Bought, even before this article went up. Except for Rebirth, I own and have enjoyed every game and expansion in the series, ever since it first released what seems like half a lifetime ago.
While Egosoft do have a history of releasing not-quite-finished products, they also – and that's much more important in my opinion – have a reputation for fixing and supporting their games for years after release.

I only mourn for the boxed version that didn't make it, what a joy that would have been.

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https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/category/Itch.io
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/category/Unity

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Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: ValckBetter, yes.

Much much better than that stuff from the 90s.

Quoting: ValckMore affordable, marginally.

Marginally? When the Vive came out it was like 800-900€/$. The WMR headsets are already being sold for 200$.

I don't deny any of it. Still, a price tag of 200 quid/bucks/euros for a gadget is definitely enthusiast, especially if you keep in mind the rest of the system that needs to go with it. A RasPi won't do (yet).

I was hyped when the Occulus was first announced (that hype died deader than dead when Facebook swallowed it), and I do still hope VR takes off (have always been since back in the early nineties), it's just I'm a little less confident it actually will too soon, until such time that it does.
I certainly am one to shell out the money - when it's available, and when there is Linux support. Not just proprietary games running on Linux, but SDKs to allow for independent, FOSS development. Especially if the manufacturer actively supports and embraces it.

After you've been waiting for a quarter century or more, another decade is not that much of a stretch...



On the other hand – if enthusiast hardware is at the price/performance point it is now, I'd love to see what the Siemenses, Mitsubishis, and Tessier-Ashpools have in their secret labs.

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Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: Valck

Quoting: SolitaryPrice of admission will go down with every VR generation.

That has been the mantra for the last 25 years – anyone remember the VFX-1 and Cybermaxx? Good times were had in Descent, back in the 90's...

Because the technology wasn't there yet. It's pretty damn good right now and more and more affordable. The PSVR is rather cheap and even those WMR HMDs are supposedly rather fine.

Better, yes. More affordable, marginally. Still too expensive, and still too clunky, for anyone besides enthusiasts. Without mass market adoption, it's going to stay niche. Maybe I'm jaded, but I see it fade away just as it did back then, and have a big revival in another ten or twenty years ;)

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Quoting: SolitaryPrice of admission will go down with every VR generation.

That has been the mantra for the last 25 years – anyone remember the VFX-1 and Cybermaxx? Good times were had in Descent, back in the 90's...

It's always been just beyond the pain threshold for the average consumer market, or in other words, reserved for the affluent enthusiast.
I don't see that changing in the near future, unless someone creates a killer app that basically requires VR as opposed to merely enhancing the experience. Descent looked like that back in the day, but neither it nor VR did really take off. I seriously think it'll take a neural interface for VR to become really viable; nobody's comfortable wearing a pound or two of hardware on their heads for any amount of time.

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Quoting: TyronEither way, you can also purchase the game on itch.io

Oh man, that sucks. I didn't know about it being on itch; I had searched your site and only found one relevant topic with what I read as a tentative "maybe" at best.

Maybe you could post a link here on GOL and over in your forum as well?
Not that it makes a difference for me any longer; I went through Humble with a grumble, but I'd definitely have preferred itch.io had I known about it.

Anyway, all is well now and I'm really enjoying it.

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Thank you so much for the writeup, and for your Let's Play series, I quite enjoyed it.

It actually persuaded me to buy the game, despite having to fill out annoying Google Recaptchas – seriously? Why do they think I might "be a robot" if I actually complete payment, that should be proof aplenty by itself. Also, it will forever escape me why a physical street address would be required for a digital download...

That said, after playing for a few hours now, I don't regret buying the game; it's definitely a worthy spiritual successor to the original Terrafirmacraft, and its development process definitely looks more active than any of the Minecraft successor mods.

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Quoting: wvstolzingIn my fathomless ignorance, I look at the github repo; and all I'm able to gather is that it's a kind of IO card. What does that say about the BIOS in these systems, though? Could someone knowledgeable take a look and comment?

Here's what Phoronix wrote about it recently:

Quoting: PhoronixThey confirmed they are not designing their own motherboard but working on "pulling proprietary functionality off the mainboard and onto a custom, open source (hardware and firmware) daughter board."

As far as I understand it, they seem to be trying to go around proprietary hardware (SATA controllers); it appears as if this will not be a truly "free and open" computer, but instead a computer with specifications laid open as far as they can.

In my opinion, "open source computers" would require moving away from x86 hardware, and that is only likely to happen after The Year of the Linux Desktop.

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Quoting: Stranger

Quoting: Shmerl

Quoting: StrangerWe've just released on itch.io too, per popular request !

Great, thanks for providing such option! Do you think GOG release is likely, or they are still undecided? I'm tempted to buy it on itch now, but I'd prefer GOG if it will eventually happen.

They're still undecided, which has been the case for quite some time now, so I wouldn't hold my breath.

I don't get GOG's politics at times... almost as if they don't want to compete, or maybe think they don't have any competition?

Thanks for having it on itch, instabought.


EDIT: Not that I could have bought it on GOG even if I'd wanted to - their recent "improved" redesign effectively prevents me from logging in. Good job, GOG.

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Great, the more the merrier. Ideally I'd prefer to get my games directly from the developers themselves, but at least having a choice is a good thing in my book.

Any insights into why GoG would deny a request to sell the game?
I find that difficult to believe, especially considering they have several other of Zach's games. It's not like there isn't any competition out there for GoG, quite the contrary. If I were in GoG's position, I'd probably do anything to get people coming to my store and keep them there... if people were actually coming to me and asking me to take a share of their revenue, why would I want to deny them?

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