Quoting: razing32I do have some concerns on this game.
Digging through steam reviews I came across one that mentioned the community tried to implement cars as a mod last year and were more successful than the devs.
However since I do not actively play this or follow the community I am unsure of the validity of that statement.
Wonder if anyone can confirm one way or another.

Here is the review I am referencing:
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198030619437/recommended/108600/ [External Link]

The car mod was very crude, basically hacking existing features (as mod dev mentions in the interview linked below, his cars are essentially a bags moving around :P). What Project Zomboid devs came with is vastly improved on and seems justified the time it took. It's kinda similar with other features - NPCs were removed the early version of the game, are now being recreated via mod as well (coincidentially by the same author who did the car mod :P) and I got a feeling that what PZ devs will bring will again be very improved over what mod offers.

Generally devs are in good terms with the modding community (game got a workshop support early on after all, and the mod support is being offered in forums, discord and highlights mentioned in weekly reports). The author of the vehicles and survivor mod got interviewed and featured in the main page by them recently [External Link], the author of the other major mod, Hydrocraft got an early heads up [External Link], (2) [External Link] before the rest of community knew it, when they introduced a feature that breaks the mod giving the mod author time to adjust to it - they also implemented features that helped the transition and featured the mod in their monoid at that time, to advertise the search for artists - they actually are still adding thing to improve the mod compatibility [External Link]. Also, at least two of the current developers I know of were a community members/mod creators before they were hired by a The Indie Stone.

The devs are however generally working on the game very slowly and that's the most controversial part. Like I mentioned, the NPCs that were originally in early builds (some files remnants are still in this game), got removed at one point, and after people eagerly waiting them back, developers decided not to discuss them until they are really close to come. That's why insisting on giving any info about NPCs is generally forbidden on forums, as devs won't discuss it. Revamped animations that were showcased over a year ago now (and hinted even earlier) didn't came yet either, to the point they were slowly been compared to "vaporware" the NPCs currently are - although animation update is still widely discussed, unlike the NPCs. Since then, about a half a year or so ago, they partnered with another company, General Arcade [External Link] to speed up the development, and it seemed working - vehicles along with NPCs were a major step in development (also believed to be another kind of a broken promise), so seeing them in a playable game in the form that was better than people expected (physics, handling and overall feel) was a really good surprise and look forward.

On the other hand, the game grew up to an unimaginable scale compared to what it originally was - having a major engine change, way bigger map that original and another graphic overhaul a year ago. On top of that is really advanced multiplayer on player-hosted servers, but also LAN and local co-op. The review linked also mentions hacking, so it's probably good to know that the previous [External Link] and upcoming [External Link] builds focus greatly on cheating protection and giving power to admin to ease the management - giving logs of suspected hacking, supervision tools and more in-game feature to aid detecting and punishing misbehaving players for admins.

Lastly, the developers behind Project Zomboid seems like one of the more honest I've seen recently. They survived so many initial issues [External Link], including theft of a laptop with the only copy of the game early on, yet they don't really care for milking money. They don't want to discount the game too much [External Link] during 6 year old period now, until it get finished, just to make early payers don't feel scammed, recently even rejecting the offer [External Link] of the community for some other way to support project, stating they have enough money for now.

And as a final note, from my own experience, over the time I observe the game (which will be since it was in Desura 6 years ago :P), even if I don't play actively, I do report a lot of small bugs when I do, such as typos or other minor issues in game files - and I am very pleasantly surprised when they are fixed quickly, so personally I can't say they don't work on improving the game from my own seeing.

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I guess they will get rid of Denuvo altogether - it proved out Denuvo is really easy to crack on Unity games, so it was cracked on 3rd day by an actual "SomeRandomAntiDenuvoGuy". Supposedly, this reduced game loading time by a whooping 40 seconds, so it was yet another issue of DRM hurting game for legitimate users.

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I suspect this only works with RCT2 game files? I know all the original RCT1 maps should be there, but does the engine support extra mechanics that were cut from RCT1? I wasn't playing any of the originals, but wife was playing RCT1 a lot and always mentioned how she missed the ability to set separate entry fees for each attraction IIRC. This video should explain what I mean: https://youtu.be/-ZuI2SlzuM4?t=6m1s [External Link]

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Now I seriously consider attacking Feral HQ with a pack of cookies... (thank you for your love for Linux Feral! <3)

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The developer is also a nice guy, he made a giveaway on reddit, giving out to every Linux user that asked him for key :) He didn't want to verify it by any kind, but people suggested sending a screenshots as a "proof", so even if it wasn't required, people were showing their current desktop as a proof, which was a funny initiative ^^

I wasn't playing the game yet, as I'm busy playing my backlog, but saw my wife playing it and it looks like a real nice simplistic game - so thank you for covering it Liam :D

P.S. Some of the achievements in game seem to be really hard to pull off, so if you are up for a challenge, it may be a good game to show off ;)

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Another Topware game ported :P Guess what's next - not that much left, seems it's 13/24 (25 if you count removed original Two Worlds) games already :)

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Keep in mind that, when making analogue to consoles, console gamers that are switching to PC gaming (#PCMasterRace!) de facto have to rebuy the game to play it again on PC. Some companies actually planned to do that, but PlayStation and Xbox's walled gardens caused trouble for even cross-play to be available in multiple titles, or carrying the saves over (vide Dragon Age Keep), yet alone playing the game you owned on a different platform. I think Microsoft is the closest currently with their dreaded Universal Apps and maybe Xbox One's and Sony PS4's streaming servives, but it's nowhere close to what we, PC gamers, usually get - that's why we are used to crossplay, crossbuy (for 3 main OSes) and actually free remakes, unlike console gamers, so we're kinda feeling entitled to it.

Actually, the only option for console gamers to play their games on PC, is to wait for emulator to support the platform, but unfortunately, it takes time, with PS3 and Xbox 360 emulator slowly appearing, while on Linux you are already with a better situation with Wine.

And the best part, is that it still doesn't prevent people from switching to PC gaming from consoles, thanks to the benefits it offers. It may be unrealistic, but keep in mind that no matter what it'd be, as long as Linux proves to be more appealing than Windows (or Mac), people would still switch :).

P.S. Remember than back in the day of boxed PC Linux games, you basically had to pay for the same title twice, if you wanted a Windows and Linux game - e.g. Loki boxes.

Just my 3 cents I wanted to add.

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I'm genuinely surprised by this, the last game I saw like that were CoD Mac ports by Aspyr, but surprisingly it doesn't make me angry, really.

The game is so old and cheap even without sale, that I'm more than happy it got it's native port after all.

Actually, if they just gave the port for free for existing owners, I think they would barely get any profit, as most people who want it own it in one form or another already (and it'll run with WINE) or will get it dirt cheap via bundle key. Ideaologically people support the porting companies a lot (and I bet Feral, Aspyr, VP and others are really glad for it :P) but realistically speaking, they need more income to justify the cost of porting an old title, which arguably may be easier to port, but is way less profitable.

TL;DR: I'm fine having paying for an old title I own twice, if it is what it takes for it to get a native Linux port!

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Good article. It'll surely help people explain the basics behind drivers, especially when using AMD. I was confused at first what Mesa, RadeonSI and radv are, so had to look online to understand it.

Have you considered adding this to GOL Wiki Liam? It would be helpful to have an editable page later on, especially when this article gets old :)

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Quoting: EhvisIt seems odd that Valve would be actively helping with competition for the Vive.

Actually, it seems a lot like Valve to me - after all, they did something kinda similar with Steam Machines, partnershipping with multiple companies. The only one who I'd imagine to have problems with it though, would be HTC itself :P

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