You want to know why no one likes LinuxOne? Because your practices stink of Microsoft. The company that distributed a version of Intergalactic Research's Q-DOS and charged $60 for it, and then went on to rip off the Macintosh GUI and charge $180 for it. Your practices (and Microsoft's) may not be illegal, but they're pretty lame.
Now, I despise MS products as much as anyone, but I can't let this totally pass. Microsoft does have one redeeming quality: they employ programmers, and they crank out code. It may not work well, but they do crank it out and they do have many developers on staff.
I like Pater because I like (a) his voice and (b) his sense of humor. Funny thing is, he sounds a lot like one of my co-workers =) (On the other hand, I also like listening to Rob & Jeff going back and forth. And Jeff's "Uh, riiiiiight.")
I know that feeling. Now that my wife is getting hooked on the games on my Linux box, she's demanding her own Linux box. It'd be a lot easier if we could actually afford one...
And I'm sure the/. guys get in on the betas a lot =) (Wasn't there a blurb in Geeks in Space about one of the betas?) For that matter, so do the LinuxGames folks.
And HoMM3 absolutely rocks! Much more fun and addictive than I expected. Now I really hope that the rumors of a port of Armageddon's Blade (the add-on) are true...
My father back in the 50's, on the other hand, got stuck with this new game called "Adventure". Plugh. (One of his roomates at MIT helped write it.)
Given the plugh reference, I would point out that Crowther and Woods wrote Adventure in the early Seventies. (Reference 1: T he Craft of Adventure, chapter 2 [P DF]) (Reference 2: A History of 'Adventure'). So, it's a little improbable that the Adventure of plugh fame was available in the 50's =)
(You can play it on-line at any of several locations these days, including here and here.)
At some point the Linux game industry will reach the volume needed to justify a magazine targetted at Linux gamers (or serious inclusion in the Windows gaming mags), at which point you'll be able to get the demos on CD's that come with many magazines or are handed out at computer stores...
Actually, that's sort of what Maximum Linux seems to be. Granted, there's only one issue to judge it by (and that one has a TurboLinux eval CD bundled with it), but its headline article is "Linux Got Game!". A lot out of date now (Myth2 was the current Loki game at that point), but closer to the "mainstream" PC (gaming) mags than either Linux Journal or Linux Magazine.
It grated a little on me, but I can imagine them having cover CDs with various demos in forthcoming issues. In fact, I'd welcome it. I have a 33.6 =/
(Actually, people with fat pipes and CD burners can make demo and patch CDs for their friends;-) )
I really think this is all thanks to id software. John Carmack and his team worked hard to bring a Linux port of Quake 3 to us. Because Quake is the standard for all FPS and Geek Games, Linux is suddenly enjoying consideration as a platform that can play games.
Actually, id's involvement with Linux began with DOOM, thanks to ddt (aka Dave Taylor). ddt did it because "Linux [gave him] a woody". Now, it's pretty standard for an id title to be released for Linux (although as a separate package to gauge the market was a great move by JC and the rest of the gang at id). John Carmack definitely deserves credit for bringing Linux support to the next level.
ddt went on to found Crack.com, released abuse, and is now working for Transmeta...
Since SDL is LGPL'ed you should be able to get either a dynamically linked version of CivCTP or an object file that can be linked with SDL. If they don't give you that they are really bad.
Except, of course, that Sam Latinga (Mr. SDL) is Lead Programmer for Loki -- and thus, as owner, has the option to re-license it. That is, if Loki's hosting and continued development of the project hasn't already resulted in a transference of the ownership.
The only thing to watch out for is that Heroes3 for Linux doesn't network interoperate with Windows <sigh> That may or may not get fixed, and there are no current plans to do so. However, since there is a (partial?) implementation of DirectPlay in WINE, that might be snarfable by Loki to allow interoperation in later patches. (RT2 suffers from a similar problem, for the same reason -- both games use DirectPlay for network games.)
On the other hand, the first Heroes3 patch is supposed to enable network games working with Mac users. Unfortunately, that patch hasn't been released yet.
I've found that myth2 and CTP 1.1 play the movies and cutscenes jerkily (that is to say, in fits and starts), as does RT2. Heroes3 and Heretic2, however, play their movies smoothly. Similarly, CTP 1.2 (the beta patch) runs it more smoothly than 1.1 did.
So, yes, there are some pretty serious improvements to SDL, smpeg, and smjpeg. And if it ever comes back up, news.lokigames.com has newsgroups to track the development of the open sourced projects (SDL, smjpeg, smeg, install, fenris) as well as discussion fora for the games.
I don't have rough figures, but according to a post on the heroes3 newsgroup (loki.games.heroes3), one of the beta-testers ordered the game through Loki -- and Loki was waiting for some more stock in order to ship it.
Guess at least one title sold through the initial product run =)
(Loki has, to date, refused to release sales figures.)
Or you can re-use your existing NT install -- which is how I set mine up. It's a little trickier to juggle if you switch between the setups, but the rawdisk options for vmware allow you to access the whole drive (rather than setting up a virtual one) -- and you can flag access (none, read-only, read-write) on a partition-by-partition basis. Pretty nifty...
It would be nice if game performance were better -- I really want to try out Ultima: Ascension, but I'm not going to install Win95 just for that one game... Maybe WINE will play it.
There are patches for CTP to convert/allow play under alpha and ppc architectures, though.
Looks like a start... (yeah, I wish they had broader support too, but the issues are larger than simply doing a 'make sparc64'. There's that whole testing/support thing...)
If they can get two people to buy their games for BSD and the cost to produce the games is as simple as typing 'make bsd', then they have made money. Not doing so would be a waste of a possible income stream.
Except that the cost to produce the games is 'make bsd' + internal testing + beta program + additional support (and training) + additional development environments and programming expertise.
I'm not saying they won't do it, but the additional costs aren't at the compile time...
DAMMIT! It worked in preview... REAL post follows:
Why would anyone and I mean anyone actually care about a stupid solitaire game? Let alone for a software company to actually port that game from one OS to another?
Uh, I do? EUS is vastly under-rated. PySol may have more games, but EUS has a much slicker interface.
And my wife likes it a lot better, too, and anything that gets her on the Linux bandwagon is cool by me =) It's a good non-geek program to have. I bet I could get my grandmother to switch if I showed her EUS...
(Don't knock it until you've tried it. Seriously. Now, if the EUS interface was combined with PySol's complete set of game types, you'd have the best solitaire game of all time...
A friend of mine is using vmware for precisely that purpose -- running multiple WinNT's side by side with different setups to cut down on the total number of physical boxes he needs on his desk. And a few programmers at my company regularly develop under NT (using DevStudio) in a vmware window. Me included, these days.
It helps to have lots of disk space to throw at it, though =)
(Unfortunately, game performance isn't good, and DirectX support isn't there, but for work stuff, it rocks.. Try it. Seriously.)
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The Magic Cauldron is also available on the web: http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/w ritings/magic-cauldron/
Ooooh, Enchanter flashbacks... Heh, it even fits. Writes a spell scroll into your spellbook for later use.
Cool.
(I'd suggest adding frotz for a command, but it's already a Z-machine interpreter...)
Let's see: gnusto (installation/package tool), rezrov ("unlock/open" == chmod?), malyon ("animate object" == filemanager/program launcher?), filfre ("useless fireworks" == eyecandy something). Oh, this has possibilities... ;-)
You want to know why no one likes LinuxOne? Because your practices stink of Microsoft. The company that distributed a version of Intergalactic Research's Q-DOS and charged $60 for it, and then went on to rip off the Macintosh GUI and charge $180 for it. Your practices (and Microsoft's) may not be illegal, but they're pretty lame.
Now, I despise MS products as much as anyone, but I can't let this totally pass. Microsoft does have one redeeming quality: they employ programmers, and they crank out code. It may not work well, but they do crank it out and they do have many developers on staff.
Now, LinuxOne...
Um, do you mean this Heroes of Might & Magic III? It's ported. It's available. It's on sale at EBWorld (search PC for Linux). Yeah, it's $30, but it's worth it! Oh, man is it worth it...
(BTW, there is a demo available of the Linux version. It's 93M, so hope you have time and/or bandwidth...)
I like Pater because I like (a) his voice and (b) his sense of humor. Funny thing is, he sounds a lot like one of my co-workers =) (On the other hand, I also like listening to Rob & Jeff going back and forth. And Jeff's "Uh, riiiiiight.")
This is fun to listen to =) Want more!
28-8-888. 3 isn't even =)
If it's a smooth MPEG player, try SMPEG from Loki.
Betcha it keeps getting developed =)
According to this interview (and lots of news at LinuxGames (search for Tribes)), Tribes 2 is being ported to Linux by the development team.
Sounds like HOMM3 is running with the DGA extensions. You may want to run it as 'heroes3 --windowed' (or 'heroes3 -w') to get around that.
Mind you, that's the full release, but I expect the demo behaves the same.
Loki has released several Open Source projects:
- SMPEG
- Setup
- SMJPEG
- Fenris
In addition, they are quite supportive of SDL (no surprise -- Sam Latinga co-founded Loki)I know that feeling. Now that my wife is getting hooked on the games on my Linux box, she's demanding her own Linux box. It'd be a lot easier if we could actually afford one...
Ah well...
Umm...It's been in the stores for a month or two.
And I'm sure the /. guys get in on the betas a lot =) (Wasn't there a blurb in Geeks in Space about one of the betas?) For that matter, so do the LinuxGames folks.
And HoMM3 absolutely rocks! Much more fun and addictive than I expected. Now I really hope that the rumors of a port of Armageddon's Blade (the add-on) are true...
(Slightly off-topic, but...)
My father back in the 50's, on the other hand, got stuck with this new game called "Adventure". Plugh. (One of his roomates at MIT helped write it.)
Given the plugh reference, I would point out that Crowther and Woods wrote Adventure in the early Seventies. (Reference 1: T he Craft of Adventure, chapter 2 [P DF]) (Reference 2: A History of 'Adventure'). So, it's a little improbable that the Adventure of plugh fame was available in the 50's =)
(You can play it on-line at any of several locations these days, including here and here.)
At some point the Linux game industry will reach the volume needed to justify a magazine targetted at Linux gamers (or serious inclusion in the Windows gaming mags), at which point you'll be able to get the demos on CD's that come with many magazines or are handed out at computer stores...
Actually, that's sort of what Maximum Linux seems to be. Granted, there's only one issue to judge it by (and that one has a TurboLinux eval CD bundled with it), but its headline article is "Linux Got Game!". A lot out of date now (Myth2 was the current Loki game at that point), but closer to the "mainstream" PC (gaming) mags than either Linux Journal or Linux Magazine.
It grated a little on me, but I can imagine them having cover CDs with various demos in forthcoming issues. In fact, I'd welcome it. I have a 33.6 =/
(Actually, people with fat pipes and CD burners can make demo and patch CDs for their friends ;-) )
I really think this is all thanks to id software. John Carmack and his team worked hard to bring a Linux port of Quake 3 to us. Because Quake is the standard for all FPS and Geek Games, Linux is suddenly enjoying consideration as a platform that can play games.
Actually, id's involvement with Linux began with DOOM, thanks to ddt (aka Dave Taylor). ddt did it because "Linux [gave him] a woody". Now, it's pretty standard for an id title to be released for Linux (although as a separate package to gauge the market was a great move by JC and the rest of the gang at id). John Carmack definitely deserves credit for bringing Linux support to the next level.
ddt went on to found Crack.com, released abuse, and is now working for Transmeta...
Since SDL is LGPL'ed you should be able to get either a dynamically linked version of CivCTP or an object file that can be linked with SDL. If they don't give you that they are really bad.
Except, of course, that Sam Latinga (Mr. SDL) is Lead Programmer for Loki -- and thus, as owner, has the option to re-license it. That is, if Loki's hosting and continued development of the project hasn't already resulted in a transference of the ownership.
The only thing to watch out for is that Heroes3 for Linux doesn't network interoperate with Windows <sigh> That may or may not get fixed, and there are no current plans to do so. However, since there is a (partial?) implementation of DirectPlay in WINE, that might be snarfable by Loki to allow interoperation in later patches. (RT2 suffers from a similar problem, for the same reason -- both games use DirectPlay for network games.)
On the other hand, the first Heroes3 patch is supposed to enable network games working with Mac users. Unfortunately, that patch hasn't been released yet.
I've found that myth2 and CTP 1.1 play the movies and cutscenes jerkily (that is to say, in fits and starts), as does RT2. Heroes3 and Heretic2, however, play their movies smoothly. Similarly, CTP 1.2 (the beta patch) runs it more smoothly than 1.1 did.
So, yes, there are some pretty serious improvements to SDL, smpeg, and smjpeg. And if it ever comes back up, news.lokigames.com has newsgroups to track the development of the open sourced projects (SDL, smjpeg, smeg, install, fenris) as well as discussion fora for the games.
I don't have rough figures, but according to a post on the heroes3 newsgroup (loki.games.heroes3), one of the beta-testers ordered the game through Loki -- and Loki was waiting for some more stock in order to ship it.
Guess at least one title sold through the initial product run =)
(Loki has, to date, refused to release sales figures.)
Degrading sort of off topic, but...
I have to try it next time I have to reinstall NT
Or you can re-use your existing NT install -- which is how I set mine up. It's a little trickier to juggle if you switch between the setups, but the rawdisk options for vmware allow you to access the whole drive (rather than setting up a virtual one) -- and you can flag access (none, read-only, read-write) on a partition-by-partition basis. Pretty nifty...
It would be nice if game performance were better -- I really want to try out Ultima: Ascension, but I'm not going to install Win95 just for that one game... Maybe WINE will play it.
A quick skim through my Loki CD's turned up:
There are patches for CTP to convert/allow play under alpha and ppc architectures, though.
Looks like a start... (yeah, I wish they had broader support too, but the issues are larger than simply doing a 'make sparc64'. There's that whole testing/support thing...)
If they can get two people to buy their games for BSD and the cost to produce the games is as simple as typing 'make bsd', then they have made money. Not doing so would be a waste of a possible income stream.
Except that the cost to produce the games is 'make bsd' + internal testing + beta program + additional support (and training) + additional development environments and programming expertise.
I'm not saying they won't do it, but the additional costs aren't at the compile time...
DAMMIT! It worked in preview... REAL post follows:
Why would anyone and I mean anyone actually care about a stupid solitaire game? Let alone for a software company to actually port that game from one OS to another?
Uh, I do? EUS is vastly under-rated. PySol may have more games, but EUS has a much slicker interface.
And my wife likes it a lot better, too, and anything that gets her on the Linux bandwagon is cool by me =) It's a good non-geek program to have. I bet I could get my grandmother to switch if I showed her EUS...
(Don't knock it until you've tried it. Seriously. Now, if the EUS interface was combined with PySol's complete set of game types, you'd have the best solitaire game of all time...
A friend of mine is using vmware for precisely that purpose -- running multiple WinNT's side by side with different setups to cut down on the total number of physical boxes he needs on his desk. And a few programmers at my company regularly develop under NT (using DevStudio) in a vmware window. Me included, these days.
It helps to have lots of disk space to throw at it, though =)
(Unfortunately, game performance isn't good, and DirectX support isn't there, but for work stuff, it rocks.. Try it. Seriously.)
Why would anyone and I mean anyone actually care about a stupid solitaire game? Let alone for a software company to actually port that game from one OS to another? Uh, I do? EUS is vastly under-rated. PySol may have more games, but EUS has a much slicker interface. And my wife likes it a lot better, too, and anything that gets her on the Linux bandwagon is cool by me =) It's a good non-geek program to have. I bet I could get my grandmother to switch if I showed her EUS... (Don't knock it until you've tried it. Seriously. Now, if the EUS interface was combined with PySol's complete set of game types, you'd have the best solitaire game of all time...)