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Railroad Tycoon II: Gold Edition for Linux
gr00vy writes "Loki Entertainment Software are just weeks away from shipping their latest port, Railroad Tycoon II: Gold Edition for Linux. Lee Anderson has another pre-release review on the final build, which is on show at the recently redesigned ext2.org. Click here for more. "I can attest to the quality of this game. Playing the beta greatly slowed my ability to get things down around the office.
I've never played the game, so I can't comment, however I do know that ANY commercial game is good for linux right now. Commercial games (generally) mean advertising. Advertising means people see it (even though they don't want to). It's exposure. The more people hear/see linux they'll be curious and want to try it out.
:)
Plus, a lot of companies, being the large non-comformists they are (ok, end sarcasm) will see other's making games for linux, and will see said games selling, and will want to jump on the bandwagon.
Think of it like this:
You have to use windows to appreciate linux.
You have to play bad games to appreciate good games.
kthxbye
need i elaborate? now all we need is a freebsd port *sic*. i remember playing the original and great RT on 386/33 machines when i was a senior in high school. the old lady who supervised the computer center didn't like it to much. so i had to keep her busy by inserting pennies in the floppy drives. this gave her plenty of things to do. when civ2 came around i used the lone 486 machine to play it. NO ONE liked that setup. but what could they do? i ran that lab, not the funny old lady...
:)
maybe i need to get another box to play linux games. sheesh, that'll be 4 heads then. need another desk. the costs go out of proportion
signatures are for fools with hands
--
The full version of Myth II has a "CD only" option for the installation that actually only installs the binaries on the hard drive (less than 10 MB) and plays the rest of the game straight from the CD ...
Stéphane Peter
Codehost, Inc.
maybe my expectations were too high, but the one thing I always wanted from RRTycoon was an interface to a spreadsheet program, so I could export engine age data, route profit trends, and the like to something I could actually SEARCH and MANIPULATE. The more lines you put in, the more tedious the management became. I did a lot of pencil-and-paper recordkeeping to maximize my returns.
The other thing that really bugged me was the inability to do anything other than macro city-to-city line-building with other railroads you controlled. Shouldn't you get the same level of detail with them? Ah well.
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
Uh, you want to take a business class or two?
...
... until Linux is a proven gaming market. Just like the Macintosh, there are going to be few games with simultaneous releases on both platforms.
Linux is a tiny market right now compared to Wintel. The gaming industry is (like other sectors) taking baby steps into the pond of Linux to test the waters, and what they're going to choose are products that have proven appeal. [In fact, that's the motto of Loki Software: bringing best-selling games to Linux.]
Railroad Tycoon is probably a good choice. Its appeal isn't just to the flash-in-the-pan crowd who buy every game the moment it hits the shelves, but also to a large class of non-hardcore gamers. Yes, the former will sniff at the "old" games (six months old!), but the scenario you envision
ain't gonna happen.
Your proposal to "petition companies like Looking Glass, Westwood et all to release the quality games simultaneously" reflects a fan-boy activist mentality. Instead of using "petitions", why not use that old, tried-and-true method of influencing businesses: sales?
Loki's probably lucky to get the rights to port what it has so far (RRT2, MythII, some solitaire) and that's the way it's going to stay
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
I agree that it's nice to be able to do a minimal install and play off the CD, if you're short on disk space.
It's also nice to be able to do a full install and file the CD away in the closet if you have lots of disk space.
Tomb Raider is an example of a game with a stupid copy-protection CD check plus mandatory Redbook audio. The user is forced to fiddle with CDs like he's using a Playstation, even if he has 20 GB of free disk space.
I only buy games at stores that allow returns, and tend to return games with copy protection that pisses me off. Loki did the right thing with Civ:CTP, and I hope they continue to do so with future ports. Pissing off your paying customers is not a good way to increase sales, something a lot of game publishers haven't figured out yet.
-- David Ripton