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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."

11 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

  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?

  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. 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.

  6. 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".

  7. ...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.

  8. 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.