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Emperor: Battle for Dune 86

Posted by Hemos from the frank-herbert-is-a-god dept.
webword writes "Westwood Studios has announced that Emperor: Battle for Dune has gone gold and will ship June 12 in North America. The game looks great. Get the screenshots, original music tracks, movies (MPG format), and desktop theme. I'm not a Dune fanatic, but I have to say that this game looks damn good. (I couldn't find any news on a Linux port. Argh!)"
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Emperor: Battle for Dune More

Emperor: Battle for Dune

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  • Re:Hmm... this does look pretty sweet... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I dunno, I'd consider the first Dune RTS to be pretty spectacular for its time.

  • Re:So? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If that's what you got out of reading the books, then no wonder you didn't like them. Paul Muad'dib is killed in Dune Messiah, and it is his son Leto that becomes the God Emperor.

    The themes of the Dune books varied wildly throughout the series - from ecology to religion. Many people interpret this as variation in quality, but I for one found the philosophical God Emperor of Dune to be one of the most enjoyable books.

    If you think about it, the last two novels were pretty much about the Supersoldier Nypho from Another Galaxy invasion, but no one really states it that way. Why? Because, as in the other Dune novels, there is a bigger picture to be seen.

  • Re:whine whine (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I found a Palm Pilot Personal Port here [incrediblepilotports.com].
  • I concur.
  • My main current gaming experience is playing SNES games on an emulator running on Linux (SNES9X). Doesn't require a $500 video board, doesn't require a $300 CPU, no need to have Windows installed (my box doesn't have it), and each game ROM is about 2 MB.

    Ages ago I remember playing Dune II on DOS, it was a great game. It seems that the game was remodelled with more resolution and sound quality and shipped as Dune 2000 recently. I'd be more than happy to be able to play Dune II on Linux.

    People developing fun games and nice mechanics for RTS are lacking, it's a shame that it's more probable Winusers get a game with 3D, kick-ass graphics, 3D sound, hundreds of megabytes and just copy the current RTS HCI mechanics from {War,star}craft.

    Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy V (SNES) kicks any of the current 'PC' games on the Fun Per Pixel (FPP) side.

  • There are a few MUDs and MUSHes based on the Dune universe. Some have died off, some have been resurrected, some never left.

    They could get VERY complex and you could role play as deep as you wanted.

    Here's some links I could find. I think these two are the only ones left.

    Dune MUD [mudconnector.com]

    Dune III MUSH [mudconnector.com]
    Fear my low SlashID! (bidding starts at $500)

  • Loki, are you watching? (Score:4)

    by Adnans ( 2862 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2001 @03:02PM (#202465) Homepage Journal
    I already have Myth II, but this would really make my day! Dune II was the first and only game I got hooked on for real. I remember playing it 3 days straight!! Yep, the Atreides, Harkonnen and Ordos house campaigns in that order. Of course I was ill for the next 2 days... must had something to do with monitor radiation.. dunno..

    Bring it on!! ... please?!

    -adnans

  • I tried the theme on my windows machine here at work, and it is not much to talk about. Mostly it consists of replacing the recycle bin, my computer, and network neighborhood icons with units from the game.

    The colors that it uses are pretty unoriginal and typical to windows in addition to clashing with eachother. (I'm speaking mostly of making the windows menus neon green and yellow.)

    Anyway, I'm sure all you dedicated *nix users don't care, but if you are stuck with windows at work like I am, you may be looking for a good theme or two to make your life interesting. However, This group of themes is not what your looking for.


  • RTS from westwood. Same game, different pixels...ho humm...yawn..RTS has become as staid as FPS these days. Why is it only RPG games that seem to advance or try new things ??
  • I know what you mean, there WAS a lull but ChapterHouse Dune was GOOD. I've not read any of the newly written stuff...
  • But he has just ended up a long winded repetition of himself...If I read Loiol's horse as big as a house,again, I am going to go insane. The fire of heaven was the pinnacle of the WoT, everything else after was/is a let down. Jordan should worry about content instead of word count...
  • Did you see the Sci Fi channel movie.It was MUCH better than the 'other' dune :)
  • Well, others who appear to remember them better than I have responded, so I'll reply tangentially:

    The Dune novels represent only a small part of Frank Herbert's bibliography [arrakis.co.uk]. He has written many other similarly amazing novels, some of which are much better than, say, God Emporer of Dune. Unfortunately, nearly all of them are long out of print. But if you really liked his Dune series, then it's worth hunting down some of these.

    I personally recommend the following:

    • Whipping Star
    • The Dosadi Experiment (set in the same universe as above)
    • Santoroga Barrier
    • Hellstrom's Hive
    • The Worlds of Frank Herbert (shorts)
    • The White Plague
    And, a very dark and disturbing trilogy, co-written with Bill Ransom, I also highly recommend:
    • The Jesus Experiment
    • The Lazarus Effect
    • The Ascension Factor
    In fact, these represent nearly every Frank Herbert novel I've read. The only exception is Man of Two Worlds, cowritten with his son, Brian. I barely remember reading it.
  • hopes of linux port

    it looks to be DirectX because of the curves to me but might be done in OpenGL realistically porting a DirectX game is so much hassle that it wont be done for Linux

    regards

    john jones

  • Anyone has ever played Myth can tell you this. The art in a game has nothing to do with whether it is 3d or 2d. Bad art is bad art.
  • Dune II was/is/will for ever be a classic game. I spent so many countless days and nights completely entranced by the story & gameplay. If it were ever to be released for a non-MSDOS platform my money would be soon be exchanged for a copy.
  • I've been yearning for Syndicate for about the
    last 5 years. I can't find it anywhere
    *sob*

  • Myth was a real-time tactical game, not strategic. There's a big difference in both design and gameplay. For that game, the 3-D perspective lent a degree of realism and immersion to the game. I find that 3-D in strategy games only gets in the way.
  • Dino may have held the copyright for a while, but I have it on the *best* authority that the Dune copyright is held by The Herbert Limited Partnership. I doubt Dino would have allowed a competitor to his movie. The Mini-series was much more faithful to the book. In fact, I was amazed at how true to it they did stay.

    Just my 2cp...
  • I did like the whole series. The 3rd and 4th books are a little long winded on some of the psuedo-philosophy stuff, but in all they are great. Id suggest re-reading the whole series, because there's alot going on, in terms of multiple plot lines and character interactions (not to mention it can get confusing if you lose track of which Duncan Idaho clone youre reading about).

    I think you can compare what Robert Jordan is trying to do in The Wheel of Time books with some of the plot/character techniques in Dune. There are many characters and plotlines, and they aren't done in the simplistic fashion so common to much sci-fi/fantasy where everyone's "mistakes" help to achieve the same goal. People who are "on the same side" can and do actually hurt "the cause" by unknowingly interfering with others' plans. There is also not as much author bias towards teh characters, as you often see. Each is represented so that you can actually see each side's argument, and reasoning (yet you know who Herbert likes). IMHO its a very difficult way to write a story, and Frank Herbert does it very well (Rober Jordan on the other hand has fallen into the soap opera trap).

    Well now that ive sufficiently gotten offtopic I'll stop now.
  • Before giving up on fantasy entirely, try 'The Lions of Al-Rassan' or 'Tigana' by Guy Gavriel Kay. I also enjoyed 'Sailing to Sarantium' and 'Lord of Emperors', but they are much slower books, and so if you don't have some historical interest in the period their centered around (Byzantine empire) you may not find them all that engrossing.

    If a tree falls in the forest, and kills a mime, does anyone care?

  • Dune and Dune II were separate games...but quite similar in style.

  • Two nitpicks about this:

    1) The Dune license was held by Virgin Games

    2) The first Dune game was built by Cryo, a French game house, and followed their standard "just-click-through-the-adventure-and-marvel-at-ou r-gorgeous-graphics" interface they used in almost every game. Check http://www.cryo.fr

    3) Westwood, at the time, was distributed by Virgin Games (they weren't part of the EA behemoth)

    4) If I'm reading http://dune.cryogame.com right, Cryo is doing a new version of Dune I, called "Frank Herbert's Dune", connected to the Sci-Fi Channel mini-series.

    The only thing Dune I and Dune II had in common was distribution by Virgin Games. Different teams, different art styles, completely different games.

  • By the way, Cryo announced at E3 that they will put out a Dune MMORPG next year. It looks gorgeous, but time will tell.
  • Several years ago, I played & enjoyed Dune II. Last year I got (& misplaced) a copy of Dune II, and that seemed fun too. (For a five dollar game, I was pleased...). It was only much later did I ever hear of C&C, and though I can see that Dune is a pretty blatant ripoff, I just don't care.

    I liked Dune better than C&C for the same reason that I liked X-Wing & Tie Fighter better than other piloting games: it was fun & it reminded me of a movie and I could get into the characters without having to wade through someone else's hokey back story. (Rather, it was a hokey back story that I was already familiar with :). Someone asked why games companies bother making product like this instead of flagships like C&C, well, I'm yer answer -- some people could give a rat's ass about their flagships. :)

    So. Does anyone know [a] how much this one's gonna cost, and [b] what specs it requires? I can throw it on my NT laptop from work, but I'm not about to "upgrade" to 2k or ME just for a video game. If it was fairly cheap & would work on a PIII/128mb ram/NT4sp6 computer (which dual boots into BeOS, not that I expect that to be useful...), I might consider it. Just curious -- their web site doesn't say a damn thing about the requirements or cost and I don't really feel like looking around for a copy at the malls if it's not gonna work anyway...

  • Whoa, that's a lot of disc space. I could probably cram it on there, but the laptop came with a pretty small hard drive, as compared to the rest of the hardware, which was (at the time - last year) fairly powerful for the most part -- 128mb ram, 733mhz cpu, etc.. The video stuff is also weaker -- 8mb ram, and probably not 3D (though the display settings don't seem to say either way) (which probably answers the question implicitly...).

    Sounds like I'd pretty much have to overhaul the system. I'd be willing to upgrade the ram, but aside from that, forget it. Oh well. Thanks for the information. (Oh, and I think the closest Fry's is about 3000 miles from here, unless they've set up shop on theEast Coast & I didn't hear about it... :)

  • 1)
    Westwood aquires the computer game rights to the Dune franchise.

    2)
    Well, great, this is a tremendously valuable property... tons of SciFi fans'll buy it on name alone. But just WHAT kind of game do we make out of it???

    3)
    Westwood releases Dune... a first-person-ish pseudo-adventure game. It is absolutely resounding in its mediocrity... tons of SciFi fans do NOT buy it on name alone.

    4)
    Well, Dune is STILL a tremendously valuable franchise. We paid a lot of money for it and can't let it go to waste. What ELSE can we do with it?

    5)
    Westwood gets experimental. They take their upcoming real-time strategy game, change two of the faction names to Atradies and Harkonen, toss in a poorly done sandworm that does nothing but eat your units, toss on the Dune II name, and call it good.

    6)
    Dune II is a suprising sucess. Now, RTS it *THE* thing to do!!! It soon spawns C&C and Red Alert... which bring in phat money for many years.

    7)
    Dune is STILL a tremendously valuable franchise. What ELSE can we do with it?

    8)
    Along comes the marketdroid. "EVERYONE in gameing now associates the name Dune with RTS" he says. And indeed, few people remember that the first Dune RTS was actually Dune II. The original Dune is long banished to the dusty attics of people's minds. Quoth the marketdroid: "NO ONE will accept another Dune game as anything EXCEPT an RTS!"

    9)
    Westwood releases "Emperor: Battle for Dune"... their latest realtime strategy game.

    john
    Resistance is NOT futile!!!

    Haiku:
    I am not a drone.
    Remove the collective if

  • AFAIK... I remember seeing petitions for C&C: Red Alert (original) games. I doubt we would see it for Emperor: Battle for Dune. :(

  • ftp://ftp.westwood.com/pub/emperor/previews/video/ EMP_LC_INTERVIEW.EXE [westwood.com]

    It uses Blink for video, so you will need Windows to watch it! The CEO shows the game to us. I thought it was nicely done. He explains what the game will be like, did a few gameplays, etc. I would like to see more game companies do this. A little demo...

    Note: The screen size is very SMALL, but it is still worth viewing. :)

  • I don't see why Westwood seems to think that the Dune series would make a good set of games, Especially not strategy games.

    Uhh...I guess you don't know that the original Dune game Westwood created spawned a series of similar strategy titles by them, starting with Command & Conquer and Red Alert, and many imitators, most notably Total Annihilation and StarCraft.

    I don't know how true they have been to the book (since I've never read it), but the Dune franchise proved to be very lucrative for them, if in an indirect way.

  • FIRSTLY, Westwood doesn't have to bring anything new to the genre to get my respect. They INVENTED it. Emperor of Dune looks absolutely amazing; I've never seen ANY game (much less RTS) that looks like it, so that's something new. And, besides, Westwood games are a blast. You've gotta play RED ALERT (especially the new RA2).
  • There just isn't enough there from the RTS perspective (that assumption is based on RTS's that are already out, maybe I'll be suprised). A game that were true to the Dune series would not fit in any genre or combinations thereof.

    Dune II basically INVENTED the RTS genre. So... essentially what you're saying is true, it didn't fit any genre, but I think you've got the whole thing backwards...

  • 3D in RTS games... (Score:4)

    by DESADE ( 104626 ) <slashdot@nOsPAm.bobwardrop.com> on Wednesday May 23, 2001 @02:29PM (#202491)
    Does anyone else besides me question whether we need 3d in RTS games. I for one, think these new 3D strategy games look much worse than their 2D counterparts. I loved Dune 2000 and the original Dune 2, but this game looks plastic to me.
  • I got my Dad hooked on it a few years back... He was still playing it over and over until he lost the program in a hard-drive accident and switched over to WarcraftII, which up until that point he described as "Nah... Too many bells and whistles."

    Although if we want to talk about Loki ports I'd want to see, let's talk about Syndicate.


    --Fesh

  • Maybe it's just me, but I can't tell you how bored I am with all the "real time" games out there. I mean, really... the very principals of real time gaming fly in the face of reality and bore me to tears.

    - Create a base (without any real settlers or colonization, and with no hardships.)
    - Gather and control as many resources as possible (without any regard to alliances, roads, infrastructure...)
    - Build a huge army (without regards to how expensive it is to support, feed, supply, etc. said army, or the morale of those who send them into war.)
    - Swarm enemy...

    The tragedy of these games is that they take compelling stories and slap them on like cheap coats of paint over the same old tired concept. 3D graphics be damned... who gives a rats ass if I'm playing the same old game?

    I want to be in the game... I want it to feel like a real world. Real time games could do this, but they rarely ever do. What's the point? It makes about as much sense as rushing out and buying Quake 37 to replace your old, outdated copy of Quake 36...

  • Has anyone read the whole series? Is it any good? I really liked the first three books, but my interest had sort of peaked 1/3 of the way through the 3rd book, and I never got past about page 50 in book 4. Is it worth going back?

    The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
  • This game looks a lot like Dark Reign 2, hopefully it brings more to the mix than just 3-D, which IMHO was the only thing the DR2 brought to RTS, being a not-so-amazing RTS in any other way
  • Is this going to be a RTS? Its probably just Red Alert 6 with new graphics. I've YET to see/play a Dune game that didn't suck ass. for some reason this potentially great franchise Just never produces a quality game.

  • I also agree. I think the biggest problem with the use of 3D is that it focuses too much on individual units, because they spend so much time making them look so pretty and plastic. The sense of scale and grandeur appears lost; the view seems quite focused on small battles, giving you a harder sense of the overall war which takes part in each level and loses the fun of group warfare/manouevers (i.e. flanking, special purpose units destined for specific mini-missions, etc).
  • Thou shall not make thinking machines.
    I wonder how good the AI is in this game?
  • Some corrections

    Paul Maud`Dib turning himself into the sand-worm king

    that was his son

    being assassinated so to speak by immersion in a river.

    his son again.

    ... reduce a world of such albiet twisted depth down into an RTS game with three races

    This isnt D&D. Just because people have live on differnt planits dosn't mean they are differant races. Humans where the only humanoids in the story.

    As for the games vs the books, You have my vote.

  • I have played Red alert, one and two, and I have to say I loved them both. Last night I played TFC like I have for years, B/C the game still depends on the other players it is still fun. RTS games have always in my expereance been very laggy in mutlyplayer, making them depend more on the single player mode. Now no mater how you look at it RTS games have changed little in the past year, yes them may have added waypoints or better animation but the basic concept is the same, mine a resorce, build units and kill the other guy. new units change the balance but the basic Idea is the same. my point was they they need something new to get my $50-$60. I am looking forword to Warcraft III b/c it should really change the game.


    ________

  • So what? (Score:3)

    by slashdoter ( 151641 ) on Wednesday May 23, 2001 @02:25PM (#202501) Homepage
    When is Westwood going to bring something new to the RTS field? Back in the day it was them and Blizzard,( who BTW just released another Warcraft III Film )They kicked ass. But now they seam to haved died, they are still there but I don't see anything that gets me going, ala Warcraft III, Diablo II, and team fortress 2. I might pick this one up on the discount rack but, who knows


    ________

  • What is Blink for Video?

    Tried Goggle Blink video -182 [google.com]

    Please explain?

    James

  • Looks great but no real advancements in game play.

    I'd like to play the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood - manipulating blood lines and controlling world with myths planted eons ago. Imagine if you could programme to operators of the tanks or nukes to turn traitor with careful breeding.

    James

  • There's a Sega Megadrive version.
  • They are all good books, and worth reading - but imo the first one is by far the best. Things get more wild and far-fectched as the series goes on. It's worth reading the whole series just to get Frank's vision in its entirety.
  • far far different in style... dune 1 was a cheesy adventure game, that seriously sucked... dune 2's the game everyone's thinking of, which kicked ass... this is on the pc, dunno about other systems, though i do know they released dune 2 on the sega genesis as just dune (iirc), but it sucked, impossible to control with a gamepad
    dune 2000 was cool too, remake of dune on the red alert engine... still play that occasionally
    and my last 2 cents, i've been a huge fan of westwood games for quite a few years, but every time they've released a game for the last 4 or so years, i've asked about linux support, and mod support, and every time i get the same lack of response...

    Walter H. Trent "Muad'Dib"
    Padishah Emperor of the Known Universe, IMHO
  • > 3D-RTSs are prolly here to stay, it just hasn't
    > been used properly for anything other than eye
    > candy - yet.

    Haven't played _Homeworld_, have you?

    Chris Mattern

  • I case you didn't know, Westwood makes Nox, an advanture game which competes directly against Diablo. The multiplayer in Nox is supposed to be way better than that of Diablo, but the single player game is apparrently not as great. I have even seen people wearing the Nox t-shirts!

    C&C: Red Alert 2 was also a big seller this year, but I think Warcraft III will kill it in sales.

  • (I couldn't find any news on a Linux port. Argh!)

    Does there have to be a linux port for every known game in order for it to be news? Linux this, linux that. Yeah, linux is great, but it won't solve all the world's problems...I'd say about 99%. Besides, I don't think Westwood does ports of their games...
  • I would submit that While Westwood happeed to have made a milestone RTS game with Dune 2, the Dune universe is not inherently a particularly good one from which to attempt to construct an RTS experience. Mostly because the focus of both the books and the filmed versions were more political and philosophical conflict, not open warfare, though of course there was some. I would submit that a game which happens to embody more of a Dune-style experience would be Alpha Centauri. Various factions competing to control a planet, check. Story structure dealing with a poorly understood, psionically powerful local worm species, check. Conflict driven by political/social/religious differences more than anything else, check. Change the in-game art, re-write the storyline a bit, and the basic structure of Alpha Centauri provides a pretty Dune-like gaming experience. IMO, of course.
  • Man, I don't know why they keep doing this; this will be 3 RTS Dune games now that are exactly the same. Have you looked at the previews for the units for each side? Turrets, the Harkonnen Devastator tank, the Atredies sonic weapons (which were not in the books, only in the Lynch movie, and frankly beginning to get irritated with that); it all sounds pretty familiar. And the houses? Atreides, Harkonnen, and ORDOS (which, again, was not in the books). The very same as the last two games. Why not more houses? Different units? Maybe some variation on this overplayed theme that isn't exciting or interesting anymore. And I don't know about the "plot" of the new game, if there is one, but I hope that at least will somewhat vary from the previous games. Hopefully I'm proved wrong though; despite the above, there is nothing I would love more than a really cool dune game (besides the first which, yes, was pretty cool).

  • I happen to like the first, fourth, and fifth books.

    Dune: Good
    Heretic of Dune: Weak, pulpy
    Children of Dune: Weak
    God Emperor of Dune: Very good, epic
    Dune:Chapterhouse: Very, very good.

    Geek dating! [bunnyhop.com]
  • 3d is just a technology, just like music, sprites, voice, networking, etc.

    Do you question the use of technology to make a better game experience? No, of course not!

    The question is whether Westwood, in Dune3d happens to use 3d graphics to it's advantage.

    3d has a few good points to it that cannot be addressed by 2d:
    Zoom and scale, being able to see as much or as little of the map as possible.
    Rotation and height, being able to navigate the map more flexible as the need allows.
    Lighting and shadow. 2d cannot cast shadows except in very limited scopes.
    Tactical terrain; 3d landscapes allows for more variety, rather than just a flat map, or fixed height surfaces.

    Take these advantages together:
    Units that can hide in shadows
    Minimaps that tell you correct location and orientation no matter where you are
    Units that behave differently at different heights and locations
    Being able to play more flexibly; zoom in on units for small squad combat, or zoom out to half the battle field to see scope and maneuvers, such as pinchers, blitzes, ambushes, etc.

    It's not the 3d that is the problem, it's the project leads for not using it correctly :)

    Geek dating! [bunnyhop.com]
  • There was a port done for the Acorn Archimedes back in 1994/1995, but I think that was the only non MSDOS port.

    Do I remember correctly that Westwood had it available for free download some time back, or am I going mad?

  • Okay, so there appears to have been an Amiga and a Sega version...
  • Um, yes, but walking, machinery, and any kind of rhythmic activity on the sand (no, don't go there...) would summon the worms.

    Fighting never really took place out on the open sand in the books (except for destroying harvesting operations): it all happened around the rock surfaces on which the various cities were built.

    That was why the Fremen had a chance, I suppose: they were superior close-quarters troops compared to the Sardaukar or the militias of the Great Houses.

    Must go back and re-read those books again now I've got this in my head...

  • Regardless of whether it's a good game or not, the developers seem to have taken a major liberty: in Frank Herbert's Dune universe
    • shield technology is ubiquitous
    • and shields repel anything moving faster than a slow fist*
    • so missiles and machine guns etc. are largely useless
    • leading to war being waged by infiltration of saboteurs on the one hand and massed hand-to-hand conflict on the battlefield,
    • NOT rockets'n'guns'n'stuff.
    • (* although lasgun-shield interactions were lethal to both victim and gunman.)
    From what I can see, most units are armed with guns'n'bombs'n'missiles'n'flamethrowers'n'generall y ballistic stuff. Oh deary me.

    [That said, the Harkonnen did defeat the bulk of the Atreides army on Arrakis by sealing them in caves with artillery - but this was something that would only ever work once.]

    'nother point: on Arrakis nobody went out on the open sand other than the Fremen and the spice harvesters - the worms ate everybody else and any harvesters that weren't picked up by the carryall in time.

    Do I get my trainspotter's badge now?

  • Wait, you forgot Messiah... you don't even have the series in the correct order. FYI, it's:
    1. Dune: The best
    2. Dune Messiah: had some interesting concepts
    3. Children of Dune: Kinda sucked, except for the end, overall too much like Messiah (but the sandtrout suit kicked ass, IMHO)
    4. God Emperor of Dune: My second favorite of the series, and a truly interesting character study
    5. Heretics of Dune: Okay, but like 2nd said, pulpy
    6. Chapterhouse Dune: Good, but the end seriously confused me... hopefully I'll understand better when Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson put out Dune 7...

    Oh, and don't forget Brian and KJA's "prequels", House Atreides and House Harkonnen... although they don't really stand up to the example set by Frank Herbert (godlike), they at least provide a good read, and give some interesting background info concerning past events.
    But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
    G
  • umm... not to rain on your parade, but he just loses his eyesight in Messiah and goes off into the desert... he's the Prophet(? can't remember... been a while) in Children of Dune... but I gotta agree with you on God Emperor.
  • You're right. IF this came is as good as it looks, or if it's half as good as the books, or 3X as good as the movie, it'll be a blast!

    Let the spice wars begin once again!

    --
  • with those amazingly cool Honoured Matres

    That would kick! Get it? :)

  • Actually blizzard dumped the 3d controlled view: http://www.blizzard.com/war3/faq/faq-features.shtm l. Will there be any map rotation? The player will not be able to rotate the camera manually, but there will be in-game cinematic sequences and spell effects that will feature camera movement, including rotation of the camera.

  • Lets work with this idea here. Actually, it does sound like a great one.

    It could be done sort of like Final Fantasy 7 was. Mostly RPG and such, with RPG-style combat (I love the menu-driven combat but still real-timeness that the FF games have.), but for major operations, such as Paul's military advisor having to control the attack on the Harkonen spice harvesting plant, the game could drop into RTS mode using a C&C2 engine or something. It'd be the best of both worlds - RPG combat and RTS army manipulation.

    Sounds like a winner to me.

  • So? (Score:2)

    by man_ls ( 248470 )

    I deserve to be shot for what I am about to say, but so be it.

    While Herbert may be considered the God of Science Fiction, I personally do not find his writings desirable to read. I did wade through the entire Dune series. In my opinion, the best book was the prequel, written by Herbert's son. Each and every book in the true "series" got wierder and wierder, starting with the kanly vendettas, to Paul Maud`Dib turning himself into the sand-worm king, then being assassinated so to speak by immersion in a river.

    I've also played the video games based on Dune. It's nearly impossible to reduce a world of such albiet twisted depth down into an RTS game with three races. It just doesn't work, no matter how many cinematics you put in and how good the writers are. Dune, for those who are willing to be somewhat bored and confused, should be read, not played.

    These are my personal views, but I'm sure I'm not alone.

  • I remember playing with DuneII and had a lot of fun. It was the first RTS, and it really gets me. (Boy it fit on 2 disks!)
    I red the whole Dune saga (plus the sequels by Herbert's which are entertaining but really not as good as the original) and I too think that this is a really good series, far above your common SF saga like [put your own reference here]. I'm quite sure that this saga will stick and that my grand-children will be able to go to the first [insert whatever remplaced the bookstore in 2100 here] and get it.

    Concerning the game, there is almost no relation between the saga and the game, apart from the name of the "races" and the general theme, but the game was really pretty good. I hope that this new Dune game will be as good as DuneII was in is time.
  • I loved all the originals - I even liked the film (if you can forgive all that wierding module cack then it is quite a stylish film and reasonably close to the rest of the dune universe). I have read the two prequels and by then end of the house harkonnen I resolved not to read the next one. The problem is that house harkonen just descended into fantasy "bodice ripper" style drivel. Handsome noble dukes, whiter that white attreides and ugly loathsome harkonnens - Puurleease.
    At least FH was fairly sublte about this stuff - baddies aren`t all bad and goodies aren`t complete saints.

    A crash reduces
    Your expensive computer
  • Just an FYI...

    Dune 2 came out long before C&C, so C&C was essentially a Dune 2 ripoff.
  • Yep. We had an old roland MIDI card, but Dune's music was custom-made for this card (I don't remember it's exact name). Made it sound awesome! Beats anything I've ever heard coming out of a creative card.
    The best part of the original game in my opinion. I was a little annoyed that they based it on the film (Lynch himself says that it is bad) and not the books. I was impressed that they had added the Bene Tleilaxu as a sub-house for this version. They didn't even appear before the second book.

    (ok for true fanatics: actually it was mentioned in passing in the first book that they were the creators of Piter de Vried and twisted mentats in general, but they didn't make their appearance.)

    Now I only hope there are Bene Gesserit in the game. Can't have Dune without the witches.
  • ... Which in my opinions is one of the coolest groups in the Dune series. In the end they win - sort of. Remember those amish farmers in the cryptic ending of "chapter house"? Well, they were third generation face dancers without masters.

    There were actually jews in Dune too. They made an appearance in the last books. In Herberts' year 10000+, jews are still around, acting a little like the Bene Gesserit, but less amoral and more concerned with their own survival :-) . I wonder what people would have said if they were a sub-house in the game! LOL!

    There ARE elements in the Dune books that are admirably suited to RTS games. Leto II's great scattering for instance. Or the return from the scattering, with those amazingly cool Honoured Matres. I hope they make more games.
  • BANG You are dead.

    In your next life go back and read the books again. They really are that good.

  • Sorry.

    Westwood ain't gonna step that far out on the limb for the real Herbert fans.

  • "I couldn't find any news on a Linux port"

    Nor could I find news of a mac port *sigh*. Oh well, I can wait. Love the books, loved the early games. Movie made me retch (except for sting, who was cool). Beautiful screen shots.
  • I don't see why Westwood seems to think that the Dune series would make a good set of games, Especially not strategy games. Dune and its sequals were incredible books, some of the best I've ever read, but I really don't see a good game coming out of them without Westwood being, shall we say, "creative," with the license. There just isn't enough there from the RTS perspective (that assumption is based on RTS's that are already out, maybe I'll be suprised). A game that were true to the Dune series would not fit in any genre or combinations thereof. It would be incredibly complex and I don't think that anyone has the skill (yet) to make a game that would truely live up to such a great name. I'm a little biased I guess, look at the second word in my screen name. Oh yeah, I'd just like to say that Miles Teg was an Ubermensch, thank you.
  • After the first book the plot descends into soap opera whining. On memory, the first follows a standard fantasy plot arc, but the characters by that point aren't annoying to the point of nausea as in the later books by dint of initial unacquaintance with the characters, which eventually becomes very clear with much repetition.

    But then if I read the first again, today, I'd probably find it repulsive. After all, I did read it when I was 10 years old, right after reading the midkemia series, and the year before tackling the lord of the rings. I've pretty much given up on fantasy by now; not however implying that I've been able to find and enjoy new novels in other genres. I'm pretty much disgusted at this point. Nicholas Monsarrat's The Cruel Sea is the last novel I've enjoyed: 3 years ago!

  • ... was the best, IMHO.

    It was original, interesting, and it matched the book somewhat.

    By the way, are there any others here that like the music in the Dune-games? I think it's fabulous. Very "moody", and it fits the games nicely.

  • It might be the first good thing to come out of Dune since the books. Seems to me that anything they make based on the books sucks, but... this looks GOOD.
    Time to control the spice, Muadib
    Strategy games are coming out in droves now... good to see something other than 1st person shoot-em-ups.
  • Agreed. I just don't understand the need! It's harder on the programmers, harder on the artists, harder on the player machine and the end result doesn't look as good. You end up with too-smooth polygons and angly curves. The shadows look nice - but that's probably all that's been constructively done with 3D.

    3D-RTSs are prolly here to stay, it just hasn't been used properly for anything other than eye candy - yet.

    --

  • I don't see how there can be much life left in Dune as a strategy game.

    A much more obvious format to bring out the depths of the character interaction and diplomacy would be Role-Playing. Obviously you couldn't be Paul, as that would remove any sort of suspense at all, but possibly one of his trusted lieutenants.

    In the main game there would be endless intruige and backstabbing, and this could, if desired be used as a base platform, from which to segue seamlessly into RTS if needed.

  • after the disaster of Dune 2000, hopefully Westwood learned something and don't ruin a franchise that ushered in the real time strategy genre by the way, where is red alert 2 expansion pack?
  • For fans of "old school" sprite RTS's, Red Alert 2 is a lot of fun as well. Check it out.
  • Why does /. only cover the really boring games? First Star Wars Galaxies and now this. Whoopee!? I hope there's an announcement when Anarchy Online goes gold instead of some dumb RTS that will probably suck (ooh! Another RTS ... that's one of out of 15 BILLION of them coming to market ... talk about a stale genre) -- Jim
  • Dune 2000 was never meant to be that great. It was just a straight port from DOS to Windows with spruced up graphics and multi-unit select bolted on to make it look like a new game. They've gotta make money somewhere, right?

    They should've put that weird creator thing in there somewhere as a hidden character. Mind you, he didn't look so much like the tubby ninja back then, and I don't think he smoked as much pot back then either. He was probably too occupied with the whole creation-of-planets thing.
  • For all those Looge fans out there I feel I should mention that Looge will be appearing on a sand dune (and possibly underneath one) or two before long as a member of The OTM in an upcoming film.

    Don't tell him there's big nasty worms down there or you'll give him the willies and he won't let us bury him up to the neck in sand for a crucial shot...
  • The *minimum* requirements for the game are: Win95/98/2000, Pentium II 400 MHz, 700 MB hard drive space, 64MB RAM, 16MB video RAM, 4X CD-ROM drive, Direct Sound-compliant sound card, 3D hardware acceleration required

    Given the fact that it requires 3D-Acceleration I doubt it will work on a laptop (however the Geforce2go could be promising), much less NT4. Looking at the requirements though, you might not want to consider playing this game on anything less then 600 MHZ with 192 MB of RAM, (Win2k will take something around 70-90 MB of RAM for the System. Win98 will usually use about 48 MB on startup, but keeps ballooning after that because of memory leaks.)

    To preorder the game will cost you $45 + shipping @ ebworld.com [ebgames.com] So my guess is that once it hits shelves it might set you back 30-40 dollars, depending on where you buy it (I usually suggest Fry's).

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