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Is there going to be a sequel? If yes, will it still run on linux?

ArnoldRimmer
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Boeroer

Boeroer

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Don't think so. They are using Unity and now have a solid code foundation and more experience - also with deployment to Linux. And they would loose me as a customer if they didn't support Linux - I'm pretty sure that'S enough of a reason not to drop Linux support. ;)

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Night Stalker

Night Stalker

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From the horses mouth:

 

Hey, guys. I probably could have chosen my words better than I did. I wasn't trying to upset any of our Linux supporters and I didn't mean to belittle their support. I love all of our backers and I appreciate all of their help.

 

We basically had to build our Linux infrastructure from scratch on our side. It wasn't something we were used to. It was also painful for us to develop in Linux because the Unity tools didn't support Linux at the time. This meant that we were unable to debug on the platform.

 

Now that we have gone through the process of creating these builds it is something that will be much easier for us in the future. Pair that with SteamOS, Steam Controller, and Steam Machine and I think Linux's future is good with PoE games.

 

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Ineth

Ineth

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I bet that the main reason why adding Linux support was such a burden for them, was that they simply ignored the platform for most the development period and developed the game as a Windows game like they had always done, and then at the end started looking into porting it to Linux and realized "Oh **** we haven't taken into account a case-sensitive filesystem, and some of the Unity addons we bought are not crossplatform, etc... This is gonna involve re-doing a lot of things from scratch."

 

If they had started by giving their developers some training on how to create cross-platform games (not rocket science; letting them watch a free 30min youtube video would probably have sufficed as training), and then taken all platforms into account at each step during development (e.g. while designing the filename scheme; while considering Unity addon purchases; etc...), I'm sure it would have gone much smoother.

"Some ideas are so stupid that only an intellectual could believe them." -- attributed to George Orwell

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mychal26

mychal26

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I would argue that if a platform represents around 1% of your total sales, and it wasn't very quick or easy to port to ... why bother? It's a loss of resources, and for a small development studio this would be very important. Besides, I'm sure Linux users could easily run Windows on their machine by having a dual booting OS or (perhaps) a virtual environment.

Edited by mychal26
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Ineth

Ineth

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I would argue that if a platform represents around 1% of your total sales,

 

There are two things to take into account regarding that 1% number:

  • When Obsidian promised during the Kickstarter that they would release the game for Win/Mac/Linux, they had no way of knowing what exactly the Linux market share would be, as this seems to vary considerably from genre to genre and game to game - anything from 0% to 5% is realistic from what I hear. (And then there are outliers like some Humble Indie Bundles which have made up to a quarter of their revenue from Linux customers...)

     

    In any case, since Obsidian had promised Mac & Linux support during the Kickstarer, they were pretty much forced to go through with it regardless of what statistics they had learned about their customer base in the meantime.

     

  • Just because the Linux customer share was only 1% when PoE was released, that doesn't mean it will stay at 1% during all of the game's nominal life cycle (say 20 years). For example if Valve's "Steam Machine" (which is Linux based) will become popular, that could change the picture entirely.

     

    Looking ahead is especially important for a game like PoE which was always meant to be only the first in a series of games.

and it wasn't very quick or easy to port to

 

But it is pretty easy when approached correctly... :p

 

Besides, I'm sure Linux users could easily run Windows on their machine by having a dual booting OS or (perhaps) a virtual environment.

Could in theory, but probably won't in practice.

 

What many Windows people don't realize, is how dramatically the supply-and-demand situation has changed for us Linux gamers over the past 10 years.

 

10 years ago:

  • Maybe 20 decent games run on Linux.
  • None of the "big" engines support Linux.
  • None of the major game distributors sell Linux versions of games.

Now:

  • Thousands of decent games run on Linux.
  • All of the "big" engines support Linux.
  • Most of the major game distributors sell Linux versions of games.

Sure, in relative terms "thousands" is still small compared to the hundreds of thousands of games that Windows gamers can choose from. But in absolute terms it is a sufficiently large pool for many people to find what they like.

 

We are no longer so starved for Linux compatible games that we must write off the cost of having a Windows partition as a bare necessity. (Cost = the financial cost for a Windows license and extra hard-disk space + the considerable time & mental stress for set-up & maintenance & usage).

 

Some Linux gamers still go to the trouble, but it is becoming less common.

The attitude in the Linux community is shifting towards completely ignoring any game (and game Kickstarter) that doesn't support Linux - in keeping with the motto "if you don't get invested in it, you won't miss it".

Edited by Ineth
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"Some ideas are so stupid that only an intellectual could believe them." -- attributed to George Orwell

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Boeroer

Boeroer

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I work with Linux all day (self employed) and don't want to put on Windows onto my machine just for gaming. And I really hate Wine (the software). Luckily I don't like all these AAA titles like GTA and stuff too much so I don't have to skip a lot of games. Steam + Linux is very convenient by the way. 

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Boeroer

Boeroer

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The attitude in the Linux community is shifting towards completely ignoring any game (and game Kickstarter) that doesn't support Linux - in keeping with the motto "if you don't get invested in it, you won't miss it".

 

And rightfully so. :)

 

I don't hate Windows or OSX by the way - they all have their pros and cons.

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Ganrich

Ganrich

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I have 2 PCs. One is my Windows machine that is a traditional desktop configuration, and the other is a self built Steam Machine running Steamos. I play equally on both. I was dual booting into Ubuntu, Mint, and a few other distros prior to building the steam machine. I kept changing around to get use to different distros and see what I liked.

 

I am a gamer, and could care less what OS I am running. However, I am tired of my graphics API being locked behind a new version of Windows. There are a handful of issues I have with MS and Windows that have developed over the past decade. (Too many to go into honestly). D3D has been nothing but very minor upgrades until Mantle came on the scene, and then MS started listening to devs and scrambled to make DX12. They need a competitor, and god I hope Vulkan is actual competition to succeed where OpenGL floundered. MS having a threat in pulling gamers away from Windows will do nothing but benefit gamers. Especially since Vulkan will work on every version of Windows, Linux, and OSX in the wild.

 

Other than the graphics drivers (which isn't in as bad a state with Nvidia)... I honestly have grown to prefer Linux. It's repository system, simplicity of the command prompt, how the home file works, plug'n play of nearly everything, etc. They were a little of a learning curve, but in a week they felt just like a better way of doing things.

 

The gaming sphere on Linux has always been a Chicken and the Egg paradigm. It didn't have users because of a lack of professional software, but it didn't have professional software because of the lack of users. I have been more and more only purchasing games that are on Linux, or coming to Linux. Devs have to keep making games on Linux and eventually I believe things will change where they have a decent population on Linux. I am already there more or less. Where 5 years ago I would have laughed at the idea of being on Linux. I would jump completely, but unlike Boeroer I still play a AAA game or 2. I also am waiting for AMD to get their Linux drivers in a better state (and release Zen and Polaris) so my new desktop build can be a 100% AMD system (and hopefully a Linux only system as well).

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