EVE Online's Linux/Mac Client Goes Live Tuesday

The official EVE Online site has details of upcoming patch 'Revelations 2.3'. Along with a number of bug-fixes to the PvP-focused Massively Multiplayer Online Game, this game fix will offer up compatibility with Mac OS X and Linux. Though the Mac client is a native port, Linux will require the used of Cedega. The post suggests that if you'd like a preview of what the game will be like on your rig, you can download the client and tool around the test server. System requirements are also listed, as are the distributions of Linux they are specifically supporting: Ubuntu 7+, Suse 10+, and Linspire 6. Update: 11/04 14:32 GMT by Z : Fixed implication of native Linux client.

Comments

Hopefully

[Blackheim]

other game vendors will start following suit

Re:Hopefully

[Darko8472]

Need I mention that WoW (and any number of Blizzard games) are already fully Mac compatible? Not Linux, admittedly... but it's a step in the right direction that's been going on for years.

Re:Hopefully

[cyberjock1980]

Why would companies spend resources on a Linux version of their software if their software works with Wine just fine? Blizzard wrote a Windows client for WoW that is ported to Linux with Wine for free. What more can a company want than someone else doing the work for them for free? Any company that spends vast amounts of resources to port a product to Linux when it can be emulated with wine just fine probably isn't making good business decisions anyway, and won't stay in business long. On the flip side, Wine could very well be hindering games from being 'Linux native' because wine is capable of providing the performance needed to get the job done. There is no incentive to provide such software for Linux users because they can use Wine.

Re:Hopefully

[LingNoi]

Because depending on wine makes you look like you don't care about your market and your relying on a third party such as winehq to make your game work.

If Eve brings out a patch that no longer makes it work under wine and 100 people send in hate mail then you can see why maybe a native client might be a good thing.

Re:Hopefully

[Nossie]

"Blizzard wrote a Windows client for WoW that is ported to Linux with Wine for free"

So you didnt know that WoW was written on linux and working in beta before they moved it to windows then?

Re:Hopefully

[kcbanner]

First of all, nothing is better than a native port. I don't care if it runs "fine" under wine. Maybe the shaders don't work, maybe there are graphical glitches. I want games companies to care enough to compile the damn thing for linux. All they have to do is just lose the dependency for silly windows libs, use OpenGL, its 10x better than directx in my opinion.

Re:Hopefully

[Bert64]

What's really needed is a cross platform binary standard and standard set of APIs...
If you could download one binary, and run it on any OS with an x86 compatible CPU. Like java, but using native code etc.
It would also make a lot of sense for games companies, write the game once and get windows/mac/linux/solaris/bsd ports for free, since your coding to the cross platform standard instead of any particular OS.

Re:Hopefully

[JohnBailey]

Why would companies spend resources on a Linux version of their software if their software works with Wine just fine? Blizzard wrote a Windows client for WoW that is ported to Linux with Wine for free. What more can a company want than someone else doing the work for them for free? Any company that spends vast amounts of resources to port a product to Linux when it can be emulated with wine just fine probably isn't making good business decisions anyway, and won't stay in business long. On the flip side, Wine could very well be hindering games from being 'Linux native' because wine is capable of providing the performance needed to get the job done. There is no incentive to provide such software for Linux users because they can use Wine. Because Wine doesn't always work consistently. An upgrade can break some apps that were running well with wine, and a native client is going to work better. Games are also much more likely to do something low level that hasn't been thought of which could cause problems with Wine.

There doesn't need to be vast resources devoted to porting a game from one platform to the other. They don't have to write the whole thing from scratch..

The majority of the work is already done, and if the system is well designed, the game is practically platform agnostic already. All the animations, the meshes, the skins, the sound and music files are all independent of one particular platform, and if the engine is developed properly, the resources involved are minimized.
Just the engine and a few other bits need to be ported and compiled for the other platforms. And in this day and age, when companies often release Windows, PS2/3 and Xbox versions of the same game, isn't it more practical to design the game as easily portable from the start? Then they can tap into the growing Linux and OSX markets with minimal extra development.

Re:Hopefully

[The Analog Kid]

The majority of the work is already done, and if the system is well designed, the game is practically platform agnostic already. All the animations, the meshes, the skins, the sound and music files are all independent of one particular platform, and if the engine is developed properly, the resources involved are minimized.

I'm guessing in this case they designed their game for Windows and Linux/OS X were an afterthought. If they designed their game for portability there would probably be a native Linux port. I dunno if a company like Loki can survive now, but even then with a MMORPG patches have to be released simultaneously or you risk pissing off some of your customers (and really it's unfair to them to do that). Holding back your patches to have all the platform on the same page risks the customers growing tired of waiting for new content. I would guess for a MMORPG its really better to have an in-house team to manage the Linux port, but that is expensive vs the amount of people playing the game on that OS. If Linux has 3% of the total userbase then only a fraction of the 3% would playing the game.

Re:Hopefully

[tolan-b]

Unfortunately the new EVE client is actually just the Windows client plugged into winelib (hopefully optimised a bit too). Better than just trying to run it on Wine though, which has traditionally been a pain in the arse.

Re:Hopefully

[ewanm89]

It's called opengl for 3d graphics... wxwidgets for gui... it's not the opensource communities' fault if M$ keeps going around breaking some of them each release (opengl in vista)...

Re:Hopefully

[dnoyeb]

Eve is written in stackless Python. So its not as windows dependent as one might think.

Re:Hopefully

[Anonymous Coward]

Flamebait? Oh, man. That's rich. Mactards unite!

Re:Hopefully

[C0rinthian]

This is why I think Wine is a bad idea. It's a cop-out. The fact that you can hack up programs to run on something other than Windows is no excuse for failing to support the platform. Wine gives developers less incentive to make platform independent software, and that's a BAD thing.

Re:Hopefully

[Macthorpe]

OpenGL isn't broken in Vista.

Re:Hopefully

[JohnBailey]

I'm guessing in this case they designed their game for Windows and Linux/OS X were an afterthought. If they designed their game for portability there would probably be a native Linux port. I dunno if a company like Loki can survive now, but even then with a MMORPG patches have to be released simultaneously or you risk pissing off some of your customers (and really it's unfair to them to do that). Holding back your patches to have all the platform on the same page risks the customers growing tired of waiting for new content. I would guess for a MMORPG its really better to have an in-house team to manage the Linux port, but that is expensive vs the amount of people playing the game on that OS. If Linux has 3% of the total userbase then only a fraction of the 3% would playing the game. I meant that for a yet to be written game, it would be much more practical to start with a portable system. Develop on Linux, Mac, Windows, Xbox and PS3 all from the same code base. Many companies are already doing this with consoles and computers, so an extra platform or two will bring in more profit.

As to the user base. Of the entire 95% that Windows is reputed to have, not every windows user is a gamer. I think you are severely over estimating the market.
The Windows majority is made up of 98, 98SE, 2000, ME, XP and a few Vista users. So not all are going to be able to use the currently available games for a start. In other words, of no use to the game publishers. XP is somewhere around 70% of the total PC market, and is the largest platform for current games. So lets start from there.

First, subtract the percentage of business only PCs where the user is not only not going to not have time to play games at work, but they can not install anything on their work PC ever. This will be a majority of the 70%

Then subtract the number of 3 year and older PCs that people are still perfectly happy to use. A Pentium 3 and 256 meg of memory is not going to get you much in the way of game play, but it is fine for most if not all the uses that most people make of their PCs at home.

Then subtract the laptops, which are making up a significant amount of the Windows market at the moment. Playing a resource hungry game on a laptop is not a good idea. Unless you are feeling really cold.

Consoles are easy to use, comparatively cheap when you take the cost of a gaming PC into account, so even more Windows users are going to get a console instead, and they have about five years of use with the console as opposed to a year or two before the gaming PC looks a bit slow.

Now you have quite a small chunk of the 95% Windows market. That is the market that the gamers inhabit. At a very rough guess, the gaming market is much closer to 10%.

So now, the Linux/Mac markets don't look as insignificant.

Re:Hopefully

[WilliamSChips]

You're not in the target demographic of the Mac. I'm not going to say what the target demographic actually is other than that it's the people for which the best applications for their jobs have traditionally been on the Mac.

Re:Hopefully

[ewanm89]

Yes it is, M$ disabled it as it can't work with Aero.

Re:Hopefully

[Macthorpe]

Okay, explain how I'm playing City of Heroes then, an exclusively OpenGL game.

Check your facts.

Re:Hopefully

[Macthorpe]

Oh, and just in case you wanted to argue the point further, top link on a Google search for "OpenGL in Vista" yields:

Windows Vista and OpenGL-the Facts

An article posted on OpenGL.org explaining the OpenGl works perfectly well on Vista, with Aero. Relevant quotation would be:

Windows Vista fully supports hardware accelerated OpenGL;
OpenGL applications can benefit from Window Vistas improved graphics resource management;
OpenGL performance on Windows Vista is extremely competitive with the performance on Windows XP. Well done for not even managing 25 seconds of research on something you're claiming to know.

Re:Hopefully

[ewanm89]

Well it never worked on the Betas and RCs, and I know of one game that they had to transfer all code to DirectX to make it work... but then I'm a Linux user.

Re:Hopefully

[ewanm89]

Maybe it was certain opengl features they disabled... I know I'm not the only one that has had problems with it...

Re:Hopefully

[Cecil]

All they have to do is just lose the dependency for silly windows libs, use OpenGL, its 10x better than directx in my opinion.

I'm writing a game right now (in OpenGL) and let me assure you that it isn't 10x better. It's really not better at all. DirectX is absolutely the 500 pound gorilla in this space. It has its own model formats, its own optimized texture formats, its own shader formats (which are automatically optimized for the major graphic card types) and its fixed-function pipeline absolutely blows OpenGL's FFP out of the water. It's not even in the same league.

With that said, yes, OpenGL is great and it has its advantages, but in order for OpenGL to approach the level of integration and rendering quality that you get for free in DirectX, relies on you to do all the heavy lifting. And there really is a lot of heavy lifting. OpenGL is great if you really, truly want unadulterated control over every aspect of rendering, but you can do that in DirectX too if you want with minimal fuss. On the other hand, if you are not a John Carmack and really would like to let the framework handle most of the hard work for you, DirectX offers that handily, while OpenGL is rather unsatisfactory.

Re:Hopefully

[FishWithAHammer]

You're not in the target demographic of the Mac. I'm not going to say what the target demographic actually is other than that it's the people for which the best applications for their jobs have traditionally been on the Mac.

I question whether this is true still today. The only piece of "artsy" software I can think of that's Mac-only is Final Cut, and frankly I prefer Premiere.

Re:Hopefully

[Bert64]

Those are source level APIs, requiring your code to be compiled for each platform it's intended to run on. This is fine if you have the source and are willing to compile it for your platform, but commercial game developers won't go for that.
What we really need is compile once, run anywhere.

Re:Hopefully

[ewanm89]

These do recompile for multiple platforms, hence why they prefer to use opengl.

Re:Hopefully

[dnoyeb]

I don't know what the sever software is written in. The client is the python. You can tell its not a standard windows program because of some of its bad behaviors.

Re:Hopefully

[C0rinthian]

CCP has been married to DirectX from the start. That pretty much makes it Windows dependant. Since they're basically rebuilding the graphics engine anyway for a big update, you'd think it would be a perfect opportunity to make native clients for multiple platforms. But instead they decided to move to DX10. Yay.

So long GPA....

[lordofthechia]

Oh god... no...why? Crap, the only thing that has kept me from trying that game was the lack of a linux port. And Tuesday? Lets see 3 weeks before finals.... Well it's official, I'm switching to business.

Re:So long GPA....

[kcbanner]

Its not a linux port. They simply packaged Cedega with EVE. I wish people would stop praising them for that...its not a native client.

Re:So long GPA....

[Spit]

Honestly, what difference does it make to you whether a closed binary is compiled against Windows or Linux APIs? If the software runs well, there is no difference except in your head.

Re:So long GPA....

[cloricus]

This isn't a port, it is the windows client wrapped in transgamings cedega.
 
EVE Online has been working nicely under Cedega for around a year and a half now, under WINE for around a year, and under Crossover for around six months. Honestly if you really want to play this game under Linux or Mac you are spoilt for choice as this new Cedega wrapper and Crossover both offer seamless install and at least in Crossovers case almost seamless game play.
 
Hopefully this will help EVE Onlines large Linux community and growing Mac community play the game easily. More games under alternative platforms can only be a good thing!

Re:So long GPA....

[cloricus]

Compare EVE Online under WINE (currently performs slightly better than Cedega at running eve) to Doom 3.

Oh you wanted more to this comment? Guess you honestly don't understand the difference between native and the limitations of compatibiliy layers. There is simply no comparison to a native supported application.

Re:So long GPA....

[prencher]

They've paid transgaming to work with them and make sure it runs well under Cedega and Cine, they've made engine adjustments for that fact, they officially support said clients with patches if bugs are found in em. Why do you care it's not a native compilation?

Re:So long GPA....

[cheater512]

Its effectively the same yes but native Linux ports are usually somewhat faster than running the same game on the same rig under Windows.
Using Wine throws away the benefits of Linux's superior video and audio libraries due to overhead.
The gameplay is similar to using it on Windows ironically.

Re:So long GPA....

[Spit]

Do you have an empirical cite for that, or is it just a feeling? I used to buy all Loki native ports back in the day and played them all to death. They worked fine but the difference with the Win version was miniscule. Same deal with ID games.

There's nothing wrong with using WINE to play games, and I would applaud vendors for providing a hassle-free runtime of their games rather than just demanding they port the whole thing.

Re:So long GPA....

[kripkenstein]

Its not a linux port. They simply packaged Cedega with EVE. I wish people would stop praising them for that...its not a native client. Sure, a native port would be better, but this is still a step in the right direction. They deserve *some* praise for it.

If it lets a few more people not have to dual-boot into Windows to play games, then they are doing something right. Hopefully this will grow the non-Windows gaming market enough so that eventually native clients *are* released for Linux / Mac.

And as for Cedega not being truly open-sourced, and the games themselves certainly not, well, as a Linux desktop user and FOSS supporter this bothers me. But the fact is, at this point in time hardcore games are mostly a closed-source environment, whether on a console or a PC. Games are different than most typical desktop apps for various reasons. Hopefully in the future this will change, but meanwhile lots of Linux users want to play games, so this announcement is positive news.

Re:So long GPA....

[cheater512]

Yeah the difference isnt massive but Linux can add 5+ fps to a game.

Re:So long GPA....

[kcbanner]

Yeah, WoW under wine for me was like 120fps, in windows it was more like 100-110. Small but yes it is faster, and thats under wine...

Re:So long GPA....

[Lonewolf666]

The EVE client is slow even under Windows.

In the "Guristas Treasure Hold" in Friggi the older of my two PCs (P4 2.4 GHz, Radeon 9600 Pro, 1 GByte RAM) has significant lag. Entering the same complex with my newer PC shows better performance on a slower DSL line. So it is obviously not a network problem but a client side performance problem.

Any well programmed FPS game has better graphics performance ;-)

Re:So long GPA....

[Bert64]

I wonder if vista widens the gap...

Re:So long GPA....

[TheThiefMaster]

Cedega isn't open-source, but they contribute back to wine, which is.

CCP paid for significant work on Cedega (and so wine) for EVE to run.
They changed their own code to improve compatibility.
As a result, you can now run EVE on wine, if you don't want to use the Cedega packaged client.

Re:So long GPA....

[FSHero]

...as for Cedega not being truly open-sourced, and the games themselves certainly not, well, as a Linux desktop user and FOSS supporter this bothers me. But the fact is, at this point in time hardcore games are mostly a closed-source environment, whether on a console or a PC. Games are different than most typical desktop apps for various reasons. Hopefully in the future this will change...

Now, this thing about games being FOSS has always been a dilemma for me. I know that good games can be made free/open-source; one just has to look at Nexuiz for that. But how can game-makers produce games and earn money for a salary and further development other than by selling their software under a proprietary licence? I don't think people are going to be buying technical support for the game... if it doesn't work on my comp, I just ask on forums, or ask a friend to help.

Furthermore, I have a number of friends studying games programming and related computer courses at University. It would be quite harsh if I took the view that "everything should be FOSS! Even if that means no jobs/money for you!"

Re:So long GPA....

[EvilRyry]

Was that with Direct3d or OpenGL in Windows? There could be differences in the engine that could account for the difference instead of just the platform. The OpenGL engine could for instance be written better, or maybe have less detail that the Direct3D version. Typically speaking, I thought Windows typically had better framerates because the graphics drivers are in the kernel, and probably better tunned for most vendors. Or wine/Linux could just be faster...

Re:So long GPA....

[rustalot42684]

Wine Is Not an Emulator. Programs running with wine do run natively. Read their Web Sight - the section on debunking WINE myths.

Re:So long GPA....

[Goaway]

Says the man with square HTML tags.

Re:So long GPA....

[Rhapsody Scarlet]

If it lets a few more people not have to dual-boot into Windows to play games, then they are doing something right. If EVE Online works under Cedega, then there was no need to dual-boot in the first place. This changes nothing.

Re:So long GPA....

[hikaricore]

Trust me, I'm aware of the irony of posting BBCode on a site that uses "HTML tags", while bitching at someone who spelled "website" incorrectly. It was not entirely lost on me and I even got a laugh out of it 2 seconds after clicking that damned button. However in my defense, I would like to politely point out that you can suck my balls.

Re:So long GPA....

[Maserati]

Client performance in large fights is due for an upgrade by the end of the year, The Trinity v2 update is supposed to offload an awful lot of the processing to the GPU, plus the new engine is specifically designed to handle fleet engagements better. We can only hope it really pays off.

Re:So long GPA....

[InvisiBill]

Cedega isn't open-source, but they contribute back to wine, which is.

CCP paid for significant work on Cedega (and so wine) for EVE to run.
They changed their own code to improve compatibility.
As a result, you can now run EVE on wine, if you don't want to use the Cedega packaged client.

No, Cedega doesn't generally contribute back to Wine. The two are basically completely separate projects now. http://www.winehq.org/?issue=329#Cedega%206.0%20&%20Wine%20Benchmarks

Here's the facts you need to know about Wine & Cedega:

• Cedega's core is based off the original Wine tree and was forked in 2002. There are several core components that no longer share a similarity with Wine as it exists today.
• TransGaming has not actively contributed to Wine in about 5 years with the exception of a few patches (less than 5 a year.)

Re:So long GPA....

[TheThiefMaster]

However, EVE does now run on Wine.

Re:So long GPA....

[jsebrech]

Its not a linux port. They simply packaged Cedega with EVE. I wish people would stop praising them for that...its not a native client.

The question is: does it matter? If it runs just fine (as well as on windows), and it integrates with the OS (launch menus, hardware recognition, ...), does it matter that it's not a "native" version?

Re:So long GPA....

[Dwindlehop]

Correction: They simply packaged Cedega with EVE for no additional cost. You don't have to subscribe to Cedega in order to play Eve. That's the important distinction.

Re:So long GPA....

[WilliamSChips]

He said compatibility layer. Which means that when the programs try to call the Windows API they're actually calling the WINE API which then calls the relevant Linux functions. Which is slower than the API itself.

Re:So long GPA....

[ultranova]

Typically speaking, I thought Windows typically had better framerates because the graphics drivers are in the kernel, and probably better tunned for most vendors. Or wine/Linux could just be faster...

Linux graphics drivers are in the kernel too. That's one of the reasons why it's such a huge hassle when they're closed source.

Re:So long GPA....

[Kingrames]

Well, they didn't want the linux users to have an advantage. ;)

of course, we come with the advantage in intelligence anyways. As well as ego.

Re:So long GPA....

[Goaway]

Did you forget to log out of your sock puppet account or something?

Re:So long GPA....

[Jaeph]

Don't be silly, it's not the packaging that counts, it's the official support for the "ports". It's one thing to hack at eve after every build to make it work under cedega - it's another to have the company try it out for you before release.

-Jeff

Re:So long GPA....

[Hierophant7]

I'm not exactly trying to argue against you, but I get better performance playing Max Payne 2 under wine/cedega in linux than I do playing it natively in Windows. At least, I did like 3 years ago, when I last played that game.

Re:So long GPA....

[IntergalacticWalrus]

You're missing the point. Video games are made from two parts: code and multimedia resources. Both are as important as the other. Making a game open source does not remove the ability to sell it, because unlike most other kinds of computer software, games are much more than just code.

Wow!

[seebs]

WoW, really.

I know a lot of people who play WoW. All of us play it, across a mix of Windows and WINE and other systems, because one person we know had a Mac. We wanted to play together, so all of us went with WoW, even though some other games sounded interesting.

I hope the same thing happens for EVE, and they find a sales boost that goes beyond just the influx of Mac and Linux gamers.

(I won't be one of them; I have zero interest in PvP, or in playing a game which is built around real and lasting consequences for mistakes. I play a game like that about 14-18 hours a day already, and I want something different for my recreation.)

Re:Wow!

[dameron]

> I have zero interest in PvP, or in playing a game which is built around real and lasting consequences for mistakes.

WoW has "real" consequences for mistakes?

"Lasting", in a virtual world?

Bah.

I believe you're looking for an "activity". "Games" are for people ballsy enough to keep score.

Re:Wow!

[seebs]

No, WoW doesn't. EVE does. They keep bragging about how a minute's play can wipe out months of work. Not interesting to me. In WoW, I can lose an amount of money that will take me as much as an hour to earn back. No problem, I can cope.

Re:Wow!

[Sycraft-fu]

It won't, really. The Linux and Mac gaming markets aren't all that large, especially since in both cases the option always exists to boot to Windows if you really want to play games. EVE's small market share isn't due to its lack of cross platform, it is sue to its game design. They chose to make a very hardcore game. This really doesn't appeal to a lot of people since they find it to not be fun. As such, it is always going to be far more niche than World of Warcraft. One of the major reasons WoW was so much more popular than any other MMORPG before it is because Blizzard heavily took the attitude that a game isn't supposed to punish you for failure. It functioned more like a single player game, where failure means reloading a save and trying something again, rather than being set back a large distance.

So while I'm sure it will get a boost in sales (they wouldn't do it if they didn't think they'd make some money), it isn't likely to be that huge. The game simply appeals to a much more narrow group of people than WoW. WoW is one of those games that I'll recommend to anybody. I believe it is simple enough for anyone to learn to play, and anyone to find enjoyable. That is not true of many games, and EVE is certainly one it isn't true of. I'd only recommend that to people I know that are very intense gamers, and that can deal with the consequences for failure that game has.

Re:Wow!

[plaxion]

Not that large eh? You'd think that with all the time and money companies spend on "targeted marketing" they would have realized that if they had a geeky or technical game that they wanted to sell, they could skip past all the grandmas and just sell it for Linux and thus have several million geeks as an audience. But now it's too late for that, because Grandmothers the world over are switching (or being switched by those who a sick of supporting their windows installations).

As for booting into windows... I love games and I run Linux. I refuse to pay a company money so I can drop everything and boot into windows to play a game and get value for my purchase. So here's my message to these games companies... "I run Linux. If you want my hard earned dollars, you'll have to come over to this side of the fence to get it, because this [*indicating Linux computer with sweeping motion of the hands*] is where I prefer to spend my work and play time... but chasing you on your terms, is not a game I'm interested in."

Re:Wow!

[cloricus]

Interesting...I'm sure last time I looked Linux held around 5% of the desktop market, and Apple held a touch more. Oh and strangely enough Vista was sitting just under 5%. Guess those game makers developing for Vista must be out right mad in the head to go DX10 in a market that is saturated ... Or they could do dx9/opengl/sdl and develop for the 10% of the market that is completely untapped instead while still keeping the other 85% who use regular Windows as well.

Please think through what you say before you spout off the FUD that we've all read a million times, Linux and Mac users are like every one else, we need relaxing games too. Or in the case of EVE some thing to remind us that life is rather easy in comparison...

Also all Blizzard did was make a game that gives cheap rewards for basic tasks and added pretty colours, it rolls in everything addictive, predictable, and easy into one game and charges for it. While it shouldn't be laughed off as a game, and it can be a lot of fun (I must admit :D), it shouldn't be praised as a 'good game' as it hasn't been designed around challenges to advance yourself...Instead it is like a pokie machine, the perception of advancement for no or little effort.

Re:Wow!

[Loke the Dog]

I'm sure last time I looked Linux held around 5% of the desktop market Hah! Where did you see that? In the logs of slashdot?

Re:Wow!

[doomy]

When World of Warcraft alpha was given out to some of us there was a very alpha Linux client included. I have no idea why they dropped support for Linux back then. But it's probably due to driver support that was lacking.

Re:Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.itfacts.biz/index.php?id=P723

Re:Wow!

[SL Baur]

The Linux and Mac gaming markets aren't all that large, especially since in both cases the option always exists to boot to Windows if you really want to play games. I am so tired of this argument, especially when Microsoft Windows is justified by "Hey, you've got to have it to play games." WoW is a lot more fun with a Mac than Microsoft Windows XP and I hope the same is the case with EVE (though I won't play it, I'm no fan of PvP).

Go alternative platforms. Choice Is Good.

Re:Wow!

[EotB]

I didn't think that the 'danger' aspect of the game would really appeal to me, but it gives you an amazing sense of consequence for your actions. I got bored with WoW and the repetitive PvE/BG grind where the worst that can happen is that you don't make progress (although arenas are a good start). In EVE, when they say you can lose a months worth of work in minutes, they mean it. Thats what makes the game unbelievably thrilling to play.

I can understand why that may be a little bit too risky to cope with for some people though...

Re:Wow!

[Antique Geekmeister]

If I wanted a minute's play to wipe out months of work, I'd just run my programs from a root account all the time. No need to take that kind of risk for fun.

Re:Wow!

[kcbanner]

You recommend WoW to people, you are an evil person. You know once during my foray into WoW, I typed /played and it was some massive number and I just realized all the time that had been spent...and just stopped playing. Now I still play games but I have never played a silly mmo like WoW since then. I do play EvE but the nature of eve doesn't require any grinding or mindless activites to progress...no matter what your doing for say an hour in eve will help you in the long run.

Stop recommending silly games like WoW to people, its quite an evil thing :/

Re:Wow!

[Rakshasa Taisab]

And in WoW you will have adrenaline rushes worthy of that one hour you'll have to spend earning back that money.

Re:Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do people insist on calling EVE super-niche hardcore?
It has hardcore elements, but that's it.
It is not a game which forces you to play any which way, and especially not "hardcore".

I have a 3-4 year old character on EVE, and I've not ONCE touched the drama, politics, etc. (you can play freelance your entire eve career and have a blast - that was infact one of the atmosphere/mood goals of eve; to incorporate that 'lost in space' feeling.)

WoW was far, far more time demanding for an equally 'in the game' feeling (and I won't even touch advancement/gear...).
It's the same with most other mmorpgs I've played. Out of them; EVE is the one that has the *potential* (if you want it to be) to be very time consuming, however it is the one that forces you to stress the LEAST to still to stay ontop of the game.

It might be this "hardcore dream" (Hmm...) of many players in it, however eve is just as much a casual gamer's dream.
Sometimes I start thinking all these people calling eve hardcore and niche/excluding, are spreading that fud for a reason.

- A freelancer in Eve

Re:Wow!

[Skuld-Chan]

You could always vow to delete your character after he/she dies for the first time...

Re:Wow!

[xouumalperxe]

Actually as a combat rogue I have adrenaline rushes every 5 minutes, on demand.

Re:Wow!

[soupforare]

Yeah man, eve is seriously an ezzzzZZZZZZZZZZZ

Re:Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

Spend months, then have some (insert explicitive here) turn out to be a spy/mole.

Poof, all your hard work gone, most of your friends quit,

CCP endorses corp espionage and makes ZERO repercussions since you can just make a new character. If you could only have one character ever, or had a rating on your account overall, it might be different, though people would still make multiple accounts.

Re:Wow!

[e1618978]

I just accidentally enchanted my boots with "+7 Agility" when I meant to use "+7 Stamina", wasting 90 gold in WoW. This would take me a week or so to earn back - so you just aren't trying hard enough to lose money in WoW.

Re:Wow!

[Loke the Dog]

Yes, in 2004, it was speculated linux would have a market share of 6% in 2007. I'm not sure what they mean by "market share" when linux is often not even sold, but anyways, I don't see how this is even relevant. Speculation from over 3 years ago is a bit weak.

Re:Wow!

[analog_line]

Get a group together and do all the pre-requisites for the Ogrila daily quests. Those, along with the ones up in Skettis will get you 50-60g per day for basically falling off a log.

Re:Wow!

[Tom]

You are majorly deluding yourself.

The Mac gaming market is growing considerably, with all those people switching to Macs. Yes, most of them can dual boot, but know what, we don't want to. I haven't booted windos for weeks, and I refuse to buy windos games. But I will gladly buy a Mac game, one that I can just start up without having to boot and all that.

Same discussion as we've had with playing Linux games vs. dual-booting windos, with one crucial difference: Mac people are people who put their money where their mouth is. The very active shareware community on the Mac is testimony to that.

And for niche games, it is even more important to cover as much of the probable target audience as possible.

Re:Wow!

[Chandon Seldon]

Hah! Where did you see that? In the logs of slashdot?

I'm sure it's exactly where you saw the data that you're basing your "Ha!" reaction on - out of someone's ass.

The fact of the matter is that it's impossible to determine the exact overall installed base (which is different from market share) of the various operating systems - and even if you could the number would be meaningless for any of the stuff that you'd want to use it for (because the population distributions of subpopulations are different - the percentage of Linux using computer gamers isn't directly linked to the percentage of Linux using web developers).

The sort of statistic that would actually be useful is this: What percentage of people who play UT2004 online run Mac and Linux? Clearly it's high enough that Epic is releasing a native port of UT2007 for Linux. Same thing for Quake4 / Wolfenstien: Enemy Territory. I'd be really interested to see what those actual numbers are, because they would be meaningful.

That sort of question gives you really interesting answers like this one: http://www.happypenguin.org/forums/viewtopic.php?=&p=18972.

I guess my overall point is this: You need to get the right numbers to know anything, and even the wrong numbers aren't especially available.

Re:Wow!

[Kingrames]

Well, you must not have very much fun programming.

Re:Wow!

[WilliamSChips]

Most of the grandmothers probably wouldn't notice Linux games and it's not like the geeks are moving away from Linux because grandmothers are switching.

Re:Wow!

[seebs]

I know those markets are small, but I think the network effect is significant. If a single Mac sale brings four new PC sales with it, that's a great deal for the company, even if they didn't really make that much directly on the Mac sale.

I agree that they'll still be in a niche market, but I still think it'll benefit from network effects.

Re:Wow!

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

The Linux and Mac gaming markets aren't all that large, especially since in both cases the option always exists to boot to Windows if you really want to play games.

Booting into Windows is not a realistic option for most people. Most people can't install an OS at all. Only a tiny fraction of the 8% of the US market that uses a Mac can also run Windows games. That 8% is almost all home users (not business) and it is concentrated among people who can afford luxury items. It is actually a pretty attractive and profitable market for games, although more so for casual games than "hardcore" games for people really into it.

One of the major reasons WoW was so much more popular than any other MMORPG before it is because Blizzard heavily took the attitude that a game isn't supposed to punish you for failure.

I don't know. I've witnessed firsthand several instances of large numbers of game purchases being decided by whether or not a given game would let everyone play, including that cute college girl with the Mac.

Re:Wow!

[seebs]

If you're an enchanter (and that's the only way I could see confusing a 90g enchant for a 5g enchant), it should take you about a day to earn a couple hundred gold; just farm the AH for mats.

Re:Wow!

[KnuthKonrad]

(though I won't play it, I'm no fan of PvP).

While EVE is design around (non-consensual) PvP, there so much more you can do in EVE. I've been playing EVE since March 2006. I've had less than 10 PvP fights in this time (all except one of them forced onto me and I lost all), but I still have fun playing EVE. I've just bought another 180 day GTC. Yes, it's unforgiving. But it's also a real nice sandbox, giving you the freedom to explore the world like very few other games do. There's a 14 day trial available, try for yourself. Although you won't recognize all possibilities available to you within that short period of time, which is a pity.

Re:Wow!

[SL Baur]

While EVE is design around (non-consensual) PvP, there so much more you can do in EVE. Yeah, I've heard that. My own experiences with non-consensual PvP in WoW would make me shy away from it, but thanks for an honest evaluation.

I used to like "mistakes are fatal" games, my all-time favorite game used to be rogue and its successor NetHack. Blizzard has changed my mind.

Re:Wow!

[C0rinthian]

Don't hand new characters the keys to the shop. Hell, noone in a corporation should have access to everything. Eve supports corporate espionage because they provide all the tools you need to protect yourself. People fail to secure things properly, and get burned. Yes, some of the operations pulled are legendary in scope, (The GHSC heist that had almost a year of prep work comes to mind) but those are extremely rare.

Re:Wow!

[C0rinthian]

They're really two totally different games, and totally different communities. So it's difficult to draw comparisons.

In WoW, if some 70 decides to gank in STV, you're pretty much screwed if you're levelling there. You can't do anything to evade them, and unless you have some level 70 friends, you can't fight him.

In Eve, a ganker can be evaded if you know what you're doing. Also, a group of newer players with a couple weeks of skill training under their belts can turn the tables on a lone ganker in a larger ship. It's a much more tactical game, and skillpoints do not guarantee victory.

Re:Wow!

[SL Baur]

In WoW, if some 70 decides to gank in STV, you're pretty much screwed Maybe on a PvP server, but I don't play those (see above posting). The only time I've been ganked in STV was after killing Samantha Swifthoof and I was mounted and never had time to dismount to get a shot off. Whatever. Killing Samantha Swifthoof is its own reward.
I'm not a PvPer and that's OK in WoW, because there's plenty of content for us care bears.

Re:Wow!

[C0rinthian]

I'm not a PvPer and that's OK in WoW, because there's plenty of content for us care bears. Technically, theres plenty of this in Eve as well. High-sec space is usually 99% safe from non-consentual PVP. Any unprovoked attack is a suicide run for the attacker. So only sufficiently high-value targets are worth suiciding. Don't carry goods worth billions of isk in a paper boat afk, and you're fine. Even low sec is relatively safe if you're smart. Avoid high traffic areas, and pay attention to your surroundings. 0.0 is more 'wild west' but you know what you're getting into if you're going there in the first place.

Re:Wow!

[e1618978]

I am level 43, too low to get there you insensitive clod!

It uses Cedega on Linux

[kcbanner]

Its not a native client. It uses a stripped-down version of the commercial fork of the now-obsolete xwine (what with normal wine having most dx things now), Cedega. People have been running the eve online client under wine and cedega for years now, I can run it under wine and get better fps than windows in some cases :P.

Anyway, the point is that they didn't actually take the time to write a native client, its simply packaged with Cedega, so this isn't really anything to praise them for.
I just thought I'd mention that because they don't until it actually starts installing.

Re:It uses Cedega on Linux

[QuantumG]

If more games companies (*cough* Blizzard) would test their stuff with WINE and support it, we'd have a different PC industry.

Re:It uses Cedega on Linux

[kcbanner]

But nothing beats a native client. And how hard is it, I bet most of that code compiles on windows...take out a few windows.h includes and write your own timers. WoW already has OpenGL support in it.

Re:It uses Cedega on Linux

[salahx]

WINE is an unstable target (in terms of development, not performance), however. Furthermore lots of these MMORPGS have intrusive "anti-cheating" tools (And even among games, they have those obnoxious copy-protection schemes).

IT be nice if they were native, but the chances of game companies writing/porting against a more agnostic target (like SDL) are practically zero.

So at least in the near future, Linux users will happy with whatever little support crumbs we can get. But one day these digital dark ages of DMCA, DRM and Microsoft's monopoly will finally come to an end....

Re:It uses Cedega on Linux

[QuantumG]

It's a completely different proposition to ask a company to add another platform to their test set than it is to ask them to make a brand new build with a brand new part of the code tree just to support a minor platform. They already have to test WinXP and Vista (and maybe Win9x and WinME if they wanna support those south american markets), asking them to add WINE isn't that much of an ask.

Re:It uses Cedega on Linux

[lordofthechia]

But nothing beats a native client. And I agree, believe me, I agree, but it's a step. When people can pick up game boxes at their local retailer and see under supported systems "Windows, Mac Os X, and Linux" it will help establish Linux as a credible alternative for gamers. The more people see "runs on linux" or "works well with linux" the more people will be willing to try this Linux thing.

Once we get big enough, then yeah, we'll probably get native clients (or more, lets not forget the Id games), but until then, I'm happy with these steps as small as they are. Now if only hardware manufacturers would put a penguin on the box if it runs in Linux.

Re:It uses Cedega on Linux

[timmarhy]

you fail to understand that the problem isn't blizzard, it's directX, which currently doesn't 100% work under wine http://www.winehq.org/site/status_directx

it's insane to expect blizzard to start supporting it's game on such an unpolished platform.

Also, MS provide very good tools for migrating your applications from XP to Vista. Can you say the same about Wine?

I have no doubt blizzard have looked at the numbers and found supporting a linux version to be unprofitable.

Re:It uses Cedega on Linux

[Moridineas]

Blizzard has simultaneously released Starcraft, Warcraft3, and WoW for Mac and PC--on the same CDs even. They have excellent mac ports--if you can even call it a port.

Clearly it's not DirectX holding them back...

I do however agree with you that for Blizzard a linux version is highly unlikely to be profitable--especially considering the number of linux-ONLY people who would buy WoW. Most linux people who are gamers are going to have a windows box / boot to play games on already.

Re:It uses Cedega on Linux

[timmarhy]

why the fuck would you think directX is going to having thing to do with their mac version?

as i was saying in response to whineymacbitch - WoW under wine isn't going to work because of directx.

You managed to get the rest right though - linux is just not profitable for them.

Re:It uses Cedega on Linux

[Moridineas]

Wow, I didn't mean to upset you, it's really not worth getting mad over this, especially when we mostly agree!

The point--that you've apparently completely and utterly missed, or misunderstood--is that WoW runs on OpenGL, and without DirectX, on the Mac! There's already a complete, well-supported and well-running version that runs without DirectX. Furthermore, you can even run WoW on windows without Direct3D, using the openGL rendering engine. if you can run it OpenGL on windows, you can do it on linux with Wine. (or you can try)

Hope that all makes sense, I'd be glad to provide more details if you're interested or something I said wasn't clear.

Re:It uses Cedega on Linux

[kcbanner]

Your wrong. I can play WoW under wine just fine, getting better FPS than in windows. WoW has an OpenGL option, next time don't start yelling before actually reading things.

Re:It uses Cedega on Linux

[jareth-0205]

Anyway, the point is that they didn't actually take the time to write a native client, its simply packaged with Cedega, so this isn't really anything to praise them for.

Why? Does it really matter how they do it? If I were them and I had a stable codebase which I could run on a pre-existing set of libraries to get a different OS supported, that's how I'd do it. As long as the performance doesn't suck then that's perfectly reasonable.

They should be praised for acknowledging the practise and supporting it.

Re:It uses Cedega on Linux

[Ash-Fox]

WINE is an unstable target (in terms of development, not performance)

Which is why Crossover is stable. I'll also add that any enhancements they make are free to go back into Wine. Eve Online was already supported under Crossover.

Re:It uses Cedega on Linux

[Ash-Fox]

it's directX, which currently doesn't 100% work under wine

Majority of DX9 is supported. DX8 is supported, DX7 is supported and so on.

Also, MS provide very good tools for migrating your applications from XP to Vista.

I disagree. I saw nothing in their tools that let me just migrate my applications.

Can you say the same about Wine?

In the scenario of seeing nothing in Microsoft's tools to migrate applications? Yes.

I have no doubt blizzard have looked at the numbers and found supporting a linux version to be unprofitable.

Blizzard doesn't have the numbers for Linux.

Re:It uses Cedega on Linux

[dbIII]

WoW under wine isn't going to work

I've just spent half the weekend playing it that way. I run it with the line "wine WoW.exe -opengl".

Re:It uses Cedega on Linux

[spedrosa]

Its not a native client. It uses a stripped-down version of the commercial fork of the now-obsolete xwine WineX. I didn't see anywhere as being a stripped-down version, but if it is, it is even better. They only need to include what EVE is using. Less code to support and distribute. Less code means less bugs.

Anyway, the point is that they didn't actually take the time to write a native client, its simply packaged with Cedega, so this isn't really anything to praise them for. I don't really thing the average Slashdot population is that dense, maybe it was the way the headline was worded, so let me explain:

They are not just "packaging" EVE with Cedega. The two companies have now a *partnership*, as in, Transgaming receiving money from CCP to support EVE. I don't know if they are using libwine, but that's beside the point. What prevents Wine from working out-of-the-box with all applications is the sheer work required to faithfully duplicate the Win32 API. That's why they only implement something when an application breaks.

Now, when you have a program officially supported under wine/cedega, you have the manpower to bring the API that the game uses up-to-date. And it means that the game will run flawlessly once the bugs are resolved. And, despite what people might say, there doesn't have to be a noticeable performance penalty. In fact, some operations under Wine are even faster than native Win32 ones.

Yeah, I would like to see a native client - I don't even know if it is not: mind you, a program linked with libwine *is* native - but this is enough. CCP only really needs to duplicate the testing effort, but maintaining essentially the same code base. Transgaming focus on making it run (now having direct financial incentive to do so) and users get a Linux client.

What do you suggest? Porting the DirectX Trinity engine to OpenGL? Even though I believe DirectX must die, I can't see how to justify such an investment to a company.

Re:It uses Cedega on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Where were all of you guys 10 years ago with Linux gaming agenda?

Wasn't a priority, end of argument

Re:It uses Cedega on Linux

[_|()|\|]

I don't think it's correct to call the Mac port native, either. It uses Cider, which is basically the same thing. In some cases, it is possible to use one game's Cider wrapper (e.g., Heroes of Might and Magic V) to run other Windows games, although a no-CD crack may be required. I've also read on some forums that the registration program for the Mac version of Madden NFL '08 does not recognize it as a Mac version. You have to register as if you're running Windows.

Re:It uses Cedega on Linux

[EvilRyry]

There are quite a few games that are targeted to SDL and usually have Linux ports, such as the Quake series, Doom series, and Unreal series.

I don't think the instability of WINE is really hurting, if a company was really concerned about it they could ship the game with its own packaging of WINE to ensure compatibility.

What we really need though is more manufactures using tools like SDL. They'll find out with a little planning, they can make a single code base portable between multiple platforms which will eliminate the costs of porting a platform specific code base.

Re:It uses Cedega on Linux

[aztektum]

Wow, no shit. Thanks for illuminating that for me.

You know if more game companies (*cough* any of them) made native clients we'd have a different PC industry too.

Re:It uses Cedega on Linux

[grumbel]

### IT be nice if they were native, but the chances of game companies writing/porting against a more agnostic target (like SDL) are practically zero.

Game companies have their own portable toolkits, they don't need SDL. Just look at the consoles, completly different platforms and APIs, yet the companies don't have much trouble porting their games all around. The hard part about Linux isn't porting a game, but supporting it in the long run and for that the Linux gaming market is just to small to make it profitable and this likely won't change anytime soon, since gamers just continue to dual boot, use Wine or switch to consoles. The number of Linux gamers that doesn't have the ability to get its gaming-fix elsewhere is extremely tiny.

Re:It uses Cedega on Linux

[Yvan256]

Indeed, if it really was a native OS X program it would also run on my PowerPC G4 Mac mini.

EVE on the Mac? Not really.

Re:It uses Cedega on Linux

[kindbud]

Until this patch, EVE running under Cedega or anything else was not a supported combination. Now it is. Stop whining, it's supported. You have a problem running EVE on Cedega, it's now OK to make a bug report and it will get some developer attention.

Re:It uses Cedega on Linux

[AlexMax2742]

Question. How is EVE + Cedega integrated with each other "not native"? Remember, wine is not an emulator, but a recreation of an API. GTK has an API. OpenGL has an API. So does Win32 and DirectX. If you call EVE non-native, then you have to start calling projects such as Google Earth, which also use bits of wine, non-native too.

Plus, it's not the same. If you run EVE with Wine, you have no one to bitch at if stuff is broken (well, actually you do, but they are under no obligation to fix things, and might even mark it WONTFIX for some obscure reason). Releasing a "linux Client" means that CCP is responsible for Linux specific bugs, and is free to either hack around it in Cedega or modify the original client in some way to be less buggy.

And I like the snarky digs at Cedega being "obsolete". Fact is, although it may not be as advanced at doing things "correctly" like what Wine is aiming for, at the end of the day, it has way more experience with dealing with game publishers, and it's the one who is getting CCP's attention and not the Wine or Crossover Office team.

Patch Notes

[kcbanner]

For those that can't log in to see the patch notes:

Patch Notes for Revelations 2.3 As announced in Hellmar's Fanfest Keynote presentation, CCP has teamed with Transgaming to provide additional operating system support for the EVE client. EVE will now run on Macintosh OS X and Linux. For further information, please see this news item. Also, a new section concerning the new operating system support will be added to the Frequently Asked Questions on Monday. * Several 'Need for Speed' code optimizations have been added to the client. * The newly supported Linux and Macintosh operating systems can now be specified when submitting technical petitions. * Various fixes and enhancements have been added to our billing and petition systems, as well as to GM tools. * If an office's rent expires while a BP is in production and is not re-rented before the job is completed, the BP's will return to the impound. * The wallet mouseover display will update correctly on balance change. * A rare error that prevented a recently podded player from opening their wallet has been resolved. * An exception occuring upon client resize has been resolved. * A number of drop down menu now have larger boxes. * A number of minor Unicode errors in right click menus have been resolved. * Several unused or outdated DLLs/binaries have been removed from the client. Important Note: If you receive an error message when starting the EVE client claiming the existance of illegal files in your bin folder, it will be necessary to manually remove them. The following are the valid DLLs/binaries that should remain in the EVE client's bin folder: o Folder: Microsoft.VC80.CRT + Microsoft.VC80.CRT.manifest + msvcm80.dll + msvcp80.dll + msvcr80.dll o _ctypes.pyd o _PyFreeTypeP.dll o _trinity.dll o alut.dll o audio.dll o blue.dll o boost_python.dll o chartdir.dll o db.dll o dbghelp.dll o destiny.dll o ExeFile.exe o NetClient.dll o NetUtil.dll o ortp.dll o pyexpat.pyd o python25.dll o RedistD3DXOnly.exe o vivoxsdk.dll o wrap_oal.dll * The following Alliance logos have been added or updated: o Daisho Syndicate o Dune Heretics o YouWhat o BORTHER'S WORD o Space Weaponry and Trade o The Immortality Project o Blue Sky Consortium o FreeFall Securities o The Order of the Red Locust o Dark Taboo o National Capital Region o Angelus Errere - Where angels lose their way o Order of Khaos o Friend or Enemy o Brethren of The Sky o The Covenant Alliance o Shinra Alliance o Sev3rance o KIA Alliance o Cold Fusion Syndicate o Ethereal Dawn o Abyss Alliance o Division of Eden o Minuit. o Acid Alliance o Deus Ex. o INTERDICTION o Daem Exalter Oni Noegene o The Gurlstas Associates o C0VEN o N O V A

EVE vs Vendetta

[x1n933k]

I can't speak for EVE since I am a Mac user and never played the game however the idea, game play and such seem an awfully like Vendetta Online who natively support Windows, Linux (64Bit too), and Mac and looks great. Not to mention a great backstory.

It is also quite cheap compared to other online games. Can anyone vouch for EVE being any better than Vendetta? Although I quit playing VO it was one of the few MMOs that still support PPC.

Cheers,
[J]

Re:EVE vs Vendetta

[drspliff]

Vendetta is a poor and shallow game compared to EVE, one of my flatmates was an EVE Online addict (and quite successful EVE hacker)

Re:EVE vs Vendetta

[Anonymous Coward]

Just look at the two Wikipedia entries for the two games - that will speak for itself I would think. This excerpt is interesting:

"Vendetta Online shipped as a commercial MMORPG on November 1, 2004, and currently costs US$9.99 a month (when bought in one-month increments). It is updated regularly (usually every other week) with new content and bugfixes. While "Vendetta Online" has already shipped, the game is still considered to be in beta status by both its users and its developers, and many defining qualities are still only in the stages of early planning."

Re:EVE vs Vendetta

[gverdouw]

If there is one word that sums up Vendetta Online nicely it would be barren. EVE is not barren.

Re:EVE vs Vendetta

[number6]

It depends on what you want out of a game. Vendetta is built around PvP, and currently the rest of the game is secondary (though changes are currently in the works to improve things). Eve's combat system is very point and click - similar to an RPG like Neverwinter Nights. Vendetta is FPS twitch based, more like Quake. They're not really the same sort of game.

Death in Vendetta is cheap, so you can quite happily take part in PvP engagements (pirating, war, duelling etc) without worrying that if you die you've lost weeks or months of work. The downside is that if you're pirated whilst trading, and lose your ship + cargo, there's not really a sense of loss.

Vendetta is basically multiplayer Elite. It's a first person shooter with a persistant world and a bit of trading and ship buying/upgrading on the side. If you want deep and meaningful politics, massive dynamic economies and long term storylines, go for Eve. If you want hectic well-designed PvP, or just something to relax with (cheap death is a bonus here), go for Vendetta.

I actually prefer the graphics in Vendetta to Eve. The latter has much nicer models, but most of the time they're not much more than icons moving around a map. In Vendetta, you're up close and personal to fighters, and get a much better perspective. Capital ships, though rare, actually look big and dangerous simply because your viewpoint is inside the action.

Vendetta has had native Linux/Mac support from the start, so if you are a Linux user looking to support companies which support Linux, Guild Software (the four people who develop Vendetta) might be a good choice.

Vendetta *does* need more players though. 50-100 players is about the norm for busy periods.

Boojum (Independent Trader, UIT).

Re:EVE vs Vendetta

[Raumkraut]

While "Vendetta Online" has already shipped, the game is still considered to be in beta status by both its users and its developers, and many defining qualities are still only in the stages of early planning.

So the difference between VO and practically every other MMOG is just that the developers are honest?

Re:EVE vs Vendetta

[The Analog Kid]

Every MMORPG can be considered beta in some respects. It's not like WoW developers never change classes around and encounters to tweak everything. (though they've made the warrior class the exact opposite of what their aims were, to not just be a meat shield, so much for that).

Re:EVE vs Vendetta

[toriver]

(and quite successful EVE hacker)

Thanks for reminding me why I left that sorry excuse for an Excel spreadsheet with an animated background.

Re:EVE vs Vendetta

[FlyveHest]

While VO is pretty impressive as a project, mainly due to its low developer-count, it lacks sorely as a game, and even more as an MMO.

I tried playing, and after 4 of my 8 hours of trial, I felt like I had seen it all (Mining, mission running, transporting), except for PvP, because I hadn't had a single encounter with another player.

And, as far as I could see on their webpage, there was a staggering 27 people logged on when the server was at its max .. I've been in Team Fortress 2 games with more players than that.

Eve, on the other hand, held me as a captive for 2 years, and I probably still would play it, if it wasn't for the fact that the developer has some serious internal issues when it comes to "playing" their own game.

Re:EVE vs Vendetta

[Tinman_au]

They've actually resolved the "cheating-dev" thing enough that I re-subbed. The fact that BoB is collapsing shows that whatever they've done is working ;o)

I'm really looking forward to the Trinity upgrade (some time this month, or maybe early Dec) as they're updating the graphics and adding optimisations and other performance fixes.

Re:EVE vs Vendetta

[myowntrueself]

EVE is not barren.

But it may as well be...

You, the player-character, are like the Pilot in Farscape. You are hardwired into your ship, you cannot leave it, you cannot walk around on a planet or in a space station.

You are a fixture inside the space ship.

Even if thats not how it is *intended* to be, that is the actuality of it.

Until EVE frees the player-character from the umbilical that binds them to their starship and permits them to walk around and jump and run and play and whack things upside the head with a piece of 2x4 it may as well be barren.

Re:EVE vs Vendetta

[Anonymous Coward]

You are hardwired into your ship, you cannot leave it, you cannot walk around on a planet or in a space station. This is actually going to change. There is a video of an upcoming EVE version that shows just what you wanted, characters walking around in a space station. I guess it remains to be seen exactly what can be done in addition to walking around, but at least that's a start.

Don't worry

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, you gain skills even while offline, so you should have no problem studying for the finals, knowing that you're being 200% productive.

If it doesn't have a monthly fee

[Sycraft-fu]

It probably isn't a real great MMORPG. You can look at this from many different ways: Maybe the great ones charge because they can, maybe charging allows them to maintain the infrastructure and manpower needed to run it, whatever. Point is that you generally find that the no monthly fee games aren't the great ones. A lot of the time it's a situation like Diablo 2. Where there's a lot of multiplayer, but it is little isolated worlds sort of, not the real massive worlds that everyone is in that you get from games like WoW. Kinda hard to maintain the servers you need for that if you aren't charging. Also you don't tend to get the real active development that you get in a per month game. Nearly all of them are very actively developed, new features all the time. It also goes on for a LONG time. Ultima Online, which was launched in 1997, is STILL in active development (new major engine update came out this year).

That's not to say that other games can't be fun. Just as a single player game is perfectly fun, so is one that's multiplayer but not so massive. Just don't think it directly compares to the really massive games. The no-fee games are usually more like Diablo 2 or maybe NWN than like EVE or WoW.

Re:If it doesn't have a monthly fee

[KDR_11k]

There's a second business model that consists of selling items to users to get that money. Quite popular with the Koreans and probably a good idea for less known MMOs since it lowers the barrier of entry a LOT (no 50$ up front, no monthly commitment so you can just hop in and leave if it's not your thing).

Re:If it doesn't have a monthly fee

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like Guild Wars?

One of the only MMOs worth playing.

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't change the rules to cater to the lowest common denominator, unlike WoW and other MMOs - it follows a specific vision, and users can either adapt or leave.

The openness and freedom of an old-school PK MUD combined with the concept of Elite/TradeWars/etc. make for an amazing, engrossing game.

Given its quality and lack of compromise, I'm surprised it's managed to survive so long.

Re:One of the only MMOs worth playing.

[Anonymous Coward]

We Eve players have a favorite (and, I think, accurate) saying:

When someone gets fed up with Eve and leaves to play WoW, the average IQ of the userbase of both games rises.

Totally Correct

[Anonymous Coward]

"If more games companies (*cough* Blizzard) would test their stuff with WINE and support it, we'd have a different PC industry."

If each gaming company tweeked Wine to get their particular game to run, it would help all other gaming companies who wanted to do a port for their own game as well as their own future releases.

Microsoft should be forced to release their APIs as a part of their conviction for being a monopoly. That would speed up Wine a lot, and if you could run Windows programs under Wine (which is not an emulator) as good as on Windows, why would you bother with Windows anymore?

Re:Totally Correct

[Bert64]

And why would anyone bother writing native linux programs?
You'd end up with everything running through wine, which is hardly ideal... Wine programs stick out like a sore thumb alongside other apps on linux/mac. Wine will always be one step behind microsoft's implementation too.
What we need, is a clean stable cross platform binary specification and api set, especially now that pretty much everything is x86 compatible. Think of it as java, but using native code.

Re:Totally Correct

[grumbel]

### What we need, is a clean stable cross platform binary specification and api set

Well, in case we ever get that, you can bet that it will be based on Win32.

Re:Totally Correct

[Bert64]

We already have what you describe, it's called "Wine"..

However, it doesnt satisfy the "clean" or "stable" requirements... The win32 api is a horrendous pile of legacy cruft mixed in with new crufty apis that do the same thing in a slightly less messy way, but without removing the old crap leaving multiple chunks of code effectively doing the same thing.

Re:Totally Correct

[grumbel]

### However, it doesnt satisfy the "clean" or "stable" requirements...

Stamp ECMA or ISO on it and you have it 'stable' (might maybe one day happen due to all those anti-trust lawsuits), but I seriously doubt that we will ever get 'clean', since it simply wouldn't have much benefit. What is needed is a way to run Windows apps on other operating systems, you don't get that by a clean API, but by the one that was used by all those applications and that is Win32 in all its messiness.

Now from a practical standpoint the difference between a official ISO/ECMA/whatever Win32 standard and just try&error reimplementation in the form of Wine won't be much of course.

not full compatibility with Mac OS X

[steve12345]

Minimal system requirements OS: OS X 10.4.9 or later. CPU: Intel based computer with CPU speed equal or greater than 1.8GHz , the client does not run on a PPC.

That is not "full compatibility with Mac OS X". Their press release says "formal support for Mac OS X".

Re:not full compatibility with Mac OS X

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah I'm sure you couldn't run in on a Windows-running phone either, but I don't think anyone would complain that it doesn't support Windows. Stop being obtuse.

Re:not full compatibility with Mac OS X

[antime]

It's also not a native version, it uses Cider like all the EA "ports" that have been released recently.

Re:not full compatibility with Mac OS X

[Tragek]

I suppose the real question is: HOw does it run. I'm really disappointed though that it keeps getting bandied about as a native port, when it clearly says it's not.

I tried it

[satoshi1]

I installed the "Linux version" (just a .deb that installs a shortcut that then downloads a stripped Cedega engine and the game data), but it will not run for me. It displays the splash screen... and that's it. I got the same results when trying to run Eve under plain ol' Wine a yeear or two ago. Lame. The game is so beautiful, too.

"ATI is not supported."

[Joeyray]

Website says (for Linux/Cedega):
Video: NVidia 6600, ATI is not supported.

...Oh come on! I was really about to reactivate my account when i read this. EVE is one of the only great games my old pc is still capable of running. (mostly) with good fps. Damn...will that curse buying an ati card and running linux ever end!

"Months of work"

[Per Abrahamsen]

> They keep bragging about how a minute's play can wipe out months of work.

I would never get that far, I refuse to play any game for which playtime feels like work.

First Wine, then The Next Step

[Anonymous Coward]

"And why would anyone bother writing native linux programs?"

They will, in so far as it is what comes after Wine is implemented and everyone realizes they have no need of Windows anymore.

Unfortunately, for us to get to that realization Wine needs to become better.

"Wine will always be one step behind microsoft's implementation too."

Not if as I plainly wrote that Microsoft be forced to release their APIs as part of their punishment for being a monopolist. In addition, with the cooperation of the gaming companies it should not be difficult to implement the necessary changes into Wine. The Windows API isn't exactly hidden for much of it, Microsoft does want people to know how to program for their platform.

No ATI support?

[zdzichu]

Why only nVidia supported? How they can go to Linux and ignore decent cards with available drivers (ATI r3xx, Intel), instead supporting binary only (thus really unsupportable) nVidia drivers? Why they ignore owners of older Mac Books Pro (with ATI cards)? Why they code support for nVidia instead of generic OpenGL renderer?

Re:No ATI support?

[NoodleSlayer]

Because there's a big difference between "available" drivers and decent drivers? ATi's linux drivers until recently were famously flawed, and I haven't heard much about the recently released set. And the code is for the generic OpenGL renderer, but you still need a driver to be able to interface between OpenGL and the hardware.

Re:No ATI support?

[atrus]

Intel probably boils down to a performance and shader problem.

You haven't used ATI's Linux drivers have you? The fact that they work at all is a miracle. The current open source 'radeon' driver only supports older (non X----) cards. The fglrx driver is a POS: buggy, unreliable- especially in 3d operations, and nowhere near the polish and functionality of the NVidia driver. Yes, the nvidia driver is closed source, but at least it works.

Re:No ATI support?

[WilliamSChips]

There's an opensource 'nv' driver that works pretty well with 2d although unfortunately you need the blob for openGL.

TAG IT !NATIVE

[Anonymous Coward]

It makes all the difference.

It formally supports Cedega and Cider..

[Nazlfrag]

They've worked with Cedega to bring 100% compatibility and official support. It also works on wine and crossover if you're happy with no official support. There is nothing misleading in the announcement, they never claimed to do more than this, which is all you need to get it running on linux or intel-based macs.

Regnum Online

[A.K.A_Magnet]

Lately I have been playing a free (as in beer, optional "premium" content model) MMORPG which has a native client for GNU/Linux too (no client for Mac though). It's Realm versus Realm only, so it's extremely basic for the rest (no crafting, no non-combat skills, etc) but it's very good at what it is: a glorified chess-board for 50vs50 battles (there are three realms, a bit like DaoC). It's an indy Argentinian game developed by 7-8 crazies but it's getting better everyday. They don't advertise it too much because, even if it's officially out of beta, it still feels like it. They want the first impression to be better to hook the most ;).

The funny thing with an indy game (few players) with a GNU/Linux client is that half the English-speaking players (the rest being Argentinian/Spanish-speaking) are Linux users/admins or IT people. If anyone wants to try it out, find it through Google (Regnum Online) and Ignis is the way to go ;).

Definitely shuts the "harder to code for OpenGL/Linux" FUD, as the engine is perfectly portable over Windows/D3D & Linux/OGL and they announced they would make a Mac version if they have a Mac. This is a homebrew engine and game designed and programmed by 7 people... and game companies can't do it? Right..

It will run fine

[iregisteredjustforth]

Whatever you say, they have made an effort to make it easier to play the game on linux machines. Be fucking thankful that somebody is making an effort to reach into your tiny market, instead of whining that it's not perfect. Even if its not a native client, the game should run fine. People with decent computers can run 4 clients at a time in windows. If it was easy to make linux clients, and the money companies could possibly make by creating them was high enough, everyone would do it. The problem is theres not enough linux users, with the hardware, inclination, whatever, to make it financially worthwhile. Once theres enough of you, willing to pay for games and not whine like hell about not being treated the same as windows users, companies will begin to enter the market. Linux is a tiny market compared to windows, seemingly populated by even harder to please nerds, and you wonder why companies don't bother making linux games? Most of the comments here are more likely to put a company off bothering with a linux client. Overall I doubt this is the begining of a trend. The sort of game eve is means that a higher proportion of potential users will be linux users anyway, so they have a bigger potential market to reach than other games / mmo's. Regardless, come try eve. 99% of you will hate the game, eve is the harshest, most cutthoat, brutal mmo you can play, and for that other 1% it will be perfect. The real difference between eve and other mmo's, is the ability to affect the world and other players. Imagine losing every peice of your equipment every time you died in wow, or a wow with completely player run towns, real wars over territory involving several thousand players, a complex almost entirely player run economy, a real and working player mercenary market, and almost every bit of your kit being manufacturerd by other players. CCP can almost be seen as providing a framework for the game, the game itself is created by the players.

Re:Moderniggers suck cocks.

[Anonymous Coward]

moderniggers A nice attempt, but it lacks a certain... je ne sais quoi, so to say.

Perhaps "niggerators"?

Broken -can't log on

[Anonymous Coward]

It's broken. I downloaded the mac client, installed it, paid for an account, but I cannot log in - the server entry box stays blank when I try and enter the test server IP address. Back to WOW I go.

Re:Broken -can't log on

[skinfitz]

RTFA - it's not live until Tuesday 6th when they patch the servers.

Not a linux client

[HermMunster]

It is not a linux client if you have to use cedega, which is total crap. Crap that they abuse linux this way, crap that the can't figure out linux opengl, crap game anyway, crap the think we linux users are stupid.

Screw eve.

Re:Not a linux client

[jjohnson]

We've switched HermMunster's coffee for pure metamphetines. Let's see if he notices...

Honk! Honk!

[tripwirecc]

I'm actually glad that they're going for the Cedega/WINE option, because like this I can run it quasi natively in Solaris. If it were a real Linux binary, I'd have to run it in a lx zone and bounce everything back to the X server via TCP/IP.

Re:gamergogo

[Anonymous Coward]

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It's not a native OS X port either.

[argent]

Glad you corrected the Linux client in the summary, but you need to do the same for OS X.

You're still implying that a Ciderized version of a Win32 application is "native" on OS X. It isn't, it's just another Wine-based port.

Am I mistaken? Mac "port" doesn't appear "native"

[analog_line]

I thought Cider was basically Cedega-for-Macs? No actual code was ported, they just created a DirectX compatibility layer for Mac.

Or am I wrong here? I'd love to think so, but I'm not sure.

What is it then?

[ToasterMonkey]

If Wine Is Not an Emulator, then a game built on a native Wine platform would be.......

Wine is an implementation of Windows APIs. It might not be a native port in the truest sense (not using native APIs DIRECTLY), but the code is running natively on your platform.

If you really want to get technical, most games "natively ported" to Linux rarely make direct use of features unique to Linux. Loki was IMHO the best, but is porting to SDL much different than porting to Wine? How does not porting all the features of the original game (NWN cut scenes, mod tools) count towards a "native port"?
Heh, Linux games with "native" Windows ports _probably_ won't touch much of the Win32 API directly either...

Anyway, ports are ports, PCs, consoles, whatever. They're rarely "native" to anything but the first platform they were developed on.

Re:What is it then?

[WilliamSChips]

I wish more games were designed with SDL from the ground up.

Re:What is it then?

[Tragek]

I suppose that's true enough; When I said native, I was thinking more along the lines of seeing games written in OpenGL or SDL, with the mac as a planned target, rather than a tacked on target. Now, I have no clue as to the quality of experience given by the games under Cider, but if it's good, I'm not adverse to the idea. I just haven't had the greatest of successes with wine, darwine etc. In general, right now, with gaming on the mac, i'd rather dual boot (of course.... that'd require new hardware. Don't think i'll be doing a ton of gaming on my macbook's GMA 950)

*NOT* a native Mac port

[Anonymous Coward]

It's WINE as well. Nay Cedega. Nay Cider.

Re:*NOT* a native Mac port

[cadeon]

Yep. Mod Parent Up.

I'm really tired of games coming out saying that they are 'Native OS X' when they are actually Windows binaries running in Cider (which is essentially Wine). There's two issues for me with this:

1) Windows binaries running in wine certainly do not have an OS X feel to them, and are sometimes buggy and usually slow. However this is being seen as 'good enough' when it really shouldn't be. It's 'good enough' for the hobbyist, but it shouldn't be good enough for any company that considers themselves a real game company.

2) Cider isn't giving all that much back to the wine project; which while I can see why they wouldn't, I think it's a matter of social responsibility that they do.

Re:Moderniggers suck cocks.

[Anonymous Coward]

A nice attempt, but it lacks a certain... je ne sais quoi

I first assumed it was a portmanteau of "modern niggers". The fact that it referred to moderator-niggers was lost on me until I became aware of the context.

Perhaps "niggerators"?

Moderatiggers? No...
Niggors? No...
Miggaterors? No...

Niggerators does indeed seem like the best compromise. Kudos.

Re:Am I mistaken? Mac "port" doesn't appear "nativ

[Anonymous Coward]

Mac is also a port, what is with slashdot lately they have obviously not done research on this they are BOTH -ports- linux uses Cedega and mac uses Cider. These will both run the same patches for windows and are OFFICIALLY supported so no more playing with no sound and the like.

It's more complicated than that

[Rix]

Lots of Linux users who *could* but don't want to dual boot just to play a game are going to be attracted to any MMOG that offers them official support. Smaller games (like EVE) have more to gain, because there's a lot larger pool of people who might sign up who haven't, where as large games like WoW have pretty much saturated the market of people who'd like to play it. Blizzard offering official support wouldn't give them many new subscribers, it would just please their existing Linux using playerbase.

Re:It's more complicated than that

[Moridineas]

I agree with that.

It's interesting because blizzard has always had great mac support--at least since Warcraft 2. But they have zippo linux.

It has nothing to do with the driver interface

[Rix]

EVE (and anything else) would work fine with ATI drivers if they didn't suck. Cedega has done everything possible on their end, the rest is up to ATI.

Please AMD, just sack ATI's software side. Burn it down and start fresh.

Sure

[Rix]

Buy an Nvidia card and the curse is over.

Re:Am I mistaken? Mac "port" doesn't appear "nativ

[skolima]

You are right, and the summary is bullshit in this matter. There is nothing 'native' in the Mac version. I am downloading the Cedega port right now, wondering if it will perform better that running through wine - I kept Windows on my PC for the sole purpose of playing PvP in Eve (it performs good enough for PvE and trading/manufacturing).

If more PC users (*cough* Linux fans)...

[patio11]

... paid money for software, we'd have a different PC industry. As it is, the projects costing tens of millions of dollars keep getting made for the benefit of the folks who pay money for software. Ever wonder why that is?

(Before I get downmodded to Hell and back, I'd like to point out that I have commit access on Megamek. That is probably among the top 3 games on Sourceforge, given that rank among all apps is in the mid-40s. It doesn't have any of the 3D bells-and-whistles you'd expect from a PC game these days because, uh, we didn't have seven figures to hire a team of artists for two to three years. Anybody want to cough up a few dozen man-years of labor, or the equivalent in cash, to make things pretty? Oh, a couple dozen more man-years of labor to test the 3D code on a few hundred possible combinations of hardware, driver, OS, and distribution would be helpful too.)

The client isn't the problem with EVE

[Alcyoneus]

EVE has been won by BOB/MC. A new client won't fix that. Play another game in which the outcome is still in play.

Re:The client isn't the problem with EVE

[Anonymous Coward]

pft. goons + red alliance + TCF are rolling them over. BoB/MC just pulled back from 3 regions without a fight.

Re:The client isn't the problem with EVE

[Andy Dodd]

I haven't been following the war too much recently, but the impression I get is that BoB/MC are finally losing ground to Everyone Else, despite developer assistance and at least 2.2B ISK/day in zero-risk trade route bug exploitation income.

Latest news is that Orange Species figured out how to run a particular trade route without triggering the automatic price readjustments that are supposed to occur for all NPC buy/sell orders. The end result is that for many months the sell price for a trade good at one station has not changed, and same for the buy price at another station. OS is jump bridging a bunch of freighters with his titan to run this route on a daily basis.

Half Assed Job

[Kildjean]

Why if Blizzard can have WoW run on PPC and Mac Intel, CCP does a half assed baked job and only ports it to Intel Macs. Why do I have to ditch my quad core PPC G5 to just play one game because the company wasn't intuitive enough to port it in universal format. Screw that. I'll keep playing wow but im not going to run to the apple store and buy a mac mini or an imac when my machine has suficient cpu power to run Eve...

This is a half assed job... im happy for the rest of the mac community who will be able to play this awesome game, but im pissed off CCP didnt have the balls to go all the way...

K.

10 more EVE players! Gratz!

[AP31R0N]

Of the ten, ONE of them will be a linux user (who already has EVE on his PC rig [and prolly the same machine])!

i can has an MMO that doesn't require hours of endless grinding? PLEEEEEEZE!!1!

How much effort is required to make a Linux port?

[jrutley]

I see all sorts of games that are ported to Mac from Windows, yet it's almost never done for Linux. AFAICT, most games are written using DirectX, and then in order to move it over to Mac, the game studio will do what?
Port it to OpenGL + other toolkits?
Why not just use OpenGL in the first place?

Once that's done, is 90% of the work done to port it to Linux? Just curious.

Another Office Suite for Linux?

[trezima]

Great. The spreadsheet application is about to go live!

Mac client is NOT native

[Anonymous Coward]

The OP erronously states that the Mac client is native. It is not. It runs off of Cider which is the Cedega port to OSX. And because of this the Mac version will unfortunately not run on PPC.

I just wonder...

[perlchild]

Why game companies can never seem to trust whatever forums they have about this...
No "I'd buy this game if you had platform X"
No "My friends would want to play but..."
Ever seems to make it

Re: Intel Macs are not the only ones out there

[Psykechan]

Nice straw man; your parent's post said nothing about it running on the O X that the iPhone uses. This is about supporting the Macintosh platform.

I play WoW, natively I might add, on a PowerPC based Macintosh. It is running the same OS (10.5.0) that today's Macs are shipping with. It has 3GB of RAM and a NV6800U. It is still under warranty. It is as powerful of a machine as some of the currently shipping Intel Macs.

In short, EVE Online does not have full compatibility with OS X. I commend them for their attempt to support the platform, even if it is Intel only and kludgy, but people should know that it's not full compatibility and the story, as well as their info pages, should make a point to reflect that fact.

Personally, I will not be playing this even on my Intel Mac. I like the ability to use whichever machine I'm sitting at. The fact that they release a gimped Mac client means little as I could already run this under BootCamp or Parallels. Since they have chosen this route to port their game, there will never be a native Mac client and PowerPC Mac users should just stick to WoW. Hell, Intel Mac users may just stick to WoW for that matter.

So when...

[Anonymous Coward]

..do we get a Linux users Corp and a Mac users Corp? They should go to war for a while until they realise the bigger enemy and ally up againt Band of Brothers and Goonswarm.

There are no Linux/Mac clients

[IntergalacticWalrus]

Both the Linux and Mac "clients" are the Windows client in a bundled Cedega/Cider package.

What bullshit.