LINUXGAMES

A May 18 Version of XTux has been released. Changes:

• Client
  • Configuration/player settings now read from/saved to config file (~/.xtux)
  • In game screenshot function (Default F12)
  • Sniper mode (for long range shots)
  • Memory / image allocation fixups
  • Particle effects optimised and can now be at different layers
  • Extra (optional) particle eye-candy
• Server
  • Weapon and entity collision code
  • New weapons: lightning gun, shotgun, fireballs/CD’s, sniper-rifle
  • No fixed limit on players (Though it can be set on commandline)
  • Fixed race conditions for clients joining the game
  • Much more is now read from config files
  • General fixups and gameplay improvements

XTux downlolad: xtux-arena-src-may-18.tar.gz

Version 1.0pre1 of XRally has been released. Changes include:

• Added the two new levels for the distribution
• Corrected some bugs
• And more important of all, implemented the new level format

XRally source: xrally-1.0.pre1.tar.gz

Version 0.73 of the GPL flight similator Flight Gear has been released. Changes include:

• Quite a bit of work has been done on the instrument panel – the magnetic compassbehaves like a real “wet” compass, the altimeter and VSI behave realistically, and the nav radios are now operataional.
• Quite a bit of work has been done on the flight model front as well – JSBsimcontinues to progress nicely and now has a reconfigurable flight control system.
• A group from UIUC has contributed an extension to the LaRCsim flight model that allows you to fly several different aircraft ranging from a Twin Otter to an F4 Phantom, to a Boeing 747.

It should also be noted that there is also a new base package that everyone will need to download as well. If you build Flight Gear from source, you will need to download SimGear-0.0.3 and install it first. Refer to the Getting Started Guide for detailed installation instructions.

FlightGear downloads:
source: FlightGear-0.7.3.tar.gz
base: fgfs-base-0.7.3h.tar.gz
SimGear: SimGear-0.0.3.tar.gz

Karthik Bala, CEO of Vicarious Visions has announced that the the long-awaited space sim Terminus has gone gold. This announcement comes after approximately 3.5 years of work on the project. In the announcement it is also mentioned that a demo is now in the works and an official press release will also be put out soon.

The Corporation has published an interview with Markus Hadwiger, lead programmer of the upcoming space-combat sim Parsec. The interview includes a brief description of the game and why there will be no single player component, and the pace of development. Markus states that a release date for the first playable demo will be announced soon and answers questions regarding development hurdles, experience gained from the project, and other topics.

Over on Loki’s site they’ve announced that they’ll be shipping SimCity 3000 Unlimited from Maxis, an improved version of SimCity 3000 that was just released for Windows. SimCity 3000 is currently in the final stages of beta testing and should be on its way to release in the very near future. Read up on it here.

The O’Reilly Network has published an article on the 3D gaming engine Crystal Space. The article covers the history of Crystal Space and its creator Jorrit Tyberghein. It also covers a sample of the games using CS, a comparison to other engines, features, weaknesses, and the future of the engine.

Linux.com has interviewed Michael Vance, Loki developer and project lead for the Soldier of Fortune port. The interview covers OpenAL, the challenges encountered while porting, toolchains, 3D support, and Michael’s typical day at the Loki office.

I, on behalf of the LinuxGames staff, would like to apologize for the lack of news posts as of late. We’ve been very busy with our real jobs and it has obviously taken a toll on our news posts. As soon as I work out my Internet connection for the summer and settle in while CrusadeR finishes up a business trip, please bear with us and understand that we will be working as best we can to catch up with news and continue to provide the best news coverage that we can. My thanks goes out to everyone who has mailed us lately with news items, and to Matt, our reviewer, who stepped up and took a stab at news for us while we were away.

Over at Slashdot there has been a report written by James Hills about his experiences at E3 looking for signs of games on Linux. It’s a bit on the gloomy side:

Overall, E3 this year was disappointing for Linux gamers.

While there is probably a lot of truth in this, E3 has never been the kind of show that Linux folks went in the first place, as far as I know. Regardless, head on over, read what has been written, peruse the comments left by other readers, and maybe even post your own thoughts.

Today I found out about a nifty 3D modeller project using OpenGL called GooseEgg 3D. Written by Terry ‘Mongoose’ Hendrix II (cool name!), it so far supports the following model types:

• MDL for Quake and Hexen
• MD2 for Quake 2
• nearly full Tomb Raider 1 support (not that that’s useful in Linux)

It will soon include Jedi Knight and Quake 3 Arena model support, and, if I heard correctly, there is a chance it will support models for Soldier of Fortune, (Loki’s latest Raven port). So if you’re considering writing a mod under Linux and want to design your own models, you should definitely check this out.

Ok… this is just getting weirder and weirder: Epic’s Tim Sweeney sent this in regarding this week’s controversy over Epic apparently dropping support for the OpenGL API in their next 3D engine:

We’re still doing OpenGL. Either Brandon or the dude who interviewed himwas smoking crack, because we haven’t dropped OpenGL.

-Tim

My question is, is Epic backtracking from a planned D3D-only strategy, or was this an internal communications snafu?

Epic’s Brandon “GreenMarine” Reinhart has updated his .plan to clarify their current position on Linux and Mac ports of the next generation Unreal engine. He claims that the move to D3D-only isn’t new news and has been expressed by Tim Sweeney on the Unreal Tech page. He goes on:

“I DID NOT SAY that we would be DROPPING Mac or Linux ports.”

He explains that the Mac and Linux users may not get all the effects that the Windows clients will, since Epic may use effects that D3D has that other APIs, like OpenGL, don’t provide. To read the full deal for yourself, click to see the whole .plan.

Linguica from Doomworld drew E3 dutythis year for Telefragged, and covered a few titles of interestto Linux gamers:

• Quake 3: Team Arena – id’s teamplay-oriented expansion pack for Quake 3: Arena; the retail release willcontain binaries for allsupported platforms, including Linux.
• Return to Castle Wolfenstein – Being developed by Grey Matter Studios (which was founded by ex-Xatrix developers, who created Kingpin), this is Q3A engine-based sequel to id’s classic FPS set in WWII Nazi Germany. As the Q3A code base already exists on Linux, and Grey Matter’s Ryan Feltrin has experience porting Linux titles already, it’s likely that this title will appear on our platform.
• Starsiege: Tribes 2 – Dynamix’s multiplayer sci-fi combat game’s engine has been ported to Linux already ostensibly, and OpenAL was also being integrated into the client that may be released (Dynamix has refused to commit to a client port).

Over on Slashdot there is a news item about QuakeForge and QuakeWorld Forever announcing a merger. The goal is to combine the cross-platform strengths of QuakeForge with the anti-cheating measures of QuakeWorld Forever. Despite no announcements on the front page of either site, you can read a press release about this merger here.

At E3, Brandon “GreenMarine” Reinhart of Epic has told Blue’s News that the next generation Unreal engine will drop OpenGL and Glide support completely and focus solely on Direct3D. Apparently, they’ll have direct access to Microsoft about the development of the Direct3D API. Consequently, a port of this engine to non-Microsoft platforms, meaning Linux and MacOS, could be far more difficult.

This is an almost complete reversal of fortune for Linux users with regard to Epic and their games. Their support for Linux with their last game, Unreal Tournament, was surprising in its understanding of how Linux works. Not only did they produce a port of UT that was available concurrently with the Windows, but they also open sourced parts of the game to assist in making the port better (see OpenUT). Now, it looks as though Linux might be considered only for a dedicated server, just like Valve and their game Half-Life.

If you’ve been following the comments made by Tim Sweeney, you might have seen this coming. I refer you to the following comments:

1. Epic will concentrate on Direct3D and OpenGL for their next engine.
2. Sweeney gets his OpenGL extension rejected Proposes OpenGL would be better if it were controlled by one hardware vendor, like NVIDIA. Says they’ll use DirectX on Windows and concentrate on OpenGL on other platforms like Linux.
3. Tim Sweeney defends Mircosoft.

RPG Planet has posted a preview of the upcoming MMORPG Anarchy Online. After labeling AO as a cross between Dune, EverQuest, and Bladerunner the preview continues by giving a bit of the game’s story. It also covers character generation, graphics, combat, world ‘zones’, and technology within the game’s setting.

CanadaComputers.com has posted a review: A Civilized world at a price you can afford, of the GPL’d Civilization 2 clone Freeciv. The review is basic, but includes an overview of the game and information on installation and game play.

Also, the Civilization-discussing Apolyton Civilization Site has added an official Freeciv forum to their rather large list of Civilization forums. Don’t forget that we have our own Civilization and FreeCiv forum as well.

The Crystal Space 3d engine project has announced that a new font plugin system and support for dynamic textures have been added to the engine. From their news page:

Recently two new features have been added to CS. First there is a new font plugin system with which you can plug in additional font support systems. Support for the normal CS fonts and Truetype fonts have been added. Another new feature is dynamic textures. With dynamic textures you can render on a texture like you can render on the screen. So you can add textures to polygons with scrolling text or other animated features. Currently this only works for the software renderer but we’re working on adding support for the hardware accelerated renderers as well.

For those of you not interested in unpacking those umod files with something like Umodunpack, a non-umod (read: Linux) version of the recently released Inoxx Pack has been made available. The file size is virtually the same as the original release (~5MB) and contains the same goods.

Non-Umod Inoxx Pack download: UTInoxxPack_no_umod.zip

On a related note, Gamespy has posted a mini-interview with CliffyB about the pack in general.