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Latest Comments by Kimyrielle
Kerbal Space Program 1.1 released, updated to Unity5, new interface, new tutorials and more
24 April 2016 at 3:05 pm UTC

That game teaches one that rocket science is in fact, complicated. :D

But really, I love it.

Paradox posts pictures of Hearts of Iron IV development on Linux
17 April 2016 at 6:07 pm UTC Likes: 3

Paradox might be my overall #1 favorite publisher. Not only because they have shown us great support, but it's also one of the few ones you can blindly buy games from and know they are good.

RuneScape Linux-native NXT client available to pre-load, they also have a trailer
17 April 2016 at 3:39 pm UTC

Quoting: fingers
Quoting: Kimyrielle
Quoting: fagnerlnThis will calm down MMORPG's orphans? :P

I am afraid not. Runescape -is- the closest thing to a mainstream MMO Linux has available, but this just shows how desperately Linux needs more MMOs. It's not anywhere near being a major title, even with the most generous of imaginations.
What makes a game "a major title"? RS reaches 100k simultaneous players daily and probably many times that active players. At the moment Twitch says that there are 12k viewers watching Runescape streams, contrast that with 10k watching WoW. Yeah, I know that arguments that can be made that it's still not a major title.. However, I'd say it's much bigger than many people realize.

I think the current top MMO titles by size of playerbase are

- WoW
- Guild Wars 2
- FF XIV
- Elder Scrolls Online
- Star Wars The Old Republic

A game not in that list is not a major title in my book, because these 5 games each represent a market share vastly greater than anything else has got (as in order of magnitudes greater). This is not saying that smaller games aren't successful. EvE Online is laughably smaller than any of these games but still successful. One of my personal favourites (Skyforge) is also not going to be a Top 5 title anytime soon, either. But I cannot name you -any- genre other than MMOs that does not have any of its landmark representatives ported to Linux.

RuneScape Linux-native NXT client available to pre-load, they also have a trailer
16 April 2016 at 11:30 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: fagnerlnThis will calm down MMORPG's orphans? :P

I am afraid not. Runescape -is- the closest thing to a mainstream MMO Linux has available, but this just shows how desperately Linux needs more MMOs. It's not anywhere near being a major title, even with the most generous of imaginations.

Stellaris is now available to pre-order & a new trailer
16 April 2016 at 12:44 am UTC

Paradox games are auto-buys for me. And I never made a vow not to preorder from a company I trust, so here I go! :D

Some early The Talos Principle Vulkan benchmarks
14 April 2016 at 4:23 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: PeciskWow, slow down. Baby steps first. You are NOT gonna convince Windows centric developers to use something else, period. You need to carter developers already *interested* in developing games for Linux. You need to help/serve them first. Make them successful. When they will be successful, *they* will be who will spread the world.

I just love how parts of Linux community still live in nineties. It is not how it works. VHS vs. Betamax everyone? Neither performance, not ease to use will bother Windows developers if they will be actually interested in porting games to SteamOS. They think in trends, in business terms, in branding. If SteamOS/Vulkan combo suddenly trends and becomes successful even with current dev base we have, it WILL make them notice. That will bring them over here.

Stop really think it is about DirectX12. It is NOT. Never have been. If it was, there wouldn't be Linux gaming at all.

Most of the non-completely Windows centric studios support us already (seriously, what's left other than EA, Ubisoft, Blizzard, Rockstar and Bethesda?). They are successful, but obviously 95% of their sales are still Windows sales. SteamOS will become a major thing only if AAA games are available in large numbers AND if said games run at -least- as well as they would do in Windows. If the fastest available renderer is Windows/XBox-only, that's what gamers will buy. If you tell a mainstream gamer that he will get 80% of the possible performance out of his $500 graphics card he will laugh you off. These people invest 100s of dollars for a few more extra framerates.
This is not even remotely comparable to VHS vs BetaMax. This is waaaaay worse than that, as SteamOS is breaking into an existing market that's already dominated by a competing product. This is more like as if BetaMax tried to enter the market against VHS in the 1990s, when everybody had VHS already. If you attempt something like that, you have to be either massively better or massively cheaper than the established product. And in this case you can't be cheaper, as DX12 is free as in beer. So you have to be better.

Nothing suddenly "trends" without reason. Apple became trendy when they released innovative products nobody had before.
While platform-independence -does- matter from our point of view (it's why we want Vulkan to succeed, right?), from the perspective of one of the aforementioned Windows-only studios, it does not matter as long as they have no plans to release on alternative platforms anyway. Bethesda made over a billion dollars with Fallout 4, and they still couldn't be bothered investing a comparably laughable sum to have that game ported to Mac and Linux. Good luck with trying to convince these guys adding a second render path to their games. Even more good luck trying to convince the average gamer to run his games in Linux if they would perform -slower- there. Vulkan does simply not have a business case then. UNLESS Vulkan performs at least as well as DX12 and becomes an -alternative- to it. Then it suddenly has a business case. It would become a "Ok, this thing is as good as DX12 and we can increase our target market by 10% on top of it just by using it? Let's do it!" thing for these CEOs. And only THEN will SteamOS have a chance to become "trendy"
So if you think the DX12 comparison doesn't matter, you're a bit delusional, tbh. Mind you we're not talking about some mobile ports here, where Linux actually is market leader and Windows doesn't matter at all. We're talking about high end AAA games we desperately want to see coming to Linux, and these wouldn't run on 'droid anyway.

Some early The Talos Principle Vulkan benchmarks
14 April 2016 at 4:47 am UTC

Quoting: Mountain Man
Quoting: KimyrielleBut the much more important question is...will it outperform DX12? Because if it doesn't devs will go "Why would we add a Vulkan render path for these 1% that use Linux?"
Performance isn't the only advantage of Vulkan or even the primary advantage. It's the fact that it can work on pretty much every platform that is capable of running games.

You're preaching to the converted in my case (obviously), but you know how these Windows devs operate: "Wait, what? People play games on platforms other than Windows? Are you kidding me?" If you want to get that crowd to use Vulkan, you need to give them something other than "It's running flawlessly on these platforms you don't even care about".

Open source Theme Hospital engine CorsixTH 0.60 Beta 1 released
14 April 2016 at 3:04 am UTC

I got it for free ages ago when I had to have Origin installed for playing DA Inquisition. I guess I finally have a use for it! :D

Some early The Talos Principle Vulkan benchmarks
13 April 2016 at 8:27 pm UTC Likes: 1

Nice to see it outperforming OpenGL (was there any doubt that it would btw.?) But the much more important question is...will it outperform DX12? Because if it doesn't devs will go "Why would we add a Vulkan render path for these 1% that use Linux?" To succeed on the market, being the second fastest API won't be good enough when the fastest one already controls 90% of the market.