Gabe Newell's 2017 Reddit AMA: VR, Source 2 Engine, No Linux Answers

[dimko]

Interesting news, comments are even better...
And no questions about Half life 3?(please dont kill me!)

[gotwig]

For ZBrush Allegorithmic Substance (which is imho superior, but expensive) is on Linux : https://www.allegorithmic.com/blog/s...ainter-21-here

ZBrush is a 3d sculpting tool and Substance Painter/Designer is a 3d painting tool. something completly different

[Chewi]

I wrote a fairly long email to Valve the other day to ask whether deleting .so files from game directories, such as libstdc++.so.6 from Portal 2 and libcurl.so.4 from GRID Autosport, would trigger VAC. This is sometimes needed to avoid compatibility issues, particularly if you disable the runtime. It's a highly sensitive subject so I'm not too confident that I'll receive a useful answer or any answer even though I mailed the VAC team directly. My colleague said perhaps I should have contacted Gabe instead. I'm not so sure but I'll see how this pans out first. Or I may have to go via Michael…

[pal666]

They probably realized that the amount of money sunk

oh, i see someone with a hidden knowledge here. so, what was that amount exactly ?

[devius]

3D Studio Max still has massive market share, there needs to be a Linux equivalent (UI wise, Blender can't cut it).

Wow, you never used Blender for more than 30 seconds did you?

I was also in that boat until I actually tried to use it for accomplishing stuff and after about 15 minutes realized the UI is so much better than what I was used to in 3DS Max.

[pal666]

And no questions about Half life 3?(please dont kill me!)

two episodes of hl3 were released long ago, how did you miss them?

[L_A_G]

The problem Linux has though is still the lack of tools. 3D Studio Max still has massive market share, there needs to be a Linux equivalent (UI wise, Blender can't cut it). Where's the Linux ZBrush? Still tons of tools missing from the platform. One of the biggest gaming problems is still the lack of modding tools. E.g Freespace 2 got ported 10 years ago, but FRED2 is still Windows only. No mission editor, (wXFred2 is an attempt to rewrite it but is still years away from being useful). Look at all the Total War games, tons of games got ported but no editing tools. Attila Assembly kit is Windows only. This is where the community needs to step in and start making tools. The platform of open sourcecode for everyone is still the platform where there's no editing tools for anyone outside of GCC/Programming editors.

3D modelling and other art tools really don't matter all that much as the assets they produce are usable everywhere and they're used by very few people. As for game modding tools on Linux, just like on any other OS they're dependent on the developers bothering to create and maintain a version for that particular OS. You can have the best OS imaginable to work with, but nothing is going to force a developer to make tools for it if they don't want to.

[chithanh]

W10 is *not* free, although most people would get it for free (included in the machine price, or the machine is eligible for free licensing). For custom build, you still have to purchase the license separately.

If you do skip the registration, it will put you to the evaluation period which should terminate itself after 30 days.

There is no termination with Windows 10. The only thing which happens is that you get a non-changeable desktop background with an activation message. Otherwise, it will continue to work normally.

For people who install Windows to only play games, and don't care that this is illegal, this may be acceptable.

[Passso]

That crap is free:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO

disable all tracking options and the ms update service.

Oh yeah, another good idea my security guru?

[starshipeleven]

Gamers will jump on the 100$ licensing benefit when SteamOS and Windows are more 1:1ish which may be in a year or two.

FYI: I've yet to find a gamer that didn't crack the OS on a desktop.