Doom 3 Gets Info On Demo, Linux, DVD, Xbox

Eeknay writes "Following up yesterday's announcement about Doom 3 going Gold, id software today went into specifics on a Doom 3 demo and a Linux version of the full game, saying: 'We will release the demo as soon as it's done, but this probably won't happen until after the game has arrived on U.S. store shelves', and adding: 'Linux binaries will be available very soon after the PC game hits store shelves. There are no plans for boxed Linux games.'." Eurogamer also has a handy round-up of other Doom 3 news, noting, via CNN Money, that "Doom will apparently ship exclusively on CD", quoting Todd Hollenshead as saying of the Xbox version: "We can't say, at this point, that it's going to come out this year", and relaying on game length: "the [PC Gamer paper-mag] reviewer claims it took 23 hours to complete."

Comments

Doom 3 demo.

[Eeknay]

I still don't understand why more and more game companies push back demos to after the retail release; I want a demo to decide whether or not I want to buy your game. The sooner you give that to me, the sooner I buy your game. Simple.

Re:Doom 3 demo.

[NanoGator]

'I still don't understand why more and more game companies push back demos to after the retail release; I want a demo to decide whether or not I want to buy your game. The sooner you give that to me, the sooner I buy your game. Simple."

The problem is they already have a line of people ready to buy the game. Screw you, they're thinking, get to the people who are already sold.

Re:Doom 3 demo.

[Shazow]

Because I think their priority is to get the actual game done, and after that they can cut a few pieces out of it, put some annoying limitations on it, and pump it to your local fileplanet clone.

Or would you rather game companies focused on making a good demo first, rather than a good game that you're actually paying for first?

And besides, what's the point of having a demo before the game is released on shelves? It's not like you can go "OMG THIS DEMO IS SO COOL! I'M GOING TO GO BUY IT RIGHT NOW... err wait, it's not out yet... drat."

And lastly, they DID have the alpha all those years ago ;-)

- shazow

Re:Doom 3 demo.

[Eeknay]

Because at the moment, I'm not sure I want to buy the game. I want something that'll help me decide whether or not I want to spend my hard earned 30 (or however much it will cost). I'm not saying it has to be months before the game is released. Just a week. Then I can look forward to purchasing it, without it being too long of a wait. If a demo is released after the retail release, then I may lose interest before then. I played the Alpha, but as we know, a lot can change between an alpha and the finished product.

Re:Doom 3 demo.

[Maugrim_The_Reaper]

I thought it was obvious - it's bit risky giving people a full demonstration of what most might be considered a turkey - better to chance your arm for a few weeks so the retailers at least buy some copies. Of course I doubt Doom 3 even remotely resembles a Turkey and the lack of a Demo will probably only keep the buyers-to-be frothing at the mouth desperate to get a copy ASAP... This is the biggest hyped game I've yet encountered afterall...

Re:Doom 3 demo.

[Eeknay]

I see your point. But with a game as hyped up as Doom 3, considering to be "revolutionary" and all that, you'd think they'd release a demo before hand to prove they've got a winner. By not releasing a demo, it seems to me as if they're hiding something. However, more and more companies are releasing late demos (or none at all), so there may not be any hidden intentions.

Re:Doom 3 demo.

[Maugrim_The_Reaper]

I ignored the Alpha - better to be patient and play the polished version (finished too). Demos are good for getting a little publicity - but since Doom 3 needs nothing of the sort, the heightened anticipation that exists without a Demo will only make gamers more eager to buy copies quickly. Let's remember the quicker the developers get their money the better they can put it to good use - like starting work on Doom 4, for example...:)

Re:Doom 3 demo.

[shaka999]

For a highly anticipated game it probably makes more sense to release the game and follow with the demo.

For a game that doesn't have public recognition it would be just the opposite.

If you game is already getting the press that DOOM3 is then getting a demo out early would be more likely to keep people from buying the game than to encourage them to buy the game. I know this has worked on me several times. I go buy a hyped game and find out it sucks later. If there had been a demo I wouldn't have made the purchase.

Now, if nobody knows anything about you or your game getting a demo out may help people pay for the whole version.

Just my 2 cents....

Re:Doom 3 demo.

[Maugrim_The_Reaper]

Well, it's true many games are released complete with bugs these days. I still remember the Far Cry debacle with a large gapingly obvious ATI bug that required a very quick patch to be released. Talking of egg on face...I doubt Doom 3 will ship with blatant bugs - the hype and attention would make that quite dangerous since the news would spread like wildfire across the net. More likely they just don't require the publicity a demo would generate - isn't it hyped enough as it is?

Re:Doom 3 demo.

[kannibal_klown]

It depends on a lot of things.

Most people have already stated the obvious: a demo isn't really needed when a game has as much hype and fans as DOOM 3. They know they have those people locked into a sale.

But demos can hurt a game in many ways. For examples:

Deus Ex II: Invisible War - the demo showed everyone how sucky the game was. Poor performance, dummied-down concepts (hacking anyone), small maps, and weak relation to the original. It probably hurt sales, as some of those that were foaming at the mouth probably changed their minds or waited to get it as a gift for the holidays.

Ground Control II - they shot themselves in the foot with the demo. The demo is great! The game is great! One problem - the demo had so much content in it that nobody bought the friggin game. Hordes of people are still on the demo servers, as the only thing they are missing out on is a few maps. Only a small number of people are on the retail servers.

Between the time and funds that ned to go into fixing up a demo, it's more cost effective to get the interested early-birds to buy the games. You demo will do little to make them want it more.

The ones that will buy it later, let them hear about the polished game and then try the demo later.

Re:Doom 3 demo.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true the game is being hyped to hell, but for the last 3 years everyone has been talking about the hardware requirements more than the game. There's the perception that it only runs on the latest+greatest hardware.

I think they might lose a lot of 1st week sales to people with borderline systems who will wait for the Demo just to figure out if the game will run OK or not.

Re:Doom 3 demo.

[superpulpsicle]

Almost.... Almost.... I think your reasoning is good. Though the biggest reason to release a demo before hitting stores is to check a game against real world hardware requirements.

It's just plain easier to fix problems when a million beta/demo testers at home lets you know where all the potholes versus fixing it as final patch 1.0 etc etc.

Re:Doom 3 demo.

[NanoGator]

Whoever modded me as 'flamebait' should really reread my post more carefully. I wasn't saying 'screw you' to the guy, I was suggesting what ID was probably thinking. No offense intended.

Re:Doom 3 demo.

[Marc_Hawke]

As many people said before...Q3 is already set to 'sell-out' as soon as it hits shelves. They don't need to drum up extra hype before release.

HOWEVER!!, in the past, ID hasn't just released 'demo's, they've released 'tests'. Qtest, Q3test, etc, they've released them in order to get feed-back to improve the product. You may question why there was no D3test. (I know the gaming forums are asking this.)

I can answer it though. Doom3 is a single-player game. The tests are for testing the multiplayer servers and gameplay.

Infact, that there was no D3test is very telling. It says there is even less multiplayer in the game than the fanboy's would like to admit.

Re:Doom 3 demo.

[ergo98]

Way back when the demo for Duke Nukem 3D came out months in advance of the real thing. Once it was really released myself and my friends were long since bored of it and had moved on to bigger and better things.

Re:Doom 3 demo.

[Babbster]

Good point...except for the fact that beta tests, demos and retail games should all be different. Nothing is more likely to turn off a potential customer than a buggy program called a "demo." Well, nothing except perhaps a buggy program called "gold" but even then you've presumably already made the sale. Who else is looking forward to eventually getting "lemon laws" for software?

Re:Doom 3 demo.

[Anonymous Coward]

It says there is even less multiplayer in the game than the fanboy's would like to admit.

That's fantastic news! Multiplayer games are rubbish, so the less multiplayer there is, the better!

Multiple Binaries on CD

[Nurgled]

It'd be much more convenient if they could just ship the CD with several compiled versions of the software. The data is (usually) common to all versions, so it's just the code which changes and id seem to work cross-platform throughout rather than porting at the end.

Still, my knackered old PC can't run it anyway, so I don't really know why I'm moaning! ;)

Re:Multiple Binaries on CD

[Zed2K]

Why should they delay the windows version just so that people that run OS's that are such a small percentage of the population should be able to play at the same time?

It would be more convenient for linux and OSX users but not for Id or anyone else.

Re:Multiple Binaries on CD

[psavo]

well, for starters, there should be minimal amount of OS specific code in the game from the get go.

considering that they (iD) have released plenty of (multiplatform) this style games before, one could easily assume that they already have the OS specific code hammered out.

Re:Multiple Binaries on CD

[Anonymous Coward]

That's nice. Call it Flamebait because someone states the obvious business reason to do something.

Re:Multiple Binaries on CD

[Zed2K]

You are making a ton of assumptions about the setup of their development. I would think that doom 3 would be a lot more complex then an office application.

Only Carmack would be able to answer for sure, but I bet each new engine has brand new code that needs to be written for each OS. It is never just a simple matter of copying the code to the new OS and compiling it there and fixing a few specific problems.

Re:Multiple Binaries on CD

[EnglishTim]

Truly spoken like someone who has never written a commercial game.

People often seem to assume that if you write an OpenGl game, there'll be very little work in making a port for another OS. That may be the case if you're writing some free thing that you can download from Sourceforge but when people are actually paying for a product, there's this little thing called 'Quality Assurance' that gets in the way.

Basically, as well as porting your program over, you'd have to test it on a wide variety of machines for all the distributions you support. This takes a long time whatever OS you're running. You've also then got to fix all those niggly little isses while at the same time ensuring you don't break the setup for any of the other machine/graphics card/driver/distribution combinations you've got.

It's easy to say it's easy - it's not easy to do it.

Re:Multiple Binaries on CD

[@madeus]

"Why should they delay the windows version just so that people that run OS's that are such a small percentage of the population should be able to play at the same time?"

Who said anything about delaying the Windows release?

Adding two binary packages to the disk image (one for Mac OS X and one for Linux) plus a couple of platform specific Read Me files and then sending off a new hybrid image for future masters would not in any way require the release to be delayed. You just have one initial release for Windows, and a second that's multiplatform.

This means people will be able to go into a store and just buy the game anywhere, without having to hunt for a place that carries Mac or Linux titles. Though I do most gaming on my PC (and I do mean a lot, it's very well spec'd out just for gaming) there are many times I've gone into a store looking for something to play on my PowerBook, but they have had no Mac specific titles, so I've just gone and bought whatever they had that was hybrid (even though the guys in the store were so clueless they didn't think they had any Mac titles, something that I've experienced many times over the last 10/15 years while looking for mac games).

Re:Multiple Binaries on CD

[Zed2K]

"Adding two binary packages to the disk image (one for Mac OS X and one for Linux) plus a couple of platform specific Read Me files and then sending off a new hybrid image for future masters would not in any way require the release to be delayed. You just have one initial release for Windows, and a second that's multiplatform."

That means new boxes, new manuals, new cd cases, new SKU's, shelf space requests from stores, new pressing runs. It is not just a matter of just make a new master when its done. It costs money to do that. Money that could be spent better in other ways instead of catering to the very small market that is mac and linux gaming.

Mac and Linux users should consider themselves lucky that they are getting a version at all.

Re:Multiple Binaries on CD

[@madeus]

That means new boxes, new manuals, new cd cases, new SKU's, shelf space requests from stores, new pressing runs. It is not just a matter of just make a new master when its done. It costs money to do that. Money that could be spent better in other ways instead of catering to the very small market that is mac and linux gaming.

But we know some extra expense (e.g. printing a new run of boxes) would need to happen anyway so your 'argument' makes no sense.

And FWIW, no you don't need 'shelf space requests', 'new cd cases' or new manuals (in the past, publishers have simply put an A3 sheet in with 'Quick Install Instructions' and a helpdesk number). Some publishers have even used the same box for the Mac release as for the Windows release and simply slapped a 'For Mac' sticker on it, and another over the the 'Requirements' section.

Mac and Linux users should consider themselves lucky that they are getting a version at all.

As far as Mac users go it has nothing to do with 'luck', it's economics. Both Epic and ID make Mac versions of their engines because they rely on licensing fees so heavily and being highly portable, with proven multiplatform support is a great selling point to companies looking to license an engine as it represents the possiblity of greater return for their investment in a title.

I would also add that some publishers would argue that Windows-based PC users 'ought to consider themselves lucky' as Windows based PC games typically bring in a small fraction of the revenues for the same title on a console (overall Windows PC games sales being worth about 10% of the revenue that console games manage to bring in). But, as is the case with Mac games, there is still enough money to make it profitable.

Re:Multiple Binaries on CD

[SphericalCrusher]

Are you suggesting id to make Doom 3 shareware? If so, that's a pretty good idea... but I don't think it'd last very long in today's world of hackers and crackers. But to be perfectly honest, I don't think John Carmack cares about making that much money off of this -- he's rich enough as it is and he's not greedy... unlike Mr. Gates. John had his life set with just the release of Doom -- Quake just finalized it.

Duh, what me work for PC Gamer

[hambonewilkins]

the [PC Gamer paper-mag] reviewer claims it took 23 hours to complete.

Having read PC Gamer, I believe it.

Seriously, though, it's widely assumed that PC Gamer reviewed a non-shipping preview version of the game, which seems pretty shady to me. Though similar to the final version, the games are likely to have SOME differences. After all, Ebert doesn't review rough cuts of films, does he?

Re:Duh, what me work for PC Gamer

[WhiteBandit]

After all, Ebert doesn't review rough cuts of films, does he?

With the quality of movies being released in the last year, you could have fooled me. . .

In all honesty, I notice lots of magazines seem to do this with almost any game. And since it is a preview, the magazines and gaming sites have nothing but good things to say about what they saw.

When the game is finally released, they turn around and SLAM it. Couldn't you consider a somewhat critical preview as a type of constructive criticism? In all honesty, it's highly unlikely this will happen with Doom 3, but it seems to be a general trend in the gaming industry.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to check it out.

Re:Duh, what me work for PC Gamer

[Quarters]

After all, Ebert doesn't review rough cuts of films, does he?

No, but Ebert doesn't write magazine based reviews. He writes newspaper reviews and does television shows.

Magazines typically have a 75-90 day lead time. No game magazine in their right mind is going to review a finished game knowing that it won't be out on the stands for a full 3 months. They'd constantly be scooped by the game oriented internet sites and TV shows.

Re:Duh, what me work for PC Gamer

[UWC]

Plus, movies tend to be finished quite a bit in advance of the release date, allowing reviewers to attend advance screenings or DVD copies distributed esecially for reviewers. In the case of video games, especially those with unspecified release dates like Doom 3, Half-Life 2, et cetera, production and distribution tend to occur as soon as possible after a publisher-approved build is achieved. And you don't tend to run into last-minute compatibility or performance problems with movies.

Re:Duh, what me work for PC Gamer

[Ford Prefect]

Magazines typically have a 75-90 day lead time.

Isn't that... Like... Ages?

Shouldn't the games magazines be looking into reviewing things in a much shorter timeframe? Much of the magazine can be prepared in advance, but hot news and reviews done at the last minute?

Newspapers and news weeklies seem to cope okay, games sites on the web manage to write reviews in less than a couple of months... Plus, it seems ridiculous that a game can go from gold master, through duplication to the stores in significantly less time than it takes to publish the sodding review in a magazine...

Re:Duh, what me work for PC Gamer

[sweede]

working in a magazine printing plant, we are printing up september issues of several magazines that shipping date is in a week or two.

why magazines do this? i havent a clue. but the month on the issue means absolute squat.

after the research is done for a magazine, it can be put together quickly in a couple days or a week.

Re:Duh, what me work for PC Gamer

[Babbster]

The reason magazines traditionally have cover dates at least a month later than the shipping date is that the cover dates are supposed to tell the retailer when to take the issues OFF the shelf and return them to their distributor. This is because magazines are, as a rule, sold on consignment and not actually purchased by retailers (as with most other retail products).

"About time!", the world exclaims...

[Maugrim_The_Reaper]

Considering the hype surrounding Doom 3, I guess my first stop on the release date for Europe will be the closest game store! Now how am I going schedule Doom 3 time around my job that week...

Re:"About time!", the world exclaims...

[kannibal_klown]

Most gamers are asking themselves:

"How will I schedule my job around my Doom 3 time?"

Personally, I'm anticipating this release, but I'm not gung-ho about it. To me, it will just be another FPS. At most, it will remind me of the fun and fear I felt when playing the original version at night on my 486 DX 33.

Re:"About time!", the world exclaims...

[Maugrim_The_Reaper]

True, the good old days when PCs were sold with 486/33's, 8MB Ram, some sort of inbuilt video processing and one of those ultra modern 4 speed CD-ROMs - well, at least it got me through Doom and Duke Nukem... Looking forward to contrasting both versions... Now about scheduling...:)

Re:"About time!", the world exclaims...

[JAD lifter]

Personally, I'm anticipating this release, but I'm not gung-ho about it.

That is how I feel about it. I Loved Doom 2 and Half Life is one of my all time favorite games, as a result I'll be buying Doom 3 and Half Life 2. But I can't help but feel that these games are being way overhyped to the point that they just will not be able to live up to many peoples extremely high expectations.

I loved the original Wolfenstein games. ID then made Return to Castle Wolfenstein which was OK but didn't blow me away. ID made the original Doom games. ID is now making Doom 3 and I assume that it will be good but doubt that it will blow me away.
As far as Half Life 2 is concerned. The original Half Life was so damn good that even with updated graphics it will be hard to beat. There is the definite (though unlikely) possibility that both Doom 3 and Half Life 2 might dissapoint many people.

Re:Monitoring demand

[EnglishTim]

IIRC, There was a boxed version of Quake III and it sold very poorly.

Re:Monitoring demand

[GeckoX]

STFU Troll, you as a linux user (or osx) are getting a good deal hear and you know it. Anyone that buys the boxed game, which is required to play the game on ANY platform, gives you access to play it on ANY platform they release binaries for in the future. This would include linux and OSX binaries apparantly in the VERY near future.

Do NOT turn this into yet another "poor us linux users abused again" argument, especially whey you're targeting it at one of the very few game companies that even give a flying fuck about linux.

You should be happy for chrissakes that you a) will even be able to play it on linux and b) that should you for some reason want to install it on both linux and windows (to prove how much better it is on linux of course, or whatever floats your boat) WITHOUT HAVING TO PAY FOR IT TWICE!

I know, I'm feeding the troll but I couldn't let that crap go without saying _something_.

Impressive

[gabe]

id was working on Windows, Linux, Mac and Xbox ports all at once. Mac OS X and Xbox ports are not finished yet, but are coming. Go id!

Re:Impressive

[Quarters]

The XBox version is being done at Vicarious Visions in Albany, NY.

Re:Impressive

[SnoBall]

And they caused the price of coffee per pound to go up. w00t for id!

Re:Impressive

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Epic Games, creator of Unreal Tournament 2004, shipped a Linux version of UT2003 and UT2004 on the same CDs (or DVDs) as the Windows version.

A mac port and XBox port (Unreal Championship) are also available for UT2003.

Re:Impressive

[kannibal_klown]

UT2004 for Mac OS X was released within a few days of the Windows release. It might have even been the same day that they were actually on brick-and-mortar store shelves, but Ithink there was like a 2 day gap.

Re:Monitoring demand

[BinLadenMyHero]

Maybe cause it was released late, when all Linux quakers already bought the Windows box and downloaded the Linux executable.

Speed Demo People

[-=[Dr. AJAX]=-]

"Bah", I say to the alleged 23 hour completion time. Speed Demo people, I expect to see a 1 hr 37 min demo (maximum, of course) one week after Doom 3 hits the shelves.

Re:Speed Demo People

[Taulin]

Don't forget, Carmack said your guy moves slow, like in real life, and you can only sprint for short periods of time.

The 23 hour mark was probably mostly made up off just walking through the levels since there are not supposed to be more than 3 or 4 creatures at a time on the screen (the big ones anyway)

Re:Speed Demo People

[Radix37]

OK, please buy me a new computer and I'll get right on it!

Dedicated Server

[phunhippy]

I've seen little to no mention of a dedicated server.. I would like to be able to run my own server.. just like i do with CS/DOD... i know different engine.. shut up..

Has anyone found anything out about this yet?

Re:Dedicated Server

[rylin]

iirc, there's a 4-player limit for Doom3 deathmatches - eg. you won't really need a dedicated server there.

That said, the Doom 3 engine will be the basis for a lot of games coming out over the next few years - so there's most likely a very good support for online play already in the engine - eg. either wait and see if it's included, or wait until someone hacks playerLimit = 4 -> playerLimit=16 etc.

Re:Dedicated Server

[DeadScreenSky]

At least the last time id mentioned multiplayer it was said that Doom3 is peer-to-peer only. No servers needed (and they would be pretty silly with a 4 player limit). There was talk that this could change however. I suspect the engine is (or maybe more accurately will be) able to handle a server-client setup, because future games using it will probably do more with multiplayer. But I doubt Doom3 would see any benefit from this.

Re:Dedicated Server

[88NoSoup4U88]

I hope they threw out the ready-room : where people have to get together, only to start a game from there : Instead of just joining games that are allready in progress.

Re:Dedicated Server

[Dekar]

According to the handy round-up article:
"Multiplayer is client-server," laying to rest suggestions that Doom's four-player deathmatch mode might be peer-to-peer;

It's the good ol' client-server model again. You'll be able to host your server just like you did 10 years ago, except that this time, it won't be over a 14.4k modem :)

And on another note, I remember playing countless hours of DooM I and II by modem with only one friend at a time, and it was still a whole damn lot of fun, so I'm not worried about the "4 players limitation" either.

Re:Monitoring demand

[Otter]

STFU Troll, you as a linux user (or osx) are getting a good deal hear and you know it. Anyone that buys the boxed game, which is required to play the game on ANY platform, gives you access to play it on ANY platform they release binaries for in the future. This would include linux and OSX binaries apparantly in the VERY near future.

Hey, don't point fingers at the Mac gamers. It was the Linux guys who all ran out and bought the Windows boxes of Quake III instead of waiting a month, leaving John Carmack looking like an idiot with stacks of unsold Linux boxes.

There's a reason why they're still making boxed sets for Mac.

Does that inclide...

[MMaestro]

"the [PC Gamer paper-mag] reviewer claims it took 23 hours to complete."

Time sleeping, bathroom runs, stopping to take notes for the review, stopping to get cool screenshots to be printed, stopping to call over the other staff to see another 'cool thing', among other things which would kill time? After looking at how short some games are, you'll have to excuse my skeptism (23 hours? I beat Max Payne 2 in less than 15 and I didn't even play the first one.)

Re:Does that inclide...

[Quinn]

I don't understand you people. Do you play for fifteen hours at a time? Maybe before a wife and a baby I could have done that, but not now. Many RPG claim "forty hours gameplay," but I've played for that duration spread over a single week and haven't passed more than their midpoints.

Re:Does that inclide...

[jackbird]

But that doesn't include load times, poking around your inventory, playtime repeated when you restore a saved game, etc.

Re:Does that inclide...

[Flyboy Connor]

23 hours? I beat Max Payne 2 in less than 15 and I didn't even play the first one.

So zero hours for Max Payne 1... That IS fast.

Re:Does that inclide...

[Anonymous Coward]

You have a wife and a baby and you still play videogames 40 hours in a week??? Christ! You're in no place to be surprised at other people, or to talk self-righteously.

Re:Monitoring demand

[DAldredge]

If I buy the Win32 version how do I go about getting the xbox bins? ;->

Re:Monitoring demand

[RupW]

Most Linux gamers bought the Windows boxes and downloaded the binaries. They were counted as Windows gamers and the sales figures point towards there being no Linux market.

So it's your own fault, then?

Re:In related news:

[mausmalone]

"A large group of xbox owners carrying pitchforks and lit torches were seen marching towards Vicarious Visions offices in California..."

Why? 'Cause it's coming out so late, or because it runs like an utter dog? Check out the video on the last demo disc.... it seems to slow down at key points... like when 2 zombies are on screen.

Re:Monitoring demand

[GoofyBoy]

>Most Linux gamers bought the Windows boxes and downloaded the binaries. They were counted as Windows gamers and the sales figures point towards there being no Linux market.

Lets not assume that they are idiots.

They can track how many downloads of the Linux binaries there are. They can match CD keys with with the bianary version when you authenticate against their master servers.

Most telling is the fact that even with the seemingly low numbers of Q3 Linux users they are spending the resources again with Doom. This is miles ahead of what many companies are doing. Complain about them but not ID.

Demo....mmmmmmm demo.....

[mausmalone]

I really wanna get my hands on that demo when it's ready. Doom 3 seems like the type of game I'd only play for like 10 minutes at a time to oogle at anyway. I'm just wondering how big that download will be, as the bootleged "alpha" was like 1 GB after un-raring it.

Re:Monitoring demand

[FictionPimp]

Yea, because nobody would be able to track the number of linux downloads to decide if it was worth it to release the next game with a linux version...

Re:Monitoring demand

[falcon5768]

dude enough with the STFU... actually it was a ass trying to get Quake3 to run on OS X after i got it from my mom for.... get this..... A DOLLAR AT THE DOLLAR STORE! if i got it for that cheap and os x really hadnt been out long, then it is very unlikely that OS X users where at fault. besides, the mac version with the update works great.

Re:Monitoring demand

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux versions of these games are released to appease server admins, not because there's any sort of general market for Linux games.

Re:Monitoring demand

[KDR_11k]

I think they actually released the Linux version first. At least here in Germany that was the case.

Re:In related news:

[Jack Sparrow]

Why? 'Cause it's coming out so late, or because it runs like an utter dog? Check out the video on the last demo disc.... it seems to slow down at key points... like when 2 zombies are on screen.

Thanks for confirming this. When i saw that I thought I got a problem with my disc.

Re:Monitoring demand

[glimmy]

i am happy there are more games for linux, but there will always be more support for Microsoft we just have to except that

atleast with the demo I can see if my system can

[cyrax777]

Handle the game. I was worried if my machine could handle UT2k4 since I only have a radeon 8500 but it handled the demo and then later the full version quite nicely. I hope doom3 is the same way since I dont have the cash right now to plunk down the money for a better video card. and I already got doom3 on preorder a friend of mine got it for me as a gift since im a huge doom fan.

Re:Monitoring demand

[Anonymous Coward]

They can track how many downloads of the Linux binaries there are.

No, they can't. Learn a little something about HTTP. You simply cannot track downloads, even if you assume that nobody shares binaries.

Re:Monitoring demand

[Anonymous Coward]

Sigh. Here's a link to the HTTP 1.1 specification. Read it, and then come back when you understand how downloads cannot be tracked.

Re:Monitoring demand

[Anonymous Coward]

What part of the word "most" don't you understand?

Now we just wait..

[vern0n]

for them to get hacked, and the game gets pushed back another year. wait.. :/

Take this with a grain of salt....

[unclethursday]

But, I did get 10 minutes with Doom 3 at E3 this year.

Granted, 10 minutes isn;t a long time, but it was enough to say that I am looking forward to the game, now. And I had pretty much given up on Doom 3 after all the hype.

Granted, this was also the Xbox version, not the PC version, but it was still very good. Much better than I expected.

YMMV of course.

Mac UT2004 also available

[unclethursday]

Being as I have it and play it on my iBook.

Nice single DVD to install, too.... too bad it eats up almost 6 GB of HDD space.

id: Please dump CDs.

[Anonymous Coward]

You cannot possibly imagine my hatred for Epic because they did not release a DVD version of Unreal Tourney 2004 on day 1.

Technically they did with the "special edition" - but nobody was able to buy it. For example, at my local Best Buy, all - and I do mean *ALL* five copies that they had been slated to receive were purchased by the store staff, leaving none for the customers.

So I ended up with the unwieldy CD version. On 6 fucking disks. I have three computers with DVD drives. Only one is new enough to actually be able to run the game. It's safe to say that if someone has a system that will be capable of running the game - IT WILL HAVE A DVD DRIVE.

So id - a company that has always been associated with cutting edge technology and cutting edge games - if you force me to juggle 6 CDs - I'm going to resent you for being pussies and not going for the best technical solution to the problem of distributing your game physically.

Re:id: Please dump CDs.

[nobodyman]

uh, my mail-order dvd version arrived the day it was released. pre-orders also scooped up the DVD version at the stores. So, you hate them for not releasing exclusively on DVD? I don't get it.

I do agree that Id's decision is frustrating. I wonder if it's harder to implement copy protection schemes on DVD. Otherwise, I can't see why id cares what the media is -- it's an issue for the distributor, not the developer.

Re:atleast with the demo I can see if my system ca

[Killjoy_NL]

Can I be his friend too ?? ;)

Re:Monitoring demand

[Anonymous Coward]

What part of the word "most" don't you understand?

I meant "your" as in "the linux gaming community", not "you personally".

Re:In related news:

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a 2nd problem that has been identified and is apparently related: you bought an xbox.

Word on the street is that the fix is a PS2.

Cheers.

Re:Monitoring demand

[FictionPimp]

ok smartass. Go dig up a book on javascript. Read it, come back when you tell me how to write a counter.

Re:Monitoring demand

[orion41us]

Ummm... Not a HTTP Protocol geek but from a business perspective, - but I can bet that every download will be in fact because someone wants to install this on a LINUX box, why else download Linux binaries? not to mention if I was doing this I would have a register form; fill out you name, address and other soul sucking info including Box serial # or Credit Card; then would give them a link, not pi8t proof but nothing really is ;)

Re:Monitoring demand

[AllUsernamesAreGone]

It's even easier than that: they have the server logs so it isn't exactly rocket science to do

grep -c "linuxq3apoint-1.32b-3.x86.run" /var/log/proftpd/proftpd.log

(adjusted for whichever ftp server they use) on a regular basis to track downloads. Yeah, you might get duplicates, false starts and aborts but it's better than guesswork..

Re:Monitoring demand

[joeljkp]

In the US, the Linux version of Q3 was released months later than the Windows version, and sold for a "new" price, while other copies had already been marked down.

Re:Monitoring demand

[joeljkp]

You can't track downloads of a file? Then why am I looking at my site stats now with "number of times downloaded" by each file?

Re:In related news:

[AzraelKans]

"A large group of xbox owners carrying pitchforks and lit torches were seen marching towards Vicarious Visions offices in California..."

Overrated and the parent initially got 0? gee talking about a tough croud.

I dont have any mod points, but I think is funny, tragic yes, but funny

.

Re:Monitoring demand

[Anonymous Coward]

Because your site stats aren't telling you the whole truth. A single user may be counted as several hits, and several users may be counted as a single hit. That's just the way HTTP works. It was never designed with reliable reporting of downloads in mind, and it would have to give up a lot of its flexibility to do so. The reasons are moderately complex, which is why I suggested you "learn a little something about HTTP", rather than try to explain it to you. If you search the web, you'll find many discussions of this limitation of HTTP. It's well-known. Even some authors of stats packages have written about it.

Re:Monitoring demand

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a HTTP Protocol geek but from a business perspective, - but I can bet that every download will be in fact because someone wants to install this on a LINUX box

Yes, but my point is that you simply cannot get reliable download numbers, so any conclusion you come to regarding Linux demand using HTTP logs is irrelevent unless it is backed up with actual sales figures from Linux boxes.

And I still don't get why I'm constantly being modded as troll. Everything I say is the truth, I didn't want to start an argument, and everybody else seems to be more aggressive than me. What's with the troll witch-hunt?

Re:Monitoring demand

[Anonymous Coward]

Go dig up a book on javascript. Read it, come back when you tell me how to write a counter.

Sorry, I clearly know more about Javascript than you. The first thing that anybody should learn about Javascript is that it cannot be relied upon in a WWW environment.

Re:Monitoring demand

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you might get duplicates, false starts and aborts but it's better than guesswork..

I never said it wasn't better than guesswork. I simply said that it was unreliable compared with actual box sales. I'm right. Apart from anything else, you are ignoring all the magazine cover CD distributions, the Kazaa, etc distributions, the HTTP distributions (which simply cannot be tracked reliably), and so on.

Re:Monitoring demand

[FictionPimp]

Exact figures are not as important as the overall amount of atttempted downloads. Any intelligent use of logs/javascript/php or whatever else you want to use will give you a good feel for the number of actual downloads. If I sell 300,000 copys of a game, and my website gets 210,000 hits for the linux binarys, this tells me that a good majority (possibly 90-130,000) people wanted the linux version. Why is this concept so freaking hard for you to figure out? How can they track actual box sales for windows when the mac and linux version are the same box? Let me answer that. They can't. Do you know why? Because they have no clue if you are going to use it on mac/linux/windows or even simply buying it to jack off on. So how is this any different then checking the number of downloads? Well guess what, it isn't. Now get a clue.

I used javascript as a simple tool to show how anything can be tracked. You may not have 100% numbers, but you can track at least the number of attempted downloads. You could use php,asp, or as someone even pointed out just plain old server logs. The point is it can be done well enough to decide if it is marketable. I'm done now.

So how good is it?

[AzraelKans]

uh, my mail-order dvd version arrived the day it was released

OT: So you actually have the game already? how did you managed? you preordered are you from a magazine? but most importantly...

PLEASE TELL US IF ITS AS GOOD AS THEY CLAIM!!! ;)