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Savage to Support Linux

Posted by michael on from the support-linux-gaming dept.

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."

23 of 259 comments (clear)

  1. What a good idea! by James+A.+A.+Joyce · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's such an obvious idea I'm surprised that no one's thought of it before. With games makers keeping their games sensibly small it's entirely possible for someone to squeeze a version for Windows and Linux on one disk; heck, they already do it for Windows/Macintosh, why not Windows/Linux more often? Maybe now one company's had the balls to actually go ahead and do this others will follow with higher profile games.

    --

    Bash script for FP whores

    1. Re:What a good idea! by mackstann · · Score: 2, Interesting

      And really, size doesn't seem like so much of a problem. All of the media files are architecture- and OS-independent, so just libraries and program files would need to be duplicated. Not sure how much disk space those take up though (seems like it wouldn't be much, in comparison).

    2. Re:What a good idea! by djcapelis · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I've actually met the development team behind this game... a years ago, (after their E3 presentation for last year's E3...) they had no plans to port to linux when I asked them. Now they do... I wonder what changed...

      As for the company and them having the balls to do it, I'm not surprised at all... a small company with a quality product like this... with technically inclined people is a perfect type of company to do this.

      --
      I touch computers in naughty places
    3. Re:What a good idea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      As opposed to non technically inclined people who produce all the other complex games?

      The reason more games don't get produced for linux is because the general population of Linux users want everything free. Until they can prove Linux users want to spend money no one is going to blink an eye.

  2. Publicity by steesefactor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm wondering if game companies will start porting games to Linux if just to get the publicity from sites like /.? A minor story about a game I've never heard of gets on the front page just because it's also for Linux. How many other sites report on cross-operating system games like this?

    1. Re:Publicity by James+A.+A.+Joyce · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Dozens.

      I'm quite glad for companies which do this, though. We already do this for other open source and proprietary products, but we've neglected games. If a company we support wants to get a bit of free publicity by submitting a story to Slashdot, they're free to do so. And if more people start hearing about games for Linux, that's one of the trifedecta of reasons for staying with Windows eliminated (the other two being a perceived lack of hardware support and legacy Windows applications). This can really only be a good thing; I can't see anything negative about it, especially considering how many adverts Slashdot already has.

      --

      Bash script for FP whores

    2. Re:Publicity by Feztaa · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Xine and Mplayer are great, if you can get them to work.

      Xine is t3h suck. :)

      Mplayer is great, it's managed to play everything I've ever thrown at it.

      The trick to installing mplayer is to use an RPM-based distro (RedHat 9 has worked really well for me), then download all the RPMs that their website tells you to. You need the base package, gui, and all the codecs and stuff. Then just 'rpm -i *.rpm' them, and there you go. If you're like me with a radeon card, make sure you're using X 4.3 with the radeon driver loaded (vesa driver is evil), and mplayer should be using the 'xv' output.

      For those not in the know, here are some reasons why mplayer kicks WMP's ass:

      - sane key bindings. WMP's keybindings are all CTRL + this or SHIFT + that. I've always found it unintuitive; it's like the normal keys have already been used, so they have to resort to using the CTRL key. In mplayer, 'p' is pause, 'f' is fullscreen, etc. It's very simple.

      - easy rewind/fast forward. WMP makes you fiddle with the mouse clicking on the stupid progress meter, mplayer lets you easily skip ahead and back with the arrow keys (not that you can't fiddle with a graphical progress bar if you feel like it).

      - more codecs. I can use mplayer to watch *everything* that I download; whereas on Windows you need WMP for some files, realplayer, quicktime, WinDVD, and a few others just to have all files covered.

      - support of corrupted files. If I download a movie with bittorrent, but I only get 99%, mplayer can play the file (with just a couple skips and jumps from missing pieces), while WMP will just barf and not play the file at all.

      I think mplayer is one of the pinnacles of open source development, right up there with Apache and Mozilla.

    3. Re:Publicity by vandan · · Score: 3, Interesting

      2 problems with this argument:

      1) Linux users are soon to outnumber Mac users. See here for a Mac user's take on this.

      2) Since OS-X is based on BSD, making a Linux OR Mac version of an app is doing most of the ground work for the other anyway. If you're going to go after one minority market, why put in another 5% effort and go after the other as well?

    4. Re:Publicity by N1KO · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I have one player for everything under linux... mplayer. Every file i've tried has worked so far.

      It uses external libraries and codecs just like your player. If you don't like the horrible interface there are frontends for both mplayer and xine available, you can change the priority for any program you want (if you have root access, although its a security risk, still safer than running windows). You can even install a plugin to get mplayer working from your web browser.

      Games may be lacking but playing media files is one thing that i actually find easier in linux than windows... i don't even have to install the codecs, since they get updated automatically whenever new versions come out.

    5. Re:Publicity by listen · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Almost all games for the Mac do use OpenGL.
      And a lot of those are using SDL for input/screen handling etc.
      For most games, the window system is irrelevant, because they just need input + accelerated fullscreen graphics.
      Sound is still pretty platform specific, but OpenAL is getting there.

      Eventually windows devs are going to realise that using COM from C++ is a complete nightmare, when all you want to do is actually *use* a library. Hopefully they'll start using SDL/OpenGL/OpenAL etc when that happens. Not holding my breath though...

  3. knoppix by Mr2cents · · Score: 3, Interesting

    While they're at it, why don't they throw in a knoppix cd? boot.. play..

    --
    "It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
  4. Graphics Drivers by Eu4ria · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I wonder it will only certain graphics cards will be supported. As I beleive was the case with UT2K3 only working on nvidia cards.

  5. I don't see why this is so difficult. by AntiOrganic · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't see why it's so difficult for all developers to do this with their games. After all, the majority of development work (Doom3 excused) is creating models, skinning, texturing, Lua scripting, storyboarding, animating, level designing, etc. Why is it so hard to put in another 2 weeks and use an OpenGL rendering plugin, SDL for input, etc. and compile it to run under a different OS? The engine, except for tremendously complex games, is really relatively minor work as far as I understand.

  6. Re:Portability in Linux by Eu4ria · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It is one thing to get developers away from Windows, it is another to get them to try and get all there code to work on every possible processor out there. Linux will run on tiny embeded systems, I dont think developers are going to be porting games to those any time soon :D

  7. LINUX GAMING MODE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why not include the option with linux to boot it into a special "Gaming Mode" that loads only what is needed to play games and nothing else? Would this make them run faster than on Windows that forces 100's of MB of crap to load no matter what.

  8. Re:Portability in Linux by curtlewis · · Score: 2, Interesting

    While Linux is just a kernel which can run on a variety of processors, a full OS is another story. Distros are available for several platforms, but let's face it, if you want to be sure a Linux app works on your box or is even available, you'd best be running Linux on some form of x86.

    Seeing as they'd never ship source for their game, I'm sure it's x86 binaries.

    I guess that kills my plans of firing it up on my DEC Alpha...

  9. Good on them, but how about this? by Space+Coyote · · Score: 2, Interesting

    They should buncle a Linux distro with every game as well, to really push the envelope. Many computer gamers are fairly adept PC users but may not bother to give linux a try, but having the CD right ther emight spark the curiousity of a good chunk of them.

    --
    ___
    Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
  10. No Single Player? by Eberlin · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The FAQ on the game site itself at www.s2games.com says there's no single player mode. While I agree that multiplayer would be much more fun, it would be a bit more challenging for folks like myself who aren't efficient killers in these types of games. Why not have a single-player "wuss mode" to get one's feet wet?

    As for playing "General" let's be realistic here. The chances of getting that seat is slim since you can only have one general per team.

  11. Java games by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What would be really cool is if we started seeing more games written in Java. Then there would be no issues about Linux vs Windows or anything else. Before anyone starts going on about "Java is too slow for wordprocessors, much less games", Java now has a 3d api that allows fast access to hardware 3d acceleration. Java games could be just as fast as non-Java games. In fact, GPU speed is the bottleneck now, not CPU speed, so if Java is taking up a little more CPU it won't matter.

  12. Linux version runs well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I can personally say that I have been in the beta test of this game, and the Linux version runs just as well as the windows version on my machine. And so far, aside from the normal beta crap, bugginess, and elitist attitudes of some of the testers, the game ranks up there for me, with BF1942, and Counter Strike. Just my 2 cents.

  13. Linux and PC version??? by KamuZ · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Just a tought... Why sites use "Linux" and "PC" version like if they were different, i mean i HAVE a PC with WINDOWS and LINUX. They make it sound weird.

    Anyway, i believe it's like telling people the difference in "hacker" and "cracker".

  14. ...And it's a good game, too! by elzbal · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've been in the beta playing Savage for the past few weeks now on my Gentoo Linux box. It's actually a really good game. The combat is very different - it focuses heavily on melee weapons, so you can't just hit everybody from a distance - you eventually have to get into the chaos and get bloody. Performance and graphics are great.

    I would recommend Savage to any gamers who run Linux - keep this one on your watch list.

  15. Huh? by j4ck50n · · Score: 3, Interesting
    "With games makers keeping their games sensibly small ..."

    What? Small? How many recent games ship on one disk or dont consume over a GB of space?

    Currently installed:

    Medieval Total War - 1.96GB

    Vice City - 1.57 GB

    Half Life with Mods - 1.1GB

    Mafia - 1.87 GB

    Midnight Club 2 - 1.49GB

    Never Winter shipped on 3, Splinter Cell on 3, etc.

    Storage is cheap both CD and HDD, but games are hardly small these days.