Ultima on Linux

Mortimer.CA writes "O'Reilly has a story about someone hacking Ultima VII so that it's multiplatform. Exult is replacing the the rendering engine so the game can be played on more than just DOS. A legal copy of Ultima VII is needed to play Exult. I have 'wasted' so many hours on the Ultima series that it's not funny: now I can waste them again on my Unix box." I might have to see if I still have Ultima VII kicking around. I haven't played it since my college days.

Comments

Follow id's example

[jvmatthe]

I'd like to see more game companies follow the example set by John Carmack and id Software: after the period of greatest commerical gain has expired, release the source to your game, but require it be used with legally obtained data files.

Benefits:
- Your game lives forever. When everyone upgrades to the newest Windows and your game doesn't work, someone can fix it. When a new platform arises, someone can port your game for that community of users.
- Your game can be extended by any inventive, industrious fans.
- You gain a lot of good will with the community of gamers.
- Generates interest in your older products, which leads to interest in newer ones.

Potential harms:
- Increased potential for piracy.
- Increased potentially cheating if an online game (although having the source can mean that anti-cheating measures are easier to implement)
- Ugly coding exposed. ;^)

Anyway, when I see things like Exult and ScummVM which reverse-engineer game engines, I'm struck by how much easier life would be for all involved if the company simply realized that releasing the source could be a great idea, both for them and their customers.

Ok, I admit it, I just want Lucasarts to release the source to Grim Fandango. So sue me. :^D