Half-Life 2 - A Linux User's Lament 792
jvm writes "If you're a gamer with a pulse, you've probably heard about the impending release of Valve's Half-Life 2. As a gamer and a Linux user, I always get a little stirred up about the whole Half-Life situation, where we have a dedicated server but no client. So here's my reflection on the sad situation, past and present. How will the rest of the Linux gaming community react to the release of Half-Life 2? Boot into Windows? Wait for WINE or WineX support? Get the Xbox version? With so many Half-Life servers running on Linux, will the same be true for Half-Life 2?"
the bottom line (Score:5, Informative)
Valve has made steps to ensure that Half-Life works under WINE, but the reality is, they will continue to use DirectX, as they feel that is how they can make the best possible game. The money that would go into creating a Linux box would be prohibitively expensive, not to mention perhaps impossible because of patents/copyrights on DirectX technology.
It would be great if it worked under Linux, but the bottom line is it doesn't make economic sense.
HL for Mac. (Score:3, Informative)
hardly a suprise... considering nerve's heritage.. (Score:3, Informative)
they are already talking about making HL2 an xbox-exclusive title, locking out PS2 etc.
how friendly to linux do YOU think they could possibly be?
Wesley Clark for President! (Score:0, Informative)
http://www.americansforclark.com/about.php
Re:Aiming for the Market (Score:4, Informative)
Re:why not support the companies that support us? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not sure I can sympathize (Score:1, Informative)
------
Re:MS does good (Score:1, Informative)
Think mac.
Re:Strike two on Valve. (Score:1, Informative)
Silly person, Cg works on all cards that support the required fragment ( read pixel if you don't understand ) and vertex shaders. So yes you can run Cg programs on your ATI card :0)
Re:why not support the companies that support us? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:why not support the companies that support us? (Score:2, Informative)
Unfortunately, until Linux users spend more money and more people move to Linux, the perception won't differ much. It's hard to make money on Linux, sorry. Going somewhere else is going to get you nothing in the long run, as any little incentive there is now for the company will evaporate. Move on and you may have one less choice in the future. I for one respect Valve's commitment to provide a Linux-based server module (with source, IIRC!). If the demand is there for a client port, they will do it, but probably not before.
Re:why not support the companies that support us? (Score:5, Informative)
Had the company been managed properly, they'd still be around today, and going strong. Linux would have a much stronger influence on game companies pondering to make a linux port, and if they were successful, there would be other serious competitors. Alas, the chance was lost, only because people at the top had the wrong vision.
At least we got SDL out of it.
-Restil
Re:MS does good (Score:2, Informative)
Of all time:
"The Sims" for PC: ~10 Million Units"Half-Life" for PC: ~8 Million Units
"Myst" for PC: ~7 Million Units
Or for 2002:
1) The Sims: Vacation2) The Sims Unleashed
3) Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos
4) Medal of Honor: Allied Assault
5) The Sims
6) The Sims: Hot Date
7) The Sims Deluxe
8) Zoo Tycoon
9) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
10) Roller Coaster Tycoon 2
Not many of these appear to be playable under Linux by default, I'm not sure how many would be playable using WINE or WINEX though.
Re:why not support the companies that support us? (Score:4, Informative)
The 3D driver situation in Linux is hardly bogus any more.
Re:Mac version does not give you Linux (Score:3, Informative)
But I have to take issue with your "one that is considered the native API". This is complete tripe, and something that gets regurgitated by ex-NeXT executives at Apple that really should know better.
Cocoa and Carbon are both equally "native" - they both sit on top of the lower-level APIs like Core Graphics/Core Foundation, and quite happily talk to each other (e.g., the Cocoa menu system used to call over to the Carbon Menu Manager - may still be the case). With 10.2 onwards you can place Carbon windows into a Cocoa app, and vice versa.
The term "native" on the Mac means something quite specific - it was introduced for the 68K/PowerPC transition, as a way to distinguish between apps that used the native PPC ISA vs apps that were being run in the 68K emulator. The term was misappropriated when NeXT were purchased, as an attempt to paint older Mac APIs as somehow less worthy (thankfully most people at Apple have moved past this now, but it still gets trotted out once in a while).
FWIW, 99% of the games ported to the Mac (i.e., ported by anyone other than the Omni folks, who are ex-NeXT developers) are written to Carbon. Cocoa is useful for putting UIs together quickly, but really doesn't buy you anything for a game (given that almost all of the Mac-specific code will be talking to C based APIs like OpenGL, HID, or the Sound Manager).
Re:why not support the companies that support us? (Score:5, Informative)
HL2 is a very different beast to HL1 and even Quake 3 and UT2003, it takes a completely different approach to rendering, and implementing it using the tools available on Linux would be very, very hard.
Re:Sorry, sympathy meter's reading zero, dude. (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.gentoogames.com/ [gentoogames.com]
Re:Kiss future EpicGames Linux titles goodbye. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:why not support the companies that support us? (Score:5, Informative)
You've still got to test on every platform you support, you still have to train your support staff on every platform you support, etc. Have you ever worked on a large, commercial multi-platform product? If you had, you would know that the code is only part of the work involved, and over the lifecycle of the product, it's even just a small fraction of the work.
Re:why not support the companies that support us? (Score:4, Informative)
Platform-testing? Big deal. What do you think Internet beta's are for? Support staff? Last I heard, most of the big-game companies *shopped their support services* to 3rd parties
No, you're just not getting the point. The point is, a 'port' is not expensive if you don't do it last. If you do multi-platform development concurrently, and have a technical strategy in place to accomodate it, then it doesn't cost any more than to just do one-platform...
If your serious, Don't Play It !!! (Score:1, Informative)
($.02)
HL2 has an Interesting price model (Score:5, Informative)
Email and reply from some bloke and the HL2 pr bloke, Gabe.
--
Gabe Gabe Gabe!!!
As I'm sure you are aware the HL2 community is going crazy with the rumour that HL2 is going to be like a MMORPG and you will have to pay a fee each month via Steam to play HL2 multiplayer.
I don't believe this to be true but can you please put it to rest once and for all. PLEEEEEEASE.
Kind Regards
Matt
Here's my current thinking: Some people want to buy Half-Life 2 in a store. Right now we have three SKUs planned at three price points. One will have single-player only and not play MODs and we think of that as the mass market SKU (sold mainly at the Costcos and Walmarts of the world). The second is our traditional single-player plus multiplayer SKU that runs MODs and is sold at places like EBX. The third is the collector's edition SKU with lots of cool bonus stuff for people who like cool bonus stuff.
In the Steam world, some people will want to buy it once, like the middle SKU above. Other people will want to buy the game on subscription (e.g. $9.95/month). The good news for the "buy it once" crowd is, well, they only have to pay once. The bad news is that when we come out with new content (expansion products, TF 2, and presumably other games) then they have to pay separately for those. We're pretty sure that the $9.95 guys are going to get the better value, as we've been pretty good over the years at generating a lot of content.
Now nobody has done this before, so we're scratching our heads and massaging the plans to make sure we've got the best set of options. We've had some feedback that we should sell the top SKU (single-player only no MODs) on Steam, and my reaction has been "yeah, right, for the three people in the world who have a broadband connection, are sophisticated enough to purchase software over the Internet, but DON'T want to play MODs and multiplayer". Some people have said "I want a subscription, but I think the box and the manual are cool, so what about sending me those" and I think that's pretty interesting and we're trying to figure out what to do for them (needless to say Sierra isn't exactly jumping for joy at the idea of selling us boxes so people don't buy Half-Life 2 in stores).
But nowhere has there been a suggestion that people pay in the store and then pay a monthly fee on top of that a la the MMORPG.
Gabe
Re:why not support the companies that support us? (Score:5, Informative)
You will have to tell that to my GeforceFX5900 and Unified Nvidia Driver that has full support for all the functions you speak of via nvidia cg or via another none ARB rendering path. Now...since there is only one other chip maker that is making a card with PS2.0 (as people like to call it) that would be ATI...you only in turn have one company not supporting the technology they would need in linux. ATI has always been a joke in the 3d market with Linux so this is nothing new and Nvidia has a greater market share of high end 3d cards in both the Windows and the Linux market....so who cares?
They could have easily written that engine using OpenGL and had a VERY portable engine. But naw...they are getting some luvin from MS and ATI, so what do you expect.
Re:why not support the companies that support us? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Strike two on Valve. (Score:1, Informative)
Half Life actually used Quake ONE's engine believe it or not, they just modded it so much that it actually outshined Quake 2 by a great deal. Nope, no skill there either.
Half Life 2 runs on "source", a nearly 100% Valve developed engine save for the Havok physics system.
Source also beats Carmack's frilly DooM3 engine up and down the block in pure features.
Re:XFree86 Isn't Exactly Fine-tuned for Gaming (Score:2, Informative)
ALSA has an OSS compatibility layer. I routinely play RtCW (and RtCW:ET) in Linux and the sound is great. Haven't used OSS in *years*. And ESD and aRTs are just sound mixers/managers, use one or the other, or neither. It doesn't really matter. JACK is a special callback-based API for music applications. You don't really need it for games. I think they've got an ESD plugin though, so....