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Games Entertainment

Terminus Has Gone Gold 68

Posted by emmett from the bruce-locke dept.
michaelsimms writes "According to Vicarious Visions, Terminus has gone gold. CEO Karthik Bala posted the announcement this morning on the fansite Station Terminus. According to the latest news from Gonegold.com, Terminus will begin shipping to suppliers on June 10th! You can pre-order Terminus from the Tux Games Web site." The 'persistent universe' in this game is causing a lot of buzz and interest. I can't wait to play it.
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Terminus Has Gone Gold More

Terminus Has Gone Gold

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  • Re:Sci-fi MMORPG (Score:5)

    by chuck ( 477 ) on Friday May 19, 2000 @05:01AM (#1061600) Homepage
    ...it's a Massively Multiplayer On-line RPG (MMORPG) set in our solar system.
    I hate to be critical, but Terminus is not a MMORPG. I know. I wrote it. It is a multiplayer on-line RPG (MORPG), but you have to set up your own servers, ala Quake, and each server has a finite limit.

    I just want to clear this up before I get too much hate mail about not being able to connect to our servers!

  • Hmmmmmm (Score:2)

    by jd ( 1658 )
    Looks like a cross between Elite and a MUD. It'll be interesting to see how good it really is. Anyone can write a good description. Even I can! Writing a good, solid game, though, is much harder.

    BTW: How can they trademark Terminus? The Second Foundation live there! (Mind you, mental control would make the court case fun to watch! :)

  • Re:Hmmmmmm (Score:1)

    by Yarn ( 75 )
    Um, no. The first foundation is on terminus, the second is on trantor.
  • From The Specs Page: [gamestats.com]

    Linux
    ----------
    Processor: P2-300
    Memory: 64 meg
    Graphics card: 3d accelerator with Glide drivers
    Sound: Full duplex recommended
    Controllers: Mouse required, joystick recommended

    So what if I have a Creative Annihilator Pro/GeForce 256? It doesn't have Glide drivers....

    ========================
    63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
    ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,
  • Okay I realize this predates mass public usage of the Internet by quite some time, but does anyone remember the old Galactic Empire game that was run on MajorBBS/Galacticom Boards?

    If so, how would one rate Terminus to GE?

    I loved GE for so many reasons, the tactical and stategical requirements, and the complexity of game play (for those days anyways). I'm still looking for a realistic space game that even comes close to encompassing half of the features that GE had, I.E.:

    - Correct usage of Azemuth(sp?) navigational methodologies (This is the mathematical model used for navigation by places like ummm NASA).
    - Correct physics, gravitational forces from 'masses', course drift, ennertia, etc.

    Do any other GE'rs have any suggestions for those of use addicted to GE and looking for a suitable replacement?

    Well enough rambling...
  • I read around a little bit, avault, the game site, etc and there isn't any mention of this game being a massivly multiplayer game. True it is a persistant world, but only persistant on your computer. I belive you can have up to eight players at once. Someone correct me if I am wrong, but look at the game's site, no mention of it being massive.

    Ok, this whole Massivly Multiplayer thing is getting out of hand. Yes Terminus is multiplayer, yes it is possible to have a good number of people playing, but in no way is Terminus meant to support 1000's of people ala Everquest. The universe is persistant, can be saved, restarted on the same machine, or on a different machine. In all aspects, there is the possability for the universe to continue for as long as the admin of the server wishes, and when he/she is tired of it, can hand off the save game file and let another admin run the universe.

    There is only a maximum number of players when the server is running the story mode, two player slots available for each of the four available careers. In the case of deathmatch, free mode, and some other modes, the only limit is the bandwidth and hardware available.

    I can tell you as both a mission scripter and tester, this game is very exciting and unique. If you've ever wanted to fly in space, this is the game for you. It's a lot of fun, and the many people that have worked long hours on it over the past few years deserve a lot of credit for their efforts.

    And yes, Troy SUCKS.

    -Aaron
  • Interesting links, thanks. Braben shot himself in the foot with Elite 2 anyway :) (I still bought and played it for some time, despite all the bugs...)

    Multiplayer Elite and good 3D, count me in! Looks like this Terminus thing might be it.
  • ya, word is that a demo will be out ~1 week before it hits the shelves. this is definately gonna be a buy for me, it'll be awesome if some dedicated servers get up that will allow some real interaction with other players in a real/persistent universe. i really don't expect to see it as big player-to-universe-wise as EQ or something, but even playing with say 50-100 people in there would be cool as hell. I've been dreaming of a game like that as long as i can remember
  • This game seems great but I see no new things there. For example Mankind [mankind.net] is there since nearly 2 years. It's a true persistant, massively on-line game, maybe it's not as known because it's developped by frenchies but I think you should really have a look at it. They are 70 000 players playing the game and a lot of guilds, they have been not buzz around it in the states but it's played by french, german, english, and asian people.

  • Re:Problem With Persistant Universe (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The problem with the persistant universe games is that the only server is centrally managed by the company that makes the game. As a result, you cannot simply join another server if you do not like some of the players that you find there. The advantage of standard games is that they genrally do not require the time commitment that the persistant universe games do, and you can join different servers, each with a distinct personality and flavor.

    While this is the case with most other persistant universe games, the Terminus model is different. Anyone can run a server, and as long as the server is running, the game is persistant. Further, the game can be saved, so the server can be shut down to accomplish "real work", and turned back on later in exactly the same state that it was in. Everybody that was part of the game can come back in using the same nick's, and their game on the server is also saved. So, amass a few ships, lots of money and a good reputation, and as long as the admin saves the game before shutting down, you'll still exist and have all your goodies when you log back in.

  • Re:gold is good (Score:3)

    by lord-doofus ( 164428 ) on Friday May 19, 2000 @05:52AM (#1061610) Homepage
    Well, Terminus is not in any way, shape or form like Homeworld, so a comparison wouldn't really be relevant. It's a space combat game where you fly around in a space ship trading and blowing stuff up a la Elite or Privateer. Homeworld is a strategy game where you control a bunch of ships, collect resources, etc. It has more in common with Command & Conquer-style games... (though the difference is obvious, with the setting and 3D-ness). Anyone interested in a game like Homeworld might want to check out ORB from Strategy First. I did a preview of that game here [cdmag.com]. (I apologize in advance for our site's layout. It's someone's idea of a cruel joke... not really, but if you do check it out... 'nuff said).

    ---
  • "Mankind"
    A.K.A.
    "The only game ever to score 0% in the UK's PC Gamer magazine"

    --

    --

  • I've been seeing Terminus hyped alongside MMORPGs for so long, and the game site itself is a bit vague on specifics, so I was under the delusion Terminus was another MMORPG. My bad. My only defense is that I'm following the development of over a dozen games, and they do blend together after a time.

    Still, I will be playing Terminus. As a physicist, I have to check out your realistic space combat model. :-)
  • Just had an e-mail conversation with one of their developers (after sending a request to their VP of product development, asking them to consider the same...)- seems they're working on it, but are having "driver problems" at this point in time.

    If they get it going quickly enough, they plan on making a patch available for download. However, having said this, they also implied that this was not a definite yet. I've sent a reply to the developer in question offering my and possibly the Utah-GLX team's assistance in resolving the problem. No response yet.

  • But of course the great old classic in this category of games is Elite... God did I love that game! Privateer was kinda fun but mainly for the cool graphics.

    What's up with David Braben nowadays anyway?

  • There's an in-depth preview [avault.com] at the Adrenaline
    Vault, which was published last month. It gives a pretty good idea as
    to why folks are excited about this one.

  • wow (Score:1)

    by rhaig ( 24891 )
    I submitted this story yesterday noonish, but it was rejected. I guess Terminus isn't geek news. Oh, wait... maybe it is!
  • actually, the "jump to another solar system, join another server" thing is EXACTLY what Parsec (freeware space sim) is doing for it's network. Each server is a "system" and you go thru jumpgates to go between them. sortof a quasi-beowulf for the server. one server goes down, you only lose a solar system for a while.

    you can check it out at http://www.parsec.org

  • Lots of previews (Score:3)

    by Chalst ( 57653 ) on Friday May 19, 2000 @12:43PM (#1061618) Homepage Journal
    Scratch the post IO made earlier today: I had a bit of a look around
    at information for this game. Here's the links...



    And a couple of fan sites:



    This games generated quite a bit of excitement, and deservedly so.
    From the inteviews at the fan sites, this is an example of a game
    where the developers decided to go it alone after poor initial
    reception from publishers (eg. publishers wouldn't do a lionux port,
    but insisted that noone else would be allowed to do one as a
    precondition), and have ended up in the position of being able to
    dictate terms to the publishers now.

    Oh, and it isn't massively multi-player, and that's a *good* thing:
    they've gone for allowing people to create their own servers, and for
    a gameplay model that seamlessly moves from single player to
    multiplayer, whilst retaining lots of depth. Very ambitious, and it
    looks really successful. I'm impressed.

  • Wrong url...the preview is here [avault.com]
  • They've gone to a lot of effort on this game. The idea has been
    around for four years, it's been developed properly with a team of 12
    for over two years, and the beta release was last Septemeber. It
    looks like they've taken their time to get things right.
  • I haven't looked much at this game, but if its as good as Elite was......many anight wasted on the Amiga 500. or was that Elite II?

  • Re:Some random "info" on the game (Score:3)

    by Chalst ( 57653 ) on Friday May 19, 2000 @01:54PM (#1061622) Homepage Journal
    The game is $42, and that gives you both client and server software.
    Most of the development was done on the linux platform. There's
    a developer journal [stationterminus.com] at Station Terminus that gives lots of this kind of
    information.
  • Not as unique as the games *I* write. And the thing that pisses me off about Terminus - I WROTE HALF THAT GODDAMNED GAME. Those sons of bitches sole source right from underneath my nose ... honestly, I wouldn't mind if they'd just give me credit for it.

    Flight Physics? Mine.
    That cool mission script bulider you used? Mine.
    Enemy AI? Mine.
    Networking? Mine.

    Hell, I even did some of the graphics.

    How much credit do I get. Nothing. Not jack shit, other than the self satisfaction I see of a decent game that I helped with, with no thank yous in my direction.

  • In Terminus you have all the freedom to do what ever you like. For example if you are a military guy earth or mars your commander pages you whenever a scripted mission happens and you can choose to take that mission or not. So you can be out in the middle of a big brawl and they page you and you wont have to go.
    Also the paging system works for human players, you can page someone that is playing the game and tell them what frequency you want to chat with them and then you can use the voice communications. There are so many posibilities for this game that it's just amazing.
  • Lame. I've not got a PII Linux box, which was half the point of making it a Linux box.

    I'll still play it under Windows and MacOS...

  • You guys are forgetting about the great selection of multiplayer browser-based games that are growing in popularity more then any other branch of games. These can easily be played by any linux computer with a net connection. Games like Planetarion, Archmage, Dominion, Ominix, Utopia are all browser based and each have 10s to 100s of thousands of users. Massively Multiplayer Turn Based Strategy Games will bring linux into the marketplace by telling us game developers that if you want to get more of the pie, you got to developer for linux. I have a list of these games at my website www.mpogd.com [mpogd.com] which is a directory of 500 or so online multiplayer games, about 1/2 of them are able to run on a linux machine.

    English: Fry's 30 day money back guarentee

  • if there was a Windows version, it would help increase the popularity of the game

    True, but if not, perhaps this could make linux just a bit more popular? Not enough to switch a die-hard windows fan, but might be able to help convince someone wavering between the two OSs. Even so, it prolly won't help much...

  • it's good to see that more linux games are finally being developed. this game looks pretty sweet... i wonder how it will compare to homeworld??

  • Real Time Voice Communication (Score:3)

    by Percible ( 39773 ) on Friday May 19, 2000 @03:44AM (#1061629) Homepage

    One of the features mentioned on stationterminus.com -

    Real-time Voice communication between players using Voxware's MetaVoice technology.

    This is one of the most interesting features for me - trying to type commands to other members of your team while playing the game makes it a lot harder to do when you're also pressing lots of other keys to control your craft...

    Of course, on low bandwidth connections, it might suck.. but this is a step in the right direction.

    ~P

  • Atleast now there are finally some commercial games being released for Linux... I know that's what is keeping a lot of people from making the transition from Windows.
  • Maybe I'm missing it, but there doesn't seem to be a demo available for download.

    I don't know many people who are prepared to buy a game without having played a demo first -- has anyone heard what VVs' position is on the demo front?
  • Its nice to see some interesting multiplayer games being developed for Linux, expecially something unique as opposed to shoot-em-ups...
  • Supposedly free- loads of rumors to that effect.
    One box handles Windows, MacOS, and Linux- it'll be guaranteed to be on the store shelves everywhere if they get the right channels selling it.
    It was developed under all OSes simultaneously.

    It's got a LOT of potential- and I've been eagerly awaiting it for several months now. Now I know what to hint at for Father's Day or my Birthday now... :-)

    Oh, you might want to hit Linux Games [linuxgames.com] on a periodic basis- they track this sort of thing.

  • As RMS Says (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...it's the software hoarders that will destoy us.

    So "Terminus" is apparently a game. I thought that all Slashdot gamers had windows boxes? "Just for games" they say. So keep your games on Windows, cause we don't want them on Linux!

    Suppose you're a game developer at some company. You've been reading all these magazines, checking out all these web sites, and it looks to you like this "Linux" thing, you know, that "shareware" operating system? It looks like we might be able to sell games to those guys! So you churn out some lousy game, with bad graphics and no sound, because you figure, hey, these guys have never played anything but "nethack" or "moria" before anyway, so all these 256 colors will really dazzle 'em. You know all this becuase you read a swell post by some guy calling himself "Anonymous Coward" on this web site at www.slashdot.com

    So you write this game on Windows, and then port it to Linux with the shareware "gcc" compiler. You run Red Hat Linux, because it's "official", so that's what you release for. Never mind how portable your code is, the thought of porting it to Alpha or PPC never crosses your brain. And the idea that someone might use something other than Red Hat? Well, nothing else is Official.

    Now you're game is done. What is there to do but tell the 5 million Linux game sites (which cover the approx. 5 games) about it. It gets posted on that dotslash.com thing. A million buyers line up, drooling, to get at your game, no matter what the price. You get rich, quick. Off the GNU/Linux community.

    But do you give anything back? Maybe a new sound playback engine? A graphics driver? A donation to the FSF/SPI/Whatever? "Hey, I paid $49.99 for that Linux CD. That's good enough for those commies." All that money you made? It's being used to develop the next game with which you'll rip off the community.

    Is this what we need? Is this what we want to enourage? A system of economics based on parasitism? If you want to sell to our community, you need to play by our rules. We need to send this message loud and clear to anyone who wants to sell anything to us. Look at how Linux companies contribute to the Linux community. Every other company needs to do the same thing. If you give, neither will we. Plain and simple.
  • This game seems to have slipped in under my new release radar, I haven't heard/read much about it. Are we talking "persistent universe" like Everquest persistent universe? Is this an on-line only, monthly fee sort of game?

    Also, they talk about this being developed specifically for Linux: will there be a Windows version as well? Not the kind of information the average /. reader cares about, I realize, but if there was a Windows version, it would help increase the popularity of the game.
  • a modern replacement to Elite!

    I've been following it for quite some time, to be honest I dont *care* what it runs under, as long as its fun.

    * Goes to check release dates etc *

  • Sci-fi MMORPG (Score:4)

    by Remus Shepherd ( 32833 ) <remus@panix.com> on Friday May 19, 2000 @03:50AM (#1061637) Homepage
    For those of you who don't know what Terminus is about (and are too lazy to look it up yourself)...it's a Massively Multiplayer On-line RPG (MMORPG) set in our solar system. You've heard of Everquest -- the now premiere MMORPG -- but Terminus is sci-fi, not fantasy. It's mostly designed around space combat and exploration, and you can choose to be a merchant, pirate, or fighter jockey defending earth. It looks like more of a spaceship game than a character RPG, but still it looks pretty cool.

    There are dozens of MMORPGs in development right now, after the success of Everquest. Not many will be finished, and even fewer will be successful. Terminus has an advantage in that it's the first sci-fi MMORPG (to my knowledge) and it's coming out before the 'second wave' of MMORPGs that will hit sometime around December of this year. For a list of RPGs coming out (a good percentage of which are MMORPGs), check out The Gamer's Alliance List. [ga-rpg.com]

    The next big MMORPG title for Linux gamers? Atriarch [atriach.com]. Watch for it.
  • it's good to see that more linux games are finally being developed. this game looks pretty sweet... i wonder how it will compare to homeworld??

    homeworld rocks! sometimes i just like to look around at all my ships because they are so pretty. i wish sierra would port it linux.
  • there is no monthly fee. The server, in fact, is shipped with the product.

    My plan at the house is to run a server all the time for futzing around with my housemates, and start another one on a different box if I want to play single player.
  • If you want a MMORPG (minus the RP part at the moment, though they claim that aspect is coming soon) try 10six. It runs 24/7 on heat's dedicated servers and supports one million (10^six) users, which for now is probably close enough to unlimited.
    10six on heat.net [heat.net]
  • from their site
    Many of you have emailed me asking about the downloads being inaccessable. I spoke with the GameStats sytem administrator and he said he turned them off because the traffic from Slashdot.org was killing the network. They will be turned back on at a later date.

    hehe I love hearing about how we as /.ers do this kinda stuff...kinda makes me proud that we can make a difference...sort of


    My Home: Apartment6 [apartment6.org]
  • Like pretty much every other company in the industry, they have ripped off half of the design and programming in this game from ME. My love of games prevents me from doing anything about it, anything that furthers gaming is okay by me. I just wish I had a mention in a manual or even a readme.txt

    *sigh*

    When you're the best, you're bound to be imitated.

  • I just placed my order about an hour ago. I had no problems ordering on the site.

    I just wish I knew when my credit card will be charged, now or when the game ships.

    Oh well, can't have everything.

    JBB
  • It's not just for Linux, it is Mac, Windows and Linux - simultaneous release, and ALL in the one box.
  • Another example, Conquest & Destiny [tzo.com] There are numerous examples, this one is my favourite as it reminds me of IMO the best game ever, Master of Orion II. Massive Multiplaying, 21 Million planets, persistent universe and support for 900.000 players, man have I been waiting for this. Still waiting..
  • The one question I have is the same one that John Carmack was concerned about when releasing QIII specifically for Linux. Since Terminus will be bundled with all OSes represented, how will we (or anyone) know how many were sold for Linux vs. Windows?


    --
  • All in one box? That _is_ good news... I use both Windows and Linux (out of choice), and it's a right pain to have to switch OS's just for one app...
    --
  • Is this an on-line only, monthly fee sort of game?

    Certainly not on-line only, Terminus has a very large, inticrate campaign that can be played both in multiplayer and signle player. There won't be a monthly fee because afaik there are no plans for a single central server. It's not really a massively multiplayer game like Everquest, i've heard numbers of around 16 to 32 players simultaneously on a decent PC with a good net connection.

    Also, they talk about this being developed specifically for Linux: will there be a Windows version as well? Not the kind of information the average /. reader cares about, I realize, but if there was a Windows version, it would help increase the popularity of the game.

    There are binaries for Windows, Linux (x86 only) and Mac in the box.

  • They're starting work on a demo now that the game has gone gold, and they've promised the demo will be out by the time the game is in stores. (the info is somewhere on Station Terminus [www.statio...mtargettop], too lazy to look where exactly :)
  • The problem with the persistant universe games is that the only server is centrally managed by the company that makes the game. As a result, you cannot simply join another server if you do not like some of the players that you find there. The advantage of standard games is that they genrally do not require the time commitment that the persistant universe games do, and you can join different servers, each with a distinct personality and flavor.

    I may try Terminus "just for the heck of it" but I am unwilling to sacrifice the flexibility of being able to set up my own server if I so desire. Even if you could set up your own server, with persistant universe games, people would get REALLY pissed off if they encounter downtime and/or lose game-related information. After hearing about the craziness surrounding Everquest (as far as obtaining items, etc.) it seems that only the players willing to dedicate inordinate amounts of time to it will completely dominate in the one game-world that you can possibly play in. No, thanks.
  • From Station Terminus's News Page [stationterminus.com]:
    System Spec for Linux includes a 3d accelerator with Glide drivers. The Mac spec says OpenGL support, while Windows is Glide or Direct3D. How come no OpenGL for Linux?

  • Re:Sci-fi MMORPG (Not quite accurate) (Score:5)

    by sleight ( 22003 ) on Friday May 19, 2000 @04:03AM (#1061652)
    Terminus is not Everquest. An Everquest server (which, I believe, is actually a cluster of servers) can host 2000+ users simultaneously. Everquest is also a service.

    One of the things that separates Terminus from Everquest, and that makes it beautiful, is that Terminus is not a service but a product that allows any old user to set up a persistent universe and allow other people to play within it.

    In short, Terminus allows an owner of the game unlimited usage of others "universes", provides the ability to instantiate your own, or to just play solo.

    Now, if only some insane fanboys out there would set up a cluster running Termins (is this possible?) so that we could have several hundred people existing the in the same universe. ;-)

  • You didn't read any information about it other than the Slashdot article, did ya? :)

    The "persistant universe" isn't a MMORPG type of universe. It just means that while you're playing your game (on your own local computer) the entire game universe is actually in action (rather than just the area you're in). So while you're putzing around in one solar system, the computer characters are out arranging to hijack a shipment elsewhere...

  • RMS is not always right. (Score:5)

    by rjh ( 40933 ) <rjh@sixdemonbag.org> on Friday May 19, 2000 @04:16AM (#1061654)
    <SH!T_KICKING>
    <SOAPBOX>

    RMS is unquestionably brilliant, but he is not always right; and while I have the utmost respect for his free software ideals, I have extreme difficulty with the zealotry which some of his supporters demonstrate.

    Your first assumption is that Linux developers are not Linux users. You assume that a commercial software company's programmers aren't going to give half a damn about the operating system; you assume they're heartless, faceless, interchangeable capitalists.

    News flash for you: every one of those assumptions is faulty.

    The people who code under Linux, whether it be for pay or for the good of the community, are going to be familiar with Linux and the community spirit which it was built upon. When you demonize the commercial software developers, guess what? You're demonizing people you should be evangelizing to. Your approach is no different from that of any of thousands of fundamentalist Christians who loudly scream that homosexuality is evil--regardless of whether it is or not, it alienates the very people you're trying to reach.

    Your second assumption is that it is an us against them situation. How can I put it bluntly?--I consider this to be a sign of immaturity. RMS may well see the intellectual-property issue in black and white, but he does not see people in terms of black and white. He has more wisdom than that.

    Your third assumption is that our rules are better, high in fiber, low in saturated fat, and guaranteed low sodium. While I'll be the first to trumpet the virtues of free software, we will not achieve world domination by means of xenophobia. Without exception, every culture in history which has practiced isolationism has had its butt kicked by the cultures which did not. Do you really want the free software community to get our rear end handed to us on a platter? That's what this kind of isolationism and xenophobia will do, make no doubt about it.

    If I were a Windows developer who was considering porting something (like, for instance, let's say a science-fiction MMORPG to Linux) I'd take a look at your post and say "good grief! What a strange person. Well, Marketing says there's a contingent of them who will buy games anyway, so I'll just ignore all of these Linux zealots!"

    As soon as that happens, you have forever lost them to the cause.

    Commercial software will not be the demise of Linux. Linux is bigger than that, and more importantly, the community is stronger than that. The only thing that can kill Linux--and destroy free software--is the community surrounding it.

    And you're doing ten times as much to destroy free software as any closed-source programmer is.

    </SOAPBOX>
    </SH!T_KICKING>
  • I spoke with one of the test engineers (one of my close friends) and he told me that this is one of the most realistic simulation that he had ever experienced. The physics of spce flight in it apparently are quite realistic. The persistent universe sounds pretty interesting, and the AI in the game sounds very very advanced. Each computer player has its own personalities, and affinities to certain types of missions etc. At any given time during the game, there is not only the mission that you are participating in going on, but there may be several others going on, which may or may not have any human players. Kinda cool, in my opinion. One thing that I question is the fact that the computer players have unlimited resources. For example, say you run up against a pirate or mercenary AI unit. They have had the opportunity to buy any ship upgrade that they happened to run across in the Persistent Universe. I think that would give the player a bit of a disadvantage. I for one, will be looking forward to taking a look at this game, as it looks to be a very realistic simulation, and has one helluva storyline, that looks could result in one helluva game.

  • I was reading the info on stationterminus.com and admittedly I didn't delve too deeply, but I didn't find any real discussion of what the Terminus "campaign" definition was. Someone mentioned in a previous post that the game looked like Privateer, and I'm wondering if that's the sort of structure it will have. I especially liked Privateer 2 which (despite a few bugs) had a huge universe and while there was a story, you weren't tied down to a set list of missions (a la Wing Commander).

    On the other hand, last week I went out and bought Tachyon who's box made it seem right up there with Privateer 2 in terms of the freedom, but fell somewhere short, ending up somewhere between Privateer and Wing Commander.

    So, I guess my question is, how much freedom do you have in Terminus? From what I've read it sounds great... it sounds like what I liked in Privateer II. I'm just hoping I won't be disappointed.

  • But of course the great old classic in this category of games is Elite...

    God only knows how much I've wanted multiplayer Elite with modern grafix...

    What's up with David Braben nowadays anyway?

    Dunno, but IIRC he is kind of a prick [clara.net]. Check here [gamesdomain.co.uk] and here [ndirect.co.uk] for more prickery.. Or just check out Ian Bell's Elite pages [clara.net]...

    Your Working Boy,
  • .. Would involve empire-building RPG ala Stars! but integrated into the space-sim so you the results of the empire building would affect the space-sim model..

    Kind of like a simulated galaxy with different playable components..
    Your Working Boy,

  • Re:Hmmmmmm (Score:2)

    by jd ( 1658 )
    Ooops! My silly. Oh well, we'll just have to make do with a fleet of heavily-armed mentally-controlled gravitic spaceships.
  • I don't know. My take was that the multiplayer (i.e. online) part of it is what's persistent, in that there is some "master" server that maintains this universe. I could be wrong, though.
  • They could have just targeted Glide+Mesa to begin with and announced support for cards other than 3dfx when ready. Targeting Glide in this day and age (or even 2 years ago) seems a rather peculiar sort of dead end.
    Yes, supporting Glide only under Linux is an unfortunate result of the current state of OpenGL on Linux. Right now, it seems that all current GL drivers work fine for Quake, but getting something else that uses different features and/or extensions is another matter altogether.

    A good number of Linux users do have 3Dfx cards, since they have a good history of working under linux. (Witness Quake 1.) Hopefully the remainder of Linux users will tolerate a dual-boot a bit longer until we can get more solid driver support for Terminus. Cross your fingers, and encourage your board vendors to cooperate with us!

    -Chuck
  • Now what's needed is a network of servers to distribute the galaxy over.

    Your ship jumps to another solar system - your client connects to the relevant server on the Internet.

    People could design their own solar systems, spacefaring races, spacecraft etc.

    It's the obvious next step.
  • Don't tell me some company is hyping a Tradewars alike...
  • The Tux Games server is being hammered, but please keep trying. We ARE here, and those 500 errors you see are just apache and postgres's way of saying OUCH!

    The /. effect does it again!

  • Back in 1988, two guys called Ian and Ricky thought up a project called Karma [argonet.co.uk], a game intended to have everything that Terminus had, and more. They'd planned it to run on the super-computer of the day, the Archimedes with its blazingly fast 8MHz ARM2, and they got a lot of code done until one of them was killed in a motorcycle accident (this was back in 1993). Although Ian is still working on it (or rather nobody's heard anything to the contrary), it's been really slow progress, and I don't remember seeing anything from him on comp.sys.acorn.games for a while. Still, it's worth looking at the pitifully out-of-date Karma project page [argonet.co.uk] to compare the two.
  • The VV guys are really cool, and the best part is, they're in my home town, which really needs more successful companies.
  • I want to thank these guys for totally ripping off Privateer! I loved that game!

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