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Savage Demo Lets You FPS/RTS On Linux & Windows

Ant writes "According to Blue's News, there's a playable demo for S2Games' FPS/RTS hybrid, Savage: The Battle for Newerth now available, providing the chance to sample multiplayer under either Windows (143 MB) or Linux (155 MB)." There are also BitTorrents of the Windows demo and the Linux demo, courtesy GameTab, for this welcome Linux-friendly title, recently cause for controversy when GameSpot pulled a review of it after "...allegations by the game's developers that the reviewer of the product did not play it for a sufficient length of time."

39 comments

  1. Sorry by keesh · · Score: 0, Troll

    There's no ebuild, and I'm too lazy to compile stuff manually.

    1. Re:Sorry by Grand · · Score: 2, Informative

      apt-get install savage
      Reading Package Lists... Done
      Building Dependency Tree... Done
      E: Couldn't find package savage

      no luck here either !

    2. Re:Sorry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Insightful? The post just shows the persons ignorance about this demo. This is my first post on slashdot and I have been reading it since then beginning. But I just can't believe how moronic the ratings are.

    3. Re:Sorry by Mawen · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Hmm... I use Gentoo too and am downloading the binary right now on my cable modem (peaked at 308KB/s).

      The parent troll makes me think that someone probably should write an ebuild for this binary, but more importantly, they could incorporate bittorrent into the portage system. As the burdens on gentoo mirrors grows, perhaps it would be helpful to allow gentoo users to optionally donate a certain amount of bandwidth per day to the gentoo community via bit torrent uploading.

  2. heh... by rwven · · Score: 3, Informative

    this is NOT flamebait. i was a beta tester for this game and such and i can honestly say i am not impressed with the final product. it's just kinda uninspiring... but in any case, you're welcome to have your own opinion ;) cool in concept but bad in implementation IMHO

    1. Re:heh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But that doesn't matter. They support linux so will get alot of lipservice here. Don't expect too many /.ers to actually buy the game, though.

    2. Re:heh... by HolyCoitus · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'll be buying it regardless of it working on my hardware or not. A game that works natively in Linux that I'd be interested in regardless is definitely something I am going to support. My friends who aren't Linux users are even excited about it, not even through me. Should be fun hopefully. If it sucks in the long run, so do most other games.

      --
      That's scary.
    3. Re:heh... by rwven · · Score: 1

      hehe good point

  3. Out of curiosity... by NanoGator · · Score: 1

    .. what does it take to install this game in Linux? Is it like RPM, or do you have to run a Make script or something? Just wondering if it's any different than running setup.exe and hitting OK a couple of times in Windows.

    --
    "Derp de derp."
    1. Re:Out of curiosity... by linuxkrn · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's a self-extracting sh (shell) script. The data is included in the script to install the game.

    2. Re:Out of curiosity... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you only have to click on the file you downloaded, then click a couple of time on ok and you're ready to play. it even asks you wether you want shortcuts on your desktop. Amazing, isn't it ?

      and as far as I remember, it is exactly what you had to do to install quakeIII or UT2003...

    3. Re:Out of curiosity... by mahdi13 · · Score: 1

      It uses the Loki Installer, which is a nice GUI frontend that installs the files where they are needed (mostly /usr/local/games/ and a shell script to launch in /usr/bin) It looks like S2 made it default for a single user install see install here but has a multiuser install option.

      --
      "Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
  4. Flamebait by benjamindees · · Score: 1

    You're an idiot. It's a self-extracting binary. No one wants to support Linux if it comes with pompous fanboys like you who just bitch about every little thing. Don't install it. Don't use it. Don't share your idiotic opinions with the rest of us.

    --
    "I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
    1. Re:Flamebait by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      dude, you have no clue how ebuild works, do you? it's a package management system which can work fine with prebuil tbinaries

    2. Re:Flamebait by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If the choice is between distributing a self-extracting binary that supports all Linux distros or a fucking tar.gz that your average Linux noob won't know what to do with, I'd prefer people who know better not bitch when a *gaming* company chooses to support Linux with the easier-to-use option. He can extract it and build an e-whatever-the-fuck he wants, but he chooses to bitch (publicly) about it and wonders why games don't exist for Linux.

  5. i was impressed by Alcimedes · · Score: 2, Interesting

    to me it's been a lot of fun. a game where your strategist is a person, and the units you have to work with are people.

    all in all very nice. of course, a bad commander and you're hosed, so the key is to get folks who are good on both ends, the FPS and the RTS angles.

    it just stuck me as the perfect solution to really crappy AI problems that have plauged games since the beginning.

    1. Re:i was impressed by MMaestro · · Score: 2, Interesting
      If you get a bad commander, thats when you start using the vote system. Course if you wait too long to use it, you'll find yourself facing enemies with level 3 equipment (3 is the highest) while you're still using the crossbow (the second ranged weapon you'll get). Naturally, I'm only saying this because I've had this happen to me.

      Surprisingly, players on the FPS side -actually- work well with their teams as a result of the game's balance. With the exception of a few complaints here and there (for example : low end computer users are forced to spread and pray with ranged weapons due to slowdown) the game could a step in the right direction when it comes to bad AI problems (at least for now, the graphics had to be severely sacrificed for the FPS/RTS engine sharing).

  6. I wonder why... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The demo only lets you play as humans? Is it because the beasts are overpowered, and no advanced user wants to play them?

  7. BitTorrent is slow by spineboy · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Im DLing it at a measley 25 kb/sec.
    Bah should be called something more like
    BitDrip

    --
    ..........FULL STOP.
    1. Re:BitTorrent is slow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      261 kB/s max. sustained rate.

      So STFU.

    2. Re:BitTorrent is slow by damiam · · Score: 2, Funny

      Some of us would give a lot to be able to hit 25KB/sec.

      --
      It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
    3. Re:BitTorrent is slow by Mawen · · Score: 1

      And I peaked at 312.7 kB/s! Thats for the linux download.. maybe all the windows dudes are leeches :)

      So uhh...(don't want to get modded troll like parent)... have a nice day :) and I'm sorry if I make you jealous :)

      FWIW I'm currently still uploading at 37 kB/s. From all the torrenting I've started doing lately, I wonder if my cable provider will start bugging me about my uploading.

  8. Another Mirror by Bruha · · Score: 1

    At http://linux.warcry.com

  9. Good, but has technical problems. by xyu · · Score: 1

    I got the linux demo from gamer's hell at like 150k/s. Its a pretty fun game, except that every time I get killed and respawn, the mouse is all screwed up so the screen spins like mad. Also when I try to quit the game just hangs there and I have to manually kill it. I'll try it again in a week or so, hopefully those issues will be sorted out quickly.

    1. Re:Good, but has technical problems. by deque_alpha · · Score: 1

      That's a known problem, and it is useually because of how X is configured on your machine. You probably have "omit dga" in your XF86conifg. That's not precisely the line, but it is close enough that you will be able to find it. If you remove the "omit" so that the DGA extension does get loaded, it will work fine. I would be willing to bet you are running Gentoo, aren't you? Apparently Gentoo is just about the only distribution that configures X this way out of the box... But in any case, making this change fixed this problem on my machine.

    2. Re:Good, but has technical problems. by xyu · · Score: 1

      Thanks a million! I'm running LFS, not gentoo. I always wondered what DGA did. It was always commented on every linux box I've seen.

  10. Renders like crap by HolyCoitus · · Score: 1

    Tried to get it to work on my Gentoo Linux install, using a Radeon 7200 with xfree drm... Ran it as root to make sure it wasn't a problem with anything in a normal user blocking it, and it rendered like complete crap. The mouse cursor was a block, none of the graphics had color or textures, and it was completely unplayable. Anyone able to make it work with an older Radeon?

    --
    That's scary.
    1. Re:Renders like crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Hi, this is James from S2games. Before the very sexy Trev sent me hes graphics card I was running savage on a 1.7xp, 512 2100, 7200 64meg piece of baddly constructed excuse of a pc. It got about 15-20 fps without those problems you mentioned. Please refer to the 'important performance information' document within savage\docs. That may solve your troubles, if not drop by at support.s2games.com (the tech support forums).

      Cya on the flip side and hope you can get it working
      -James

    2. Re:Renders like crap by HolyCoitus · · Score: 1

      I'm not too worried about the demo not working, I've got other pcs in the house that I'm currently switching my os on that I'll be trying it on. Going out to buy a copy of the game with a friend today, and will be worrying about setting it up then. Thanks for the help, I'm definitely excited to get the game working, just didn't have the time last night and didn't want to waste it if it wasn't going to work with the card. Thanks again.

      --
      That's scary.
  11. Finally, played the demo. My 2 cents... by antdude · · Score: 2, Informative

    A very pretty game and it has nice music, but not really my type of game. It did remind of Natural Selection mod: http://www.natural-selection.org ... I like its aliens vs. humans with science fiction theme better. :)

    Good job, S2Games! Nice work especially with a small company and Linux support. I hope to see more games out of you, guys.

    --
    Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  12. Good Game by renuncln · · Score: 1

    I got this game the other day on a whim and I am rather impressed. It has several features going for it that I rather like. The first feature has to do with obtaining the game. You can go to the store and buy it or you have the option of saving $10(US) and downloading it. The download is available as an installer or as an ISO.

    The second big feature that I really like is that since you have a commander the team oriented features work a lot smoother (with a good commander). There is nothing in life as simple as following a glowing beacon to where you need to accomplish some goal, or attack an invading enemy unit.

    For my part I have had no problem running this in Linux but then I am also running an Athlon XP 2800+ with 256M of Ram and a GeForce 4ti with 128M of ram. I have found that most players are quite helpful and it is always nice to see that the developers are in there playing the game along with you. Also did I mention that the game does come with a map editor and the developer has also promised an SDK for modders?

  13. Privacy Concerns? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, from what I've read of the EvilAvatar article, they knew exactly how long the Gamespot reviewer played for:

    "an allegation supported by specific server-side player logging that apparently measures exactly for how long the player's account was active."

    1. Re:Privacy Concerns? by renuncln · · Score: 1

      IIRC don't most FPS games have trackers that will keep track of your stats for you?

  14. Good Game by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I've been playing off and on for the last 12 hrs (nice to be able to do that when you want). After an hour or so of playing it does really start to shine.

    Pros

    graphics are superb

    gameplay is smooth

    netcode is a bit better then good

    Balance is well thought out

    get into some incredibly complex strategy when the team is communicating well

    Cons

    not being able to go to the armory and change weapons on the fly.

    a building of healing, regeneration

    lack of bots when in command mode. Nice for single player or 1 on 1.

  15. Sleepless in Savage by inkless1 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    *snip*

    Couldn't sleep last night, got started on the Savage demo. It annoyed me at first, it didn't like the screen resolution I had chosen and needed to be beaten to play at first. My first couple of games I was pretty horribly confused and mostly just seemed to be respawning. The game doesn't feel much like an FPS to be honest, it actually kinda feels like you are playing one of those animated figures from an RTS game. For people who are expecting Quake slammed into Warcraft, you'll be a bit disappointed, the graphics and physics aren't terribly up to par for modern FPS games.

    But then again, if you wanted to play a modern FPS game - you would be already. The novelty here of being part of a large scale battle that slowly evolves with new buildings, units and techs is pretty invigorating and fun. Once Savage becomes familiar, it becomes very entertaining. The graphics might not be mind blowing, but they do keep the lag down to a serviceable (although sometimes not very fluid) level. I would definately be interested to see what the game is like with all it's features and commanders who have actually played for more than an afternoon. Try this one for a couple hours, there's a decent chance you won't walk away disappointed.

    ( cathodetan.com )

  16. Not too great... but its only a demo by UltimaL337Star · · Score: 0

    Totally reminds me of the half life mod Natural Selection, after trying the demo i really am dissapointed with it, I hope this is just part of the mediocore unpolished demos trend... It looks like it could have potential for some very nice mods in very different themes tho, the commander/fps idea is pretty cool, I think I saw it first on Natural Selection tho, who did it better IMHO.

  17. OS X Version on the way by lordDallan · · Score: 1

    Inside Mac Games has a small write up on Savage coming to Mac OS X.

    According to S2 Games' member Sam McGrath "Companies that say porting to Mac is hard don't know how to write good code."

    Pretty cool.

  18. Screenshots? by phorm · · Score: 1

    Can somebody please post up some screenshots, preferable from both Linux and Windows version. If you've got a GeForce card with NVidia's accelerated driver, it should run/look quite nice in 'nix