Linux Client

[slim.one]

please just release it. i just wanna play the game i paid for.

thx

[dbguy]

Companies don't usually develop Linux clients for games simply because the demand is too low and that's the case with Prey too.

However, I've found Prey runs perfectly on Cedega and possibly Wine. That's how I played the game from start to finish :-)

[slim.one]

well, it doesn't run here, not with wine, not with cedega, and vista doesn't support my soundblaster live (and i'm generally no big fan of dual-boot).
prey did cost me 10eur, so no big loss anyway (i hoped it would work with wine).
seeing prey using the doom3-technology, which is no big deal to adjust for alien-systems like linux or mac-os, and then not releasing a client for these systems just annoys me.

[Joe Siegler]

Originally Posted by slim.one

please just release it.

There are no plans for that. Especially now as the game has really passed it's retail window. There will likely be one final patch for the game I imagine, and that will be it for updates barring some unforeseen future problems.

[slim.one]

at least i'd like you to consider it for future games (esp. DNF )
the market is there, esp. here in the eu and when it comes to playing online/multiplayer. tho i have to admit, it's not exactly measurable, since there are no dedicated retail versions for linux (for mac there are some afaik).
pleaseplease!

[Splugster]

Actually, the market in Germany for Linux based products continues to grow at a pretty quick rate and since German gamers seem to make up a pretty huge portion of the EU gaming community, could be a win win situation.


I'm not very familiar with the status of it in other EU countries though.

[Zero]

I want to be a voice towards a Linux client, but sadly Joe already said there are no plans for it, and even through Germany has a huge chunk of the Linux gamers, I am sorry to tell you, but right now that means nothing, when the all the Linux gamers combined make up a very small amount of actual Linux users that alone gets developers, since Linux already doesn't have alot of market share the chances are for a developer to release a client is slim to none...

iD only does this because they eventually release the source, so it makes sense to make a client, iD see it this way:

Okay since we are going to release the source why make gamers wait 3-4 years to play this, we'll make a client and server so that in 3-4 when we do release the source code at least one or two people on Linux will recognize it and maybe play around with that code.


Epic on the other hand is just releasing it to make us Linux users happy and really I think that's awesome, but you can't expect every company to do this, Valve won't, Crytek won't, why should 3DR take a gamble?

[slim.one]

Originally Posted by Zero

why should 3DR take a gamble?

hm, to sell more copies of their games. obviously for me thats not quite true as i bought it anyway, but that won't happen too often... and when it does, the game is too old to be played online any more (only exception might be q3a, which is alive still 8 years after release, and for that you still have to pay ~25eur).

[Zero]

See i already bought Prey for windows too, but after I realize that it runs flawlessly in wine, there really is no point in a port.. why? because there is a huge advantage Linux has with this that Windows does not..

When you build a binary your linking code, some of it is part of the operating system and some isn't, now the problem is that once built the binary, if you happen to keep this game, you will notice it might not play in the next 2-3 version of Windows, this is because the functions that are linked dynamically have been changed. In a closed source environment this sucks, because it is now up to the company who built the program to fix it, or someone might take the risk to reverse engineer the binary too.

But under Linux this is not the case, if Glibc (C Library) changes all we have to do it change wine to fix it, we don't have to hack every Windows executable to make them work. So in terms or keeping classic games alive I wouldn't want a lot of ports... who cares if we have maybe a 5FPS drop in the future we'll have a 100% FPS increase because any windows platform won't beable to run the games anyways.

[Plagman]

Here's a excerpt from Ryan Gordon resume:

Human Head Studios, http://www.humanhead.com/
* Contracted to port Prey to Linux.

If I had to guess, I'd say the client is probably somewhere in a somewhat playable state, it's just that finalizing it and releasing it would be too much trouble at this point.

[Zero]

Good to know I wonder if they have any plans at all to release it though?
I mean just because something gets ported doesn't mean it will actually become available
Look at Serious Sam 2 (not the second encounter) I have been waiting for a ling time they said the port was almost done... then news just stopped. (I don't count beta a release)

[Splugster]

Generally speaking(unfortunately), Linux ports usually seem to be done by 1 person. That being said, you can always expect it to take much longer then expected (they're usually working on a profitable project and the linux port).

[Zero]

That's not always true Epic seem to understand that Linux users are gamers too. iD sorta gets this, but there clients are somewhat delayed.. (Not that i am complaining about it, at least it runs natively.) I will support either company for making there effort and any other game that run within WINE, if oyu won't run in the environment I want to use then I will not buy it.

[Plagman]

Originally Posted by Splugster

Generally speaking(unfortunately), Linux ports usually seem to be done by 1 person.

Two persons, actually.
Timothée Besset is the man in charge of the Linux ports of id games.
Ryan Gordon handles the rest as an independent contractor (almost every other commercial game that has ever been released on Linux so far).

[Zero]

Didn't Loki games have there own porters? or was that still Ryan?

[Zero]

Didn't Loki games have there own porters? or was that still Ryan?

[Plagman]

I think he was involved in most of the ports when he worked there, I don't know for sure. But yeah, what I said applies to the post-Loki era.