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LGP Opens Beta Test for X2
zborgerd writes "Linux Game Publishing has announced the opening of their beta test for X2: The Threat. X2 was featured on Slashdot last month in LGP's mystery game contest. Linux gamers can apply for the beta at LGP's beta testing site.
Per their usual policy, everyone who pre-orders the game from one of their resellers is automatically qualified to enter the beta test. X2: The Threat is Egosoft's epic space simulation that is often said to be greatly influenced by the the classic games of the Elite series. A third game in the series, X3: Reunion, will soon be available for Windows (and hopefully Linux and OS X as well, if the X2 ports attract a reasonable number of fans on these platforms)."
Couldn't they have chosen something easier to port? And a bit more recent?
The X series (iirc, I could be wrong) uses Direct 3D, porting it would be quite difficult. Surely porting a game that uses OpenGL would at least give the programmers a bit less trouble in porting?
On a different note, I've yet to see any Elite clone equal the greatness that is the Elite trilogy. Here's hoping for the ever elusive Elite 4 that David Braben has been working on since the dawn of time to appear, if at all.
Yup, it's a really great game. I needed a Space-themed RPG fix after EA took Earth & Beyond offline, and X2 was it. I've always enjoyed the genre (played the original Elite on my Apple IIe) and X2 in the tradition of enjoyable games like Privateer 1/2, and the WC franchise to a certain extent. I'm looking forward to X3 and I hope I get to beta X2 on Linux, should be fun. Hope this helps.
Sadly, for Direct3D, it would be a struggle to port and work right. Don't worry, though, we're working on it. =)
Oolite is another free Elite type game. They have OSX, Windows and Linux versions.
Cyric, if you wanted an Elite rip-off (which is truly high praise, as Elite is great =]) that was actually open source (and good to boot!) try:
Vegastrike
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
..or Oolite as long as you don't use Windows.
Its quite good!
We always take the time to port properly. Often that can mean it takes a lot longer than we would like to do a port, however, we never take shortcuts.
Tux Games. Your complete source for native Linux games.
Technologies. We are porting the Direct3D to OpenGL, we use SDL for some things, GCC is the compiler. ffmpeg for video, openAL for audio.
Tux Games. Your complete source for native Linux games.
It's pretty sad to see beta testing opening now on X2, when X3: Reunion's beta is wrapping up for the release candidates to start getting rolled out these days. X2 was released two years ago, and X3 both has hugely improved graphics and vastly redesigned sectors (much larger, with distancing and scale to feel more right), dynamic economy, and AI. Egosoft have a much larger team making X3 compared to X2 as well.
I wish there'd be a way for Egosoft to work more closely with LGP in the future so we don't get this huge lag between the ports and Windows releases, in case Egosoft don't want to work on the port(s) themselves.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
No! If you want an open source Elite rip-off, try Oolite. Available for OS X and Linux. See my sig!
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Not at all, we use purely ourown code, and libraries such as OpenGL and SDL. If you follow our company history you will see that I am very very much against any kind of emulation of Windows software on Linux for many reasons I am not going to go into here cos Id be ranting on on this thread for pages (google for my reasons, they are findable, if you are rerally interested).
Tux Games. Your complete source for native Linux games.
Im afraid not, only x86. There are a few reasons for this. Partially because of the size of the market (sorry PPC guys, we will do a port when we can but this one would be a LOT of extra time to get it available for you all and the numbers in this case just dont work). and also for the state of 3D hardware accelleration for linux ppc is in most cases just not up to the job.
We'd love to, but not this time. Sorry.
Tux Games. Your complete source for native Linux games.
Yup, it does doesnt it {:-)
It felt like a real, living breathing huge ass universe. You could see the seams around the sky-box of space, where the "stars" were (the textures were poorly done, so you knew you were flying around in a huge ass box)
Skybox issues were fixed, it looks better now. In fact all the bugs you mentioned were fixed in patches. The Linux version is based on the source for the latest patch and so shouldnt inherit the bugs. Also, we hope to fix some of the remaining issues to make the linux version even better than the windows version.
X2 starts with the story, feels more linear, and not quite as big a universe, but much much much better looking. Maybe it does get better (in the scale sense)
Yes, it does, the X2 universe is HUGE compared to the X1 universe. I forget the exact number but something like 3 times as many sectors. more ships, and yeah, the graphics are stunning.
Tux Games. Your complete source for native Linux games.
...that even in the far future, they still haven't solved the textiles problems that cause women's clothes to shrink for no adequately explained reason.
I'm guessing she's got that gun because she's going back to the boutique to get a refund.
I tried X2 once but the controls we really strange. Not to mention that my favorite requirement -- mouse control Wing Commander style wasn't supported.
I wonder how much of it they fixed since and how much could be done in the linux port. I'd buy the game instantly if it had properly working mouse control and working F1 key to get the list of keybindings.
Yes, what you say is correct. What we aim for right now is for it to run at an acceptable speed - with game options turned down (no bumpmaps or shadows), on a 1GHz processor with a 64MB Geforce 4 class graphics card. We may not meet that goal, but we are trying.
Tux Games. Your complete source for native Linux games.
Many Linux users pay for what they are supposed to. Many dont, however.
This is a VERY VERY hypocritical position. How many of the Linux users that illegally copy games are the same ones that rabidly defend the GPL? Probably a lot. And lets examine that. They get offended when people break the GPL because those people have broken the license the software was released under, and get all upset that their work which was done for free is being used in a way it shouldnt.
Hold on, thats exactly what happens when people take our games and give them away for free.
Our games arent trying to lock people into our products, we dont force people to use them or try and stifle competition. Quite the opposite, weve tried on several occasions to support open source projects and to even give assistance to competing companies, to try and increase choice and competition. We arent evil. I believe in open source and open standards. I have YET to see an open source game that even comes close to the level of closed source games. We play on a level playing field where you can only win by being better.
The fact is that if people keep on *stealing* our games by copying them and never paying for them, then Im going to decide that its just not worth my spending 14 hours a day working on this kind of thing for what is effectively a negative salary (I put far more money into the companies than I take out). And then when nobody is making games for Linux any more, then people can't complain that a) the games are all old, b) the games cost too much, c) the games should be open not closed source - or whatever - because there wont BE any games.
Sorry, rant over, I just get tired of people who do nothing but complain and do nothing to help the situation (not aimed at anyone in this thread, its just where it finally dumped from brain to keyboard). I'll take genuine complaints from people that have put their money where theie mouth is (there are a few but not many). Ive dumped over $200,000 of my personal money into Linux gaming - thats my level of dedication to getting games to Linux. But I cant stand it when people stand on the sideline complaining that they could do better, and then go back to dual booting and playing all their games on their xbox.
Tux Games. Your complete source for native Linux games.
It was the first time an Elite clone didn't outright suck.
Sure, the controls are hazy at best, but most people mistook that game for what it truly is : An economy simulator with a spaceship look-and-feel GUI.
There are lots of annoying things in the game, many things that should be automatized (I'm not a native ingrish speaker, so bear with me), but the game is scriptable, has seen many outstanding mods, there's a very tight-knit community on the egosoft fora, and there is a level of satisfaction you just can't describe when you start building your economic empire, sending your universe traders gain maximum profits while your factories make the X-Universe a safe, economically balanced place.
It's one of the two games that make me say "MMORPG's? What for?" (the other one being Morrowind)
In a way, I refer to those as "Filtered MMOG's", because you only accept the input from other players of the game that you want. No trolling, play the game however you want it to be, and there are TONS of mods.
Last but not least, even best of all... In-game console!
So, Mazel Tov to this company for porting a good game to Linux. I'd have been willing to shell out the cash, and to wait, for the next installment, though.
its a fair question. Now, Ive never done any of the PPC building so no flames if I make some slight errors, but these are some of the things my dev team have mentioned to me:
1) The GL drivers for PPC are rubbish for the most part
2) endianness issues. The way data is handled internally breaks
3) build environment issues. The right combination of static libraries to work on all systems.
4) random unexpected quirks between systems
Also there is the fact that we only have a single G3 imac in the company, so we couldnt test a 3d ppc game even if we wanted to, and really, for the level of return we'd get for porting to ppc, it wouldnt even cover buying a new mac to test it on, let alone pay for the developer time. Sorry.
Tux Games. Your complete source for native Linux games.
Well, the copy protection we are aiming at is effectively:
A registration key
This does online verification with a keyserver
If the keyserver is not available it simply drops back to being a non-online key system so people without net access can use the game.
You can have as many installs as you like on the same key. However each key will allow you to lock out other users of that key, so sure you can put your key online, but if someone locks you out after you do it, dont come crying to us.
Knowing it is an online protection system some people will try and kill their net connection for each time the game starts, but if people wanna do that then thats fine, its a lot of hassle to keep your stolen copy but we cant stop people 100%. Also some clever people will reverse engineer it and get a crack, we know this, and we cant stop it, there is no way to stop every workaround. Hopefully though, we'll stop most of it.
For the legitimate user, however, it will simply look like: Enter a CD key once. Play the game, forget it. No CD-in-drive required. For multiplayer games (X2 isnt) install copies on your home machines, play away, no locks. We *ask* that people buy one copy per install if they can afford it, but we wont stop people installing around their home if they cant.
The system is one that needs to be tested thoroughly however and we will probably do that in the X2 beta. If it looks like causing problems for users, we will simply release with no protection, as I dont want people having 'issues' with it. Then we'll fix stuff and try again next game beta - till we get it right {:-)
As for people that want to download a cracked version and try it out, and then buy it later if they like it, they can do that too with our cd key system. I funny support that idea, as it means we dont have to ship the game, its much easier for us {:-)
Tux Games. Your complete source for native Linux games.
It can vary by game.
Majesty was about 12 man months
X2 has been about 10 man months so far and more work to do before its released.
These are months of long hours and working weekends.
Tux Games. Your complete source for native Linux games.
CD requiring copy protection is more effective than purely cd key only, but it only lasts until someone reverse engineers the copy protection system, or hell, not even that much, they can do it by a big of hex editing and ensuring that the test function returns the pass value without running the test.
There IS no currently feasable copy protection that actually works. All we are going to be able to do is stop the casual copying. I have to say I can think of numerous methods of copy protection that WOULD work, but they are so draconian that I would shudder to even consider them, and would NEVER use them!
Tux Games. Your complete source for native Linux games.