Soldat 1.4 Released

FliesLikeABrick writes "Soldat 1.4 has finally been released. After 19 months since the announcement, this version adds multi-byte language support, many new features available to registered players, a ton of bugfixes, and a new lobby server and protocol. It took a lot of time and effort, but the largest update to Soldat has finally been posted and made available. While there are surely going to be some new bugs introduced, the new version is available for free at the game's site. From the site: 'Ladies and Gentlemen, I know you have all been (im)patiently waiting for Soldat 1.4. Thanks to all that contributed to this version. This version was a collaborative effort and it wouldn`t happen without you. ... So without further delay, it is with your encouragement, criticism and support from you all that I can happily release Soldat 1.4 to you all to enjoy. Please use the torrent link provided to help distribute Soldat 1.4 for others and ease server load, and seed for as long as you can.'"

Zonked

[TiCL]

A little one liner about what Soldat is would have been helpful.

Re:

[bssteph]

And risk actually being informative to people who didn't likely already know because they care about the game?

This isn't convenientinformationinausefulmannerdot...

Re:Zonked

[Anonymous Coward]

Soldat is like multiplayer Quake but it's a 2D platform game. You run around the level, bounce from platform to platform, use jetpacks, and shoot other online players.

Re:

[Meadowhog]

It's a 2D FPS which I'm terrible at and quit in frustration a while ago. It's a neat idea though, it's like if someone crossed Counter-strike with Worms. It's pretty fast paced with low gravity but with realistic-style weapons.

(I just realized that 2D FPS is kind of an oxymoron, but just go with it)
--
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Re:

[KDR_11k]

It's more like someone crossed Counterstrike with Abuse [rocket-surgery.net]. Heh, I remember playing Abuse over LAN in the school CS lab way back when. I don't think those computers would even have run Doom.

Re:Zonked

[Bibz]

Here is the main page: http://www.soldat.pl/main.php [soldat.pl]

Basically it's a 2D side scroller multiplayer shooter with lots of weapon.
Never played it, but it seems like a lot of fun :)

Re:

[kestasjk]

A 2D online multiplayer shoot-em-up. Only game I play since I'm on a laptop without good 3D; I've been waiting for this for ages. :-)

Great Game

[lessthanjakejohn]

In high school we'd all play this game on fridays after quizzes in the computer lab

Mac, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Has anyone been able to get this working on a Mac? I'm not about to install Windows on here just to run Soldat.

Re:Mac, anyone?

[Lord Kano]

You see, we Mac users have these acquaintances we call our "friends," with whom we can "go out" and "socialize," maybe having a drink or three, or shooting speedballs, or even stealing a casual fuck in the bathroom of Union Pool.

PC Gamers get laid too you know. The main difference is that for us, it's usually with women.

LK

Re:Mac, anyone?

[Broken scope]

He could have been implying you fuck your computers. I mean how often do I hear them described as "sexy".

Re:

[moranar]

Cue the references to the "lickable" interface. Excuse me, I'll just go gouge my eyes for a bit, be right back.

Re:

[Dobeln]

"What kind of inbred, ass-scratching red-state yahoo do..."

A man?

Re:Mac, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

You tell him honey! ^_^ When I came out of the closet the Mac community was so understanding.

I loved the unity of being in a group of men who not only love pretty windows, but also love getting poked by other men.

See ya at the Genius Bar, maybe we can share a Genius!

Re:

[Lord Kano]

Implying Mac users are gay...

Me thinks thou doth protest too much. Actually, I was implying that Mac users masturbate a lot. You get all excited about the smooth edges and pearly white colors on your machines and then you can't help yourselves. The fact that you read that as an accusation of homosexuality says much more about you than it does about me.

LK

Re:

[PFI_Optix]

Or he could be implying that there's no such thing as a Mac gamer.

http://www.roosterteeth.com/archive/episode.php?id =118 [roosterteeth.com]

Re:

[644bd346996]

Note: The above movie is only funny when you realize that Halo was originally intended as a Mac game, and that the guy in the movie makes a living playing Halo. Without that irony, it's just a nerd abusing Tchaikovsky.

Re:

[PFI_Optix]

It's also funny for anyone who remembers the days when there truly weren't any games for the Mac.

Okay, there were a few...but the fact is, until OSX few developers wanted to mess with it.

Re:

[644bd346996]

I'm a Myst fan, so I am inclined to say that there have been great Mac games since the DOS days.

Re:

[Lord Kano]

I'm a Myst fan, so I am inclined to say that there have been great Mac games since the DOS days.

Windows 3.1 was around when Myst launched. There were Mac games around long before that though. If we ignore Jobs' boneheaded position that encouraging game development for the Mac would cause people to think of them more as toys than as legitimate business tools, even back in the late 80's there were still Mac games. I bought Sim City, Falcon 2.0 and Carrier Command for the Mac back in 1990.

LK

Re:Mac, anyone?

[i kan reed]

It's not even open source. I ran the installer after seeing on slashdot expecting to see the friendly "GPL v2.0" message. No such luck. I don't know why a version increment of some freeware game gets to the main page.

Re:Mac, anyone?

[seebs]

Because Zonk is some kind of dysfunctional AI bot. I was just surprised that the post didn't end with a massively insipid question making it clear he didn't understand TFA. Maybe that's why there was no explanation of what it is; he didn't even look at TFA.

Re:

[EvilGoodGuy]

Why would it matter if it's open source or not? This it under the Games section. It's game news. Just because it's not a game you're not interested in doesn't mean others aren't. I used to love the game and was happy to hear it brought up again so I can get some more kicks out of it. Why is any game update posted on /.? Because some subset of the readers is interested.

Re:

[Leto-II]

It's not even freeware -- it's shareware.

Re:

[MoHaG]

I used to play it until became shareware....

They used real drug dealer sales techniques: Get you hooked on th nice freeware game, then change it to shareware...

Re:Mac, anyone?

[physicsnick]

We've had a dozen front-page posts about Starcraft 2, and it doesn't even exist yet. Should we ignore articles about it just because it's not going to be open-source?

Soldat is important because it doesn't rely on cutting-edge graphics; it revitalizes the 2D sidescroller genre from the days of Duke Nukem, long thought to be dead due to 3D graphics. The fact that Soldat is popular should come as a reminder to game development studios that we care about gameplay and fun more than graphics.

Re:

[physicsnick]

Thanks, that was the whole point of my post. 2D games are not dead, but people like GGP think they are.

Re:

[i kan reed]

Way to go stuffing words in my mouth. I was complaining that it was a freaking version increment of a not-particularly-notable game. The only reason I could come up with for this to matter was if it was a GPL or other open source license game, as they are actually pretty rare. There are litterally hundreds of still-updated freeware 2d games out there, and why a version increment of this one was treated as news, I just don't get.

Re:

[7Prime]

Umm, since the 2D metroid games on the GBA failed so misserably... 3 years ago.

Sorry dude, 2D gaming is very much alive, and progressing.

Re:

[ozphx]

This is news for nerds.

Not just news for rabid GNU/Hippies.

Re:

[MoHaG]

You might try it under Wine (see someone else's reply below...) if you have an Intel Mac. You need the latest Wine source code and the latest XCode. Simply extract it, open a Terminal window and follow the README / INSTALL instructions. Wine compiles go pretty fast on a Core Duo processor (A few (not more than 30) minutes...)

Dosent work in wine

[Anonymous Coward]

0.9.33 in ubuntu fails. so sad 8( panda is not amused.

Re:

[Mountaineer1024]

Soldat 1.3.1 (the last version) worked perfectly under win 0.9.35 http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?iAppId=964 [winehq.org]
According to the Authors message, with a bit of tweaking 1.4 will work as well.

Re:Isn't it a little old?

[Cadallin]

Yes, because once content becomes more than six months old it becomes immediately boring, un-entertaining. No one could ever enjoy playing a retro-styled game, or re-experiencing a game they enjoyed in the past. That's why emulators have no user-base whatsoever. It's also very clear that due to the limitations of 2D graphics, no one could ever invent new and involving forms of game play while limited to 2D, it just wouldn't work at all.

After all, fun analyzing new and more accurate forms of lens flare and ever higher resolution Bump maps! Trace the edges of shadows and how many pixels of blur they've got, and Count those triangles, yeah baby!

Re:

[Opportunist]

Not to mention, that's in 2D! I mean, that's so ... 80s. How could a game like that be any good?

If you excuse me now, I'm still trying to beat Lemmings.

Re:

[revengebomber]

Triangles are so 1999. Now it's all about the flabblemapping, vector transmajiggers, and virtualizerational memogagags.

Re:

[Cadallin]

Thank Goodness, I was afraid people would think I was making a serious post! For some reason, sarcasm tends to fly right over people's heads a lot on Slashdot. Something else I thought of while writing this post yesterday. Here's a list:

Lemmings

Cannon Fodder

Starcraft

Day of the Tentacle

Super Mario World

Tetris

Planescape: Torment

Chronotrigger

Gradius III

Simcity

SimEarth

Civilization

That's a list of 2D games of varying ages. Most of them are more than 10 years old, some of them are pu

Re:

[Bagels]

I know you're probably trolling. Still - no, "games of that type" are far from gone. I get plenty lot of mileage out of some games that have graphics on par with or worse than this (like NetHack, for instance, or Within a Deep Forest, or Cave Story, or N, or Seiklus). Certainly I don't turn to such games for eye-searing graphics, though under the correct circumstances they can be perfectly good looking just the same.

Re:Isn't it a little old?

[Lisandro]

I never played it, but haven't games of that type started to get obsolete around 1990, right after the Wolfenstein 3D wiped the floor with them?

Give it a try. It's better than most of the crap FPS that have been released lately, and one of the most addicting multiplayer games i've tried in years.

Re:

[physicsnick]

Look at some of the reviews [soldat.pl] of this game:

Download.com ----- Score 4/5 + User reviews
The Underdogs ----- Soldat is a TopDog!
Gamespot.com ----- Score 8.6/10 ! Player testimonials.
acid-play.com ----- Reviewer Rating: 100%
GameSpotting Shareware ----- My new shareware addiction
gamefaqs.com ----- "Amazing, absolutely amazing!!!"
gamearena.com.au ----- 9/10 !

There are nearly two dozen reviews like this on that page alone. So no, 2D games are not obsolete.

We have a winner here... rating lies.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, this game got a 9.8 from gamespot and a 9/10 from gamearena? (so says their main website)

Go to gamespot... no official review.
Go to gamearena... no official review.

Hmm, they really seem on the up and up, don't they.

It's still fun....

[Rhuken]

Imagine the heated firefights of Counterstrike in a 2D sidescrolling, ragdoll kungfoo -esque package. It's nothing like that. (or is it?) But it's still fun.

Linux client?

[Lisandro]

I know i might be asking for too much... but does anyone knows if this gem of a game will ever have its own linux version? I LOVE Soldat, but have mixed sucess trying to run it under Wine.

Anyway, it's well worth a go if you never tried it before. It's not mentioned anywhere in the story, so, for those who haven't tried it, it's fast paced online deathmatch game, a-la-UT... in 2D, sporting "realistic" weapons (most borrowed from Counterstrike). It's easy to play, has very low hardware requirements, and its' gameplay is devastatingly addictive. That, and you can't beat bots that lay Arnie movie quotes [imdb.com] every time they frag you :)

Re:Linux client?

[EvilGoodGuy]

FTA:
"Known problems:
- Soldat crashes after starting or joining game.
If your video card does not support rendering to texture technology (really old cards pre-Geforce era) then the only way to run Soldat is by checking Video Compatibility in Soldat Setup (under `More` tab).
Checking Video Compatibility means that you won`t take advantage of the new font rendering engine (UNICODE and shadows won`t be supported). Also the minimap won`t work. This is also the current way to run Soldat on Wine."

So no Linux client, but it appears to run in Wine.

Re:

[Lisandro]

It runs (both in regular and 'video compatibility' mode, in my experience, though better in the latest), but nowhere as good as it should. Framerates sometimes drop for no particular reason, and i've had quite a few random crashes. It's a shame, as Wine can run some newer, fancier 3D games with no hitches...

Freeware vs Open Source

[FreeGamer]

Sadly this game is only freeware. If it were open source, I'm sure there would be enough people interested in porting it to Linux for there to be a native client. I don't understand freeware games. Why limit it to just being freeware? Why not make it really properly Free then the community can fix problems, can port code, can bring new features to the table. However that is the right of the author, to choose under what terms they can disclose their software. I just don't understand it. If you give th

Re:

[Mountaineer1024]

Because despite what everyone in this thread is claiming, the game is not freeware. It's a form of shareware. The distinction is small as someone who hasn't paid for the game gets all of the gameplay related features for free. But if you pay you get a few ancillary features, such as the ability to set up multiple user profiles with unique key bindings etc. I paid for my copy because I felt the self satisfied feeling I got from supporting the author more than offset the tiny monetary price tag.

Re:

[gatzke]

It is not open-source and the graphics look like they were done in MS Paint.

2D? Crazy retro idea. I pull out the Super Mario on the Wii occasionally, but for like five minutes at a time if that.

And they are not even considering linux or mac support (from the FAQ).

How did this make it on /.? This is digg quality tripe.

Sweet!!

[EvilGoodGuy]

Oh wow I'm excited. I used to love this game! To bad it had to come out during finals week haha. Screw graphics, I'd rather play a 2D scroller!!

Torrent?

[kestasjk]

It's strange how they want you to use the torrent to download this, and then seed, even though it's an online multiplayer game that surely you'll want to play the moment you've finished the download without having torrents running in the background.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Many torrent clients allow you to limit your upload speed. Also, ever heard of QoS [wikipedia.org]?

Re:

[PurifyYourMind]

Resume seeding when you're not playing? Surely you won't be playing 24/7.

Re:

[BeardsmoreA]

Er... C&C was and still is an amazing game in my opinion, I can't help feeling that you're bashing it just _because_ it had great gfx, sound etc. for its day, rather than because it was lacking anywhere else. And I went back and played it last about a month ago. (Yay DOSBox and WINE for old games :) !)

Re:To all those "old game, snooze, bah..." bashers

[Blakey Rat]

Good intellectually-dishonest nostalgia-laced gripe, but you made three fatal errors:

1) You trashed games that are still good when you play them today. Like Unreal Tourney and Command and Conquer. By what logic is Alpha Centauri a classic and Unreal Tournament not? If you wanted to trash 3D games simply because they're 3D, you'd have been better off trashing ones that, you know, actually were bad. Like Red Faction, or every Tomb Raider after the first one. Or something.

(For that matter, in what way is Civ II more "classic" than Civilization? Or SimCity 2000 more "classic" than SimCity? You're not even getting the nostalgia right! Older always = better!)

2) You're wrong saying none of those "classic" games had top of the line graphics when they came out. SimCity 2000 definitely made most computers chug when it came out, as did Civ II and Alpha Centauri.

3) You forgot to whine about how there are no Sierra adventure games anymore. That's requisite!

Re:

[Khuffie]

But...but...I liked Red Faction :( (the first one that is)

Re:

[Blakey Rat]

Haha, fine. I'll pick one we can all hate: Superman 64.

Re:

[revlayle]

But... *I* liked Superma....

SORRY, couldn't continue typing that with a straight face!

Where are you getting THAT from?

[KDR_11k]

Do you see ANYONE on Slashdot complaining about the graphics? This isn't Gamefaqs, many Slashdotters have found the Amulet of Yendor and insist that there haven't been any good games since Asteroids. If you want to complain about graphics whores try a website where people actually complain about bad graphics, as you can see the complaints here are about the lack of Linux support and the lack of opensourciness with a dash of "Why is this news?".

Re:

[Tim_UWA]

It's a good thing that Sim City 2000/3000 make up for all those boring games that released equally boring and identical sequels.

Re:

[jfodale]

Man, I must be a mutant or something. The Assault gameplay of the UT series is among the best gaming out there to me.

cant find compatible server

[brenddie]

couldn't find any server compatible with the new version of the client. Anyone has a server running for this new version?