QuoteI've said it before and I will say it again, I think Albion Online [Official Site] is going to be amazing for Linux gamers in desperate need of an MMO.

To be honest and realistic - this won't be a cure for the complete lack of mainstream MMOs on Linux. It's a niche game for a niche audience. Some people might have fun with it, and that's great. But a replacement for a true AAA MMORPG, it ain't.

Personally, it's too heavy on PvP and guild content and too light on questing and appealing looks for me. It's quite an eyesore, actually. Ok, so is WoW, but still.

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I realize more and more, with every passing day, that a healthy portion of these so-called developers have actually no clue about their own trade. But hey, being a "professional" just means you're trying to earn money with what you're doing, not that you're actually good at it.

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Funny. I always thought Windows 10 is an even better reason to switch to Linux than Windows 8 was...

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I backed this. Looking forward to it. :)

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I do agree that WINE is an awesome piece of software and I have nothing but respect for the developers who put so many hours in it. However, I also do not see as as a viable means to get recent games to run in Linux. Honestly, as great as WINE is, but there is barely ANY newer game that just runs in WINE, like that. Either the game will require some serious tinkering to get to run, or it will have more or less serious issues, or both. Let's just say the "Platinum" list on WINE-HQ is rather short for a reason. I rather dual-boot than try running newer games in WINE. It doesn't matter anyway - in both instances I am playing a Windows copy counting as a Windows sale. But one works reliable, the other does not.

For older games - completely agree. These games won't otherwise be ported and usually DO run in WINE with minimal hassle.

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Quoting: salitynam

Quoting: DJVikingHOMM3 was previously released on Linux by Loki Software. It really should be re-released on Steam.

Where can I buy it now?

I still have an old copy of it, but it's a hassle to get to run these days, due to library dependency issues. I guess you are better of with VCMI, really. You can get the game from GOG for cheap if you don't have it.

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Awesome to see that this is still in active development. HOMM3 is probably the best fantasy strategy games ever made.

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Quoting: Alm888Companies such as Feral and Aspyr are basically parasites. Or "middlemen" if that word is very strong for one's taste; it does not matter how to call them. The only thing that counts is what they do: they are flourishing on the current Windows/Linux disparity. They are not interested in increasing the number of Linux developers (why would they slay their "herd" ) and instead milking money from developers' foolishness and ignorance in tools selection and lack of Linux experience.

Tbh, if you already suggest that your language in inappropriate, it's probably because it is! ;)

Yes, I get the point that in an ideal world we wouldn't need porting houses anymore, because devs would just develop using multi-platform tools and dump DirectX and other obsolete proprietary middleware into the garbage bin of history where they belong.

But I am -happy- to have Feral and Aspyr around. Because we just have to face the reality that larger studios won't change their development processes for us 1%. You call them parasites, I call them catalysts. Yes, in the end they will make themselves obsolete if it works out the way we want to. But without them, Linux gaming will never become a mainstream thing in the first place. By porting AAA games, Feral and Aspyr are paving the road for others to follow. They make AAA gaming viable for Linux by showing that it can be done. And by making AAA games run on Linux they show both gamers and developers that Linux is a viable gaming platform and not just a OS for nerds and servers. You need a critical mass to get a platform recognized as a gaming platform. Porting houses are giving us that. My Steam library is full of games they ported. Without that I wouldn't even -think- about eventually ditching Windows. And without Linux-exclusive users developers will do what Blizzard does and just tell us to boot into Windows instead of releasing Linux versions of their games.

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I am not a typical "gamer". I am just a person who loves games. But I certainly don't buy $1,000 GPUs to get another 2 FPS and maximized anti-aliasing out of a game when I already get 60 FPS out of the games I am playing. I just want enough FPS not to get any visible stuttering and I don't insist on setting -every- single graphics option to "Ultra Quality".

I have yet to find a Linux game that would disturb me, performance-wisely. *shrug*

That being said, I am still looking forward to the day when they stop -porting- games, but develop them with multi-platform support in mind right away. Because that's how it should be.

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Quoting: soulsourceThere's one thing that I'd really like in case we won't see a port:
A long and detailed explanation why porting this game would not be worth the effort.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm not looking for justification by Aspyr, as (not?) making the port is their and their business partner's decision. I'm just curious if there are technical reasons, what those technical reasons are, and if the community can do something about them (think: fix certain bugs in the open source graphics drivers, work on missing GL extensions,...). Sadly though, I'm pretty certain that Aspyr will not be able to provide this information due to NDAs...

If anything this teaches us how multi-platform deployment is NOT done right. Firaxis clearly wanted a Linux port (and said so), but they obviously failed to incorporate that objective into their development process. They made a Windows game, apparently not caring about anything they do being hard or even impossible to get to run on Linux. And when the entire thing was (almost) done, they gave it to Aspyr and said "There, get out your magic wand and make it run on Linux!"

And that's just not how it works.

If you want to deploy multi-platform, you need to develop multi-platform. At the very least, get Aspyr on board early on and keep them informed. That way they could have at least said "Oh guys, if you do this and that, it will be a pain in the arse to port the game later on."

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