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1) Unreal Tournment 2003, Enemy Territory, Quake3, Neverwinter Nights, etc. And much, much more with Wine such as Soldier of Fortune 2.

2) Grip, VERY good CD Ripping app. Will auto download CDDB, run the encoder of your choice, etc. As for raytracing Povray can do a lot too, but you just need a good modeler, such as Kpovmodeler. As for a one click installer, check out RPMs or RedHat's Package Management System, looks just like Install Shield.

3) KDE,Gnome,etc. You DO know that they can be themed to look just like the crappy Windows GUI too don't you?

Except that the toolset is not being ported. You'd think the wisdom of porting content-creation tools would be obvious given the creative bent of Apple's demographic, but Mac users just keep on getting the shaft. So let's everyone lighten up on the "portable code" accolades.

Linux

The linux client is pretty impressive, too.

Neverwinter Nights comes with a toolset that includes a compiler for a C-like scripting language. A beginning programmer can write simple programs to create monsters, make them do things, cast magic spells, etc. It's got to be the most fun way to learn programming I've ever seen.

Between thia and [for me] the long expected Never Winter Nights expansion I just lost several days of my life to the misty vortex of gaming.

There is an unofficial installer for it, but you would know that if you looked on BioWare's forums.

Yes, and then there's the supported method which is recommended by the company that made the product. If I wanted an unofficial install that may or may not work and would certainly not be supported, Id' run NWN in Winex3. But you would know that if you didn't assume I was an idiot.

Thanks for playing.

people into retro gaming, or required to use other old software. I'm so glad we are slowly approaching this point. UT2K3 has Linux support out of the box. The demise of Loki is something that I initially thought was going to set back the Linux gaming community for years, but then I've seen games like UT2K3, Castle Wolfenstein, and if you want to count their late to the punch arrival Never Winter Nights come out native. If we could only get Blizzard on the bandwagon, and Maxis more firmly seated the other developers would have little choice but to jump onboard. gatesh8r is right. If Wine gets to good to fast not only will it slow some developers to adopt Linux natively, it may loose a couple that we already have. I'm counting Apple as our new Ace in the Hole. The Mac actually has the attention of the developers, and porting from BSD to Linux should be much easier than porting from Windows to Linux. Of course if everyone adopts and improves on SDL and OpenGL they will have little to worry about when porting anyways. Especially if OpenGL2 ever makes it way to daylight with all the Active X type replacements it's supposed to have available.

I don't subscribe because I feel that WINE is holding back the state of native application ports. After all, if Linux has "perfect" emulation of Windows there is no practical reason for developers to port their code to be platform independent. Without a visible need to port to Linux, developers will continue to release games that only support Windows.

You have a choice: emulate Windows (forever), or seek native software ports. I've chosen native ports, because I think that is the better long-term solution. But if you just can't stand to give over your EverCrack until they provide a Linux client... that is your choice. Just be aware I won't be sympathetic to complaints about the dearth of Linux game ports.

You can get the beta right here. Looks real enough.

did you see this screenshot of the game,

they have stolen those hands and coming out of the wall from zelda 1 on the nes :-)

As the article fails miserably to do that...

Where to download the Linux NWN instaler:

Here or here or here.

MD5SUM for the files: b72d9ec2b9c43e7e3cd39bec22afbe7c

You will need to download these extra file to play in your language:

French
German
Italian
Spanish

Unzip into your nwn directory and move the files to their correct case. ie.

mv dialog.TLK dialog.tlk
mv dialogF.TLK dialogf.tlk

Notes:

This installs the 1.29 English version by default. See above to play in your language.
The beta2 binaries are included.

CDROM Mount Point

If your cdrom mount point is not listed below, you will have to set an environment variable first.
These are the mount points: /mnt /mnt/cdrecorder /mnt/cdrom /mnt/dvd /media/cdrecorder /media/cdrom /media/dvd

If your mount point is not listed here, before you run the installer, from a shell, type export SETUP_CDROM=/path/to/cdrom/mountpoint.
Replace /path/to/cdrom/mountpoint with where your cdrom gets mounted.

Temp Directory

This installer uses close to 1GB of space in /tmp during installation.
If you have limited space in /tmp, change your temp directory to somewhere where you have more than 1GB free.
eg. from a shell, type export TMPDIR=/home//

If any of these apply to you, do them otherwise Neverwinter Nights will not install.
If any of these do not apply to you, then you can just run the installer.

As the article fails miserably to do that...

Where to download the Linux NWN instaler:

Here or here or here.

MD5SUM for the files: b72d9ec2b9c43e7e3cd39bec22afbe7c

You will need to download these extra file to play in your language:

French
German
Italian
Spanish

Unzip into your nwn directory and move the files to their correct case. ie.

mv dialog.TLK dialog.tlk
mv dialogF.TLK dialogf.tlk

Notes:

This installs the 1.29 English version by default. See above to play in your language.
The beta2 binaries are included.

CDROM Mount Point

If your cdrom mount point is not listed below, you will have to set an environment variable first.
These are the mount points: /mnt /mnt/cdrecorder /mnt/cdrom /mnt/dvd /media/cdrecorder /media/cdrom /media/dvd

If your mount point is not listed here, before you run the installer, from a shell, type export SETUP_CDROM=/path/to/cdrom/mountpoint.
Replace /path/to/cdrom/mountpoint with where your cdrom gets mounted.

Temp Directory

This installer uses close to 1GB of space in /tmp during installation.
If you have limited space in /tmp, change your temp directory to somewhere where you have more than 1GB free.
eg. from a shell, type export TMPDIR=/home//

If any of these apply to you, do them otherwise Neverwinter Nights will not install.
If any of these do not apply to you, then you can just run the installer.

As the article fails miserably to do that...

Where to download the Linux NWN instaler:

Here or here or here.

MD5SUM for the files: b72d9ec2b9c43e7e3cd39bec22afbe7c

You will need to download these extra file to play in your language:

French
German
Italian
Spanish

Unzip into your nwn directory and move the files to their correct case. ie.

mv dialog.TLK dialog.tlk
mv dialogF.TLK dialogf.tlk

Notes:

This installs the 1.29 English version by default. See above to play in your language.
The beta2 binaries are included.

CDROM Mount Point

If your cdrom mount point is not listed below, you will have to set an environment variable first.
These are the mount points: /mnt /mnt/cdrecorder /mnt/cdrom /mnt/dvd /media/cdrecorder /media/cdrom /media/dvd

If your mount point is not listed here, before you run the installer, from a shell, type export SETUP_CDROM=/path/to/cdrom/mountpoint.
Replace /path/to/cdrom/mountpoint with where your cdrom gets mounted.

Temp Directory

This installer uses close to 1GB of space in /tmp during installation.
If you have limited space in /tmp, change your temp directory to somewhere where you have more than 1GB free.
eg. from a shell, type export TMPDIR=/home//

If any of these apply to you, do them otherwise Neverwinter Nights will not install.
If any of these do not apply to you, then you can just run the installer.

As the article fails miserably to do that...

Where to download the Linux NWN instaler:

Here or here or here.

MD5SUM for the files: b72d9ec2b9c43e7e3cd39bec22afbe7c

You will need to download these extra file to play in your language:

French
German
Italian
Spanish

Unzip into your nwn directory and move the files to their correct case. ie.

mv dialog.TLK dialog.tlk
mv dialogF.TLK dialogf.tlk

Notes:

This installs the 1.29 English version by default. See above to play in your language.
The beta2 binaries are included.

CDROM Mount Point

If your cdrom mount point is not listed below, you will have to set an environment variable first.
These are the mount points: /mnt /mnt/cdrecorder /mnt/cdrom /mnt/dvd /media/cdrecorder /media/cdrom /media/dvd

If your mount point is not listed here, before you run the installer, from a shell, type export SETUP_CDROM=/path/to/cdrom/mountpoint.
Replace /path/to/cdrom/mountpoint with where your cdrom gets mounted.

Temp Directory

This installer uses close to 1GB of space in /tmp during installation.
If you have limited space in /tmp, change your temp directory to somewhere where you have more than 1GB free.
eg. from a shell, type export TMPDIR=/home//

If any of these apply to you, do them otherwise Neverwinter Nights will not install.
If any of these do not apply to you, then you can just run the installer.

Unfortunately this had to be posted today of all days...

Anyways, the Linux Client really exists (you can even check the packets coming from Bioware, the 'evil bit' is set to 0! :) and the game is a blast. It's also good to see that news of the installer is getting out, as there are many people who don't know about it.

-Colin

Haha. Maybe you're a little bit behind the times, but the Linux client beta has been out for a while now. You can download it HERE. (you need to be logged in to download it)

A quick check of the NWN modules section on Bioware's site shows over 2000 player created ones. Carry on then. I don't anticipate I will be seeing you around here much from now on. :)

Neverwinter Nights Leaps to mind. They also just released a Linux Version.

Jainith

between files that don't actually exist (patch.key), to libmss not being installed correctly, to libSDL crashing horribly, i still have yet to see it run.


You need to transfer files from a fully updated install, remember to run fixinstall, and run it as the user you installed it as, from the directory it's installed in. Patch.key iirc shows up after 1.28.

Also try updating SDL.

From the Bioware forums, ati cards seemed to be a bit of a problem too, I didn't find anyone who had made one work.

That said, it worked pretty well for me with only a few minor issues.

Check on the Bioware site. There is a forum devoted to the Linux client, and several threads with ideas and tips for getting it to work.

What I know:

Mouse speed seems to be a bit strange.
Ati Cards seem to have problems.
It runs like molasses with 16 bit color, 24 bit is good though, some report faster than windows, mine was a bit slower however.
Gentoo and Debian users seemed to have more trouble than others.

First off, there are features missing. Some will be enabled in future builds, as this is beta1. Don't sweat those.

Second, you don't actually need windows installed, all you need is access to the game resources.

From the instructions here

2. Copy the following files from a Windows installation of Neverwinter Nights (updated to 1.29) into a directory called, for example, 'nwn':

ambient/*
[snip long list of directories]
dialog.tlk
dialogF.tlk (French, German, Italian, and Spanish)

If you are using ftp to transfer the files, be sure to transfer them in binary mode.

Note the last statment in step 2. You don't need NWN installed on the windows partition of the machine you're using. It only needs to be installed on a machine you can get to. For that matter, I would bet that that machine doesn't even need to be anywhere near up to the task of running NWN. Install it, update it, and use ftp. Bioware is actually suggesting that you get them from another machine.

Other options would include:
Grabbing the files from someone who has them and a burner. You might have to get creative and use several cd's as well as creative use of zip, and then be careful to put things where they're supposed to be, but there is no reason it wouldn't work.

Even an old machine with win95osr1 should be able to handle the install, and update scripts. The game doesn't actually have to work on that machine, it only has to install and update.

Third, this is still a beta. From the old Linux update page (Before the beta client was released):
Neverwinter Nights Linux Client Installation:
There are 2 things you will need for the Neverwinter Nights Linux Client, aside from the Linux Client executable:
- the game resources
- a CD-Key

You will need to get the Neverwinter Nights game resouces from one of two locations. You can either get them from an existing Windows installation of the English 1.27 build of Neverwinter Nights, or from a Neverwinter Nights Linux Game Resource download that will be available from several mirror sites. Either way, instructions will be provided with the downloads. Why must it be this way, you ask? It is because there is no feasable way to get the game resources from the InstallShield cabinet files on the Windows version CDs.

Read that carefully. There apparently will be resource files for download, they just don't appear to be ready yet. It does make me wonder though, if the Stand alone server can work for getting the resources. I tend to doubt it.

This all said, it would be better to have some sort of installer. As others have posted that such things are possible, and some have claimed to have done it, I suspect that some of the legal issues may have surrounded this specifically, and the necessity to create a click through EULA that can't be bypassed, which would be nearly impossible to do given the nature of the tools available to Linux. Such things give IP Lawyers a terrific case of the vapors, and yes I know that such things are legally ambiguious at best. Don't tell me, tell the lawyer.

First off, there are features missing. Some will be enabled in future builds, as this is beta1. Don't sweat those.

Second, you don't actually need windows installed, all you need is access to the game resources.

From the instructions here

2. Copy the following files from a Windows installation of Neverwinter Nights (updated to 1.29) into a directory called, for example, 'nwn':

ambient/*
[snip long list of directories]
dialog.tlk
dialogF.tlk (French, German, Italian, and Spanish)

If you are using ftp to transfer the files, be sure to transfer them in binary mode.

Note the last statment in step 2. You don't need NWN installed on the windows partition of the machine you're using. It only needs to be installed on a machine you can get to. For that matter, I would bet that that machine doesn't even need to be anywhere near up to the task of running NWN. Install it, update it, and use ftp. Bioware is actually suggesting that you get them from another machine.

Other options would include:
Grabbing the files from someone who has them and a burner. You might have to get creative and use several cd's as well as creative use of zip, and then be careful to put things where they're supposed to be, but there is no reason it wouldn't work.

Even an old machine with win95osr1 should be able to handle the install, and update scripts. The game doesn't actually have to work on that machine, it only has to install and update.

Third, this is still a beta. From the old Linux update page (Before the beta client was released):
Neverwinter Nights Linux Client Installation:
There are 2 things you will need for the Neverwinter Nights Linux Client, aside from the Linux Client executable:
- the game resources
- a CD-Key

You will need to get the Neverwinter Nights game resouces from one of two locations. You can either get them from an existing Windows installation of the English 1.27 build of Neverwinter Nights, or from a Neverwinter Nights Linux Game Resource download that will be available from several mirror sites. Either way, instructions will be provided with the downloads. Why must it be this way, you ask? It is because there is no feasable way to get the game resources from the InstallShield cabinet files on the Windows version CDs.

Read that carefully. There apparently will be resource files for download, they just don't appear to be ready yet. It does make me wonder though, if the Stand alone server can work for getting the resources. I tend to doubt it.

This all said, it would be better to have some sort of installer. As others have posted that such things are possible, and some have claimed to have done it, I suspect that some of the legal issues may have surrounded this specifically, and the necessity to create a click through EULA that can't be bypassed, which would be nearly impossible to do given the nature of the tools available to Linux. Such things give IP Lawyers a terrific case of the vapors, and yes I know that such things are legally ambiguious at best. Don't tell me, tell the lawyer.

Just wanted to point out to everyone (it's been mentioned before in some replys, but what the heck) that there are *TWO* unofficial Linux data installers available here and here. All you need are your installation CDs. No Windows partition required.

After installing the data, you're then going to need some form of Wine (the latest Wine worked for me). You then add the following to the end of ~/.wine/system.reg:

[Software//Bioware//NWN//Neverwinter] 1048122278
"Location"="X://nwn"

With drive X (or what have you) set up to point to wherever the nwn data directory is.

Finally you download and run the standalone patch using Wine.

-Colin

Yes, and here is a BioWare-supplied app which replaces all installation files with their 1.29 counterparts. may even work in wine, haven't tested it yet. (i'm trying the install-in-vmware-then-copy-over approach)

I think I have different standards than you. To me, "a major hack" is putting adb -k in the boot script. :-)

if you dont want to login to their site. download direct from here

You're kinda-sorta describing how Neverwinter Nights does portals. From their faq:

6.06 Can I link my world to someone else's?

Yes. Servers can be linked through 'Portals'. Portals are created when one server operator requests a link and another server operator accepts. This will form a two-way transfer between the two servers, allowing players to travel between the two worlds simply by stepping through the Portal. Once a Portal is created, it remains until removed by one of the server operators. If the server on the other end is currently not operational, the Portal will appear closed. Players can view a wide variety of information about the server on the other end by inspecting the Portal. If the character does not meet the requirements of the new server, the player is not teleported and re-appears beside the original server's Portal. Servers can support multiple Portals.

6.07 What are some ways I can make use of Portals?

The implications of this Portal system are somewhat mind-boggling. By distributing the different areas and population load over a number of home computers with decent Internet connections, for instance, your game world can know no boundaries. On a smaller scale, two rival player guilds could agree to portal their guildworlds together to settle a dispute in battle. Freewheeling MUDs and MUSHes could also emerge where people cobble their different creations together into a larger, cosmopolitan world of adventure. Neverwinter Nights is all about getting people together and Portals allow that to happen on a grander, even more exciting scale.

---

Kinda over the top there at the end, but close to what you were proposing it seems.

Last year's release, Neverwinter Nights by BioWare, is the game to get if you want some good D&D action. In fact, the multiplayer mode is just like playing tabletop D&D but via your computer and the Internet. Multiplayer supports a Dungeon Master who can modify the world in real time. He can take complete control of monsters/characters, place monsters into the world on the fly, further the story depending on the actions of the players, etc. There are also tons of mods out there now.

Neverwinter Night's linux client page

Some folks think that MMOGs are the next generation of MUDs, but I think not.

MMOGs are the AOL of the internet - a prepackaged, lowest-common-denominator experience. That's the economics of paying for the bandwidth and paying for the servers - you need so many customers. Because of that, MMOGs are simply not going to be as challenging as the single-player games in difficulty, but are still not going to allow everyone to complete the game. What will be challenging for the 10 hour a day player will be impossible for the 10 hour a week or month player.

The MUDs were so great because of the connection between community and the creators of the content - often there was overlap.

There are some open-source mmog projects (mmog open-server) and Nel. There is some hope of community-driven content in mmog gaming. Of course, there is also, NeverWinterNights, which although proprietary, still is really taking off in terms of its community and its player-created content.

Exactly what I thought when I read the article... Blizzard has produced some wonderful games (been playing D2 *way* too long) and it would be a shame to lose the hope of them publishing cross platform versions. Hopefully Bioware can get their Linux client for NWN out so I can break my D2 addiction. Until then, I send my thanks to the cool people developing wine.

Impressively paranoid, but please look at what they do before claiming it was all a farce. So far they've provided many screenshots and staked their company's reputation on Linux and Mac ports, as well as put up with the community screaming for blood on their message forum. Not to mention the beta, but I guess we'll just have to wait before we see what's going on with that.

As for saying it's a marketing strategy, that's such a load of bull... The Linux demographic is small. Very small. If anything they'd be losing money paying their developers to stay back and work on the Linux port rather than simply moving on to their next Windows release (Please let it be Shattered Steel 2). Bioware is probably just doing the port for the same reason Epic ported Unreal Tournament 2003--They like Linux and happen to have programmers willing to work on the project.

As for the mistake about Bink and Miles, I'll buy it though I wish they mentioned it was Bink and Miles before hand. Hours after they posted that update, none other than Sam Lantinga himself pointed out that at least Miles worked in Linux.

Anyway, yes, the mouse issue was a bit silly, but I didn't really feel like mocking Bioware at the time. Read the Oct 25th and Nov 1st updates for details on the mouse story. We basically told them it was up to the individual, not NWN, to configure the mousewheel. I'll admit it was a bit disturbing that they didn't do this - which is why I consider it more important that they are open with their development process so we can help them.

To me it sounds like they've got some of their old employees who've been using linux a little in their spare time, who have now said that they think they could code a Linux version. And so they begin their first Linux project. Just a guess, of course.

I'm a little disappointed but it will be nice to finally be able to play the game.

Imagine that in real-life you enjoy playing basketball. Now imagine that there was only one basketball court so that all age groups from 6-65 use this same court to play on. Of course, the oldy,moldy 50-year olds *could* try to form a team and try to have a polite game, but there's nothing stopping the group of 16-year-old rude, hormonal punks from stealing the ball, hanging on the basket, shoving aside other players, etc. After all, there's only one basketball court, everyone loves to play basketball, and they all have a right to use it, yes? This is particularly true if everyone is a paying customer.

IMHO, being unable to escape from players or player-behavior that you find obnoxious is the most detrimental feature of *all* the MMORPGs.
To date, though I have yet to play it extensively, only NeverWinter Nights seems to even attempt to address this issue by providing a single-player or multi-player format, along with a server and client format.

I don't have a solution to this situation. I'm only making an observation. While it might make sense game-wise to segregate by age group, gender, etc., it certainly doesn't make sense business-wise.

Ive played it, its nice but I wouldnt rate it the best RPG of 2002, Neverwinter Nights is more like it, but I still have my issues with action-RPGs. I grew with Final Fantasy, Ive played them all, Im used to them.

One thing I find VERY annoying about action-RPGs is its miss-rate, for an instance... in morrowind, you have good agility, good weapon level... you have a big monster in front of you... you strike.. and miss, strike again... and miss... and so on. Its even more anoying with non mastered weapons, you are not an expert using a long sword, you swing your sword and no matter what, youll never hit... I mean, come on! if you can lift the sword, you can definitevely hit, ok, it might be a lame strike, but you have to do at least a little damage, minimum but you CAN touch the enemy unless it is very nimble, SLOW and BIG monsters can be hit easily. The same applies to long range weapons, in morrowind you throw things, and they just go through the targets... the least they could have done is change the direction of the thrown object, so it is visually obvious it was a clear miss.

Another thing that really brings me down is when you are attacked from a blind spot, or when you hear some enemy might be coming, you have to search all around while it is coming and when you are attacked you dont even know where from. Its really anoying having an archer attacking you from some higher location and your character is so dumb he doesnt recognize the location... instead of the whole screen flashing red, it could have a hint about where you have been hit and an arrow giving you a little more hints.

Besides all that, having to be clicking like crazy is no fun. Besides if you are playing a role, your character levels up and gets smarter... I dont want the whole thing to depend upon my reflexes and stuff, the character is smart/strong/quick enough to turn around when it hears some enemy, attack automatically at its possible rate and stuff like that.

Ill still be waiting for a good RPG.

Is there any of you who knows the kind of RPG Im looking for?

I once read a very well respected Japanese developer said (I think it was Yuji Naka) [Some companies]"...make games at the desk." He was refering to game companies making games to make money, not to create something fun to play.

Electronic Arts is in the video game industry making sound business moves and producing disposable rubbish for an eager consumer base. They are no longer Electronic Artists and they no longer make great video games. This shows in the huge amount of crap they spew out each year.

Other companies were getting to be guilty of the same thing, but they seem to have realized it and are trying to make a turn for the better. Capcom, for instance, has pledged a shift towards quality and innovation, and shortly afterwards announced 6 new fairly unique looking titles.

3DO claims to be making a similar shift, and has cancelled many projects to focus on a few unique titles. Trip Hawkins even forked over his own personal money to help fund the company further along. How many CEOs do you know of who would do that? (Well, the President of Sega did that, too, then died shortly afterwards.)

Many of the more respectable publishers and developers are making this shift towards quality, but Electronic Arts openly clings to "tried and true" titles, even if it means saturating the market with crap.

I don't rant about it like I used to. I just stopped buying the shit. After all, there are other great video game developers out there.

Might have something to do with the post (near the bottom of the page) that Sam Latinga (formerly of the SDL project, now with Blizzard) reporting yesterday that he ported the RAD game tools to Linux.

http://nwn.bioware.com/about/macversion.html

>>Also, (I'm sure you've heard this before) can you make sure there's some easy way for linux users to register the fact that they bought just for linux support on your site? If there were unanticipated problems this time, it might help convince the skeptics in management it's really worth the trouble, next time around.

Look for "The Great Linux Client Thread" in the forums and voice your comments and concerns.

Uhm, apparently you haven't been following the NWN Linux client development at all. If you go here you will find out that they have been updating on their problems on a regular basis. Dumb fuck.

From the NWN Community board ( Great Linux Client Thread #18):
Posted: Saturday, 14 December 04:45PM

Miles problems solved!

I've ported Miles 6.5c over to Linux. It works flawlessly, including dynamically loading ASI, FLT, and M3D modules. I've submitted the code back to RadGameTools. NWN dev folks, please contact me for details: slouken@devolution.com

--Sam Lantinga, Software Engineer, Blizzard Entertainment

"It's getting footsteps to play with shitloads of clever filters"

I've never worked with OpenAL, but I was under the impression that it provided all that is needed in the way of effects. Have you played the game? I really don't think there's much more to it than the basic positional sound, which OpenAL ought to handle.

I know sound-programming can be hell, especially if you'd have to go from one model to another like callback to pull, but I'm just sooo disappointed that they're having these problems. I really thought they were working on making it portable from day one (or at least two years back from the release).

The fact that they couldn't do their own Mac-port of the Infinity Engine games should have been a wakeup call to write NWN to be portable from the get go.

Bioware were my heroes. I thought they did everything right... and now this, first they support the evil mp3 consortium for no good reason, then they show that they have in fact not been doing regular compiles on differnt platforms (I refuse to believe that they have and that we would then find ourselves in this position), and to top it off... they didn't even have a plan for the future when they dropped all those proprietary technologies in the game.

I'm sorry biowarians -- I will always respect you enormously for what you did with BG1 and the whole CRPG scene with the IE offspring, but NWN just seems completely failed to me.

I started to get suspicious when I found out that Stan Melax left Bioware (where he'd done work on the 3D side of MGK2 and was in charge of the Aurora 3D Engine used in NWN) for EA, of all places. But maybe he had to move.

Quote: Posted 12/14/02 06:37:02 (GMT) by Kwalish
It looks like our fearless BioDevs have their work cut out for them when it comes to Bink. I mean, they have to either convince Rad Game Tools to port Bink to Linux, which is a possibilty, however that might take too long (if such a qualifier exists at this point in the game ). One option, if it is possible from a legal standpoint, would be to recode all of the video using MPEG and release it with the client download and when it installs that, replace all of the video content then. However this could be a problem in the future for the expansion packs, as the video would have to be recoded in those as well. Another option is to see if a bink-to-whatever conversion program exists for Linux (I highly doubt this) and convert the videos during the install. [ Edited By Kwalish: Saturday, 14 December 06:44AM (GMT) ]

OK, guys, maybe this is somewhere we can do something practical to help.

I am a good general purpose geek, and I expect a lot of the rest of us here are. I've never actually written a CODEC, and while i've reverese engineered file formats before I've never tackled a compressed video stream. However, it can't be impossible.

How many people would be up for setting up a sourceforge project for either an open source BINK player or an open source BINK2mpeg converter (actually both would use most of the same components). This way we could make an actual positive contribution to getting games onto Linux. We probably would not be finished quick enough to make a real difference for NWN - three months is damn tight for such a project - but it might help BioWare and other companies with future cross-platform games.

We've also all got sample BINK files to analyse, and a google search for 'bink file format' found me a useful text from someone (Mike Melanson) who has already started to analyse the format.

So, come on, who's in?

Just look at Black Isle's "Baldur's Gate" game engine.
Baldur's Gate game engine (the Infinity Engine) was developed by Bioware.

UT 2003!
Linux Games!!
Tux Games!
Neverwinter Nights!
In your face you greasy little "Linux doesn't have any games" troll!

Maybe you were just listing the games that you play regularly, and you already know this; but Unreal 2k3 has Linux support in the box on CD3 and (hopefully) Neverwinter Nights should have a Linux client that you can download here within the next few weeks.

As a Public Service Announcement(tm) to anyone who's into gaming and Linux, or is considering installing Linux, you should peruse Linux Games and The Linux Game Tome every once and a while. Maybe if people are more aware that commercial games are ported to Linux we can have fewer people trying to run Quake III in WINE (Ugh!).

-Colin

Good, but it didn't work for you. It takes a little more finesse than that. You must weave your hatred towards Mikrosoft into an intellegent post about Linux. It takes skill and a love for everything Linux. You can't just fill your post with Micro$ft misspellings, you must actually make sense. That is why I use Konqueror on KDE in Linux to post my feelings. IE just fills your post with "Everyone loves Microsoft" and "Buy your copy of WinXP today." People can see through this... They know that you use Windows. Try this on for size:

"I was writing an assignment one night on WinXP. Well, I needed the web that night, but I couldn't get to a few sites -- the ones I needed. I couldn't figure it out and Windows doesn't have handy configuration files like Linux, so I just re-installed. After I got it installed again, I remembered I forgot to back up that assignment. But worse than that, it corrupted my backup CD-RW of my other files. But then I found Linux and have been happy every since. It does web, e-mail, image editing, music playing, and life managing. Plus, I have those convenient configuration files."

*white screen displays with Tux in grayscale and the site www.linux.org*

"Hi. My name is Eric and I am a student."

By the way, I have a place in my heart for Apples as well. I will take any form of *nix any day over any WinXX. The thing is, if I had an Apple, I could also do it with style... not that KDE or a black screen with white text isn't stylish, but you know, hardware-wise. And about that story, yes, it is true. I have never forgiven my computer. Thank the Lord that I had redundant backups on that disk... only some files were zero-length. And I did check other computers on the same network about the web sites. They could get there, so it was just me. No, it was just XP behaving normally. Three words for Windows users: GET LINUX NOW. Can't play NWN you say? Gocha covered... NWN for Linux. Hu? You can't play Unreal Tourney? Get the right version! What? Word doesn't work? Of course you fool! It's Linux!

Ok, I'm rambling now. Let me summarize:
1. Windows/Microsoft bashing takes skill
2. Linux/OS X Rock!
3. Everyone and their dog can enjoy Linux/OS X. The apps are available, you just need to search a bit.
4. Microsoft will *not* port Word to Linux (Thank God!), that is why there is OpenOffice.org .
5. (back on topic) OS X is not slow. It is a plesant speed. Your day need not go 100mph (160.9344 Kph for our friends not in the US) all the time. Does it make a difference if your file manager opens in 3 seconds or 5 seconds? no. In fact, I *COULDN'T* care less.

Now back to your regularly scheduled program... Mine was Tux Racing!

Well, the actual linux client was supposed to be released with the windows client but that never happened. I bought the game to support the company's decision to support linux. I've also wrote them several time telling them this.
Since it wil hopefully be done soon, I'll be able to reconvert that partition back to linux. If it makes you feel better, I was off of microsoft for about 6 months before I bought this game. I wasn't too happy that it's taking this long.

I let people KNOW that I'm embarrassed I have it, and that I plan on changing it as soon as the client is released. if the client isn't released soon, you can bet it will be the last bioware game I buy for a loong time.

Bioware released the linux server at or very close to the initial release of the game in stores.

This Linux client status page has screenshots and gets updates about their progress. They're not promising an exact date, but they've said "Fall" and "later this year" several times.

Slashdot ran a several stories about NwN on linux a few months ago.

From my perusal of the NWN boards it seems that the biggest complaints are the stuttering and the fact that you can't enable "shiny water" on ATI video cards. Version 1.24 did introduce a small bug in one of the Act II Quests in the single player game as well.

Compared to the festering piles of crap that were Pool of Radiance and Ultima IX, it seems NWN is OK, but don't let that slow you down. I'm sure that there will be a bug or two in Doom III that will let you justify pirating it as well.