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> The elf binaries ran essentially flawlessly on my linux machine (although my machine was under powered for the game.) > Sadly we never released the game on L

by est31 6y ago

> The elf binaries ran essentially flawlessly on my linux machine (although my machine was under powered for the game.) > Sadly we never released the game on Linux to the public. That's an improvement over not having a Linux port at all, as it reduces the investment needed to publish the game to Linux eventually. Once the Linux gaming market is big enough, studios might consider to release the game.

ownagefool 6y ago
I'm not sure that's much of a distinction between not available and nearly available. Rumour is, WoW had an internal linux client for years, and that didn't help gamers. That said, I wonder if being low-key not released multiplatform might actually mean there's likely less compatibility issues when playing with wine/proton.
- hvidgaard 6y ago
  WoW ran fine under Wine many years back, building a native Linux client would not make much sense.
  - brmgb 6y ago
    The post you are responding to was pointing that this client actually existed - if I had to guess probably to allow people working on the server to test it directly on their machine - but was never released.
    - hvidgaard 6y ago
      Absolutely, but my point is that even in that case, it would make more sense to run it under Wine anyway, instead of maintaining an entire build for a platform that is not officially supported.
pizza234 6y ago
I run Linux, and play games, but all in all, I strongly believe that Wine ports are the only realistic, less-worse, alternative. I'm not the only one - Carmack expressed the same (although, to be fair, I've never read other high-profile devs discussing this idea). This is a real-world Linux game production story: https://twitter.com/bgolus/status/1080213166116597760 https://twitter.com/bgolus/status/1080213166116597760. Note that the developers tried hard to release the native Linux port. Crucial excerpt (from https://twitter.com/bgolus/status/1080214424474906624 https://twitter.com/bgolus/status/1080214424474906624): > We eventually laid out a guide with known good versions of Linux and graphics drivers, but it didn't matter. Part of the allure of Linux is the customizability, so few actually stuck to it, and generally wanted to run the game on older hardware we didn't support. In order for Linux games production to be economically viable, there should be a Linux gaming standard, but because of the Linux culture, there will never be (there's nothing wrong; it's just its nature). Even if somebody came up with a gaming standard... xkcd explains what would happen: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/927:_Standards https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/927:_Standards. I'm not considering adhoc Linux gaming distributions like SteamOS, as they would have to be treated as an independently installed, separate, operating system.
- tremon 6y ago
  Same here, and I've also noticed the library churn is a problem: Heroes of Might and Magic 3 and Neverwinter Nights both have had official Linux ports/releases, and neither of them run on modern Linux distro's because of library incompatibilities (in the case of NWN, it's because of libSDL, don't remember the issue with HoMM3). Even my recent purchases on GOG where there's plenty of native Linux to be found, I usually download the Windows version because WINE is a more stable platform in the long run, in my experience.
  - speeder 6y ago
    To be honest wine is so awesome it makes games run better even on Windows. On another computer I had, with the supremely buggy nVidia Optimus, SimCity 4 and Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura both worked correctly only with Wine DLLs on their folder, preventing them from using Windows normal APIs.
pjmlp 6y ago
Most Android games could be easily ported to GNU/Linux, that just doesn't happen because studios don't see any commercial value in doing so, versus the development costs of supporting yet another platform.
- FreeFull 6y ago
  I'm doubtful about this. Even though Android uses the Linux kernel, its userspace is completely different; There isn't much overlap in the APIs you can use on Android vs ones you can use on desktop Linux, besides a few things like openGL and syscalls.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    I am fully aware of it. ISO C, ISO C++, OpenGL/Vulkan, OpenMAX and OpenSL ES are certainly available on GNU/Linux. https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis Just as Cocos-2dx, Unreal and Unity are, the main engines used on Android games. However, having 2% of users responsible for 50% of support requests + extra development effort, is what puts GNU/Linux off their plans.
    - mimimi31 6y ago
      >having 2% of users responsible for 50% of support requests If you're referring to [1], you might be interested in reading [2] as well. [1] https://twitter.com/bgolus/status/1080213166116597760 https://twitter.com/bgolus/status/1080213166116597760 [2] https://twitter.com/bgolus/status/1080544133238800384 https://twitter.com/bgolus/status/1080544133238800384
      - pjmlp 6y ago
        I am aware of those tweets, although my remark was based on experience among game developer friends all the way back to the Loki days.

by est31 6y ago

ownagefool 6y ago

I'm not sure that's much of a distinction between not available and nearly available. Rumour is, WoW had an internal linux client for years, and that didn't help gamers. That said, I wonder if being low-key not released multiplatform might actually mean there's likely less compatibility issues when playing with wine/proton.

hvidgaard 6y ago
WoW ran fine under Wine many years back, building a native Linux client would not make much sense.
- brmgb 6y ago
  The post you are responding to was pointing that this client actually existed - if I had to guess probably to allow people working on the server to test it directly on their machine - but was never released.
  - hvidgaard 6y ago
    Absolutely, but my point is that even in that case, it would make more sense to run it under Wine anyway, instead of maintaining an entire build for a platform that is not officially supported.

pizza234 6y ago

I run Linux, and play games, but all in all, I strongly believe that Wine ports are the only realistic, less-worse, alternative. I'm not the only one - Carmack expressed the same (although, to be fair, I've never read other high-profile devs discussing this idea). This is a real-world Linux game production story: https://twitter.com/bgolus/status/1080213166116597760 https://twitter.com/bgolus/status/1080213166116597760. Note that the developers tried hard to release the native Linux port. Crucial excerpt (from https://twitter.com/bgolus/status/1080214424474906624 https://twitter.com/bgolus/status/1080214424474906624): > We eventually laid out a guide with known good versions of Linux and graphics drivers, but it didn't matter. Part of the allure of Linux is the customizability, so few actually stuck to it, and generally wanted to run the game on older hardware we didn't support. In order for Linux games production to be economically viable, there should be a Linux gaming standard, but because of the Linux culture, there will never be (there's nothing wrong; it's just its nature). Even if somebody came up with a gaming standard... xkcd explains what would happen: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/927:_Standards https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/927:_Standards. I'm not considering adhoc Linux gaming distributions like SteamOS, as they would have to be treated as an independently installed, separate, operating system.

tremon 6y ago
Same here, and I've also noticed the library churn is a problem: Heroes of Might and Magic 3 and Neverwinter Nights both have had official Linux ports/releases, and neither of them run on modern Linux distro's because of library incompatibilities (in the case of NWN, it's because of libSDL, don't remember the issue with HoMM3). Even my recent purchases on GOG where there's plenty of native Linux to be found, I usually download the Windows version because WINE is a more stable platform in the long run, in my experience.
- speeder 6y ago
  To be honest wine is so awesome it makes games run better even on Windows. On another computer I had, with the supremely buggy nVidia Optimus, SimCity 4 and Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura both worked correctly only with Wine DLLs on their folder, preventing them from using Windows normal APIs.

pjmlp 6y ago

Most Android games could be easily ported to GNU/Linux, that just doesn't happen because studios don't see any commercial value in doing so, versus the development costs of supporting yet another platform.

FreeFull 6y ago
I'm doubtful about this. Even though Android uses the Linux kernel, its userspace is completely different; There isn't much overlap in the APIs you can use on Android vs ones you can use on desktop Linux, besides a few things like openGL and syscalls.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  I am fully aware of it. ISO C, ISO C++, OpenGL/Vulkan, OpenMAX and OpenSL ES are certainly available on GNU/Linux. https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis Just as Cocos-2dx, Unreal and Unity are, the main engines used on Android games. However, having 2% of users responsible for 50% of support requests + extra development effort, is what puts GNU/Linux off their plans.
  - mimimi31 6y ago
    >having 2% of users responsible for 50% of support requests If you're referring to [1], you might be interested in reading [2] as well. [1] https://twitter.com/bgolus/status/1080213166116597760 https://twitter.com/bgolus/status/1080213166116597760 [2] https://twitter.com/bgolus/status/1080544133238800384 https://twitter.com/bgolus/status/1080544133238800384
    - pjmlp 6y ago
      I am aware of those tweets, although my remark was based on experience among game developer friends all the way back to the Loki days.