Ticket to Ride has had its SteamOS/Linux Icon removed. That's a game that works with Java.

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@Segata Sanshiro
Sorry, but to claim that they intentionally cut content to put it in an addon later is disingenuous. Pray tell, what did BE cut from Civ 5 that then made its way into the expansion? Or what did Civ 5 cut from Civ 4 that then made it into both of its expansions? In the former - nothing and in the latter: the only feature that was in civ 4 that eventually made it to civ 5 through expansions was religion. Corporations didn't make it in, neither did vassals nor splitting up empires with colonial nations. Not to mention that the religion mechanic was radically different in purpose and focus anyhow. So yeah, I still think that it's an argument that doesn't hold water. You can say that vanilla Civ 5 or BE weren't very good, and I'd argree, but there is zero evidence to state that they intentionally gimped their games.

It's funny that you should bring up Paradox - I'm a big fanboy of theirs. But still, even I can recall all the bitching from the player base with the CK2 expansions adding playable factions like Muslims and people complaining that they should have been playable to being with. I think that their DLC model is superior to most but you have to realize that many of the arguments people are using here about the game not being 'complete' applies to them as well.

Firaxis could stand to do a better job with their games on release but I certainly don't think that they've tried to deceive and con anyone. Reading through interviews, it's clear that their designers have free reign to do what they like, which doesn't always work. XCOM reboot was great but the departure of the Civ 5 lead designer shortly after release showed that not all of their experiments pan out. Ultimately though, you're free to vote with your wallet. I know that I don't feel too burned by the thousands of hours that I've gotten out of their games.

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Quoting: Segata SanshiroI'm glad they've improved the base game (which was pretty underwhelming), but it's still a huge slap in the face to have to pay almost £50 in total to get the features which the base game itself should have had. Civ 5 suffered from the same apparently intentional lack of content when it first came out and then became a very good game with all the expansions.... But the standalone game was still better than the standalone BE.

Quoting: oldrocker99If it takes a non-free DLC to make the game playable, I say fie on that. Fie, I tell you. That's the province of free patches (see Wasteland: The Director's Cut, which will add a ton of new content, and which will be free on release to all owners of W2), not DLC, which is supposed to add more content and tweaks, not just to make the game playable.

The game was playable, just comparatively (to Civ 5 + expansions) bland. I think that calling it an intentional lack of content or claiming that they owe anything else beyond the patches they release for free is disingenuous. Games cost money to make and once you define your project scope you can't go adding in features late in development without risking to screw yourself financially. Like I noted in my review, I still got 60ish hours of gameplay from the product they previously released, so I can't with a straight face say it was bad or unplayable. Was I disappointed that they squandered potential? Sure but I feel like that about most entertainment. If I hadn't had any fun, I'd have stopped playing much earlier. If it had been an 8 hour long AAA FPS for that price, then yeah, I guess I'd have felt I wasn't getting my moneys' worth.

As for the "Free DLC" - they're really not doing that just out the goodness of their hearts, you know. Much like the upcoming Divinity: Original Sin revamp, Wasteland 2 is getting that update because of financial reasons. Mainly that their launches coincide with console release dates. If it wasn't for that, I very much doubt that these studios would just hand out radically improved versions of their games. One way or another studios have to recoup the money they spend on development. Money, sadly, still makes the world go around.

Quoting: KeyrockI'm going to wait a bit more to see if another expansion comes out and then for the inevitable Complete Edition. Once I see the Complete Edition for 50% off or more on sale, I'll scoop it up. Until then, I'll continue to stick with Civ V.

You'll probably end up waiting two or more years given how Civ 5 went but, yeah, patient gamers get all the best deals.

Quoting: GuestIt's a real shame performance never got optimized for this game. [...]
Of course, devs only focusing on OpenGL from the get go, and Vulkan, will help fix this.

I get *acceptable* performance running on mesa with my 7870 and I imagine it's much better on Nvidia from what I've seen in the forums. It's a turn-based strategy so I don't need 30+ fps to have a good time on large maps. Still, it's nowhere near what I'd get on Windows, sure. Beyond Earth was one of the few games to use AMD's Mantle on that platform and it runs like butter on hardware like mine. It'd be interesting to see if future Firaxis games get Vulkan support, I think they'd be open to it.

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Looking forward to this one! Aaron has done a good job with ports in the past.

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Nice work, I'm glad I'm not the only AMD user anymore. You should try benchmarking Talos. I'm not 100% about the rebranding/naming scheme but you should have more or less the same card as me (7870) with more vram, right? I'd be interested to see how much of a difference that makes since I also run the RadeonSI drivers.

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Nah, it's Medieval II: Total War. Makes sense because Feral has a working relationship with Sega as a publisher (they've ported Empire and are working on Company of Heroes 2) and because they've brought over other games in the Total War series. 1001 Nights was compiled during the Islamic Golden Age and part of that timeframe is covered by Medieval II.

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Well argued and explained.

I've long disapproved of wrappers being used to bring newer games to Linux. I agree that it hinders us in the long term since devs won't even bother to learn how to code for other platforms and we'll therefore always be second class citizens in terms of support and priority. Recent controversy and FUD-spreading regarding using Linux and developing for the platform should show that the more developers that understand our ecosystem and are able to use crossplatform engines, the better we are as a 'brand'. When it becomes relatively hassle-free for developers to target Linux because the engines support it out of the box and because they are familiar with the environment, I think we'll see more and more good quality ports that don't rely on wrappers. With UE4, Unity and others we're making steady progress. All that's needed is for more developers to step outside their comfort zone and gain some experience.

I concede that it might not make economic sense to port older games natively and am willing to accept that a wrapper might be the most realistic solution there. Then again, Feral and Aspyr did port Empire: TW and Civ5 respectively within the last year. And both games, while popular, have been out for five years or so. So it might be a case by case thing.

In the end, however, try to reward devs who show support and spend resources making their games run as well as they can on Linux. The ones that clearly don't care or do a half-assed job and aren't communicative get avoided in the future.That's why I'm a big fan of Paradox or the small indies that actually read feedback on their forums and work with the community to fix problems on Linux.

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Quoting: Segata SanshiroI thought the Pokemon card mod was pretty cool. Still, after 16 years I have no idea how to actually play the card game (how many people really did?).

I'm glad that people have modded in Magic: The Gathering. None of the Magic games look like they'll come to Linux and I've been an on and off fan of the card game since the mid 90s. It's sometimes impractical to get a hold of certain cards so virtual deck building is the only recourse. It's the same with Pokemon cards, I'm sure.

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Quoting: KeyrockI don't have much of a problem with it. People forget that the two Shenmue games, while beloved by fans and generally liked by critics, did not do well financially. In particular, Shenmue 2 lost SEGA quite a bit of money.

This is more on Sega than anyone else. They didn't do budget control and had unrealistic expectations. The Dreamcast was ultimately a flop for them. It's a different situation when you have the 100+ million install base of both Steam and the Playstation 4.

Quoting: KeyrockIn the end, Kickstarter still serves the same ultimate purpose, it allows a game to be made that wouldn't have been otherwise. If Shenmue 3 or KC: D don't make their Kickstarter funding goal then their financial backers don't fund the project and the game doesn't get made.

In a perfect world, maybe. I'm wary of big comapnies turning to kickstarter becausse it minimizes risks to them while pushing it all on us. And, of course, maximizing profits with a large amount of what are basically preorders. I'd rather only smaller studios who otherwise couldn't make games use crowdfunding, ideally.

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For me it's always been a case-by-case basis. Developers with a good track record in bringing over games to Linux, like Harebrained Schemes, are much more likely to get my support when it comes to crowdfunding. I think that in the case of Japanese developers I think they're much more conservative when it comes to PCs and it's only just recently that we're seeing companies like Capcom and Sega bring their games onto Windows. I think it's an almost alien concept to them, historically speaking, that people play big-name games on PCs, let alone on other operating systems. So, yeah, crowdfunding might be a way to show them that there's interest in other platforms.

The reply I got when I asked the Shenmue III kickstarter if Linux was a possibility was:

QuoteThank you for your message! 
The PC version will support Windows. Everything else is currently under consideration. Any further news on this will be announced on the Updates page.

Even though UE4 is a multiplatform as it gets I don't think they even considered that there would be interest in other platforms.

Do I want to see more crowdfunding for ports in general? No, not really. Not if these are titles with established publishers with existent cashflow. It's asking too much from a community that's already plenty generous. But I guess money talks and it might be the only way to get some of these holdouts invested in bringing ports to Linux.

That said, I think that it would be good for everyone if Valve acted a bit like Sony here and helped finance ports for SteamOS/Linux. It's in their best interests if they want Steam Machines to succeed. I would even go as far as suggest that they need to be aggressive and secure timed exclusives, but I don't think that's too likely.

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