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Games Entertainment

Loki Goes Postal 192

Posted by michael from the good-healthy-fun dept.
xwred1 writes: "Loki has announced a new port today, up to now known as "Secret Project Q": They are going Postal! Press release is here, and the game product page/overview is here. Seems to be a healthy sign of life from Loki, they are obviously still getting good things done despite the chapter 11."
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Loki Goes Postal More

Loki Goes Postal

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  • IIRC Postal is very very old, either from the days of Windows 95 or earlier. Anyone know why Loki would pick something this aged up?

    Not that I've a problem with it; I was intrigued by POSTAL when it was first released and may now check it out when it is released.
    • IIRC Postal is very very old, either from the days of Windows 95 or earlier.

      It's not old, it's classic. Maybe they can port over versions of Commander Keen!
    • Umm... IIRC Postal was banned throughout the US and maybe other countries as well. After playing it I completely understood why it would be banned.
      • First of all I would like to say... Why not port this sucker? It's a fun game to mess with and doesn't involve any fancy 3D. And it isn't _that_ old. The date on it is 1997. You can read all about the controversy over here http://gopostal.com [gopostal.com] along with screenshots etc. It is funny how some people say we port "old games" but then theres this whole group of people asking us to port counter-strike/half-life which isn't exactly new.
  • Not sure about Postal Plus, but I ran Postal when it first came out on my Mac, and it was a bad game.

    It's good to see more games for Linux, but if they are bad games that no one wants, it's not that good of a thing. See when the bad game doesn't sell, then people will say that Linux won't support a game maker and you get into that spiral that Macintosh was in back in '96-'98.

    But maybe Postal Plus is better than regular Postal.
    • Understandably they've been working on this project for some time and couldn't anticipate the events of one month ago, still, I can't get into enjoying the idea of a splatterfest. I'm not sure how many other game players are now tuning out of such games, and it would be interesting to see a scientifically conducted poll (as much as these still have errors, they're more accurate than the average slash poll ;)

      These days I take out my stress with a different method of going Postal [uspsprocycling.com], by getting off my chair and hitting the road for a few dozen miles. The USPS has put a significant amount of money into sponsoring pro cycling and I think the efforts of Lance Armstrong [lancearmstrong.com], George Hincapie [hincapie.com], Levi Leipheimer and team have gone a long way to boost moral and paint a more positive image of the Postal Service.

      Kind of a bummer that Loki didn't redo the art and make it something more appropriate for today, such as Catching Up With Bin Laden, but I suppose being in a Ch. 11 pickle they didn't have the bucks to cover the time and logistics.

      • "Going postal" is a term that is in use, and will be no matter what the USPS tries to do to "improve it's image." It now exists completely independent of any postal service.

        And what exactly does this game have to do with current events? Nothing. Just like every other movie or TV show or game or whatever that people are deeming "inappropriate," because they might frighten somebody...oooohhh... Please, give it a rest.
    • I'd like to know what you thought was bad about it, besides it's overly simplistic "kill everything" objective.

      Don't say control. That's always bugged me when people bitch about Postal's control...it controls like an FPS, but is done in an overhead perspective. Why does it seem like I am the only person who can handle it?

      Anyhow, I like Postal.
  • Yaaay!
    I remember this one back in the day, and now we've got the double-header of it being ported to Linux and even more importantly, visable signs of life from Loki. Get out the good word and force your friends to pre-order this little jem. I spent many a night hunched over a screen, slaughtering mailmen and innocent bystandards.
    I wonder if they have toned down the gib-factor at all? Then again, with America's recent blood-lust, this may sell quite well.

    hmmm...

    • I wonder if they have toned down the gib-factor at all? Then again, with America's recent blood-lust, this may sell quite well.

      Actually, to the extent this was ever funny, it's less so now. There's a difference between cleverly subversive and pointlessly distasteful; "Postal" wasn't even close to the line. (And I did give it a try, once upon a time -- I d/l'ed the demo and played a game or two. I have a dark sense of humor, and this didn't make me smile, not once.)

      Don't get me wrong; I don't want Congress to pass a law or for Kyle's mom to march on Washington, etc. But at the end of the day, your time is more precious than you know; don't waste it on pretentious cooler-than-thou crap like Postal.

      • You do not have a dark sense of humor. I laughed my balls off.

        And I don't see how it's pretentious. Do Running With Scissors pretend this game is anything other than what it is? Do they slap some ridiculous story on it to try and make it seem more interesting? If you want pretentious, try Final Fantasy, or Serious Sam. Where is the pretense with Postal?
    • I think my favorite level was "The Parade". Tossing a molitov cocktai into the middle of the band members or using the napalm launcher always amused me greatly. That and the protesters outside the gaming studio offices in the city.

      I'm definitely going to have to buy this one.

  • Linux and Video (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Wind_Walker ( 83965 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2001 @09:03AM (#2405521) Homepage Journal
    Now that we're getting more OpenGL games than ever coming out for Linux, I think it might be a good time to address the problem of video card hardware support.

    Many of us don't have 3D accelerators that work under Linux. While I'd like to have my hardware working under Linux, I realize that it's probably not going to happen any time this millenium.

    So instead, I have a suggestion. Mesa currently has only one mode for software rendering--high quality. Is there any way that a low-quality software rendering mode could be introduced into Mesa? How difficult would it be to add this to the libraries, maybe have it switched on/off by an environment variable? How much of a slow-down would it introduce into the libraries, by having forked logic like this?

    Because honestly, if I were to buy a copy of Quake III right now (this example would work the same with Postal once it comes out), I'd have to buy the Windows version because I haven't the "right" hardware 3D-accelerator. A sped-up, but much less visually correct, version of Mesa might make it easier for someone like me to bite the bullet and buy the Linux version, so that when I upgrade/if I upgrade to a 3D accelerated card, I'll have it under the OS I prefer.

    (I realize this is pretty selfish, but it's also one of the reasons why you're not going to see many Windows users switching over to Linux any time soon. If I can't install Linux on someone else's 600Mhz Athalon, and be able to show them a kick-ass 3D game with a frame rate higher than 1.5/s...)

    • Do you mean "most Windows users" or "most Windows gamers" ? Most gamers will have a decent 3d card, and most of the "major" cards (Nvidia, ATI, Matrox, 3dfx) will work, at least most of the time. The Kyro chips will probally have support
      soon too.
      As for a "low-quality" software rendering, what do you mean? Less detail, lower resolution? Its not really possible to have lower detail levels then whats in the game, and you can't run a game in less then the lowest resolution the game supports. Most of what you're looking for could only be done in the game's code itself, and to be honest, mean, cruel, blunt (whatever you want to call it), if you don't have a 3d card, you're pretty far off from the target audience for a 3d game. Games need to constantly be innovative and use new technology, and that needs more 3d power. Basicly, a 3d card thats 2 years old (or more) should be replaced if you want to play the latest 3d games. The good news is that the price of cards goes down as well, so you can get a still decent but 6 month old card for a lot less then what it would have cost new. If 3d is annoying you enough, you could (probally) find a decent 3d card for ~ $50-100, or a pretty good card for ~ $100-125.
      • Games need to constantly be innovative and use new technology, and that needs more 3d power.

        no they don't. games need to be fun to play, engaging, challenging, well-written, and able to run on hardware that the average user owns.

        consider that Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force game. it featured "innovative" extensions of the Q3 engine that required more 3d power.

        was it a better game than, say, Thief, or Oni, or even hoary old Aliens vs. Predator? no! it was a truly moronic room-by-room shoot-the-enemies game, with a thin veneer of star trek sprayed over the outside. possibly the only redeeming feature of the entire game was the fact that for some inexplicable reason, you had the option of playing the entire thing in German, with subtitles.

        more 3d does not a better game make. more 3d wealthier hardware manufacturers makes. the widespread failure of gamers to realize this fact, and then to force game designers to change their priorities, is in no small part responsible for the general suckage of the current PC gaming scene.

        -vecna_99
    • I found a 16M AGP nVidia Riva TnT 128 card on Pricewatch a few months ago for $29. Using nVidia's XFree86 driver, here is the output of the Mesa "gears" demo running on a Linux 2.4/XFree86 4.1.0/Celeron 800 system:

      At default 256x256 DRI window size:
      4253 frames in 5.000 seconds = 850.600 FPS

      Full screen (DRI windowed) 1024x768
      589 frames in 5.000 seconds = 117.800 FPS

      Obviously the frame rate numbers aren't going to be as high in Quake as in a simple demo, and this is not the ultimate "gamer" card, but still, that's a lot of bang for 29 bucks, and would be very acceptable for your average user.

    • Re:Linux and Video (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 )
      Go to ebgames.com
      Buy Q3T for 9.99
      Spend the rest on a Voodoo2 card and join the 3D revolution.

      Less than $79.00 and you are 3D gaming.
      Get an ATI Rage 128 for even less money.
      (Note these are for PCI or AGP cards)

      Today there is no excuse for not having a decent 3D card, unless you spent that money on a 3Dlabs card and then discovered it isnt linux supported.
    • This game requires NO 3d. And, if you read the specs it hardly requires a Pentium to run. Score 5? I would say this is offtopic, and the person didn't read the product page to boot.
    • Postal doesn't require 3D accelleration. (I'm not even sure it can take advantage of it)
    • AFAIK the only major 3D card unsupported on Linux is the Kyro, for whom drivers are coming. All the other people who produce cards fast enough to play current 3D games on any platform, thats:
      * NVIDIA
      * ATI
      * Matrox
      * Crusty old 3DFX
      has drivers. Laptops can be a problem there, buit massive headway has been made into this area in the last six months.

      What card do you actually own?
  • Let's all jump on the webpage so that Loki's gotta use what little cash they have left to buy a new webserver....
    Nothing to see there anyway. If it doesn't have screenshots, it's worth nothing :)
  • Since I understand that Postal is a tad aged (circa 1998 IIRC), and the name of the game is Postal Plus, rather than simply Postal, is it possible that the version of the game that we see on Linux could be significantly updated from the 1998 version? For my money, I'd love to see a commercial entertainment package with mainstream appeal that comes out for Linux and not Windows...

    • For my money, I'd love to see a commercial entertainment package with mainstream appeal that comes out for Linux and not Windows...


      Basic economics dictate that this will never happen.
      • True, but to release on Linux a few days or a week before the windows version would boost the Linux userbase. Especially for highly anticipated games (ie - Starcraft 2)

  • this is neither healthy nor a sign of life (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ebbv ( 34786 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2001 @09:10AM (#2405538) Homepage

    as much as i love loki and all they've done, this is not a good sign. i'd love to see loki become as successful as any of the really big game houses. porting old, mediocre (at best) games is not how it's going to happen. even i have a limit to the number of games i'll buy that i have no intention of playing just to support the company.

    loki should be porting diablo 2, planescape torment, total annihilation, warcraft 3, etc. big, mainstream games that lots of people want to play. the question is, why aren't they? that's almost certainly due to the original authors not being interested in a linux version.

    as much as i hate to admit it, i think linux's chances as a game platform have gone down the drain. the linux hype has gotten considerably less prevelant, and i'm willing to bet there are fewer people running it as their main home OS than in recent memory and that number is only going down.

    there have not been any major improvements in this area which would draw people to it recently.. ease of installation hit the point where anyone able to install windows could do it a while ago. however, once the system is up and running, it's not so easy to get new things (like Mesa) set up. this has not improved.

    and as i said, it's been a while since a big game was ported to linux.

    all in all i don't see any light at the end of this tunnell. it pains me to say so because i've been using linux as my main desktop OS for years and years and always was really optimistic about it.
    ...dave

    • Re:this is neither healthy nor a sign of life (Score:4, Insightful)

      by BradleyUffner ( 103496 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2001 @09:17AM (#2405558) Homepage
      ..."big, mainstream games that lots of people want to play. the question is, why aren't they? that's almost certainly due to the original authors not being interested in a linux version. "
      Thats' easy, it's a licensing issue. If they decide to port a new game who gets the money for it? The orriginal authors, or Loki? If Loki gets the money for it then the orriginal author ends up not making as much money for the windows version because of sales lost to the linux version. If the orriginal author gets the money then Loki loses out. If the money is split then the orriginal author still end up not making as much money.

      • if they truly believed they could make *any* money they'd do it. it's very hard to make money with games, the margins for the authors and publishers are smaller than most people realize.

        the issue is they do not believe there is even a market, and right now i tend to agree. (that was the point of my post, sorry if i wasn't totally clear.)
        ...dave

        • Re:corect, however (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Genom ( 3868 )
          It's basically a catch-22 -- game developers want to make games using the latest and greatest hardware support - hardware manufacturers release windows-only drivers, and refuse to release either a linux driver, or the specs by which a third party could release a linux driver.

          So the hardware doen't perform to it's full potential under linux. Game developers see that there's no support for the hardware - and don't develop the software.

          Places like Loki are doing what they can with the games they can. I'll agree, though, that they could have better choices of games. IMHO the concentration should be on successful, long-lasting games - games that a year after release still have a large following. Games like Diablo II, the Baldur's Gate games, Starcraft, Everquest, etc... Those are the kinds of games that will sell well. Those are the kinds of games a lot of people are still playing - and quite a few of those people dual-boot to linux. I'd gladly pay for a linux version of Diablo II or Baldur's Gate II -- right now they're the only reasons I boot back to Windows.

          There *is* a market out there - they're just hitting it with the wrong games.

          • agreed (Score:1)

            by ebbv ( 34786 )

            but the market is smaller than it could be, and i think it is shrinking instead of growing, mainly because Mesa is non-trivial to install and set up for most people, and as you point out, hardware support is not the best.
            ...dave
            • ...with a lack of capital. At least part of the enduring games don't use 3D accel or can use what's already there- Diablo II is an example of one that doesn't use much in the way of 3D acceleration.

              As for Mesa being non-trivial, every distribution installs it for XFree86 4.0 and usually pre-configures it (it's actually rather trivial to configure for a DRI driver that's not in alpha...) and at least Mandrake makes it easy to install for Mesa with Utah-GLX. It's non-trivial if you're installing completely from scratch (Which, if you're doing that, you're skilled enough to manage it anyhow!)

              • but last time i checked (and admittedly it was not in the last 3 months), it was not so easy on Red Hat, SuSE or debian. It was SUPPOSED to be very straight-forward but due to incorrect library dependancies, mis-placement, etc. it was not the simple it matter it should/could have been.
                ...dave
                • Last time I checked, it was very easy to install and setup XFree86 and DRI on debian. You just install the package, then select the driver, and everything is O.K. Even when I installed from source on RedHat (because XFree86 v4 rpms weren't available) it wasn't so hard. In the past these things _were_ hard to setup with utah-glx but since XFree86 v4 things have improved alot.
                • If it's Utah-GLX, not everybody handles it for you and, yes, it's difficult because it's a hack on top of XFree86 3.3.X to begin with. If it's DRI, I don't know what your issues are because it's just pretty much dropping in the drivers in the appropriate places, creating a /dev/dri/video0 entry and running X.

                  (By the way, before you comment further, you might want to know that I'm the maintainer of Utah-GLX and a DRI developer... :-)
    • It clearly says on Loki's web site that Tribes2 and Deus Ex are in the works. How much more mainstream can you get? I've been playing Heavy Gear II for the past few days and think that it is very impressive under linux.

      • actually i hadn't seen those, and they will help.. but i do still worry why they are wasting time and resources on a game like postal.
        ...dave

      • Re:In case you didn't notice their home page... (Score:4, Informative)

        by dinivin ( 444905 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2001 @09:30AM (#2405595)

        Tribes 2 is done and out... You can order it from any of Loki's usual distributors.

        Dinivin
        • Tribes 2 is done and out

          Yes, it is. Don't get it if you're using a 3dfx card unless you enjoy updating significant chunks of your video software from CVS. At least, that was the situation when it came out.

          Tribes 2 was enlightening for me. I enjoy using Linux. In fact, I provide Linux support as part of my job (and I still enjoy Linux ;). I spent weeks getting it working properly. Aadmittedly, I was only spending a little bit of time on it each day, but I knew what I was doing and it took a while. For a user who's just taken the Linux plunge, perhaps using a burned copy of Red Hat 6.2 (7.x is still suckful, and a new user's likely to grab an old version from the bargain bin anyway), I sure as hell wouldn't want to talk them through the steps they'd have to follow to run the game. In fact, before I had it working under Linux, I'd given up and purchased the Windows version to play until I could un-kink the Linux version.

          It was the first time in a while that I stopped and said "This is why people aren't buying linux games."

          I think it's good that Loki's staying away from 3d acceleration right now. It's the latest trend in games, but 3d under Linux is still growing too fast for "normal users" to keep up.

          • >
            > [Tribes 2]
            >
            > It was the first time in a while that I >stopped and said "This is why people aren't
            >buying linux games."

            I bought Tribes 2 for windows a little while back, unaware that the Linux version was available.

            I've *still* been unable to get it working on
            Windows. Lots and lots of patches from Sierra
            later it still crashes 4 or 5 minutes into the game.

            I suspect T2 is a poor example :)

            I've stopped buying Sierra games as a result anyway. I'm
            undecided if this includes Loki or not.

            - MugginsM

    • Re:this is neither healthy nor a sign of life (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      the linux hype has gotten considerably less prevelant, and i'm willing to bet there are fewer people running it as their main home OS than in recent memory and that number is only going down.

      I recently broke down and got a computer for home (I work with/on them all day, and have resisted for years). I set it up with Linux because I don't feel like giving MS any of my cash, and I believe that pirating their software is hypocritical. Part of this decision was that I felt that Linux has gotten to the point where it was useable as a main home OS.

      When I first set up the system, my son wanted to know how we were going to run Red Alert on it. My wife wanted to know how we were going to do word processing, etc. on it.

      Then, just in the nick of time, along comes the StarOffice 6.0 beta, and Loki ports some of their games!

      OK, StarOffice has some bugs, and the Loki games aren't all necessarily the ones that my son wants to play, but it is a move in the right direction. My family is now far less sceptical about Linux, and are starting getting enthusiastic about it. Keep it up Loki and Sun. I can feel the momentum starting to build up...

      • i don't even do word processing or any of that, i only use my computer for web browsing, e-mail, coding and games at home. so if i had all the games i wanted to play in linux i'd be set, but i don't so... i still keep win2k on my machine.
        ...dave
      • Remember this is not a religion or principle we are talking about here but just another product.
        You bought computer and installed OS that doesn't have games your son wanted and doesn't do stuff your wife wanted and you call it a good start ?

    • Re:this is neither healthy nor a sign of life (Score:5, Insightful)

      by vecna_99 ( 78228 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2001 @09:34AM (#2405612) Homepage
      i couldn't disagree more. i don't want diablo ii ported to linux because i've already played it on my mac, and discovered that it more or less sucks. same with TA. haven't played planescape torment, so i can't comment on that.

      it's pure folly for the linux game market to try to compete head-to-head with the PC game market; there's no reason why your average gamer would buy the same big mainstream game for linux when he can buy it for windows.

      here are the priorities that loki should adopt:

      1) port games that are mod-friendly and have a thriving mod community! we already have Q3 and UT. how about Bungie's Myth or Myth II? what about Half-Life?
      loki should have a decent shot at getting companies to license ports of these games, mostly because they're all older games and are no longer a major revenue source for the owners.

      2) port GOOD games that fail in the PC market due to insufficient promotion. it must be very frustrating for the owner of a game see the game sell poorly because everybody's buying this year's Tribes 2 instead. these games will be good opportunities for Loki to take advantage of.
      (Postal, incidentally, falls into this category. for such a simple game, it's loads of fun. i played the demo for more hours than i've played two or three other games combined.)

      as long as the linux gaming experience is just a clone of the PC gaming experience, it'll never flourish. while it's important to have good linux ports of popular network-only games, so linux gamers can attend LAN parties, the world of linux gaming should be a new lease on life for high-quality games that weren't pushed hard enough by their publishers.

      -vecna_99

      • but you should be aware that your taste in games is not in-line with most of the world.

        whether or not you like diablo 2 you should be aware it is a fantastically popular game. tens of thousands of people play it every day.

        your thinking is also skewed in that porting games to linux is not 'competing' with windows. i suppose it would be if there were any possibility of competition, but linux games are for people who want to avoid having to boot into windows to play their games, because they're in linux the rest of the time.

        as far as mod-friendly games for linux, half-life is the only one i can think of out of the 'holy trinity' (q3, ut and half-life) that is not currently under linux.

        the idea (which you almost kind of brush against) that there should be original linx-platform games is a great one and there are lots of amateur games under development, but almost no one who wouldn't be running linux anyway is going to install it just to play one or two games.

        the whole underlying issue to this entire discussion (which i've addressed several times now in this thread) is that linux is NOT ready for Joe Q. Gamer to put on his machine and play all his games, even if they WERE all available. the main failing is hardware support and Mesa's ease-of-use. (i also tend to think that most of the KDE/Gnome setups on the main distros are very clunky and fugly by default.)
        ...dave
        • ok, i see where our fundamental difference is.

          i don't think that linux games should be designed with the aim of recruiting john q. windowsgamer to install linux on his machine instead of windows. even if there were good linux ports of all his favorite games, there are other non-gaming-related issues (which you mention, such as the butt-arse-ugly desktop defaults) that would militate against his making the switch.

          i think linux gaming should be oriented towards people who are already running linux. thus, Loki should be trying to supply us with games that are actually GOOD (as opposed to games that are simply played by many thousands of people).

          and while i'm aware that my taste in games is not exactly mainstream (the game i'm currently most looking forward to is the Harpoon 3 cd that's being fedexed to me as we speak), i think that there are a large number of fringe gaming markets that a) it would be much easier for Loki to penetrate (compared to the mainstream gaming market) and b) that have games that are languishing unappreciated, that could do with some more exposure.

          as for linux games competing with windows games, as long as you have to pay twice to own the windows version and the linux version of a game, there's competition.

          -vecna_99
        • whether or not you like diablo 2 you should be aware it is a fantastically popular game. tens of thousands of people play it every day

          Millions of people run windows.........

          I run linux, and something tells me the types of games people like me like to play is different than the types of games all the M$ sheep like to play.

          Billions of people live in China......

          Doesn't mean there isn't money to be made selling american flags to americans.



          Should Loki be trying to market the popular windows games to Linux users...I don't think so.
          I think, porting games well suited for linux and linux users is what Loki needs to do. There are a lot of chinese people, but you'd have a hard time making a lot of money selling chinese flags to americans. Better to sell american flags to US citizens even though they are not the majority of the world's population.



          Loki needs to pick a good product for the Linux market...Loki doesn't need to try to emulate the success of the most popular games of the windows market...it just won't work. Taking older less popular games in windows that would make sense in Linux (ie network and customizable games with a community base) makes a lot more sense.



          -jef

          • porting games well suited for linux and linux users is what Loki needs to do.

            I defy you to name games that are 'well suited for linux and linux users'. Since presumably linux users are such because of the superiority of the product, rather than some feature/quirk/defect of their personality, what do you propose defines Linux users ? Is it our ability to read source code and unpack tar files ? Is it our interest in arguing about distributions and editors ? Our fervor in arguing that some forms of intellectual property are wrong while others inviolable ?

            Get real, Linux users are as heterogeous as any other group of computer enthusiasts and hobbyists; Chinese nationals are unified in their culture and language and history. The only kind of game that I can imagine appealing "Linux users" as a group would involve shooting/killing/maiming/ridiculing Bill Gates in effigy. Which, I believe at least one of which has already largely been done and ships with some distributions.
          • I run linux, and something tells me the types of games people like me like to play is different than the types of games all the M$ sheep like to play.

            Funny you should say that.

            Most of the people I know who are most fanatical about Diablo II are Linux users who cuss because they have to keep Windows around just to play it.

            If anything, Diablo II is MORE the type of game that a Linux user would like than the 1st person shooters of the minute...

            Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's good. But just because it's good doesn't mean it can't be popular.

            The "Sheep" who use Microsoft, as you put it, are sometimes Wolves who violently refuse to compromise their gaming experience.

        • but you should be aware that your taste in games is not in-line with most of the world.

          Competition for "most of the world"'s attention is fierce. Loki is targeting a market with few competitors, and it looks like their decision is mostly working.

          If you think they're not making the right decisions, then compete with them. Get a Half-Life license and work on it. Probably what you'll find is that the license costs plus the porting labor cost, exceeds what you'll get in sales. Then you'll realize that Loki has a real business plan and knows what they're doing.

      • port games that are mod-friendly and have a thriving mod community! we already have Q3 and UT. how about Bungie's Myth or Myth II?

        Myth2 for Linux has been available for a LONG time (see here [lokigames.com]), and is currently available for $6.99 from ebgames.com. It's a good game, and Loki has written an OpenGL renderer for it as well (the windows version is either Glide or software, IIRC)

      • Check their products page and purchase it if you've got the cash...
      • By this argument we should see Linux ports of Karateka, Ancient Art of War, and Lemonade coming out from Loki very shortly.
    • @ebbv: This is not completely true what you say. There are still improvements especially in the sector you criticize. Look at the latest Mandrake release. It autodetects your graphic card and installs Xfree/Mesa/DRI correctly. You can play 3D Games just after the start. Or the new SuSE 7.3 it has easy configuration utilities for Scanners and TV-Cards which is also important for the desktop.
      The real problem I see are the recent layoffs of the DRI crew from VA Linux. There is no one left to pay for the extremely difficult 3D driver development. Perhaps it would be good to establish a possibility for users to fund the DRI project.
    • >that's almost certainly due to the original authors not being interested in a linux version.

      I think it depends on how the license/port is arranged financially, who assumes the risk and who pays who for what, no?

      If the original author (publisher, really) hires Loki at a fixed price to make a port, and then assumes the risk of making a return on that expense by selling x copies of the Linux version, then yes - I agree with your point. (and Loki would have a much more successful business as they would get paid for their work regardless of how successful a Linux version was).

      However, that isn't what I read into the way they do business from the article on thier bankruptcy filing a little while ago. I seem to recall that they pay a fixed licensing fee to the owner/publisher of the game, then they port the game and take the risk of selling x copies in order to make a profit on the money they have laid out. (Carmack said a lot of the money Loki owes is to id).

      In that case, the high cost of obtaining a license for current titles such as Diablo 2, warcraft 3, etc is going to prevent Loki from taking on a port, not the author's interest. (afterall, the author gets paid up front.)

    • As always, the proof (for or against) will be in the sales figures.

      It doesn't matter to me that the game is "old"; I'm going to buy it. And not because I want to support Loki. I'm going to buy it because I remember the amusing hype concerning Postal, but I never got to play it.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • I think this stems from the fact that in the gaming world, PC games are at the bottom of the heap.

        Actually, where I think Loki would do best would be to build, say, a Playstation or Playstation2 emulator port for Linux. I'd pay a reasonable chunk of money to get access to the comparatively huge library of games (both purchase AND rental) on my Linux box.

        "Postal" seems like a bad choice for Loki, to me. Glad I got my copy of Kohan now, while Loki's still in business. If they're spending their precious money on "Postal" I can't say that I'm real confident their next few offerings are likely to be popular enough to pull them out of their slump...

  • Signs of life... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Hagabard ( 461385 )
    Seems to be a healthy sign of life from Loki, they are obviously still getting good things done despite the chapter 11.

    A port of a three year old game does not look healthy to me. Perhaps we can soon expect a port of Commander Keen?

  • Postal was a decent game...I played it on the mac and quite enjoyed it, especially the holiday expansion pack ("Don't shoot Santa!") but I have to think Loki is doing this to raise their PR level...even bad PR is good PR when you're stuck in chapter 11.

    Or perhaps its just a harbinger of things to come from their programmers.
  • Give me a break. For an independent release 4-ish years ago, it was playable. Which isn't by any stretch of the imagination to say that it was "good".
    Lavishing praise on the re-release of a tired old second-rate-even-in-its-primetime game is no way to woo Joe Everyday User to install Linux on his computer.
  • I played this game a long time ago - it was BAD. It's akin to saying "we got the rights to Daikatana!"

    For that matter, it's a sign Loki is going away, if this is as good as they can do. Most recent popular games either don't want to touch Linux, want to port the games themselves, or just don't want to go through another publisher.

    Part of Loki's problem is the intentional segregation. It was originally impossible to patch Quake 3 Windows to the Linux version, and the Linux and Mac versions were sold separately. Loki's tactics were intended to get them the money they were due and to gauge Linux support. However, it didn't work - Linux copies sold a tiny fraction of the number sold. Loki blamed it on most Linux users also being Windows dual-booters and that they settled on the Windows version and could wait for the patch. Furthermore, Loki's contract only allow for binary patches (which are a pain apparently) and make it so that the developer is paying the publisher (instead of the ideal vice versa).

    Couple that with the fact that we have a company whose lone claim is that they're trying to make money off of a free operating system with freeloading users and the fact that the best they can do in most cases is to port old tired games (and the occasional Quake engine title) and it's doom for Loki.

    Had they been smart they would have ported Half-Life, negotiating that deal at any cost.

    Schnapple

    • Re:Postal sucks and Loki is screwed (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Svartalf ( 2997 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2001 @09:57AM (#2405693) Homepage

      "Part of Loki's problem is the intentional segregation. It was originally impossible to patch Quake 3 Windows to the Linux version, and the Linux and Mac versions were sold separately. Loki's tactics were intended to get them the money they were due and to gauge Linux support. However, it didn't work - Linux copies sold a tiny fraction of the number sold. Loki blamed it on most Linux users also being Windows dual-booters and that they settled on the Windows version and could wait for the patch. "

      Originally impossible? Yes and no. The Q3A Windows versions weren't patchable until the Linux version shipped. When it shipped, Id offered the downloads- and it was all she wrote for the Linux version. Had they NOT offered a "patch" (or delayed it even further...), while it was not in keeping with their philosophy with prior games, it would have helped the sales of the game on the Linux front.

      Also, as an attempt to gauge Linux gaming support, it was a failure, less due to there not being support and more due to the patch being out and a severe lack of physical avaialability of the game in the storefronts. When it shipped, I tried to purchase the game- in one of the largest software markets in the country and one of the largest Linux userbases in the country and in the world (Dallas, TX). I couldn't- at least not off of a store shelf. Why? Because the retailers that were supposed to stock it on the shelves didn't. The ones that did deliberately choked off sales by not stocking anywhere near enough (6-10 copies on the shelf of a release such as this doesn't cut it and insisting on taking pre-paid orders for more isn't any better) and by the time one of the stores had enough in stock (Fry's) the damage was already done.
      • I could be wrong but I remember the deal was that the patch wasn't available until after Christmas (after buying season, in other words) so that it wouldn't cannibalize sales. Loki's lack of distribution abilities (compared with Activision's anyway) hurt that quite a bit.

        At the time I was working at a Babbage's and we had the occasional person looking for the Linux port of "X" and what out manager told them (as was told to him by corporate) was that Babbage's had carried the Linux port of "Civilization: Call to Power" and it didn't sell for shit, and neither did a box of Quake 2 ports of the mission packs and such, so carrying a port of game "X" was unlikely. It seemed stupid to me - CtP wasn't a big seller for Windows, either, plus a lowsy game all around, and anyone who wanted to play Quake 2 in Linux had done so before they came out with in in a box, but this is the logic Bean Counters go by and it's hard to argue with.

        I walked into Half Price Books the other day and I saw dozens of copies of Quake 3 and Soldier of Fortune for Linux at $10 each. I guess this is where Loki ports go when they die.

        Schnapple
  • It's great and all, but why is there a "Five Star Adult Dating - Amour - Sexy Chat" banner on that page?

    Hrm..
  • Postal rode off of the hype from day 1. There was the hope that it was still a good game regardless, but no, it turned out to be poor to mediocre.

    Since those days, there has been a realization that releasing intentionally over-the-top games could severely hurt the game industry. You know how DOOM and Mortal Kombat keep getting brought up as examples of violent games, even though they are each at least 8 years old? Just be glad the much worse examples aren't noticed by bored senators, like Kingpin, Soldier of Fortune, and Postal. No one, and I mean no one, wants a PC running Postal to show up on the floor of the senate. We'd immediately get hit with all sorts of regulations.

    But in any case, Postal is still a poor to mediocre game :)
    • I've played it, I don't believe it to be poor-to-medicore. The fact is, it's got some very funny levels, and what might not appeal to you might appeal to someone else.
      • I agree that Postal does have some very funny levels, but it also takes a bit of a warped sense of humor to see that. ;-)

        On the other hand, I agree with the original poster that it wasn't a great game. After a few weeks I had to turn down the sound because I just couldn't take one more voice saying "I can't feel my legs..." And eventually I couldn't get past a couple levels without cheating, so they game has been shelved for a couple of years.

        Maybe I'll go get it back out and blow away the marching band again...
    • But in any case, Postal is still a poor to mediocre game :)

      It was bad when it came out. And it hasn't gotten better with age, I promise. I admit, mindless shooters are often fun. But at the time Postal was released it was very obviously trying to ride off of the hype of being "so violent it should be banned." I don't think it should be banned. I'm not about to tell someone what they can and can not put in a video game/song/movie/etc. I'm all for their freedom of speech. I do however question their gaming priorities. Are they making a game or are they making a political statement?

      If it's a political statement, okay. Point made. Nobody needs to play the game now. We get the point. If it's a game, I think they really should try to be a little more creative.

      They brag about how successful the game has been, and how it's reached cult status but I think what they're really trying to say is that several years later they still haven't given up trying to push it down people's throats. They're still injecting it into whatever market will absorb it, and now they're gunning for the Linux users. They don't think they've exposed enough people I guess.

      Whatever the reason, I think this says more about Running With Scissors than it does about Loki. It means that RWS is so desperate to make a few more fans of the franchise that they're even aiming for the Linux users. Somehow I doubt the "Sick and Twisted" Linux users are going to bite, though. But then agian, I suppose there might just be enough game-starved users out there that they'll buy it just because it's from Loki (something I don't consider a good thing.)

      And for those who have never played the game, it's a 2D shooter. Not 3D. It has very low system requirements. You can find screenshots here [runningwithscissors.com]. Now I think you've seen enough you can pass up the game.

  • Not looking good... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Postal is so ancient. A company in the business of porting games from windows faces a bleak future nowadays. The only good shot at Linux gaming would be to get the platform in good enough shape so that the gaming companies themselves would develop for the platform, porting companies could turn into competition for the original maker if it was too new a title. Linux can now be a competent office system, can playback a great deal of multimedia well, even Sorenson if you pay money to codeweavers, and KDE will probably be able to embed ActiveX Quicktime for Windows. But gaming has not gotten to a good appealing level. Even the multimedia support demonstrates problems. A lot of avi support and the sorenson support is dependant on Windows components, as companies will not port... Unless drastic things happen, the future of gaming lies in projects like Wine, unfortunately.
  • 1. Postal is good, but not THAT good.
    2. Postal is 20 minutes of fun, after that you switch to the expansion pack, which is another 20 minutes of fun.
    3. Postal is even older that Loki itself.
    4. Postal has an interresting engine that runs on pentium 166, meaning it's worthless. Nobody ever re-used that crap. Or somebody did and he's an idiot.

    5. Tribes 2 is a lot more interresting and it still doesn't fuckin work on Linux + Matrox G450.

    Conclusion: Loki makes games and 5 minutes later, they don't care about what they made. So you know what, maybe i don't really care Loki anymore or maybe i don't really care about playing games under Linux.

    Linux = 'For Workin'.
    Ouindoze = 'For Playin'.

    • 5. Tribes 2 is a lot more interresting and it still doesn't fuckin work on Linux + Matrox G450.

      Works fine with my Matrox G400. Are you sure it's not just user error?

      Dinivin
      • Yes. The game starts and you can configure all your settings and when you actually try to play the game it's just like watching a cad model with 3 billion polygons on pentium 166.

        I don't know! ( As in 'I tried everything and it didn't work.' )

        If it's a user problem, then we are 4 users + 1 sysadmin in our office who can't make the game work properly.

        Plus, I read all Loki faqs, sent plenty of e-mails, got no answers. This why i made this point, they barely care about what they make.
        • Yes. The game starts and you can configure all your settings and when you actually try to play the game it's just like watching a cad model with 3 billion polygons on pentium 166.

          Sounds like you're using software OpenGL. Are you sure you have the drivers and libraries installed and set up properly?
          • Yup I configured DRI just like they suggested it in the docs and it is 3D rendering, I can see it with the glxgears demo.

            I really tried everything, upgraded all matrox modules, upgraded my kernel a few times, tried all possible gl libs on my machine and the game still runs choppy. Like I said before, I even sent e-mails to Loki support and they never answered back. Ok! I admit I'm fairly new to linux, about a year or so, but I'm an experienced developper and I know when I'm facing a problem that is not 6 inches from the monitor. Although, sometimes, I get nasty surprises ;)

            I might try again to install it on another machine at some point, but up to now, the game doesn't run properly on 4 of our office machines. And well, you know offices, they buy bundles of machine these days.
            • Yup I configured DRI just like they suggested it in the docs and it is 3D rendering, I can see it with the glxgears demo.

              Hrm. Are you sure the game doesn't come with its own libGL.so somewhere? I've never played it myself, but I know that some Linux games do, and it may be incompatible with your particular video card.

              Like I said before, I even sent e-mails to Loki support and they never answered back.

              Really? That's odd... must be because of their financial difficulties. I've always gotten great tech support from Loki.

              Ok! I admit I'm fairly new to linux, about a year or so

              Well, I'd be happy to help you out some more if you want, but this isn't really the place for it. Feel free to email me (spong@baked.net) or IM me (see .sig).
            • Execute gears from a command line and wait, it'll tell you which framerate.

              On a PIII 600, a G400 should be clocking nearly a 1000fps with gears at it's default size, etc.

              Also of note is that you've got to cripple the game back pretty heavily because the G400 and other cards don't have enough silicon muscle to do what the game asks for so it falls back to software in a LOT of places if you don't cripple the game's renderer.
        • Plus, I read all Loki faqs, sent plenty of e-mails, got no answers. This why i made this point, they barely care about what they make.

          That's interesting... I have an entire folder dedicated to e-mail from Loki. They've been extremely responsive to all my messages.

          Dinivin
  • I would like to see Loki create new games instead of porting older windows based games to Linux.

    Let the porting to be done by the original creators... give them some incentive to do their own ports.

    Why not try to create that one blockbuster we need ? The people at Loki should be inventive enough. At least they had alot of examples of great games.
    • It's considerably more costly to get enough folks to make a game, than it is to port a relatively good code base. Art quality is especially important these days and I don't think it should be Loki creating Linux original titles. This enormous cost of man-hours is most likely why they don't.
    • It's not just good programmers, it's good artists, good musicians, good writers and a shitload of luck. Like the movie and music industry, the majority of the games out there fail and lose money. It's only the rare blockbusters that keep the industry rolling. What Loki tries to do is capitalize on those blockbusters rather than betting the farm that they can create one themselves. And if they were betting the farm, it would make much more business sense to write for Windows (I am a die hard Linux fanatic. This is not a troll, it's just the truth.) Loki's niche is that they provide a fairly small segment of the population with something they want.

      That being said, I would like to see some original game development on Linux. If you look at the Linux Game Tome, there's a lot of promising stuff out there. Hell, why not add GL interfaces to some existing games like Nethack and Angband? Those games are still engaging despite their interfaces. There's a lot that could be one. Whether it'll work in an open source (or even Commercial on Linux) remains to be seen.

  • In other news.... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Loki announced the pending availability of Pong for Linux. "We just wanted to give something back to the community", said the CEO of Loki. "With support for the latest 2-D cards, Pong will be the killer app for Linux."

    "It was just so lifelike, I had tears in my eyes", says 51-year old Pong creator Nolan Bushnell. "I never thought I would be able to play Pong at home, let alone on a Free operating system."


  • Just noticed that CivIII went gold today (press release [firaxis.com] [Firaxis]).

    Personally I think that this title would be very popular on the Linux platform, a 3D accelerator is not even required. I don't know how well SMAC did on Linux, but this title would be a logical step for turn-based strategy fans.

    The slated platforms are WIndows and Mac, I hope Loki will consider a port for this title.

  • Half life is a far better game and you can download Scientist Hunt if you feel the need to go Postal. Scientist hunt is by far more amusing than Postal ever was.

  • One of the few Loki games I won't buy. I have no problems with its being produced, but everything I've heard about the game tells me that it will disgust me. I don't need a game like that.

    • everything I've heard about the game tells me that it will disgust me.

      I have little problem, myself, with violence in games (hey, I actually think the characters in Heretic II, for example, are kind of funny as they run around with their arms cut off as if puzzled about why their weapons aren't working...), but I played the demo of Postal for about 10-15 minutes long, long ago when it first came out...

      The problem, as I see it anyway, is that the violence in Postal is...tasteless. The focus isn't on pretty graphics or gameplay, but on 'realistic' suffering and dying of the wounded. This is the ONLY game I can recall ever playing that actually somewhat digusted me (and I've been playing for a while - I still vaguely recall a driving game on my old C-64 where you scored points by running over puppies and little old ladies...)

      And, somehow, I just can't imagine that in the current anti-terrorism frenzy the world is in that this game is going to do anything but (ahem) bomb completely in the market when Loki re-releases it, unless maybe they replace all of the original levels with "shoot the terrorists, spare the civilians" levels set in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc...and even then it'll only sell until the frenzy dies down...

  • Wanted: Linux Half Life + Counterstrike mod (Score:3, Insightful)

    by horza ( 87255 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2001 @12:42PM (#2406598) Homepage
    Counterstrike is the major reason I will always have a Windows installation. Though if old classics are order of the day then Command&Conquor:Red Alert (and series) would win a lot of converts.

    Phillip.
    • But WINE [winehq.com] makes it possible to run Counter-Strike under Linux! Not just CS but any Half-Life game should work.

      If you check the Linux Half-Life page [linuxgames.com] you will find the HOWTO [linuxgames.com].

      Full disclosure: I tried this once and I couldn't get it to work. However, I run a bleeding-edge Debian "unstable" system, and perhaps WINE was unstable that day. I plan to try this again soon.

      By the way, Starcraft [mbnet.fi] and other fun games run well under WINE. You can check the WINE app database [codeweavers.com] to see if other people have had success running a particular game.

      Good luck and happy gaming!

      steveha

  • Not a flame (nor even my actual opinion) - it's just that I just looked at the press release. A choice quote from it:

    "There's something just plain sick and wrong about Linux users," said Vince Desi, Running With Scissors' tetanus-tempered edge. "That's why we`re so excited to be able to bring these gaming misfits a Linux version of POSTAL - They're our kind of people!"

    Gee, thanks. I'm sure this'll do WONDERS for the image of Linux users. We've been fighting against this "fringe whacko lawbreaking rebel misfit" image, all this time I guess that's what we were anyway...

    No, I don't actually think the game should be banned, nor should Loki be forbidden from porting it, nor should Running With Scissors be forbidden to SAY such things, nor should Loki be forbidden to agree with it and reprint it...but I DO think it's a BAD decision...

    (The implication that a game where the main character is, effectively, a "terrorist without a cause" is perfect for "our kind of people" downright disturbs me...)

  • Where does the name come from? There isn't any obvious reason why a game that appears to be about urban terrorism is called 'Postal'. Can anyone explain it?
    • Where does the name come from? There isn't any obvious reason why a game that appears to be about urban terrorism is called 'Postal'. Can anyone explain it?

      Noting your .uk address: in the USA, an employee of the United States Postal Service tends to go berzerk on average of about once a year (no smartasses, it's a different guy each time), goes into work with more firepower than hizballah, and proceeds to engage in the american pastime of a shooting rampage. It happens so often the term "going postal" was coined to refer to such rampages.

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