According to AoE III homepage, the big daddy of Realtime Strategy Games is coming. Age of Empires III. It will have full 3D graphics realistic water effects, shadows, and terrains. The screenshots at this site are really amazing. Whoever watched this site, vowed to buy the game as soon as it is launched. Unfortunately, the site does not mention the release date (it says, latter half of 2005).
AoE-III is looks very different compared to its ancestors. We don't have to manage iron and bronze civilizations. It tells the story of European and American people of 1500-1800 AD. AoE III introduces the concept of the Home City, the city which grows with your progress and supports you by sending ammunition and military reinforcements. This somewhat goes inline with Caesar III, where you can borrow money and food from Rome. And, it seems the combat animation and AI are drastically improved. The building destructions and infantry deaths are rendered on the fly to generate unique animation each time. I hate to play salesman for M$. But, I can't help it after seeing the site. I can't wait to play it.
I am just wondering why such games are not being developed by the open source community. I am aware of only Quake and its siblings (FPS games) available in Linux. Are there other games being developed for linux ? If not, why ? Hackers and nerds are supposed to the best gamers, aren't they ? Then, why this dearth of linux games ?
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2 comments:
If you look at the resources necessary to produce one of these "games" these days, you'll see why it's not very easy for a bunch of hackers to write them without commercial backing.
Take a look at the PS2 Shinobi. They have a motion capture studio, hordes of professional artists and lots of other things that are hard to organise in the "Free software style".
As for actual games on Gnu/Linux, check out lokigames.com. They port games like UT, Heroes etc. to Gnu/Linux. Plus, there are some nice open source games too. Freeciv etc.
It is however possible to create smaller games that are not as technologically sophisticated as FPSs. Check out uplink by introversion.co.uk for an example.
I am not a great fan of M$, much less of AoE. But if Dinu is saying this... well, I will have to give it a shot :)
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