Valve just could blacklist every game using their dumbass software from Steam. They'd go bankrupt within 5-10 mins. Which would be awesome. World needs less anti-cheat rootkits and more smart coding that doesn't need it.

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Developers who plan to release on platforms without making sure that any middleware they want to use is working on their target platforms will never cease to amuse me. Maybe "Facepalm Studios" would be a more apt name for them?

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Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: DASPRiDOkay, so let me get this straight:

They are pulling RocketLeague from the Steam store (presumably not only the Windows version, but all). So Linux gamers can still play the game after it got pulled, but new Linux gamers will not be able to purchase the game in any store, do I get this right?

That's usually what would happen, when a game leaves Steam for whatever reason.

Except that such a game is basically guaranteed never to get updated again, so it would be worthless in a few months when they make changes to multiplayer etc. People would still essentially lose the game.

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Is everyone in the gaming industry founding studios just to sell their team to the Borg at the earliest opportunity and run off with the profit?

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It's so hilarious how the gaming industry operates as if proper project management wouldn't be a thing. I don't get it how you can plan multi-platform deployment - and then write Windows-only software instead of developing a multi-platform game from the get-go. Forcing you to put a lot of work into porting the thing later. With the realistic possibility of running into all sorts of trouble, e.g. when your Windows only game is using Windows-only middleware you figure out 3-4 years later isn't even available for the other platforms. Not that that ever happened, or so.

That...makes no sense, but neither does burning out your devs in 100 hour work weeks, to keep unrealistic deadlines in about 100% of all projects you ever start.

The gaming industry is strange...

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Quoting: 14I should give the game a play especially since I really liked Shadowrun: Dragonfall. I know it's a different game but it's the same developer+publisher combo.

I got it for the same reason. In my book, Harebrained had a good Linux track record after launching three successful games on our platform.

Shame they chose to ruin that reputation. At the very least I will never kickstart any of their games again, after this experience. I am actually surprised that they didn't make three Windows DLCs before finishing the promised Linux port. :S

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Quoting: drlambIs Battletech out of beta for Linux then? I recall some confusion as to whether or not the game was actually released or if the beta builds were just published.

I haven't heard anything official, but in my GOG library, there is a download available now. It's not marked beta. I dunno. I just saw it now because this posting made me curious!

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I found a lot of good tutorials just by typing whatever I was looking for into Google/YouTube. Godot has this reputation of not having a lot material out there, but I found almost anything I ever needed. Don't forgot their own Wiki, which is pretty good too, if you need help with the API etc.

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I spent a few weeks looking for RPG tilesets, but other than the sources already listed, I couldn't find anything I could use outside of OpenGameArt. I checked commercial sources as well, such as the Unity store (as I wouldn't mind spending some money on it), and even THERE wasn't anything offered that would have blown me away. The closest thing in that regard was a Humble RPG dev bundle from a few months ago, which I got and had some great character/monster/inventory assets, but I need tilesets for world building too (namely terrain, towns and dungeons), and that bundle didn't have enough of that.

I guess your best bet is either commission an artist, or Learn2Paint, unfortunately.

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Quoting: crumblesFree to play has ruined too many games that I used to care about and I have yet to see one that doesn't go down the drain once it goes free to play.

Yes and no. The biggest danger of pure F2P (not B2P) games is that they get designed from the ground up to be unfun, boring and tedious after the first few hours of trying them out - unless you pay up. Almost 100% of all mobile games are designed that way, which why I never play any.
There are certainly some F2P MMOs falling in that category. The most famous case being SWTOR. There is like no way whatsoever you can play that game without still being subscribed to it and have any fun with it. Or Neverwinter (the Perfect World one, not Neverwinter Nights), which is also a good example of making people run into (pay)walls at every corner.

However, I have seen several MMOs converting from P2P to full F2P that managed to do so in a fashion that still left the game in an enjoyable fashion even for players that spend very little or even nothing at all. Star Trek Online and Champions Online (funnily enough also by Perfect World) are very playable if you don't insist on having the absolute best available stuff at any time. Same goes for Rift. I didn't play it in a while, but for a while Skyforge was fun, too.

IMHO the best middle ground in terms of business models is B2P, but as can be seen in the case of this game, it doesn't work so well for niche games (and while this chart is probably meant to demonstrate how healthy the game is, but 10k-20k players a day is pretty much the equivalent of "dead" as far as MMOs go).
Guild Wars 2 and Elder Scrolls Online use the B2P model with great success, but both aren't exactly niche games (they measure daily attendance in hundreds of thousands, so...). The charm of B2P is that devs don't absolute HAVE to put annoying dis-features into the game and force people to buy them away, since they get at least some revenue up front from every player.

Btw, most of the games I listed here work very well in WINE, with very little or no glitches. So it's not that Albion is the only choice if you want to play a MMO on Linux. It's thankfully not. ;)

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