It's Official: Valve Releasing Steam, Source Engine For Linux!

[Svartalf]

Hmmm... i might be the only person who never played Q3A till i bought one of the metal packs Loki produced.

You're not alone... I've got one of those metal tins. People couldn't wait 2-3 weeks (I'll venture that if it can't wait a couple of weeks, it MIGHT be a flop like UT3 turned out to be...) which is where much of my frustration on the subject comes from. Just waiting 2-3 weeks would've made quite the difference. Loki'd probably still be in business and while it'd made competition for my pet project efforts, the landscape probably would be a bit different than it is right now.

Anyway, ef-ing DNF is gonna be out the door soon. Rockin'
Perhaps Phoronix will change this topic title to celebrate ? (If that makes any sense).

Doesn't make much sense unless they made or plan to make a Linux version... I'll believe the Duke when I see the Duke on a PC or console- until then, DNF still stands for Did Not Finish.

[Svartalf]

Sure, but that's not a case of consumers being 'bad', it's a case of Loki making a fatal mistake. Don't blame consumers who are actually spending money on a Linux sale when you count them as a Windows sale because you can't track them. Shame on Loki.

Shame on Loki for botching the release date- 2-3 weeks late.

Shame on the consumers, many of whom knew it was important, because they couldn't wait that long.

The reality is this: If you can't wait 2-3 weeks for your native OS release, was the game even WORTH bothering with? Look at how UT3 flopped...in nearly that same timeframe. Which is more important, being able to get a given game slightly late and very probably many more down the line or the game NOW and a good risk of nothing else down the line? That's what people chose- and you can't color it any other way.

[Kano]

Well UT 2004 shipped with Linux binaries, but nobody counted UT2004 as Linux sale. Basically online games could simply report the os to the server, you can even detect wine if you are not too stupid.

[Svartalf]

Well UT 2004 shipped with Linux binaries, but nobody counted UT2004 as Linux sale. Basically online games could simply report the os to the server, you can even detect wine if you are not too stupid.

Indeed. But they're not caring about that- and this is discussing something back from a while back when they didn't do that sort of reporting back to the servers. It's not quite the same thing.

[Svartalf]

Postal3 only pic up the source engine because valve grantee an native linux clind.

they dit not release yet because they run into technical trouble.

Heh... This would be one of the reasons I'm on the fence here. Vince isn't one to play games like people from another studio we know of. He's already said it was happening- if it changed, you'd know the moment that it did because he'd tell you outright.

one of the trouble is the openGL mac-os clind and they use originally hired devs for the linux clind to fix openGL bugs on macos.

So it's OSX that's part of the hold up... Nice...

another problem is the Linux driver situation its not so easy if you don'T want an nvidia only solution.

It honestly isn't QUITE as bad as you're making it out to be there. One of the MAIN problems with game code, OGL or D3D, is that compliance is a tenuous thing. Both drivers actually comply with the specs in the large. It's in how you code for those specs that you run into problems. In many cases, NVidia's more tolerant (where it honestly shouldn't be...) of things that you honestly shouldn't do, coding-wise, in the first place- so the game works "better".

[grantek]

Indeed. But they're not caring about that- and this is discussing something back from a while back when they didn't do that sort of reporting back to the servers. It's not quite the same thing.

Back on topic though, Valve do report hardware and driver specs back through Steam, so they do have some real numbers on people using Steam through Wine. Even user-agent logging on their web store should give them some numbers on how many of their customers have access to a Linux system.

[Svartalf]

Back on topic though, Valve do report hardware and driver specs back through Steam, so they do have some real numbers on people using Steam through Wine. Even user-agent logging on their web store should give them some numbers on how many of their customers have access to a Linux system.

Heh... There might be a reason there's more than a bit of smoke in this story...

@Qaridarium: I'm on the fence only because we thought much the same thing about the studio I alluded to- and they let us down (and Ryan Gordon, I strongly suspect...). Vince isn't one to not tell you to your face what's going to happen and how it's going to happen. I've just taken a position that if it's not shipped, it's not happened...at least not yet.

[Naib]

http://www.runningwithscissors.com/postal3/requirements

Well linux isn't listed (well neither is osx)

also:
In a recent interview with Joystiq.com, Running With Scissors founder Vince Desi said that the game would likely be released in the first quarter of 2011. He added, "It's in the final stages in Moscow, I don?t think it will come out this Christmas."

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/11/09/desi-postal-3-in-final-stages

[Svartalf]

ok you talk about Epic Games and unreal 3.
thats your point of view "let us down" because unreal3 run on linux (wine)
yes not yet...

Uh... Last I remembered, they promised us a NATIVE port and WINE with it being used with the Windows loader engine was more of an emulation (sorry, WINE's an emulator of sorts in this configuration...it uses winelib, yes, but as the OS layer presented by a non-native binary loader engine...) and it's not officially recognized or supported by Epic, let alone most companies...

That's "let down" Qaridarium... You can try to paint it any other way, but you'd be telling stories instead of the truth.

[Naib]

truth? you maybe wana read this link:

http://phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?32695-The-Source-Engine-On-Postal-III-Is-Still-Coming-To-Linux

"Always nice hearing from the linux folks. As of today Yes we are still planning a linux release. We that is RWS are waiting for a final beta from our production team in Moscow. Like you and yours we are anxious and frustrated. I hate saying Shit [I'm] not sure about but I will share with you what I know. It looks like May if all goes well. We are hopeful to reach a distribution deal at GDC and worse case we go [direct download] and will find another team [for] Linux.

Thanks
V"

You are familiar with the concept of threads and reading right? He was refering to Unreal3
Linux users WERE let down. "we" were promised a linux-native client BUT it never came. That is a major letdown