LINUXGAMES

Computer Games Online has posted the next segment of their Terminus preview; this installment discusses more aspects of the dynamic campaign, cooperative multiplayer (which includes a voice comm system with de-classified DoD components), and also includes some commentary on the current state of game publishing. Terminus will be shipping in April with the Linux, MacOS, and Win32 binaries all in one box, the first retail title to do so.

Graphics Muse has posted a review of Linux Railroad Tycoon 2: Gold Edition; this article also appeared in the print version of Linux Magazine. The review, written by Michael J. Hammel, includes a few screenshots and gives an overview of both installation and gameplay.

Although I’ve refrained from mentioning it here before, the QuakeLives project, and Slade in particular, have taken a remarkable hostility to the terms of the GNU General Public License under which their project is supposed to be operating. Thanks in part to the vigilance of QuakeForge and QuakeWorld Forever team members, this was brought to John Carmack’s attention; unfortunately, Slade’s reticence on this issue has finally forced Carmack to address it publically in his .plan:

This is a public statement that is also being sent directly to Slade atQuakeLives regarding
http://www.quakelives.com/main/ql.cgi?section=dlagreement&file=qwcl-win32/

I see both sides of this. Your goals are positive, and I understand the issuesand the difficulties that your project has to work under because of the GPL.I have also seen some GPL zealots acting petty and immature towards you veryearly on (while it is within everyone’s rights to DEMAND code under the GPL, itisn’t necessarily the best attitude to take), which probably colors some of yourviews on the subject.

We discussed several possible legal solutions to the issues.

This isn’t one of them.

While I doubt your “give up your rights” click through would hold up in court,I am positive that you are required to give the source to anyone that asks forit that got a binary from someone else. This doesn’t provide the obscurityneeded for a gaming level of security.

I cut you a lot of slack because I honestly thought you intended to properlyfollow through with the requirements of the GPL, and you were just trying toget something fun out ASAP. It looks like I was wrong.

If you can’t stand to work under the GPL, you should release the code to yourlast binary and give up your project. I would prefer that you continue yourwork, but abide by the GPL.

If necessary, I will pay whatever lawyer the Free Software Foundationreccomends to pursue this.

Computer Games Online has posted the initial segment of their Terminus (which is shipping in April) preview. The article details the engine physics (based on real-world mechanics) and plot, which centers on a conflict between Earth and its colonies throughout the Sol system. Also mentioned is the diverse nature of the campaign, in which you can change allegiances among the four forces vying for superiority.

Matt Matthews has posted a new article today: an interview with Precision Insight’s Daryll Strauss, who was originally responsible for 3dfx drivers under Linux, and is now working with the Direct Rendering Interface team on the technology that will be integral to XFree86 4.0. The interview is a great look at the past, present, and future of 3D acceleration on Linux from one of its key architects, so be sure to give it a read.

Jorrit Tyberghein has announced the release of Crystal Space version 0.15r002, which corresponds to the Feb 23rd CVS snapshot. Features currently being implemented by the developers include:

• Support for huge worlds through dynamic loading.
• Support for hardware accelerated transform and lighting
• Better integration of the ROAM landscape engine.
• Optimize the engine further.

Crystal Space 0.15r002 Download:
http://crystal.linuxgames.com/dlb_co1.html

Epic Games’ Tim Sweeney has posted a general FAQ to the Unreal Technology site to questions he regularly receives. Included is a link to an article from Linux Newbie that provides a brief Linux Unreal Tournament HOWTO. Sweeney also points out that community-developed documentation such as this is what has helped drive the growth of Linux in the general consumer market.

Kornel Kiss of Linux3D.net wrote in noting he received an e-mail from Gareth Hughes (a developer of the Utah-GLX ATI Rage Pro driver) concerning the latest Quake 3: Arena patch:

Previously, the Linux build of Quake 3 did not include the Rage Pro workarounds such as the special translucent smoke texture and other approximations. Carmack had originally informed me that these weren’t included as there wasn’t a Linux Rage Pro driver at the time. I fired off an email to Zoid yesterday asking if these workarounds could be included in the current point release, and sure enought the 1.16j patch enables these fixes.

So, those of you with all forms of ATI Rage Pro chips (including the laptop chipsets such as the Rage Pro LT and Mobility) can now play Quake 3 under Linux without having to suffer from opaque smoke trails and other visual artifacts. And yes, the Utah-GLX driver will give you timedemo scores that are as good as or better than the current Windows drivers.

Thanks to Carmack, Zoid and Robert Duffy for resolving this problem so quickly.

– Gareth

3dfx‘s Joseph Kain sent in the following Linux Glide announcement:

There are new Glide releases for Voodoo2, Voodoo Banshee, and Voodoo3available. These Glide releases are for use with the stand alone(non-DRI) based drivers. These drivers should be used in conjunctionwith XFree86 3.x.

These new releases have the following bug fixes:
- Shutdown sequence now properly shuts down all Voodoo boards.
   - This may fix problems experienced in restarting the video in some games.

The files Glide_V2-2.53-5.i386.rpm and Glide_V2-2.53-5.i386.glibc2.0.rpmare now available on the following page:http://linux.3dfx.com/open_source/download/voodoo3_banshee.htm

The file Glide_SDK-2.2-11.i386.rpm is now available on the following pages:
http://linux.3dfx.com/open_source/download/voodoo3_banshee.htm
http://linux.3dfx.com/open_source/download/voodoo2.htm

Please follow the instructions on the above pages to install thesepackages.

If you experience any difficulty installing any of these driver pleasedirect your questions to the USENET newsgroup 3dfx.glide.linux.

Again note that these releases do NOT work with the DRI/XFree86 4.0based drivers.

XFree86 version 3.9.18, the fourth pre-4.0 snapshot, is now available (thanks Jonathan DeHaan). The release notes have not been posted yet, but you can download the source (binaries should be available at a later date) from

ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/snapshots/3.9.18/source/

Furthermore, the announcement states that the long-awaited version 4.0 stable release should be available in March.

Version 0.11 of the Ultima 7 engine clone Exult has been released; changes include improvements to the “usecode” interpreter.

Exult 0.11 Source:
http://exult.sourceforge.net/exult11.tgz

Version 1.16j of Quake 3: Arena was announced today in a .plan update from Robert Duffy; changes:

• Zombie/Ghost unpure clients no longer remain connected.
• Recursive File System error corrected when running mods with logfile set to 1
• The Auto-download rate is controlled by ‘sv_maxRate’, specify this value in bytes per second. The maximum band rate caps out around 25Kper second.

Quake 3: Arena 1.16j Local Mirror:
http://www.3ddownloads.com/showfile.php3?file_id=31661

Jorrit Tyberghein sent in a release announcement for Blocks, a “3D Tetris LookALike using the Crystal Space 3D Engine”. The source will be henceforth included with Crystal Space engine releases; a Linux binary is available for download from

ftp://ftp.linuxgames.com/crystal/blocks/blocks.tar.gz

Jeff Mallatt wrote in to the Freeciv mailing list to announce the release of Freeciv 1.10.0; changes from 1.9.0 of the Civilization 2 clone can be perused here.

Freeciv 1.10.0 Source:
ftp://ftp.freeciv.org/freeciv/stable_version/freeciv-1.10.0.tar.gz

Chris Cox wrote in with word of a Linux vs. Windows benchmark article he wrote which compares a system’s performance in Quake 3: Arena on both operating systems. Of note is that Chris utilized the Utah-GLX G200 driver under Linux, which performed quite admirably next to the stock OGL Windows drivers; comparative screenshots are also included.

Two items related to upcoming Linux role-playing games are on Gamer’s Alliance – RPG this week:

• Trent Oster of Bioware examines in this week’s RPG Mythology column how pk-ing will be handled in their upcoming title Neverwinter Nights.
• An interview with Funcom’s Tor Andre Wigmostad, the support manager for the upcoming MMORPG Anarchy Online has been posted; the interview covers the unique aspects of AO when compared to its predecessors in the genre, and also includes 8 screenshots.

Monolith CEO Jason Hall made a .plan update today apologizing for his recent controversial remarks regarding Epic’s licensing system, concluding:

So, I apologize to this company for whatever it is/was that I have done to make them feel the need to proceed in this manner. I certainly did notintend to create such hostility. I feel that I have always kept the discussion to the relevant topics, and I feel that I’ve made valid and provablearguments that potential licensees can be the judge and jury on.

Everyone can rest assured that I will be spending EXTRA time tying to make sure that whatever further information we release is carefullyscreened for any potentially inflammatory comments. I thought we were already doing this, but some companies feel that I am specificallyfocused on them. I’m not.

I will do better in the future to remove any potentially perceived “slams” from my comments, but some companies have got to understand thateverything that comes out of my mouth is not about them. If they can get past that, then there should just be smooth sailing from here.

Again I apologize to them, and more so to the gamers out there. I can certainly see from the outside as to what all this looks like. Our industry ismore grown up than this, so I’m stepping out of this “engine war”. I’m ashamed that people may associate me with all this crazy behavior – andfurther, I know that there is nothing that I can really do to stop the continuation of a company’s slanderous remarks about me personally, but Ihope that they can at least see that I’m not going to participate.

Thank you for your patience.
_______
Oh, BTW – this is a little off topic, but I just love saying it because it’s true: COOL ANNOUNCEMENTS COMING SOON!;)

Epic’s Brandon Reinhart mentioned in his .plan today that the A-Team, developers of Action Quake 2 and Action Half-Life (kinetic locational-damage-based mods with “realistic” weapons that play similar to John Woo action films), has announced that they are commencing development on Action Unreal Tournament:

The A-Team has announced Action UT! I’ve posted a copy oftheir announcement on unreal.epicgames.com and you can checkout their plans and more of the mod’s details at
http://aut.action-web.net/

The Adrenaline Vault issued a press release today on behalf of Vicarious Visions announcing that their space combat sim Terminus will be shipping in April of this year. The release also states that the retail version will contain Linux, PC, and Macintosh binaries all in one box (the first to do so); furthermore, six new screenshots of the game have been procured by Avault.

Kornel Kiss of theLinux 3D Gaming Initiative wrote in to announce the site has undergonea redesign, and now sports a new blue-yellow color scheme and poll section. On a related note,they also updated today with word that ATI issued a press release announcingtheir Video Hardware Acceleration SDK for use in MPEG playback; the release includes somecomments from Loki’s Scott Draeker noting cooperationbetween ATI and Loki on SDLMPEG Player Library development.