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Games Entertainment

Heroes III Coming to Linux 71

Posted by justin++ from the sounds-like-an-rpg dept.
LinuxPR is reporting that Loki is working with 3DO to develop a version of Heroes of Might and Magic: III. The game should be available in December. What does this bring the tally up to now?
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Heroes III Coming to Linux More

Heroes III Coming to Linux

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  • Now ppl, we don't want games! Think about the productivity, PRODUCTIVITY!! ;)
  • I think Loki's doing a great job at bringing all these games to game-deprived Linux-ites.

    When will other companies see that there're opportunities with potentially tens of thousands of people running linux who is severely deprived of games to amuse their minds (and fingers) once in awhile (i.e. me)

    Way to go Loki, keep up the good work!
  • I've run Starcraft w/ Brood war under WINE, as have many others. Pretty easy to do, no noticeable speed hit (it *is* a strategy game), and it's pretty stable.

    Just my $(.14142135624)^2
  • Actually, I like both long term strategy games [like Stars!, Civilisation etc] and action games. I still even occasionally play text based adventure games.

    I've no complaints about ID - Doom and Quake have long been available for Unix/Linux, and they have long been in this market - I just wish other games producers were equally supportive. By the time most games get round to being ported for Linux a lot of the "ooh!" factor has gone.

    As I said in my earlier post, I am becoming more hopeful and I genuinely get the feeling the Linux snowball is getting bigger and more unstoppable with every day. I just long for games developers to take more note of the fact.

  • Can't speak for anyone else (obviously), but I've been waiting for Linux games to hit the shelves. On my bookshelf at home, in addition to a couple distro boxes, I have: Q1/Offering, Q2/Colossus, Civ:CTP, Myth2, RT2, Hopkins:FBI, Kingpin. Oh yeah, and my Voodoo3 box =)

    Q1 & Q2 are the recent Macmillan Linux bundles, Kingpin is the Windows version (I downloaded the client). The others are all Linux titles!

    (I should add that I have pre-ordered EUS as well, and fully expect to purchase additional copies of some titles when we get my wife her computer. It's only right...)

  • Then, there's the fact that Linux remains rather rudimentary. At least compared to a highly polished GUI like Mac OS 9.0

    Strange, I find MacOS to be annoying and generally a drain on my productivity. I really like WindowMaker and the command line.

    Even the graphical assistants in Gnome are confusing, I clicked on /dev the other day and nothing even remotely resembling a drive appeared (dev1a?)

    As an aside, would you expect /dev/hda1 to be represented as a HD Icon in gnome's gmc? I wouldn't as this seems more confusing. /dev/hda1 is a block device, not a drive. If for instance most distro's have /dev/hda[1-9] wouldn't a newbie find it more confusing to look in the /dev directory and panic that linux has detected phantom harddrives, rather than unused block devices.

  • Damn! i knew when segfault closed its comment board, we would have the idiots flock here. Wonderr if this is the jerk who flooded the segfault boards and got them closed down. Anyways. moving on to more important stuff.

  • lokisoft [lokisoft.com] just leads to a teaser page, with a broken link on it (connection refused), but www.lokigames.com [lokigames.com] seems to be working now.

  • And of course there's
    Eric's Ultimate Solitare [lokigames.com] which is (according to reviews) pretty good, the kind of thing to get your Mum using Linux.

    EUS [lokigames.com] rocks! It's also great for getting wives to play (although I'm lucky(?), mine also likes Civ:CTP [lokigames.com]). I was not expecting EUS to be all that great, but I got very addicted during the beta =)

    Meanwhile I want, make that
    need, a copy of RRTII - the number of hours I lost to Transport Tycoon when I should have been writing up my degree project is quite disgusting - but fun :-)

    RT2 [lokigames.com] also rocks. I lost way too much bloody time to that last night. I'm afraid it's going to be a pattern. "Yeah, boss, I stumbled into work late and bleary-eyed because I was play... uh, my wife was sick last night... yeah, that's the ticket!" Geez. Three hours of sleep. I can't do that any more...

  • wow (Score:1)

    by snorks ( 103191 )
    These games look great. I want em!
  • Amazing. I had this dream a few weeks ago.
    Seriously tho, this game is amazing as far as pure wasting of time goes.
    I can count about 5-6 weeks in High School where I flipped a coin
    "Heroes, or class, Heroes or class.....Damn..class, have to flip again."
  • Go here. [linuxpr.com]
    ---
    pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
  • This is great news (ok, maybe it's not so great considering all the time I will end up wasting).

    Heroes III is one of my current favorites. I considered trying it out in vmware, but this is a way better option. One less game to boot back to windoze for.

    I just hope it supports full multiplayer, and I'd like to know if the expansion pack is going to be ported as well. And finally, for the person who wanted to know if anyone is buying these... yep. At least one of us is.

    -- Gary F.
  • I'm not really sure what you mean, but I could run CivCTP in both fullscreen and windowed mode.


    --

  • Cool! (Score:1)

    by pb ( 1020 )
    I'll have to get a 3D card on my next computer... :|

    On second thought, I'll have to get cool games for my next computer! :)

    Now if only we could get Origin to port Ultima IX to Linux... Now *that* would be worthy.

    Until then, hello MAME, Snes9x, Wine, VMWare and DOSEmu...
    ---
    pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
  • The correct link is here [linuxpr.com].

    Also here is a link to Heroes of Might and Magic III web page [3do.com].



    ---------

  • This means I can convert another few of my friends to the Lite Side [freebsd.org]. Provided Loki this time doesn't screw up Linux Mode as they did with Myth2 (parsing procfs).

    This was the only game they were hanging on to. :)
  • Full screen and that's it. alt+tab if I need to escape the game.

    But isn't that possible? I have Civ CTP and play it full screen. If I want to change to the top part of my virtual desktop I press F1 (and F2 to get back to the game). (The window manager I use is tvtwm).
  • The staffers at Loki are, I'm guessing, making at least a subsistence living by porting all these neat games to Linux.

    But, is anyone buying them?

    More interesting, and maybe even more important: I'm assuming (please correct if I'm wrong) that the original developers of HMM3, CivCTP, and the other games ported by Loki, simply threw money at Loki and said, "make it run on Linux." Are the original developers recouping their investments in Linux sales?

  • I remember blowing lots of time playing HoMM II; when it becomes available for Linux, I'll be unable to accomplish anything. (Then again, considering how much time I waste at /., nobody will notice.)
    -----------
  • Um, Heroes III doesn't need 3D. However, it is a really cool game, but I've kind of played it do death under Windows. Unless Loki add something new, I probably won't buy it, but I would recommend others to.
    --
  • If the iso demo that's out for u9 is any indicator of the final performance, it's going to be complete crap. 15fps on pII 690 with a tnt2 ultra and similar but only slightly better fps using a voodoo based card with glide. I think they should get it to perform well under windows first :). Nice looking game though.

    As for heroes III; Nice little game that warrants a couple of days of compulsive playing. I got incredibly bored after building every upgrade for every town type though.
    ----------
  • This is great and everything, but I would kind of prefer that NEW games be ported. I've already become completely sick of HMM3. How about some Everquest? Maybe Total Annihilation (not exactly new, but worthwhile). That being said, I can imagine how difficult it must be for Loki to convince game companies that this is a good idea. I wonder if the Cavedog staff reads /..
  • er. U9 is gold now. It should be in stores by November 24. I've also played the cd demo and it's an ok game. The controls are sort of action oriented, but they've eliminated many of the stupidities put into ultima 8 (such as jumping problems). Fighting is all sword swinging action (or bow and arrow) and easy to cast spells though. Go here [ultima-ascension.com] for the official site.

    I'm off topic, oh well. Actually, I think it would be nice if half life was finally properly ported to linux as well as the counter-strike mod. Either that or team fortress 2. I can just imagine the lost hours now.
    ----------
  • This is a bit off-topic, but:

    Through mismanagement Origin *lost* the source code for Ultima 7. Then again, Origin's philosophy for the Ultimas is to throw the old engine away and start over from scratch.

    That lost source code makes a nice argument for open source doesn't it? :)

  • > My benchmark for the day when Linux is regarded
    > as having won the OS war against Microsoft is
    > when a majority of major games are produced for
    > Linux first.

    I think the trick will be either...

    a) winelib getting good enough that they will *develop* games on Linux and then compile for windows too

    b) clanlib/ptc/ggi/etc. being good enough and portable enough for everyone to start writing to cross-platform gaming libraries in the first place.

    To me, it would seem that it would be to the advantage of game developers to *write* to these APIs in the first place. I mean really, most game companies have their own routines for everything, and they all duplicate routines other companies make. Why not put it all in one lib and work on making better games instead of rebuilding the infrastructure for each new title?

    Instead of going through the hell of debugging and fixing things over and over again, donate the game-independent code to one of the cross-platform libraries.

    Of course, that would require game companies to make new and interesting games to compete, instead of "we have the best whiz-bang graphics even though our game is boring!" :)

    -- Just my 2 cents.
  • Wow... another game announcement from Loki. This is quite amazing. I can definately recall the amount of time that I've spent playing Heroes II... quite awhile.

    Has Loki started porting games of different genres yet? So far it seems like the only ones that they've done are of a strategic bent (Don't get me wrong, strategy games are quite nice), but it seems to me that they are missing out on some of the other genres... Actually, the only other genre besides strategy that I can remember playing is id Software's first person shooters.

    Alas, lately I've been too busy coding to play many games though. Well, that and writing all these damn midterms. Oh the horrors of Classical Algebra! Damn you congruences!!!
  • > but the glaring lack of support for 3dfx cards
    > in the version of xfree that shipped with
    > my Red Hat 6.0 is a bit disconcerting....

    3dfx has drivers at their web site:
    Voodoo3/Banshee drivers [3dfxgamers.com]
  • This is great and everything, but I would kind of prefer that NEW games be ported. I've already become completely sick of HMM3. How about some Everquest?

    I've had a chat with the folks at Verant (the people who produce Everquest) about a Linux port, and they said no way. There's just too much in there dependant on DirectX for them to be willing to port it. But they also said that they were in contact with some of the WINE folks about making it compatible with EQ, so you never know.

    And as long as we're all giving wishlists, I'd like to see Linux versions of Alpha Centauri, Half Life, and Tribes. Especially Tribes.

  • Which window manager do you use?
    -----
    The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
  • But how can you resist picking a fight with a mail-demon? ;)

    //rdj
  • Dungeon Keeper (1|2) - I can't play them enough. "Evil is Good". I think DK2 might be my favorite game ever.

    Simcity (1|2|3000) - I just love those Maxis games. I heard at one point that SC3K was supposed to be ported to BeOS but I've yet to actually see it.

    Diablo - It's just a simple click-n-shoot but so danged addictive! I'd really love to see Diablo II come out on Linux when it's released, but I'm not going to hold my breath for it.

    What I *am* holding by breath for is Neverwinter Nights [neverwinternights.com]. Pardon me while I wipe the drool off my chin from thinking about this game. I just hope they can pull it off.

    Anyone know if there is a site anywhere that has some sort of "Nominate and vote for your favorite game that you'd like to see ported to Linux" type poll? I'd be willing to set something like this up if there isn't one someplace already.

    It would also be really nice if some of these game companies would follow ID's lead and a couple/few years after the games are released (like about the time you start seeing the boxes in the "Bargain bin" at your local software store for $4.99) they would release the source code under some kind of relatively non-restrictive license. (doesn't have to be GPL, but it should be enough that someone else could take the code and work on ports to other platforms and redistribute at least as patches.) I still play the original Dungeon Keeper occasionally; I'd love to be able to play it on Linux.

    -=-=-=-=-

  • The game is also be ported to Mac OS by Evolution Interactive. Their press release and specs [evolutioninteractive.com] claim that the game should be shipping in November, but the page is also a bit dated.

    Some company is now taking pre-orders for the game, but states it won't be shipping 'til mid-December (sorry, no link).

    To digress offtopic a bit, the Games 4 Mac Campaign [games4mac.com] has some decent advocacy info for Mac gamers frustrated by the lack/lagtime of top titles for that platform.

  • Heroes III is exactly the sort of game I'd like to see for Linux. I'm kind of a strategy game freak. HOWEVER... I already own the Windows version, so I probably won't buy the Linux port.

    I might have waited if I had known that there was going to be a Linux port. I do, after all, have a stack of games that I haven't quite gotten around to for lack of time, and so Heroes III could have waited for a while.

    I guess my wish is that the Linux ports, or at least announcements thereof, would come more quickly after (or even before (grin)) the Windows version.

  • I would love it if they would port it but I doubt they will. It is simply a wondefull game and the ONLY reason I ever switch to windows at home. But this is good because it remindes me how bad windows really is. The game is written by a MS controled comapny (not sure how but the MS name is plastered wherever there is space) and runs on thier OS, yet although I do not have to always I have gotten into the habit of rebooting between or after games. It is so challenging and addictive though I can not give it up.
  • Just curious.. what is the estimated number of commercially-produced games that have been ported to Linux? I'm talking about games like Tomb Raider, Falcon, Quake, etc.. it'd be nice to know what the trend is.

    -----
    Linux user: if (nt == unstable) { switchTo.linux() }
  • Yeah, I want Diablo 2 for Linux.

    Are you listening Loki?

  • I'm going to buy it as soon as I can find it. The last time I bought a game was a couple of years. And the only games that I've played recently are angband and nethack. But I've played HMM3 with my girlfriend and I loved it!
    And I'm going to buy this game. And hopefully we'll see more games for linux..

  • Re:boring...we need better games (Score:3)

    by maroberts ( 15852 ) on Thursday November 04, 1999 @01:14AM (#1565121) Homepage Journal
    My benchmark for the day when Linux is regarded as having won the OS war against Microsoft is when a majority of major games are produced for Linux first.

    As well as better games, we need up to date games. Unfortunately in the majority of cases we're still getting 'hand me downs' from Windows. i.e. games which Windows first ran 2-3 years ago.

    On the bright side, the situation does seem to be improving rapidly; a few years ago most games producers [ID perhaps excepted] wouldn't even have considered producing a Linux/Unix version.

    Linux really needs a 'killer app' game - something which is new, different and everyone wants to play.
  • Has Loki started porting games of different genres yet? So far it seems like the only ones that they've done are of a strategic bent (Don't get me wrong, strategy games are quite nice), but it seems to me that they are missing out on some of the other genres...

    I personally wouldn't call Heretic II [lokigames.com] a strategy game, and I doubt anyone would call Soldier of Fortune [linuxgames.com] a strategy game - apparently it is a Quake II-engine first person shoot-em-up with more and/or better gore than any other game ever. Or something like that. And of course there's Eric's Ultimate Solitare [lokigames.com] which is (according to reviews) pretty good, the kind of thing to get your Mum using Linux.

    Meanwhile I want, make that need, a copy of RRTII - the number of hours I lost to Transport Tycoon when I should have been writing up my degree project is quite disgusting - but fun :-)

  • errrr I find it odd that I can play Civ:CTP full screen on my 8th desktop at the office and hit ESC to pause it and alt 1/2/3/4 or whatnot to go to my other desktops and actually work. You can't do that?
    "We hope you find fun and laughter in the new millenium" - Top half of fastfood gamepiece
  • Who cares if an out of date game comes out?
    Myth is only of note due to the high number of
    mods. 'Call to power' just plain wasn't very good, at least Heroes just had an add-on released.

    BUT in inquiring minds want to know 2 things:

    Is any money being made from Linux games? period.

    Who will be the first concurrent release? Quake3?

    If no one makes any money off them, there is no
    reason to continue to lose development dollars
    on the "open software" crowd. One more reason
    most gamers like myself (who like Linux as the
    toy it is) hope it never takes over. I don't
    want to be forced to the console.

    da'fly

  • > But, is anyone buying them?

    They seem to disappear off the shelves of the stores around here that carry it.

    > I'm assuming ... that the original developers ... simply threw money at Loki and said, "make it run on Linux."

    My counterassumption is that Loki approached them for permission, and pays them a license fee per copy. Zero investment risk for the original developers; Loki goes bang or bust depending on how avidly the Linux market absorbs games.

    But that is just an assumption. Does anyone know for sure?

    --
    It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?
  • The original AOE was developed by Ensemble Studios, who were then bought by Microsoft. They still develop the game, but Microsoft handles the distribution/advertising/etc.

    This is one of the few instances I have bought Microsoft products, it is worth it, IMHO.

  • I think the first concurrent release was Hopkins: FBI [hopkinsfbi.com], but I'm not sure if that was truly concurrent. Granted, not in the same box (Windows version is separate from Linux version).

    If "in the same box" is the standard, then I believe Q3 will be the first.

    I received my copy of RT2 within a month of seeing the Windows version on shelves. Not precisely concurrent, but closer than, say, Heretic II.

  • LinuxGames [linuxgames.com] has a current tally of released and announced stuff. Their tally is 22 =)

    I count 6 released (Q1, Q2, Hopkins:FBI, Civ:CTP, Myth2, RT2:GE) in boxes on my bookshelf (and, well, installed and played =) ), plus 2 unsupported (Kingpin, Ultima Online), plus 2 public betas (Q3, U:TE), plus 3 older unsupported/unofficial ports from source releases (Doom, Heretic, Descent 1). So that's 13 presently available, of which 2 are betas.

    I'm not sure where to stick Abuse in that list, but I suppose that makes 14.

  • Window Maker at work and E at home
    "We hope you find fun and laughter in the new millenium" - Top half of fastfood gamepiece
  • a little higher than that.. don't forget the likes of nethack, and angband and its many variants.
    Angband and ZAngband are still the games I play most..check out http://thangorodrim.angband.org

    //rdj
  • This is far from a graipe. I think Lokisoft kicks much ass but since everyone has been posting what they find to be the reasons they occasionally boot to windows, I'll list mine:

    C&C: Tiberian Sun - nuff said
    Alpha Centauri/Alien Crossfire - Okay I admit I'm a Sid Meier whore.
    Starcraft/Brood war - Yep..i STILL play these on occasion.

    You notice my theme is all stategy games. I find these to have the highest replay value of any games out there. I love a good FPS but they get redundant after a while, eve playing online. I think the big key is going to be Q3 getting released on Linux/Mac/Win32 at about the same time. Depending on how that goes, many companies are going to take note of iD's success and possibly pass off the linux coding to Loki to work in parallel with thier own win32 projects.

    My only other concern is for the *BSD users. how well does the freeBSD linux emulator handle Civ:CTP? I hate to leave the other brethren of opensource out in the cold.
    "We hope you find fun and laughter in the new millenium" - Top half of fastfood gamepiece
  • I won't claim it 'bout all the other games, but HOMMIII runs almost _perfectly_ under WINE. In fact, I think that the only real use for WINE is playing DX games ;-) At least for now.

    PS: "Almost" here means "crashing X after exit in about 0.5 sec."... Just hit Ctrl-Alt-Backspace as fast as you can :-(
    Probably XServer bug - screen goes way left and "that's all, folks"....
  • Actually, if you check nvidia's homepage [nvidia.com] you will find an X-server for their card - atleast I found Riva TNT there.
    =-kiOwA
  • Well you can't really expect things like that to change over night. Remember that Linux is still not an optimum gaming enviroment. Expecially for all of those whiz-bang graphix fest games that most people seem to enjoy these days.

    I'll always be a fan of the less commercialized games. These are the ones where you find devoted fans playing them for decades. Things like Stars! and VGAplanets. I'd rather see those games ported.

    There is the problem, everybody wants something different, and there is only a limited number of people who are capabile of porting software, or creating software. You want a certain type of up to date game. Another person wants strategy games. Another wants old fashioned turn based PBEM games. You can't satisfy them all.

    Loki seems to be doing an excellent job of mixing their genres around as much as possible so as to at leastget one game out there for each fetish.

    But don't lose patience. Id has taken the bold move and is going to be doing exactly what you are requesting. When the rest of the industry sees their success they will be sure to follow lead.
  • Being a lover of strategy games, I find myself booting Windows often just to play Heroes III, or Age of Empires II. This is great news. I will definitely buy a copy.

    Now, if they would only port AOE2. The question is, would Microsoft allow that to happen? (They own/distribute AOE)
  • It always sort of irked me that most Windows games required full screen. Sure, most of my attention is going to be focused on the game, but still... I'd like to be able to respond to kicq messages, maybe do a quick glance at ./ while the game is loading something, etc.

    I picked up Myth: Soulblighter last week. I was very impressed with being able to run a for-real multimedia gmae under Linux. Still a few issues, though... sound doesn;t work under KDE... so I have to switch to gnome in order to play... but still, it rocks.

    I'm psyched by this announcement. Heros of Might & Magic II was the only game in recently memory I actually played for any period of time... others, including, so far, Myth :( don't hold my interest for some reason. In general, I'm a bigger fan of strategy than FPS, so most of Loki's output are things I'd at least look at.

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