John Carmack on Linux ports

[Yomp!!]

our scene? thats hard. few people give a bad rap to the many. All linux users dont buy software says leadwerks. We are open source zealot fags says the steam community.

The real question is, how do you plant that seed?

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Carmack is a big deal, he has contributed alot. Indies are essential but they are not movers and shakers. What we need is a real big project. It needs to be very very linux and it needs to be opengl 3.

Of course Carmack has done great things for us, I am thankful for that.. I just don't understand why hes saying the things he is, I understand him not being able to support Intel graphics on Linux for various reasons, its hard to support them on Windows too with a modern game, but saying nVidia is the only way for him to get it to work makes absolutely no sense.

And as far as Indies and the big project, well, the big game has to come from a company like a Indie developer or a small game development company, no one else wants to do it, or wants to take the chance. A company can single handily make a name for Linux in the gaming world if they bring the right product that shines enough and brings enough interest, however, I don't know if you'll ever find a company or group in this day and age that would make a Linux exclusive game for the purpose of trying to spark a revolution. It just doesn't sound very realistic to me. Multiplatform sounds realistic though.

[L33F3R]

Of course Carmack has done great things for us, I am thankful for that.. I just don't understand why hes saying the things he is, I understand him not being able to support Intel graphics on Linux for various reasons, its hard to support them on Windows too with a modern game, but saying nVidia is the only way for him to get it to work makes absolutely no sense.

And as far as Indies and the big project, well, the big game has to come from a company like a Indie developer or a small game development company, no one else wants to do it, or wants to take the chance. A company can single handily make a name for Linux in the gaming world if they bring the right product that shines enough and brings enough interest, however, I don't know if you'll ever find a company or group in this day and age that would make a Linux exclusive game for the purpose of trying to spark a revolution. It just doesn't sound very realistic to me. Multiplatform sounds realistic though.

his brain is getting old. Hes making dumb decisions. ATI works great on ETQW for example.

If indies moved as much as you say then we would be golden. This is not the case. World of goo for example was one of the games you speak of, but linux was an afterthought. Multiplatform is the only linux option, you are right. You can find a group of programmers and artists who can do a smashing job, you just need to give them the right incentives.

[Yomp!!]

his brain is getting old. Hes making dumb decisions. ATI works great on ETQW for example.

If indies moved as much as you say then we would be golden. This is not the case. World of goo for example was one of the games you speak of, but linux was an afterthought. Multiplatform is the only linux option, you are right. You can find a group of programmers and artists who can do a smashing job, you just need to give them the right incentives.

Yep I agree, the game can't be late, World of Goo came pretty late, to the point where no one really cared, although from what I could tell it sold ok on Linux, I don't think it sold as well as MacOSx though. It could had sold better though, most people hate buying the same game twice just to play it on their preferred OS, but it came out late so they just bought the Windows version, played through the game, and left it at that.

As far as future games sparking any excitement on Linux, if the development team is very pro Linux and wants to help it out, they can release the Linux version a day or two earlier than the Windows and Mac versions, that would maybe put some incentive into the customer to say, hey, maybe I should try Linux! Or if they already use Linux in a dual boot scenario and aren't accustomed to purchasing Linux games, that might put in some incentive to do so as well.

The game has to sell very well too on Linux though for any change to take place. We gotta show the dollar signs to all of those big gaming companies out there. Because honestly I think there are enough people using Linux already right now, there just needs to be a game that interests most of the userbase, something highly anticipated and highly spoken of around the community, word travels fast, theres enough media outlets such as Phoronix. We just need the damn game hehe.

[Dragonlord]

You have to change the way the game is played. If you work with the aged philosophy of porting games instead of working with a truly platform independent solution things will never change. This is simply because if you have to port a game there will always be a major platform it is released for first and minor platforms it's ported too. In that game Linux has no chance. It only has a chance if a game is made once and 0-day playable on all platforms. This is what a revolution looks like. And this is not coming from AAAs since they are still clutching to their engine licensing business forgetting that the world is changing around them.

But for getting such a project off the ground it lacks on one thing: artists. They are nearly none around which are worth and dedicated to make a great game and without the content the tech doesn't help much.

[Kano]

Well maybe Nvidia's It is meant to be played program would help him in case of problems and would fix the driver if needed. Nvidia does much more for games developers than ATI, they even help em to use Physx. ATI should really care more about popular game developers.

[xav1r]

You have to change the way the game is played. If you work with the aged philosophy of porting games instead of working with a truly platform independent solution things will never change. This is simply because if you have to port a game there will always be a major platform it is released for first and minor platforms it's ported too. In that game Linux has no chance. It only has a chance if a game is made once and 0-day playable on all platforms. This is what a revolution looks like. And this is not coming from AAAs since they are still clutching to their engine licensing business forgetting that the world is changing around them.

But for getting such a project off the ground it lacks on one thing: artists. They are nearly none around which are worth and dedicated to make a great game and without the content the tech doesn't help much.

Man, you should work in the game industry, or better, you should be the guy calling the shots at a big game developer. Why not start your own??

[Dragonlord]

Man, you should work in the game industry, or better, you should be the guy calling the shots at a big game developer. Why not start your own??

I'm not saying more here as those who know me know what I do

[L33F3R]

But for getting such a project off the ground it lacks on one thing: artists. They are nearly none around which are worth and dedicated to make a great game and without the content the tech doesn't help much.

If thats truly the biggest issue its not that difficult to fix. Start small but start big. Look at a genre thats way overlooked, remember super smash bros. 2.5D punch'n'!@#$. Now take art elements that any idiot could accomplish. Make it feature chars like Tux, Penny, snowball, blue screen of death, ect. Target a middle-low polygon platform to maximize compatibility and run on say, pandora. Now instead of modeling your maps which should be done, because your stuff is low poly use csg. A dog can make a map using csg. Set the players to run on x axis and make them map w.e they damn well want. For textures, search web development forums and say they get credits. Those people are looking to get der names on everything, im serious. models are relative to the polygon count, you can make a model in any program and it will export to any other app. Now you have a low price game that will evolve with its user base. It would be easy enough to make levels (i remade the zelda map from SSB in 2 minutes) so having a storm of crap like we see on fps banana would not be very hard. Obviously I am being very general and random but you can abstract the idea. You dont need to make a AAA game for it to be a seller. If people want to ditch halfway through the project tell them to f-off and use what they made anyways. If der shit sucks then tell to do just that.

When you have a track record, then you can attract the best. Such an idea like the above one I just came up with does not require a large pool of art talent. Im not saying to make crap, everything takes more than 2 minutes obviously. Please expand .

[xav1r]

If thats truly the biggest issue its not that difficult to fix. Start small but start big. Look at a genre thats way overlooked, remember super smash bros. 2.5D punch'n'!@#$. Now take art elements that any idiot could accomplish. Make it feature chars like Tux, Penny, snowball, blue screen of death, ect. Target a middle-low polygon platform to maximize compatibility and run on say, pandora. Now instead of modeling your maps which should be done, because your stuff is low poly use csg. A dog can make a map using csg. Set the players to run on x axis and make them map w.e they damn well want. For textures, search web development forums and say they get credits. Those people are looking to get der names on everything, im serious. models are relative to the polygon count, you can make a model in any program and it will export to any other app. Now you have a low price game that will evolve with its user base. It would be easy enough to make levels (i remade the zelda map from SSB in 2 minutes) so having a storm of crap like we see on fps banana would not be very hard. Obviously I am being very general and random but you can abstract the idea. You dont need to make a AAA game for it to be a seller. If people want to ditch halfway through the project tell them to f-off and use what they made anyways. If der shit sucks then tell to do just that.

When you have a track record, then you can attract the best. Such an idea like the above one I just came up with does not require a large pool of art talent. Im not saying to make crap, everything takes more than 2 minutes obviously. Please expand .

You make it all sound so easy. Is it really that easy?

[L33F3R]

no

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