Sometimes when a developer says, "we might get around to a Linux port later," I give it as much credence as a smoker's avowed "Last Cigarette," but this isn't one of those times.

As much as Big Robot has broken my heart by releasing Signal from Tolva on Windows alone, I believe them when they say they want to bring the game to Linux (and that other, fruity OS). Admittedly, my faith is founded upon the rather flimsy premise of Big Robot's out-of-the-gate support for Linux with "Sir ... Hunted" and no doubt coloured by my really, really, really wanting to play this game.

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Nice review, Liam! Thank you. I think SotA was one of the first games I put on my Steam wishlist years ago. I still follow its updates as well, but its nothing like being able to read a good review. I'm glad you did this.

I do wonder about what you said regarding meeting other players online. Is this an instant PvP situation where I'm likely to be trounced for the pleasure of the other player? Or is PvP limited to allocated areas of the map, or a separate server, or sump'in?

I might just go ahead and try it out, although I know I'll one day buy it --- once it's out of beta. Could you tell me, please, how large the download is, and also, if you're still on Antergos, what steps you took to install it. It looks like it's a .deb package, and I've not confronted trying to install a .deb package on an Arch-based distro (Manjaro, in my case).

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Quoting: GuestFlat The Second Encounter is out too. With DLC.

Thank goodness for that. My heart broke when I realized that the title was VR only. I'll have to give it another look-see and wishlist it.

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Luckily, I've got enough other Linux games to keep me content until this gets sorted. Heck, truth be told, I haven't even installed my copy of Road Redemption yet. Linux Lateness is simply a Law of Nature (admittedly, a little known and suspiciously selective one) that determines the release dates of Linux games. I don't remember the details, but the formula involves the amount of entropy in the developer's trousers, or something.

Anyway, thanks for the heads-up, Liam. Please do let us know when they do release the update, yeah? Thanks!

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Ark will always hold a special place in my heart as my first Steam refund. I simply couldn't manage to get through the first thirty seconds or so with a frame rate crawling slower than a paraplegic iguana walking off one too many xanex.

And whilst the zoological gallimaufry expanded with each new update, problems, bugs, and glitches were only ever being halfheartedly patched or completely ignored. Nevertheless I continued to follow the game, thinking someday it would get better.

Most of the games I play are little more than atrocity simulators, where success is measured in the number of one's (sometimes socially sanctioned) murder victims. Yet, as much fun as I have in a typical shooter turning my enemies/victims into exploding meat fireworks, I remain unaffected by the virtual carnage I wreak. After all, it's only pretend ... just an adult version of playing "army men" or cowboys and politically-incorrect Indians with my boyhood pals.

Over time, as I followed ARK's progress, it dawned on me that the central conceit of the game, taming and domesticating dinosaurs (et hoc genus omne) involved nothing other than engaging in the systematic and prolonged torture of innocent animals.

No matter how gigantic, ferocious, and pretend they may be, the thought of beating an animal into unconsciousness and starving and drugging them to "tame" them simply repulses me. I'm not going to argue the ethical nuances that go into my feeling hunky-dory mowing down literally hundreds of cops in Payday 2, or driving gleefully through crowds of pedestrians in a Saint's Row game, but make me feel queasy and sad at the thought of torturing a T Rex. I'm just going to say that I stopped following ARK because of this torture feature.

Damn, this got dark. I was originally just going to make some point about how the devs idea of improving ARK is to add more creatures. I suppose I see that abundance of creatures as an abundance of victims so seamlessly that I couldn't talk about one without talking about the other.

I'm gonna go cheer myself up with some Payday 2.

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We are aiming to release the game for Linux after the PC and Mac versions.

Uh oh.

To be more accurate we're very confident we can build the game for Linux, but we don't have a proper environment yet to see what type of work is required to get it running properly (plus testing).

They sound so gosh darn plucky here. "Linux? Oh pshaw! Speaking purely as a person crassly ignorant of Linux, I'm sure that'll be no problem for us." Yes, of course. The good ol' "We'll-cross-that-bridge-when-we come-to-it approach to project management." Oh the many video-games created thereby, softly landing in Linux like a sky full of butterflies alighting upon an alpine meadow full of edelweiss.

My breath remains un-bated.

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Quoting: qptain Nemo

Quoting: NanobangI'm someone who creates custom configurations for all my games, so I feel fairly comfortable saying that I know my way around Steam's config tool, and more and more I find myself wanting to do something that I can only do on SC-CONTROLLER.

Can you give some examples of such things?

Glad to!

My favorite innovation is the ability for an input to have multiple mode-shifts. For example, I can set the right pad as a mouse, add a mode-shift to a directional pad on Rpad click (which allows me to do things in FPSs like reload and swap weapons without removing my thumb from the pad), and then add another mode-shift to a circular mouse scroll wheel when I press and hold the Left bumper, etc. (Of course this can be approximated in Steam via multiple Action Sets, but when I think about needing a new action set for every extra mode shift on each input ... well it can make for a lot of additional action sets! Anyway, the last time I checked, Action Sets don't work for games not launched in resource hungry Big Picture mode.)

Another, newer, innovation is the ability to map a an input as well as key bindings to the Pads. So, for example, I can map a circular scroll wheel to the outside of a pad and have something like a directional pad or trackball in the center of the pad. This is possible because of the way SCC models these areas: as if the outer "ring" is super-imposed on the underlying pad, or if it is a separate area surrounding a smaller, inner Pad. It's been awhile since I played with this feature, but I think it's also possible to place a directional pad in the center of an entirely different, outer directional pad.

Mind you, I still consider the SCC to be a work in progress, but it is a work that is progressing. In time, once the basic features are all in place, all the polishing is done to the code and UI, and the bugs are chased from the darker corners of the code, I fully expect SCC to become my default driver for my Steam Controller.

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Dammit! Why am I not playing this game? I own it. I've set up a Steam Controller config for it. I've fooled around with it. But I haven't ever settled in and begun playing it!

I'm just gonna plead alien abduction.

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I think that the SC-CONTROLLER is very close to becoming more powerful than Steam's own configuration tool. I'm someone who creates custom configurations for all my games, so I feel fairly comfortable saying that I know my way around Steam's config tool, and more and more I find myself wanting to do something that I can only do on SC-CONTROLLER.

The day is fast coming when the SC-CONTROLLER becomes my primary driver for all my games, whether they're on Steam or not.

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Quoting: torritPlaying FPS games is still much, much easier with mouse+keyboard than with SC in regular gamepad mode (no surprise there) so next thing I'm planning to do is to try out aiming with touchpad+gyro.

Shortly after I received my SC I discovered the joy of using the left pad for movement instead of the joystick ... now I can't go back. Putting WASD on the left pad, activated by the lightest touch, grants me a nimbleness which is even better than a keyboard.

It takes some getting used to, but I've found the right pad/gyro experience comparable to --- and more to my liking than --- using a mouse. And since I play from my couch, in my living room, I can now say that "playing FPS games is ... much, much easier" with the SC than mouse+keyboard. I hope you will too!

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