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Neverwinter Nights for Linux

Marshall writes "Today I received an email from Tux Games that I never thought I'd get: confirmation that they were shipping me Neverwinter Nights complete with Linux installer! I didn't believe my eyes, so I checked out bioware's web page, and it was confirmed, the linux client is complete. Also check tuxgames.com which states that they are completing the installer and plan to ship games on Monday, 23 June."

29 of 325 comments (clear)

  1. Linux AND an OS X demo! by TexTex · · Score: 3, Informative

    Wow...a demo of NW for the OS X folks and a shipping version for the Linux team.

    Not a bad week in gaming for those who have strayed away from the flock.

    --
    -Barkeep, a draft of your most hazardous brew, for the world is slowly stepping into focus, and I don't like what I see.
  2. Complete? Hardly. by eviltypeguy · · Score: 4, Informative

    I wouldn't call a client that unlike the Windows version lacks both movie playback and a toolset "complete".

    ppffttt

    Certainly not what we were led to belive we were getting when Bioware first announced a client.

    Both the Mac and Windows versions get movie playback, what do we get? Nada.

    Not only that the jackballs at Infogrames/Atari jacked up the the Linux installer included on the Shadows of Undrentide expansion disc by saving all the shell scripts using DOS line endings.

    1. Re:Complete? Hardly. by LordYUK · · Score: 2, Informative

      Not that I disagree completely, but have you WATCHED the "movies"?

      My old SNES (NES even!) had cutscenes better than that... I'd say that BioWare went cheap, but the fact of the matter is, you CAN replicate them (instructions at nwn.bioware.com) for homemade modules, so I guess its just "showcasing" the feature...

      --
      This is my sig. Its pathetic.
    2. Re:Complete? Hardly. by 2Flower · · Score: 4, Informative

      You cannot play this game without the toolset because that is how it works. A DM creates modules and hosts them on his/her box and you connect to it and play. This means one of the people you play with has to run windows.

      Wrong.

      There's a perfectly usable Linux server -- so your earlier startement that Linux can't host the games is wrong. The DM client is not windows only, so that's wrong. The only windows only component is the toolset... but there are hundreds of modules already made by earlier users which you could download and play. So, you can have a 100% Linux solution.

      The only drawback is that the toolset is, as you note, Windows only. If you want to MAKE your own mods and not play existing ones you are out of luck. If that's going to cripple the entire experience for you, okay, don't buy it. Fair enough, vote with your dollars. But at least get your facts straight before complaining.

    3. Re:Complete? Hardly. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Try again. You can serve/host scenarios under Linux.

    4. Re:Complete? Hardly. by Chuck+Bucket · · Score: 2, Informative

      And there's not an installer since they signed a bad contract with InstallSheild, who doesn't have a Linux version.

      Incorrect, InstallShield has InstallShield Multiplatform which handles "[...] Mac OS X, OS/400, Windows, Linux, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, and all other OS platforms you target." It creates a Java Swing GUI (commandline available by using the -console switch) which I'm using at work to create installers for our apps. Our target archs are AIX, Solaris and Linux, you layout your app, then it creates the installers for whichever archs you choose. It's really pretty nice, if you don't mind waiting for the Java GUI to load. ;)

      CB

  3. Linux NWN client out for months .... by dougnaka · · Score: 5, Informative

    I've been playing it with no problems. I think the likely cause of the excessively long delay to release is due to some good QA people at Bioware.
    So far everything in the game has worked flawlessly. With this and ut2003 native linux clients, Tux finally can be a gamer.
    I recommend downloading Gentoo's Unreal Tournament bootable CD if you want to demo native Linux gaming for some non-believers... Sorry, can't find a direct link... It's in their livecd folder...
    Also I recommend transgaming for Windows games on Linux. Warcraft 3, Ghost Recon, Max Payne to name a few games that run under Winex3...
    I hope more game development companies want my money, cuz from now on the only way their getting it is if the game has a native Linux client... Unless it's a ps2 game of course..

    --
    My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD
    1. Re:Linux NWN client out for months .... by molarmass192 · · Score: 2, Informative

      I use Linux 100% of the time and I will concede you have a point. You're a little off base on the WineX piece taking "a week" to configure, WineX mainly works as advertised. Also, there are several excellent native games that weren't mentioned such as RTCW-ET and America's Army but, overall, Linux is not a "gamer's platform" as of yet. If you primarily use your PC for gaming, stay with Win98. The problem is that a lot of the current games use DirectX and, although some of these games do run decently under Wine and/or WineX, it's still a Windows only proposition. For Linux to become a mainstream gaming platform, DirectX has to go. However, MS hates to lose and this is one API they've done a good job pushing. DirectX provides a whole gaming API as opposed to OpenGL which is a graphics API. SDL fulfills a similar concept to DirectX for Linux and BioWare used it to port NWN but it remains to be seen if SDL will supplant DirectX, either way it's a tall order to fill.

      --

      Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
    2. Re:Linux NWN client out for months .... by duggy_92127 · · Score: 2, Informative
      ...if you don't have anything better to do than spend a week configuring the damn thing to even run at all. <gripe about library hell>

      Or, install Gentoo. No library hell, keeps you up to date with the latest version of video and audio drivers and whatnot. I've installed NWN and UT2003 with no issues, and Winex was also a one-line install. I played EQ on Linux for a good while.

      I agree that the quantity of games isn't there yet, but many of the problems you mention with Linux gaming have been solved, in at least one distribution, and that means the solutions will spread to the others.

      If somebody came to me as asked "I want a gaming computer, what should I install?" I wouldn't tell them Linux, either. But to say that it's near-impossible to play games on Linux is also untrue.

      Doug

  4. Re:Let's hope they plan on releasing the installer by Schnapple · · Score: 5, Informative

    Why would you need to buy another copy? The game assets are here (1.13GB). All you need is a CD Key and some FileShack patience (which would be cheaper than buying the game again).

  5. Re:Hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    UT2003 came with the linux client on disc 3 right when it was released...

  6. Linux Installer on SoU - but beware! by DG · · Score: 5, Informative

    The expansion pack Shadows of Urdentide even ships with a Linux installer on the CD

    Almost...

    It seems that the CD mastering tool BioWare/Atari used converted all the text files - that includes shell scripts, mind - to Windows-style text, and when you try to run the installer /bin/sh chokes on all the ^M characters.

    Happily, there is a workaround. See HERE

    Note to all single-player-campaign people - pick up the SoU expansion pack and install it concurrently with NWN. The expansion pack adds many more spells, classes, feats etc and they work with the original game, plus some minor bugs are fixed in the process (the SoU expansion patches the original game content too)

    Huh, I submitted this as a story this AM, and it was rejected in favour of this. Go figure.

    DG

    --
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  7. not at all. by pb · · Score: 5, Informative

    The NWN community has been getting broader and more interesting, perhaps mainly due to the VAST number of third-party modules out there, and the new module content that Bioware puts out as well. Think of it as another manifestation of the miracle of Open Source; a lot of things that were added to the latest NWN expansion pack actually came from the community and were added in.

    From your post, it's obvious to me that you know nothing about this, and the only reason I'm replying is because it pains me to see such an uninformed post sitting at +5.

    --
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
  8. Re:It's great, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    >> The Linux gamers finally get the game, but they get a vastly diminished community.

    Wrong.

    The community is larger than ever. I never looked at NWN as a RPG. I looked at it as a Dungeon Master/Designer/MOdder tool kit that just happened to come with an example module you could play.

    New Mods are coming out daily, the quality of these user mods keeps going up, the activity on the designer boards is frentic. In short I think you'll find the community quite active and still growing.

    I've been using the Beta Linux client for a few weeks now and other than the movies..which I believe is not implemented due to some type of legal or licensing problem it I can't tell the difference from the Windows version.

  9. Installer.. heh by xNullx · · Score: 3, Informative

    The poster seems to have left out the fact that the Linux installer in the expansion is full of ^M characters and dies on syntax errors (Refer to the nwn linux forum). Oh well, you can easily install the expansion by just unzipping 4 zips into your NWN root directory. Still funny that they never tested the installer before shipping it though.

  10. Re:System Requirements??? by Anime_Fan · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Win32 version has requirements:
    450 MHz CPU
    128 MB RAM (win2k/XP), 96MB (Win9x)
    1.2 GB HDD (Minimum Install + OS etc.)
    16 MB OpenGL 1.2 GFX ...

    Note that NWN has had problems w/ ATI cards all from the start. I'd suggest using a GeForce 2 MX card and a 1 GHz CPU for fair performance.

  11. Re:therefore, it's offtopic... or outright false. by SegFaultCM · · Score: 2, Informative
    Ok, so it was obviously harder for me to remember the proper syntax:

    OS X NWN Demo Story on Slashdot

    --
    -- SegFault
    "One day, some time ago, something important happened."
  12. Re:It's great, but... by 2Flower · · Score: 4, Informative

    With the Linux and Mac versions being so late, there's probably not nearly as many people still playing it now as there were, say, a year ago.

    Good news! You're wrong.

    The community is still hella strong -- scope out www.neverwinterconnections.com for all your multiplayer matching needs. Nobody plays the official campiagn; it's always user mods, and usually ones the DM himself whipped up. You won't have to worry about people having played through the content already and then left the community.

    You can download hundreds of good mods (amoung thousands of average ones) at nwvault.ign.com. Aside from movie playback, which is rarely used and almost always optional, you'll be able to play the same single player or multiplayer mods windows users have been enjoying.

    Trust me, it's not too late to jump into NWN. If anything, you have the advantage of not being around during the early days when mods were really clumsy and new. Now you have multiple polished masterpieces to pick from and some thriving match services./p

  13. Re:did they fix the video problems? by The+Darkness · · Score: 5, Informative
    1) are you sure you have DRI running properly?
    2) Are you running in 16 or 24bpp.

    There were problems with 24bpp on my radeon 8500le until beta 3 or 4. Now it runs great.. as long as I turn off hardware TCL. The T and C are fine, but the Lighting part in XFree86 DRI is messed up.

    --
    There are two kinds of people: 1) those that need closure
  14. ^M fix by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    vim setup.sh
    :%s/\r//g
    :wq

    move on to the next file

    enjoy!

  15. Re:ATI sucks by dinivin · · Score: 2, Informative

    Try the release candidates at:

    http://www.schneider-digital.de/html/download_ati. html

    They work find with 4.3.0

    And a little research on the NWN linux boards would have pointed you in the right direction.

    Dinivin

  16. No by Synn · · Score: 3, Informative

    No native toolset and the game client won't play the movies from the official campaign and first expansion because they're in .bik format.

    The toolset works fine under wine though.

  17. Re:DOS line endings by JerkBoB · · Score: 3, Informative
    Load the file, and do: :sno///g

    Since you're using vim, why not just do it this way:
    :set ff=unix
    :w

    The advantage is that you learn more ways to use the tool. It would be kludgy to reverse the process your way, but my way, you'd just do this:
    :set ff=dos
    :w

    Eh. Just a thought.

    --
    A host is a host from coast to coast...
    Unless it's down, or slow, or fails to POST!
  18. PIss Poor Single Player by Cenuij · · Score: 2, Informative

    After reading all your responses I hope that the anticipation of this release will not be dampened by the frankly poor single player game.

    Limited plot, gameplay and modules. Not to mention the sheer annoyance of having to deal with a sidekick that has a mind of it's own.

    BUt I know you lot :) It's the multiplayer your after isnt it? Well in this respect the game is considerable stronger with module building tools and what not.

    Don't say you werent warned about the single player...

    --
    my other sig is written in brainfuck ;)
  19. Re:System Requirements??? by Random+Feature · · Score: 2, Informative

    There was a hack to get ATI cards working early on (which worked great) and subsequent betas fixed the issues with ATI cards.

    I've run it on RH 8 and 9 with a Radeon 7500 and had no issues whatsoever with the ATI card.

    You might want to turn off DRI in the X config, it makes things run better.

    --
    I don't have a solution, but I certainly admire the problem.
  20. Re:Let's hope they plan on releasing the installer by Silvertre · · Score: 2, Informative

    There is an installer, out if you don't want to DL over a gig of files....

    http://www.nixnuts.net/nwn.htm

  21. Or you could have just downloaded it months ago... by OrangeTide · · Score: 4, Informative

    The linux client has been on their page for months now, at least I've been playing it for months on my linux box. So it's not like the game is "just out" on linux. (ps. is uses SDL and OpenGL if you're wondering).

    The thing this article talks about is that NWN has an actual installation program, so you don't have to install it under Windows then copy it to your Linux box.

    It's big news to people who don't have some Windows machine they can borrow. Most of us have a neighbor or girlfriend with one, so it's not a terrible thing.

    Besides, PLEASE, how hard can it be to write an INSTALL program?

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
  22. Re:So how long till they port the by Genom · · Score: 2, Informative

    Err...you mean Shadows of Undrentide? It shipped with linux binaries for the player and DM clients (sadly, no toolset). Small issue being that the install script got pooched during the CD mastering process, so it's in DOS format rather than UNIX format - but there are workarounds.

    Check out http://nwn.bioware.com - all the info is there, or in the forums.

  23. Bittorrent Link by PapaZit · · Score: 3, Informative
    Here ya' go

    BitTorrent link with the resources and the client. I've not even unpacked it, let alone tested it. I'm just hoping that Fileshack gave me a good copy.

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