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NWN Linux Client Delayed
An anonymous reader writes "Posted tonight on the Neverwinter Nights Linux client page: '[Dec 13 2002] There have been many questions as to why the Linux client is taking so long. The two big issues are sound and movies due to the fact that BINK and Miles are only available for Windows and Mac. BINK is the in-game movie player and Miles is the sound engine for Neverwinter Nights. We are having to find our own solution for Linux sound in Neverwinter Nights, and we are exploring possible movie options. Due to these factors, we are revising the estimated release date from Fall 2002 to Winter 2002 (Dec 22 2002 to March 21 2003), with January 2003 being the earliest date it could be out. Progress has been made on sound this week, and to re-iterate, the graphical side of the Linux client is looking excellent and is almost complete.'"
Why not using divx and mplayer (a downsized version, of course) to play the movies? mplayer can operate in a lot of ways (that's what I like on it) with various input and output systems, and I think it's nice as backend for playing videos in linux games. Sure, there is smpeg too, that was used by lokigames.
Here's a sound engine.
Here's a movie player.
I want my client now, please!
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Gar, this is so frustrating! Been waiting for so long for the client. This was an opportunity that the Linux community had to be in at the start to help with the flow of mods.
Still, I must really thank bioware. The fact that BINK and Miles only run on windows will do a great service to Linux. This will draw attention to the fact that some companies (such as Bioware) are remaining committed to bringing the game to Linux. As a consequence, it will draw attention to all those people who think it is acceptable to produce products that run on windows only, or windows and linux. And yes, I am also thinking of all those web designers who think Internet Explorer is the only web browser being used, and everyone should just download it - after all its free.
So even though the difficulty of bringing out the client may be a downside, I think that Bioware's persistance could serve to aid us, along with putting to shame solutions like BINK and Miles.
I have friends waiting for me to get the Linux client. We could play before that, but once I have the client I am much more likely to get involved. Then we can get a campaign started. Until that time, even my windows friends who purchased the game are not doing much more in the meantime.
It's starting to sound the project wasn't intended to be multiplatform from the getgo. Wouldn't they have chosen other means of playing video and sound or written their own right away?
// ville
At this stage I don't greatly care whether the movies work or not, and I don't care how bad the sound is. I want the game which I paid for working on my machine. I don't care if it's called a beta. But I want it now. Yes, I'd like it if there was a patch release available by March which had as good sound as the Windows version, but I think waiting the Linux client till March is a long time to ask loyal supporters to wait.
It has to be remembered that this isn't the first time they've put it off...
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
I do not like having to wait even longer but I believe they are working hard on a project that deserves my support. If Linux users like myself, do not wait and buy it when it comes out then they will get no reward for their effort and may decide not to bother with any future Linux ports. The only way to get people like Boiware to support Linux is to buy their products when they do release them so that they see it as worthwhile.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
Just please read old Slashdot news about NWN client for Linux. All sane people know it won't happen soon. But there is another and another useless raport on news sites.
It was smart marketing to sell more copies of NWN. Thanks to promise of Linux client, authors get a lot of announces on Linux-related sites, and even not-so-Linux-related, because it was just a unusual event: "new game for Linux".
Now please look at news archive. Please read all this CRAP. How many people is working on Linux port? They realized then can't play movies or sounds NOW? So what they did all the time before? When they started work on Linux client? Maybe after first Windows release? Or maybe they still don't know which libraries use for it?
I know it will be probably moderated down, but I don't care. I am sick of all that commercials put on news-sites. When Carmack say "there will be Linux client" - he release it just with Windows and Mac one. And IMHO community will remember who was honest, and who was not.
RAD Game Tools, the company who sells Miles is the same company that sells Bink, but since I have never used Bink, I don't know how easy it would be to port it to Linux. But as a general rule, it would be better to use effort to port APIs that many developers use rather than porting specific applications like NNN... Just my .02 Euros...
The interactive way to Go -- http://www.playgo.to/iwtg/en/
I can understand a granularity of 3 months before you start a project.
But they are already 6 months past their first promised release!
It defies belief that the best estimate they can still make has an error factor of 3 months.
I was one of the idiots that bought it shortly after release because of the claimed linux support soon, and since the linux server really was out soon they had us all fooled that the linux client really would be soon too.
It wasn't until a couple months after the windows release that they even deigned to tell us 'Fall 2002'.
but it looks like a lite sort of RPG
If you consider the entire 3rd Edition rule-set to be lite, then there is only one thing I have to say...
NERD ALERT!!! NERD ALERT!!!
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?
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Don't feel bad. Most EA games I've played don't seem to have Windows support, either.
"That's not a bug....it's a feature."
2) find an OpenSource or simple way to convert them to mpg, play them. Unlikely.
Why in the world would they do that? This isn't a reverse-engineering job. They made the game, so they probably have all of the source data for the movies. Why wouldn't they just recreate the movies in a format that is Linux friendly?
The problem is that MPEG doesn't have the same performance as BINK does. Just making the files MPEG doesn't mean that NWN-Linux will magically have the same video performance as the Windows version.
Divx is a joke as far as commercial products go...
;-) you've seen has probably warez movies. If you encode DiVX (MPEG-4 actually) at high bitrates, the quality is astonishing and the size surprisingly small.
;-) would be one of those. It's optimized for animation? Yes, all video codecs are optimized for animation. That's kind of the whole point of a video codec. So Bink gives great quality at a range of bitrates? What the hell does that mean? So you have to be sure you use between 100Kb/sec-271.5Kb/sec or something otherwise it will look like shit? The bitrate of any media stream is directly proportional to its quality. More data, more detail. It's just that simple. You're talking like there's some secret magic to getting a well chosen bitrate and that only some codecs do it. As for why Bink is used for games -- only because it's marketed that way. Many companies clearly choose technologies without being clueful as to why they are choosing them. That's certainly the case here (read the story). There's no reason for them to have chosen Bink aside from someone saw an ad for it somewhere and immediately assumed it was the answer to their prayers.
Troll. The quality of a compressed video, using any codec is going to be shit if the encoder used an extremely low bitrate. The only DiVX
Don't knock technologies you clearly don't understand. DiVX would be great for commercial products!
Quicktime/sorenson is the only thing that even approaches an acceptable compromise for video in a game, due to its high quality at reasonable bitrate. On the other hand, it's pretty CPU heavy and it doesn't give you very fine control over the encoding process.
Wait a minute, you just reamed on DiVX -- which has very high quality and a very reasonable bitrate. Note that MPEG-4 decoding is not very CPU intensive, which makes it a better choice than QuickTime for games of all applications. Perhaps you want a video playing while something interactive is taking place. Furthermore, having a fine-controlled codec is hardly specific to QuickTime. You make no sense.
Bink is PC and mac compatible out of the box, it's optimized for animation, the encoding process is very tweakable, it gives great quality at a range of bitrates, and the SDK is very well developed with games as the primary application. So really, I can see why they would have chosen it - not to mention that it's basically been the standard for any game with cutscenes since PCs gained the ability to play video.
Bink works on N platforms, eh? Trust me, there are plenty of other video codecs that work on at least N + 1 platforms. For the uninformed (the parent), DiVX
You sir, are a troll. I cannot believe the moderators rewarded your clueless meanderings though the world of video encoding. You probably picked up a few sparsely scattered jargon terms in you day to day life and now fancy yourself an expert.
Why bother.
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
I was going to buy the game anyway, but I know some people who bought the game and still have it in the box, because they are waiting for a Linux client.
Bioware promised a simultaneous release for Linux, Mac, and Windows four years ago. At the time they even said that there was the possibility of a BeOS port as well. Just as a note, this promise was made during the "dot com" bubble. Bioware might have felt that they could have hired more people to work on the Linux and Mac versions at the time.
Up until right before the game was released, they were still promising this. Then, all of a sudden, they announced that only Windows would come out, with Linux and Mac to follow. Recall that at the beginning of the year, Bioware and Interplay had some sort of disagreement... and the game was in danger of not having a publisher. Then Infogames, the only other company with a lisence to D&D, picked it up.
Admittedly, they _did_ deliver on the Linux server fairly quickly. That is a good thing for me, but the client would be nice as well.
There are a few differing opinions on why the Linux client delay has occured.
My personal opinion is that the publisher of the game, Infogames, was holding Bioware to a June release date very strictly (probably so the game would release two weeks before Warcraft III). This explains the extremely short Beta period, as well as the relatively high amount of bugs (compared to previous Bioware releases).
I also believe that Infogames is still pushing Bioware to focus on adding new content to the game and begin work on expansions, rather than focus on getting the Linux client done, and that is why they only seem to have a few people on the Linux client. I personally believe that if Interplay were still the publisher, the game would have likely been pushed back to fall, and the simultaneous client release would have been a reality.
Some people believe that, from the beginning, the Linux client was just a marketing ploy to get more people to buy the game and to get the game advertised on Linux sites. I really question the validity of this accusation. Bioware has a history of making good RPGs, so it isn't as if they had to rely on a cheap marketing tactic to sell the game. Mentioning that this was from the "Makers of Baldur's Gate" is enough for most RPG enthusiasts to buy the game.
The third point of view is that Bioware really is trying their hardest to get the Linux client out, but these few problems are really causing them hell. Personally, I could care less if the movies don't work.
What I believe Bioware ought to do is release a "beta" of the client as it is. No matter how crappy the sound is, I believe that it would probably at least keep Linux folks happy that Bioware is working on it.
What really hurts the Linux client right now, in my eyes, is that Bioware has mentioned NOTHING about porting the two expansions they've announced to Linux.
On the bright side, people say they've gotten NWN to run Wine. I haven't tried it myself, but at this point, it looks like Wine will be the only way to play in Linux for at least a few more months.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
We have just been informed by Rad Game Tools (http://www.radgametools.com) that they have Linux versions of both Bink and Miles, even though its not mentioned on their web site. We will be getting our hands on these tools on Monday and we should have further information for you then.
This solves the two outstanding issues with the Linux Client, and I bet we will have even more good news for you in the coming week in terms of future Betas or Demos of the Linux Client. We here at BioWare are thrilled with this development.
We would like to apologise for the confusion arising from the Dec 13th update where it seem like we were blaming Rad for the delay. This is entirely untrue. We were stating that, to the best of our knowledge, we would have to find our own solutions for movie and sound playing in the Linux Client. This is no longer the case and we look forward to using the Linux Rad Game Tools just like we are in the Windows and upcoming Mac version.
Rejoice (and I guess its time to upgrade the TNT2 video card in my Linux Box at home)!
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Derek French
Producer, Live Team
Neverwinter Nights