Savage Gets Extensive Patch, Publisher Unwell?

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Savage Gets Extensive Patch, Publisher Unwell?

Posted by simoniker on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @12:01AM from the edging-toward-medieval dept.

0xBulbizarre writes "The long awaited patch to V2.0 for FPS/RTS hybrid Savage is now here, in both Windows and Linux flavors. It's also worth taking the time to read the amazing 2.0 ChangeLog for a list of all the additions, fixes, etc in the new Savage patch, since they've made new units, new visual effects, and plenty of other changes besides - lets support good Linux game makers." We've previously covered this reasonably well-received 'acquired taste' of a title, and elsewhere, HomeLan Fed is reporting on unconfirmed rumors from "highly placed sources" that Savage publisher iGames may be closing its doors, but that "[Savage developer] S2 Games is still in operation and will continue to support and add onto Savage as planned." Update: 01/22 00:15 GMT by S : A follow-up at HomeLan Fed has the CEO claiming "rumor of [iGames'] closing was started by an innocent miscommunication [with the company's] former COO."

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I hear... by lincarnate · 2004-01-21 00:22 · Score: 2, Informative

...that the patch is a great improvement over an already great game, although I haven't had a chance to play it yet. The devs work really hard on the game, and it's not all that odd if you can find them online playing. A couple of my friends and I had a nice conversation with one of them while playing the demo version.

It's sad to hear that iGames might be closing. I had a problem with downloading the full game from their website, and once I emailed them, I got a response very quickly, and eventually got everything I needed fine. I even talked to the same person in game later.

It's extremely nice to see the devs and publisher online, playing the game, and communicating with the community. It's a nice change from the usual nameless and faceless developers (and publisher) that ignore the community, which is all too common in the gaming industry.

--
All generalizations are inaccurate...except that one about gen....fsck it.
1. Re:I hear... by 13Echo · 2004-01-21 01:18 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  It is fantastic. I beta tested the patch and I was BLOWN AWAY by the number of improvements. I wish that this had been the game that they originally released. The initial release got good reviews, but this almost seems like an entirely different game in itself. It's just better balanced, and the new units make things more interesting. Rendering improvements have been done to speed up certain video chipsets. It flies on my Radeon 9500 PRO, on Linux, with the details maxed.
  
  Please support S2Games. They are totally dedicated to their product, and seem to be dedicated to Linux as well. I can't give enough praise to these guys. It's amazing that a team of such few members was able to create such an amazing and fun game. If we want to see efforts like this, it's VERY IMPORTANT that we share a few bucks with these guys to make sure that there is a future for titles like this.
  
  I played the demo version and was hooked. I got my keycode for a mere $29, online, and was playing within 30 minutes...
  http://orders.igames.com/savage/
  
  Or, order a boxed version from Tuxgames....
  http://www.tuxgames.com/details.cgi?id=663106&nc=1 074690859&gameref=114
  
  Bu trust me... The demo version doesn't do the full version justice. The fixes, enhancements, maps, and extra units make it very worthwhile.
2. Re:I hear... by Spoing · 2004-01-21 01:58 · Score: 1
  The demo version doesn't do the full version justice.
  
  Agreed. One of the problems with the demo, though, is that by itself it is sooo good. Because of that, I delayed about a month before getting the full version. With 2.0, it is very very much worth the price. Tactical, fraggable...nice combo!
  --
  A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
3. Re:I hear... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-01-21 04:14 · Score: 0
  
  The problem these days is that publishers put out incopmlete/imperfect games that are really closer to beta-quality products. Then a bunch of people buy it, get disapointed and leave the game. And they tell lots of other people that they should never play it, either.
  
  So by the time they really tweak the game to the point that it should have been when it was originally published, they have lost all the existing and potential players and there's not enough people to make the experience enjoyable.
4. Re:I hear... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-01-21 05:54 · Score: 0
  
  I second that. I waited for about 2 months (seems longer) because the box as to be imported to europe, which is sooo slow and sooo expensive (think: 50 Euros (about 70 Dollars!) vs. 29 Dollars). I finally broke down yesterday and bought it over the net and _LOVE_ it. And to boot, there is a 2.0 patch today! Wow!
  
  Runs great on my linux (with the usual bugs, hope 2.0 fixes these :)
  
  Cheers,
  
  Tels
5. Re:I hear... by Jackie_Chan_Fan · 2004-01-21 09:30 · Score: 1
  
  I am one of the senior artists on Savage. Atleast I was... I left towards the end of the project for health reasons but remain very good friends with the folks invovled.
  
  They are hard working folks and they do care about the community greatly. When we set out to start Savage, the goal was ALWAYS to involve our audience. We wanted to make the gameing community feel apart of something and to bring a sense of community.
  
  We're gamers, we would play quake, counter strike, Rainbow 6, etc online together. You name it. We knew each other for a while even before S2games creation. So it was a family/friendship like thing. It still is.
  
  And we wanted THAT to be our outlook on the community. If our audience is invovled, they feel respected and they get heard.
  
  Usually the norm is, as you stated... from other companies... is a dull lifeless, seperation between the developers and the gamers. We didnt want that. We like our audience and wanted to be apart of their world as much as we could.
  
  As i've said i no longer work at S2. But the mentality is still there, and most of the folks who started on savage are all still there.
  
  Keep looking for good things to come from them cause they really do love games. I mean that. They are gamers. ALL of them. All the way up to the primary investor.
  
  I cant say enough about the folks there. They really are good folks.
time for the $$$ to go ... by torpor · 2004-01-21 00:41 · Score: 1

... where the mouth is.

trouble is, how do you buy this game if you don't have or use a credit card?

its actually quite interesting to observe just how much in life you can't do because of the ubiquity of credit cards.

it always seems strange to me that linux game developers come and go, but yet nobody has worked out a way for geeks to pay for their video games without having to use a credit card. thats a huuuuge market of people who are missing out.

when will we see 1-900 #'s for software payment, is what i wanna know ...

--
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
1. Re:time for the $$$ to go ... by 13Echo · 2004-01-21 01:58 · Score: 1
  
  On the site, you also have the option of buying a CD key with Paypal or Online Check. A checking account it required, but simply finding a way to add funds to a Paypal account is all that is necessary.
2. Re:time for the $$$ to go ... by Quarters · 2004-01-21 03:28 · Score: 1
  
  Granted they don't broker Savage, but PayByCash is addressng the exact problem you are describing.
3. Re:time for the $$$ to go ... by x00101010x · 2004-01-21 06:48 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  One option for indy game developers are "self" publishing through sites such as cafepress.com.
  On cafe press you can publish your game, your merchandise and more. Cafepress.com isn't the only one out there either. They accept all the usual, credit cards, checks, moneyorder. Best of all, the developer doesn't have to worry about deploying an eCommerce solution, and you can do quite a bit in the way of customizing your "store".
  I say down with the publishers, software, print and music. For music you have sites like ampcast.com where you can put a selection of mp3s up for download and from the same page, your new found fans can order a hard copy of your CD. Add the url of your ampcast.com page (or your band's site w/link) to your mp3's header info and put them on P2P yourself. Anywho, that's OT.
  
  Note, I don't work for cafepress.com, but my employer does use them for our swag as well as our creative pocket genius' character'sswag
  .
  I'd like to see more opensource and independent developers use sites like this and say f*** you to the publishers.
  You can always hire somebody else to do your promotion/advertisement.
  
  <flamebait>Publishers are obsolete.</flamebait>
  
  --
  DONT PANIC
best game ever by line72 · 2004-01-21 01:47 · Score: 1

This is one of the best games I have every played. It gives you all the action of quake online, but it has a purpose instead of just running around killing people. The dev team has been awesome. Their very straight and helpful, and always willing to hear your suggestions. The new patch is also a huge change. The graphics improvements are amazing, it now flies on my 1.2 athlon with a geforce 3 (running gentoo). Hopefully s2games will keep up the good work and keep supporting alternate OSes. /Line72
Savage? Did I hear Savage? by xintegerx · 2004-01-21 02:20 · Score: 1

I think it's those frenchmen behind it again...

--

Cover your eyes and click this link!
debit? by *weasel · 2004-01-21 02:31 · Score: 1

all the ubiquity of credit card payment, none of the interest...

I don't honestly believe there much of a market of gamers who don't have access to credit, debit, or paypal (which i understand is an accepted payment form).

--
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
1. Re:debit? by Rallion · 2004-01-21 02:52 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  For a good period of time I was a mid-teen gamer with none of the above, and parents who wouldn't keep me from buying games myself, but wouldn't encourage it too much either. I can remember sitting in my room with $200 saved up, looking at something I wanted to buy online, and being fully aware of how powerless I was to do anything about it. *Sniff*
  
  Basically, the only way for me to get something was to go to the store and get it.
Savage by Sparr0 · 2004-01-21 04:23 · Score: 4, Informative

Savage, and its creators, did everything right. A multiplayer demo, for linux too, with enough of the game to get you hooked and playing, but leave you wanting more. Online CD Key purchase and download. Clients for both windows and linux, servers too. And continuing development that has already improved the gameplay by an order of magnitude. If the big name companies put this much thought into how to make a game right instead of pumping out the next franchise/licensed game as fast as possible us gamers would be in heaven.
1. Re:Savage by Mike+Hawk · 2004-01-21 05:36 · Score: 1
  
  Did everything right, except that whole business side. If all the "big name companies" followed this lead, and went out of business, no games would be made. Its an interesting statement about the community that you perceive a complete lack of games as "heaven".
2. Re:Savage by Sparr0 · 2004-01-21 11:27 · Score: 1
  
  Im sorry, I must not have made it clear that I was talking about the developers (who I specifically linked to), not the publishers, who are responsible for most of the business side. And, regardless, their failure is not their fault, its how the game market is designed. They have done more with what they have available than some other publishers do with a lot more. Just getting a game onto store shelves (which igames has managed to do rather well) is an immense task.
3. Re:Savage by Mike+Hawk · 2004-01-21 12:16 · Score: 0, Flamebait
  
  their failure is not their fault, its how the game market is designed
  
  Ah, the cry of the loser. It's not my fault! Getting a game onto shelves is not an immense task. Creating a AAA game is an immense task. Surviving to make the sequel is an immense task. But you can do the first and fail the second by choosing the wrong publisher. What happened in this case is nothing but evidence to choose a strong publisher...one that will be there to fund the patches, expansions and your sophomore effort.
I saw... by x00101010x · 2004-01-21 04:59 · Score: 1

I went to E3 last year and this was the game that caught my attention most. I had no clue it was for linux... now i'm wondering if their demo machines were running linux...
Anywho, I'll be really sad if they close their doors, it's a really great game, and they were really great guys. It's too bad they were stuffed at the back of one of the main halls, but at least they were upstairs. They set up a ring of machines and you could just sit and play as long as you like, and that's what I did. I'm not big into FPS, but I'm definately gonna buy a copy of Savage as soon as I can (unfortunately, while I still can)!

--
DONT PANIC
1. Re:I saw... by 13Echo · 2004-01-21 15:56 · Score: 1
  
  It wasn't S2 that was allegedly going to close their doors.. It was thier publisher. We've discussed it a bit in S2's forums and they claim that the HomeLAN article is false, however... Just figured I'd mention it.
2. Re:I saw... by x00101010x · 2004-01-21 16:12 · Score: 1
  
  Good to hear. I'm still gonna buy it as soon as I can.
  
  --
  DONT PANIC
Patch Link, Plus Review of pre-patch by linuxkrn · 2004-01-21 04:59 · Score: 2, Informative

They only list Windows (.exe) patches, so I found the Linux patch (73MB) here http://www.fileshack.com/file.x?fid=4442"

I also have a review with screenshots I wrote of it (pre-patch) here.

I think Savage is a great game. Hell, even the game itself aside, I bought it because they put on the requirements "Windows OR Linux" on the box. That's worth my money alone. I support those companies who support Linux.
Direct Patch Download Link by linuxkrn · 2004-01-21 05:05 · Score: 1

I know, I'm replying to my own post but found a direct link, instead of that lame filepost...

savage20040118a-patch.tar.gz
1. Re:Direct Patch Download Link by Anonymous Coward · 2004-01-21 06:03 · Score: 0
  
  Here is another one:
  
  http://savage.nld.info/
  
  Best wishes,
  
  tels
  
  PS: I wish I could have bought the box here in Europe without giving an arm and a leg for it...so I had to buy the net version...:/ I would have bought the box for the "OR Linux" tag alone..
Mighty good news! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-01-21 05:29 · Score: 0

I found the linux demo quite a bit unstable (memory leaks, random crashes, PNG library warnings at exit, would not cleanly exit (had to killall -9 silverback.bin), the updater never worked (had to manually run updater/linuxupdate.pl and start silverback.bin) etc.

Despite all this, it was great fun!

I finally bought the game via net (29 dollar vs. 50 Euros for a local box :-( See also my posting in the next article about me wanting game boxes!) and I am glad I did and I hope the developers get some serious money out of this.

The game rocks and I look forward to the new patch!

(Of course, updater/linuxupdate.pl does tell me there is no new patch :(

Cheers,

tels
Re:Savage? Did I hear Savage? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-01-21 06:06 · Score: 0

No, no, then the game would be called "Freedom - the Fight for Niraq" :)
demo is slow... by runswithd6s · 2004-01-21 10:55 · Score: 1

I'm running Debian Sarge (testing) with a 2.4.23 kernel, XFree86 v4.2.1-12.1 (admittadly behind the 4.3 curve), and a Radeon 7200 (I bought this before X supported the DDRAM chips) on an AMD Thunderbird 1.4GHz processor. Whereas this setup is perfectly fine for Unreal Tournament and Quake3, it was sorely lacking when trying to run the Savage demo. I felt like I was playing on a 486. Needless to say, I didn't buy the game. I have some spare change to purchase some software titles, but not enough to retrofit my computer.
I'd be willing to try again, if this patch works on the demo. My impression from the website is that this patch only supports the retail versions of the software. Honestly now, would you purchase a game you couldn't run on your computer?

--
assert(expired(knowledge)); /* core dump */
1. Re:demo is slow... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-01-21 12:16 · Score: 0
  
  Pick up a Radeon 8500 (or higher) from ebay, theyr'e like thirty bucks.
2. Re:demo is slow... by lincarnate · 2004-01-21 12:31 · Score: 1
  
  I don't think the current patches work with the demo, but I had heard whenever the 2.0 patch was first announced that there will be either a demo patch, or a new demo, although I can't remember where I heard it.
  
  --
  All generalizations are inaccurate...except that one about gen....fsck it.
3. Re:demo is slow... by 13Echo · 2004-01-21 15:59 · Score: 1
  
  S2 has found some framerate crippling bugs that have been fixed since the 2.00 release, and more recently, even more improvements in the 2.00b release. I personally don't feel that they gave enough effort to support non-nVidia cards during the initaial beta tests, but it isn't really their fault. ATI didn't really have suitable Linux drivers until late in the development, and PowerVR's Kyro (which I used to test the initial beta on Linux) didn't have a hardware T&L unit and had some AGP problems with Savage.
  
  Since then, Sam has really reworked the Linux code and the rendering code in general, and he's done a fine job. Admittedly, Savage's Silverback engine is VERY hard on older machines, but it is actually a pretty sophisticated engine in many respects. It has some nice lighting and environmental effects that really tax the machine, especially in games with lots of players. The overall speed is supposed to have been corrected even more since the 2.00b release (which I haven't been able to verify yet since Sam posted a bad link address tonight).
  
  Assuming that you have mature drivers that support S3TC and most other OpenGL features that really count, you should be okay. However, I'd mostly blame many of your speed issues on the fault of ATI for not having proper driver support for the ATI Radeon 7200 core. The DRI/Gatos modules don't have a lot of the features that are essential for Savage, like the patented S3TC extensions. I think that you need an 8500 core or higher to make use of ATI's drivers, right now... That may change with time though. I can't speak for the Schneider Digital drivers though. Maybe they work? It's not likely that the R100 core will ever get enough attention to where it will be able to run a game like Savage, or many future 3D games from other manufacturers.
  
  I must admit... The gaming possibilities on Linux really opened up to me recently, when I purchased a new KT600-based mobo, DDR 400 RAM, ATI Radeon 9500 PRO, and a shiny new higher-end Athlon chip, than I had before with my Athlon 1400 and Kyro II... It's a treat to be able to enjoy games like Savage and UT2003 (and get the most out of future games that I'm beta testing, from other companies).
  
  Though, I must admit. I, like you, also refrained from buying Savage until I had the hardware to make the most of it. The initial beta and demo releases were unplayable on my old machine... But after the upgrade, I was hooked on Savage, and the 2.00 patch just made it even better.
Some answers by j450n · 2004-01-21 19:19 · Score: 2, Informative

I'm one of the programmers at S2, I can answer some of the questions people have brought up: The 2.00b (most current patch) should improve everyone's framerate significantly over 1.2, optimizations were made to the rendering code, CPU usage, memory usage... pretty much all around. Also, we're pretty sure we've caught all the memory leaks at this point. Sam was working on the Linux patch today, looks like the link is working as of right now. If the auto-updater isn't grabbing it yet, I'm sure it will be soon (the bandwidth of delivering the patch has really been killer, bear with us for a few days). Our official servers are all running on linux, so even if we wanted to, we couldn't really give it up ;) We did recently lose one of programmers (slothy), who happened to be the Linux guru, leaving Sammy and myself who both have only some moderate Linux experience, so don't be too hard on us if we make a few noob mistakes with the linux support, we're both learning, and slothy is still willing to help us out when we get stuck. We're going to release a patch to bring the demo up to date, as well as a full new package of the demo soon, that's the next thing in the pipes at the moment. Lastly, as pointed out in the update, iGames isn't closing up, but not really being a part of them I can't say exactly what's going on. On the other hand though, I can tell you S2 will be around for a while to come, we're gearing up to get started on the next big thing right now :)
1. Re:Some answers by Alcimedes · 2004-01-21 20:27 · Score: 1
  
  Just wanted to say thanks for making a great game.
  
  Was the first time i bothered dust off my PC tower in months.
  
  (my other machine is a Mac, sorry linux folks)
  
  anyway, great game, and keep up the good work. now that it's at 2.0 i should fire that puppy up again.
2. Re:Some answers by WillAtMH · 2004-01-22 08:32 · Score: 1
  
  Much 3 to you Jason, but sadly the patch is about 3 months to late :(
EH by rwven · 2004-01-22 02:35 · Score: 1

I beta tested it and hated every minute of it, mainly for the reasons they seem to have addressed in this patch. i might have to shell out some bucks and buy it now... That list is VERY impressive