My question is, is there enough momentum in the Linux gaming market for developers to continue supporting Linux in the event that Valve gets bored and kills off their grand experiment? That's my primary concern at the moment, that we're almost entirely dependent on Valve and Steam for the majority of our games, and if Valve goes away then we're going to be right back where we were five-years ago with a niche market that only a handful of independent developers even bother to support.

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Always disappointing to see performance lag behind Windows, but that's to be expected with a port, and that won't change until developers start using cross-platform middle-ware.

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Quoting: MayeulC

Barring some purely fantastic elements that are best saved for a future dev diary, the scientific aspect in Surviving Mars is realistic

* Sees wind turbines in the trailer *
* Facepalm *

I didn't even think of that. Good catch. That was one of the big mistakes in The Martian, when a storm blew the space ship over to kick off the plot. In reality, the Martian atmosphere is so thin that even a 100 mile-per-hour wind would feel like a gentle breeze.

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Surprisingly modest specs judging by the videos I've seen. My hardware is a few years old, but I could probably push this to high settings, assuming it's well-optimized.

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"id Software found itself in a patent dispute with Creative Labs over the stencil shadowing method in the game known as 'Carmack's Reverse'."

That was a bullshit lawsuit, too. Carmack gave details of his technique at a tech conference with the intent that anybody could freely use the technique in their own software, but then Creative Labs immediately ran out and patented it and then hit id Software with a patent infringement suit. This experience no doubt left a bad taste in Carmack's mouth, and I suspect it's one of the reasons he became less enamored with open source and code sharing. It's crap like this that inspired Austin Meyer, CEO of Laminar Research and creator of the X-Plane flight simulator, to launch a very expensive and wide ranging legal battle and publicity campaign against what he calls "patent trolls".

https://www.thepatentscam.com/ [External Link]

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Quoting: Colombo

I'm sorry, but what? I get patches for each Paradox game I own every couple of months that I can download without paying a cent. That seems like (one of) the definition(s) of "free" to me.

Um... are they not free? Last time I looked, Paradox has never charged us for a patch.

Last time I looked, post-release support was critical to continued success of game. Game that was released broken and not patched up was often heavily criticized. If devs announce that they will stop supporting game (i.e., patching bugfixes) when there is a long list of bugs (especially after newly released DLC/expansion), they would often trash their reputation and sales.

If there is such expectation, and previously, while Paradox was known for releasing games in state that can be described as open beta, it was also known for eventually fixing all the bugs and people bought their knowing and expecting that, then it is not "free". It is part of the price I bought the game for.

I say it again, if on one say you say that these patches are "free", but on other said complain that some other company stopped support and didn't release patches (or that some product is less good because it wasn't patched), than something is wrong with your opinion consistency.

Well, sure, if you assume that continued support in the form of patches is "baked in" to the initial sale price then they're technically not free, but that seems to be a stretch.

Also, how much should go into a patch before you no longer consider it simply part of the purchase price? Bug fixes, sure, but what about new content that was never part of the original product? For instance, several patches for both Crusader Kings II and Europa Universalis IV have substantially altered and expanded the map. It seems rather self-serving (for lack of a better term) to insist that these are nothing more than an expected part of the initial purchase.

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Quoting: ColomboAlso, that nonsense that patches are somehow FREE...

Um... are they not free? Last time I looked, Paradox has never charged us for a patch.

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Quoting: Brisse@ Mountain Man, Rutine and everyone else quoting me with counter arguments:

Don't want to sound harsh or pick a fight, but gullible fans like you...

And that's where I stopped reading. Thanks anyway.

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Quoting: BrisseAs much as I love these games, I despise Paradox for their DLC strategy, which is designed to milk every last penny out of us. The base game currently costs 39.99€ on Steam, but that is just a shell of what the game should be. To get the full experience you have to throw another whopping 279.74€ on DLC. It's the same disgusting thing EA did with The Sims.

Edit: They don't even have the decency to sell a complete expansion. Instead they split every expansion up in two pieces, one with gameplay mechanics, and another with art assets. How disgusting is that!?

I disagree. I think Paradox is one of the few publishers/developers to do DLC the right way.

Here's the thing: First of all, if you bought the vanilla version of, say, Crusader Kings 2, or Europa Universalis IV at launch and never bought a single piece of DLC, the game in and of itself remains a complete experience that you can easily sink dozens and hundreds of hours into. You're not missing essential or necessary content by not having the DLC.

And secondly, with every major expansion, Paradox traditionally releases a substantial patch that expands the game and adds new content for free (in some cases, they give away so much for free that the expansions themselves are almost not worth buying!), so the vanilla game you can buy today is a much larger, fuller experience than the vanilla game that was released on Day 1 -- and you don't have to pay anything extra to get it. In fact, my recommendation to new Paradox gamers is to play the vanilla game first, and once you've gotten a feel for it, only then should you look at the DLC and see which of it appeals to you, because not all of it will, and none of it is essential.

To put it another way, either Paradox charges a reasonable fee for the continued development of their games over a period of years, or they release a couple of patches, maybe an expansion, and then move on to their next project. I don't know about you, but I prefer the former. Not to mention the fact that it is in no way reasonable to expect that Paradox would release years worth of work without charging for it.

As far as splitting the art content from the gameplay features, I don't understand why this upsets people. Sure, Paradox could include everything in one package, but then they would simply charge a higher price for it, or they can split it up and charge a little less for each piece, and in the end, it works out exactly the same. Basically, if you want more then you pay more. I don't see how that's "disgusting".

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I wonder if Valve intentionally "leaks" this information to build up hype.

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