X2: The Threat

[ZylGadis]

Did anybody already order it from tuxgames? On the site it says they should have it on the 26th May, which is yesterday. Does anybody know if they do have it indeed? (I don't like preordering)

[Artificial Intelligence]

The release date have been moved a quiet alot. The first release date was 16 May and it have been move since then. But that's normal that game release date moves.

[Niamor]

Well, I preordered it and I am waiting patiently for the game :)

Should come out pretty soon I hope.

[graigsmith]

i wanted to order it, but it's on a dvd. and im not going to buy a dvd rom just for one game.

[Niamor]

Well I got it saturday, I played the whole night and a bit on sunday. This game is great, I like the economic aspect the most, fighting seems a bit harder but I was in a really large and big ship not the best for fighting and this happened only once :D

good game.

[ELD]

If i get more into linux which i am really starting to i may actually order this game as i've seen it for pc in stores and god dam it looks awesome!

Just imagine one of those big ships in the startship troopers film, with the 4 engines on the back...you can fly something that resembles that lol!

[dudeofthedead]

Ping!

I have the retail version of X2: The Threat for Windows. I tried to find the binaries for Linux but to no avail. Does it mean I have to buy the full game again here (http://www.tuxgames.com/details.cgi?&referrer=lgfaq&gameref=131) if I want to play it with my Linux box?

Also, the new graphical driver from Nvidia, 169.09 to be a little more precise, does wonders! Now I can finally enjoy a silent fan with my 8800GT !

[Brebs]

Does it mean I have to buy the full game again here (http://www.tuxgames.com/details.cgi?&referrer=lgfaq&gameref=131) if I want to play it with my Linux box?
Yes, unfortunately.

[happyhamster]

You can also try to run it through wine. It may take some trial and error, but there's a good chance it'll work. See:
http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=3213

and:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=497332

for more info.

[dudeofthedead]

Yes, I was afraid of that. Think I'll buy X3: Reunion for Linux instead, when it comes out of course (no date announced yet?). The new 3D models look incredibly detailed. Linux needs more native games like these to get off the ground, if you ask me.

[TheTank]

Being the one that gave feedback on the wine emulated running of X2, I can say it does work acceptable enough.

Best feature for X2 is being able to run it in the background. Note a multi-processor system would be best as the game will run full-tilt.

I agree with more native Linux games but I do not see why I should pay extra for the Linux version of the game. I checked the porting comps site and their asking price is way to high. Also when we see how some comps seem to be able to release games that support both OS'.

[duglambier]

Being the one that gave feedback on the wine emulated running of X2, I can say it does work acceptable enough.

Best feature for X2 is being able to run it in the background. Note a multi-processor system would be best as the game will run full-tilt.

I agree with more native Linux games but I do not see why I should pay extra for the Linux version of the game. I checked the porting comps site and their asking price is way to high. Also when we see how some comps seem to be able to release games that support both OS'.

******** !

I cannot imagine the PS3/Xbox 360/Game Cube players complaining that their games are far most expensive than the PC version.

Mac OS users pay also for their games. I don't people like those complaining they can have the windows version. It affects a lot the Linux community.

If you think like that please switch back to Windows and buy a lot of cheap windows stuff !

[TheTank]

Ah, the trolls start popping up.
And what a foul mouth do we have as well.

If you cannot imagine they do not complain you should inform yourself, because many do.
You know it might also have something to do with licensing issues and price fixing.

What affects the Linux community is that many gaming comps do not see the market for their games on Linux. Some comps offer Win and *nix versions out of the box, and that would suggest that the differences might not be that big.
Or that they are willing to go that extra mile to make people happy.

As they do not support Macs out of the box, might be an indicator that it is not some simple task.

So much to those two issues.

Ignoring the rest of your childish rant, you can stand on your head and bitch at people all you want, it won't change game comps' minds. Actually such bickery and flaming might just give them even more reasons not to.

From your post history and a little Google wizardry it seems you are nothing but a forum spammer that has gone around trying to get people to order ported games, noticeably Ankh2.

A different form of gurellia marketing?
Now that really does not help your position, does it?

Also please explain how can we further linux gaming when we buy games from comps that buys porting rights from a company to port games?
This way the company that makes the game still does not have to support linux and both comps earn money (bout 45€ on a game you can get off of ebay for 5€).

No game comp will have to support linux as the port comps will handle it for them.
The linux gamers remain the 2nd class gamers they are and best of all are offered old games at a higher price.

Yeah, that is really going to promote linux versions.

Should we not be trying to get the original comps to support linux out of the box?

No doubt that is probably way beyond your comprehension.

[ELD]

I got conned into buying from tuxgames once, never again, i paid $40 ish for quake4, it was on ebay and in shops for around $10.

I'm not gonna pay a stupid price for a game that already has a port,

[duglambier]

Ah, the trolls start popping up.
And what a foul mouth do we have as well.

If you cannot imagine they do not complain you should inform yourself, because many do.
You know it might also have something to do with licensing issues and price fixing.

What affects the Linux community is that many gaming comps do not see the market for their games on Linux. Some comps offer Win and *nix versions out of the box, and that would suggest that the differences might not be that big.
Or that they are willing to go that extra mile to make people happy.

As they do not support Macs out of the box, might be an indicator that it is not some simple task.

So much to those two issues.

Ignoring the rest of your childish rant, you can stand on your head and bitch at people all you want, it won't change game comps' minds. Actually such bickery and flaming might just give them even more reasons not to.

From your post history and a little Google wizardry it seems you are nothing but a forum spammer that has gone around trying to get people to order ported games, noticeably Ankh2.

A different form of gurellia marketing?
Now that really does not help your position, does it?

Also please explain how can we further linux gaming when we buy games from comps that buys porting rights from a company to port games?
This way the company that makes the game still does not have to support linux and both comps earn money (bout 45€ on a game you can get off of ebay for 5€).

No game comp will have to support linux as the port comps will handle it for them.
The linux gamers remain the 2nd class gamers they are and best of all are offered old games at a higher price.

Yeah, that is really going to promote linux versions.

Should we not be trying to get the original comps to support linux out of the box?

No doubt that is probably way beyond your comprehension.
If you complain about the price, so please stick with Windows.
Linux (as a whole) does not need people like you.

I am not a spammer. I was in fact involved trying to promote a game that was about to be released on Linux. I am also involved in my company to certificate our products to Enterprise Linux distros (like Redhat or SuSE). This is my modest contribution to Linux. What is yours ? Installing Wine and promoting Windows software ? Whaouh !

[ELD]

So you think paying triple+ is a good thing? <snip>

[duglambier]

So you think paying triple+ is a good thing? Moron.

No, it's not a good thing.

Unfortunately for true Linux users, if you want a good commercial games, you have to pay 30$ to 45$. On Mac, 20$ to 30$, on Windows, for the same games, 10$ to 20$

If you buy Windows stuff, it's no use running Linux. It's better to stick with Windows

The Rune-Soft games are not too old (1 year old) and not as expensive as the LGP games.

I can understand those complaining about the price policy from LGP (or RuneSoft) and not buying games at all (only download unfinished or small Free games), but I cannot understand those buying Windows games (or software) in order to run them on Linux through Wine. Windows is then a far better choice

[ivucica]

It is sad that Egosoft does not realize the greater market they would have by releasing a Linux version. Sad practice of most game companies that partner up with porting companies is probably:
1. Require retail price from porting company to be paid per single copy sold.
2. Decide whether or not to support the platform on basis of number of copies sold for that platform.

Of course, if the price is double the retail price for Windows, that most people will not buy it! I'd perhaps buy it if it were $5 more expensive, but when Egosoft offers Windows version for $19.95 and GNU/Linux version for $43, then something is horribly wrong in their policies.

Not to mention they do not see the obvious technical and marketing advantages in working with OpenGL. For example, on my laptop with Intel 915GM, running X2 under Windows with Direct3D produces bugged lighting. On cockpit and on planets there is no lighting except ambient lighting which means something along the lines of #222222 (pretty much dark grey).

Running under GNU/Linux, either the port of the demo, or under Wine, produces working lighting and much nicer graphics. But, I cannot load the Windows savegame under Wine in GNU/Linux -- it starts to allocate enormous heaps of memory. I crashed it at around 1.5GB of memory on my 512MB system (swap is ~1GB); took me 5 minutes just to crash it, not to mention how long it was "loading".

However since it can perfectly save and load a game I start under Wine, I'm wondering what's the problem. It all sounds like it's not Wine's bug at all...

I'm not cashing out for a GNU/Linux port if I have a Windows port, thank you very much. At least not the $43 they're asking. Perhaps I'd cash out for just the binaries if it were just the reduced price for the binaries ($23), perhaps not even then. $10 is a realistic price for just the binaries if I own the original game, don't you think?

And it's very much possible to run with Windows data. I successfully ran the GNU/Linux demo with Windows full version's data. It takes just the conversion of music and sound data into OGG instead of MP3/WMA, respectfully. FFMPEG rules.

:guitar:

Now, the only problem with running the demo with Windows data is that the binary does not seem to have the save() and load() functions implemented, so when the data files attempt to call them it either messes up the texts in the game or crashes. These functions are supposed to be built into the executable, "x2" or "x2.dynamic".

So if anyone from LGP reads this, please, consider selling just the binaries. Conversion of Windows data is not all that hard and can be scripted. It can probably be unpacked on-the-run from the installation DVD, too; I have not tried that on X2's installation files, but "unshield" does some wonders. Then just run FFMPEG and that's it.

What's the problem with that, LGP? How about expanding the markets by offering just the binaries for $10-$15?

P.S. And a side note, please work on that intro movie. It looks like a 11yr old ran into Corel Draw, painted those letters around Tux, took some GIF animation tool and applied a prebuilt effect. I know, because I'm still ashamed of a design I did for my elementary school's newspapers some ten years ago. It sucked badly. And sorry, but your logo is reminiscent of that. Please ... use at least Blender and render something decent. Your work is excellent and your logo simply diminishes its value. Don't do three "caligraphic" capital letters like that, it's ugly.

Otherwise, thank you for your work, LGP. Just consider if it's worth it to sell the product for $40+.

[TheTank]

If you complain about the price, so please stick with Windows.
Oh, please. Don't start crying.

Not to mention you do not even know me or anything about me.<snip>


Linux (as a whole) does not need people like you.

Geez, you get caught trolling forums and have the gull to pull a line like that?

Yeah, you are the perfect example of what Linux needs.


I am not a spammer. I was in fact involved trying to promote a game that was about to be released on Linux.
You do not even know the difference between directly supporting and porting.

You went through multiple forums creating an account just to promote the port.

That would just about qualify you for the job.

I am also involved in my company to certificate our products to Enterprise Linux distros (like Redhat or SuSE). This is my modest contribution to Linux. What is yours ? Installing Wine and promoting Windows software ? Whaouh !
<snip> Then again, might be the thing you think with.

Me? Oh I am only in charge of supporting the Linux distributions for our client/server software that is employed at top sites around the world. And not some run-of-the-mill shops but the really huge players. The ones that when they stop using Windows and switch to Linux, you read about them in the news.

But then again this is the internets. Here any jerk can claim to be whatever he wants and need not back it up.
Right?

Considering your trolling efforts, I'd say your credibility is lacking.


I can understand those complaining about the price policy from LGP (or RuneSoft) and not buying games at all (only download unfinished or small Free games), but I cannot understand those buying Windows games (or software) in order to run them on Linux through Wine. Windows is then a far better choice

Seriously, do you just have this narrow view of the world?

Just in case you missed the few trains that crept by:
X2 is a really old game. You can get the game (like I did) from a gaming mag (and that was 2 years ago).

Other games might be just as old (and older) or have no Linux support.
Also there are people that migrate from Windows to Linux but still want to play their old games.

Saying something stupid like 'Windows is then a far better choice' would be driving them back to the OS we do not want them to go back to.

And then you wonder why game devs hardly support Linux?
Hello, McFly?

Linux support will not grow from the ground and buying ported games will not help either.

Again buying ported games only really supports two people:
* the company making the port because they can ask near full price for a years old title
* the company that made the game and did not support Linux but is
still earning money from sales by the porting company.

Thus the comp will not change it's strategy and the porting comp will still ask crazy prices for the ports.
And the ports biggest customers are people that actually think buying these games somehow helps Linux.

What we need is for the gamers to migrate to Linux and create pressure on the game dev comps.
And one of the major barriers for many pc users is if their games are supported under Linux.

Alas, support the games and you have one barrier less.

So are these concepts really that hard to understand?
Though seeing what you think with, maybe it is.

[ELD]

I support companies that produce native versions like savage1&2, quake wars, quake 4 etc etc, none of which cost anything else as you just download the native installer.

[Redsunz]

I just downloaded the demo for linux and used terminal sudo ./filename.run
installed great however their were weird artifacts everywhere anyone know how to fix this.
I have a ATI 4870X2 video card. Awsome the game supports 1080P
Demo here http://demofiles.linuxgamepublishing.com/x2
Wow we made a serious mistake going down the Direct X path instead of Open GL
Even with years of Direct X domination open GL is better just play Chromium B.S.U. Direct X is no where near that smooth!!

[DasBrot]

I just downloaded the demo for linux and used terminal sudo ./filename.run
installed great however their were weird artifacts everywhere anyone know how to fix this.
I have a ATI 4870X2 video card.

Hi, everyone!

I may have a solution to this.

If the artifacts like a screen full of senseless colours, check the "Catalyst A.I." option under 3D->More Settings in the Catalyst Control Centre. For me, enabling this option and setting it to "Advanced" level causes my screen to look like a mad artist's colour pallet in X2 (the only 3D game I tested). Both "Standard" level and disabling A.I. altogether work fine, though.

Hope this helps people avoid the frustration I suffered, until i found the option!

Cheers

Das Brot