Have we had a news post on the native Maia 0.26 alpha yet? I haven't spotted one, but would love to read some impressions (currently don't have a 64 bit machine at my disposal to check it out myself).

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Quoting: scaineCould maybe use a link to the campaign? Or is it not live yet?

edit : Here it is - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doublefine/double-fines-massive-chalice/ [External Link]

Oh whoops. I can't believe I forgot that in the excitement D:

Thanks, muntdefems for editing the post.

Quoting: s_dWow, they're taking a lot of flak from people...

I hadn't spotted much negativity about it (possibly because I'm overwhelmed by the Double Fine community's response. It's hard to comprehend people who aren't just content to not support the project and instead feel the need to say that things can't or shouldn't be done.

Naysayers aside, the project looks to be another noteable one. It's great that DF are finding ways to climb out of the publisher dependency cycle, and I'm super happy that Linux is a focus for them :D

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Quoting: KristianHardly a cause for optimism.

Optimism in the face of very large numbers is what makes crowdfunding work ^_^

I was initially going to say that if you're worried about disappointment, maybe crowdfunding isn't for you - there are inherent risks even for projects that do get funded, so the best way to avoid disappointment would seem to be to hold off until stuff is actually released. After thinking on it though, it's hard to deny that supporting campaigns which are more or less guaranteed to get funded can still be rewarding to both you and the people running them (though worthiness and certainty don't always overlap).

That said, this sort of approach would prevent any campaigns from ever achieving their funding goals if everybody behaved that way, so it's hard for me to see it in an overly positive light.

I assume most have seen it already, but a recent update [External Link] for this campaign clarified something about their approach to UT4 and Linux support. It sounds like they're planning to do the port off their own backs and hope it gets merged upstream into something that's officially supported. Not really the most comforting news so far as Linux getting the acknowledgement/respect it deserves from Epic goes.

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Quoting: KristianLinux officialy supported by Epic (again)? How come we haven't heard about this until now? Can anyone get any other dev team to verify this?

I'm trying to touch base with a couple of devs that I know who use it. If I had time, I'd probably contact Epic for comment as well.

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Yeah, icculus didn't make any promises. Is it really fair to get cranky because he said he'd like to be able to do something?

Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: redstar427I am curious is you bumped your Planetary Annihilation up to Alpha, as it will start in 2 weeks.  Of course, probably Alpha will only be multiplayer because I think the AI won't be done to play against the computer until Beta.

Afraid not, I really wish I could but I'm totally broke so I am afraid GOL won't do much covering until it hits Beta unless some rich patron chucks us $30 to upgrade to the Alpha :P

I backed at an alpha tier. I can probably write some words about it when it's up and about ^_^

Back on topic, I had some brief correspondence with Simon yesterday morning about the Linux beta (which isn't up yet), asking whether they were planning to do 32 bit builds in addition to 64 bit (the earlier engine tests were 64 bit only). Sounds like that's not likely to happen, but we'll see how it goes.

I have no idea how many 32 bit users there are amongst GOL readership, but with Steam supporting 32 bit, I imagine there are still plenty around the broader Linux gaming community.

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Quoting: KristianPersonally I use Kicktraq as a filter for what Kickstarter projects I back. I back DRM free games with Linux support, a strong concept, (typically) people with a good track record behind it and a Kicktraq trend (or preferably projection) that gives me hope that it will make it. So far that system has served me really well.

Whilst your other measures are great, using Kicktraq like that is probably steering you away from projects that you might otherwise be interested in supporting. Since you don't get charged for campaigns that don't reach funding, there's not really anything to lose from backing a project that you want to support which has its future in question.

It's also not a very scalable attitude - if everybody took that approach, crowdfunding wouldn't work, as it's about getting people who like an idea to say that they like it and would support it if enough other people did as well :)

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Quoting: KristianThe Heavy Gear kickstarter won't make it. It is only trending towards 21%. So it is irrelevant for Linux gaming since it is irrelevant in general.

Kicktraq's trends are not projections, and don't take into account any of the dynamics of crowdfunding. They even state in their own blog [External Link] that trends should be taken "with a grain of salt".

Their projection cones give a slightly better idea of possibility space, but since this campaign is only a couple of days old, there's not enough data to calculate those.

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Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: Cheeseness

Quoting: AnonymousThey talking UE4, not 3

Tripwire are using UE4 already?

No Tripwire are using UE3, I think Anon was trying to say that Heavy Gear is using UE4 as we are talking about UE3.

Yeah, I suspect so. Since it was immediately following our comments on UE3, it could be either. Never hurts to ask for clarification ^_^

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Quoting: AnonymousThey talking UE4, not 3

Tripwire are using UE4 already?

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Quoting: liamdaweEarlier builds of UE3 did not support Linux where as newer builds do, Tripwire told me, will post up my short convo with tuem soon.

That'll be an interesting read. I'm still going to sit on the fence until I see something from Epic or hear back from the developers I've spoken with over the past 12 months who said they didn't have any options.

A cursory pass over Epic's site did reveal this [External Link], which I don't recall seeing previously, though it isn't explicitly referring to UE3:

Unreal Engine-powered games have shipped on Xbox, PlayStation2, GameCube, DreamCast, Windows and Linux PCs, and Macs running MacOS X.

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