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Warcraft 3 Announced
Anonymous something something writes "Warcraft 3 has been announced. Check blizzard's site.
No plans on doing a linux port but I'm sure we'll get it to work under wine. " Looks like quite a departure from WC 1&2 - "Role Playing Strategy". 6 races, too. Could the release of C&C: Tiberian Sun hurt sales when the game finally is released?
I thought the source code is unavailable. I tried to install the binaries about a year ago on linux 2.0.36 and it wouldnt run. :-( If the source code is available then I might get it to run on a recompile. Also I can't get quake1 to run on kernel 2.2x. Can it run at all with the nw memory managment?
Remember how long Starcraft was delayed? Remember how Bizzard said it would be a simultaneous release for both Mac and PC? Remember how it then took more than a year?
Hope you still want the Linux version when it comes out in 2006.
Blizzard has never released a game that didn't truely kick ass.
Starcraft and Brood War sucked ass. Hard.
Not only is the blizzard server straining under the load right now but we've killed the links, too... All in all it sounds interesting, but there is too little information about it on blizzards. page.
It's not unfair. Blizzard is in business. Businesses try to make money. They do not want to lose money. If it costs them more to port ther game for Linux then they would make in the sales of the game, then they will not do it. Understand? And since Linux people only use free software, I doubt they'd sell many copies.
Blizzard never seems to budge on the issue of any of their games in Linux. Plus their ports to MacOS take ages. Maybe a boycott on their products will at least help them see that there is actually a market out there for non-Windows games...
Loki would have to pay to do it - probably pay alot - they dont want to gamble on how big a linux game market there is
Boy the good old days were real fun werent they.
What makes you think that the programmers at Blizzard aren't already linux savvy? Just because it has never been economically viable to port games to an OS that has a larger server audience than desktop doesn't mean that they don't have the talent to do so.
you gotta stop sniffin that glue... blizzard won't port to linux unless they know that there is a big enough market willing to pay their $40-$60 like the winbloze automatons
Maybe they hack around with Linux at home, and even know some Linux programming. Some of them may contribute to Linux gaming projects. But they've had no reason to learn how to port large Windows games to Linux. They're too busy writing them for Windows.
Well, from the screenshots, I cannot see any problems why there won't be any Linux port.
I cannot confirm it, but from rumors I hear (and I cannot tell from who) it WILL be ported to Linux.
Hetz (Heunique)
I'm not sure I like this 'departure' thing; I lay awake nights for three years, fearing that C&C2 would be something different. Fortunately, Tiberian Sun is all I could hope for.
Different doesn't always mean better.
I don't see any reason to give up starcraft for Tib sun... I was not impressed at all. 6 races sounds exceedingly leet though... the more balance to the game, the happier I am.
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
Don't decide if it's good or bad until it comes out. The volume of people I've seen proclaiming that it will be the worst/best game ever made is astounding.
I was a big fan of Warcraft 1 and 2, but that doesn't mean Warcraft 3 will be great, or even good.
The genre is tired. Little men make buildings, harvest, build warmachines or more little men, then attacked has been worked over too many times. Glad to see something new.
It is so unfair that Blizzard makes killer games and have yet to share these games to the linux crowd. Yes WINE should get this to work, but WINE is also buggy and cannot figure out how-to configure the thing (the truth hurts). I am running an all linux box and do not have window system files and cannot figure out what do.
Tiberian Sun has been out for more than a week. It's a GREAT game, Its so much like Tiberian Dawn it isn't funny. I love it. I just now am stuck on the first of those impossible missions.
Man, from the day that Loki started announcing their ports, I've been saying that what we really really need is the next Warcraft game to run native under Linux.
To be honest, the games Loki ports haven't been blockbusters. They've been good games and I'm sure that Loki made a pretty penny off them, but no real killers -- Quake 3 will blow them all out of the water. Warcraft, however, might put them on the map with a real winner that would attract a serious amount of attention.
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I don't see how C&C2 would hurt WC3 sales since it is out now while WC3 won't be released until late-2000. Everyone who wants C&C2 will have it by then and need something new to play.
"FORMAT C:" - Kills bugs dead!
CNet Gamecenter also has a godd story on it, with some gameplay screenshots...
r craft3/?st.gc.fd.gcd
http://www.gamecenter.com/Resources/Strategy/Wa
Looks pretty good...seems all the RTS games have opted for the 3D look since Myth came out. (Dark Reign 2, Force Commander, WarcraftIII, Homeworld, more that I know I'm forgetting.)
However, I hope for Blizzard's sake that Games Workshop never goes out of business. They wouldn't be able to make any 'new' games.
;->
Seriously, though, as most of the GW-licensed games have been mediocre at best, I am kinda glad that Blizzard has been shamelessly ripping them off all these years. I find it hard to believe that there hasn't been a lawsuit or 8 though.
--sugarman--
Ok I haven't played all the rts games out there, so if someone wants to clear me up on this, go ahead.
From the games I've played, it seems that warcraft, war2, and starcraft each brought rts game complexity up a notch. In westwood's games, you don't have access to near as much detail - e.g., fewer/no spells, no numeric unit weapon/hitpoint measurements, fewer/no upgrades to research, and - most obviously - two different kinds of money.
I don't know about anyone else, but I have really enjoyed blizzard's games so far. I'm worried, though, about this change to "role-playing strategy" in war3. Does that mean we're going back to primitive C&C-style play? If so, is Starcraft 2 going to be tarnished by this change, too? I hope not.
If blizzard wants to invent a new game genere - that's fine by me, but why can't they keep it out of their highly successful rts series?
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You might be a redneck jedi if you keep a blaster rack in the back of your landspeeder.
I actually doubt that TF2 will sell that much, its sales will most certainly not compare to that of a popular RTS.
Hmm... From reading the webpage, it seems they adapted the "Lord of the Clans" Story to this one. Looks like they made it a little more interesting too. (Everyone break out the Starcraft CD to view the preview!) I enjoyed the little cartoon... The game looks good, but i'm gettting tired of all the Quake clones and [w|st]arcraft clones out today.
FREECELL FOREVER!
"Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear, Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair... Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy was he?"
Guess I won't be buying it then. Sorry Blizzard...
What's wrong with Everquest? I play it and have tons of fun doing it. Isn't that what a game is for. If there is a niche why not fill it.
Use the Z-modem protocol between Information Superhighway routers to compress the plaintext. ~LordOfYourPants
Warcraft III is slated for release late 2000. How would a game out now affect the sales of a game that far off? And knowing Blizzard, it will really be out mid 2001.
And on the whole Linux port thing... The game is so far off that in that time Linux will either make a bigger splash warranting almost all software to exist for Linux, or Linux will be a flop on consumer machines, and the Linux port won't exist.
Only time will tell on everything with this game. And who knows, it looks good, so that means it could be scrapped like Warcraft Adventures was. (Personally, the market needs more adventure games, and any decent one would have sold well, but I guess Blizzard had different ideas)
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The official ID source is here and compiles with just a "make svga":
m src.zip
- 1.8.wad.gz for shareware wad. Rename it doom1.wad.
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/doom/idstuff/source/doo
Get ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/idgames/idstuff/doom/doom
Quake works fine for me on Linux 2.2.
First off the war3 concept is just a resurrection of Blizzard's dead "Warcraft Adventures" project. Of course that did seem like a pretty good idea, and they had developed a decent storyline before the project died, so I'm sure that this will turn out well. Second their 'role-playing strategy' concept has been done before. Games like Final Fantasy Tactics have employed small parties of RPG-type characters engaging in tactical combat situations before (though I will admit that FFT wasn't real-time). Blizzard seems to be taking this from the other direction - instead of incorporating strategic elements into a RPG framework, they seem to be incorporating RPG elements into a strategic framework. Time will tell if they can pull it off convincingly, since for now it sounds to me like they're following an RPG-type framework currently. There doesn't seem to be all that much of the resource-management and control of massed force that characterize the strategy genre, so this doesn't look like it's going to be a strategy game.
It has the musserver, GGI, X11, SVGA and everything. linuxdoom.tar.bz2
By looking at the screenshots, This looks like a good game for a VR Helmet. Play commander, get in there with the men/orcs and slug it out.
If this going to be a strategy game, Being able to do recon work is essential.
I like the the idea of dwarvish rifleman, but I'm not sure I'd trust those maniacs with too much firepower:
"We've got bazoozas!"
Did you look closely at that page? Man, there's some html-wizardry I've never seen before.
If that page is any indication of the attention to detail we'll see in the game, I'll be really impressed.
On the main warcraft page (http://www.blizzard.com/war3/index.shtml ) there is an image (http://images.blizzard.com/war3/ima ges/dither.gif), the background in the "Prelude table data", that acts as a screen over the background. If you view the image on a white background it just looks like a grey image, with another background it makes the background darker.
Does anyone know how to create an image like that?
Well... Just wanted to point out that you CAN'T count on things coming out. I for one was looking forward for WarCraft Adventure (or what they called it). And it was on their website for several months. And then it died.
Of course at the time they where breaking their one 'just around one release a year' thing so unless they are going to do that again it seems likely this will indeed come out (and counting the fact that fans have screeming for a WCIII it's even more likely).
But just wanted to point it out anyway =)
They keep saying it was their fastest Mac port and the teams where working closely together.
Then the Wintel version came out and Blizzard said: "Well... it'll be out one of these months"
IT TOOK A YEAR!!!!
6 months (or something like that) before the game came out I played a v 0.96 beta that worked prefectly (well I don't see much diffrence from the version I now own).
I wish they would stop making good games so I could just ignore those bozos at Blizzard. 'course they really piss me off.
Damn, the world is so unfair.
..there are those of us who still prefer action games that aren't clones. Grand Theft Auto, for example. Originality's out there; it just isn't hanging around for you to stumble over it. ;P
And both MK and SF2 are outdated; real fighting game fans are busy playing King of Fighers.
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Like I said, StarCraft or War3 would sell better for sure, but TF2 would surely sell better than RailRoad Tycoon.
Is it just me, or does this game look a lot like the next-in-line C&C game? I haven't seen any information on Renegade from Westwood, but there was an extensive preview in the October 1999 edition of PC Gamer that I received yesterday. Any thoughts on this?
Yes! That guy!
Just repeating what he said, just making sure people know.
Also, I agree that Blizzard should do the port themselves. They, at least with StarCraft, have shown they need tons of patches to make there games "right". I doubt Loki want's to update patches for there games for years.
Realisticly, Loki is going to need to do this for online games in the future. That is going to be one of the reasons that they are worth something. I imagine Blizzard (or company X) could make the game, then Loki could maintain it. That would be worth it.
With all of these patches Blizzard itself has released, they need to . . . was that sarcasm? Just thought of that.
I know I will be moderated down for this, but . . . Vincent
As the file name sayes it's dither.
All it is, is half black, half transparant pixels. And volá. You have a simi-transparant image that dones the background down. It's all an optical illusion of course.
Yeah, I guess this copy of CivCTP here was free then.
Go buy yourself a clue.
I agree with you. I don't think there going to make Linux version.
But I can see many sleepless nights ahead, looks like school is going to suffer yet again... *g*
-I didn't just die in Quake2
Kinda makes me wonder who the pre-programmed automaton is, here.
DirectX is a large set of API subsets, including DirectSound, DirectDraw, DirectInput, etc. There's already strong support for a lot of these API's in Wine, and there has been for some time. Starcraft, for instance, uses DirectDraw and DirectSound, both of which are emulated in Wine well enough to run it.
Direct3D is the 3D-specific subset of DirectX, and is almost completely unsupported in Wine at this time, although as you mention, there's a Direct3D->Mesa mapping effort underway.
So, lots of DirectX stuff works fine under Wine; Direct3D stuff doesn't really yet.
Check http://www.linuxgames.com/wine/ for more poop on Wine gaming success stories.
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Bungie does make decent games usually....but Blizzard generally has the best, and are the most original. See - Diablo, Warcraft I&II and Starcraft.
Anyone have an email address to send requests for the port?
The most original?
Warcraft 2?
StarCraft?
If you have ever played myth, or myth 2, it is a completely game play type.
Oni is not first person. It is wonderful. i have played it in person. The AI and Physics are so complete, the Programmers see the characters react in ways they never anticipated.
Sorry but I just got a return on my own email that that address is bad :(
-- Rambar
You are right (but I knew this already :)
My statement was not based on running Wine but on having a look at this link:
http://www.winehq.com/source/graphics/d3ddevices.c
Particular this part:
My reason to find out what the Wine folks are doing is this one:
There is a new 3d API on the block, QDraw, that will be the foundation for a new 3d Web format (GEL). This API is crossplatform (NT and UNIX, I was able to run it under FreeBSD) and uses different backends, presently OpenGL and ASCII aalib (yes :-)
Now comes the funny bit. QDraw is from the original Direct3d guys - and while being much more cleaner (a nice C++ API, as far as I can see from the example sources) it is closer to Direct3d than OpenGL. So it might be easier to realize a Direct3d -> QDraw mapping, than the one to Mesa.
Seeing how Tiberian Sun is being a total bomb in the stores (and in reviews), WarCraft 3 looks very tasty. Lets just hope they innovate, unlike what Tiberian Sun did and just stay the same.
Warcraft? Original? Hello? Dune 2...
Actually you overlooked the game that has yet to
be surpassed in real-time-strategy. Total
Annihilation has a far better interface and
strategy possibilities than starcraft, let alone
warcraft 1/2. Tiberian Sun is little better than
Red Alert, which was a good game for its time.
TS does nothing to advance the art, not even as
far as starcraft possibly.
to threaten Warcraft III. TS isn't even as good
as Total Annihilation, which is alomst 3 years
old now ($9.99 at stores now!) and still very
popular. Starcraft may even be better than TS.
TS is little better than Red Alert, which was a
good game for it's time...
TA is the greatest at multiplayer, bar none.
First, Oni is third-person.
Second, Halo (also third person) looks very cool. Grab this movie (bigger version here) and tell me that your jaw doesn't drop.
Third, WC3 owes pretty much everything to Bungie's Myth. You know, that game that was released several years ago that featured full 3D terrain, a total lack of resource management and unit building, etc. Now let's look at the features of WC3 gameplay...hmmmm...
First of all, The idea of developing a Starcraft II is pointless (at this time). Blizzard does everything in moderation, which is good. You have Warcraft II then the Dark Portal Expansion for it and Blizzard gives you time to soak it in before trying something new. Hence Diablo comes into the picture along with the Hellfire Expansion. Blizzard then brings you Starcraft and the Broodwar Expansion. Going directly into another sequel for a game after it's release won't give the programmers enough time to think things over for how to make a game better. Look at Diablo II, it's a damn improvement over Diablo I. That's because Blizzard had a timespan for getting ideas from both their own staff and hardcore fans.
Now the idea of an RPG/Strategy is a very well thought of idea. I am a Warcraft/Warcraft II/Starcraft player, so don't tell me I dont know what I'm talking about. First off, you know that in Starcraft, the number of kills was shown on each unit. When I first played Starcraft, I thought the number of kills were like experience points and that unit would get stronger. Apparently I was wrong and was disappointed. I was hoping Blizzard would incorporate it since it kept "levels" in Warcraft II. Now that experience is kept in Warcraft III, that means your units do get stronger over time (I hope, that's what the preview implied to me). Now the idea of roaming around, interacting with people, recruiting characters is also an excellent idea. It shows that not only do the gamers have to build a force and develop their base, it also means that they have to do some scouting so they can get more characters to join their army.
It's amazing really. It almost eliminates the bastard players that do not move and put Towers/Photon Cannons everywhere around your base. It also nearly eliminates rushers since there will be NPCs/creatures that MAY attack you while exploring. This will give other players some time just in case someone is a rusher.
Warcraft III will keep the strategy/tactician element, but I believe the incorporation of recruiting characters, NPCs, hostile animals, gaining experience, exploration, and unit efficiency will make it a good game.
For those of you that are bitching Warcraft III will be a failure, you are simply wrong. What game has Blizzard made that the majority of gamers did NOT like? None. Blizzard makes good games period. They know what they are doing because obviously they have the talent. Apparently they are doing something right when the majority of dominating gaming magazines are giving games Blizzard makes an "A" equivalent rating.
There will always be someone who will play it. It will be a big change from us Starcraft/Warcraft II players, but it will be for the better. Everyone will be "beginners" to this game because of the different gameplay. When Starcraft came along, I easily adapted to it and knew what I was doing because of style Blizzard makes their RTS games. No one will really have the huge advantage over another. Also, the previews leading to it's release will tide some haters over to the lovers side of Warcraft III.
In any case, when Warcraft III comes along, I'll be waiting in line to buy it, play it, and love it. I'm sure a lot of people can say the same.
Sierra's Orcs Revenge of the Ancient has a similar theme - training small groups of fighters to use against your opponents.
Ever play Herzog Zwei for the Sega? I'm not sure if that came out before Dune2 or not, but it was a hell of a game.. something that definately could deserve a remake..
D
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driph
I agree with you completely.. Although I love Starcraft, battle.net has been a real thorn in the foot of blizzard games... ..same bnet interface, skipping bnet itself..there are both Linux and Win servers available to host your own games, and you can network with other FSGS servers as well(ala battle.net) so there are usually plenty of games available to jump into...plus it makes it soo much easier to actually get into the server with a few friends and get a game going.
_ _____________
One alternative you may want to try is FSGS(Free Standard Game Server)... www.fsgs.com
D
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driph
a game that was ahead of its time. most certainly.
... oh ... all of ... 9 years ago ...
I remember playing it
then again, I'm still waiting for someone to make a remake of Nuclear War
Civ:CTP4Linux is the most horrendously slow game I've ever played, but I understand that things are much the same on the Windows side. If only they would port Civ:II... ~luge
Nuclear War, wouldn't we all just love that. Heck, they could even make it 3D and realtime and it would still be great=) Some of the humour would be amiss thou since the political climate has changed since those days... But wasn't there a 3D realtime game that took place over a rotating earth looking something similar to NW a while ago? Anyone? "I won! I won!" (And on a side note, I'm for one am really looking forward to WC3, hooray to Blizzard for trying something different.)
Yes, lets look at WC3's features and see how they're exactly like myth.. 3d terrain. Yep, both apparently have it, but then so do warzone2100, TA, enemy nations.. the list goes on.. and they arent at all like myth.
Unit building. Myth doest have it, WC3 has some form of unit-addition. It said you could recruit new units and have structures in the CNET review
Resource management. Myth doesnt have it, WC3 does. Again, the CNET review said rather specifically that there would be some form of resouce management in the game. Given that you're recruiting people i'd imagine it'd at least have money of some type.
Environment. Myth you had an army, the badguys had an army, you kill each other. WC3 apparently will have you, the badguys, and townsful of innocent bystanders
Yup, exactly the same in every way, obviously blizzard must have stolen the whole game. We've had so many 3d shooter clones and lookalike 'rpg' console games i guess people now assume games are alike at a glance.
Dreamweaver
"If a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live" -- MLK, Jr.
The title says it all. Anybody who relies on 'i have a big army so i'll overwhelm you now' is an idiot (well, in most games anyway.. i've a played a few where you really had no other choice). Though i can see why someone might have trouble if they cant even win consistently at Dune2.. took me about 2 hours to figure out how to win every time in that game
Dreamweaver
"If a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live" -- MLK, Jr.
Maybe warcraft3 isnt the sweeping new idea blizzard says it is, maybe it's borrowed from pre-existing games.. but so what? Very few games come out that dont borrow from others for alot of elements and i cant think of Any that said "Just another game in the X genre". EVERY game is a dynamic new departure from the genre that will change the world of gaming forever. Once in a while it's true, but every marketing department on earth says the same things. Dont pick on them for it.
Personally, i dont like 3d games. The media has a great deal of potential, i like rendered artwork and do a bit of it myself.. but i dont like polygonal games. I had fun with tomb raider for about 10 minutes, i liked TA for a couple of hours, i stuck with zelda64 just 'cause i love zelda games.. but i dont think Every game needs it. However, i dont think 3d is evil. Blizzard Just announced this game. You cant go off pre-prototype screenshots. Look at some of the pre-proto shots of Starcraft, it looked Really crappy, worse graphics and interface than warcraft 2. But now we have a beautiful game with a streamlined interface. Blizzard's good at what they do and i have no doubt they'll pull it off again.
Even if the worst happens and WC3 sucks, or even just isnt a great game.. well.. oh well. I'll still have fun with starcraft, i'm looking forward to WC2 platinum, and i've already got money stashed away so i can get Diablo2 the day it comes out. Blizzard makes good games, and even if they manage to pull a lemon out of the hat this time, they're not going to die from it. They'll learn from their mistakes like they always do and either dump the RPS thing or fix it up.
As for all of this Warcraft is a Dune2 clone and RTS's are all the same stuff.. i have to disagree. Dune2 was pretty good, but it wasnt That good and i can only think of about 4 different fantasy based RTS's. I'd like to see a new one.. SF is getting a bit overdone, though when you consider only 1 in 10 of the new SF RTS's are even worth playing there's alot still out there. Getting a bit of environment interaction seems only logical.. I mean, in all RTS's your out there waging war.. usually in a populated world. Where are the bystanders? The independent militias? The whole RPS thing is just a way to draw attention to (what i hope anyway) is just a step-up the RTS ladder in a genre saturated with "Groundbreaking New Game"s.
Dreamweaver
"If a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live" -- MLK, Jr.
This is scheduled for release "by the end of 2000". C&C: Tiberian Sun is out now. While you will probably still be able to find copies of TS on the shelves a year from now, it is NOT going to be competition for WC3 that far down the line. Games just don't work that way. The vast majority of sales come in the first couple of months, with a spike at the following christmas if you're lucky (and if it wasn't released at christmas in the first place). Two similar games released within a couple of months of each other can definitely affect each others' sales. Two similar games released more than a year apart won't.
*does a little dance*
Judging from how long it takes Blizzard to finishing their (quality, admittedly) releases, this should come out just about the time I'm a grandpa. (And I'm only 21 now.) Blizzard news releases are about the useless things on the planet .. you know it's coming, but don't start counting the days.
G
"Old man yells at systemd"
No offense, But blizzard and WestWood are really out of it.
Want to see a real game, that makes q3test look like doom?
check:
oni.bungie.com
and
halo.bungie.com
These guys are in it to make the greatest games ever, and it looks like they will.
First of all, Tiberian Sun is out now, while Warcraft 3 "is expected to release by the end of 2000". That's a whole year (plus possible delays). If consider the (way too short, IMHO) lifespan of games, most people propably won't even remember C&C2 a year from know.
Second, the game seems to be very different from C&C2. Tiberian Sun brings nothing new to the genre, while WC3 looks (allmost) revolutionary. It's offcourse impossible to tell from a press release and screenshot, if Warcraft 3 will be any better than lets say Battlezone (2), but it sure seems better than C&C2. This is kinda like asking if Midtown Madness will hurt the sales of Q3A.
Speaking of Doom, I got it to compile flawlessly under Linux. It compiles amazingly fast and now has music under Linux (I use AWE64 synth).
Get it from ftp.cdrom.com/pub/idsomething/!
Good point. I don't know why Loki just won't go for the easy money, and port a game that would surely sell well, like TeamFortess 2 (well, mainly TeamFortress 2, but a WarCraft 3 would surely be even better than that). I never even knew about the games they have ported to date (I am not a big gamer type).
need I say more? This already has millions of followers from the series Wheel of time by Robert Jordan. this promises to be an incredible game story wise game wise and multiplayer wise. Tib sun i feel lacks in gameplay where it has a good story with incredible cutscence, play it now just to see the story its multi doesn't even interest me. starcraft had an good story line awesome gameplay and great cutscenes. q3test has good gplay but gets repititius. and those whom mock doom, well IMO doom is a better game than q3test.
and i forgot to mention the amazing amount of time the staff developing the wheel of time go to tell us and sometimes show us generaly what they are working on and whats happening with the game in general. go see it http://wheeloftime.com
and some companies i shall not mention its name *cough* blizzard *ahem* would make good use by following this way of reaching out to those interested in it.
if the AI doesn't know where stuff is on a level it runs around like a headless chicken.......
wow that sort of summons up my experiance with tib sun. never played c&c1 so i can't compare. well if it did develop better gameplay i'm glad i never did play C&C1. i find tib sun moves way to slow where your units barly understand what you try to tell them. sorry but giev me starcraft anyday. C7C does have a good story tho.
Civilization CTP 1.1 is barely playable on Celeron 300 with 64 MB. The game slows to a crawl in late levels and there are significant bugs: some paratrooper manipulations can crash the game hard, and preferences are not save across sessions. Add to that the 350MB install and you have yourself a good game with severe annoyances. Before you flame me for wanting good performance out of this sub optimal gaming platform, consider that CTP is a 2D game with very little movement.
I suspect that Blizzard could do a better port than Loki. For one thing they already do good Windows and Mac versions of their games so their code base is probably reasonably portable. Starting a port early in the development process is also a plus since it makes for better design decisions.
I'm willing to give Loki the benefit of the doubt. CTP was their first foray into porting. They were on a tight schedule and have limited resources. The developers are accessible and responsive and they even have a Bugzilla page. I just hope their new releases are more professional and that they continue to fix the annoying bugs in their already released games.
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"L'IT c'est moi!"
I don't know about many of the people here, but I for one waited days for that "The World will Change" thing to change on 9-5-99. I guess I can be called as one of the devoted memers of the clan of Blizzard... :)
That said, I am completely looking forward to Warcraft 3. And no, I don't think this game is going to be in direct competition with the regular RTSs out there since they seemed to be focused in callined it "Role Playing Strategy" and gave pitifully little information about it. But the release date is still over a year way and I can see Blizzard announcing this in order to hype this thing up crazy the next year+.
Remember Starcraft. That game was massively hyped and delayed. In the end, it was an amazing product. But nonetheless, some people felt cheated and although it was a great game, like all games, it didn't live up to the hype it generated.
My advice: Blizzard's pulled this one before. They'll come up with a super duper game that I'm going to drool and spend many sleepless nights over. But it'll never live up to the hype it's gonna create so just sit back and forget about it for a year until it eventually ships on that fateful early 2001 (Ha! I doubt they'll release in 2000, but we'll see).
And the port to linux would make me such a happy person. Please let it be true. Please!
Warcraft 2 cost me an entire semester when it came out. I'm never going to finish school.
I started with nothing and I still have most of it.
You are so smoking crack, dude. Firstly, all the Blizzard RTSes have things EXACTLY LIKE THIS. In WCII, catapults/ballistae fire one square farther than cannon towers, in Starcraft Reavers fire one square farther than bunkers/photon cannons, etc.
Second, um, I played Dune II Back In The Day myself, and I don't see what you're going on about. The game had no balance whatsoever, the AI was...how can I describe it? It was obviously a collection of very simple scripts, basically it sent out a preset group of units to your home base at x minute intervals. It didn't even pretend to react to the environment. IIRC some guy from Westwood actually said as much once in an interview.
Anyway, Dune II had no multiplayer mode...that's just retarded. RTSes only work multiplayer. Really. If I was even ruder than I am, I'd probably say that the reason you don't like modern RTSes is that you're too dim/lazy to actually figure out the strategy. Especially Starcraft...
how could you possibly say that Starcraft solely consisted of amassing a larger army than your opponent, then throwing it at him? Have you ever played Starcraft multiplayer? At all? I suggest you go to your favourite search engine and search for "zileas" (minus quotes, natch). I'm pretty sure he's got a strategy page up, he is unbelievably dangerous with small groups of units.--
"HORSE."
"HORSE."
-Flaming Carrot
As much as I absolutely _love_ everything that Blizzard has put out, and I'm totally looking forward to this game, there has been only one RTS game that has stood the test of time with me: Age of Empires. And there is no game I'm looking more forward to than AOE 2.
Yes, yes...I realize that my purchase of that game ends up with me putting more money into the Evil Empire's coffers, but I can't help myself! The detail, the units, the buildings...I'm drawn to it like a moth to flame!
"UNIX" is never having to say you're sorry.
I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure that BattleNet does not host the games. BattleNet simply provides a media by which to set up games which are then run over TCP/IP sockets between the computers in the game. That's why you can loose your connection to battlenet and continue playing the game. This used to happen to me when I played really long games last spring. You should upgrade your internet connection.
It's slow on Windows also.
Loki doesn't get to redesign the games. CivCTP has some fundamental UI problems. The graphics get redrawn much more often than they need to be.
But that's not Loki's fault. Loki did a good job on the port, but they started with a suboptimal design that they couldn't change.
Sucks, It could not have sucked worse, and hopefully warcraft III won't suck. I did enjoy starcraft because unlike tiberian sun it was atleast a bit different. Tiberian Sun was the SAME as earlier C&C's and I do not even think the graphics were better. Unit control in my opinion was worse, and there were very few positives. Hopefully blizzard can be a bit more creative.
I really do hope they start making linux games, that's one of the main reasons my friends hold out on linux. I personally am not a big gamer(however i'm rather addicted to "starcraft", and the game "spectre challenger" for the mac) but i'm able to get by with out them. Having quake 3 and the newest warcraft will definatly put us somewhere on the gamers' map.
char *stupidsig = "this is my dumb sig";
I was surprised to learn yesterday that the Wine folks are actually tackling DirectX emulation by rendering it with Mesa.
Of course, now that we have several accelerated cards working with Mesa (Glide, G200/G400, RIVA) I would love to know how fast the emulation might turn out on older (but still good) game titles.
The requirement for e.g. Jedi Knight was a P5-90, so it might run acceptable under Wine emulation.
My question:
Has anyone tried out older DirectX stuff under Wine and accelerated Mesa and can post something about the performance here?
Where can I read about performance and successful emulation examples? The apps service on the Wine HQ site did not work last time I checked.
I did enjoy starcraft because unlike tiberian sun it was atleast a bit different.
Starcraft is really Warcraft3: Lost in Space. The only thing that got was changed in Starcraft was unit differentiation. Similar graphics, same annoying low resolution, same BS about having to research everything all over again for each frikken level, if the AI doesn't know where stuff is on a level it runs around like a headless chicken.......
Get real - Bungie has terrific products. I don't think you even looked at Oni.... it isn't even a first person game....
i played tiberian sun last night (ah, the joys of having friends who obtain not-so-legal copies of games that haven't exactly been released yet), and it was exceedingly boring in comparison to starcraft. the ai is okay, and there are a few nice points about it, but in general it offers too much complexity and too much room to get completely screwed before you're even off the ground. it's more on the level of warcraft 2 than starcraft, only with many more units and a much less interesting matching between races. my prediction is that warcraft 3 will be much, much better.
while WC3 looks (allmost) revolutionary
Yeah, it's Starcrap plus DiaBlow plus that junked Warcraft storyline!
This is only my opinion of course but it seems like warcraft1 was a copy of dune2.
Dune2 is alot like dune2000 is today but better in strategy and it ran on old 286 and 386 pc's. Dune2 was the first war strategy game ever created and it won all kinds of awards. I believe it runs on dosemu and wine. Whats really cool is there is no mutlimedia trash in it like today's games.
I like the old games alot better. IT seems years ago more thought was given to the game itself rather then 3d graphics and multimedia.
Want to know what my 2 favorite 3D shooters are?
Doom1 and duke Nukem3d. I don't like quake. Doom1 had a better atmosphere that concentrated on dark enviroments and haunting music then todays 3D shooters. But the main thing was the detail of game itself and the levels. Remember the level with the boxes?
Today its just run and shoot with no haunting music and the visuals are just 3D rendered castle bricks, windows and wood which really don't add to the creepy high tech atmosphere of Doom1. The visuals matched the levels. I believe John Romeo was brillant on atmosphere. Its a shame he left ID software. Carmack is great programmer but he cares more about action and quick code then time consuming detail that Romeo likes.
Duke Nukem was cool because you felt immersed in the game. Duke had a character and personality that you felt attached too.
I also love the goal oriented Ultima series. What ever happened to them?
What ever happened to the good old days of gaming and computers?
The reason why I am into computers today is because of games I played in junior high. Nintendo games were too immature for me and were controlled by game marketers while games were made by fun individuals so the games were more intelligent. I can't stand pointless action games like street fighter2 and mortal combat whre you win the game by hitting the buttons faster on the controllers but I loved ultima and dune2 where I had to think to win. PC games are looking more and more like cheap nintendo games.
I believe game marketing droids and bussinesses who think great software is created by companies and not indivudals have taken over the game industry.
This concept is also why Microsofts products are sub-standard. MS word, VB and Powerpoint were created by individuals and not companies and were bought. Windows was created from ground up by a company and thats why it sucks.
Linux started out as an individuals project and it sill is to some extent. Today its just divided down by hundreds of people each doing there own thing that the individuals do best like one writes ethernet drivers, another focuses on the kde gradients, while another focuses on USB ports. This is why linux is so stable. No greed or corporate bs is involved.
What a sad world we live in. I wish the current game industry would just die and the old fun game industry would return. I just read an article here on how the game industry is turning into a very boring and uncreative industry. I believe the poster was quite right on this.
Unless games are written by people and not companies all these games are going to suck or be half-good.
For example on dune2 I kept getting my butt kicked by rocket turrets until I examined the range of my missle tanks and relized if I took just one tank out of the range of the turret then I could capture the base. Details like this are not in dune2000 and warcraft.
All you do is make a huge legion of men that are bigger then the enemies and take over. Duh. Thats too easy and thoughtless! Even a 7 year old can figure that out. IT seems todays games judge players by how fast they hit buttons on controllers like Mortal Combat and street fighter2 or how quick you can build tanks like Command and conquer.
Its all immature and pointless.
Why can't it be like the good old days where your infantry gets killed so quickly that its too expensive to make legions of troops and you have use thought to win a level instead of sheer force or quick reactions liek Mortal Combat!
Perhaps I liked these games more because I was a teenager at the time and I am more mature now. I still wish I had my dune2 diskettes. This was my favorite game of all time. Zelda and doom1 were also great games.
What do you all think about this? Any old timers out there agree with me?
I also miss the BBS's. The internet practically killed them.
They should IMHO upgrade the BattleNet servers. The prime reason everyone at my house stopped playing StarCraft was not that it got old, but BattleNet became unusable. Lag, downed servers, lag, lag, downed servers, problems that Blizzard didn't seem able to fix. Now that everyone is addicted to Everquest (ack, what an awful game) I am sure that its better but if I can't play with my mates then its not that fun for me...
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK