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Will the Star Citizen Project Fund Linux and Mac Ports For CryENGINE 3?
Mr. Jaggers writes "Chris Roberts, game designer of Wing Commander fame, has had great success with his new crowd-funded Star Citizen project — so much that the $2m base goal has been smashed with weeks to go on the Kickstarter portion of the campaign. Now Chris is floating a list of stretch goals for fans to vote on, with Linux and Mac support both listed as stretch goal candidates. Since Star Citizen is based on the popular CryENGINE 3 game engine, these stretch goals are equivalent to funding Linux and Mac ports of CryENGINE. Chris couldn't make any absolute promises yet, since he doesn't own the engine, but CryENGINE 3 already supports Android, so at least there is existing OpenGL ES support to be leveraged towards adding Linux and Mac OpenGL support. If there is enough outpouring of cross-platform support from fans in this poll, Star Citizen could turn out to be the high-profile game that brings a AAA game engine to the growing Mac and Linux gaming communities — analogous to the role played by Wasteland 2 in bringing official Linux support to the Unity 4 engine popular among so many Indie developers."
I don't think there was - he chose an engne to work on the platform everyone makes games for - Windows. then he adds the poll option "d'ya want it on Linux?" and 21% of responders have said "yes".
That does mean 79% think other factors are more important.
so whilst I think it would make sense to think linux at the start of every project, especially now that Steam's opinion is known, it wasn't the position he started from. I wonder how much work has already started with CryEngine, and whether its too late to change, or too late to get CryEngine updated to work with Linux proper (if it already works on Android, I can't see it being too difficult a task).
Kickstarter is only providing part of the funding. The bulk of the funding has been made at the main site for the game, and the combined total of both sites is currently standing at just over $2.7m.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Because Chris felt that consoles couldn't deliver his vision for the game and originally wanted the game to be PC only. There was a lot of call from fans on the game forums asking about Linux/Mac ports, so now he's looking into the possibility of providing support for those platforms. It's called listening to your target audience, and it's nice to see a company that is actually prepared to do that these days.
What I find far more interesting is the current poll standings for the additional platform support; 23% of the voters want a Linux port vs. only 8% for MacOS. Seriously? Almost a quarter of space/flight sim fans run Linux? I know FlightGear is good, but who knew?
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
When the original "Wing Commander" was released for DOS, many hardcore Amiga/Atari ST gamers bought PCs just to be able to play it. No game before it had the kind of graphics, story or space combat that Wing Commander offered. And this one game (plus the hugely innovative Ultima Underworld perhaps) turned PCs into a potent gaming machine overnight. ---- Star Citizen may very well do the same for Linux. A Chris Roberts Space Game + Internet Massively Multiplayer + Cryengine 3 graphics + Newtonian Physics simulation on everything in game + Linux = Nerd Heaven!!! ------- I say "Go, Chris Roberts, Go! Bring SC and CryEngine 3 to Linux!!!"
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
Do you realize the NFL is on TV right now?
Oh, is that what it is? I thought it was the Teletubbies. All I could see was a bunch of guys in fat suits waddling up and down until one of them falls over and starts to cry, and then the others run up and give him a hug.
That looks like a pretty weaksauce "sport", to be honest.