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Games Entertainment

Myth II and Railroad Tycoon II For Linux 75

Posted by Hemos from the time-to-do-porting dept.
pridkett writes "Loki Games, the same people who brought us Civ:CTP for Linux have just announced that they will be porting Myth II and Railroad Tycoon II to Linux. " This just came across my inbox as well-I've played both games on WinX before-let's hope they do as good a job of porting this, as they did with Civ:CTP.
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Myth II and Railroad Tycoon II For Linux More

Myth II and Railroad Tycoon II For Linux

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  • What's involved? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    From a purely intrest point of view as I doubt my programming is up to it, Can anyone tell me whats involved in porting a game?

    I presume it would be quite different from porting traditional software as you'd have more of a performance issue with graphics/sound etc?

    ----
    Doze - Sorry forgot password!

  • RT-II vs RT (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I've played both at length. Here's my impression of the differences:
    1. RT2 is awesomely pretty.
    2. You no longer have to worry about signalling. All tracks are treated as if they have regular passing loops, so one train stops as the other goes by. Double track allows two moving trains. I was disappointed by this at first, but the scenarios are so big that it is both good and necessary.
    3. The opponents now run real trains, instead of using a formula.
    4. I think there is no longer a cost penalty to changing cars at each station (but I still use fixed configs out of habit).
    5. There are no more rate wars. You can build a station in a town which already has one, and the traffic gets shared between the railroads. So you can still drive down opponents revenues by running a frequent loss making service to their stations, but there are no longer any special rules - it is a natural part of the game mechanic.
    6. The maps are huge and based on real topo data. For example, there is a US transcontinental scenario, and you usually end up building a route fairly similar to one of the real ones, becuase the terrain demands it. On some of the European scanarios you can spend ages surveying the best route through mountains - great fun.
    7. The scenarios contain much more variety of special conditions and events. For example there is one scenario where all the track is built and you have to run one train to as many stations as possible in a fixed time. (I got a gold with 2 stations to spare - eventually)
    I was feeling a bit alientated that I seem to be the only person in the world who loves RT2 and Lemmings 3D. Its nice to know that at least one of my passions is normal.

  • Website dedicated to loki's games! (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    hey guys as you probally already know there is a webpage at http://natas.kfa.cx/~civ [natas.kfa.cx] that is dedicated to Civ:CTP for Linux. I run this website and next week should be opening http://natas.kfa.cx/~loki which will be dedicated to all the games that Lokisoft is porting. Right now I have decided to make a page for each game and have a news section, Faq, message-board ect. Now I am looking for people to help me out with these sites. I myself will take care of the main page http://natas.kfa.cx/~loki but I need people to help make and maintain the pages for each game. So if anyone out there wants to help me out email me at natas@natas.kfa.cx saying you wanna help!
    Thanks,
    NaTaS

  • Re:I wonder... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Not likely since they way the convince game companies to allow to port is through residual profits. These companies can get a little extra profit at low risk from selling to people who wouldn't buy their Windows version. Thus is the binaries are free for people who already have the Windows version then they don't get any gain out of it.

  • Ah, nuts... they got mangled.
    Que sera sera...
  • Now it says "In Stock"... I forgot to enter that into our database.

    Sorry for any confusion.

    -Ben

  • I've just discussed it with my cohorts, and we at handeye.com [handeye.com] plan to sell these games on our web site, just like we're selling Civ:CTP [handeye.com] now.

    By the way, if you're one of our Civ:CTP customers, sit tight, because your game is on the way. I finished Perl-ifying our shipping process a few hours ago, and conveniently the boxes should be arriving today (5/18) from Loki. We'll slap labels on 'em and shoot 'em out the door as soon as we can see cardboard.

    Excuse me if this announcement is a little premature, but we're like really excited, primarily because we're such Linux nerds. So bear with us. (And go to our web site.)

    -Ben

  • Re:CIV: CTP sales results? (Score:4)

    by smartax ( 37 ) on Monday May 17, 1999 @03:36AM (#1888897) Homepage

    /me crunches some numbers...

    We ( handeye.com [handeye.com]) are one of the sites that sells this game. Our sales have thus far been pretty healthy, considering that everything up 'til now has been a pre-order. We have around 1000 copies of Civ:CTP, about 20% of which were pre-ordered. As of today, when we actually receive the boxes from Loki (and ship out the games), we expect our sales to perk up a little.

    News like this (the porting of these two games) makes me very happy, as a long-time Linux enthusiast and occasional gamer. It's great to see that there's a market for Linux games and a growing market for commercial Linux software in general. (What else is new, though, right?)

    <kiss target="ass">
    I'd like to thank quite a few of you (you know who you are) for making us a well-trafficked web site. We've gotten about 400,000 hits since our public launch in late April/early May, and people have been sending positive feedback. We especially get warm feelings when people tell us we're giving back to the Linux community. Anyway, I'll keep churning out the Perl as long as you folks are interested in buying games.
    </kiss>

    -Ben (who hopes his lt's and gt's don't get mangled when he submits this)

  • Nooooooo! (Score:1)

    by Pasc ( 59 )
    RRT2 for Linux!?

    Now I will never get any work done!

  • Team Fortress 2: Server, probably, client Very unlikely, Valve have already refused to do a linux client for halflife.

    Tiberium Sun (of course): possible, strategy is easier to port

    Battlezone 2: i doubt it, they used d3d for BZ 1, afaik they've not switched. This makes it hard to port.
  • See this [slashdot.org] for my prediction on Railroad Tycoon 2, almost two weeks ago.

    Anyway, I wonder if it's purely coincidence that my application for the beta of CTP included suggestions to port these two (along with HalfLife/TF2, I'm keeping my fingers crossed).

    The first step in legitimizing Linux apps is the porting of these popular games. Once they see how many thousands are bought up, the issue of "not enough users" can be put to rest. Hell, I'll even buy the solitaire game just to support Loki.
  • So remember, there's still time to speculate on the other four...

    My wishlist:
    Team Fortress 2
    Tiberium Sun (of course)
    Battlezone 2 (if it gets released this year, though I doubt it)

    That's about it for current games .. RT2/Myth2 would have been up there.
  • Isn't OpenGL easier to port? I don't recall if BattleZone had it, but it is possible they'd support it now, with enough encouragement...
  • It is a worthy successor to the original. The original had some complaints from me, but expansion pack takes care of most of them. I have had some random crashes with the pack, but autosaving make it tolerable...
  • I know Transport Tycoon did work at one time under dosemu. I had a whole lotta fun back then. Of course that was long before they even thought of putting sound in dosemu, and I loved it.

    My only requirement for many of these games is that they at least have an option to run windowed, not full screen. That makes them so much easier to hide when the boss comes up to my desk...
  • Railroad Tycoon was one of my favorite games ever. I haven't played RT2. How does it compare to the original?

    I'm also busy hacking on an airline simulator that I'm hoping will be sort of in the spirit of RT. It won't be a polished game for a LONG time (unless lots of people want to help me. :-) ) but hopefully it will be playable and fun. http://cvs.seul.org/~yoderm/ will get my preliminary hackings.
  • I'd *love* to see that one.

    Of course, if someone would improve the AI in XFrisk it wouldn't be necessary. I have a good idea for AI but don't have time to even think about implementing it.
  • I enjoyed Transport Tycoon a whole lot more 'cos it had planes and ships and trucks and stuff!!!

    Is RRT2 gonna be limited to just trains or will we get all the other vechiles???

    Skip
    --------------------
    flifson@csdotuctdotacdotza
  • Posted by Tempt:

    More commercial software is always a good thing with Linux. I don't subscribe to the RMS view of "ooh, it should -all- be free.", because it would take a hell of a lot of opensource effort to do a polished game - the artwork etc needs a great deal of effort and coordination.

    I haven't looked at CivCTP for linux yet, but the bugs in the Windoze version were horrible (my flatmate gave up in disgust and returned the game), so hopefully those problems will have vanished (they seemed to be copy-protection related).

    Anyway, much joy and happiness to the world - things can only get better.

  • Posted by OGL:

    I for one am really dissapointed. Why more strategy titles? Wasn't Civ enough? I'd really prefer an action game for a change of pace (besides quake3 of course). Myth looks pretty fun, but it's been out for ages on my friend's Mac, so who really cares...and Railroad Tycoon? Couldn't they have switched gears and done a differenet type of game hsving completed Civ: CTP? I'm just puzzled as to why they would keep selecting games from the same genre over and over.

    -W.W.
  • Posted by mizzer:

    Isnt Loki making a LinuxPPC version of Civ before the Macos version come out? If so, I bet they will be making PPC versions. And did you notice "ERIC'S ULTIMATE SOLITAIRE" will be ported! Myth2, Quake1, and Erics! Those are like the only 3 games I play on my mac. DROOL DROOL, now when R5 comes out I shall be even happier.
  • P1)

    What games push your hardware to it's fullest potential rather than just mebbe pushing it a little bit here and there? Furthermore, while one contemporary 1st tier 3D sound or 3D graphics chipset is certainly less than optimal, it is also sufficient.

    P2)

    The Game Library that powers CivCTP (SDL) and Hopkins_FBI runs under BeOS,MacOS and Win32 as well for the 'dont' wanna read the manual sets.

    P3)

    The fractured Unix GUI doesn't mean a DAMN thing for game developers. They implement their own gui's to begin with. If anything, PC games more reflect the 'user interface chaos' inherent in the Unix Desktops.

    P4)

    Actually, CivCTP runs reasonably well on my ancient hardware. Even Win32 only houses don't target the highest spec machines available. They want to make as much money as they can and more systems that can run their games represent more potential unit sales for them.

    People play far more than just Quake variants.
  • Seeing RRT gives me hope for Roller Coaster Tycoon! That would be awesome!

    Still want Civ II though. CTP is nice but it's just not quite Civ II MPE (I suppose TOT would be okay but the interface wasn't all that friendly when I was playing it at E3)

    -Matt
  • I'm really looking forward to the Linux releases of these games! Now I have even less of a reason to ever leave LinuxPPC. :)

    I'm hoping that the LinuxPPC binaries will be no more than a simple recompile?

  • Has anyone tried CTP linux version of FreeBSD yet? if so, how did it work?

  • Games On Linux (Score:4)

    by Hrunting ( 2191 ) on Monday May 17, 1999 @03:46AM (#1888915) Homepage
    More important than the fact that games are being released for Linux is the fact that gaming subsystems are being developed for Linux. Carmack's recent investment in the Mesa project and the release of games like the Q3Test show that there's an interest in taking advantage of some of Linux's possibilities. I don't know how well it's going to work out as right now, Linux really doesn't have the strongest of foundations for gaming, but the beginning holes are there as more and more processors and video chips are being supporting (the OSS drivers were a big step forward). Unfortunately for me, one of the biggest reasons that I run Linux is also one of the biggest reasons that I don't play games on it: my computer's simply too old.

    I look forward to seeing how the market responds to this. I hope companies actually start developing Linux binaries that they can include on the shipping CDs so we don't have to wait for some other company to port them. id has already shown that the process can be relatively simply. Not that I want to see Loki Games disappear, but I hope we won't have to depend on just them for Linux versions of our favorite Windows games.
  • i'd be interested to hear about this, 'cause yr right about the data. can anyone who has civ port enlighten us about this? thinks...might have to do some research! wonder how it would play on win32 box using l*nux box as server and using vnc?
  • can anyone give a company/url to get these gms in 'aus'?
  • many thx...i just got my order of 2xtux's for the young bloke, from the very same company a couple of days ago.

    here's the site, http://everythinglinux.com.au [everythinglinux.com.au] for those interested.
  • Loki and Activision sell their respective versions of Civilization: Call to Power independently of the other. In addition, we pay royalties to Activision based on sales of the Linux version. We currently have no plans to provide a Linux 'upgrade' for purchasers of the Windows version, but will announce an upgrade policy on this website should that change.

    guess i'll have to wait...but i still want the box damn it! heres the link to the faq [lokigames.com] if yr interested.
  • It isn't fair to label, sure, and I am using broad generalizations about the community here (shields up!) but I would guess these games are "more portable to Linux" for the following reasons:

    1)most of us grew up on early "classics", running on Amiga's, Atari's, Mac or god forbit, a CGA-equipped IBM PC [erk!].

    2)Since we started out on those "alternative" platforms, we were also the most likely group to switch to Linux... and here we are...

    3)As a group it could be argued we prefer strategy games over other types.. these are the only games we had (like freeciv, nettrek etc.) when we switched to Linux/Unix. It could also be argued a higher percentage of us at one time played D&D/AD&D even though most of the population never has.

    5) A large percentage of us also have played MAME or MESS-based games. MAME made it a lot easier to mostly convert my PC to Linux, so I could do something useful with the system. :)

    When I finally switched from Atari ST to a PC clone, the only game worth playing on it was Civ... at least until DOOM came along!

    If these games are successful, I would like to see them include "original" versions, like Railroad I (cheezy CGA graphics and all). Sure, MESS or DOSemu might run the original if you can locate an old pirated copy, but I'd rather buy it as part of a "remake" which includes the original.

    Commercial games have their own appeal, but does anyone besides me doubt a commercial company has the creativity and resources to match a driven open-source movement like the MAME project, which now has OpenGL support and soon "netplay"? Williams and Activision simply rereleased their old "classics" without [optional] enhancements. :-/

    I already own Myth II on a hybrid Mac/PC disk, running it on both computers. Unless there's some kind of trade-up I won't buy the Linux version..
  • Well, I'd expect strategy to a bigger seller as compared to action on Linux. Kids are the target audience for action games, and while they are a few high schoolers and younger kids using Linux, I'd expect most people discover Linux in college after using UNIX workstations.

    Besides "action game" these days practically means "Quaking Wolfenstein Marathon of Doom" games and there's plenty of those repetitive shoot-em-ups on Linux already.
  • or rather "open source" ... would't it be easy to modify the code and recompile, so that you could cheat?
  • Most games are multi-player now. I'm not talking about the built in ones, which are ususally disabled when you are playing a network game.

  • Cool! (Score:1)

    by Pondo ( 5965 )
    I will definitely buy Tycoon. I used to play Tycoon I for hours on my old CGA 286. I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread.

    I can't express how cool it is that we're getting all of the good games ported to Linux now. I plan to buy CTP, as well. I've never played it, and it may just sit on my shelf looking pretty, but I wouldn't care. These games companies need to see a great response from the Linux community, so they port the rest of the cool games over.

    I think the best thing we can do as a whole would be to go ahead and buy these pieces of software, thereby voting with our pocketbooks. The upside for us, aside from getting to play without Win95/98/NT, is that by only buying the cream of the crop, we get only the best stuff. Saves a lot of time in choosing a new distraction, I would think.

    I should really be studying for my Ethics final. Has anyone ever cheated on an Ethics exam? I almost want to, just for the irony of it all.
  • Shipping binaries for both systems on a single disk would be terrific. But I think they are testing the waters right now to see if there is demand for the software... That way they arent wasting resources trying to get a linux port onto the same disk when nobody is going to use it.
  • Has anyone seen any sales results for CIV Call to Power yet? I'd like to know how well it is selling. I noticed that it is out of stock everywhere I have seen it for sale on the web. More games is going to make it A LOT easier to convert others to linux and make booting to Windows completely unnessessary for some!
  • .. would't it be easy to modify the code and recompile, so that you could cheat?

    You mean like, as oppoesd to the dozens (hundreds?) of cheats published in game rags every month?

  • This is all well and good but we need Alpah Centauri for Linux. If only AC was ported no less than 5% of computers running windows would switch to Linux :)

    But for Linux to become a viable (read more than 10 games) gaming platform we need Linux only games. I mean more than xbill.

    While Tux: search for hearing is great and all(must buy Voodoo2...), we need a major/commercial release.

  • Would be interesting to see if Loki or Id would ship a linux distro with their linux based games.

    Would get more people into trying linux. People would see Quake 3 or RC2 for linux and think "woah, that's neat, too bad I don't have linux..wait what's this? comes with redHat 6.0? I think I'll try this"

    Of course, you can replace RedHat 6.0 with any other distro, just that that's the one that would probably ship with a game.
  • Which "they" are you talking about? The "they" in this case _do_ produce strategy games, if you want action games, try getting a company that _make_ action games to port their games. Or do you want game producers to sit and say "Oops, there are too many Linux games in that category already, we'll skip our port of our game to Linux until other genres are more represented..."?

  • Well, I know I'm gonna be buying MythII for sure, even if it's just to give me a game other than QuakeII to play on my VoodooII card.

    My, that was a lot of II's, wasn't it?


  • "Over and over and over"? They've released ONE (count it, ONE) game, announced three new games, one of which happens to be very vaguely similar to the first, and you're already bitching about having too many games of the same genre?

    Jeez, you just can't please some people...


  • I just hope that Loki sees the light and includes binaries for all major Linux architectures on the CD. I wouldn't mind playing Tycoon on my Alpha...

  • This is great news. Myth is one of the most innovative and enjoyable games out today. It's a cross between Chess and Quake. Incredibly Bloody with great strategy. Who could ask for more? I still keep my Mac around so I can play...but it looks like now I'm going 100% Linux. Yipee!
  • Eric's Ultimate Solitaire. That's one of them. Yay! Another solitaire game for Linux! Now if we just could get a commercial Minesweeper clone... *snort snort snort*

    --
  • There's a lot of artists, copywriters and whatnots out there that wants to help the open source community. If you wanted to, I'm sure you could raise support for a game in the community. However, you'd probably have to do around 50% yourself before enough people began improving upon it, so thats why most such projects doesn't succeed.
  • ...if they'll provide binaries for those of us who already have the games on That Other Platform.

    I already own the data, all I need are nice new Linux binaries.

  • Even if more companies where porting their games to Linux themselves I don't think that it will cause Lokei to disappear. Like they said in an interview their is enough good games to port on Linux to allow many players in this game. And even if every great game was ported under Linux by the original developper they still could do their own games, which is harder and require more money I agree but they probably have now more experience to port game under Linux than any other big software company save Id and that can help.

    Even if I don't have a Linux box around me I want to thanks Loki to help us which are both Linux fans and gamers to have more great games on Linux (but srill not enough :().
  • I don't think we are likely to see a large scale move toward commercial games on any Unix including Linux. Here's why:
    • The platform with the most cutting-edge hardware is the most prominent gaming platform. Linux is nowhere near Windows on support for the most current graphics, sound and controller hardware. There is no comparison.
    • The growth areas in gaming are focused on people who bought their first computer recently and are not into reading manuals. I'm talking Deer Hunter and Myst territory. These are just the people who are never going to consider Linux.
    • The fractured nature of the Unix GUI scene does not help game designers who want as tightly defined a target platform as possible. A console is their dream, with Windows exhibiting way too much hardware diversity. Unix is worse--diverse software as well as hardware.
    • Linux's key strengths are wasted on games. No one wants to run new games on ancient hardware, or over networked X, or multiuser. Commercial games are not going to be GPL'd (at least not right away). And no one cares about uptime for gaming. But the windows strengths--consistent development platform, bleeding edge hardware support, market share, easy OS installs/upgrades--are exactly what game developers need.
  • Linux Only games are ok, but lets not be selfish. Linux is a great operating system and it rocks when we get good games (especially MythII!) for it, but the majority of players out there are on windows and mac. (I play all my games on my mac) Anyway, more platforms = more people to play with, always a good thing, especially for MythII, which I believe is the most fun, while still mentally challenging multiplayer game of all time.
    What linux needs is some games released at the SAME time as other platforms, and some games reading "System requirements:" with a Linux, right beside Windows 98 and Macintosh. Now wouldnt that be beautiful?
    oh, and btw, does anyone know if this port of MythII will include multiplayer over bungie.net?

    Rakshasa

  • woo yay (Score:1)

    by ill ( 35577 )
    Game support for linux is good, at least another part of the software developing world can be working on our side. Afterall, look at what happened with q3, everyone was hurrying to get redhat(gag) on their computers.
  • It worked pretty good for me. The sounds isn't perfect, if you really want that get OSS(which is on my list of to-get items).
  • Oh man, I couldn't agree more. Aside from the immortal Quake (NOT the festering pile that was Quake II, mind you), Myth II has to be the best multiplayer game around, at least for me. Quake, Myth II, and now q3test are really the only PC games I play with great frequency, so this could hardly be better for me. Now I'll have to think long and hard about wiping out my NT 4 drive and going to an all-Linux box.

    Oh wait, DAMN nVidia won't help by bestowing an OpenGL ICD on me for my Viper V550, so I guess I'm pretty much looked into keeping Windows around, at least for a while. Sigh.

    PS> Anyone know if I'm gonna be expected to shell out for this? I already bought my Win/Mac copy of MII back in January, I don't want to have to buy a second one :-(
  • I would love to see Starsiege: Tribes 2 for Linux. The original Tribes was made with the 3dfx-only Glide API, so porting that will be a pain in the butt, but Tribes 2 is going to be made using OpenGL for the 3D graphics stuff, and it's going to be released for the Windows and Mac platforms anyways.
  • Yes, Im not a gaming freak (I dont have time for gaming much...) but its right, if you can get many games for Linux, Linux WILL succeed against Microsoft. Yesteraday I downloaded the Quake3 Test for Linux, and I told some friends. Today they all wanted to install Linux ;) And the biggest problem is, that many people WILL change to Linux, but they also want to play some nice games, and at the moment the only really great game they can play is Quake2... Im sure I WILL buy Civilication:CTP just because its the first commercial game which is released for Linux in a box.
  • These people really kick a$$, wish everyone would do this kind of stuff.

    Hey, i know, how about port tribes =)

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