Quoting: GuestThe comment section of this article is why the majority of game developers don't take linux gamers seriously and see them as whiny entitled losers.

But not trolls. Why do I mention trolls? Oh, no reason . . .

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I guess since it's open source, there'll never be a need for a GOAT Simulator [External Link] . . .

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I love Mint; very glad things are going well. I only like Cinnamon . . . I keep trying it out but always go back to Mate, which works well for a couple of particular things I like doing with taskbars. I tried Ubuntu Mate on my new desktop machine and it's fine I guess but I like Mint better and next time I upgrade I'm just going to upgrade back to Mint.

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Quoting: jensNice to see that the Linux numbers seem to normalize.
Surely no coincidence with the decrease of Chinese users ;)

Yeah, noticed that. Still, even with that decline the total Steam numbers seem to be rising anyway, so some of that rise has to be new Linux users.

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Quoting: kingofrodeoI also got the survey on Saturday. My system hasn't change in a long time.

Me too. This is getting weird.

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Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: Purple Library GuyLooking at his post, doesn't sound like Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns will be happening any time soon because whoever made it dropped out of the space-time continuum. Pity; I know it wasn't a big or important game, but I liked it--probably because I didn't have access to any of the Windows games that were similar but better, I suppose.
Now what I'd really like to see is this treatment done to Alpha Centauri. Every time I go back to my old Loki CD of that, it takes a bit more fiddling to get it working (and last time I still couldn't get sound). I suppose it probably works under Wine/Proton these days, but somehow I really don't want to buy a Windows copy of a game I bought for Linux just to get it to run on Linux.

I haven't really gotten around to play it, but isn't 'Beyond Earth' supposed to be similar to Alpha Centauri?

Yes, well. Civ: BE is not bad. And it's newer and more modern and stuff.
And it has this thing that looks like it ought to be cooler than Alpha C's different government types--these three different sort of ideological attitudes towards colonization and relationship to the planet and technology. All the technologies have an affinity to one of these three, so depending on your tech emphasis you'll get more levels of them and that'll give you perks. Actually, a lot of the power of combat units comes more from progression in the three affinities than from specific tech developments. But I mean . . . you can do them all, and why wouldn't you? So there's no real choice happening. The technology web isn't that huge; by the end of the game I'm usually pretty maxed in all three so it doesn't matter much. And the factions are a bit like that--their differences are a bit more genuinely futuristic or at least different, but what that gains in science-fiction-y-ness it loses in wimping out. Alpha Centauri's factions and government systems confronted real social and political issues and differences, and they also required choices; if you take the advantages of a Free Market or Green economy, you gotta live with the disadvantages, you can't have both at the same time.

Oh yeah, technologies go out in a circle from the centre to the edge instead of up a tree, which looks cool but makes almost zero difference. Seriously, you could fold it into a tree without changing anything in terms of which techs lead to what.

There are some nice touches. Floating cities can actually move, getting access to more resources. Aside from that, it's Civ 5 with higher tech and weirder strategic resources. I like Alpha Centauri much better; can't quite put my finger on why. Maybe something about how the gameplay and pace work that's not obvious in the surface mechanics, maybe I like the way in Alpha C, vehicle technologies separate chassis from what you put in it so you can customize a bit, maybe it's the factions and governments . . . dunno, but Alpha C is a classic to me and Civ:BE is . . . decent.

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There's something about this that reminds me of Star Control II (AKA nowadays on Linux as Ur-Quan Masters). I mean, on Star Control II you went around the galaxy exploring planets and talking to aliens with conversation boxes and fighting space battles; your spaceship was even modular, although it was more a matter of "The slots exist and you put things in them". A lot of similarities. And I always loved Star Control II, so maybe I'll give this a look.

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Looking at his post, doesn't sound like Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns will be happening any time soon because whoever made it dropped out of the space-time continuum. Pity; I know it wasn't a big or important game, but I liked it--probably because I didn't have access to any of the Windows games that were similar but better, I suppose.
Now what I'd really like to see is this treatment done to Alpha Centauri. Every time I go back to my old Loki CD of that, it takes a bit more fiddling to get it working (and last time I still couldn't get sound). I suppose it probably works under Wine/Proton these days, but somehow I really don't want to buy a Windows copy of a game I bought for Linux just to get it to run on Linux.

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Google is an incredibly huge company and, as far as I know, very profitable. They are not in a situation where they have to release products before they are ready, or run projects on a shoestring. They have scads of programmers and project managers and oceans of PR flacks. So if they release a project to much fanfare, they have the option of that project being ready and fleshed out upon release.
If it isn't, if people find it uncompelling and various elements that would make it so fail to materialize with little communication about how that situation is changing, I'm afraid I don't have a ton of sympathy like I would if it was a couple of struggling indie programmers making something.

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Oh no! We'Re DoomEd!

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