Blizzard Entertainment Planning A Linux Game For 2013

[AJSB]

Which Linux distro should they then choose? People need to be realistic about how many distros a game company can and will support. If the game works in Ubuntu Linux it will work on Mint, Fedora, Arch, Gentoo without much work from the community as well...

...and works also under SLACKWARE too

[crazycheese]

I still think this will end up as a big failed experiment.
The main reason is the open source video drivers just plain suck, and many of those people who only use those drivers instead of the binary blobs will just ruin it for everyone else.
It would be better if the distros installed the binary blobs by default, but in many cases, they just won't do that.

Speaking of open source drivers, I fail to see why many people choose to support nvidia instead of AMD when picking the gfx cards themselves. AMD releases lots of docs, nvidia hasn't released much of anything really, yet, those same anti-binary blob people continue to support a company like nvidia by buying their products.

No.
No, no.
No, it would be better if distros recognised problematic hardware and handled automatically. Distros are not installing (correctly - shipping with) proprietary only because of proprietary license that restricts that.

No. Partially. No - for example, sold 260gtx this december to go amd-only route. They are usable.

[Morpheus]

They should better focus on a new game, and don't lose time on a linux port of an already released game, unless it's the internal WoW build.

Let me explain : people don't want to pay again for a game that will run on the same hardware just because they switch an OS. So putting money into a game people won't want to buy will let them to think it's not worth the business. With WoW already ported, cost is minimal, but as graphic engines are usually written in Direct3D, it's another story.

On the contrary, writing from scratch permits a multiOS support from the beginning, so cost can be far less important (think OpenGL guys, please). And please, one buy, multiOS support. Steam Play feature is the reason people can try games on linux. And why I bought Serious Sam 3 (for a more personal point of view).

[allquixotic]

Would play the hell out of SC2 on Linux. Can't say the same for their other titles.

[RussianNeuroMancer]

They should better focus on a new game, and don't lose time on a linux port of an already released game, unless it's the internal WoW build.

Why not, if it's will be SC2? Heart of the Swarm will be released in this year too.

[deanjo]

Distros are not installing (correctly - shipping with) proprietary only because of proprietary license that restricts that.

The proprietary license does NOT restrict that. It is the huff and puff about distributing a binary package with a "free" operating system.

http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/1.0-9755/README/chapter-04.html

Why does NVIDIA not provide RPMs anymore?


Not every Linux distribution uses RPM, and NVIDIA wanted a single solution that would work across all Linux distributions. As indicated in the NVIDIA Software License, Linux distributions are welcome to repackage and redistribute the NVIDIA Linux driver in whatever package format they wish.

ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Li...EADME/faq.html

Why does NVIDIA not provide RPMs?


Not every Linux distribution uses RPM, and NVIDIA provides a single solution that works across all Linux distributions. NVIDIA encourages Linux distributions to repackage and redistribute the NVIDIA Linux driver in their native package management formats. These repackaged NVIDIA drivers are likely to inter-operate best with the Linux distribution's package management technology. For this reason, NVIDIA encourages users to use their distribution's repackaged NVIDIA driver, where available.

[bug77]

Speaking of open source drivers, I fail to see why many people choose to support nvidia instead of AMD when picking the gfx cards themselves. AMD releases lots of docs, nvidia hasn't released much of anything really, yet, those same anti-binary blob people continue to support a company like nvidia by buying their products.

Speaking for myself, I choose nvidia because it works. I play games, mostly on Windows, so I need a fairly capable (and recent) card. With nvidia blob, I don't have to guess whether the new X server is supported or not, whether power management, video acceleration works, whether I will have enough 3D horsepower should the need arise. If the open source driver would do that, I'd have no problem using that. But it doesn't and it never will.

[Bomyne]

Hopefully, it's world of warcraft. But would be even better if they were embracing Linux for all four of their games (WoW, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, Project Titan).

I wouldn't worry too much about THQ. They've gone bankrupt.

[Bomyne]

They should better focus on a new game, and don't lose time on a linux port of an already released game, unless it's the internal WoW build.

Let me explain : people don't want to pay again for a game that will run on the same hardware just because they switch an OS. So putting money into a game people won't want to buy will let them to think it's not worth the business. With WoW already ported, cost is minimal, but as graphic engines are usually written in Direct3D, it's another story.

On the contrary, writing from scratch permits a multiOS support from the beginning, so cost can be far less important (think OpenGL guys, please). And please, one buy, multiOS support. Steam Play feature is the reason people can try games on linux. And why I bought Serious Sam 3 (for a more personal point of view).

You can download the clients for WoW, D3 and SC2 free of charge, with or without owning them. You can download the Mac version, even if you 'bought' the windows version, as what you are buying is a license on the account rather than a specific platform version.

I'm really hoping for WoW. Wine doesn't run the game very well at all.

[sepisoad]

huh?

What is with dat picture in the middle of article, is that some sort of hidden message(LOL)?