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Linux Business Entertainment Games

LGP Announces Majesty is Complete 143

Posted by michael from the support-the-linux-game-industry,-such-as-it-is dept.
michaelsimms writes "Linux Game Publishing have just received their first stock of Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim. This is the first game ported completely by LGP. Kudos to the lead developer, Mike Phillips, for much hard work to get us all a great game!"
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LGP Announces Majesty is Complete More

LGP Announces Majesty is Complete

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  • Rock and Roll. (Score:3, Informative)

    by 13Echo ( 209846 ) on Friday April 25, 2003 @10:28AM (#5807983) Homepage Journal
    The game is a few years old, but is an excellent title. Play the demo, which is downloadable from their site.

    I ordered mine a while back. $37 isn't too much to ask. It's a very high quality port of a great game.

    Simms- I'm looking forward to the future titles!

    • Re:Rock and Roll. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Photon01 ( 662761 )
      The parent said the game is a few years old....

      Did they start porting it straight away? Can anyone give an idea of the average time taken to port a game to linux? (just curious)

      • Re:Rock and Roll. (Score:5, Informative)

        by 13Echo ( 209846 ) on Friday April 25, 2003 @10:41AM (#5808084) Homepage Journal
        I'm not the best source of info on this, but as far as I can tell, they got the contract just last fall or so. It was a pretty quick port, for a small team. It took less than a few months.
        • I had first heard of about a tentative port of Majesty to Linux quite a long while back, even before the first Majesty Expansion came out, sometime in 2000 I think it was. Majesty for Windows is easily one of the best investments I've ever made in a game, and I'll be picking it up for Linux almost as soon as I finish typing this.

          • Re:Rock and Roll. (Score:3, Informative)

            by treke ( 62626 )

            Two different companies. Tribsoft, the company that ported Jagged Alliance two originally had the contract to port both Majesty and Europa Universalis to Linux. Due to lack of money though, they died off before much of Majesty was ever ported. When LGP got the rights to the code, they largly started from scratch on the port.

            I don't know when LGP actually started their work on Majesty, but I think it was sometime around the last half of last year, and it first went beta in early November of 2002.

          • That was Tribsoft's port. The rights were purchased (or optioned, or something) by LGP in January of 2002, after it was pretty clear that Tribsoft was out of the picture. (IIRC, Tribsoft only ever released JA2, but had announced Majesty and Europa Universalis.)

      • Re:Rock and Roll. (Score:4, Informative)

        by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Friday April 25, 2003 @10:44AM (#5808107) Homepage
        That's a good question. I'd like to know the answer too. That said, it obviously depends on how the game was programed.

        If everything is seperate, so that you could just drop in some new files to completely change the sound or graphics subsystem, then it shouldn't take too long.

        If, on the other hand, everything is woven into the game tightly, it could take a VERY long time. By this I mean things like having a function like:

        void doCPUPlayerLogic(HWND parrent...);

        If the logic is like that, you're going to have to rewrite large parts of the game. "Proper" programming suggests that you should program like the first option, but we all know that doesn't happen. Depending on if they origionally thought they would port it (they would have been thinking Mac or console I'd bet), just how hurried they were (often the second solution can be easier to do), etc.

        That said, can anyone answer the question well? How long does it take to port the average game to Linux? Does it vary by genre (obviously a FPS that uses OGL would be easier to port than one that uses DirectX)?

        • Re:Rock and Roll. (Score:3, Informative)

          by Qzukk ( 229616 )
          Well, given that the "average" game is never ported to Linux, I would say that it takes an infinite amount of time...

          But seriously, porting applications requires two major sets of changes. First is I/O (this includes everything - display, sound, user input, networking code, filesystem interaction). The second is process control.

          For I/O, design decisions can have serious impact on the time it takes to develop a port. Are you writing your own libraries from scratch? If so, these must be ported as well.
          • The Simple DirectMedia Library supports nearly identical thread, 2D/3D graphics, sound and controller support among several platforms.

            Of course, you have to install the libraries, so you may come under fire for taking the "easy way out" if you write a game that uses SDL instead of native systems. Also, there's a bit of a performance hit. I can run a software-mode quake X11 client decently(15-18 fps) on my P166 laptop, but the SDL client causes too much overhead for me to get anything resembling smooth gr

        • Re:Rock and Roll. (Score:4, Informative)

          by UnknownSoldier ( 67820 ) on Friday April 25, 2003 @12:14PM (#5808846)
          > That's a good question. I'd like to know the answer too. That said, it obviously depends on how the game was programed.
          > If everything is seperate, so that you could just drop in some new files to completely change the sound or graphics subsystem, then it shouldn't take too long.

          Off the record, the game codebase is pretty clean since we had already ported it over the Mac. i.e. I believe they got the "Mac-n-Trans" codebase. (Trans = Translation, or localized.)
          • Yes, they did get the Mac-n-Trans codebase.

            While I didn't do any of the porting work (I'm working on Ballistics from Grin right at the moment...), I did do a little side project for them to see if the blitters were an issue for performance on the PPC version. By the way, thanks for the cool game.

      • Depends (Score:5, Interesting)

        by jvalenzu ( 96614 ) on Friday April 25, 2003 @11:07AM (#5808296) Homepage
        The games with the least portable code I've ever seen took about 6 months. Most take less than 2. I find it interesting that our native ports at Loki took about as much time (or less) than transgaming's "ports" to winelib.

        • Re:Depends (Score:3, Interesting)

          by alienw ( 585907 )
          You do know that transgaming only has 2 or 3 full-time programmers, right? AFAIK, Loki had at least a dozen, probably many more. Maybe that's why Loki went out of business a long time ago and Transgaming is doing quite well.

          Also, when Transgaming ports a single game, its common Wine codebase improves. As more and more games are ported, the libraries become better and better. This is not true with native ports; you have to invest virtually the same amount of resources in each port. In a tiny niche like
      • Did they start porting it straight away? Can anyone give an idea of the average time taken to port a game to linux? (just curious)

        The LGP port did not begin until Q2 2002, and the work was primarily done in a "second job" situation. That would lead me to call it roughly three man-months (including the beta), but longer calendar-wise simply because I was working around a day job, too.

        Even the original port to be done by Tribsoft was started some time after the release of the original game (but, iirc, befor


    • Simms- I'm looking forward to the future titles!

      In the future, they are called DIMMs.

      :-)

    • Re:Rock and Roll. (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Get the Linux demo at:

      3D Downloads [3ddownloads.com]

      And as a last resort:

      david.hedbor.org [hedbor.org]

      Try it. It's lost of fun!

  • Whew! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It's good to see someone keeping the porting alive since the demise of Loki...

  • It's good to see... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Ratphace ( 667701 )

    ...some support being given to the Linux community. I am not going to debate the Windows vs. Linux issue, however, I do want to say that my personal feeling is that Linux could easily overpower the Windows domination if there were just more variations of games and applications available.

    Unfortunately some of the more prominent applications that people use are Microsoft applications (i.e. ms word, excel, outlook, etc) and will not likely see the light of day for any Linux porting since this would only c
    • I'm not a game developer, but it seems to me that the amount of effort required to make something run for, say, Linux, may be somewhat high...but once you do that, the additional effort to also build it for the BSDs and for MacOS-X is minimal. Compilers, libraries, and all that, all the hard work is mostly done.

      It'd be interesting to see if this sort of trend could be encouraged.
      • You could use multiplatform libraries such as SDL or OpenGL to begin with to make the ports 100 times easier.

        Just look at all the open source games availailable for just about any platform. Sure, most of them are smaller/not commersial quality but they are also proof of concept that porting games isn't that hard if the thinking is done a few steps earlier.
        • But how much overhead would using SDL or OpenGL add to, say, Doom3, which is already going to require quantam computing to load the title screen?

          (They might already be using OpenGL, actually--I haven't kept up at all--but I doubt they're using SDL. My point is basically that these cross-platform libraries aren't exactly optimized and while they might work for smaller games/applications they're not exactly great for bigger titles.)

          dalamcd

    • I'm so sick of people posting exactly what they think mods want to see just to get a few Karma points. In EVERY DAMN STORY about either office software or games, we get the

      "Yeah that's good now if Openoffice gets better than MS OFFICE and if Everquest and (insert games here) I really think Linux could supplant microsoft, it will be really interesting to see what the future holds"

      • Karma whore

      • Well Aliencow, how about you thrall us all with your acumen then. . .I'm all ears.

        I see this listed as a 'Comment' section, and anything or everything I said is 'my comments' on the subject at hand.

        If you don't like what other people post, I see a few alternatives for you:
        1. Stop reading slashdot.org 2. Stop reading the user comments 3. Stop whining when someone wants to chip in 2 cents

        Maybe some people don't read or reply to every story that gets posted all day long, and while I am in the windo
      • I'm so sick of people posting exactly what they think mods want to see just to get a few Karma points.

        Hey, you got modded insightful, you big karma whore you!
        • I'm so sick of people posting exactly what they think mods want to see just to get a few Karma points.

          Hey, you got modded insightful, you big karma whore you!

          Hey, you got modded funny, you big karma whore you!

          • I'm so sick of people posting exactly what they think mods want to see just to get a few Karma points.

            Hey, you got modded insightful, you big karma whore you!

            Hey, you got modded funny, you big karma whore you!


            Hey, you got moderated funny, you big karma whore you!

            Hey, I just created recursive commenting!
    • While more games/quality software is the first step, the second step is to promote linux distros that are stupid-easy to setup, with games and drivers that are stupid-easy to install.

      The demise of windows won't come until the average user feels comfortable taking a step up from windowz to something else. The problem I see is that for the average user, anything involving a command line and editing random config files is two steps up.

      Honestly, I can walk my mom through a win98 install over the phone. I'
  • When they said that the minganalio was herfeterious, they were right! Glad they have come through.
  • With all of the comments about Linux catching up to Windows, there are still some front where there is very slow progress, gaming bieing one of them. This is a small step towards catching up, especially from an end user perspective.
    Remember, if we realy want to overtake the leader, we must do everything they do and do it better. While that might gall the "power users' out there, it is a fact of life none the less. Ms must be overwhelmed by a superior product before Linus is taken serisouly as a viable ch
    • You don't have to be better all around to "win".

      History is littered with examples of solutions that were argubly not as good winning out over (usually more expensive) but better solutions. VHS/Beta, Windows/OS2, ATA/SCSI/FC (give it a couple years), most MS apps, the list is long.

      Anyway, the key to winning is, "Do something that the competitor does, and do it cheaper, and at least acceptably well" That has been MS's long time strategy, except theirs has been "Do something a competitor does, and use mono
    • But he's such a joker! No one will ever take Linus seriously.

  • Fantasy Kingdom (Score:5, Interesting)

    by blazer1024 ( 72405 ) on Friday April 25, 2003 @10:39AM (#5808063)
    I spend so many hours playing this game. There was something VERY addicting about recruiting rangers, elves, thieves, warriors, wizards, paladins, healers, monks, etc and watching them run around killing beasts and buying things.

    I loved how that economy worked... The houses and inns would just automatically generate money, and heroes could earn money slaying monsters, then spend it at the market, blacksmith, Wizards' Guild, etc. Then your trusty tax collectors went around collecting money.. It's pretty simple, but it's fun to watch.
    • Yeah. It's one of the first RTS demos that I've played over and over again. It's only a single level demo, but it's great fun.

    • Re:Fantasy Kingdom (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mcworksbio ( 571932 ) on Friday April 25, 2003 @11:17AM (#5808369)
      I loved how that economy worked...

      I agree, and would add that in a multiplayer game you had expanded economic activity from allied/enemy players spending cash on your goods. You could practical cripple an ally's/opponent's economy by pledging out more money on flags than your opponent could. Unlike most RTS games you could inflict fiscal pain on someone to pressure them to fall in line without actually having to spend tons of money flagging their palace.

  • Seriously, this game is awesome (Score:5, Interesting)

    by GMFTatsujin ( 239569 ) on Friday April 25, 2003 @10:43AM (#5808103) Homepage
    I recommend you pick it up if you haven't yet. It kept me glued for weeks, and the wife and I come back to it every couple of months. Well worth it. I've been emulating it in WineX and it's been spiffy.

    "WineX! Oh no! Support linux gaming, man!" Well, I'd love to. It's just too bad I already paid for the game once. $80 for a $40 game? I mean, Majesty's good, but not *that* good.

    Ditto with Kohan, the Sims, Neverwinter Nights, etc... I'm all for the parallel development though - go UT2003!

    • Re:Seriously, this game is awesome (Score:4, Informative)

      by _Sprocket_ ( 42527 ) on Friday April 25, 2003 @11:17AM (#5808371)


      It's just too bad I already paid for the game once. $80 for a $40 game?
      ...
      Ditto with Kohan, the Sims, Neverwinter Nights, etc... I'm all for the parallel development though - go UT2003!


      My understanding is that one can use the Windows-only copy of NWN and simply download the Linux client (albeit still beta).

      I suppose its a kind of lagging parallel development. ;)
      • That is, in fact, true. You install the linux client and snarf the rest of it from an existing Windows application. Which sort of sucks, actually, becuase it means you have to install it on Windows before you can play it on Linux. Bah.

        On the other hand, they aren't charging extra for the Linux client -- you just have to register with Bioware (free). I think Bioware almost got it 100% right -- pay for the content, make the engine free.
        • There is an unofficial installer for it, but you would know that if you looked on BioWare's forums.
          • There is an unofficial installer for it, but you would know that if you looked on BioWare's forums.

            Yes, and then there's the supported method [bioware.com] which is recommended by the company that made the product. If I wanted an unofficial install that may or may not work and would certainly not be supported, Id' run NWN in Winex3. But you would know that if you didn't assume I was an idiot.

            Thanks for playing.

            • Actually, there is no "official" installer for legal rather than technical issues. NWN is simply not allowed to release a linux-based unpacker for the proprietary installation mechanism they used on the windows side.

            • If I wanted an unofficial install that may or may not work and would certainly not be supported, Id' run NWN in Winex3. But you would know that if you didn't assume I was an idiot.

              Information wants to be free. You bitch about the installation procedure, someone gives you insight that in the forums there was an alternate method to installing it, and you turn into an asshole.

              Nice job.
    • "WineX! Oh no! Support linux gaming, man!" Well, I'd love to. It's just too bad I already paid for the game once. $80 for a $40 game? I mean, Majesty's good, but not *that* good.

      Glad I waited. From my point of view, a game doesn't exist until a native version is available for Linux. Till then it's just an interesting demo.

    • It's a fun game, and I've enjoyed the MacOS version for a long time. Unfortunately, it's not been Carbonized, and MacPlay told me last month that they have no plans to, though it runs well in Classic mode, if slower. But perhaps someone could port the Linux version to MacOS X? It's a 2D game, so it shouldn't be too complicated. On the other hand, I'm sure every version of the game uses a different protocol: DirectPlay for Windows, AppleTalk or TCP/IP for the Mac version, and probably a third choice for

  • Fun game. Glad Linux has another. (Score:3, Informative)

    by 5n3ak3rp1mp ( 305814 ) on Friday April 25, 2003 @10:48AM (#5808138) Homepage
    Something about this game is really cute. I bought it when it came out on Macintosh last year. The game itself is not that hard to beat, tho- but definitely a lot of fun. The idea of indirect control over your heroes is interesting. Spells are fun to watch, animations and sound are high-quality.

  • Old Games = Good Thing (Score:4, Funny)

    by lysium ( 644252 ) on Friday April 25, 2003 @10:53AM (#5808174)
    Perhaps this is just a personal Emerson-ish retreat from modern gaming, but I am very glad to see older, modest games being released, or re-released, for Linux.

    Many linux machines out there are older desktops and laptops with limited system resources (certainly not 3-D!) The best games for Linux are either venerable classics (nethack) or cutting edge ports (MOHAA, UT2003). Let's not forget older games, made back in the days when People Were Nice, and Money Wasn't Everything. Anyone up for a port of MOO2?

    ----------

  • Biased Slashdot reporting (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I never see "kudo's to the developers on creating great Windows programs"...
  • "Your Majesty, a new building is complete!"

  • 1999 (Score:2)

    by jd142 ( 129673 )
    So the game is 4 years old already. If it is a good game, then it doesn't matter.

    • Re:1999 (Score:3, Interesting)

      by PunchMonkey ( 261983 )
      So the game is 4 years old already. If it is a good game, then it doesn't matter.

      Good point. And it *is* a good game. And it really doesn't matter how hold it is. The take on RTS is very original (to me anyways) and very fresh. Not directly controlling units, but only influencing them with money (what else?) is cool, and the hilarious phrases characters say when dying is hilarious and icing on the cake.

  • Direct Download (Score:3, Informative)

    by Mister.de ( 661355 ) on Friday April 25, 2003 @11:00AM (#5808242) Homepage
    screens: http://www.cyberlore.com/Majesty/screens.htm demo: http://demos.linuxgamepublishing.com/majesty/majes ty_demo.run

  • Great game (Score:5, Informative)

    by FurryFeet ( 562847 ) <joudanxNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Friday April 25, 2003 @11:07AM (#5808298)
    Majesty is a great game, and well worth 40 bucks. It's a little on the short side, but has a really interesting multiplayer component (nothing like placing a huge reward on your opponent's buildings and watching his own heroes destroy them). I'd advice anyone who hasn't played it to do it.

    • Re:Great game (Score:3, Informative)

      by GMFTatsujin ( 239569 )
      Majesty Gold has both the original missions (~15 I think) and the Northern Expansion (another 10 or so).

      The official missions are short, but I've really had fun with the Freestyle game generator. You can generate just about any kind of mission imaginable, including monster types, map size, building restrictions, economic factors, starting heroes, and so on. It's amazingly easy, complete, and fast. The only thing you don't get with the freestyle game is the mission briefing voice-over.
  • Something that works with least hassle to get things to work.

    - Which display card?
    - Which sound card?
    - Which distro gets them to work without tweaking, or at least with minimal tweaking?

    • well, I'll attempt to answer this, since no one else has.

      first let me point out that I'm more into linux coding than linux gaming, but one day (hopefully sooner rather than later) when there's as many great linux games as windows games, and when you can easily network a linux system to a windows system to play multi-player... I hope to be into it ;)

      ok, now I'm not sure what video card would be best. I've heard that ATI cards have better linux drivers. I'd also suggest staying a step or two behind "bleedin
      • If you decide on Mandrake, go with 9.1. It is much more polished than 8.0-9.0. I have a simple integrated Intel i810 Video Card, and mandrake configured it properly for 3D automatically. I downloaded the Linux client for Quake III, and was fragging within 10 minutes. There is no performance difference between Linux and Windows 2000 (on my machine). I'm sure that it would be the same with any other native linux game.

        Also, the Sims Edition of Mandrake uses WineX, so it's not actually a native port. It might
    • Good questions- unfortunately, there's only approximate answers for you. I can give my personal advice on the subject, but your mileage may vary.

      Which display card?

      A previous poster said ATI. Not a bad choice. ATI's cards have DRI drivers for them and full-featured (but somewhat twitchy still) binary only drivers from ATI. The medium to the top of the line Radeons will be a good purchase.

      However, NVidia's also a very good option to consider. A GeForce2, GeForce3, or GeForce4 will work well under L
  • Cyberlore, the developers are already in the the process of making the sequal. screenies which can be viewed here: http://www.cyberlore.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ub b=get_topic;f=4;t=000099

    If this port sells well cyberlore might even work first hand on the linux version. Lets hope hope they don't charge too much for it and a lot of dosh changes hands because on pc majesty is dirt cheap.

  • This is what Linux really needs: games that run natively on Linux not trough an emulator (wine).

    Still, Id prefer getting the game on Linux at the same time when it is released on Windows. For that, we need to send well written comments to companies and do pr job at games official message boards. Ask for Linux games at store. You never know, someday you just might get the hottest Go-Kill-Em-All game on Linux.

    • "someday you just might get the hottest Go-Kill-Em-All game on Linux."

      Well, as far as go-kill-em-all games go we have gotten most of those immediately as of late.

      First with Quake3 and Return to Castle Wolfenstein - and then with UT 2003 having the linux binaries IN THE BOX.

      We are not hurting in the go-kill-em-all department - but it is things like RTS (which is where this game fits) and racing (which is where games like Midnight Racing [incagold.com] are going to fit) that we need the most help.

      It is definitely gettin
  • As much as a kudos from Slashdot is worth, this company will only make it if you buy their product. If you have this game for windows, or don't want this game but another, the only way it will get published by LGP is if they stay in business. They only way that will happen is if their products are purchased, so buy the game to support Linux companies to get more games on Linux.

  • Cool, too late (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Jahf ( 21968 )
    I bought Majesty a couple of years ago ... great game for laptop'ing on a plane. This was before I switched over to Linux on my clients. I wouldn't mind playing it on my linux boxes, but I'm not going to pay more money for it.

    I don't require full parallel development, I can wait 2-3 months for a game to come out on Linux. However, I'm not going to pay full for it twice.

    The only game I might consider paying full again would be Black and White ... I never finished it. With that and NWN I'd be set for a long
    • Considering that LGP ported the game and not Cyberlore, I doubt that you'll be able to get an "upgrade". They have to pay for the privilege to port the game in most cases and pay royalties usually for each unit sold. $10 to just convert might work out okay for someone like Id (though they're offering that service for free with their games...) who ported the code themselves. It cost them nothing more than the effort to port and to provide a means to obtain the Linux version. In LGP's case, they have to r
  • The series has not died and gone away!

    Screenshots [strategyplanet.com] at Majesty Dragon.

    Dear Majesty Fans,

    We realize that it's been a long time since we have had any concrete updates on the status of Majesty 2. Most of you have been waiting patiently for the big announcement. While we haven't yet decided on a publisher for Majesty Legends (our working title) we haven't been sitting idle either. The following screenshots show the current state of our work on the sequel.

    For the moment we will let the screensh

  • The demo played pretty well for a few minutes, and attempt to play (it's pretty different than any other game I've played--now how do you get your heroes to protect you? They always just walked AROUND the demon that is destroying my castle....), and then crashed with a stacktrace...

    It was incredibly stable until it died though. (and then of course X-windows decided that it wanted to stay in 640x480 mode....gr...)

    The game was a little interesting, but the demo seemed a little too limited for me to judge w
  • I've ordered this addictive high quality game. Well, I'm still waiting for NWN in an acceptable quality.... Loki was just too good, my exspectations are high :-)

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