2k3.
2. And the other games? Well, it's either the company's not interested (like Blizzard and Valve, they seriously don't care) or the asking price was too much to justify paying for at this time. That's all that there is to it. That is all you need to understand the current situation.

Re:Ummm...Why?

[stratjakt]

How dare you

linux has Tux Racer

and some ass-y pacman thing

it's going to put microsoft out of business any day now!

Re:Ummm...Why?

[jayhawk88]

UT I wasn't aware of, my bad.

But you gotta admit, you can probably count on one hand the number of top-shelf games ported for Linux. And as the story submitter implied, they're mostly all FPS's. You're probably right in that it's mostly just developer apathy, but I still think that if someone made a strong push, a lot of these companies would be very interested in working with someone on ports of higher-calibur games.

Re:Ummm...Why?

[nelsonal]

Because all of the big games have two parts to cost, porting costs and licensing costs. I would guess that porting costs would vary from game to game, but licensing costs would be directly proportional to the games popularity. For a start up today funding is what the founder has in a checking account, it would be better to start with something that will cost little to license. Serious Sam might be another choice, but competitive issues might be a problem there.
Now the company that wrote the game could port it, but they probably realize that the market is very limited, how many linux desktops are out there, and how many of them are ever used for more games that xBill. Let's face it most linux users who game at all keep a windows machine around for games. Because of this, the linux games are competing for a very small market. Additionally, the last company that tried to port games to linux failed fairly rapidly because they couldn't recoup their costs. Why would anyone take the risk of porting a huge name?

Re:Ummm...Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Where's Unreal Tournament?"

What kind of crack are you smoking? All the Unreal games so far work on Linux, aside from Unreal 2...

And I was excited about Disciples 2. Maybe learn some facts and stop generalizing before you start ranting about things you know nothing about.

Re:Ummm...Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Strong push, as in lots of money.

It's never as easy as "You want to port game to Linux? Cool, here's the source. See you in a year." NDAs have to be signed and contracts negotiated (also don't want to forget that some companies are ultraparanoid and would require onsite development). Is the porter reputable? Will the port be completed, and on a timely basis? How many questions will the porter need to ask about the development and the source code? What third party libraries were used, and are they available on the target system? Will the port be compatible with the original? Is there a real need for the port?

All of this is not going to encourage a developer or publisher to agree to a port, even if it may give somebody a warm, fuzzy feeling that the game will be enjoyed by a few more people. They want money (if they weren't interested in profit, they'd just distribute the game for free or at a greatly reduced profit). The more popular the game, the more the asking price will be (ex. Ah, but they only are willing to pay $25,000 for the licensing! This game is popular enough, so if they REALLY want the game, they'd better show us the dough).

The two companies I mentioned by name are usually always mentioned when somebody wants a certain game ported. "Warcraft! Diablo! Starcraft! Half-Life! Counter Strike!" From what I've heard, most Blizzard employees don't care too much for the Linux users, due to their zealot tendencies. And Valve, well, they cancelled a mostly-complete Mac port of Half-Life, and a Mac version would most likely sell better than a Linux version.

So, the best we can do, in my opinion, is to stay with the smaller, lesser-known titles, take what we can get, and work our way up from there.

Re:Ummm...Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

These are the games I own, that are playable in Linux without some sort of
extra software (wine, dosemu, dosbox):

(*) Wolfenstein 3D
(*) Spear of Destiny
(*) Macintosh Wolfenstein 3D
(*) Ultimate DOOM
(*) DOOM 2
(*) Final DOOM
(*) Descent
(*) Descent 2
(*) Quake
(*) Quake Mission Pack (Scourge of Armagon)
(*) Quake Mission Pack (Dissolution of Eternity)
(*) Quake 2
(*) Quake 2 Mission Pack (The Reckoning)
(*) Quake 2 Mission Pack (Ground Zero)
(*) Quake 3
(*) Heretic
(*) Hexen
(*) Hexen Mission Pack (Deathkings of the Dark Citadel)
(*) Hexen 2
(*) Hexen 2 Mission Pack (Portal of Praevus)
Eric's Ultimate Solitaire
Descent 3
Heavy Gear 2
Heretic 2
Heros of Might and Magic 3
Kohan
Postal
MindRover
Myth 2
Railroad Tycoon 2
SimCity 3000 Unlimited
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
Rune
Soldier of Fortune
(*) Aliens verses Predator Gold
Descent 3 Mercenary
(*) Freespace
(*) Freespace 2
Totally Unreal
Creatures 3 Internet Edition
Tux Racer
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Unreal Tournament 2003

(*) - playable using publicly available source code

There is only one other game that I own, and that's Strife. (DOOM-engine DOS
game from 1996).

And I'll be honest. Kohan is the only game that I've played for more than
20 hours total in the past two or three years.

Re:Ummm...Why?

[treke]

In case you didnt hear, Ryan Gordon has a public beta of Serious Sam for Linux up at http://icculus.org/betas/ssam/

It's a great game, but the replay value is limited

[Kjella]

I've played it through, all four campaigns, and the game itself is great. However, the computer is too easy to fool (even on Very Hard), though I felt the same in HOMM3 (haven't played HOMM4), so I guess that's not just this game.

Playing it multiplayer is a whole different beast, but I really don't like it. All too much depends on who sees who first and can beef up/spellblast to make the actual fight completely uneven.

Personally I feel it was well worth the money, but once you finish the campaigns it's not much more to do, the scenarios aren't that interesting. It's a game to play once, win, and find the next good one in the bin. But that's fine with me, I got bored with Morrowind because it was *too* big - I had to get a solve to actually get anywhere with the main quest - I was winning every battle, but didn't find the right battles to fight....

Kjella

Re:Scott Lockwood - Unbalanced Mental-Case

[Anonymous Coward]

we didn't care in trolltalk, and we sure as fuck don't care now. how many hours of your life have you wasted thinking about that fat fuck?

probably the only thing you do more of is masturbating. or maybe you're masturbating while you think about vlad, just to save time?

Disciples 2 Review

[sputnik73]

I remember playing the demo of the original Disciples, a game that emerged as a sleeper hit in a genre that had been dominated by the Heroes of Might & Magic series. I found Disciples easier to get into than HOMM, and thus I thought it had great potential. So when the Disciples II demo was released, I immediately downloaded it and began playing. I wasn't disappointed. I played and experimented for hours on end. Suddenly forgotten were all of the other games I'd been playing for weeks: Battle Realms, Galactic Battlegrounds, Throne of Darkness.

Disciples II: Dark Prophecy is a fine, addictive turn-based strategy game that will have you up all hours of the night, unable to tear yourself away from the computer.

After immersing myself in the demo for two weeks and alienating myself from my family, I was compelled to purchase the game. Unfortunately, CompUSA did not have the collector's edition on the shelf, so I settled for the regular edition.

I haven't been able to stop playing since I bought it.

The oddest part is, I've never been a fan of turn-based strategy. I could just never get into it. Disciples II has opened my eyes to a whole new world of gaming. It's that rare game that offers a thoroughly satisfying experience.

The Disciples series has been and will continue to be compared to HOMM (which is readying for a release of its fourth installment). One of the things that jumps out as a striking difference is the graphics. While both games boast some very attractive images, Disciples is a decidedly darker game and more grounded, it seems, in the fantasy setting. And while HOMM's combat screen is moving to a more isometric and zoomed-out perspective, Disciples II adheres to a combat interface that displays large images of the units, which makes for more detailed characters and interesting animations.

The units in the game are quite varied and boast some intriguing--and even amusing--abilities. In one battle, for example, I put my Undead Hordes army, consisting of a Death Knight, Doomdrake and Fighter, up against a neutral army that included two magic-using units that could transform my units. My Doomdrake was transformed into a huge blubbery Jabba-the-Hut figure for a number of rounds and, when attempting to attack in this state, would simply fall over backwards. It was a frustrating battle, but I somehow prevailed. And beware of armies with Ghouls and Ghosts or Specters. These units can paralyze your units. You'll spend round after round watching your units be paralyzed and pummeled.

One of the great features of the game is RPG-like development of your units. Some of the most important decisions you make will be the upgrade paths you choose. The upgrade paths determine the abilities, strengths and weaknesses of your advanced units.

One of the things you'll quickly discover is that you have to build balanced parties in order to survive your battles. Units have various immunities, so if you assemble an army of units with the same kind of attack, you'll likely encounter an enemy with an immunity to it and find yourself getting thrashed. Elements like this add a lot of tactical decision making to the gameplay.

The only real complaint I can lodge about the game at this point is that the retreat feature seems to me to be rather flawed. Retreating from combat usually means death to your party. I'd really like to see a patch to improve this feature so that you can bow gracefully out of a battle when you find yourself overmatched. In a game where economy is important and resources are contested, it's just too expensive to lose a whole group of units, which occurs more often than not when you attempt to retreat.

All in all, Disciples II is a very satisfying and challenging game. I can only hope that Strategy First will continue to release add-ons and sequels to the series, because I am thoroughly hooked.

Re:Disciples 2 Review

[bottlerocket]

*cough* Plant. *cough cough*

Re:Disciples 2 Review

[damiangerous]

HOMM (which is readying for a release of its fourth installment).

"readying for?" Heroes 4 was released back in March or April. Where did you plagiarise this piece from?

Re:Disciples 2 Review

[Xoro]

"readying for?" Heroes 4 was released back in March or April. Where did you plagiarise this piece from?

From a reader review in PC Game Review. Too bad, too. It was a nice try. But maybe sputnik73 and RayG from KY work in the same department?

Not yet another...

[nule.org]

Not yet another *insert overdone gametype here*

It seems that no matter what kind of game this is, it deserves the comment "Oh, not yet another *blank*". Not yet another FPS. Not yet another RTS. Not yet another MMORPG. I'm not just talking about Linux here, there just isn't a whole lot of variety out there *period*.

Don't get me wrong - I'm a Linux gamer and I'm pleased to see more coming out. I really love UT2K3 and my copy of NWN is pre-ordered. I hate TBS, so I'll pass on this one probably, unless I find it on the cheap somewhere. I bought a bunch of Loki games just to support them and look where that got me (crickey - Postal is a crappy game).

But back to my off-topic - are there any unique ideas out there about game-types? We have our FPS and our strategy games (TBS and RTS). We have RPGs including MMORPGS, real-time, turn-based, hybrid, 3d and isomorphic. There are card games and economic sims (I *heart* gazillionaire), empire builders and even bridge builders. But when was the last time you saw something new? The Sims? Boy are we in trouble.

Does anybody have a really cool and unique idea you could let us in on?

Re:Not yet another...

[analog_line]

Cubivore for GameCube. Mister Mosquito for PS2. Jet Grind Radio for Dreamcast.

Frankly, the Japanese are the only ones trying to do things really different from the American or European game studios. Most of the games either never get over here, or are relegated to the novelty or Nipponophile markets. I'm frankly amazed that Cubivore and Mister Mosquito made it over to this side of the Pacific. Anyone who's looking for something different, stay away from American game designers. We push the limits of the genres, but no one with any money here is willing to create any new ones. Just subdivide the ones we already have.

Re:Not yet another...

[Steveftoth]

But on the flip side, the Japanese are also responsible for all the clone games that exist as well. They just make more games then any other country per capita.

Re:Not yet another...

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anybody have a really cool and unique idea you could let us in on?

I have been thinking of making a game where you play this guy or thing or something, that goes around in maze and eats delicious dots. To make it challenging, there would be some kind of monsters in the maze, maybe ghosts or something.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Re:Not yet another...

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anybody have a really cool and unique idea you could let us in on?

I am writing a game where you defend our green and blue planet from aliens! They come and darken our skies with a swarm of landing craft that fly in formation, back and forth, slowly descending. If they manage to land, YOU LOSE! Fortunately, the player will have a gun they can move back and forth, which can blow up the lander. But beware: the landers shoot back!

No, you are mistaken

[Anonymous Coward]

As a non-commercially accepted game, with a loud (and smelly and bearded) hardcore geek fanbase that will happily shout its praises, this game is a perfect fit for Linux.

Well no wonder it hasn't sold well...

[goldspider]

"Suggested Retail

Price£30.00"

Who here in the States has £30.00 laying around?

Re:Well no wonder it hasn't sold well...

[Buck2]

"£"??

Is that like a log-likelihood or something?

Optimize, optimize, yay optimize!

mixture-model, mixture-model, rah rah rah!

Doesn't work that way.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that work has to begin on either porting massively popular games

Off course all of us linux users would love to have every big name game available in a native linux port, but Linuxgamepublishing (LGP) has not choice but to contiue down this path.

First off, game companies don't want to pay to have their games ported to Linux. LGP must pay the game company to port their game and also pay royalties on each copy to them as well in the same manner that Loki did (minus the corruption).

I asked Mike Simms about this a few weeks ago, and he brought up that new AAA titles are very expensive to port, so for LGP to be profitable they are mostly porting lesser known titles.

It would be great if he could work with game companies as a consultant to port games, but the very small nubmer of companies that are willing to pay for this service are being served by icculus.org.
Mike is a really nice guy and has no interest in competing with icculus for porting contracts.

Yes, it's the right approach.

[Chris Burke]

wouldn't it be in LGP's best interest to work on porting games that are more comercially successful?

Short answer: No.

Long answer: A game that is commercially successful is going to cost more to get a license for. Loki apparently payed several hundred thousand dollars for the rights to some of their games. Unsurprisingly, the immature Linux gaming market wasn't large enough for them to recoup their costs. That, along with mismanagement, is what buried Loki. LGP, not wanting to go bankrupt, is taking the much more conservative business model (remember that, from before the .com boom?) of buying rights to less successful games. They're going to be much cheaper, and thus require much fewer sales to recoup the costs of. With the dearth of Linux games, users are going to buy the game if it interests them whether or not it's a big-name title. For example, I never would have heard of Disciples if I was still using Windows. But because I use Linux and I crave HOMM-like gameplay, I'll be buying the only new game in that genre, namely Disciples 2. What's the point? To make money. Not a ton of money, but to make money. If LGP can profit off of Disciples, then they can afford to do another game. Maybe a bigger-name game. Each game they can profit off of grows not only themselves but the Linux game market. With a slow, conservative approach they have a much better chance of being successfull than if they bought a $300,000 game, lost $1 mill, then went bankrupt.

The reason you think work has to begin on porting massively popular games seems to be because of a common, but incorrect line of thinking: That Linux has to become a major desktop success right now. It doesn't. Modest, sustainable growth in Linux gaming is the correct method, and the one that will work. Maybe the size of the market will reach a critical mass and be able to grow much more rapidly, but trying to force that day to come sooner by over-reaching is a recipe for failure. LGP learned this lesson from Loki, and I think they learned the right one.

Re:Yes, it's the right approach.

[Jason Earl]

Exactly right. This game sounds pretty interesting, and they almost certainly can get the rights to the port for a song. Even better, instead of competing against the mulititude of good Windows games the Linux port of Disciples 2 will basically be competing against NetHack. The desktop Linux market might be small, but it is large enough to support an effort like this as long as they keep it conservative.

Re:Yes, it's the right approach.

[Chris Burke]

Even better, instead of competing against the mulititude of good Windows games the Linux port of Disciples 2 will basically be competing against NetHack.

Heh. I dunno, Nethack is some pretty tough competition. Though I do normally need something else to play after my latest promising Priestess dies because I accidentally touched a cockatrice. I need a week or so to recover emotionally, and some nice HOMM-like gameplay would be just the ticket. :)

Re:Yes, it's the right approach.

[kcbrown]

The reason you think work has to begin on porting massively popular games seems to be because of a common, but incorrect line of thinking: That Linux has to become a major desktop success right now. It doesn't.

Yes, it does. Or, rather, it has to in the near future. The reason? Palladium and TCPA.

If Microsoft retains its current dominance, then the combination of Palladium in their OS and TCPA in the hardware will eventually lead to a hardware platform that will not boot anything but a "trusted" operating system, and we all know that "trusted" is measured by the large corporations, not by the end user.

Only if Linux on the desktop becomes popular enough quickly enough will we avoid the situation where we're forced to pay massively inflated prices for "server" hardware (because the only reason you would want to run an "untrusted" operating system is if you're running a "server", right?).

Lightning bolt!

[Anonymous Coward]

Lightning bolt!
Lightning bolt!
Lightning bolt!
Lightningbolt!
Lightningbolt!

Sleep,

[Anonymous Coward]

Death.

Where's the FreeBSD version?

[Anonymous Coward]

I run FreeBSD on all my machines and all my friends run FreeBSD too. We would like to support a FreeBSD vendor of games.

Re:Where's the FreeBSD version?

[/dev/trash]

why would you use a hardened Server OS, for games?

JESUS H PISSWHISTLE! LINUX IS SO LAME!

[stratjakt]

holy flurking shnit

'some shitty old strategy game isnt worth shit so it's going to be dumped on the compost heap that is the linux community

like a horde of dung beetles, linux zealots everywhere are scurrying to roll a piece of this turd onto their own desktops.'

goddamn. get a life. and an xbox. or at least install windows

Only microsoft can provide gaming funness

That oughta take my karma back down to regular levels

Re:JESUS H PISSWHISTLE! LINUX IS SO LAME!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mommy! Make the bad man go away!

You are pathetic.

I might only point out that *you* are not. . .

[kfg]

"gamers."

"Gamers" play all sorts of things. That includes FPS's, which are, indeed, the most popular genre among many gamers, but as has already been pointed out *there is no particular shortage* of games available under Linux for those that enjoy FPS's.

Gamers *do* also play stratagy games and walkthroughs that take hours, weeks and months to play. For them *another* FPS, even though most of them *also* play FPS's, is annoying. The poster was not antiFPS. He was anti oversaturation with FPS's when so many other genres go begging.

You sir, are the sort who likes to kick back and play a game now and again to unwind ( and quite frankly most gamers would say that means you're only a guy who likes to play a game and wouldn't admit you to the rank of "gamer" in the first place) and there's nothing wrong with that. FPS's are nearly ideal * for you.* Not "gamers."

I might also point out that turn based stratagy games are absolutely *perfect* for the person with limited time to play.

And "gamers" think these games are, well, gamers don't use the term "1337" except faceciously.

KFG

Multiplayer?

[Samus]

A quick question about the multiplayer for those that have played the windows version. Is there multiplayer? The only type that I saw mentioned was hot seat. I've been looking around for a nice slow paced strategy game lately and this might be it. I'd still like to be able to play it with my friends online though.

An interesting business idea

[Gyorg_Lavode]

I think it's an interesting business model. Video games rely heavily on advertising and so even a good game has a good chance of not being recognized.

Linux users are somewhat of a captive audience. They are somewhat more educated and probably more likely to read a review of a game at least once before getting it. Also, they are more likely to see any particular game because of the low number of high quality games available. If a game does not do well in the main stream because it was overshadowed, it didn't apply to the majority of people, or maybe it just wasn't so completely innovative that it captured everyone that had contact with it, then market it to a smaller market where quality, (thought not necesarily originality), matters. A market that is actively looking for good, quality games.

I think it's interesting that the market for linux games developed for profit is slowly increasing. It began with the FPS's, but it is now moving more into the simulation and RPG geners. I hope that the pattern holds, and no matter how slowly, the linux game market becomes as plentiful as the windows game market.

Games I would like to see ported

[GReaToaK_2000]

I would like to see them port...

AOE (Age of Empires)
AOE II (Age of Kings)
AOM (Age of Mythology)

I realize it is NOT BLOODY likely, considering they are M$ games, but I can hope..

Greatoak

Re:Games I would like to see ported

[deus_X_machina]

... and Saddam Hussein is hoping that the United States will port him over some technology to use in the up coming war with Iraq... ;)

Re:Games I would like to see ported

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I Understand!

AOL (Age of Losers)

I agree with this post

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is for pear shaped people with no real prospects besides their lunix box.

What the hell are these people thinking ?

[tmark]

Whether or not releasing a port of some old Windows game makes good business sense is debatable. But what are these people thinking when they spend good time and money porting a game that wasn't successful on Windows ? If it ain't successful on Windows, how do they expect to make their money on Linux, where there are far fewer gamers ? Wouldn't it make more sense to port some game that was moderately succesful ? Maybe this is some stealth MS project designed to make Linux look really bad...

Re:What the hell are these people thinking ?

[deus_X_machina]

Yeah but I think Linux users go for quality over what appeals to the masses. Take for instance Clive Barker's "Undying", a game that wasn't very commercially successful but is outstanding, I'd imagine it would have more commercial success, due to it's high quality and innovation, on a platform used by more computer savy people who are concerned getting quality software. Many times high selling games aren't quality games, (Survivor, Britney's Dance Beat, James Bond: Nightfire, etc) marketed to appeal to the masses and sell rather than provide a quality long term gaming experience.

However, your point is well taken, I would love to see games like WCIII or Medal of Honor for Linux, but I'd imagine they have deals with Micro$oft not to devolop on the Linux platform.

Should have....

[mao che minh]

...chosen to port the infinity engine games. All of the games are basically the same in terms of design and what not, you port one you port them all. And obviously, most Linux users are the geeky kind: we like RPG's, and I would bet alot of money that half of the people reading Slashdot right now own an Infinity engine game.

I forgot to add...

[mao che minh]

...that porting the infinity engine would allow to rapidly make mods and expansions - Linux only expansions. Also, official expansion packs could easily be ported, probably very near to the actual date of the Windows release.

LGP and ports.

[AnonymousCowheard]

I am always frequenting Linuxgames.com for information, help new users run their applications on Linux, and to then throw a cape on my back and post as the Alpha Troll. I was contacted by a representative of the Linux Game Publishing group about their interest in porting their current project "Majesty" to the clean 64bit Alpha platform. LGP's main office, from what I understand, is somewhere in London and they have a small workforce in Tustin-California. I have not received word from them for about 1 month on whether they would like for me to schedule a drop-off of a good Alpha Linux|netBSD computer. For those of you that say Alhpa is dead...you are dead wrong. Also of use to commercial developers, the Alpha platform offers benefit of a clean code-path to port software to other 64bit platforms in the future.

LGP is quite a promising group of people. They're working alongside Tuxgames to sell their software. If you support Linux, you should purchase all your software from Tuxgames. As for Happypenguin, this news is 24 hours old and Linuxgames.com posted an article before they did :-) . Happypenguin.org covers more home-brew games than Linuxgames.com, but when it comes to commercial games they both offer competitivly insightful forums. For the greatest source of gaming news in europe, HOLARSE is the place to go (PS: use babelfish).

In fact, just now, Linuxgames.com has an article about how LGP is taking over the porting effort of Mindrover: Eruopa Project. And one last thought, Linuxgames.com doesn't censor their forums, unlike Happypenguin.org

Re:LGP and ports.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, if you'd just been willing to call me, I'd be willing to give out my home address so it can be dropped off. Since you were unwilling to do so, I'm now looking for a used alpha instead (which is slowing things down a bit).

Yet another turn-based strategy

[eGabriel]

When are we going to get some new first person shooters? When do we get Tribes III?

another strategy game, blech:

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny how you scoff at FPS, but rejoice in strategy games...
That's your own preference, I realize, but what we need here is more space shooters

IN SOVIET RUSSIA...

[Anonymous Coward]

We shoot first person!

Re:IN SOVIET RUSSIA...

[Helios292]

I couldn't resist... forgive me...

In Soviet Russia, all your inane meme are belong to us!

(For great redundancy!)

MICHAEL IS A TOTAL DICKWAD

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right.

Re:MICHAEL IS A TOTAL DICKWAD

[dolson]

I know! He held his kid over a balcony!!! I can't believe they didn't charge him! What an irresponsible parent!

Only one FPS should be ported

[dolson]

and that is Daikatana. That game would make so much money for LGP, they'd never go bankrupt.

Disciples 2

[olman]

Disciples 2? Crappy? Under which rock did you slither from?

Turn based fantasy strategy at it's most addictive. Way better than HOMM..

They aren't??

[dolson]

The hell you say!!!

Popular game the best choice?

[chazbot]

Yeah, they could port a best selling type of game. However, being a best seller means the market has already been saturated to some amount. Yes, there are the linux faithful who will buy it even if they own a copy for Microsoft Windows, but there are those who, already owning a copy, won't dish out additional cash. By porting a good game (let's assume it is) that never really took off, they may have a potentially larger market.

have you ever noticed...

[shaitand]

that they never port the popular MMORPG's? such as EQ and DAOC? These are probably the biggest fanatic driven games out there... a huge number of the people playing these games ONLY play their one RPG and do virtually nothing else on the machine, these would be perfect candidates for a port since they aren't tied to their OS except for the game. I know several people who play EQ or DAOC and keep dual-boots just for this purpose...

More than one way to read a headline

[ReadParse]

I guess there are a few ways to read that headline. At first reading, I figured a few "disciples" had gotten together and made a distribution of Linux... figured they called it "Port of Disciples". And now they're announcing their second version, considering the raving success of the first version.

Mod parent down- no conflict of interest.

[jensend]

Michael Sims, /. user 4716 and editor, posted a story about a game being ported by Michael Simms, user 580077. They are two different people. There is no reason Michael Sims ought not to have posted the news about Michael Simms' port. There is no conflict of interest just because they have similar names.

And by the way, Disciples 2 was rated very highly by just about every review site out there. IIRC, Disciples 1 was multiple-GOTY awarded. However, Disciples 2 was not very well marketed. I would bet Disciples 2 will be on Gamespot's 2002 Awards for Best Game Nobody Played.

Re:Mod parent down

[puto]

Yo, IT is not Michael Sims. But REALLY Michael Simms. So it could be the same guy. Because Michael Simms editor at slashdot has given interviews with CNN, answered questions with newsgroups using MICHAEL SIMMS as his name.

I ain't saying it is the sam guy. But sho do look strange.

Well I am gonna post this three times, so flame on, troll, do whatever. I dont care here is what a little investigation brought back. Maybe someone here can do a more digging with this evidence.

The links are too articles and the articles are quoted below the links. Almost looks like to be the same Michael as Michael Simms from Slashdot has a uk email address in one. Isnt Linux Games UK based?

Michael Simms..

http://www.nylug.org/mlist/nylug-talk_mhonarc/20 01 -02/msg00396.html

This an excerpt from an article about a LUG that interviewed Michael and Timothy from Slashdot. Please
note Michaels last Name is SIMMS, not Sims. The same one as the Linux Gamers Guy.

Please join us for a glimpse into "A Day in the life of a Slashdot
Poster". Our presenters will be michael (Michael Simms) and timothy
(Timothy Lord) of /. fame. Timothy and Michael will discuss Slashdot's
history, what it's like working on one of the busiest sites on the Web,
and other issues of importance to the Linux and Open Source community.

http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-general/199 9- 07/msg00385.php

This is an article where Michael Simms(Michael from Slashodot)responds to a forum question about slashdot
and his return email is on a UK. Server, more wood for the fire?

From: Michael Simms <grim@argh.demon.co.uk>
To: scrappy@hub.org (The Hermit Hacker)
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Slashdot...
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 02:37:57 +0100 (BST)

> Does anyone know what you have to do to get anything on slashdot? When
> v6.5 and v6.5.1 was released, I posted something to Slashdot announcing
> it, especially considering that the new MVCC code added by Vadim...

To get anything on /. you need to have a very big stick and live close
to rob so when he doesnt get round to posting information, you can
beat him with it.
If you dont live close to him, then the chances are about one in a
billion it will get posted. You could always email linus and get him
to mail rob, that will do it too {:-)

Yep, making line Enos from the Duke of Hazzard today. I am on the case.

Puto

Merkac Dot - Google Links, Slashdot Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Merkac Dot - The Slashdot Summariser
In the footsteps of alterslash comes another slashdot summariser - Hoping to ease your slashdot browsing.
This is the story with all links pointing to the google cached versions. See Merkac Dot for the full summary

Linux Port of Disciples 2 Announced Games [G] | Posted by michael on Friday December 13, @02:55PM
from the linux-gaming-now-slightly-less-feeble dept.
bobz writes "Happypenguin [G] is reporting [G] that Linux Game Publishing [G] has announced the next game they'll port to Linux will be Disciples 2: Dark Prophecy [G] a turn-based strategy game that was well-reviewed but not terribly successful commercially. /me breathes a sigh of relief that it's not another first-person shooter."

Woot!

[Phekko]

Am I the only one who's actually happy to get more good games fore Linux? Ok, so it is a bit late, but at least we're getting it. Maybe one day I really CAN uninstall Windoze for good *drool*

IN SOVIET RUSSIA...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's:

4. Profit!
5. ???

old Games

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd Like to see some of these old games like my personal favorite Lords of the Realm 2, or
maybe those sonic the hedgehog games since they are every where else and don't realy need a lot of power I'd Buy these either way. also I think that the reason that FPS are ported more than any
is that the tend be packaged file with a loader
(.pak,.wad etc) and this what makes them so easy to port

Last Post!

[alpg]

"I think the sky is blue because it's a shift from black through purple
to blue, and it has to do with where the light is. You know, the
farther we get into darkness, and there's a shifting of color of light
into the blueness, and I think as you go farther and farther away from
the reflected light we have from the sun or the light that's bouncing
off this earth, uh, the darker it gets ... I think if you look at the
color scale, you start at black, move it through purple, move it on
out, it's the shifting of color. We mentioned before about the stars
singing, and that's one of the effects of the shifting of colors."
-- Pat Robertson, The 700 Club

- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...