Epic Games Changes Story, Unsure About UT3 Linux Future

[V!NCENT]

consoles are the future. [...]

That's questionable. I, for one, believe that home entertainment is a part of 'the future'. It's for everyones taking.

I think the age of IT monopolies are gone.

Linux could take it, but where the hell are the game developpers? The only FLOSS game that ever actually means something is Warsow and it's not playable with a controller!

What is totally absent? What is there to Linux that can't make people stand up and say: "Why not create a kickass game?" and then actually do that very thing?

[Setlec]

the way i see, consoles are nothing less than a PC with a huge CPU power, but doesn't have half of the features that a normal computer does have... and you can't "upgrade" a console as we do with our computers.

[L33F3R]

You guys think like linux users. Get inside the brain of the enemy.

They are:

Stupid
Cheap

Consoles are cheap, iconic and staple. They have the same hardware (except maybe HDD) so developers can focus on specific hardware requirements and optimize accordingly. Linux on the other hand, breaks alot of closed source software. You can get an xbox for $200, why the hell would the end user go buy a linux rig for games? For getthat, why develop closed source software for it? This is our competition. People will go out and buy these stupid pieces of China, knowing damn well that half of em are gunna break.

Need to look at publishers too. DRM is stupid, but tell EA or Activision that.

I think linux has huge potential in the indie game space, but we have no good delivery systems. We cant even get a package format across all distros.

[energyman]

That's questionable. I, for one, believe that home entertainment is a part of 'the future'. It's for everyones taking.

I think the age of IT monopolies are gone.

Linux could take it, but where the hell are the game developpers? The only FLOSS game that ever actually means something is Warsow and it's not playable with a controller!

What is totally absent? What is there to Linux that can't make people stand up and say: "Why not create a kickass game?" and then actually do that very thing?

vegastrike - kickass. Especially when all the planned stuff is done. Problem? No man power
wesnoth - kickass. And better with every release.
dangerdeep - could be kickass. Again, no man power.

Do you see the problem?

[V!NCENT]

vegastrike - kickass. Especially when all the planned stuff is done. Problem? No man power

Known in the gaming world? No. That's the problem.

wesnoth - kickass. And better with every release.

Known in the gaming world? No. That's the problem

dangerdeep - could be kickass. Again, no man power.

Known in the gaming world? No. That's the problem.

Do you see the problem?

Yes. These games suck compared to all other games out there. Warsow on the other hand is multiplatform and very popular on Windows, among a huge list of games that are available to Windows. Warsow, in it's first alpha release, 0.1, was already an official E-Sports game.

See the problem? Nothing except for Warsow and id Software games is out there for Linux because nobody has ever made a kickass game, with the exception of Warsow.

Citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsow_...mpetitive_play

[Svartalf]

Since we know that Epic contracted the port to Ryan Gordon, we can stop assigning blame to Epic. Epic did the right thing by starting a Linux port when they didn't have to. It's not their fault that Ryan isn't competent enough to finish the port quickly. Contracts usually stipulate time-based releases, and if Ryan is past the deadline or is simply unable to do it, what's the incentive in continuing work?

Careful there... I'm strongly suspecting that it's not Ryan that's the problem here. If you've been paying attention from the beginning of this debacle, there was an issue with the game release for Linux and MacOS that was middleware licensing related. While Epic initially did indicate there was a legit reason for a delay, they would be able to get something out shortly. Shortly thereafter, though, Epic chose to be silent to the point of closing threads that asked for more info instead of silence. If it were Ryan's fault, they wouldn't be doing that- and they'd have thrown him under the bus a lot sooner. Keep that in mind. Also keep in mind that roughly 4/5ths of those native ports we currently have in hand are due to this man's efforts.

While I wouldn't put it totally out of question, it's very, very hard for me to even remotely believe Ryan's the problem here at this point.

[Svartalf]

Exactly how stupid do they think we are?

Riiight... So Ryan's got plenty of projects to do (which we've heard nothing about) and somehow can't finish this "nearly done port" because it's not on the priority-part of the todo-list, despite the fact that the community expected this to be released nearly 2 years ago and a lot of people are pissed because of this. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense that porting UT3 would be the last thing to do right now.

Actually, he does have a few ongoing projects at any given time- many of which you WON'T hear about until they're shipping. Which is as it probably should be.

However, with him peeling off the UT3 info off his online resume, that says something, I would think...

Epic & Co: Please quit lying, it's way to obvious. a) it's done (or almost done) and stuck because of legal issues, payment related issues or some other issues which prevents publishing, or b) there's never been done any real work on the port at all, aka. you guys don't want it ported anyway. It's as simple as that, because I can't see any likely reason as to why the port would be partially finished without either being true. There is no way porting UT3 takes anything remotely like 2 years even for one person. If there's been any real attempt to port this, it would've been release a long time ago unless Epic just pulled the plug on this one, and don't want it ported anyway, or there's an unresolved issue related to releasing it. Pick you choose.

I'm betting some variation on "a", myself.

They're not going to pick to answer it with anything other than evasive answers because that would impair company image- more than it already has been impaired with the poor showing with UT3 on the platforms that it shipped on, along with the failure to ship it for Linux-X86 and MacOS.

[Svartalf]

I live for the day I hear that m$ has financial problems...

Heh...they already have them...they're laying off people, etc.

They've never done what they're doing these days- and it's not going to get better for them this go-round.

[Svartalf]

Epic is blaming Ryan for not releasing. Ryan is blaming Epic for not paying. This is where the 'legal' problem lies. Ryan is the 'middleware'.

Keeping in mind that it was something "you wouldn't believe even if he told us", I'm suspecting that a middleware licensing deal was "oopsed" by Epic's legal people on top of a possible partial platform exclusive deal. Once the sales tanked, there was no turning back- they couldn't afford to ship because the licensing wouldn't get paid for one or more of the libraries used, not being able to ship they couldn't pay Ryan for completion, Ryan not getting paid won't close the deal out to get us the game.

[Svartalf]

Consoles are cheap, iconic and staple. They have the same hardware (except maybe HDD) so developers can focus on specific hardware requirements and optimize accordingly. Linux on the other hand, breaks alot of closed source software. You can get an xbox for $200, why the hell would the end user go buy a linux rig for games?

Uh, L33F3R... If this supposition is the case, why is it that people will buy Windows gaming rigs, which are the same machine, only running Windows. I don't buy the line of reasoning there because of that little tidbit.

It's more due to lack of familiarity with Linux and a perceived lack of market at the present that causes this whole thing right at the moment. Not consoles as you imply. Moreover, the story's changing if the Android phones coming out for Christmas don't flop. If they do average to spectacular, there's a whole space that you will have to code to either Dalvik or a Dalvik launcher against native ARM code. Code that will have to be Linux coding to even have a chance of starting. Most of the indies and big-boys want in on that market.

In order to target WebOS or Android mobile devices with OpenGL ES acceleration on-board, you will have to...

1) Code for OpenGL ES, which moves over to OpenGL easily as long as you don't do things like use the Fixed Point API edge.

2) Code for OpenAL/cAudio, MILES, FMOD, IrrKlang, or SDL for sound.

3) Code for SDL for input.

4) Code for Linux API edges on everything else.

Once you have this...heh...it's mostly a simple recompile to x86 and a minor re-work for the ES rendering edge- if you even code directly to ES and use one of the OpenGL abstraction wrappers now popping up.

They'll have to code for it...from there, you just start making publishers pop up that'll do the release/support work for a percentage (such as Runesoft or LGP... ) and there's little financial reason to not make a game for Linux-X86 as well.