First of all, let me just say you're generally wrong...:>
Point 1 above is why we're going to see more MMGs in the market -- as gaming becomes bigger and bigger business, the game companies are going to want steady dedicated income.
This is pretty much right, and there are other sources of revenue to be had here... imagine playing a game and seeing a billboard for AT&T in it... there's all SORTS of reasons why gaming should go this direction...
2. They are patched automatically everytime you play. 3. Technical support is available online while playing. 4. All player's clients must be functionally equivalent. Point 2, 3 and 4 are why Linux isn't going to be used for MMGs, at least not in the foreseeable future.
Although they may not be in the immediate future, there is *no reason* why they couldn't be made to work on linux, all the elements are there... perhaps even more so than in other OSs.
The game companies need to provide real-time technical support, self-patching code, and a standard non-hackable interface regardless of the underlying OS.
What about linux makes this so unobtainable? The real-time tech support you talk about already exists in so many ways w/ linux that i'm not going to bother expounding on it. Self-patching? QuakeWorld, Quake2, Unreal Tournament... these all do essentially that when they download levels, skins, etc, that the player doesn't already have. There's no reason why they couldn't download a binary and replace or patch the old one, so i fail to see the problem there, as well. And as per the third point, there isn't such a thing as a "non-hackable interface"... there are SO many levels that you can "hack" things on, and it's no harder to do in windows or MacOS, so what are you after there?
It's inefficient to do any of these for more than one OS..
That's why Loki is in business... they'll port the game for you...
Add to this the reputation Linux has for difficulty in providing tech support, and fact that an open OS will be a tool for hackers who wish to cheat at these games, and it's pretty plain that there's zero interest in coding MMG games for Linux.
I didn't know linux had a reputation for difficulty in providing tech support... i know linux has a reputation as being hard to use, but I didn't think that reflected the kind of tech support you can obtain. And about the hackers, that's a foolish point. Why would an open OS be any different than any other OS when it comes to "hacking" these games? You seem obsessed with this kind of abuse, but it would be just as rampant on other platforms. Perhaps your feeling is that to port the games, the need to open source the clients and that would lead to some of the problems that arose from the quake source release. I could at least understand that, but that's not the case. There is no need for them to expose their code if they don't want to.
In summation, if a gaming company writes good, portable code (which they should be doing if the intend to call themselves programmers) then porting to linux, or any other OS that provides the necessary tools (openGL, the right compilers, etc) should not be a problem and should be nothing but a win/win situation for them.
What I think would be really interesting is if sony took the core of the psx2 and put it on a board that you could put in a pc... write some drivers that let you use it as your video card, write OpenGL drivers for it so other people could use it for their games and write software that would work with normal dvd drives so you could play psx2 games on your pc... of course, doing something that seems to make so much sense is probably out of the question for them...
Although, i can understand why they may not want to do that... they make most of their money of the licenses they grant to game makers... so if they tried to just make money off the hardware, it wouldn't be worth it to make a combo vid card/3d accel/psx2 for the PC... but, they could still sell games for it... so I dunno...
/me imagines playing Gran Turismo 3 on his PC w/ a psx2 card...
I totally agree, but i think the main problem with homeworld is that the developers seem to have totally lost interest in their work. I mailed relic asking if they were going to facilitate modding in any way and if I could possibly get the game code and start working on one if they were. I never recieved ANY kind of response... People who show that kind of apathy to their old stuff are not likely to take an interest in having it ported to another OS. But, i do wish I didn't have to reboot...
Why do American kids cry out against their station in life more loudly than their European or Ausie counterparts? American kids are the result of the "ME" generation. It's all about them, it's all about being 'happy with who they are'. It's all about being 'special'. They lack the feeling of community and common welfare.
The problem is that suffering (as well as.. joy?) are subjective. If I feel that I am suffering maximally, and so does an etheopian child, then to me and that child, we're suffering equally. You cannot gauge a person's problems from outside of them. Yes, you can say that in fact, the ethopian child is suffering more objectively, but to the white middle-class kid who gets beat up in school for being a geek, his hell is no less hot by his standards.
American teens are more out of touch with this than teens in other countries. The "American Dream" and "keeping up with the Joneses" tells them that if they don't have the BEST, they don't have it good. If they don't have it good, they then must have it bad.
I fail to see how this has to do with being ousted by a community. In high school, I was "less than popular." I was a geek, I was into computers, and worst of all, I was fat. Wether or not I had money, or a nice house, or whatever, that made no difference to tormentors. (odd that "mentor" is present in that word) I don't think I "had it bad," materialistically I had it pretty good, and I was well aware of that. However, that has nothing to do with how you feel emotionally because someone else deems you "unworthy" of popularity, of acceptance.
To summarize: even if you have a billion dollars and all the best stuff in the world, if you're say, clinically depressed, then your life is still a living hell. If you're poor, but find happiness in something then I say you're better of than the person who "has it all."
If you're a jock, and you feel horribly worried that you won't be accepted so you beat up some kid who's different but it tears you up inside, then i'd say you're just as bad off as the kid you beat up, but you chose a more harmful way to deal with it.
High schools are one of the worst inventions ever created. They foster horrible class structures based on the wrong criteria. I don't know a solution, but I do recognize a problem here.
Slashdot Mirror
Point 1 above is why we're going to see more MMGs in the market -- as gaming becomes bigger and bigger business, the game companies are going to want steady dedicated income.
This is pretty much right, and there are other sources of revenue to be had here... imagine playing a game and seeing a billboard for AT&T in it... there's all SORTS of reasons why gaming should go this direction...
2. They are patched automatically everytime you play.
3. Technical support is available online while playing.
4. All player's clients must be functionally equivalent.
Point 2, 3 and 4 are why Linux isn't going to be used for MMGs, at least not in the foreseeable future.
Although they may not be in the immediate future, there is *no reason* why they couldn't be made to work on linux, all the elements are there... perhaps even more so than in other OSs.
The game companies need to provide real-time technical support, self-patching code, and a standard non-hackable interface regardless of the underlying OS.
What about linux makes this so unobtainable? The real-time tech support you talk about already exists in so many ways w/ linux that i'm not going to bother expounding on it. Self-patching? QuakeWorld, Quake2, Unreal Tournament... these all do essentially that when they download levels, skins, etc, that the player doesn't already have. There's no reason why they couldn't download a binary and replace or patch the old one, so i fail to see the problem there, as well. And as per the third point, there isn't such a thing as a "non-hackable interface"... there are SO many levels that you can "hack" things on, and it's no harder to do in windows or MacOS, so what are you after there?
It's inefficient to do any of these for more than one OS..
That's why Loki is in business... they'll port the game for you...
Add to this the reputation Linux has for difficulty in providing tech support, and fact that an open OS will be a tool for hackers who wish to cheat at these games, and it's pretty plain that there's zero interest in coding MMG games for Linux.I didn't know linux had a reputation for difficulty in providing tech support... i know linux has a reputation as being hard to use, but I didn't think that reflected the kind of tech support you can obtain. And about the hackers, that's a foolish point. Why would an open OS be any different than any other OS when it comes to "hacking" these games? You seem obsessed with this kind of abuse, but it would be just as rampant on other platforms. Perhaps your feeling is that to port the games, the need to open source the clients and that would lead to some of the problems that arose from the quake source release. I could at least understand that, but that's not the case. There is no need for them to expose their code if they don't want to.
In summation, if a gaming company writes good, portable code (which they should be doing if the intend to call themselves programmers) then porting to linux, or any other OS that provides the necessary tools (openGL, the right compilers, etc) should not be a problem and should be nothing but a win/win situation for them.
Although, i can understand why they may not want to do that... they make most of their money of the licenses they grant to game makers... so if they tried to just make money off the hardware, it wouldn't be worth it to make a combo vid card/3d accel/psx2 for the PC... but, they could still sell games for it... so I dunno...
Other than that, i'm waiting for Tribes 2... yum.
Why do American kids cry out against their station in life more loudly than their European or Ausie counterparts? American kids are the result
of the "ME" generation. It's all about them, it's all about being 'happy with who they are'. It's all about being 'special'. They lack the feeling of
community and common welfare.
The problem is that suffering (as well as.. joy?) are subjective. If I feel that I am suffering maximally, and so does an etheopian child, then to me and that child, we're suffering equally. You cannot gauge a person's problems from outside of them. Yes, you can say that in fact, the ethopian child is suffering more objectively, but to the white middle-class kid who gets beat up in school for being a geek, his hell is no less hot by his standards.
American teens are more out of touch with this than teens in other countries. The "American Dream" and "keeping up with the Joneses" tells
them that if they don't have the BEST, they don't have it good. If they don't have it good, they then must have it bad.
I fail to see how this has to do with being ousted by a community. In high school, I was "less than popular." I was a geek, I was into computers, and worst of all, I was fat. Wether or not I had money, or a nice house, or whatever, that made no difference to tormentors. (odd that "mentor" is present in that word) I don't think I "had it bad," materialistically I had it pretty good, and I was well aware of that. However, that has nothing to do with how you feel emotionally because someone else deems you "unworthy" of popularity, of acceptance.
To summarize: even if you have a billion dollars and all the best stuff in the world, if you're say, clinically depressed, then your life is still a living hell. If you're poor, but find happiness in something then I say you're better of than the person who "has it all."
If you're a jock, and you feel horribly worried that you won't be accepted so you beat up some kid who's different but it tears you up inside, then i'd say you're just as bad off as the kid you beat up, but you chose a more harmful way to deal with it.
High schools are one of the worst inventions ever created. They foster horrible class structures based on the wrong criteria. I don't know a solution, but I do recognize a problem here.