LINUXGAMES

Illwinter Game Design released a patch for the turn-based strategy game Dominions 3: The Awakening this week; changes include:

• Eliminated nations are now also shown in the graphs.
• Spell AI improved regarding when to cast Arrow Fend, Gift of Flight and Legions of Steel.
• Could get some kind of mine even though all site slots were full, fixed.
• New monster modding commands: #inquisitor, #shatteredsoul, #banefireshield, #uwdamage, #popkill.
• Some units like the vampire now actually takes damage from being under water, just like they were supposed to.
• Description changed for Maggots to better correspond with its true effect.
• Djinn is now a unique monster.
• Increased maximum number of messages a player can send on a given turn.
• Fixed crash during turn generation.
• Support for PulseAudio on linux.
• New resolutions 1024*600 and 1024*576 (for netbooks).
• Dominions could crash when changing video preferences, fixed

You can also follow future patch changes at the dev blog. If you’re not familiar with the game, this “Let’s Play!” thread at the Something Awful forums is a good primer.

Download: [ shrapnelgames.com ]

id Software’s browser-based derivative of Quake III: Arena, Quake Live, recently celebrated it’s first year anniversary with the addition of a new map, Fallout Bunker, and a retrospective article:

The number of people that registered when the QUAKE LIVE Beta opened far exceeded our wildest expectations. Over a quarter million players created accounts right after its launch and that was through word of mouth only! Since that time, players have spent over 8.9 million hours in over 60 million ranked matches, earning an impressive 8 million awards and 810 million frags.

[...]

In our effort to provide continued support for QUAKE LIVE we have made many changes and additions to the game over the course of the past year. Since launch we’ve introduced ‘Duel Detective’, coupled with improved matchmaking features that allows players to locate other players with similar skills. We have also extended our platform support to include Mac OS X and Linux users.

We’ve also launched pro Team DeathMatch and Instagib CTF servers, made extensive hit registration improvements and added Shoutcasting features and competition settings.

id has also announced that QuakeCon 2010 will be taking place August 12-15 at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, TX.

Speaking of, Guild Software has updated their space combat MMO Vendetta Online to version 1.8.117 for subscribers. Among the features recently added:

• Conquerable space stations
• A revived bounty system
• In-game event notification
• New ships and badges

Guild Software has announced the release of NAOS:

MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN, March 6th 2010. Award-winning independent game developer Guild Software, Inc has announced the upcoming launch of a new MMO middleware product: the NAOS Engine. Developed to power their long-running, continuously-upgraded retail MMORPG, Vendetta Online, this engine provides a complete and multi-platform solution, with native client build targets for Windows, Mac and Linux. The highly scalable distributed game server uses lightweight Erlang threading to provide persistent handling of hundreds of thousands of individual NPCs and other game elements, with seamless management as they transition across running/non-running boundaries in the game universe. A well-proven update/patch server and client are also included, the server allowing optimized binary patching and user queues for rate limiting and overflow. The update client supports redundant failover to multiple patch server clusters, and includes automated client crash reporting, with fetching and submission of auto-generated tracebacks via HTTP to a proprietary bug tracking system. Finally, a completely custom Lua/FastCGI-based web content management system, with proven billing, messageboard, mailing list and administrative features, rounds out the server solution, creating a nearly-complete package for the prospective MMO developer. All server software can be run on either FreeBSD or Linux, and works well with existing RDBMS solutions such as MySQL or Oracle, as well as DBMS such as Mnesia. Beyond the use of a database for persistency, an integrated RDF triple-store is in development to more elegantly enable applications such as advanced AI, simulated-economics, and monitoring tasks.

The NAOS Engine will be available either as a complete licensed source package, or individual components may be licensed separately at a reduced cost. The product is expected to launch in the year, and will be followed by the NAOS Platform, a cloud-based MMO development solution which also includes scalable hosting, with sliding pricing based on usage and revenue, to help startup MMO developers focus purely on their games.

A new patch for OpenArena, a free software first-person shooter that is multiplayer oriented, has been released. This release has the following new items and improvements:

• New effects: rocket smoke, shotgun sparks, flares
• New maps
• Improved maps
• Improved CTF skins for Angelyss
• New skins for Beret and Assassin

Download: [ OpenArena Patch 0.8.1 to 0.8.5 ]

Stellar Forces, a multi-player strategy game that is similar to Laser Squad or X-Com missions, has released a new version. This game is completely free to play – all you need to do is register on their website, which then allows you to connect to other players and play as many games as you wish.

Download: [ Stellar Forces 1.02 ]

Version 0.8.3 of netPanzer, a warfare, tactical, real time, fast action, network game, has just been released. New items in this release include:

• added a Mac OS X universal binary of netPanzer.
• added screenshoot function (press F9).
• added any resolution support (>= 640×480) and resizable window.
• added sound configuration (volume, enable/disable).
• added some new maps done by community.
• new unit selection modes, double and triple click.
• player flags appears in chat messages.
• player name appear over tanks (configurable, press “n”).
• new ally system (check “TAB”).

Download:[ netPanzer 0.8.3]

The latest development release of Wine, which allows you to run Windows programs on Unix, has been announced. This release has the following new items contained within it:

• Support for Wow64 registry redirection.
• Increased coverage of MSI standard actions.
• Various Wordpad improvements.
• Many shell fixes for better IE support.
• Improved support for typelibs.
• Better GL card detection.
• Various bug fixes.

Download: [ Wine 1.1.40 ]

Version 0.9.1 of FreeCol has been announced. This is purely a bug-fixing release that does not add any new features. The most notable bug squashed is one that prevented the REF from landing in the New World after you declare independence.

Download: [ FreeCol 0.9.1 ]

This post was submitted by burschik.