The Future Of UT3 On Linux Appears Uncertain

[leilei]

That issue also occured in the demo version also, and what's worse is that you're just "Player" when you're in offline mode. Not good for private home LANs.

UT3 was potential, Midway just dropped the ball on handling a FPS game as if like an expendable addition to a tired fighting game series.

[Fixxer_Linux]

Epic is incredible : they are contracting someone (Icculus I guess) to port their closed source game to Mac and Linux and they don't even know where the things are ?

It's not the way I'm used to follow my contractants in my job. I guess that way my boss wouldn't appreciate it.
Could you imagine this scenario :
- Hey, were are we with that project we've paid for ?
- I don't know
- Well... Could you do something to know ?
- ... not really. I can't reach him, I don't know where he is... And to be honnest, I don't really care.
- Ok, do you see that door over there ?

Seriously.
I guess the next step in UT3 linux/mac client will be to say : "the financial crysis urge us to stop any further development for the port. Too much expensive, too few potential clients, we stop everything. Call the banks and the traders responsible for the world crysis and fµck them all".
I bet a cookie (a real cookie, not a firefox cookie ) that the crysis is the perfect story for ending that mess from Epic/Midway.

[Svartalf]

Epic is incredible : they are contracting someone (Icculus I guess) to port their closed source game to Mac and Linux and they don't even know where the things are ?

It'd be icculus. Epic's doing the shifting the blame game. I wonder how Ryan feels about them throwing him under the bus like this...

It's not the way I'm used to follow my contractants in my job. I guess that way my boss wouldn't appreciate it.
Could you imagine this scenario :
- Hey, were are we with that project we've paid for ?
- I don't know
- Well... Could you do something to know ?
- ... not really. I can't reach him, I don't know where he is... And to be honnest, I don't really care.
- Ok, do you see that door over there ?

There's a reason they "don't know". I think deanjo hit it on the head of the nail here. There was a delay because of a bit of timed exclusivity coupled with a delay due to middleware issues. From there they didn't have good sales figures on the stuff they DID have versions for. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to connect the dots from there. Ryan's definitely NOT like this. There's a reason that the game industry goes to him for MacOS and Linux stuff- he typically delivers on schedule and while "expensive" for a single person, he's cheaper than getting your team to do it unless they have the same skillsets he does.

Seriously.
I guess the next step in UT3 linux/mac client will be to say : "the financial crysis urge us to stop any further development for the port. Too much expensive, too few potential clients, we stop everything. Call the banks and the traders responsible for the world crysis and fµck them all".
I bet a cookie (a real cookie, not a firefox cookie ) that the crysis is the perfect story for ending that mess from Epic/Midway.

Heh... I'd almost bet a bottle of Edradour 22Yr Port Barrel aged that something like this will be what comes of it all- if they ever get honest about it all and tell us the real reasons for this instead of these finger pointing games that they're doing here and have been for the last year and a half plus now.

[Dragonlord]

Nah, would not bet on it. That's the Japense Syndrom: Never loose your face! It's not like this induststries would _not_ live from back stabbing and finger pointing ( see DRM, pirating, 2nd hand, and so forth ). Just one more island of turd in the see of mud.

[deanjo]

I think deanjo hit it on the head of the nail here.

Heh, only extrapolating a potential reason, I've got one project that is in the same boat as the scenario I presented. Until final payment is made it sits on my HD undelivered.

[Svartalf]

Heh, only extrapolating a potential reason, I've got one project that is in the same boat as the scenario I presented. Until final payment is made it sits on my HD undelivered.

Heh... I think everyone doing contract work happens to have that sort of thing- I know I do too. (There's a high-speed, flat path check scanner that's one of the better in the industry with Linux drivers sitting on my HD on my server because the guy couldn't be bothered to pay me $1k on what should have cost him something on the order of 20K of custom dev work...) Given that this is the case and he's doing other things as if nothing had happened, including other paying projects, I suspect the WAG is less one than we'd like for it to be.

[Svartalf]

Nah, would not bet on it. That's the Japense Syndrom: Never loose your face! It's not like this induststries would _not_ live from back stabbing and finger pointing ( see DRM, pirating, 2nd hand, and so forth ). Just one more island of turd in the see of mud.

That'd be why I said "almost" there...

[xav1r]

So has Epic paid Ryan to sort of keep "stalling" everyone regarding development on UT3 for linux intentionally, but not tell them that development has been halted for good? I dont understand.

[deanjo]

So has Epic paid Ryan to sort of keep "stalling" everyone regarding development on UT3 for linux intentionally, but not tell them that development has been halted for good? I dont understand.

No we are saying that Epic is probably not making final payment to Ryan after seeing UT3 flop because they see little chance of returns. No pay, no port. It's common in contract coding for the developer who is doing the port to get a retainer and then get full payment upon completion. If Epic doesn't pay for the completion then there is fat chance you will ever see the port. As Svartalf said it is extremely unusual for Ryan to drag his heels in doing a port.

[xav1r]

No we are saying that Epic is probably not making final payment to Ryan after seeing UT3 flop because they see little chance of returns. No pay, no port. It's common in contract coding for the developer who is doing the port to get a retainer and then get full payment upon completion. If Epic doesn't pay for the completion then there is fat chance you will ever see the port. As Svartalf said it is extremely unusual for Ryan to drag his heels in doing a port.

Ah, but then why if Ryan isnt getting paid what he was promised by epic, effectively getting screwed by epic, why isnt he just suing them, or publicly annoucing that this linux client is done for good, unless he is paid? NDA keeps him on a leash? If i wasnt getting paid what i was promised in a contract, i would say screw the NDA, or is he somehow loyal to Epic?