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Comment Re:Wont buy it, will play it though (Score -1) 461

by byteframe (#29169817) Attached to: Linux Port For id's Tech 5 Graphics Engine Unlikely

What a shame.. I make a point of buying only Linux native games. But they should understand this.. it wont stop me playing the game. If they would like to turn a profit from me, then Linux port it.

If you're referring to piracy for spite, let me just add that if I have to install windows and boot into it to play an idsoftware game, then I WON'T pay for that experience, as I have consecutively done in the past.

I have to have it though. Screw Epic Games and their middleware-bloated UT3, they're dead, but Rage looks phenomenal: johnc is probably right when he assumes we'll all swallow a windows install for a few weeks.

On a related subject, the recently Wolfenstein game apparently runs quite well out of the box in wine. Any game like this that has an opengl renderer (or is an otherwise "wine-friendly" game) will receive my monies. Interestingly enough, these games oftentimes have lineage back to one of quake engine iterations -- Call of Duty 1-2+4, All Source Games, etc.

I expect this thread to balloon in size, and I assume many other GNU/Linux user's will have taken to Quake Live as I have (it's excellent, and deathmatch is back baby), so I really would argue for the existence of a substantial and growing market of linux gamers. This market contains a higher _percentage_ of informed and loyal customers.

id software has a strong community dedicated to it (regardless of OS), and the company is able to leverage that very effectively. Why can't id, or any company, just come out and say: "It's gonna take us $10,000 + snacks to have Timothee Basset or Icculus produce a port. We've got about one year left of crunch time, give us the 60 bucks early on paypal, and if it all pans out, you'll get the game when it's released with an assured linux port, or a refund." I know I'm naive about the figures and costs involved, but I do believe that faithful linux gamers like myself would actually be very inclined to support this kind of "pseuedo public-financing". Add on to that the probability that the engine technology will most likely be free software in 5-10 years, it almost seems like we're donating to some kind of public works/cultural program.

TFA, which is genuine, makes me sad.
Quake

Advanced Open Source Engine Based On Quake 3 137

Posted by Soulskill from the something-on-rails dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Phoronix is running a news story about the XreaL project, which its lead developer claims is the most advanced open-source game engine. XreaL is based upon the vintage Quake 3 engine, but it has been rewritten over the course of many months such that it no longer resembles the original id Software engine. The XreaL engine has its renderer written entirely in GLSL with compliance toward the OpenGL ES 2.0 specification in mind, but it supports the new OpenGL 3.0/3.1 specification and is able to take advantage of its new features. XreaL has also added an HDR pipeline to its engine and on modern hardware is actually GPU — not CPU — bottlenecked. XreaL can also load game content from Unreal Tournament 3. This engine, which is described to be as powerful as what can be found in Doom 3 or Call of Duty 4, is written entirely with free software. The XreaL project has created plug-ins for Maya to broaden their game development capabilities."
Handhelds

Debian For Android Installer Released 160

Posted by timothy from the full-plethora dept.
dooberrymctavish writes "You can now download an installer and bootloader for getting Debian running on your Android (G1 at the moment) device; the whole install process will take you about 10 minutes, and leaves you with access to the full plethora of programs available in Debian and lets you continue using your phone as it was intended to be: as an Android device with all the capabilities thereof. Here's a look at it running.
Media

Streaming Video Service Coming To the Wii 103

Posted by Soulskill from the no-wii-stream-jokes dept.
Gamasutra reports that Nintendo is partnering with a company called Dentsu to "distribute original streaming video programming via the Wii, with a 2009 launch confirmed in Japan, and an eye towards a later Western launch." According to a press statement, some of the videos will be free, and some will cost money. This will help to answer concerns that the Wii was lagging behind the other major consoles in video content.
Games

Inside F.E.A.R. 2's Engine and AI 34

Posted by Soulskill from the our-robot-overlords-will-arise-from-FPS-bots dept.
Gamasutra sat down with software engineers from Monolith Productions to discuss the technology behind F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin, due out in February. They provide insight into the development of the game's engine, and they discuss the goals and procedures behind creating entertaining AI. Quoting: "For instance, let's say that the AI wanted to kill the enemy. That would mean that there are a whole bunch of actions that satisfy the requirement for there being a dead enemy; let's say, 'Attack with ranged weapon,' right? ... Where the power comes from is the fact that those actions themselves can have conditions that they need to have met. So, 'attack with ranged weapon' may have conditions that say, 'I have to have a weapon, and I have to have it loaded. Go find me more actions that satisfy those requirements.' ... at that point, he may find another action, which is 'go to this weapon,' and then he may find another action which is 'reload your weapon.' So, that whole chain that I just described to you, of him doing three things in a row — which is going to pick up a weapon, loading a weapon, and then going to attack the player — that was not a directed thing that the level designer, nor that the AI engineer had to program; it was just the fact that we have these aggregate actions that the planner can pick from at will.
Books

Learning To Profit From Piracy 275

Posted by kdawson from the pointing-out-a-market-failure dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Wired has an interview with Matt Mason, author of The Pirate's Dilemma: How Youth Culture Is Reinventing Capitalism, which discusses how businesses could make money off of piracy, rather than attacking people in a futile attempt to suppress it. And some of his ideas are gaining traction; work is underway on a TV show called Pirate TV, which he describes as 'two parts Anthony Bourdain, one part Mythbusters.' (Heroes executive producer Jesse Alexander is on board.) Also, Mason is pretty good about practicing what he preaches in that you can pirate his book on his own website."

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