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First Person Shooters (Games) PC Games (Games) Entertainment Games

Savage Gets Extensive Patch, Publisher Unwell? 36

0xBulbizarre writes "The long awaited patch to V2.0 for FPS/RTS hybrid Savage is now here, in both Windows and Linux flavors. It's also worth taking the time to read the amazing 2.0 ChangeLog for a list of all the additions, fixes, etc in the new Savage patch, since they've made new units, new visual effects, and plenty of other changes besides - lets support good Linux game makers." We've previously covered this reasonably well-received 'acquired taste' of a title, and elsewhere, HomeLan Fed is reporting on unconfirmed rumors from "highly placed sources" that Savage publisher iGames may be closing its doors, but that "[Savage developer] S2 Games is still in operation and will continue to support and add onto Savage as planned." Update: 01/22 00:15 GMT by S : A follow-up at HomeLan Fed has the CEO claiming "rumor of [iGames'] closing was started by an innocent miscommunication [with the company's] former COO."
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Savage Gets Extensive Patch, Publisher Unwell?

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  • I hear... (Score:2, Informative)

    by lincarnate ( 696385 )
    ...that the patch is a great improvement over an already great game, although I haven't had a chance to play it yet. The devs work really hard on the game, and it's not all that odd if you can find them online playing. A couple of my friends and I had a nice conversation with one of them while playing the demo version.

    It's sad to hear that iGames might be closing. I had a problem with downloading the full game from their website, and once I emailed them, I got a response very quickly, and eventually got ev
    • Re:I hear... (Score:3, Informative)

      by 13Echo ( 209846 )
      It is fantastic. I beta tested the patch and I was BLOWN AWAY by the number of improvements. I wish that this had been the game that they originally released. The initial release got good reviews, but this almost seems like an entirely different game in itself. It's just better balanced, and the new units make things more interesting. Rendering improvements have been done to speed up certain video chipsets. It flies on my Radeon 9500 PRO, on Linux, with the details maxed.

      Please support S2Games. They
        1. The demo version doesn't do the full version justice.

        Agreed. One of the problems with the demo, though, is that by itself it is sooo good. Because of that, I delayed about a month before getting the full version. With 2.0, it is very very much worth the price. Tactical, fraggable...nice combo!

    • I am one of the senior artists on Savage. Atleast I was... I left towards the end of the project for health reasons but remain very good friends with the folks invovled.

      They are hard working folks and they do care about the community greatly. When we set out to start Savage, the goal was ALWAYS to involve our audience. We wanted to make the gameing community feel apart of something and to bring a sense of community.

      We're gamers, we would play quake, counter strike, Rainbow 6, etc online together. You nam
  • ... where the mouth is.

    trouble is, how do you buy this game if you don't have or use a credit card?

    its actually quite interesting to observe just how much in life you can't do because of the ubiquity of credit cards.

    it always seems strange to me that linux game developers come and go, but yet nobody has worked out a way for geeks to pay for their video games without having to use a credit card. thats a huuuuge market of people who are missing out.

    when will we see 1-900 #'s for software payment, is what
    • On the site, you also have the option of buying a CD key with Paypal or Online Check. A checking account it required, but simply finding a way to add funds to a Paypal account is all that is necessary.
    • all the ubiquity of credit card payment, none of the interest...

      I don't honestly believe there much of a market of gamers who don't have access to credit, debit, or paypal (which i understand is an accepted payment form).
      • Re:debit? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Rallion ( 711805 )
        For a good period of time I was a mid-teen gamer with none of the above, and parents who wouldn't keep me from buying games myself, but wouldn't encourage it too much either. I can remember sitting in my room with $200 saved up, looking at something I wanted to buy online, and being fully aware of how powerless I was to do anything about it. *Sniff*

        Basically, the only way for me to get something was to go to the store and get it.
    • Granted they don't broker Savage, but PayByCash [paybycash.com] is addressng the exact problem you are describing.
    • One option for indy game developers are "self" publishing through sites such as cafepress.com [cafepress.com].
      On cafe press you can publish your game, your merchandise and more. Cafepress.com isn't the only one out there either. They accept all the usual, credit cards, checks, moneyorder. Best of all, the developer doesn't have to worry about deploying an eCommerce solution, and you can do quite a bit in the way of customizing your "store".
      I say down with the publishers, software, print and music. For music you have site
  • This is one of the best games I have every played. It gives you all the action of quake online, but it has a purpose instead of just running around killing people. The dev team has been awesome. Their very straight and helpful, and always willing to hear your suggestions. The new patch is also a huge change. The graphics improvements are amazing, it now flies on my 1.2 athlon with a geforce 3 (running gentoo). Hopefully s2games will keep up the good work and keep supporting alternate OSes. /Line72
  • I think it's those frenchmen behind it again...
  • Savage (Score:5, Informative)

    by Sparr0 ( 451780 ) <sparr0@gmail.com> on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @11:23AM (#8043685) Homepage Journal
    Savage [s2games.com], and its creators [s2games.com], did everything right. A multiplayer demo [gameplanet.co.nz], for linux too [planetmirror.com], with enough of the game to get you hooked and playing, but leave you wanting more. Online CD Key purchase and download [igames.com]. Clients for both windows and linux, servers too. And continuing development that has already improved the gameplay by an order of magnitude [s2games.com]. If the big name companies put this much thought into how to make a game right instead of pumping out the next franchise/licensed game as fast as possible us gamers would be in heaven.
    • Did everything right, except that whole business side. If all the "big name companies" followed this lead, and went out of business, no games would be made. Its an interesting statement about the community that you perceive a complete lack of games as "heaven".
      • Im sorry, I must not have made it clear that I was talking about the developers (who I specifically linked to [s2games.com]), not the publishers [igames.com], who are responsible for most of the business side. And, regardless, their failure is not their fault, its how the game market is designed. They have done more with what they have available than some other publishers do with a lot more. Just getting a game onto store shelves (which igames has managed to do rather well) is an immense task.
        • Re:Savage (Score:1, Flamebait)

          by Mike Hawk ( 687615 )
          their failure is not their fault, its how the game market is designed

          Ah, the cry of the loser. It's not my fault! Getting a game onto shelves is not an immense task. Creating a AAA game is an immense task. Surviving to make the sequel is an immense task. But you can do the first and fail the second by choosing the wrong publisher. What happened in this case is nothing but evidence to choose a strong publisher...one that will be there to fund the patches, expansions and your sophomore effort.
  • I went to E3 last year and this was the game that caught my attention most. I had no clue it was for linux... now i'm wondering if their demo machines were running linux...
    Anywho, I'll be really sad if they close their doors, it's a really great game, and they were really great guys. It's too bad they were stuffed at the back of one of the main halls, but at least they were upstairs. They set up a ring of machines and you could just sit and play as long as you like, and that's what I did. I'm not big into
    • It wasn't S2 that was allegedly going to close their doors.. It was thier publisher. We've discussed it a bit in S2's forums and they claim that the HomeLAN article is false, however... Just figured I'd mention it.
  • by linuxkrn ( 635044 ) <[moc.nigolxunil] [ta] [nostawg]> on Wednesday January 21, 2004 @11:59AM (#8044070)
    They only list Windows (.exe) patches, so I found the Linux patch (73MB) here http://www.fileshack.com/file.x?fid=4442" [fileshack.com]

    I also have a review with screenshots I wrote of it (pre-patch) here [www.linuxlogin].

    I think Savage is a great game. Hell, even the game itself aside, I bought it because they put on the requirements "Windows OR Linux" on the box. That's worth my money alone. I support those companies who support Linux.
  • I'm running Debian Sarge (testing) with a 2.4.23 kernel, XFree86 v4.2.1-12.1 (admittadly behind the 4.3 curve), and a Radeon 7200 (I bought this before X supported the DDRAM chips) on an AMD Thunderbird 1.4GHz processor. Whereas this setup is perfectly fine for Unreal Tournament and Quake3, it was sorely lacking when trying to run the Savage demo. I felt like I was playing on a 486. Needless to say, I didn't buy the game. I have some spare change to purchase some software titles, but not enough to retro
    • I don't think the current patches work with the demo, but I had heard whenever the 2.0 patch was first announced that there will be either a demo patch, or a new demo, although I can't remember where I heard it.
    • S2 has found some framerate crippling bugs that have been fixed since the 2.00 release, and more recently, even more improvements in the 2.00b release. I personally don't feel that they gave enough effort to support non-nVidia cards during the initaial beta tests, but it isn't really their fault. ATI didn't really have suitable Linux drivers until late in the development, and PowerVR's Kyro (which I used to test the initial beta on Linux) didn't have a hardware T&L unit and had some AGP problems with S
  • Some answers (Score:2, Informative)

    by j450n ( 678096 )
    I'm one of the programmers at S2, I can answer some of the questions people have brought up: The 2.00b (most current patch) should improve everyone's framerate significantly over 1.2, optimizations were made to the rendering code, CPU usage, memory usage... pretty much all around. Also, we're pretty sure we've caught all the memory leaks at this point. Sam was working on the Linux patch today, looks like the link is working as of right now. If the auto-updater isn't grabbing it yet, I'm sure it will be
    • Just wanted to say thanks for making a great game.

      Was the first time i bothered dust off my PC tower in months.

      (my other machine is a Mac, sorry linux folks)

      anyway, great game, and keep up the good work. now that it's at 2.0 i should fire that puppy up again.
    • Much 3 to you Jason, but sadly the patch is about 3 months to late :(
  • by rwven ( 663186 )
    I beta tested it and hated every minute of it, mainly for the reasons they seem to have addressed in this patch. i might have to shell out some bucks and buy it now... That list is VERY impressive

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