Quoting: Shmerl

Quoting: mphuZIf you omit the conspiracy theory and so on, then normal DRM is not dangerous and everything is fine with it.

DRM is malicious by definition. So you can't omit "conspiracy theory", or rather to rephrase it in normal terms, you can't start treating DRM as harmless and something to ever be trusted, because it's always aimed against you.

DRM doesn't trust you and treats you as a potential criminal apriory. So even from basic security perspective, you should treat DRM as a malware apriori in return. Trust can only be mutual.

And there is no such thing as "normal" DRM, because DRM is always an overreaching preemptive policing aimed against the user. It's unethical because it's overreaching and preemptive.

There is one benefit the DRM!

Spoiler, click me

It keeps some hackers busy doing other things than trying to break security on our bank accounts!

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Quoting: justragThe real one, like this? https://quarterarcade.com/atari-4-track-ball-used-3 [External Link]

I have one of these; need to find a way to interface it to my PC.... https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=atari+5200+trackball&iax=images&ia=images&iai=http%3A%2F%2Fgamester81.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2FAtari_5200_Trackball_controller.jpg [External Link]

From what I recall, it did indeed use most of the same parts out of their arcade machine!

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Quoting: randyl

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: BlackBloodRum

Quoting: areamanplaysgame

Quoting: BlackBloodRumWoah guys, stop with all the hate. Seriously.

I dislike how the Linux community is slowly turning into a bunch of people whining... step back, take a deep breath and calm down.

Now, it's not great that this wasn't immediately ported, and let's face it many of you want to play the new update, want simultaneous updates with Windows and of course, to play online with windows friends.

It's perfectly acceptable to want these things, but here's the thing you have to remember:
Porting houses usually don't get access to the update code until after the windows team has finished their part, by this time usually the update is announced and has a deadline.

Sadly this often means if they run into problems making it work, or anything else which may slow it down, the deadline is easily missed, and the Windows version will always be ready first. That's why it's called a port..

So sit back, wait a little while and calm down.

Complaining and insulting the developers won't make the port happen any faster, in fact it may do the opposite, if you're a developer reading someone talking about you, and you read "These guys can eat shit" and "I'm definitely not buying this now!" will this make you want to keep porting for them?

Nope it'll make you angry and have a low opinion of the people you're doing the work for.

Remember, some of the porting houses have developers who read these comments...

The other platforms Aspyr is charged with porting this to, including Nintendo Switch, already received the update. Nintendo Switch doesn't have cross-platform multiplayer with Windows. Linux and Mac do, and they are now broken with no indication of when they will be fixed. In short, the game I've paid for is currently useless for the reason I bought it, and will be for the foreseeable future. Like I said, I don't even care about the new content. My goal was to continue playing the game that was working until they broke it. I don't care if they "want to keep porting for me" at this point, because they clearly don't value my business enough not to deliberately break the product I paid them for.

Edit: You're right, I shouldn't say they can "eat shit," and I apologize to anyone who was offended by that, including anyone from Aspyr who may be hanging out here. But the rest of what I said still stands. We are consumers just like everyone else, and we are not obligated to be grateful for whatever scraps we get because we're on a platform with lower market share. You know why? Because we are paying just as much as Windows users are paying. We are not being given a gift.

I understand your frustration here, and in some aspects you're absolutely correct, you've bought the game just like any other platform user.

But I believe your anger is misguided. They didn't break your game here, so far as I'm aware they didn't release an update, and that in turn has caused multiplayer to cease working between different game versions.

Now let's step back for a moment and see what's actually happened here.

2K are the primary developers of this game, they are the ones who've created the base game, DLC, and any required version/dlc checks for online play.

It seems to be 2K have released the Windows update (of which, Aspyr have no control over or say in) which has in turn caused multiplayer incompatibilities. No doubt, they were fully aware Aspyr were not ready. But they had announced a date, and had a deadline - and PR, managers etc etc said "Release it for Windows anyway, Linux and Mac users can wait".

It's true Aspyr didn't have the update ready in time, but they didn't do this on purpose, there could well be serious bugs that have caused them to not have the update ready in time, and naturally as I previously mentioned porters get the updates effectively last minute in development terms.

For all we know, 2K could have done a last minute bugfix update to the Windows version a few days prior to release, then sent it over to Aspyr who weren't able to ensure that bugfix works on Linux and Mac too, or it broke something on those platforms.

There are so many factors which can slow it down, it's really not funny. Sadly, Aspyr are not the primary developers, as such they have absolutely no say when a Windows update/DLC is dropped which can break compatibilities with other platforms.

Sad but true.

Unless we were find out exactly how and why this delay occurred, we can't really say it is fair to direct anger at them at this time.

And this is why it always hurts when we get developers who directly support us bought out by competition that will force them to drop said support (like inXile). I kind of always thought that Aspyr was a 'me too!' Porting house, as Feral has done far more for Linux with new tools and adopting Vulkan, etc than Aspyr has.
Guess we'll see how this progresses, but I can't imagine that Firaxis broke the multiplayer code so much that the Switch port would be so different than the Linux port.

I'm not sure if inXile will continue to support Linux in future titles or not but they continued to support us with Bard's Tale 4 even after they were purchased. The native version of BT4 runs really well as does the Windows version through Proton. Last year I did a review for BT4 and both the PR rep and inXile were very cooperative and friendly. They were interested in doing a Linux port properly, but they were also seemed interested in Valve's Proton tool and ProtonDB as well.

Where I have a problem with studios and publishers is when they drop support in the middle of a title with DLC and bug fixes. If they committed to a Linux port then it should be done well. If they don't want to port a title at all because it's not financially viable, I'm okay with that. Just don't bait and switch on me.

BT4 promised Linux support in the kickstarter, so if they'd not followed through, it would have given them a 'black eye' in that regard, and inXile knows that their fans are what make them successful.

Unfortunately this may change as generally the publisher has last say on what platforms are supported. Then we have the fence on which you have to sit to decide if you think 'well it works under Proton' is considered 'supported' or not.

The only way I'd consider that supported is if they actively made code changes to make sure that every new release of Proton kept working. Most games are really a hit and miss, where it may work on one version, but then some regressions break it on the next.

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Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: ageres

Quoting: slaapliedjeTo be fair though, the Switch IS Linux, just not x86...

It's based on FreeBSD, just like PS4.

With various components from Android on top. They've created an abomination. :O

We sure about that? I always thought it was based on nvidia's tegra X1 chip, and directly used Linux. Was not aware FreeBSD had tegra support. Though I guess that makes sense, as the binary is very similar across all three (Windows, Linux, BSD).

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Quoting: Shmerl

Quoting: slaapliedjeI have this same issue with GOG. I mean we basically have to use third party applications if we want any semblance of usefulness, and even then I don't think any of them handle automatic updates or anything.

Not automatic, but lgogdownlader handles incremental updates.

Yeah, I should use that some more. It's good. Would be better if GOG supported us more directly...

I also get annoyed at the many games on GOG that elsewhere have Linux versions, but they don't provide one themselves.

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Quoting: DesumThis dev aside, I tend to shy away from GOG even though I am highly sympathetic do DRM-free gaming. The reasons are that, as a Linux gamer, GOG is simply a bigger hassle than Steam. I have to sort out libfoo problems with 70% of the games in my library that have native support (frankly, I have less problems running ancient Win32 games in Wine often enough). GOG should also be looking to, at the very least, piggy back off of Valve and Codeweaver's work with Proton. But nothing has even been mentioned there.

And all of GOG's recent moves point to a deemphasizing of the DRM-free stance of the platform. We already have games like Granda 2 phoning home, for example.

I have this same issue with GOG. I mean we basically have to use third party applications if we want any semblance of usefulness, and even then I don't think any of them handle automatic updates or anything.

While the Dev talking about DRM and people against it may sort of be correct... that's from a small game. Look at the giant outrage at some of the DRM for games like Doom, and others were large groups of people spend the time to hack them just to remove the DRM that very often completely break systems if not just the game itself!

That's why DRM is garbage and people care. It isn't really so 'oh, I can install this everywhere!', that's just a nice perk. One of the worse DRMs I'd seen was literally 'you're allowed to install this 5 times, if you'd like to install it more, you'll have to buy another license." That was literally 5 activations. If you happen to have to re-install, you're screwed...

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Quoting: GuestIt is worth to note that the developer didn't support linux, he just compiled it for linux with unreal and released it without tweaking anything. The "port" performs very poorly. I read this on the steam forums a few months ago and I saw the dev recommending proton and that he wants to drop the native version.

Weird, it was running flawlessly for me, and I put in quite a few hours into it, though stopped playing it for some reason (I do that randomly though, nothing against the game).

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Quoting: rustybroomhandle

Quoting: gradyvuckovicBlender, the chad open source software.

This is the second time in a week I'm seeing someone on here using MRA/incel terminology. What the heck is going on?

I'm so glad I don't know what any of that means. I've heard of incel... but the rest, no idea.

But back on topic, I should really learn Blender, as I think it'd allow me to do better 3D models than Tinkercad, though I'm getting semi-decent with that. I mostly do it for 3d printing.

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Quoting: Lightkey

Quoting: slaapliedjeExult has already been ported to the Amiga and Falcon, though I think the Falcon port might be pretty old.

Having portable code is just a prerequisite, what ScummVM offers is simply the manpower to make the ports (although they currently have a tough time finding someone to fix their Android port), you will not find another game project with as many ports as ScummVM has (except for DOOM of course :D).

If you want to work on Ultima V, make sure to get in touch with DreamMaster first, he just wrote a post on his weblog [External Link] where he expressed interest in it himself, unlike Ultima II and III which might never happen, if nobody else will look into them.

What would actually be a good way to do it for older platforms (I'm talking 8bit here where ScummVM probably wouldn't even load the menu...) is to create a generic Ultima engine, and then just recreate the games in it. Like take Ultima V's engine, and remake the maps in it.

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Sweet, one of the coolest thing about projects like this? You can do weird things like suddenly play games that never made it to other platforms, like the Amiga and Atari ST. I played Diablo on my A500+ with a Vampire V2. How cool is that? Looking forward to playing Command and Conquer on it!

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