Blizzard Still Has a World of Warcraft Linux Client

[lem79]

Heh here we go. I really don't have the energy to go into that debate but I will say that I used to think the same way until I got a card that doesn't support hardware-mixing, as most don't. Now I'm a happy PulseAudio user. Not that I think PulseAudio should be used for a game. OpenAL is probably the most neutral yet featureful option.

Heh, yep.. I'm still using my Audigy 2 ZS from 2003, which supports hardware mixing with ALSA. Never had a problem with multiple apps opening /dev/dsp or similar. My laptop OTOH .. some HDA thing that doesn't do hardware mixing. PulseAudio made that experience much better.

Unfortunately most of the sound devices out there don't do hardware mixing AFAIK (mostly on-board stuff). For the majority of users, PulseAudio brings the sound experience in line with say Windows 7, where multiple apps can output sound simultaneously, and it's easy to switch devices (ok maybe that's an Ubuntu/Gnome GUI, but still .. it never existed for ALSA). I also never saw ALSA software mixing (dmix?) implemented in Ubuntu or Debian.

[Elyotna]

What do we care, "wine WoW.exe" -opengl is already perfect .

[Chewi]

I also never saw ALSA software mixing (dmix?) implemented in Ubuntu or Debian.

Before anyone asks, I did try dmix but it only worked for basic stereo. I listen to some surround sound music and it really didn't play nicely with that. I have seen some dmix surround .asoundrc examples but they didn't seem to work and even as a highly experienced user, I couldn't get my head around them. If I can't figure it out, I certainly don't expect anyone else to.

[crazycheese]

I laugh HARD at blizzard. They are just greedy idiots. Nothing more. Their WHOLE original Battle.net server runs on Linux for ages!

[trapni]

I am one of those "Linux Users" playing WoW since (nearly) day 1 and did that for years using Cedega and then Wine exclusevily. I only bought and installed a Windows for WoW-purposes, since I am doing everyting else is very well on the Linux-side.

I always wanted and waited for a native Linux client to be released by Blizzard. Developing/porting one is not too hard (in fact, they have one, obviousely), and when looking at all the other titles you see, that it is not impossible.
Even Skype - with a rather difficult topic (voice communication) for Linux - is distribution independantly distributed.

Although, dear blizzard, just make it a static lib, and you're _almost_ out of any distribution-problems. Everything else will be taken care by the distributions - that's what they are there for.

Greetings,
trapni.

[crazycheese]

let's not forget Id Software (granted, they don't officially "support" linux, but all their stuff works anyway)

Its all thanks to John Carmack - he is the talent and driving force behind ID. Forget everyone else there. If it would be EA they would only care about more money - one platform, HUGE DRM, a lot of Ads, small support window, bugs, absence of anything but marketing.

[crazycheese]

**stuff**

Hey tranni - they would very easily pull it off in very short time.
However they want your money, thats why they need BIG DEAL of DRM and implementing it for linux is
1) unethical (like they care )
2) complex (means money, which reduces income which is already small granted from 5% desktop)
3) would probably cancel hidden anti-linux deal with microsoft(games for windows etc garbage).

[Chewi]

Wait a minute, it seems that no one, not even Michael as per usual, has actually done their homework on this. I suddenly remembered that the last time I checked, Sam Lantinga, the co-founder of Loki, worked for Blizzard. As it happens, he mailed me the other day about SDL_mixer. I went to check his Wikipedia page to see if he still works there and lo and behold, it says this...

He previously was the lead programmer and a co-founder of the now-defunct Loki Software, which ported several game titles to Linux.[2] A Linux client of World of Warcraft was developed, and negotiations with Linux Game Publishing were under way until Blizzard canceled the project. It is unknown if Lantinga was involved with this port.[3] He also founded Galaxy Gameworks in 2008 to help commercially support the Simple DirectMedia Layer.[4] He recently left Blizzard Entertainment to "relax, spend time with family, and explore some ideas to expand the Galaxy Gameworks business."[5]

I've linked the important citation.

[ChrisXY]

They have the client but have concerns about deploying issues. Why don't pay someone who has extremely good experience in creating Linux installers like icculus?

Example: I played prey natively on Linux without a problem. I'm sure it runs on nearly every modern Linux without a problem. http://icculus.org/prey/

[peppepz]

The old "multiple distributions" FUD does no longer apply to Linux.

Linux binaries have multiple ways to handle different versions. The C++ ABIs haven't been broken in years, and if needed, C++ libraries can travel with the application, as they do on Windows.
The placement for binaries and configuration files is heavily standardized, too.
In fact, I've been using binary software on my kind-of "linux from scratch" system since the dawn of time (e.g. firefox, opera, java, rar, adobe reader) without problems (at least since the glibc days).

I think the only real problems preventing commercial games deployment on Linux come from buggy display drivers. But, publishers could add a disclaimer to their games, stating that the game has been tested only on the proprietary Ati and Nvidia drivers (I have the impression that they only test those two on Windows, anyway).

Sound should be no problem, because by targeting the pulseaudio-compatible subset of Alsa, the game would do the right thing and run nicely on both pulseaudio-enabled systems and plain Alsa systems.