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PC Games (Games) Software Linux

LGP Opens Beta Test for X2 120

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the gaming-driving-the-platform-wars dept.
zborgerd writes "Linux Game Publishing has announced the opening of their beta test for X2: The Threat. X2 was featured on Slashdot last month in LGP's mystery game contest. Linux gamers can apply for the beta at LGP's beta testing site. Per their usual policy, everyone who pre-orders the game from one of their resellers is automatically qualified to enter the beta test. X2: The Threat is Egosoft's epic space simulation that is often said to be greatly influenced by the the classic games of the Elite series. A third game in the series, X3: Reunion, will soon be available for Windows (and hopefully Linux and OS X as well, if the X2 ports attract a reasonable number of fans on these platforms)."
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LGP Opens Beta Test for X2 More

LGP Opens Beta Test for X2

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  • Do they use OpenGL, SDL, ClanLib, etc.?

    Also, do they use GCC as their main compiler, or do they use Intel's ICC, or some other compiler that may generate better code than GCC? If they are using ICC, how are they dealing with the problem of ICC generating code that may be suboptimal when running on AMD chips?

  • Choose a better game? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by EvilMonkeySlayer ( 826044 ) on Sunday October 02, 2005 @06:06PM (#13700386) Journal
    Couldn't they have chosen something easier to port? And a bit more recent?

    The X series (iirc, I could be wrong) uses Direct 3D, porting it would be quite difficult. Surely porting a game that uses OpenGL would at least give the programmers a bit less trouble in porting?

    On a different note, I've yet to see any Elite clone equal the greatness that is the Elite trilogy. Here's hoping for the ever elusive Elite 4 that David Braben has been working on since the dawn of time to appear, if at all.
    • Do you think that they may be using the DirectX capabilities of Wine to ease the port?

      If so, can you comment on the stability of such code? I have found Wine to work fabulously for some code, but for other code it struggles greatly.

      • Sadly, for Direct3D, it would be a struggle to port and work right. Don't worry, though, we're working on it. =)

      • Re:Using DirectX from Wine? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by michaelsimms ( 141209 ) on Sunday October 02, 2005 @06:57PM (#13700592) Homepage
        Not at all, we use purely ourown code, and libraries such as OpenGL and SDL. If you follow our company history you will see that I am very very much against any kind of emulation of Windows software on Linux for many reasons I am not going to go into here cos Id be ranting on on this thread for pages (google for my reasons, they are findable, if you are rerally interested).
        • Even though I support wine, I think you've chosen the right route. I think there is no point of buying a "linux port" that is technichally no different the the windows version. Therefore, since I use linux, I prefer a real linux port. Hope for much success for you guys. =)
        • Can you give me an idea of how complex (in man-months) is porting a game like X2 to linux? I'm curious by nature :) and I've asked on the Egosoft forums, but without much success.
    • I wouldn't really compare X2 to Elite or Privateer... the combat in the game (though I'm sure they've patched it by now) resulted in a contest to see which ship would blow up when you rammed it (the AI would always try to ram you instead of actually fighting)... and the game itself was more of a management type (you can build factories, have extra ships that are remote controlled, etc)...
      • The AI only tried to ram me when I had much weaker shields, enemies that wouldn't survive the collision dodged before they hit me. Isn't that a valid method? If you're bigger, run 'em over?
      • Hmm.. not the vcersion I had.

        But then at least you can alter the AI to suit your needs. (Lotsa AI replacement modules to be found to do all sorta menial tasks.)

        Then again, I liked the combat of Elite I more than any of the others... perhaps that is because it was the most unrealistic of them all?

        I would ram people if I had a stronger shield...
    • Loki ported SimCity 3000, which uses DirectX under Windows if I'm not mistaken, to Linux a while back. The Linux release of SimCity 3000 played just as well, if not better, than the Windows release. No stability problems of any sort.

      So while perhaps not a fun task porting from DirectX to SDL and OpenGL (or some other non-DirectX graphics platform), it is more than possible.

    • I can't speak for the Windows version, but the MacOS X version of X2 uses OpenGL.
    • Otoh, it is an established fact that elite 2&3 sucked beyond believe.

      Just because they are new a few years old doesnt make them better per default....
      • Well it's based on Elite but also heavily influenced by Privateer (which was awesome). I really can't wait for X3 to be out. If it goes multi-platform great. The idea of an open-ended space exploration and trading game really sounds nice.

        I just miss Tradewars, the BBS game. :D

    • Re:Choose a better game? (Score:5, Informative)

      by michaelsimms ( 141209 ) on Sunday October 02, 2005 @07:03PM (#13700609) Homepage
      Couldn't they have chosen something easier to port? And a bit more recent?

      OK, Soomething easier to port, maybe, but we pick the games we port carefully with regard to what people want. X2 is widely regarded as the best space game of all time, and IF it sells well for Linux, you can look to see X3 soon too.

      As for more recent. *sighs* Well, sure, send me $100,000 and I'll get the license to port any recent game you like. Or, alternatively, we will port games that are realistic to port to linux.

      Also X2 isnt exactly old, it has been out for 18 months. X3 is yet to be released for Windows.

      The X series (iirc, I could be wrong) uses Direct 3D, porting it would be quite difficult. Surely porting a game that uses OpenGL would at least give the programmers a bit less trouble in porting?

      Sure it would, but just because a game is easy to port doesnt make it any good. We pick games that are GOOD, not easy. If I wanted easy, Id be making games for consoles and driving a ferrari right now. As it is, I make games for Linux and catch a bus, cos I want Linux to have the best games it can. It means more work to get them out there, but its worth it. Easy and non-direct3d, well, pretty much all windows 3d games now use direct3d except for games by id, and they are covered for Linux versions. So that leaves 2D windows games. I hear there is yet another tetris clone for windows, but you know what, I really dont think Im going to waste my time having my company port that game to linux.

      On a different note, I've yet to see any Elite clone equal the greatness that is the Elite trilogy. Here's hoping for the ever elusive Elite 4 that David Braben has been working on since the dawn of time to appear, if at all.

      Well, speaking as someone that played elite from 2 months after its initial release on its first platform (the BBC micro) for 6 solid months, I can tell you, X2 is the first game I have seen in the genre that passes Elite. It is better in every aspect. I loved Elite, I really did. X2 beats it. For those Elite die-hards, there is even a small in-game homage to elite in X2. The control to activate the SETA time compression system, is J. It does exactly the same as the old Elite J Jump did.

      • that's the right attitude.
        X2 is an excellent game and should be known better.
        the amount of time one can waste with it is just awesome, even if you're just into building bases and trading.

        when freelancer came out I was mildly pissed, because it had been hyped to be everything I wanted from a space sim(which pretty much would be frontier first encounters), only with the difference that freelancer was short, the world small and constrained and the game sucked ass. then along came X2 and was everything a space
        • X2 is definitely an awesome space sim, but it has a weak story. Freelancer is a semi-decent space sim that had a great story but horrible replay value. I still have yet to play the X2 campaign and have logged some 200 hours in the game. It's such an awesome environment. The capitol ships and space stations make the game what it is. Scale is everything in a space sim.

          However, the economy model of X2 was a little lacking. Once the trader modification was released, the whole purpose of owning a space sta
        • Don't be pissed for missing X: Beyond the Frontier. It's got submarine physics, not spaceship physics, i.e. you can turn around, and your velocity turns with you. Totally ridiculous. Also, those graphical backdrops of huge planets and stuff just looked fake. It looked like I was flying in badly simulated space and those giant matte paintings supposed to be far-off scenery were floating close by.

          Luckily I didn't waste too much money on it, but it's still a waste, since I put it away not long after purchasing
          • X had simplified physics but the rotational inertia already pissed off enough people, I'd wager they'd have lost a lot of sales had they implemented true space physics because true space physics are too hard to handle and things like docking would have been impossible. By the way, I don't seem to remember Elite having space physics, either.
            • Elite II (Frontier) had pretty realistic physics; I think it's a shame more games didn't try to run with that, and come up with novel/fun ways of dealing with the huge scales involved, instead of copping out with small environments and mysterious drag keeping everything within a few hundred m/s.
      • Also X2 isnt exactly old, it has been out for 18 months. X3 is yet to be released for Windows.

        It's true that X2 is a long-lived game. The scripting ability it contains provides a lot of expansion, and the community has put out a lot of mods. Still, 18 months is a long time in videogame terms. From my point of view: I was interested in the game and already bought the Windows version. It's still installed, but I have not been playing it for months...... This is the main problem with linux porting: people
        • I know what you are saying, and I agree in many ways. However there is really nothing we can do about it.

          There ARE scenarios that will allow this to change.

          1) Enough Linux users start buying the games that we can show sales numbers that make game makers NEED to get Linux versions.
          2) Someone comes along and offers LGP $20 million, which is about the amount we figure would allow us to force the market more mainstream.
          3) Enough people stop dual-booting that they only buy linux versions of games.

          None of

      • Have you tried Oolite yet? See my sig below. It's a complete homage to the original Elite, it's easy to expand (and plenty of expansion packs are already available, missions, ships etc.) and still getting new development. Runs on OS X and Linux (and we could do with some help on the Windows port since that's struggling a bit). It's one of those few games that is available for Mac and Linux *before* Windows!
      • I just bougth X2 for windows 3 weeks ago.

        I have been playing it and it is totall cool. But i was hoping that X2 would have our universe with the solar systems that I know now.

        Still it is a cracker of the game.. Very open ended. There are a few niggly bits.

        I would like to compare the windows and Linux versions. It would be interesting.

        All the best. I hope X3 comes out on linux..

        Pablo
        • I have been playing it and it is totall cool. But i was hoping that X2 would have our universe with the solar systems that I know now.

          The story makes it pretty clear that the X Universe is cut off from local space, but the reason why X3 is subtitled "Reunion" is because in it the Argon will rediscover their true homeworld, Earth. There's also speculation that one of the sectors in the X Universe is actually Alpha Centauri (since the jumpgates aren't limited by Einsteinian physics, the sectors in the X Univ
      • Well, speaking as someone that played elite from 2 months after its initial release on its first platform (the BBC micro) for 6 solid months, I can tell you, X2 is the first game I have seen in the genre that passes Elite. It is better in every aspect. I loved Elite, I really did. X2 beats it. For those Elite die-hards, there is even a small in-game homage to elite in X2. The control to activate the SETA time compression system, is J. It does exactly the same as the old Elite J Jump did.

        Yep, it's better
      • Also X2 isnt exactly old, it has been out for 18 months.


        Actually, according to 3D Gamers, X2 was released in the US in Nov 2003, so that would make it 23 months old, almost 2 years.
      • Although I had good experiences ordering a couple games from LGP, I had one bad experience which has me on the fence now. I pre-ordered Gorky 17 in February of 2004, saw no updates for over a year, assumed the project was dead, and wanted either a refund or a different game. When I pre-order something, I assume it is at least nearing completion. If I had thought otherwise, I would not have pre-ordered.

        When I emailed Tux Games with this request, I was given the run-around about a bad employee, and a story
    • Hehe...

      I played Elite on my 64, BBC, Amiga and PC... only got to "Dangerous" status. I also played Freelancer to death.

      But all of the above pales in comparrison to "X2 : The Threat".

      Screw "recent"... this only matters for multiplayer games... where you at least want to play along with your win32 friends while the game "lasts"

      No, single player games can be ported long after the original and still be good.

      IMHO X2 is all that Elite ever should have been. Perhaps it does not have the sorta-randomly generated st

  • Wow (Score:1, Interesting)

    by FlipSideXp ( 692564 )
    These games just look awesom, I cant believe I haven't heard of them before. I wasted so much time playing Elite in my youth and still think it is one of the greatest games ever. I loved the idea of endless flying/trading/pirating in a huge universe with endless possibilities, all that on a 64k commodore. Amazing times!! If these games are anything as good as the screenshots, I think my free time will be used up for the next few months. Anyone have played these gems yet?

    • Re:Wow (Score:3, Interesting)

      by sporadic ( 110921 )
      Yup, it's a really great game. I needed a Space-themed RPG fix after EA took Earth & Beyond offline, and X2 was it. I've always enjoyed the genre (played the original Elite on my Apple IIe) and X2 in the tradition of enjoyable games like Privateer 1/2, and the WC franchise to a certain extent. I'm looking forward to X3 and I hope I get to beta X2 on Linux, should be fun. Hope this helps.
      • Yes, I like the X games too, although I wish they had a broader vision with the game than now, with a lot of base/fleet building and economy focus. The open nature of the X games still allows "lonely pirate" role playing, but you can't say they've put too much focus on alternative gaming styles IMHO. For the explorers, there's for example no planets to land on. Planets are purely background scenery, unlike in Elite, which I found awesome to be able to land on planets of your choice, even if they didn't have
    • Thanks. It is always good to get some positive feedback from people. Normally when we announce a game we get so many people complaining and moaning that they hate our choice and why couldnt we pick newer/better/shinier games, that it gets a bit offputting sometimes. Seeing the people that ARE looking forwards to the games we put a LOT of effort into is always a nice change that we really do appreciate. I hope you enjoy it. If you like the genre, and from what you say you do, then you will love it, its compl

    • I've played X2 : The Threat for hours and hours and hours on end, one of the most addictive games I've ever played. Be warned though, you will need a semi-decent computer to have it run well... though I guess mine is old and crap and still runs it ok most of the time (Athlon 2100+, ti4200). It is pretty processor intensive, especially later on. This is because each ship in the universe is actually doing something, rather than created only when you see them. Space stations cease to function without the

  • Will it be available for PPC systems running Linux? If they're targetting PPC Mac OS X and Intel Linux, then it is quite likely that PPC Linux could be supported as well. But are they actually offering such binary releases for sale?

    • Re:Available for PPC Linux? (Score:4, Informative)

      by michaelsimms ( 141209 ) on Sunday October 02, 2005 @07:12PM (#13700643) Homepage
      Im afraid not, only x86. There are a few reasons for this. Partially because of the size of the market (sorry PPC guys, we will do a port when we can but this one would be a LOT of extra time to get it available for you all and the numbers in this case just dont work). and also for the state of 3D hardware accelleration for linux ppc is in most cases just not up to the job.
      We'd love to, but not this time. Sorry.

  • Elite type game (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 02, 2005 @06:28PM (#13700468)
    Oolite [aegidian.org] is another free Elite type game. They have OSX, Windows and Linux versions.

  • Good to see a port, but... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Jugalator ( 259273 ) on Sunday October 02, 2005 @06:40PM (#13700526) Journal
    It's pretty sad to see beta testing opening now on X2, when X3: Reunion's beta is wrapping up for the release candidates to start getting rolled out these days. X2 was released two years ago, and X3 both has hugely improved graphics and vastly redesigned sectors (much larger, with distancing and scale to feel more right), dynamic economy, and AI. Egosoft have a much larger team making X3 compared to X2 as well.

    I wish there'd be a way for Egosoft to work more closely with LGP in the future so we don't get this huge lag between the ports and Windows releases, in case Egosoft don't want to work on the port(s) themselves.

    • Re:Good to see a port, but... (Score:5, Informative)

      by michaelsimms ( 141209 ) on Sunday October 02, 2005 @07:25PM (#13700700) Homepage
      While Im not saying anything official here, but it would be a logical assumption that if X2 for Linux does well, X3 will follow some time in the early part of next year.
      Of course, Im only the CEO of the company doing the ports, so I may not have all the information, but taking an informed guess, Id say that thats the likely path.
      {:-)
      • I guess I'll just have to buy it then! Unfortunately your web site isn't loading very well for some unknown reason at the moment so I'll order later.
  • How does this compare to freelancer from MS?
    • Freelancer is overly simplistic, while X2 is overly complex (the UI is a pain for instance). Combat is dull in both.

      I'm looking forward to trying X3, but there's no Linux 3 for that yet.

      • Re:freelancer (Score:3, Interesting)

        by CaptnMArk ( 9003 )
        I tried X2 once but the controls we really strange. Not to mention that my favorite requirement -- mouse control Wing Commander style wasn't supported.

        I wonder how much of it they fixed since and how much could be done in the linux port. I'd buy the game instantly if it had properly working mouse control and working F1 key to get the list of keybindings.
  • I loved the original X-BTF (beyond the frontier). Got it for 1.99$ used at EB. Best use of a toonie (Canadian and proud of it) ever. I had just finished playing Tachyon, some novalogic game (it was good too, fun multiplayer) and the drop in graphics was a huge turn off at first, and the poor voices (with no subtitles) of the taladi took a long time to get used to.

    After playing for a few hours, the game had this awsome sense of immersion. It felt like a real, living breathing huge ass universe. You could se

    • Re:the X series (Score:3, Informative)

      by michaelsimms ( 141209 )
      After playing for a few hours, the game had this awsome sense of immersion.

      Yup, it does doesnt it {:-)
      It felt like a real, living breathing huge ass universe. You could see the seams around the sky-box of space, where the "stars" were (the textures were poorly done, so you knew you were flying around in a huge ass box)

      Skybox issues were fixed, it looks better now. In fact all the bugs you mentioned were fixed in patches. The Linux version is based on the source for the latest patch and so shouldnt inherit t

  • It's good to know... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Tim Browse ( 9263 ) on Sunday October 02, 2005 @08:40PM (#13700999)

    ...that even in the far future, they still haven't solved the textiles problems that cause women's clothes to shrink [egosoft.com] for no adequately explained reason.

    I'm guessing she's got that gun because she's going back to the boutique to get a refund.

    • The skimpy clothes are a valid combat tactic. Think about it ; you're coming up against professional mercs, a profession dominated by high-testosterone macho guys. Personal body armour isn't worth crap versus a headshot anyway, so you may as well be agile and mobile and have the advantage that any red-blooded male catching a first glimpse of you is going to take a small pause while he fights the rapid downflow of blood from his brain to his tackle.

      Yes, you heard it here first. In the future, the most dead

    • Repeat after me: Its not a bug, its a feature
  • Since I couldn't find any information on X2 website I looked on GameSpot and found these requirements [gamespot.com]. I'm assuming the Linux verison will be comparable.

    • Those system requirements will be _bare_ minimum. With my system (Atlon 2100+, ti4200, 1gb RAM), the benchmarks are good at low detail. I think I averaged 90fps or so at 16bit colour, 1024*768, all AA & effects off. However, in game, especially later on when things get more complex, I get nowhere near that number. In a busy system, with lots of traffic, I get nasty 5fps spikes quite a lot. I also got an average of 30fps or so on the benchmark with everything on full. X2 is also more processor inte

      • Yes, what you say is correct. What we aim for right now is for it to run at an acceptable speed - with game options turned down (no bumpmaps or shadows), on a 1GHz processor with a 64MB Geforce 4 class graphics card. We may not meet that goal, but we are trying.
  • Although I checked out the windows release of X2 when it was new, and thought it looked awesome, I refused to buy it because it contained Starforce. Starforce is a particularly insidious copy protection tool that installs device drivers without the user's consent or knowledge. Read about it here http://www.glop.org/starforce/ [glop.org]. My question is, will this Linux port contain similar garbage?
    • No.

      There is a chance it will contain a copy protection system, one that we wrote purselves because we need to do SOMETHING to stop piracy that is really hurting our company, but the copy projection does not install drivers or anything else. It isnt evil, just something to try and stop people from ripping the bottom out of our revenue - which really cant afford that any more.
      • That's unfortunate, though I can understand where you're coming from, of course.

        I'd be interested to know if copy protection actually visibly improved sales, though. In my experience it's totally ineffective (I generally won't buy a game until I've played it and confirmed it doesn't suck / isn't hopelessly buggy, so I know this first-hand), and it also significantly discourages me from buying a game. In particular, I'm vastly more willing to pay good money for anything that won't force me to find the blaste

        • Re:Copy protection (Score:4, Interesting)

          by michaelsimms ( 141209 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @12:40PM (#13705198) Homepage
          Well, the copy protection we are aiming at is effectively:

          A registration key

          This does online verification with a keyserver

          If the keyserver is not available it simply drops back to being a non-online key system so people without net access can use the game.

          You can have as many installs as you like on the same key. However each key will allow you to lock out other users of that key, so sure you can put your key online, but if someone locks you out after you do it, dont come crying to us.

          Knowing it is an online protection system some people will try and kill their net connection for each time the game starts, but if people wanna do that then thats fine, its a lot of hassle to keep your stolen copy but we cant stop people 100%. Also some clever people will reverse engineer it and get a crack, we know this, and we cant stop it, there is no way to stop every workaround. Hopefully though, we'll stop most of it.

          For the legitimate user, however, it will simply look like: Enter a CD key once. Play the game, forget it. No CD-in-drive required. For multiplayer games (X2 isnt) install copies on your home machines, play away, no locks. We *ask* that people buy one copy per install if they can afford it, but we wont stop people installing around their home if they cant.

          The system is one that needs to be tested thoroughly however and we will probably do that in the X2 beta. If it looks like causing problems for users, we will simply release with no protection, as I dont want people having 'issues' with it. Then we'll fix stuff and try again next game beta - till we get it right {:-)

          As for people that want to download a cracked version and try it out, and then buy it later if they like it, they can do that too with our cd key system. I funny support that idea, as it means we dont have to ship the game, its much easier for us {:-)
          • That sounds fairly darn civilized to me. In particular, I'm much less bothered by a keyserver approach when I know the game won't just stop working if the company that makes it encounters difficulties. Keyserver based approaches seem relatively inoffensive, and I imageine they'd stop a lot of casual copying. I can understand why they have a bad rep (it could be done very badly, ie game not playable/installable if the key server is unreachable so you no longer even really "own" the game; privacy issues) but
            • CD requiring copy protection is more effective than purely cd key only, but it only lasts until someone reverse engineers the copy protection system, or hell, not even that much, they can do it by a big of hex editing and ensuring that the test function returns the pass value without running the test.
              There IS no currently feasable copy protection that actually works. All we are going to be able to do is stop the casual copying. I have to say I can think of numerous methods of copy protection that WOULD work
      • Yer, it's a difficult one for games companies, and if I were in your position I'd be thinking hard about piracy as well. You have to balance up having no restrictions like on RTCW against making it impractical just to go and get a copy. I loved not having restrictions on games like RTCW because it means I don't have to go and find one of them daft NOCD cracks. And yes, I buy good games because let's face it, there's not that many to buy these days and it means I can readily afford one when it comes along.
    • I read that list, thinking "Surely nobody could use something that dodgy?". Well, boy was I wrong - I own one of them, Splinter Cell Chaos Theory.

      No wonder the bloody thing never worked quite right. I was struck by the even-more-appalling-than-usual copy protection when I installed it. It was done sufficiently incompetently that it had *two* keys - one for install, and one for LAN play. The copy protection verification takes 30s on startup. It's astonishingly broken, and I won't be buying anything else from
      • Why? Because it causes warez groups fits. A lot of games using that protection haven't been cracked yet, including the game you mentioned, and the ones that haven't been cracked can't simply be copied 1:1 either; you have to jump through a bunch of hoops to play a clone image properly. Damn shame, considering how intrusive the protection is in regards to your computer as well as to the game itself.

        Rob

  • X-2 Is a very good game. (Score:2, Informative)

    by Hitto ( 913085 )
    It was the first time an Elite clone didn't outright suck.
    Sure, the controls are hazy at best, but most people mistook that game for what it truly is : An economy simulator with a spaceship look-and-feel GUI.

    There are lots of annoying things in the game, many things that should be automatized (I'm not a native ingrish speaker, so bear with me), but the game is scriptable, has seen many outstanding mods, there's a very tight-knit community on the egosoft fora, and there is a level of satisfaction you just ca

  • You can download the X2 - The Threat Mac OS X demo from: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/games/demos_ updates/x2thethreat.html [apple.com]

    Its ported by Virtual Programming Ltd., I never heard of them before, and never heard of X2 before either, but the screenshots looked cool and im a huge fan of Freespace 2, so i'm downloading the demo right now :)

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