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Last Word on Loki
Posted by
michael
on Fri Jan 25, 2002 10:35 AM
from the words-of-wisdom dept.
from the words-of-wisdom dept.
A random reader sent in: "Loki's public CVS and FAQ database are now being hosted at icculus.org. The information, and a bit of evangelizing about Loki's demise can be found on icculus.org." You might take a look at the Linux Gamers' FAQ while you're there. Update: 01/25 21:05 GMT by M : Scott Draeker sends word that there will be an "official" repository of Loki code, including apparently some projects that weren't finished, hosted by SEUL in the near future.
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One thing that will live on... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One thing that will live on... (Score:2, Informative)
Website here [libsdl.org].
The library is a dream to code with. I haven't messed around with any of the c++ permutations, nor have I tried mixing in the straight c library with a c++ project...
Re:One thing that will live on... (Score:2)
More than that will live on. (Score:3, Interesting)
It brings me great sadness Loki is going. But thanks to Icculus, id Software, Loki, and all the countless volunteers we now have a much better platform.
Re:One thing that will live on... (Score:5, Interesting)
I tried for months to understand Direct X, and toyed with example after example... doing the same with SDL is tons easier and allows me to code the software in a real dev os instead of windows. (ok that was a harsh jab at windows... sorry... well. at least let me take back the sorry)
SDL can be used easily by a newbie to C programming... something that Direct X cannot do.
Parent
Glad the source is gonna be hosted (Score:2, Interesting)
What I have to ask is: what about the other stuff Loki did? I'd hate to see knowledge lost.
Re:Glad the source is gonna be hosted (Score:2)
fire sale? (Score:4, Interesting)
So if Loki is going to shut down on 31 Jan 2002, which is six days from today, will they fully process any game orders made today?
I haven't seen any termination warnings on their site to dissuade customers from ordering products.
I figured I'd probably want two or three games over the next year, but this is making me think of buying some now before they're gone.
Timing is everything (Score:2, Interesting)
Piracy issues (Score:5, Insightful)
But I can't help but think on how some folks helped push them over the edge in a twist on the tradgedy of the commons scenario. Everyone can have some free software only so long as no one gets greedy about taking advantadge of the good will of others, especially when the goodwill is provided by people whose side you are on. sort of. kinda. maybe.
Re:Piracy issues (Score:2, Interesting)
Sorry for the rant... it's been a bad month, and I don't want to see Loki go.
Re:Piracy issues (Score:2)
These games were successful in the Windows version, but couldn't support one company.
Re:Piracy issues (Score:2)
2) So if I don't buy a windows game I really want to play. Wait 6-12 months for loki to MAYBE port it. Then they dont, then the game is no longer distribution, (Which was like 95% the case) I'm fucked. I'm not going to purposely fuck myself for some shit company like Loki. If they can't get developer support and do a simultanious release of a game, then they deserved to dissapear. They weren't providing much value at all.
Linux needs to come to me, not the other way around. I'm not going to spend 5-10 years of my life doing without, hoping, waiting and praying for Linux to meet my needs (gaming, coding, music production and art). And there's no reason I or anyone else should. Linux is not a charity case. Linux is also not (as
Linux has a very good coding environment (Score:3, Flamebait)
I find it very interesting that you feel that using Linux means doing without gaming nor coding. Let me guess: You live in the United States (more details on why I have this theory below).
Linux has had a large number of games ported to it; I believe Loki ported 20 or so before going under. I find that this is enough games for me to waste far too much time playing; my open source coding project [maradns.org] would not be in its current state if I spent any more time playing games on Linux; and I only have two games which I regularily play on my Linux laptop. I have not had time to finish either game.
As for coding, I find the coding environments of Linux extremely usable and powerful. For example, the Perl interpreter allowed me to create, within one day, a new unified documentation format for all of my program's documentation when people who translate my documentation requested this.
When someone says "Linux does not have a usable coding environment" what that person is saying, in effect, is "I am not willing to take the time and effort to learn the excellent coding environments the Linux has". Which I find very strange.
Programming, after all, is not like playing a video game. Programming is a discipline which takes time and effort to learn. The effort to learn, say, the Emacs environment or the most common Vi commands, is trivial compared to the effort required to learn how to write a usable and maintainable computer program.
My general experience is that Europians are generally more willing to take the time and effort to learn the language of Linux; most of the people who are helping me out with my open-source project are from Europe. I think this is because most Europians have had to learn one or more foreign languages; learning a foreign language makes one intently aware of the time and effort needed to accomplish something truly worth accomplishing.
Programming code is not like watching "Allie McBeal" on TV; my general experience is that people who need automated tools to generate code write code that is inefficient, difficult to read, and unmaintainable.
Linux is not a charity case
The free software foundation is, in fact, a charity.
- Sam
Ah! Another chance for Europeans to slam Americans (Score:4, Insightful)
This seems to be a very popular among the English, who badmouth Americans for being violent while their own fine English football fans murder people in stadiums. Then they talk about how Americans are crude and stupid while they let their elderly citizens die forgotten on a hospital trolly waiting 60 hours for treatment of a stroke.
There are 260 million Americans, give-or-take. Perhaps you should not paint us all with the same brush.
Stupid Americans started the Open Source movment, wrote Unix, and provided most of those neat tools that Linux was later based on. Not to mention the bloody internet you are using now.
Parent
Very sad news indeed (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the biggest problem about loki is that they were ahead of their time. In another 2 or 3 years I'm sure they would have no problem of making a go of it
I'm sure another company will be able to step in and take over where they left off, expecially since loki has already made all the tools needed.
This seems to be the trend for open source software companies, they make a product go out of business leaving their products available for the community. It's bitter-sweet, but I hope in the coming years that open source will be able to make a profit.
Re:Very sad news indeed (Score:2)
I bough Civ:CTP and Q3A from Loki because I wanted to see them do well, but the truth is the target market is not that huge to begin with and is also not so big on games. The ones that are big on games get their fix in Windows because Loki was too slow, the sad reality. Another reality we face is that Linux development in general is geared to open source projects, where breaking binary compatibilty frequently is at least somewhat acceptable, and API compatibility isn't much longer lived. Now with Loki gone, all those customers won't be able to upgrade too much in the future and continue to have the games they bought run correctly. For the most part, duplicate libraries can be maintained, but with a different libc major things would probably break.
Linux gets very nice ABI/APIs this way, but sacrifices the ability to play nice with binary-only products, and makes maintaining and updating a product much more expensive to companies, since they have to provide so many builds and modify source to keep current.
Re:Very sad news indeed (Score:2)
OTOH, if you don't support the likes of kmart you ensure that the likes of target (same crap, more expensive) or walmart (megacorp with creepy dumpy stores) succeeds in their place.
Consumers fixating on short term gains is how we ended up with the likes of Walmart and Microsoft.
Linux isnt a big enough market YET ! (Score:2)
I bought RTCW, first game in 10 years at LEAST i bough, actually doom was the last and bfore that the Original Castle Wolfenstien, that said Im not a big gamer, but when I found out Linux binaries would be available, I plugged and bought RTCW, I am thrilled, games are a whole lot more fun than they used to be IMHO, Maybe Im just getting older an smaller things amuse me
(SEMI)PORTABLE games are the ticket, OpenGL has shown this with the ease RTCW was ported and others have run under Linux.
I looked at Loki's games, I certainly wasnt impressed enought to buy any, I demod the SOF, and found it....lame as hell, graphics sucked , and i was just early 90's blah. IMHO
I wonder how much of Loki's failure was not related to their limited market but rather their poor offerings, its a chicken and egg thing, If you come out with the most Killer game seen at first for linux only, drag a little on the windows version, you are sure to gain converts if nothing lse to play that game, BUT to come up with such an animal takes big bucks and marketing dollars, distributin channels, and you cant get the cash without a killer game, vicious circle.
Perhaps.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Perhaps.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Windows games DO NOT SUPPORT Linux.
Paying five dollars a month to extend the directx gaming monopoly to our platform is most certainly not supporting Linux.
Perhaps not, gaming is a business (Score:2)
Windows games DO NOT SUPPORT Linux.
Paying five dollars a month to extend the directx gaming monopoly to our platform is most certainly not supporting Linux.
But anyone who doesn't understand that the gaming business is 80 percent marketing and 20 percent gaming will have problems.
Say what you will about The Sims under WINEX (Transgaming, which you can buy with a bundle from Mandrake - Linux plus a game!) - but the reality is that they understand WHAT the market WANTS.
Sure, we ideally want native Linux games.
But we're all gamers - if it comes out on Windows first, we'll buy it.
If we had releases with special add-ons for Linux, that would have been a killer app. But instead we got a port.
If we have Geek Party for The Sims coming out on Linux first, then released for Windows 60 days later, that would be a killer app. Since it's already coded for Windows, it would be a great marketing ploy.
Buzz will save you. But you still need a good game with balanced play and scalable levels so you don't get bored.
-
Re:Perhaps not, gaming is a business (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't believe we will get any games (or expansions) from Maxis/EA released for Linux first until Maxis develops on Linux first. Or somebody pays them off. I've never played The Sims winelib port, so I cannot comment on the quality directly. However, I understand by way of a third party that is an okay port. From this and my own experiences with the wineX cvs ("Building font metrics, this may take some time..." ugh) don't believe any winelib port can be as good as a true, native port.
Why I didn't buy from Loki (Score:3, Interesting)
Yet I didn't buy any games from them. Why?
Simply put, they didn't release anything that I wanted to play. I had Quake 3 and UT - I didn't need any other FPS games. I had played Heroes III before (yes, under Windows), and while it's a nice game, it's not something I would be willing to purchase a copy of for linux - it just didn't enthrall me that much. I was a fan of the old Descent games, but for me they lost some of their flavor after Descent 2, regardless of the eyecandy that was added.
I will admit - I was SORELY tempted to buy Rune - but after playing the demo, I wasn't totally impressed by the gameplay. Sure, melee is fun - but it got old after about an hour.
What I would have bought (and still will buy, if anyone makes them), no questions asked:
Ports of Bioware's Infinity Engine games (Baldurs Gate I/II, Icewind Dale, Planescape Torment) - these are, quite simply, incredible games. They have metric tons of gameplay, replay value, and storyline. That's why they're still fun today.
Ports of Diablo II and Starcraft - yes, I know these are from Blizzard, who will never, ever, release a linux version - but they were DAMN good games that are still loads of fun now, well after the release.
I don't feel bad about not buying their games - I refuse to buy something I don't want, even to support a company that *might* in the future produce something I would like to buy. While I support *what* they were doing, I think their choice of games to do it with was poor (albeit probably the only choice they had in this world of "Intellectual Property" lawsuits)
Company death does NOT mean the people disappear! (Score:2)
The people that made this company great are going to still be around, and more than likely we're going to see some tangible benefits.
A lot times a "company" is actually a limiting factor to creativity and certainly productivity -- the market-pressures to produce X instead of Y
There is no doubt that the work done in the last couple of years by folks like Indrema and Loki have had an impact -- have they changed the gaming world? NO, but I don't know that should be a goal.
With the advent of Linux on the Playstation I believe we are going to see a next essential stage in the evolution of games
For anyone that has ever spent the time writing a game you come to a love hate relationship with device drivers
The beautiful thing about the consoles is that when I write and distribute my UberPong game, I know that I can count on the bounce to be consistent for every consumer of my tasty e-ware.
Tech support == overhead. the more overhead you have the less profit margin you have.
So the company might be dead, but the technology and the people that can drive it are still viable
Linux Zealotry (Score:2, Insightful)
Why the hell shouldn't I enjoy a great game! Games are for having fun, relaxing after a hard day at the office, or for modern multiplayer games, for playing with and making friends. Games are not about what platform you support, I mean can anyone imagine saying I don't want to play Milton Bradly games because I can't use Hasbro miniture characters with them. No, of course not, you just play the game with the parts it came with. In a similar fashion, most people that are serious about pc gaming, and enjoy linux, tend to dual boot to windows for much of their gaming. This is the reality of the marketplace, and a large part of why Loki failed.
Re:Linux Zealotry (Score:2, Insightful)
Loki didn't work, but other things might: (Score:2)
Another, Linux-based dedicated game Distros. You pop in the CD and boot, start the game, no install required. Make the PC into kinda a game console. The wide variety of PC hardware makes this not work that well however...
Finally, a really good game maker with exclusive Linux releases. A manufacturer willing to essentially shoot themselves in the foot in the name of Linux popularity. Not happening, but wouldn't it be neat to see, say, Squaresoft Linux exclusive titles?
Re:Loki didn't work, but other things might: (Score:5, Interesting)
OK, for the sake of this argument, we'll assume you're talking about a standard CD, maximum capacity somewhere around 650 megabytes.
To get a minimal gaming Linux distro up and running, you'll need:
a) the kernel and some essential binaries and libraries,
b) XFree86,
c) sound, networking, etc. drivers, and
d) the game itself.
Now, let's take a look at some sizes.
On my current Linux box (RedHat Linux 7.1, kernel 2.4.17),
This doesn't include audio or networking drivers, both of which are dodgy to get working even with human intervention at this point in time.
In addition, you're going to need swap and storage space that work irregardless of the user's chosen operating system, and that's going to be another 2 headaches.
(For the record: someone on OpenProjectsNet:#loki brought this up about 6 months ago, and I challenged them to come up with such a CD that would work on Windows, OS/2, FreeBSD, etc. I never heard back.)
Let me sum this up in two words:
not feasible.
For one, transgaming. Full porting takes too long, while you port, the market buys up the windows version.
Uhh, not if you have the miraculous luck to be working with a company that's not a bunch of idiots. In those cases, you can achieve simultaneous release across platforms.
By 6 months, the market was saturated. With Transgaming, they have a chance to get to the market before it *completely* dries up.
So, you propose to save Linux gaming by having people purchase the Windows versions in a manner indistinguishable from the other 95% of the public, then having them play them in a sub-par API wrapper layer. <sarcasm>Sounds absolutely freaking great.</sarcasm>
I'm inclined to agree with both Draeker and icculus. It's partially the Linux gaming community's insistence that everything should be free (if someone mirrors news.lokigames.com, take a look in loki.games.* for all of the "free binaries" threads; you will find them).
In any case, TransGaming is not the solution. The only places where I find it anywhere close to appropriate to use WineX is when I'm using free programs that are Windows-only (say, 99.999% of all 3D modelers (UnrealEd, QuArK, and WorldCraft, too...), media players, and installer packages for products produced by a bunch of single-platform ninnies), very few of which, I've found, actually *work* in Wine.
In other words, I'm inclined to agree with both Draeker and icculus. The Linux gaming community as a whole had a great opportunity to make themselves heard, and they spoiled it by being a bunch of warez monkeys, Wine boosters, and dual-booting cheapskates. Now that Loki's gone, and there's one fewer company to mooch off of, you recommend stopgap solutions that perpetuate Windows-centric gaming.
To quote the late Douglas Adams, "'Pathetic bloody planet. I've no sympathy at all.'"
Parent
Re:Loki didn't work, but other things might: (Score:2)
Admittedly, the market of this I could see is small (why bother when I can just install it), but the concept itself is possible.
As to transgaming, you can talk all you want about how they are helping perpetuate Windows-centric gaming, but lets face facts, no matter what linux game players do, it wouldn't be enough of a dent to make any game publishers think twice about what they are doing. We are too few to cut into their bottom line enough to make porting worthwhile (or even avoiding DirectX worthwhile). If we want to play the games, sadly, we are stuck with the quickest and cheapest path to market, which is the Transgaming bastardization of doing things.
Quick Everyone!!! (Score:2)
Am I the only one who got the old Phish reference?
;oP
Turning point of the history of the human race (Score:2)
Even if I played their games it would have been the porting, the final step in the game's creation which they did. Even if I used their libraries the functionality in those libraries would have only been shrinkwrapping for functions that other groups already implemented, whether it was the frame buffer device, the console, GLX, or OSS. There was nothing in their libraries that made them necessary if you wanted to access the functionality at all.
The business model of the 90's was shrink wrapping and Loki did exactly what they were supposed to do to get popular in the 90's. Shrink wrapping and porting isn't enough to sustain a business nowadays but creating enough new functionality to sustain a business is impossible for most people.
Game patches? (Score:2)
I have a question which I haven't seen answered anywhere. What about all of the game patches? Is someone going to host those? I don't care whether I have to use the loki installer or just download them, but I don't know of any place to get them save loki...
Interesting to note (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps the linux community isn't a huge source of revenue. WHO CARES? If the porting can be done for you for free, then its all gravy. Same with device drivers. Nobody sells device drivers, they sell the hardware the devices interface with. And if they can pick up a new market without any investment of time or money and not even have to support it, how can that be anything but a benefit.
And yet they hold on like there's some dangerous secret that might leak out and put them out of business. I must be missing something obvious here.
-Restil
Re:Do you think Loki..... (Score:3, Informative)
It's a damn shame, I played the hell out of Tribes and there were a couple other games I was considering buying when a few bucks came my way... guess I waited to long.
But at least we get access to some of the great work they did release -- most notably SDL.
R.I.P Loki.
Re:Well, here's why we need cross-platform games (Score:3, Funny)
Unfortunately I couldn't read any further of your comment as I was helpless with laughter ;)
Re:Well, here's why we need cross-platform games (Score:2, Interesting)
And they can all be crappy, lowest common denominator games.
I am a game developer, and there is a reason why games usually target only one platform. It's the only way to make a truly great game.
Let's examine a scenario of a game developed to run on every system:
-game can't use more than 24 megs of memory (gamecube)
-game can't use high res textures (PS2)
-game can't have high poly counts (PC with budget video card)
-game can't have complex interface (consoles)
-game can't have detailed GUI (consoles/TV)
Now what do you have left after this? Web games. I'm sorry, but web games will never match a true game.
And you can't tweak a game to be optimum on every system, because there are major constraints. A lot of the time to optimize for a target platform, it requires specific art. For every other platform, if you want it to be the best, you basically redo all art development. Nowadays art and content are the longest thing to do, so you basically add another full development cycle for each platform.
Platform independant (real) games are a pipe dream.
Not all games are 3D games (Score:2)
And they can all be crappy, lowest common denominator games.
Lowest common denominator != crappy.
game can't use more than 24 megs of memory (gamecube)
No, 40 MiB (24 CPU + 16 PPU). PlayStation 2 has 36 MiB (32 CPU + 4 PPU). Xbox has 64 MB (shared), but its stripped-down Windows 2000 OS might diminish the advantage its extra RAM gives.
Consider that some fun games have been made on only 4 KiB of RAM and 40 KiB of ROM (Super Mario Bros. 1 for NES) and that T*tr*s has been done twice on the Atari 2600, which had only 128 bytes of RAM and half a scanline's worth of VRAM.
game can't have high poly counts (PC with budget video card)
Street Fighter style games use only about ten quads on the screen, one for each player, one for each player's fireball, one for each player's status bar, and a few for the backgrounds, but that's about it.
game can't have complex interface (consoles)
"Complex" meaning what? What do you need for a first-person shooter? Two joysticks (one for move and one for turn), a couple triggers (fire and jump), and a couple other buttons (switch weapons, etc)? Want a sim/rts interface? SimCity for Super NES and C&C for PSX showed that sim/rts games can work on consoles. Or are you trying to make glorified chat rooms such as EverQuest?
I'm sorry, but web games will never match a true game.
If by "web games" you refer to games written in the Java programming language, I hereby direct your attention to BoycottAdvance Online [emuunlim.com]. It emulates real games for a real system, namely Game Boy Advance.
Platform independant (real) games are a pipe dream.
No, you have that backwards. Pipe Dream [google.com] is a platform-independent game :-)
Voting with one's wallet rarely works (Score:3, Insightful)
1. If the company is HUGE, one person not buying their product isn't going to hurt them. Something that would hurt would be a class-action lawsuit or something similar.
2. If the company is small, one person isn't enough when they vote with their wallets.
I think in the grander scheme of things, (Loki's demise aside, and how the big companies continue to get away with crimes), corporate lobbying must be curtailed, campaign reform laws must be enacted, and the right of the government to revoke corporate charters should be fully reinstated.
Oh and I am no hypocrite. I have bought many titles from Loki games. I fully supported their goals and vision. Sadly they are gone, but I hope a new company can take their place and do a better job at managing the funds, or at least try to change the perception of the "BIG BOYS" games companies (Blizzard comes to mind) that Linux ports are A Good Thing (tm).
-fialar
Voting with one's wallet is proven to work (Score:2)
Every gaming company Windows/Mac/consoles is either huge or small. And yet there are examples of both company sizes which are still profitable.
Loki failed, not because of their size, but because of people didn't buy their games.
They had great games. Well, these games were successful for their windows version. Yet for Linux, it didn't sell.
Re:"Don't buy Windows games" ?? (Score:2, Insightful)
He's referring to those gamers who ran out, bought the Windows version, and then expected Linux binaries for free since they'd already paid for the Windows version. He's also referring to those whiners who now want those ported games released for free since Loki's gone; they wouldn't support the company while it was struggling to survive, but they'll happily pick apart the corpse.
I guess it's pretty clear that Linux users don't want good games, since they're not willing to support programmers long enough to port or create them. That's too bad, since so much hard work has been put into nice desktops by the GNOME, KDE, Xfce, and other teams, all for naught since the home market will never develop without games. Talk about wasted time. Talk about spitting in the face of the programmers who busted ass to provide good software, only to be told "I want it now, I want it good, and oh, I want it for free."
Keep this up, and you won't have an alternative OS to play games on. If Linux development halts, along with development of user-friendly interfaces, don't go crying to the programmers you wouldn't support.
Re:"Don't buy Windows games" ?? (Score:2)
Re:"Don't buy Windows games" ?? (Score:2)
You are ignoring the context of the remark. "Don't buy Windows games" is a perfectly logical and sensible answer to the question, "What can we do to help?"
The whole page is based on a premise, which you arrogantly dismissed with your "This isn't a religeon is it?" flamebait remark. Of course when you dismiss the premise, nothing on that page makes sense. Duh.
Re:"Don't buy Windows games" ?? (Score:2)
Re:For what it's worth, I bought a Loki game today (Score:5, Interesting)
To my mind, writing software is a SERVICE, with the end result free for all to use.
Sure. But what's the difference?
What the hell, it's only Karma.
Parent
Re:Just Wondering.... (Score:2)
Re:Just Wondering.... (Score:2)
Some companies won't be willing to deal with the support, but if even 1 of the companies is willing to give away the linux 'player' part of the package, and sell the data on the windows game CD, then it will be better than the products disappearing forever.
Re:Linux Gaming Kernel (Score:2)
Re:What we need... (Score:2, Insightful)
This isn't going to happen.
Linux doesn't have any of its own proprietary APIs for games. (Indeed, that would be very antithetical to Free Software ideals. It is never going to be able to leverage any sort of network effect to gain marketshare. You just can't do that with GPLed software; it's virtually impossible.) If you want to write a Linux game, you're going to end up using SDL, OpenGL, etc. And if you do that, porting your game to that other platform, will be pretty darned easy, because those are cross-platform APIs. I'll say that again: the best gaming APIs for Linux, happen to be cross-platform APIs. So the situation where Linux has a game, and Windows doesn't have it, so that a Windows user will reboot into Linux to play a game, isn't likely to happen.
...at least, it won't happen for availability reasons. Other reasons, such as performance, stability, security, etc. could still apply. (i.e. a person reboots into Linux to play a game, because the game happens to run faster or it doesn't crash as often.) And there are other reasons to use Linux as well. But the validity of all these reasons, has already been covered in a thousand Linux advocacy discussions. No reason to digress into here as well, eh?
Anyway, the only way you're ever going to see someone reboot into Linux to play a game for availability reasons, is if you make a non-open API for Linux games, and deliberately avoid letting it be cross-platform. I think such an effort would be a complete failure. There are lots of people who use Linux for Stallmanesque reasons, and you would be in direct opposition to them.
Re:Why am I not surp.. -- Why it did not work (Score:3, Insightful)
A...If dual booters were really hardcore linux fans -- and refused to dual boot (even for games) -- Sales go up 50% for Loki -- because people would not have already purchased the "windows version".
B...If Loki were able to offer Linux games closer to the time they were released for the other platforms....(nothing like getting a "new" Linux game 12 months after the windows version had hit the cut out boxes for $9.99. -- Sales go up 25%.
C...If they had been able to port the games that people wanted to buy...The Starcrafts, Warcrafts, C&C, Red Alert, Diablo...Sales go up 75%