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Transgaming's WineX 2.1 - Supports WarCraft 3 450

Posted by CmdrTaco from the somethingto-lust-after dept.
friedmud writes "WineX 2.1 is out on the street, get it at transgaming.com. It boasts, among other things, full support for Warcraft III. Other games now included are: Grand Theft Auto 3, Civilization III, and Black and White. Check the press release for further info. And, if you haven't already, go here to get an account... It is definitely worth it." I've been rebooting my laptop to WC3, so maybe I'll give this a shot. I bought a subscription originally in part due to their misleading Sims compatibility claims, but this looks like it finally is truly emulating top windows games.
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Transgaming's WineX 2.1 - Supports WarCraft 3 More

Transgaming's WineX 2.1 - Supports WarCraft 3

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  • I've been eagerly anticipating support for GTA3. It's what I'll go to once I finish Baldur's Gate 2 until Neverwinter Nights is released (which will probably be in 2004).
    • I've been eagerly anticipating support for GTA3. It's what I'll go to once I finish Baldur's Gate 2 until Neverwinter Nights is released (which will probably be in 2004).

      Icewind Dale II looks pretty neat, too. I haven't tried it out yet, although I finished BG2 & Throne of Bhaal several months ago.
  • How about Outlook XP and M$'s Remote Desktop Client?

    Then I could secretly run Licoris at the office an nobody'd would be the wiser!

    (aaand it would keep everybody from mucking around with my workstation.)

  • Excellent news! (Score:5, Funny)

    by macpeep ( 36699 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @10:52AM (#3998701)
    Soon, there will be as many games that you can play on Linux as there are games that you can play on Macintosh!
    • As long as someone ports Happyweed [happyweed.com] to linux, I'm down with it.
    • Linux on the XBox: Now you aren't playing a damn thing.
    • I should lighten up. I know it. And I know you're not saying Linux has more games developed for it than the Macintosh...but I so don't find the comment above funny for two reasons.

      1. We Mac users have been on the short end of the gaming stick since the mid-90s and although things have improved tremendously and will likely improve even more, we will almost certainly never have complete pairity with the Windows world...and that truth still stings occasionally.

      2. I've grown tired of Linux users acting like the latest distro is taking over the world, challenging Redmond for the desktop, gaining marketshare hand over fist, is way more relevant and popular than the Macintosh...so much so that Macintosh influence, relevance and desktop presence is openly ridiculed...when the real story is that while Linux is a phenomenon like no other, it has virtually no desktop presence at all and the development of commercial applications for it is virtually nil. Marketshare in the "NAT box in my coat closet", absolutely. Marketshare for "Web server for my mid-sized company," sure. "Render farm for a movie FX house," yes indeed. CL-based, opensource, free sysadmin widgets developed for it? Tons. But top-shelf games developed for it? Please.

      Note: All flames must include 3 URLs of commercial, million-copy-selling games available for Linux and not for the Macintosh. Emulation doesn't count for either camp.

      And by the way I've been playing WC3 since the day it came out right on the OS of my choice without rebooting anything. So there.

      *whew*

      Going to try to relax now.

  • Oh BABY! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by vandan ( 151516 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @10:54AM (#3998715) Homepage
    I had been mucking with the main wine tree after reading in the Wine Weeky News that people were getting WarCraft III working under wine, but I have only been able to install and start the menu screen, which comes up MINIMIZED. Damn!

    But now WineX supports my 2 favourite games: Black & White and Warcraft III I can uninstall Windows 2k!

    I already have MS Word & Excel installed into a no-windows wine installation which works very well.

    Man, wine is starting to get really freaking good! I just wish the Wine developers and Codeweavers could get along & share code more freely with Transgaming, but they have some differing ideas about licensing. Oh well. I'm gonna save up and get that WineX. BABY!

    • Re:Oh BABY! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Afrosheen ( 42464 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @01:09PM (#3999703)
      Keep in mind that when Transgaming has made enough money to cover all their development costs (through subscriptions etc.) they're merging all their new code back into the standard Wine tree. Eventually 95% of what they've done will be free and open source, excluding the Safedisc and other licensed protection schemes of course. Those generally aren't a problem anyway due to no-cd cracks and the like.

  • WarCraft 3? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Why is this game so popular? It really isn't any different that other RTS, other than its more 3D.

    You all bitch and moan about lack of innovation in gaming, then go out and buy the exact opposite.

    And, yeah, I'm prepared to fight back against anyone that wants to argue how 'innovative' WC3 is.

    • Re:WarCraft 3? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by colmore ( 56499 )
      For novice players, it is pretty much the same thing, only smaller armies (which is a good thing in my opinion)

      In really competitive play, it actually plays quite differently from Starcraft, C&C, WC2, or Dune 2. The hero system really rewards micromanagement, and rushes aren't quite what they've been in the past. If you sit down and try to play WC3 like Starcraft, you'll lose pretty quickly. Warcraft 3 is not paced at all like previous RTSes.

      However, these are deep, play-balance innovations. The overall format of the game is pretty much Warcraft 2 with smaller armies and stronger units.

      What I would really like to see is a RTS (and shouldn't these games be called Real Time Tactics, the scale is a bit small to really be called "strategy" in the military sense) of WWII's Pacific theater, done at about Starcraft Scale. Storm beaches, knock out gun fortifications, take over islands, clear out airstrips, etc. It could be really interesting, and it wouldn't have any of that base-building nonsense (you don't train new soldiers and research new technology on the battlefield). Or play the Japanese side and try to defend.

      • Re:WarCraft 3? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        The hero system really rewards micromanagement

        In my opinion, RTS's that support micromanagment are RTS's that are "twitchy". Strategy shouldn't be who can use the mouse fastest and knows all the hotkeys and can kill you in 10 minutes cause they know the build order. It should be about careful planning, not "twitch tactics".
        • I'm guessing you havent played the game, because it's not very "twitchy". Just prepare your army when you go into battle and be ready to cast spells and maneuvre troops as the battle is going on - in Starcraft oftentimes units would be dead when you tried to cast one of their spells or move them back from the front line. The game is designed so that battles last MUCH longer than Warcraft 2 or Starcraft, so getting off a spell, or "dancing" your huntresses so they survive is much easier (I just learned how good the Lich's Frost Nova spell is last night). Can you name an RTS that fits your ideal description?
      • Why not roll your own with FreeCraft [freecraft.org]?

      • Re:WarCraft 3? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by sjbe ( 173966 )
        What I would really like to see is a RTS (and shouldn't these games be called Real Time Tactics, the scale is a bit small to really be called "strategy" in the military sense) of WWII's Pacific theater...

        The difference between strategy and tactics has little to do with scale. They are very different concepts.

        Strategy is a game plan. It's how you intend to accomplish some goal. (i.e. I plan to use airstrikes to cripple my opponent's tanks before sending in the ground troops) Strategy doesn't necessarily imply that it is military either. Business has strategy. Sports have strategy. Strategy is just an approach to a problem.

        Tactics on the other hand are the actual methods used to carry out a strategy. (i.e. The F-15's fly X route through the mountains dropping their bombs in Y location) Tactics are the details. The precise method by which you carry out each part of the overall strategy.

        Strategy and Tactics go hand in hand but scale really isn't what defines them. They are separate parts of a solution process. Calling the games RTS games is fine and correct, even though every game has strategy to some degree. Even kill-everything games like Quake have strategy, just not especially deep ones most of the time.

  • WC3! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Hmm. Time to up the student loan again for a new Linux laptop! Woo HOo!

    Dad? It's me . . .

  • winehq supports war3 too (Score:4, Informative)

    by uhmmmm ( 512629 ) <uhmmmm AT gmail DOT com> on Friday August 02, 2002 @10:57AM (#3998752) Homepage
    see here [winehq.com] for setup details.

    warcraft 3 has worked with winehq wine as far back as the warcraft 3 beta, see this post [winehq.com] to the wine-devel mailing list.

  • Well, it plays Diablo II... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...but I still can't get it to play any perverted japanese video games [sogna.com]. Ah well, C'est la vie.

  • Not a good open source citizen (Score:3, Insightful)

    by IGnatius T Foobar ( 4328 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @11:03AM (#3998800) Homepage Journal
    TransGaming has done some wonderful things. Their technology is truly helping Linux to be useful in more situations by allowing Windows games to run.

    It's really too bad that TransGaming is not a good citizen of the open source community. Their decision to keep their ActiveX libraries proprietary while happily making use of other people's work (the base Wine code) perfectly exhibits the "what's yours is mine, and what's mine is mine" abuse that BSD-like licenses can allow. And TransGaming's decision to fork the Wine code when it went LGPL is another example of this company's lack of respect for the cooperation that makes open source projects work.

    I'll support CodeWeavers but I won't support TransGaming. When you take from Wine, you give back to Wine, dammit. A balkanized Wine might provide short-term profit to TransGaming, but it delays that day in the future when all Windows software runs seamlessly on Linux.
    • And you can't always expect that everyone's going to cough up code for free. Wine was under an X licnece and gave you the option of making the code proprietary ("more free" as BSD people would put it). This is what the X licence was designed to allow. Deal with it.

      OTOH, Transgaming and WineHQ have been trying to figure out ways so that TG can give kickbacks to WineHQ in terms of code.

    • A lot of the problems with Transgaming source is that they've had to license certain technologies, such as Macrovision's SafeDisc for CD copy protection. They cannot lease such code out, because it's not theirs and even making available would get them into a lot of trouble.

      Of course, they could have tried to reverse engineer the specs, but since that's illegal under the DMCA (since Herr Kaplan ruled that the provision for compatability doesn't count when it's used for Linux), they're kind of stuck.

    • Re:Not a good open source citizen (Score:5, Interesting)

      by colmore ( 56499 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @11:20AM (#3998926) Journal
      See, I totally disagree with this.

      WineX has not taken anything away from Wine. They use their code, and Wine is no worse off for it. Your criticism of TransGaming assumes that they would have written the same software if they had used the GPL. But they wouldn't have. If you want to sell software (and not support or some other intangible) you simply can't use the GPL. The only thing you can hope for is to tack a $1 surcharge on CDs shipped to people with connections to slow to download the free package.

      Profit is a motivator for innovation, like it or not. I like and fully support the GPL, but I also like and fully support some things done by better for-profit software companies. If Transgaming had been forced to GPL their work, there would be no WineX.

      "Support" good software that you want to use, in whatever form it comes in. If there's a product out there that is filling a gap, then support whatever system that created it. Linux may or may not succeed on the desktop. Linux will not succeed on the desktop with ONLY GPLed software.
      • Your criticism of TransGaming assumes that they would have written the same software if they had used the GPL. ... If you want to sell software (and not support or some other intangible) you simply can't use the GPL.

        First of all, WINE is not GPL, but LGPL, which is a fairly easy license to honor. TransGaming claims that because its copy protection code is not modular, it can't abide by the LGPL. I think if WINE had been LGPLed to start with, TransGaming would have designed accordingly.

        As for making money with the GPL, the dual license is the most successful, as in Qt, GhostScript, and CUPS. This requires, of course, owning all the copyright.

    • I think Transgaming is a valid exception and here's why.

      Getting games to work well under Linux is a very important step and not an easy one. These folks are not trying to get rich doing this either, since they only charge $5 a month ($60.00 a year) which is about the price of one good game. All indications are they're just trying to pay their way while the work gets done.

      I subscribe and it's well worth it. I don't have to reboot to play Diablo II or Starcraft or Command and Conquer, etc. I don't have to buy special Linux specific versions of the games, the windows versions work right out of the box.

      One last point. Don't let the press release fool you into thinking only a few games are working at this point. Go to Transgaming's website, click on the games link and then on the "browse all games" link at the bottom. Any game you see listed as a 4 or 5 is working good enough to play and that's a big, big list of 4 and 5 rated games.

      • I would subscribe to Transgaming, if I got a legally binding promise, that the code I bought were released to LGPL after 1 year.

        That way Transgaming could make a profit and after a while the opensource wine (minus CopyProtection) would always enable playing one year old games.

        But just paying Transgaming to develop their proprietary software until eternity sounds like software assurance to me.
        • You arent buying code you are buying development of the code.

          The code you pay for cannot be released in just a year, its going to be released when they have enough subscribers, they may be a year or a month.

          They need to make money, and like an ISP, or cable company, they cant give away free stuff until after they have the money to pay their programmers for making this stuff.

    • Re:Not a good open source citizen (Score:5, Informative)

      by Ryu2 ( 89645 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @11:23AM (#3998949) Homepage Journal
      The main reason for the fork was because WineX includes reverse-engineered copy-protection support code to support games running. If Transgaming released the source code to that, it would be entirely possible to modify/hack the code so that you could play pirated games, a likely violation of the DMCA and exposing Transgaming to all sorts of legal issues. If they don't release the source code to the copy-protection, they can honesty claim that it's only an emulator, and still doesn't allow you to circumvent copy-protection. That's fine, I guess.

      But I really do agree that they really should open-up their non copy-protected related code, and make that LGPL, and back-port any (non-copy protection) improvements into the official WineHQ tree.

      • Re:Not a good open source citizen (Score:4, Insightful)

        by benmhall ( 9092 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @02:30PM (#4000261) Homepage Journal
        " The main reason for the fork was because WineX includes reverse-engineered copy-protection support code to support games running. If Transgaming released the source code to that, it would be entirely possible to modify/hack the code so that you could play pirated games, a likely violation of the DMCA and exposing Transgaming to all sorts of legal issues. "

        While this is true, it doesn't explain why they threatended Debian to change their license when someone proposed packaging the CVS version into a .DEB file. Turns out that packaging the source is permitted under the license at the moment, but as soon as someone does they'll close that door.

        More info:

        http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2002/debian-d evel-200205/msg02823.html [debian.org]

        Sorry, these guys aren't great OSS citizens, no way around it. Hey, whatever happened to releasing the code after 10,000 people signed up? Does that still hold? Have they posted numbers on how close they are?

        And none of this "shut up and pay your $15" garbage. I've bought plenty of OSS and non-OSS software (including VMWare and CodeWeaver's stuff) Transgaming is trying to look nice and open, but they're not. If they want to keep things closed, that's fine. What's not fine is saying one thing and doing another. As it is, the sources are mostly free but only as long as they're a pain to install. What good is that for people who don't know what CVS is?

        Ben

    • Firstly, anything Transgaming release to the ReWind tree can be freely incorporated into the WineHQ tree, but Transgaming aren't going to do it.

      The main reason Transgaming won't go with the LGPL tree is because the DLLs aren't abstracted out enough and Transgaming would need to LGPL too much of their stuff (And the code to deal with copy protection, which they don't have the rights to). They do give stuff back, but they obviously want to keep some stuff to themselves because they want something to derive revenue from.
    • I don't think that the fault was with TransGaming; it was the Wine developers who chose the BSD license when they really didn't want it. Let this be a lesson to everyone: think carefully about what license to slap onto a project; don't just pick the first one you think of.

      I happen to like (and use) the BSD-style license; but if you want to guarantee that people 'give back', you need to use a GPL-style license. Those in the Wine project apparently learned that lesson the hard way.

  • Ooooh, support for a Blizzard game! (Score:3, Funny)

    by liquidsin ( 398151 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @11:04AM (#3998808) Homepage
    I guess since they're not stifling compatability with DMCA lawsuits this week, it's ok to spend $70 (CDN) on their software and fund their lawyers! Thanks anyways...I'll keep my WineX subscription, but I'll only buy games from developers that don't screw us.

  • Rumors from Redmond (Score:5, Funny)

    by El_Smack ( 267329 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @11:06AM (#3998827)

    I hear the MS guys are making a Linux emulator for Win32. It's called Beer 3.2. The reasoning is, Beer is more popular than Wine so it will appeal to a broader user base. Women tend to like Wine better but Men overwhelmingly prefered Beer in product testing. Beer 3.2 is still a beta, and will be released when it's content reaches version 5.0.

    • Beer 3.2 is still a beta, and will be released when it's content reaches version 5.0.

      In the long-standing tradition of Microsoft code-naming upcoming software after city names, rumour has it that Beer 3.2 and 5.0 are code named "Milwaukee" and "Montreal", respectively.

      Among other features, such as an improved product image [beer.com], Beer 5.0 will eliminate bugs such as "tastes like sh*t".

      Beer 5.0 is also much more user friendly, allowing users with as much as three years less experience to legally use the product.

      S

    • Re:Rumors from Redmond (Score:5, Funny)

      by Cryptnotic ( 154382 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @01:55PM (#4000001)
      If it's from Microsoft, there is no way it will be free. Accordingly, will the open source movement need to stop using the phrase, "free as in beer"?

      Maybe we can convince Microsoft to name their product "Lunch". That way, everyone will automatically realize that there is no such thing as a "free Lunch".

  • Wasn't Blizzard _Evil_? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by thunderbee ( 92099 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @11:13AM (#3998876)
    I'm at a loss here. WarCraft III? After the bnetd business? Hmm. Blizzard must be like Sony: we only boycott them between product releases.
    It's a bit sad. I guess this in some way shows how we will never win against corporations. The average person here seems to hold on to his principles until shown a new toy.
    I have little faith in humanity; so it's not like I am disapointed, but I can't help but being mad at those who can't seem to stick to their own principles for more than a few minutes...
    • What a troll, no thank you. I'll gladly pay for good software. Yeah, Bnetd does upset me, but if i want to play with my friends in a lowlag enviroment, we either play on fsgs, or we lan, lan is much more fun anyways.
    • Why do you think that, of the quarter of a million /. readers, they all agree with you and have the same "principles"? Seems pretty arrogant to me. Perhaps the people excited about this never said they would boycott Blizzard in the first place, thus they aren't violating their principles.

  • I only wish (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Brijam ( 242526 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @11:16AM (#3998891) Homepage
    I just wish the same level of effort went in to providing compatibility for Windows apps that are desperately needed on the Linux desktop -- like Quicken.

    Games are important, but Linux is still seriously lacking in the finance department. Getting Quicken to work it would do more for long term usability of the OS.
    • Maybe you should ask Code Weavers [codeweavers.com] to support Quicken in their CrossOver Office package.
    • Actually, the same level of effort wouldn't do much to get stuff like Quicken working. Games are pretty emulatable to begin with. They spend most of their time in their own engine code, and only call out to the operating system for some very specific services (memory management, file I/O, and threads). As long as you can get these basic things working, along with DirectX (which is a very specific and well-documented target) you can run most games. Application software, on the other hand, calls all sorts of uncommon, freaky Win32 functions. Getting that sort of app to work is much, much harder.
    • Maybe you could try something like Kapital, which has a lot of the features of Quicken. It's only $25 right now, but is still in a pre-release status (You get free upgrades for 4 months after it is officially released).

      http://www.thekompany.com/products/kapital/

  • EMULATING top windows games? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anarchofascist ( 4820 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @11:16AM (#3998901) Homepage Journal
    ...emulating top windows games...

    #Wine Is Not an Emulator.
    s/emulating/supporting

    #If Wine gets good enough, we won't even have
    #to call them windows games anymore.
    • Wine is an emulator...

      emulate

      1. To strive to equal or excel, especially through imitation: an older pupil whose accomplishments and style I emulated.
      2. To compete with successfully; approach or attain equality with.
      3. Computer Science. To imitate the function of (another system), as by modifications to hardware or software that allow the imitating system to accept the same data, execute the same programs, and achieve the same results as the imitated system.

      Just because I claim not to be a 26 year old male doesn't mean that I'm not 26 year old male. Just because WINE claims not to be an emulator doesn't mean that it's not an emulator.

  • Running Windows apps is a cool stopgap, but in the long haul I'd like to see more native ports and fresh applications. I can never decide if Wine is a good idea and/or necessary.
  • I know it's a bit off topic, as we're discussing games under WineX, but is it possible to get something like PowerDVD or WinDVD to run under WineX, and getting them to run properly (with DMA access to drives etc)?

    I've been trying to get Ogle running under Mandrake, and I can play dvds from any region which is cool and all, but the sound often goes out of sync and stuff like that.

    I've also been trying to get Miranda ICQ running under Wine, but that requires a new version, and I can't get that running, cause I'm a d0rk when it comes to linux ...

    What I wouldn't give for a "Window-esque" installer-wizard, that just *works* :-)
    • Loki has had an LGPL installer for a long time that does what you ask.

      http://www.lokigames.com/development/setup.php3

      And there are others. You just have to look. I also have hopes that the Nullsoft NSIS (PiMP/SuperPiMP) starts to see some ports. It is released under the zlib/libpng license.

      A lot of people would doubt the possibility of something like that working, because a lof od people doubt the abilitiy of precompiled binaries in Linux. Personally, I see nothing wrong with precompiled binaries for Linux that are installed by binary installers. Every X86 Linux binary installer that I have ever used has worked great. Opera, Netscape, Limewire, StarOffice/OOo., and Linux game binaries. Never had a problem with any of them. I love tar.gz sources, but graphic installers are nice too.

  • Does it finally work with SCSI CD-ROM drives? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Wee ( 17189 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @11:33AM (#3999039)
    I paid for a subscription when I first heard about WineX. That was last year about this time, and my subscription has run out. I had hoped that WineX would take the place of Loki going down (or not releasing patches or new games -- same thing), but WineX is not a good replacement for a native port if you have certain hardware, namely SCSI CD-ROM/CD-R(W) drives.

    WineX will not work with SCSI drives and copy-protected CDs. Every new release has something about how SCSI support has improved, is fixed, etc, but it never seems to work. If you check their forums [transgaming.com] you'll see what I mean. Most every issue is marked "fixed", with the solution seemingly always being a symlink or some such. It's not fixed as of the last release.

    Does anyone know if they got it fixed this time? I tried to check the release notes at http://downloads.transgaming.com/files/winex-2_1-r eleasenotes.txt, but got a 500 error (on a .txt file no less). If the SCSI issues are fixed, then I'm gladly subscribing again. If not, I'm saving my money and keeping my new dual-boot setup.

    If you have SCSI drives, make sure you investigate this before giving them any money or you'll likely have paid for nothing. I don't think SCSI support is real high on their support list. It's been broken for almost a year, after all...

    -B

    • I have to agree with this. I bought a subscription for WineX just to play Diablo II. I have a SCSI DVD-ROM and a SCSI CD-RW. Neither drive worked. I filed bug reports, but no luck.

      Then WineX 2.0 came out, and they said try again. Didn't work. Filed bug reports again.

      Then WineX 2.01 came out, and they said try again.
      Still didn't work. Filed more bug reports. Last time I checked they were still open.

      Now I'm debating whether to get 2.1. Don't get me wrong, I think WineX is a good product, and if it works for me, I'll gladly pay. But I think the choice has already been made for me, since I don't really play Diablo II anymore. :o)

  • my subscription lapsed last week (Score:5, Interesting)

    by _|()|\| ( 159991 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @11:37AM (#3999070)
    TransGaming now Supports Over 80 PC Games
    Issued on Wednesday April 17, 2002

    Play Warcraft III on Linux with TransGaming's Release of WineX 2.1
    Issued on Thursday August 1, 2002

    TransGaming subscriptions cost $5 per month, with a minimum three months payment.

    It's been just over three months since the last major release. Coincidence?

    • It's been just over three months since the last major release. Coincidence?

      If there were a grand conspiracy, you could thwart them by paying $20 and subscribing for 4 months, after which you could then bellow a menacing laugh.

  • Clarification, please Rob... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @11:44AM (#3999127) Homepage Journal
    ...due to their misleading Sims compatibility claims....
    Rob, would you please clarify and expand upon that statement? To me, it seems just a bit inflammatory to make a statement like that without some backup as to why you feel that way.
  • How does the speed compare to running it under windows?

    I don't have the fastest machine but if the speed isn't much worse, I might be interested in trying it out.
  • I purchased a year long stay with WineX from Transgaming around 4-5 months back. Unfortunately I realized through personal experience that WineX, while a novel idea for a company, is inherently flawed for online games you might want to play.

    Counter-Strike. I got to play this game for all of 4 days before Valve's Anti-Cheat code kicked in on the servers, and I've never been able to play under Wine or WineX again. We heard over and over again that a fix was in the works... just wait for the next release... etc... Well months later the next release is here and from the looks of the forums - no fix.

    I'd see this as being a problem for not only C-S, but just about any other game that might involve hack/cheat checks in grapihcs code, or file structure, or libraries in general.

    Still. The Transgaming folks (Gavriel!) have done an excellent job getting the cream of the crop working fairly well under Linux. Just don't expect your games to work through every patch.

  • A WINE future timeline. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by michaelsimms ( 141209 ) on Saturday August 03, 2002 @01:17AM (#4003462) Homepage
    Why is it that WINE is greeted with such enthusiasm by those it is damaging?

    Has anyone that supports WINE actually given a thought to what happens if this is the way things go? Let me once again state the blindingly obvious timeline that WINE leads us to

    1) WINE improves its windows emulation, more games work under Linux than ever before.
    2) Development of native Linux games is pretty much destroyed by WINE emulation because the few porting companies struggling to survive at this early stage cannot hope to keep up with dozens of well funded windows development companies.
    3) Emulated games become the norm. By definition they are slower than native, less reliable, but we can sacrifice reliability because we can play games NOW!
    4) As Linux games are all now emulated, sales figures for Linux games are all showing up as Windows sales. Linux sales figures effectively become zero, giving no incentive for any software company to produce native ports.
    5) Microsoft, who though evil are damned clever with their lawyers, finds a nice little legal way to kill WINE, through a patent issue, or some DMCA clone or who knows. WINE development stops.
    6) New games stop running on Linux because WINE cant support DirectX 12 or whatever the latest version is. Nobody thinks to worry about it in the game development companies because Linux sales figures are zero (see 4).
    7) Linux gets less games that will work. The companies that busted their balls trying to make native Linux gaming viable, companies like Tux Games [tuxgames.com], Loki [lokigames.com] and LGP [linuxgamepublishing.com] have all long since gone.
    8) With nobody left to support Linux gaming, Linux gaming dies.
    9) With no new games, Linux desktop becomes less attractive and people happily move back to windows so they can play the latest games NOW (see 3)
    10) Bill Gates sends thankyou letter to Transgaming and other WINE supporters.

    Any questions?

    Sure I am a biased party. That is because by founding Tux Games, I have put my money where my mouth is and bet the whole house on native Linux because unlike Transgaming, I BELIEVE THAT LINUX DOES NOT NEED TO USE WINDOWS AS A CRUTCH AND THAT LINUX IS A DAMNED FINE OS IN ITS OWN RIGHT..

    Note: Tux Games has been offered time and again, the opportunity to carry Transgaming games. We are well aware that if we did so, we would make more money, but we STRONGLY believe in the above timeline threat, and so we put our morals where our mouth is and stand by Linux native. Want to do the same? Then dont inflate Windows sales figures, support those that are working all hours to bring YOU new products.

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