Wishlist for Porting Projects (Pt. 2)

[Licaon]

Windows games can be sold when the Linux version is out
WINE ( and ReactOS for that matter ) is a great piece of engineering in it self, but it's purpose is at fault
those great devs should be coding Linux apps and games, and not an emulation layer for an OS where the apps and games work

@Svartalf: stop posting here and start talking to people or code the next game

[Remco]

@Svartalf: stop posting here and start talking to people or code the next game

I know you mean well, but that doesn't sound very nice. Svartalf will do whatever he wants.

[L33F3R]

Excuse me...

2) I didn't BUY the game with the intent of playing it on WINE. It was a damned gift from my brother back when the game came out

that works

srry for wording you

[whizse]

Not sure if I mentioned this in the old thread, but Fez looks like it could be a really fun game.

[Remco]

It has been mentioned (by me ) but there has been no discussion: is Eidos a possible Linuxer for Tomb Raider or Hitman? Eidos is also responsible for Deus Ex, which is a "maybe". I believe the first Tomb Raider hasn't even been ported to Windows. That would be a funny situation.

[Marix]

Not really. 10,000 using Wine is 10,000 customers that they don't have to do anything else for. The people willing to use Wine to play the game are not going to go out and buy another copy just for a Linux port, and the poeple who won't/can't use Wine are an unknown minority (as far as their sales figures are concerned).

I play TrackMania using wine. Still I would go out and spend even twice the money I spend for the windows version just for increased stability. With wine there are always problems like not being able to use all graphics features and experiencing small application stalls from time to time.

[Marix]

Anyway, a game that is in the list and I believe would be very succesful is Drakensang, because:
i) It's new with great graphics.
ii) Doesn't play well under Wine.
iii) RPGs aren't common in Linux but they have a very viable market.
iv) It's unique in its kind because it uses a great system we haven't seen in computer RPGs for over 12 years.
v) This system is Germany's child and very succesful there and Germany is a big Linux market.
vi) The company behind it isn't big.

You missed point 0:
0.1) Radon-Labs is also developing the game engine "The Nebula Device", which is also available on Linux.
0.2) I assume this engine is also used for Drakensang, which might make porting easy.
0.3) They already announced the prequal, which, as far as can be seen from the first reports (Gamestar etc.), uses the same engine. One port might actually give two games, and the second might be possible to port for day 1.

[Dragonlord]

Same engine != easy portable. Engines are used from "snapshot" and then modified for the according game. So it's very likely a game with the same engine is not easy portable although another one is. Depends especially also on what kind of 3rd party stuff finds its way into the code base. Some of those are very evil.

[Marix]

In this case with "same engine" I really meant that it is technically probably the same game with only some improvements to the code base, but no new technology or revolutionary changes. (Off course completely different content, so, but that shouldn't effect the coding.)

[Wyatt]

Not sure if I mentioned this in the old thread, but Fez looks like it could be a really fun game.

This. I meant to post this in the last thread, but I'll just second it here.

Dude's got some interesting things going on engine-wise, too, if you read his post about it. Unfortunately, he's using XNA, so that might be a little problematic...? (I haven't looked at XNA at all, so I'm not sure how ugly it is from a porting perspective.)