Transgaming to Support Half Life 2 Under Linux

rpdillon writes "According to Half-Life Fallout, Transgaming Technologies has announced that they will be releasing version 4.2 of Cedega, their Wine based software allowing some DirectX games to be played under Linux. The new version will be released Dec 7th with official support included for Valve Software's Half-Life 2 and Steam, Valve's online software store and distribution system, and a required component of Half-Life 2."

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Re:Or better yet...

[grm_wnr]

If they intended to do that, they would have built their graphics engine on OpenGL, not DirectX. So, in short: Not Gonna Happen.

Re:Or better yet...

[Swamii]

Because Linux users comprise less than 2% of the overall desktop market. Don't get religious about it; it's simply the fact that most of the time, it's not financially worth the development effort to port a game, especially a DirectX-based game, over to Linux.

You know what?

[stratjakt]

We bitch and bitch about how much we hate corporations sticking it to us. We hate DRM, we hate devices that phone home, we hate buying a game, and then being unable to take that game over to a friends and just play it.

And yet, everyones head is so far up Valve's ass, that noone seems to be bothered with how odious this steam thing really is.

I mean, you can't play single player without a 'net connection. You cant drag your disk over to your friends house and just play.

It stinks worse than ANYTHING I've ever seen. This is the absolute worst ass-reaming any pointy haired manager ever decided to give the consumers.

You all are just grabbing your ankles and grinning.

I won't buy, leech, crack, play, or even talk about Half Life 2 anymore until they reissue it in a format which I can just install and start playing the single player game without phone-home activation, or being bundled with your ad delivery service.

Fuck you Valve. I will never purchase games via Steam. Luckily I have Halo 2, Metroid Prime 2, Doom 3, and a pile of other titles to keep me entertained.

Re:wow

[Sc00ter]

Steam isn't being ported to Linux, it's just being supported by Transgaming's product that uses WINE to run windows programs.

If anything this will make people not port the products to run in linux because they'll tell you to just use a WINE product to run them.

Bi-directional support

[phorm]

The speed at which Wine is supporting new games seems to indicate a certain amount of support from the game manufacturers. At the very least they're probably getting their hands on pre-releases in order to prepare for compatibility once the true game comes out.

This isn't as good as having an actual native port for Linux, but at least it indicates that there is an awareness that Linux and cross-compatability are a consideration.

Re:Bi-directional support

[dave420]

I don't mean to sound rude, but that's not what's going on. WINE is getting better. Games companies aren't going to bend over backwards to help linux, if their games are in DX. It's just not going to happen. Linux has a tiny share of the market, approx. 2%. A games manufacturer can improve sales of their game by 2% just by improving marketing or with various other non-expensive-labour-intensive activities. Using your core assets to port a game over for a MAXIMUM 2% of the market (if every single linux user bought a copy of it) isn't very cost-effective.

Linux's market share will have to be muuuch larger before games manufacturers base too many decisions on it.

I didn't meant to sound like a dick, but lots of people seem to forget the sheer economics of this.

Re:Or better yet...

[nbert]

Well it's using DirectX, which makes it much harder to port (as opposed to the majority of games running under linux, which use OpenGL).

However, seeing what can be archived with OpenGL, I really wonder why many developers don't consider it an option. Developing games in OpenGL and distributing (unsupported) linux binaries can't be much more expensive.

Re:Or better yet...

[Cereal Box]

Well, you've certainly convinced me that Linux has significant market share by posting the download stats of an Open Source game hosted on Sourceforge!

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I'd prefer no one pays them money for the windows version.

I still don't want it

[GrouchoMarx]

I still won't buy Half-Life 2. Sure, it looks cool, and from what I've seen/heard will likely be a better game than Doom 3. I don't care. It's DRM-restricted. My computer has to spy on me and report back to the mother ship before I can even play single player. That Is Wrong. I will not support it.

Boycott Steam!

Re:Or just badger Valve

[OmniVector]

unfortunately valve tied them selves heavily into directx. as such, it's not portable like all those other games (which are written with opengl).

do what i do. refuse to support companies who do not use open standards for game development. it's the only way we'll get native linux and mac ports in a timely fashion, if ever.

Why I won't Support this.

[Skraut]

I bought Doom 3 and downloaded the Doom 3 linux binary. I bought Unreal Tournament 2004 from linuxgamers. I bought Neverwinter Nights and all the expansions and again grabbed the linux binaries.

I simply refuse to buy games that do not have Linux Binaries. Yes I know I'm missing out on some decent games, but it's the principle. Id, Epic, and Bioware can all look at their logs and see how many linux binaries were downloaded, and I am represented in there. They can say, we sold X copies, but Y% of them were Linux Users.

If I buy Warcraft III, or Half Life 2, to Blizzard or Valve, I am a Windows user. They look and say "Look at all the Windows versions we sold. Why spend any time on making a binary for our next game when we know how many Windows copy will sell?"

Re:Why I won't Support this.

[fiftyfly]

Yeah it's one person, and in the greater scheme of things it's nothing. But it is my way of "Voting" with my wallet. We just got done with all the election hype, and being told how important each and every vote is.

An argument which might hold a little water if there were some way to measure/record such a 'vote'. Whether $linux_binary_purchases == 0 because the market is insignificant or there is simply no supply is immaterial the end result is the same - you don't play. If you really wanted to say something worth saying you'd take the time to put it down on paper, in the form of a politely worded request for future platform support, and send it to someone able to improve the situation.

Re:Why I won't Support this.

[ColMustard]

Marketshare has little to do with it. Statistically speaking, it doesn't make sense for anyone to spend any resources on a Mac port any more than it would for a Linux port. But Mac ports are profitable anyway. The only conclusion is that Mac users must buy more software and indeed that is the case. The same isn't true for the Linux "community." In fact I would say some Linux users are getting a little too used to getting all their software for free.

problems with the client already..

[sinner0423]

This is great news & all - except for no. There have been *NUMEROUS* complaints regarding performance in the game. If you can get it to not crash to your desktop, the audio lag / stuttering makes it almost unplayable.

Normally, I wouldn't bitch about speed when it comes to linux ports. Typically the games run a little bit faster, (I have no idea how this works, kudos to the WINE monkeys that have engineered it) but we're talking about serious lag in HL2 on uber fast GF6800U / AMD64 systems.

I believe ValVe still needs to PATCH the game, before transgaming starts porting it. Who wants to port a broken piece of sofwtare? I have HL2, pre-loaded for two months, and I'm telling you now that it's still riddled with bugs. Mine runs okay on XP2100 / GF4 ti4200 / 512mb PC2100 DDR.

When I say "okay", I mean it's playable, but that's about it. I'm down for linux gaming, but I don't think you guys want to touch this game until it's fixed.

Re:Or just badger Valve

[BAILOPAN]

How do you refuse to support a company whose product you can't use, anyway? Not buy their product more vigorously?

Perfect compromise

[Homburg]

Pisses off users and fails to stop piracy - sounds like the perfect compromise between DRM and ease-of-use to me.

Re:What is real "halflife" ?

[Jacer]

That isn't a bad interpertation. In addition to the scientific version, I also it had some under laying philosophical meaning. While Gordan is a scientist, he uncovers another half of his life as a hero.