Zombie Tux Spotted in L4D2 Update Announcement

Official now? :P

Official now? :p

It was official when the Linux blog went live :b

Hope there aren't any copyright/attribution issues with that image (for the record, I didn't put it there).

I put it there, I'm sure it will be fine, free press and advertising etc

I put it there, I'm sure it will be fine, free press and advertising etc

I've been unknowingly involved in similar situations where people started saying they were going to pursue legal action (even after I pulled down the content in question which somebody else had put up). I find there are fewer headaches with erring on the side of caution (but in this case, so long as we say where it's come from, I don't see a problem) ^_^

Nice to see it on the official website and them state This Year as well. Good work on the news boys keep it rolling! Also while Valve Time could be an issue remember this is a game already in existance and all the content is already there I doubt it will slip into next year at all.

Starting playing it again in the past week, such a good game forgot how good actually.

I really do hope they bring the new counter strike out for Linux though, that would be killer to have such a decent modern day FPS on Linux. Or at least CS:Source! Not interested in Team Fortress 2 myself just can't get into it just another fast paced shooter in my eyes (I still own it though).

I am thinking we won't see another blog post for a while though.

So time to place bets, I say it will be out in October.

Starting playing it again in the past week, such a good game forgot how good actually.

I played a campaign tonight. Completely forgot how unreliable it is under Wine. In the 4 stage campaign, my girlfriend and I got booted no less than a dozen times all up due to file inconsistency errors (Wine gives false positives with these from what I can tell).

So time to place bets, I say it will be out in October.

I don't really bet, but if there were a time that I'd be guessing that one would show up, I think it'd be late August/September.

i bet mid august for beta and early september release

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Btw, where DID you get that image ? :)

Btw, where DID you get that image ? :)

It's noted in the post + if you read the linked site it's there.

Guys news sites often use images from linked articles its fair use (also free advertising for the games in question any developer who complains would be a complete moron to do so), if we ever get asked (its never happened) to remove an image by the owners and no one else we will until then no need to talk about it lets not derail threads with chat nothing to do with the news item please, create a new topic if you want to debate fair use, linked images etc. Feel free to link images in news posts, since i own the site i will deal with issue that arise.

I don't mean to rant but let's try to keep on topic ;)

Well, to get us back on topic:
http://allthingsd.com/20120725/valves-gabe-newell-on-the-future-of-games-wearable-computers-windows-8-and-more/

What I find interesting about the interview is that he basically confirms a lot of what Larabel said, that the disaster that Valve thinks Windows 8 is going to be is the main reason they are investing in Linux. Interesting to know.

i bet mid august for beta and early september release

Of Steam? We were talking about when the next blog post might appear >_<

Guys news sites often use images from linked articles its fair use (also free advertising for the games in question any developer who complains would be a complete moron to do so), if we ever get asked (its never happened) to remove an image by the owners and no one else we will until then no need to talk about it lets not derail threads with chat nothing to do with the news item please, create a new topic if you want to debate fair use, linked images etc. Feel free to link images in news posts, since i own the site i will deal with issue that arise.

At the risk of further derailing, I have to point out that I will always clarify my position on anything that I believe is unclear. If that warrants a banning or my posting rights revoked, so be it (this isn't meant to sound rantish or confrontational, it's just how I need to be).

What I find interesting about the interview is that he basically confirms a lot of what Larabel said, that the disaster that Valve thinks Windows 8 is going to be is the main reason they are investing in Linux. Interesting to know.

Surely Larabel isn't the topic either :D
According to rumours, emails and articles that have been floating around, Valve had been poking around with Linux long before the Windows 8 preview builds were available and possibly before the UI was unveiled. Whilst I'm sure there is an element of wanting to stay diverse to survive the Windows 8 fallout, I can't imagine that this is the driving force that started things (perhaps it has put pressure on lately, but it's also possible that highlighting Linux as a viable alternative is a good strategy for promoting their upcoming client - especially when the majority of the Linux user community seems to be anti-Windows).

This seems to be a full transcript of the interview, which covers a bit more stuff:
http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/25/valves-gabe-newell-talks/

Apparently Rich Geldreich of Valve will be giving a talk titled "Left 4 Dead 2 Linux: From 6 to 300 FPS in OpenGL" at an OpenGL BOF at Siggraph.

That sounds pretty exciting, and I suspect is likely to wind up being the topic for the next Valve Linux blog post.

http://www.khronos.org/news/events/siggraph-los-angeles-2012#opengl_bof

steam yes... not the blog... according to first blog they are quite ready just need some optimizing for L4D2 and port other games.

steam yes... not the blog... according to first blog they are quite ready just need some optimizing for L4D2 and port other games.

I kinda doubt that they'll be launching Steam before L4D2 is optimised (and probably not before they have a handful of other titles ported as well). The blog post is slightly vague on how far along that optimisation process is, but the title of Rich Geldrich's talk (mentioned above) seems to suggest they've had some successes.

just a random thought, I like those :)

if the whole steam to linux becomes a huge success and many people move from windows to linux as their game collection was the only thing stopping them, will the linux community be able to cope ? I mean there will be more users, I assume a bit less geeky then the current linux user. More uses means more bug reports as more people use more aspects of linux (kernel) but also the desktop (kde/gnome/etc) and the drivers (blob or open). Is the average linux distribution but also drivers/kernel community big enough to handle that ? these users come from a different environment, one where drivers get updated the whole time, even if it is to fix the performance with 1 game. I don't see that happening in the kernel drivers or 3rd party drivers ?

Just a random thought I know :)

ps: and what will the impact be off all of this on Wine/Crossover/Codeweavers ?

if the whole steam to linux becomes a huge success and many people move from windows to linux as their game collection was the only thing stopping them, will the linux community be able to cope ?

This is potentially a very significant issue. We (as a collection of communities) are doing OK with absorbing new users in dribs and drabs. The potential impact of mass uptake is very hard to assess. I imagine it'll have lots of positives and lots of negatives, and probably raise some of the issues I talk about in my analysis of community reactions to the TF2 "free to play" launch on my cheesetalks site, and I think that the patience and willingness of the Linux user community to be welcoming will ultimately decide whether it's a smooth or a bumpy road.

I don't see that happening in the kernel drivers or 3rd party drivers ?

Who knows how things will pan out. Valve have a lot of clout. They seem to already be having an impact on driver development (based on bug submissions and patches we've been reading about).

ps: and what will the impact be off all of this on Wine/Crossover/Codeweavers ?

Unless Steam has some level of Wine integration, I can see it losing a lot of relevance and momentum. Whether this is good or bad is debatable (and possibly a subject for another thread? :D ).

i seriously hope that steam will have some "custom command" box for windows only games in the linux client, for launching them with wine,playonlinux or whatnot..
cuz there will be huge list of games that still doesnt get ported to linux.
valve games + hundreds of indies are still a minority...

cuz there will be huge list of games that still doesnt get ported to linux.

There's a huge list of games that haven't been ported to MacOS, and there's yet to be proper Wine integration there (aside from [URL='http://store.steampowered.com/news/7785/']that stuff with The Witcher 2[/URL]). It's hard to know what Valve's plans are at this stage.

At the risk of further derailing, I have to point out that I will always clarify my position on anything that I believe is unclear. If that warrants a banning or my posting rights revoked, so be it (this isn't meant to sound rantish or confrontational, it's just how I need to be).

I understand that and it's good all I'm saying is linking to images like that is perfectly acceptable. Now let's bury that topic shall we? :)

Somebody passed along to me another mesa commit by an intel person which makes mention of Counter-Strike: Source. I can't say whether it's relating to a native version or not, but when taken with the recent L4D2 related patches, it seems like that would be likely.
http://cgit.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/commit/?id=588881430a3d328f2d99fbd5197d85dafc31209b