Savage to Support Linux

focitrixilous P writes "Gamespot writes about the upcoming hybrid strategy game Savage: The Battle for Neweth, which will provide a full Linux edition on the same disk as the Windows version. The title blends real time strategy with action titles, along one player to act as a general while others do the actual fighting."

Comments

Portability in Linux

[questamor]

So Linux goes a long way to having a nice standard base system for portability. Is this another game released as a "Linux" game, but really meaning "Linux on x86" game?

I do get a bit pessimistic, and should probably RTFA

Re:Publicity

[AntiOrganic]

I agree. There are really only a few things that are preventing me from switching to Linux.

1. Multimedia support. Xine and Mplayer are great, if you can get them to work. I've had little trouble on SuSE but it's awfully flaky on Slackware, through my experience. Additionally, there's really precious little to compare to Premiere for video editing.
2. Games. I do play a lot of them. Thankfully, ZSNES and a lot of other emulators are available on Linux. This alleviates that tremendously. Unfortunately, Tux Racer isn't my idea of immersive entertainment.
3. Consistency. Red Hat/Mandrake's attempts to unify the desktops with Bluecurve/Galaxy, respectively, are one step in the right direction; now, if GTK+ would only fix that file picker dialog ;D

With Wolfenstein, Neverwinter Nights, and now Savage, we're headed in the right direction. 1 down, 2 to go.

Re:I don't see why this is so difficult.

[sampowers]

It has to do with decisions that the programmers made very early on. If they chose to use ActiveX and take full advantage of all the APIs that Windows as a platform offers, it's going to be very difficult (ie, almost a full rewrite of display, input, and sound code) to port it to another platform.

Smart designers plan for multi-platform use early on. Quake 3 was written portably, and its engine is in use on platforms as exotic as Sega Dreamcast and Playstation 2! And probably many more non-PC type computers. And it's used by a lot of other games too! (Nevermind the fact that those games play almost exactly like Quake 3. I'd like to see an RPG based on the Q3 engine, huh?)

BTW, it must be incredibly painful for anyone who writes a complex 3d graphics engine to hear you say that it's "minor work".

Re:Publicity

[SealBeater]

The trick to installing mplayer is to use an RPM-based distro

No, the trick is to actually read the docs and have an idea of what you are
doing. And no, rpm -i *.rpm doesn't qualify.

Sorry, I just hate laziness of thought and not too fond of those who advocate
such.

SealBeater

Re:What a good idea!

[Dalcius]

No kidding.

I figure if just this once, Slashdot put its money where its mouth is and bought the game, the gaming companies might realize what kind of a market there is. Linux is getting more desktop users every day. Keeping software portable isn't difficult if you keep your code multi-tiered and that relatively small effort gets income from Windows, Linux, XBox, etc... this seems to be a trend.

I thought this game sounded good, much like Allegiance or even Battlezone II. The graphics look nice, and I could use a new game. But normally I'd just wait until it hit shelves and take a look then.

But Linux support? Hell yeah. I just preordered this game from EB.

$39.99. That's $10 off, you get access to the ongoing beta when your order is confirmed (which Linux is a part of, per the article), a free comic about the game and Linux support in what looks to be a good game.
Not bad.