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ET: Quake Wars First Impressions

I stopped by my buddy’s place last night and put my ET: Quake Wars beta key to use on one of his Windows boxes. After downloading the client, I hopped in to a random ET:QW running about 8 on 8.

One word sums it up: Fast. It’s Quake3 / Quake4 fast. I’ve always thought and heard that Q3 was considered faster than UT2k4, and if that’s true, than Battlefield 2 is molasses.

There is only one map for the beta, and it feels a lot like the Assault mode on UT2k4 with timed objectives. I played human (GDF), and we were the attacking force. Once you met your objective, your spawn point became that forward way point, and the Strogg’s objective was to keep us from moving forward.

I played almost all of the classes, and in the 90 minutes I played, it was hard to form an opinion, but due to the speed of the game and the respawn, I was mostly assault, playing all 3 classes with the assault rifle, heavy machine gun and rocket launcher.

I tried Medic out briefly, and due to the speed and chaos, it was pretty easy to rack up some experience bringing back soldiers from the dead.

Speaking of dying and respawn, respawn is fast. Twenty seconds tops, on average about ten seconds before all the dead soldiers are re-deployed as a group at the most recent objective / spawnpoint.

I intuitively understood the layout and the icon structure, but feedback from my friends has been they’ve struggled with that so far. I don’t know if it’s the fact that I’ve been reading the fan sites off and on over the past few months and had a clue what to expect, but I was able to navigate the map and the objectives fairly easily.

You get experience based on kills, but more based on choosing an objective out of a few available, and then completing it. I was promoted to Soldier during one run where I had the rocket launcher, and my upgrade was that the lock-on for the rocket launcher went from about 7 seconds to 2. So there is definitely an advantage in going after the objectives than just randomly kililng people.

It remains to be seen if the maps at release are bigger, which reduces the speed and chaos, as it will give you and your fireteam (squad) a chance to get organized and go in together. The game also needs voicechat, you can’t keep up with the text on the screen with the speed of the game.

I’m going to need to play this a few more times – with UT2k7 on the horizon, I’m not sold on ET:QW as much as I was, just based on how fast the game was moving. I want my squad to move together as a team, not just keep rushing like lemmings against the objective.

Truth is, I’ll buy it to support gaming on Linux, but my first impression was cautious optimism. I may play a rounds of ET: Wolfenstein this weekend just to compare how fast the gameplay was in the orignial.

In related news, Michael Larabel of Phoronix notes that ET:QW has been delayed again, this time until Sept. 3rd.

Quake Wars Update

I’m standing in Chicago last night (just after eating at a Chicago-style hot dog place, one of my favorite things to eat, but I digress) waiting for the train to take me to the airport when I get a call from a good friend informing me that Quake Wars beta keys were available.

Linux Games has an update from Timothee Besset at iD regarding the Linux client and lack of beta:

I don’t want to commit to any schedule for the ETQW Linux client at this point. Most of my time is spent working on the game itself, on the Linux dedicated server and on the network infrastructure.

Once those things wind down (in the upcoming weeks) I will start working specifically on the client. But fear not, ATI and NVidia have expressed interest in getting a Linux client early, so they can review how it performs and get their drivers adjusted. When we release, we’ll release a high quality product, just like we do on Windows.

In any case, don’t expect to find Linux binaries on the retail DVD. It’s hard enough for everyone to get gold masters done, there are enough things to check and worry about, I will not place additional strain on the procedure by trying to squeeze my additional set of files on there.

I have my key, looks like I’ll have play the beta at a buddies house for now. September can’t come fast enough for when I can play at home.

Gaming on (Foresight) Linux

Linux seems to always get a knock when it comes to gaming. I know personally I believed the FUD, before making the switch to Linux full time 2 years ago and learning otherwise. What Linux doesn’t have in quantity as a gaming platform, it does make up in quality.

A lot of the open source and freeware get the publicity, but id software and Epic, among other developers, makers of Quake and Unreal Tournament respectively, continue to put out native Linux binaries of their software.

With the upcoming Enemy Territory: Quake Wars release, I installed Quake IV, Doom 3 and the original Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory on my desktop today. Since I did a clean install of Foresight a couple months ago, I wanted to make sure I work out any kinks before ET:QW’s release.

Everything worked like a champ – I downloaded the Linux installation files from id software’s bittorrent server, installed those in /home/silwenae/games (I’m lazy, didn’t feel like chmod’ing /usr/games), copied the pak files over, and ran Doom 3 and Quake IV. Mapped my keys, cranked the video settings, and I was online in minutes fragging away.

The only small glitch I ran into with Quake IV, and this hasn’t happened in my two or three previous installs, was that it started in Spanish. A quick Google search turned up the fix: Go into your home folder, and in the .quake4 directory (which is hidden, hit ctrl-h in Nautilus to view hidden files and directories), and then the q4base directory, and edit the Quake4Config.cfg file with your favorite text editor, and change the value of sys-lang to english, and you’re all set.

Everything worked great out of the box, I didn’t have the funky Alsa / OSS sound issue I had in the past with Ubuntu, even that worked flawlessly.

Who said you couldn’t game on Linux? Come get some!

Quake Wars gets a release date

Michael Larabel, of Phoronix fame, has a blog post noting that Gamestop has started pre-orders for Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, and Best Buy will begin pre-orders on April 12th, with the game being released on June 5th, the first time I’ve seen a release date assigned.

As I’ve noted previously, this is the first time in a long time I’ve been this excited over a game release. Since I gave up Windows 2 years ago after being a hardcore gamer for many years, I’ve cut way back on my gaming, and have pretty much turned into a console gamer. I still play Battlefield 2 about twice a month at a buddy’s house who has an extra PC set up for me, which is quite fun when playing with friends in a squad. I’m hoping ET:QW takes the squad based, objective elements to a new level for a first person shooter. That, and it’s the Doom3 engine, so it will be gorgeous. Once UT2k7 comes out later this year, I should have plenty to keep me busy gaming on the Linux platform.

I did have UT2k4, Doom3 and Quake IV installed on my Linux PC, which reminds me I need to get it installed on my new Foresight installation, and throw up a wiki page for installing 3D games on Foresight.

Games Delayed

Two of the more high profile games to be released this year, with already announced Linux versions, have been delayed. Both stories courtesy of Blue’s News.

Activision’s latest quarterly statement highlights ET: Quake Wars has been delayed to their fiscal 2008 year, which runs from April 2007 to March 2008.

Unreal Tournament 2007 has undergone a name change to Unreal Tournament 3, with part of the name change reflecting the title’s delay until later in 2007, when it was originally scheduled for 2006.

I’ve built my new machine with a fancy Core Duo, and can’t wait to play both with native Linux binaries this year. Let’s hope for no more delays!

ET: Quake Wars to have Linux Client

From the preview over at Planetquake4:

Other features include in game voice chat, absolute Linux support (though may not be 100% done at the time of shipping), Punkbuster for anti-cheating, and stopwatch mode for tournament play.

Sweet! Enemy Territory: Quake Wars will run on the Doom3 engine, and is being developed by Splash Damage, who did the original Enemy Territory. Quake Wars pits Strogg vs. Humans as the Strogg invades Earth, and will the two sides will have entirely different classes and vehicles.

I’ve been talking this game up for a while, and I’m very excited they officially announced Linux support.

Via linuxgames.com

Classic Doom Mod

Flaming Sheep Software has released the Classic Doom mod for Doom3. Bringing back the look, feel and maps of the original Doom now running on the Doom3 engine.

Quake IV on Linux has been a breeze to run, I’m going to have to install my Doom3 copy that’s around here somewhere and try this mod out.

Second Life Linux Port Update

Back in July, I blogged about Icculus starting a port of Second Life.

About a month ago, I signed up for a Second Life account as it was: a) free and b) you need an account to get on the Second Life forums. I was looking for an answer or update on the Linux port. I didn’t find anything, but I headed back today, and found this post by Andrew Linden on the Linden staff:

_Quote:

Originally Posted by Adam Zaius

I think LL’s contractor has gone walkabout. We saw some initial screenshots, then nothing._

Actually, he [ed: Icculus] did go missing. As far as I know the project was started on his own initiative. He wanted to work on it in his copius spare time and LL’s stance was, “If you can do it, great!”. He made some rapid progress, then got sidetracked and never got back to it. I prodded him twice but he didn’t reply.

Which is very unfortunate. I don’t even have access to SL at home anymore since our Windows computer finally succumbed to a virus. I transferred all of the important data over to a Knoppix/debian machine and haven’t had time to rebuild a fresh Windows installation.

I would love to work on a GNU/Linux port of SL but I already have a full plate of stuff to do that I can’t get done fast enough. 🙁

Very interesting. Nice to have an update, and I’m intrigued that Icculus started the port on his own. I’m curious if he had the source from Linden Labs, or used the Mac client to port it to Linux. I’m disappointed that it never got finished, but I more than understand getting sidetracked when you were working on it for free.

Icculus.org is down (just today) switching ISPs, and I think Icculus has a FAQ up about contacting him – and this is one of those topics that are probably taboo. Bummer.