EVE Online Coming to Linux, Mac OS X

An anonymous reader writes "Linuxlookup.com is reporting that CCP today announced a partnership with TransGaming to bring EVE Online to Linux and Mac platforms starting later this year. From the article: '"EVE Online has always ranked highly with our Linux users and there is significant demand for it among other platforms, including the rapidly growing Mac base," said Vikas Gupta, CEO of TransGaming Technologies. "As EVE takes place within a single-server persistent universe, it's vital that the game is identical in every way across different platforms. This challenge is what makes the partnership with CCP both important and rewarding."'

Comments

Fascinating!

[seebs]

I think it'll work well for them. I know at least 4-6 people who have WoW only because it has a Mac port, even though only one of them got WoW to actually play it on a Mac.

Re:Fascinating!

[Maury Markowitz]

> The shitty ATI 1900 in my Macpro desktop overheats
> and crashes the system pretty consistently though.

File a bug report! Apple is convinced I'm the only one having this problem! The OS simply isn't listening to the temperature in the PCI bay and correct for it properly. Making matters worse, the OS doesn't look at the temperature from the card itself at all.

And to actually "fix" it, go get a copy of smcFanControl. Make a setting called "Gaming" and crank the PCI bay fan to about 900-1200. Presto, the problem is gone. Unfortunately this sets the _lower_ speed of the fans only, so the noise level goes up even in idle.

But to put this in perspective, I can run WoW and Halo all day long completely maxed out at 2560 x 1600 without any problems. And when I'm not playing, I simply reset the fans to Default.

Maury

Re:Fascinating!

[Greyfox]

It seems to get worse over time, and I'm pretty sure it's not the PCI bay temperature that's the problem. It ran fine with slightly higher fans for a month or two, then it started overheating again. It eventually gets to the point where even with the fans at max it was crashing 3-4 times a day. At that point I ordered a third party VGA cooler with heat pipes. It still requires the fans to run at max but it's not crashing anymore.

I suspect that the problem here may be at least partially seasonal. I don't have AC at my place and it can get up to 90 or so on the hottest days (It's so dry here it's not particularly uncomfortable.) Now that we're getting the cooler fall temperatures again I'm seeing that it's a lot more stable.

If you look on the WoW support forums though, you'll see that this problem is not limited to just you or me. There are pages full of people having the same exact video and crashing issues that I was seeing. If you talk to the WoW mac support guys about the problem, the first thing they'll suggest is that your system is overheating. These are NOT isolated incidents. If Apple still thinks they are, it's because their problem tracking system is woefully deficient.

Hurrah!

[Funkcikle]

This is excellent news. Truly this will be the best 2003 ever!

So what?

[sinner6]

The mac version of Eve was reported as in development as far back as March but as of yet no offical statements. http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/03/09/eve/index.php And people ALREADY run Eve on linux using Cedega. Running Eve on linux is nothing new, people have been doing it for at least 9 months, maybe more. Nice of slashdot to pick up a PR statement.

Wha?

[Kantara]

Between this, ArsTechnica's report on Guitar Hero III Coming-to-PC and Macs via Aspyr, GameTap, and EA following through with their game announcements, It's finally looking 'not bad' for Mac gaming this year. I truly thought that Cider was a bunch of hooey, but it seems to be doing well.

Test hasn't started...

[sykopomp]

I'm actually signed up for testing this client. For those of you who don't realize this yet, the client they're releasing for linux and mac is actually just the windows client wrapped up with Cedega and Cider, respectively. There won't be much difference between the the performance for those that run it under Wine/Cedega and those that run it with this upcoming client. The biggest advantage, though, is official support (which Cedega has basically had for a while, now... no big change here). The news are not as big as this article makes it seem... Also, it'll be a little while before the official client is released. They've been taking forever to keep us up to date, sending one e-mail every two weeks or so with no real updates on the matter besides some examples of what we might be testing. They haven't even decided what the final list of testers is, even. Ah well, I guess something's something... and I think at least OSX users will be really thankful for this development.

Cross Platform Future?

[p0tat03]

With companies seemingly jumping aboard the Mac gaming wagon (great for a Mac user like myself), I wonder if Cider will become a stopgap, or the future. On the one hand, the recent move towards Macs is obviously because publishers feel the Mac market is now worth capturing, but at the same time will companies continue to rely on the crutch that is Cider far into the future, or will developers shift towards developing for both platforms natively?

Re:Well then

[nschubach]

That's pretty much what turned me off. The time based skill up. No matter how much you play, you can only increase skills at a predetermined pace. Your play time is spent trying to make money to buy things that you won't be able to afford later.

Re:Where's the post on Vendetta Online?

[Zeussy]

You maybe after realistic physics, but it sometimes makes me laugh too. Realism != fun (most of the time). If in EvE you had to fly to a planet, get into orbit, match orbits with the station, approach it, properly match velocities, pilot into the docking bay. You would get pretty sick of it by your 5th go. That's why in my opinion the players should be kept away from game design, as the majority do not have a clue. I have had a couple of conversions with friends along these lines

Wouldn't it be cool if you had to properly dock with stations.
No it wouldn't.
But it would look so cool!
It would look cool, but how many times do you dock with a station?
About 10-20 times a day
How long do you imagine it would take to dock?
About 3-5 minutes
So you want to spend an extra hour of you day to just look cool while you dock.
Well I suppose not.

Although saying that some developers don't have a clue about game design either, and I'm no game designer myself.

Re:Well then

[Alzheimers]

I'll do my best:

One issue with Eve is teams of people who hang out in the safer* areas of the universe (such as a gang called Repo Industries) who spend their time in these safer* areas using an an-game mechanic to, for a fee, declare war against other groups of players who would otherwise be protected by the police in the area, simply for the fun of ruining someone else's day, and usually target new players who can't defend themselves properly. My team was fortunate to have been accepted by a group of other teams that are more accustomed to staying in the unsafe areas and are thus better at protecting themselves, and using this knowledge returned the favor to the unfriendly gangs by sending them home to mommy with a bloody nose. Even though the game masters look down upon the kind of behavior that ruins the experience for new players, the current solution of limiting the ability of unfriendly players to only enter unsafe areas has a way of souring the experience for everyone involved.

Hope that helps!

*there are no "safe" areas in EvE, except for being docked. Once you're in space, even in newbieland, you can be attacked and blown up. The difference is that in "safer" areas, there's a fast police response (aka CONCORDOKKEN) that will end up with the aggressor being destroyed. However, you're still dead.