Put the wish list for porting projects HERE...

[Alecz]

http://www.battle.net/forums/thread....9&p=1&#post299

more posts needed, k10xby

I think they delete "Linux related" posts. The link you gave points to nothing.

[me262]

B.Net forums appear to be down as of my timestamp. Give it a day or two.

Bluebtye re-released the Settlers II as the 10th anniversary edition not too long ago, maybe a year.
Think that may be an avenue to persue? I mean, Widelands is great and all, but the music of the Settlers II still haunts me to this day. ^_^

Also, a note you should put in the first post on the thread:
The mentioned game should be able to use OpenGL. DirectX is not available on Linux and would be a pain to port, as such, games that rely exclusively on DirectX are not feasible.

[Thetargos]

Also, a note you should put in the first post on the thread:
The mentioned game should be able to use OpenGL. DirectX is not available on Linux and would be a pain to port, as such, games that rely exclusively on DirectX are not feasible.

I wouldn't put it that way entirely... If the engine can be ported (take for instance the LithTek engine), it wouldn't matter. BUT it would involve much more work to do the porting as the engine itself would have to be ported first.

[Svartalf]

Bluebtye re-released the Settlers II as the 10th anniversary edition not too long ago, maybe a year.
Think that may be an avenue to persue? I mean, Widelands is great and all, but the music of the Settlers II still haunts me to this day. ^_^

Heh... I'll check into it here in a bit.

Also, a note you should put in the first post on the thread:
The mentioned game should be able to use OpenGL. DirectX is not available on Linux and would be a pain to port, as such, games that rely exclusively on DirectX are not feasible.

That is inaccurate. I've done Ballistics. I'm finishing up Bandits. BOTH were DirectX only titles. The only drawback to making them Linux titles was that we don't have wireline network support with them as there's no reverse engineered piece there in the FOSS community yet. If a title uses DirectPlay, you can't even run it under WINE (Not sure about Cedega or CrossOver) without first installing DirectX 9c under it first.

If you migrate the Engine, you only have to contend with the game. If I had Lithtech 2.2 to be able to be ported, NOLF would be almost a cinch at that point with the above proviso.

[Alecz]

Someone suggested the Total War series (Turn-based Strategy, released for PC only!)

While they wanted the latest title Medieval 2, I really enjoy Rome:TW much more, and that's the only reason I have to dual-boot.

Anyhow, I believe Activision is the publisher, so I know it will not be ported .

On the other hand... it makes me sad we have to beg Publishers to release games for Linux or allow them to be ported. What do they have to lose anyway?

Then there's the issue of game availability. I was looking for Linux Version of id titles in local stores and their websites and I couldn't really find anything.

For example who sells QW:ET for Linux in Canada?

[ivanovic]

For example who sells QW:ET for Linux in Canada?

ETQW is basically a point-release. That is: You buy the Windows version and get the installer from id software to install it on Linux. If you really want to make sure that it is counted as "Linux sale", buy it at one of the "store for Linux software" like tuxgames.com. Though they will basically send you the same box, maybe with an extra disc for the point installer. There is no separate Linux box.

[Svartalf]

On the other hand... it makes me sad we have to beg Publishers to release games for Linux or allow them to be ported. What do they have to lose anyway?

Quite a bit, actually.

As stated in the UT3 delay discussion thread, if you start looking at the numbers, you end up coming up short.

Unless you make it explicitly cross-platform, you need to do the work to make a Linux version- that's $50-150k worth of salary or you honestly need to see a bit of profit coming out of a possible failed attempt (Which is WHY they want so much up-front from a porting interest...).

At 50k of salary/hourly to do the work, you need to see 2000 units sell for it to make a roughly break-even deal at $30 per unit your sale price (Which doesn't get into the prices you see...which would make it more akin to $40-50 at that point...). We've not, as a group, done a lot of buying, even when it was an in-demand thing (Loki's stuff, as a whole didn't sell more than 1500 units per title. Q3:A only sold 200 units max...)- so we're not looking at all compelling from that angle alone.

Couple this with not knowing how to minimize your support woes and seeing dozens of "different" distributions- they don't see anything except downside with us right at the moment, installed userbase numbers of tens of millions not withstanding.

[edit]

This is why you see this thread. I'm keen on seeing the story becoming more compelling to them- or changing the rules up so they don't matter any more. You have to do this by way of showing them that there really will be 4-5k units sold or more on a given title being ported over. At that point, they actually will see some smattering of profit and they'd be interested in getting their foot in the door if it's not going to be painful, costs-wise for them. The only reason the studios that have done official or unofficial Linux versions is because they can and they had either a mandate to see to it that the engine was cross-platform (iD, Epic...) or they're fans of the OS at least in part and are doing the right thing at a probably slight loss, possible slight gain (S2, Hothead, etc...). There's a reason why you don't see the bulk of the publisher titles going our way- it's because of the numbers I just showed you not being a good thing for us. We need to change the numbers and change the rules up.

[me262]

Then there's the issue of game availability. I was looking for Linux Version of id titles in local stores and their websites and I couldn't really find anything.

I actually did find a copy of Quake 3 for Linux in a mall in Florida back in 2002, it was a tin box. At the time I wasn't running Linux on my network at all, and didn't pick it up (that and I didn't have the money, vacationing will do that).

[Alecz]

Quite a bit, actually.
...

Unless you make it explicitly cross-platform, you need to do the work to make a Linux version- that's $50-150k worth of salary or you honestly need to see a bit of profit coming out of a possible failed attempt (Which is WHY they want so much up-front from a porting interest...).

...

You basically say they might lose the money invested in "porting" the game. Isn't this what LGP does? I don't see why they ask you so much money if you guys do the porting and they only collect a small percent of the sales. This would translate into them receiving money even if only one copy was sold.

Anyhow... I don't know that much about all this publishing business, and in part I learned to live with Linux without games... there's so much more to computers!

Note, that I would like to have more commercial games on Linux!

[xav1r]

What about online only games? Like that quake live thing thats gonna be released soon? Does anyone know if it will run on linux?