I guess the complete lack of any decent MMO is -the- single sorest spot on Linux gaming so far. I am happy to see it remedied, although I am not sure if that particular game will be for me. It seems to be heavy on non-consensual open world PvP (which is a huuuuge dealbreaker for me), and I don't care for its cartoon art style either. I might spend a few bucks on it anyway, just to support MMOs on Linux, provided I can spend it in a way that actually counts as a Linux sale.

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What I don't get is why developers announce and plan to release a multi-platform game right from the beginning (which was the case with Divinity), but then develop as if no OS other than Windows would exist and PORT the finished Windows-only product instead of developing it with all target platforms in mind right from the start. From a software engineering perspective, that makes very little sense, except if their devs have absolutely no clue about multi-platform deployment. I guess they hired the usual bunch of game programmers who learned their craft using nothing but DirectX and Visual Studio? In a time when studios regularly deploy on a half dozen platforms, these people need a few skill updates, maybe?

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While this obvious lack of commitment to their own promises is disappointing, I wouldn't go as far as lashing out at Kickstarter in general. KS has helped getting many games on Linux that otherwise wouldn't have seen a port in all likelihood. For me personally, of all the games I ever backed (which is quite some), only TWO didn't live up to their promises. That's...not so bad. It's the same as with Early Access - yes, there have been bad apples, but we also have seen great examples of studios handling it really responsibly and well. There is no good reason to question the validity of either KS or EA as a business model just because a few studios fail to deliver what they promised. It's more a reason to be wary of these particular studios. Will I be vary of Larian in the future? Yes. There is zero chance I will ever back any of their projects again. I might still buy their products when they are finished, but no more cash in advance from me. Lesson learned, moving on.

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Am I missing something here, or wasn't the idea of the Greenlight process to weed out utterly horrible games before they get published?

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Hm, this game's sales figures on Linux are around 4 times over-representing our share in the general audience and that's not good enough?

Well...

Tbh, I don't want to be mean but maybe it's the time to acknowledge that a game with utterly crappy looks somehow advertised as "retro" isn't anything that will blow away anybody these days. Even Linux users are a bit more spoiled and bit less desperate these days. Welcome to 2015, when you will have to deliver a little bit more than something that would have looked outdated even in 1985.

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There is one incentive why publishers are so keen on pre-order campaigns these days, that didn't get mentioned in the editorial. In this time and age what matters most when launching a creative product of any kind are sales ranks, e.g. the ones on Amazon etc. So what's the best way to get into these lists? Selling a lot, and I mean a LOT of units right on Day 1. And guess what - that's exactly what pre-orders do! They accumulate a lot of orders for a publisher they can ship to customers on launch day and they will all be counted as a "Day 1 sale" on these platforms, catapulting the product right into the bestseller lists for that period and gaining exposure for it, resulting in even more sales. In this time and age, it's basically a required part of a successful marketing campaign.

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I super-rarely buy any full-price DLC and prefer to wait until they are on sale instead. This time I did. I guess that tells enough how much I love this game. :)

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Quoting: Mountain ManThe problem with their "no reason to ship a DX12 game" argument is that Microsoft has invested tremendous resources in DX12 (and DirectX in general) and won't let it go without a fight, and many programmers are already familiar with DirectX while they would have to learn Vulkan from scratch.

This is IT, where technology and skills decay faster than in any other profession. A programmer who's not able and willing to let go of an outdated tech and learn to use a more modern approach isn't worth their salt, IMHO.

Yes, there might be some management inertia to overcome, particularly in the big studios. But if (and that's how it looks like), Vulcan is indeed superior to DX12, they will eventually be forced by the market to use it whether or not they like it. Microsoft can whine all they want, but in the end players want good looking games.

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Does this game come with an editor like NWN then? Or just a DM tool to run the official campaign with?

On topic, I rather have them work on the game for another month and release something good rather than pulling an Ubisoft and release pre-Alpha quality software.

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Am I the only who finds it completely hilarious that the studios don't make the developer tools available to the one platform that has the greatest percentage of developer users of all OSes by far?

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