Linux client ?

[MaximB]

Hello !

I read the game description and it looks great,

I was wondering if there is going to be a native Linux client for Din's Curse ?

Thanks
Maxim.

P.S
If you need any convincing why it would be wise to make a native Linux client, specially that a MacOS client will be made, please say so...I got some vital proves.

[Shadow]

Right now I don't have any plans for a direct port. Frankly I wouldn't know where to even begin since I don't know much about Linux.

Both of our games have worked fairly well under Wine though and Din's Curse shouldn't be any different.

[MaximB]

If you got the will, that's not a problem...

I heard that Ryan C. Gordon ports CLIENT games to Linux for FREE (he makes money from the server porting).
You can contact him here :http://icculus.org/~icculus/

I'm sure he would be happy to port ALL your games, they do have a MacOS clients already - so it would be much easier.

Please update me on the subject.

Thanks
Maxim.

[scragar]

Originally Posted by Shadow

Both of our games have worked fairly well under Wine though and Din's Curse shouldn't be any different.

Fairly well? On my machine DoP runs faster in wine than on XP

[MaximB]

Originally Posted by scragar

Fairly well? On my machine DoP runs faster in wine than on XP

The point is that most Linux users won't pay for a Windows game without a native Linux client.
And if you already have a Mac client for your games then making a Linux client won't be hard.
If you can't do it yourself, there are many other people who can help you do it, some of them even for free - so you got nothing to lose.

[Delilah Rehm]

Originally Posted by MaximB

The point is that most Linux users won't pay for a Windows game without a native Linux client.

What games to linux users play now? Does stuff like Diablo III or The Sims III come out in linux? (Super curious!)

[MaximB]

Originally Posted by Delilah Rehm

What games to linux users play now? Does stuff like Diablo III or The Sims III come out in linux? (Super curious!)

ALL id software games have a NATIVE Linux client.
Most games of Unreal series have a NATIVE Linux client.
RWS the developers of the Postal series have a Native Linux clients for all their games.
LGP ports many games to Linux.

Many INDIE Developers support us.
Koonsolo games the developers of Mystic Mine have reported that Linux users are more eager to buy their game then any other users.
BasiliskGames the developers of the Eschalon series make a native Linux client for their games (book2 will also have a Linux client).
WorldOfGoo have a Linux client.

I got many more examples...

The bottom line is that Linux users BUY games that have a Native Linux client.
Indie developers feel it more as every sale counts, so indies who do not support Linux and Mac users are losing many sales.

I am the author of Linux Gaming News blog :
http://LinuxGamingNews.org/
I have made many interviews with indie game developers which support Linux and they say that it pays off.

If you have any more questions don't hesitate to ask.

[Shadow]

I'll look into, but I can't promise anything at the moment.

[Mivo]

I ran Linux for over a year until there were some Windows-only, Wine-unfriendly games that I really wanted to play. (I also had less time for tweaking and toying around.) During that time, I bought pretty much every Linux game I could find, both commercial and indie. The stuff from S2 Games (Savage 1, Savage 2 and now Heroes of Newerth) is of commercial quality, and I also picked up Quake Wars by id, which worked better under Linux than Windows. Plus the Ankh games, and several others.

My impression was that the Linux community in general is very willing to support and buy Linux games, and that they are (probably by necessity) very loyal to the companies that port games to Linux and to the games themselves. There's just less choice, which makes for closer relationships.

The biggest issue is probably that there are so very many different Linux distributions. They are all "basically" the same, but there are small differences (i.e. where some data is stored) that can probably make this a support hell. Plus dependencies, since you can't always assume that every Linux user has the same libraries/etc. Then again, just making sure the game runs on the "big" distros like Ubuntu (especially Ubuntu), Fedora and SuSE would more than likely be enough. Users of more specialised distros, like Arch (love it, it taught me so much about Linux by breaking my machine repeatedly!), usually have the knowledge and experience to "get things working".

Playing in Wine is always a crutch. The look and feel is off, there's a performance hit, and it takes some tweaking. It's just a bit messy. There had only been a few games/apps that I got to work the way I wanted and without any downsides.

But I cannot judge how much work it is to port a game like DC to Linux, and to support it (patches). It may not be so much trouble, seeing that there is/will be a Mac version. I'm very sure, though, that the Linux community would appreciate it. They still play NWN because there's been so few RPG alternatives.

[MaximB]

@Mivo :
I cannot agree with you more...
You summed it up very well.

There are 10000's of games for Windows users to choose from.
In our GNU/Linux world we have so little quality cRPG's so your game has a very little contest.

While from the demos I've played it's not a "deep cRPG" but "hack-n-slash" cRPG I think that you really got something unique with "Depths of Peril".

Porting your games to GNU/Linux isn't so hard specially when you got the Mac clients already.
Also I assume the engines are similar so it's a much easier task to port all 3 games to GNU/Linux.

I've sent an email to Ryan Gordon the famous GNU/Linux porter, now he working on other game but I hope he will contact you (or you will contact him).

Goodluck.