The witcher on linux?

[xav1r]

Hey, I was just playing this great game The Witcher on windows, and I thought, wouldnt it be possible (and very cool too) if it could run natively on linux? After all, it runs on the aurora engine that powered NWN, which as everyone knows, had a linux client. Anyone think it could be released?

[Svartalf]

Considering the poor showing that Atari had in handling the NWN2 situation and considering that Atari is the publisher for The Witcher, it's unlikely. You can ask, but I wouldn't expect much from them unless the Studio's got a much more liberal deal than Obsidian had with NWN2.

[xav1r]

Yes, that's true, damn. Was NWN2 for linux released at the end? I cant remember.

[Thetargos]

Nope. NWN2 for Linux never came to be... There was a Mac version, I believe, though.

[d2kx]

Wine 0.9.52 should be released by today and you can have it a look on whether it works.

[val-gaav]

Hey, I was just playing this great game The Witcher on windows, and I thought, wouldnt it be possible (and very cool too) if it could run natively on linux? After all, it runs on the aurora engine that powered NWN, which as everyone knows, had a linux client. Anyone think it could be released?

no way ... Witcher devs modified the engine heavily so it's very directx dependant ... besides there were petitions and talks with cdprojekt about it even before the game was released.

In any case Witcher is a good game but made by a company that cannot handle such a big project so patching and fixing current issues with the game is already a big challenge for them.

BTW Witcher works with wine 0.9.49

[xav1r]

Well, the 1.2 patch is out and it fixes lots of problems the witcher had, it even reduces loading times by 50% i think. Dunno, I'd be great to have commercial rpgs available natively on linux, since it's mostly (entirely) fps that get the linux support.

[Svartalf]

Wine 0.9.52 should be released by today and you can have it a look on whether it works.

WINE's a band-aid. A good one in many cases, but still a band-aid slapped on top of a more serious problem.

In the end, you're going to have to come to the conclusion that you're going to have to largely insist upon Native versions of games or you'll never really get past just emulating Windows titles, which is what you're doing with WINE. Each time you run a Windows title that way, you're handing in a vote for Windows and distorting the usage numbers they use to determine what gets done, what not gets done.

[Svartalf]

no way ... Witcher devs modified the engine heavily so it's very directx dependant ... besides there were petitions and talks with cdprojekt about it even before the game was released.

Heh... If it's done, it can be undone. I've converted DirectX only titles over to Linux. It could still be done with NWN2- they just have no interest in letting someone do it, or are being unreasonable about the licensing terms to let it happen. Moreover, since there's a Mac version, there's little excuse since the bulk of the work happens to have been done by someone since Mac's and Linux' game dev environments are intrinsically identical with MacOS X and above. OpenGL, SDL, and OpenAL are what're typically used in the first place. Funny that.

In any case Witcher is a good game but made by a company that cannot handle such a big project so patching and fixing current issues with the game is already a big challenge for them.

Unless the studio's doing the port work, it'd be someone like Ryan or LGP doing the work. We've proven that we're up to the challenge in most situations- it's all upon whether or not Atari would allow someone to do it and were willing to license the rights to port and publish the port at a reasonable rate.

If either of these isn't met, you don't get the title unless the studio retained the right to seek other publishers for the title on other platforms without input from the main publisher. I don't see a small studio like Cdprojeckt being in a position to do something like that. Only studios like BioWare, Id, Epic, 3D Realms (yep...), and others like them have the sort of bargaining power and are willing to use it to accomplish this sort of thing at this time for Linux versions.

[val-gaav]

Heh... If it's done, it can be undone.

true ... My point was it would be a "bit" harder due to that.

If either of these isn't met, you don't get the title unless the studio retained the right to seek other publishers for the title on other platforms without input from the main publisher. I don't see a small studio like Cdprojeckt being in a position to do something like that. Only studios like BioWare, Id, Epic, 3D Realms (yep...), and others like them have the sort of bargaining power and are willing to use it to accomplish this sort of thing at this time for Linux versions.

Here is the deal:
Cdprojekt is in fact a publisher in Poland and Czech. They do translations and publishing for games. Witcher is AFAIK the first game they made (I may be wrong here). Anyway they are also the publisher for witcher at least in Poland (and maybe in Czech too ). I'd love to see Witcher or NWN2 native port but I somehow doubt it will ever happen ... cdrpojekt so far didn't support Linux in any way.