Quoting: KimyrielleHonestly, if there is a sound technical reason to run some games in the cloud that's not just a DRM measure, be my guest. At least that wouldn't be "we're exclusive because we love to have a monopoly". At the same time I expect 90+% of all games to still run just fine on a local PC in the future. Not all games are like MS Flight Simulator. The visuals contemporary games can achieve even without the cloud is already amazing, and Moore's Law dying or not, local PCs will still get more powerful over time. I am really curious if Google will make JUST the games cloud-dependent that REALLY need it. Let's just say I believe it when I see it. Google has said goodbye to "Don't be evil!" years ago, so...

I am too cynical to accept "sound technical reasons" in this kind of stuff. Even if there is a real demand that can be solved that way, when the person in charge has a vested interest in pushing that particular "solution" it becomes just an excuse. They end up creating problems just so they can sell the answer, and often killing other alternatives.

In this case they aren't talking about one thing they always wanted to do but it is only possible with this technology. They are specifically looking for anything that is only possible with this technology so they can justify their draconian DRM and "you don't own games" system.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Liam Dawe

Quoting: TazzaNone of this will do *anything* for Linux gaming.

Depends on your point of view, it's yet another way to play games without needing Windows. Regardless of how certain people feel about the nature of cloud gaming, it's an option.

On my point of view, it might not require Windows but it is not playing on Linux either.

Not that you shouldn't cover it on the site, I like knowing about it and here is one of the best sources.

But as far as being an alternative, if I wanted to play games that don't run on my Linux system I'd just dual boot Windows. Having a Linux server somewhere that gives me even less freedom than Windows is not an advantage, especially if the game is exclusive to this model and it doesn't even result in a port I could use.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Great, so now they want to ruin games as well to push their service.

Games that are not only always online, but streaming-only so that no one even has access to the binaries (to circumvent this in the future) and no secondary market can exist. Games that are so heavy that it doesn't matter that they run on Linux or not, because they can't run on a PC anyway. Games that are made for Linux but they are not sold, just streamed so it doesn't matter at all for us that use Linux.

I already hate the arms race between AAA games that force people to keep buying super expensive hardware - in part to push sales of hardware, in part to compete with each other. Now they want to make games that can only be run on servers to create a demand for their streaming service.

Sure, there might be an interesting technical possibility or two when you aren't bound by consumer hardware limitations. Maybe one game will have one cool gimmick. But mostly, this will pretty much only focus on more fidelity (which is absolutely superfluous and more of a marketing aspect than an enhancement to the game these days).

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I think the announcement was already quite enough confirmation - I can't imagine that in such an important announcement they would casually include a platform they aren't sure to support.

However, I'm a bit sad about the challenges to unlock cosmetics (by playing CK2) not being available for us. More for the fun of participating than for the cosmetics themselves, though it will be a bad precedent if we can't get those. Looks like the system they use for registering the challenges doesn't work on Linux, which is a reasonable excuse but still sucks that after all this time there is some content we won't get.

Quoting: tumocsCan't wait to play the more aproachable incest simulator. I hope that I can sacrafice my relatives to satan in third one too (after few DLC's) and baptize my kids in the name of the dark lord. And cut some penises off from the dirty heretic kings that dare to oppose me and feast on them.

Apparently that might be possible in the base game, though maybe a bit difficult to pull off. Religions are now customizable and you can create your own heresies by changing doctrines, which will most likely result in a few very interesting faiths. It is mentioned at the end of this article. Of course, their example of ritual cannibalism isn't much of a change to Catholicism - Catholics already claim to eat the transubstatiated flesh of a half-god every time they hold mass. I hope I can finally turn cat-holicism into real cat worship.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

QuoteYou've got to hand it to Arcen, they treat Linux well as a platform for gamers.

Oh, they do. It had Linux support since alpha. And just this week, as part of fixing an issue I reported, it had Vulkan enabled for Linux.

This is one kickstarter I don't regret backing. Good communication, constant improvement, treated backers fairly. I have yet to finish a game now that it is "done", but it is looking good as well. :)

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: HadBabitsAww, misread the title and thought this was a tool to get couch co-op for online-only multiplayer games ;-; Still, I'm sure this will be good for a lot of folks; especially for those games where devs can't or won't spend the resources to support online networking.

Personally, the thought of playing voice chat with people gives me the same anxiety I get from phone calls; the lack of visual feedback really throws me. If I'm sharing a couch with someone I can always confirm they're just 'in the game' so any conversational lulls don't feel like awkward silences :B

Yeah, I only ever play couch co-op games. Playing without being able to really see and communicate properly is stressful. Plus, multiplayer without the direct interaction is just not worth it for me, unless it is very hands-off like say Underlords (humans are just smarter bots that sometimes disconnect).

I'd love to see a feature to make online-only games into split-screen. Smartly slice a section of the screen to allow for two games in the same (presumably large) monitor/tv, give option between diagonal/vertical/horizontal splits and allow for easy changing with a key (in case a crucial part of the screen is hidden). Allow for using different inputs for each different instance of the game, give an option between running two instances of the game locally (no internet needed!) or streaming from a second computer (for heavy games). Add some per-game defaults and done (as if it was easy...). Even better if it worked without requiring multiple copies of the game (would also make it easier, no mixing two accounts in the system), but that would be optional and probably include concerns about lost sales.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: redneckdrow

Quoting: eldakingWell, I already bought it (and the base game) three times, all through Humble Bundles, so not directly affected.

There are supposedly also in-game challenges to unlock cosmetics for CK3, but I wasn't able to find those when I opened the game (not that I looked very hard, I had a game ongoing already).

Well According to the 3.30 changelog (via Changelog.txt in the game's directory):

Spoiler, click me

- Monarch's Journey is available to all non-Linux players. This is a feature which will bi-weekly present new characters to play with a scenario of challenges to earn cosmetic rewards for the upcoming Crusader Kings III game.

Emphasis mine, I hope this doesn't mean we won't see CK3. I have 657 hours in CK2; it's my most played game on Steam!

Woah, that is horrible.

The announcement of CK3 said it was going to come to Linux, and I think it was not an accident. But not being able to participate in this campaign is already bad... not so much for missing the cosmetics (though having an inferior release is annoying), but for the hype and the challenges themselves (I was looking for some ideas for a next game, thought this could spice things up).

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Well, I already bought it (and the base game) three times, all through Humble Bundles, so not directly affected.

There are supposedly also in-game challenges to unlock cosmetics for CK3, but I wasn't able to find those when I opened the game (not that I looked very hard, I had a game ongoing already).

View this comment - View article - View full comments

The Linux support for this is not unexpected, but I am really relieved to see confirmation. It would break my heart to have a new Paradox game, and particularly a sequel to CK2, not available on Linux.

Besides that, looking good so far. I particularly like the new skill tree for foci. The holdings being present on the map are also a natural evolution, and the interface and map look better overall (not that it is hard)... though I'll say that I don't like when they showcase map pictures showing the terrain, as in my experience I never see that when playing (always a political map or another) so it just doesn't matter how pretty it is.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Ehvis

Quoting: eldakingI hadn't noticed how it was worded, I assumed it was just a free weekend, but looks to be free forever?

With free weekends this is shown and the purchase option remains available. Since the purchase option is gone, it is not temporary.

Yeah, I just had missed that at first glance. The text that it "goes free to play for PDXCON" deceived me.

Quoting: rick01457CK2 was the game that encouraged me to finally consider linux as a main platform oh so many years ago, being one of the first games i owned that supported linux native. I dread to think how much money I've spent on it over the years but I've gotten the value from it, with many memorable games under my belt. Going free to play is not going to hurt paradox's finances whatsoever, because of the plethora of great addons to purchase for it.

I actually purchased Victoria 2 over the last couple of days (Silver rating so far on SPCR, but plays like gold for me). That has made me hope that a Victoria 3 would be out before a CK3

Same, as one of my favorite games (and enjoying their other games too) it really helped make the switch. Civ5 was the other big one at the time - I couldn't play all my games, but I could play my 2 favorites.

Victoria 3 is a meme by now, because 2 is quite unique and became a cult but is also really outdated. So every new release people (including Paradox employees) joke that it is Victoria 3. But Paradox already said, more seriously, they think it wouldn't have enough public, and considering the expectations people have I think there is no way it would ever succeed. Grognards will complain about every single change, in particular those that modernize the gameplay in any way, and then everyone will complain that it didn't change enough. Frankly, I think their joke dating sim "Victoria's 2 Secrets" will come out first.

Quoting: SadLWhile laughing (I was still thinking about that Burgundy burning joke..) I saw that "Europa Universalis IV: Collection" on steam only has a windows icon.. I got really confused so I investigated..it looks like e-books are a windows only thing..they have some really strange technology that can read some mysterious files called pdfs..I kid you not..

In all seriousness..This is a great game. As it turns out I really enjoy roll-playing a whole dynasty in medieval times. Paradox games give you lots of freedom and choices. I do not think we will get CK3 now though.

PS: Totally forgot.. did you guys know that gog is giving The Witcher: Enhanced Edition for free? (after you subscribe to their newsletter) link (Non native but.. It looks like it works with wine so..)

I noticed the Windows-only symbol as well, it half scared me and I half thought it might be the save converter from CK2 (that thing is so buggy I would believe if they told me it only works on MSDOS). I find it hilarious, especially because Linux has better options out of the box for opening e-books of all kinds (including PDF). When I used Windows, I remember I had to go and manually download a pdf viewer or open pdfs with my browser because it lacked such a basic feature.

View this comment - View article - View full comments