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Latest Comments by abelthorne
Borderlands: The Pre-sequel Looks Like It May Come To Linux (UPDATED)
7 August 2014 at 6:50 am UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: SirBubblesWell I do like the trailer, but considering it's just more shooty Borderlands, and there are already two games in the series, just what is the point?
The point is that this one will be available on Linux. ;)

Borderlands: The Pre-sequel Looks Like It May Come To Linux (UPDATED)
6 August 2014 at 8:37 pm UTC

Quoting: FutureSutureHow hard would it be to bring over Borderlands and Borderlands 2 if this is simply a new game in the series and not a new game in the series built on an entirely new game engine? Seems a bit like Civilization: Beyond Earth being announced for Linux followed by Civilization 5 coming out for Linux.
Well, first, I'm not sure it uses the same engine for each episode (I haven't checked). Second, the original Borderlands was a mess regarding online play. IIRC, it had some DRM and it used Gamespy for multiplayer. Now that Gamespy is dead, I think the devs have pushed the game to Steamworks (or they moved to another system and will move again to Steamworks soon, I'm not sure). Anyway, until recently, it would have been difficult to push it to Linux.
Also, it seems that Gearbox is not interested in porting games to Linux. Not for technical reasons, simply because they think it's not worth the additional work needed. The Pre-sequel is developed by 2K, so that's why it's possible that it comes to Linux, but I wouldn't count on a port of Borderlands 1 or 2, unless R. Pitchford changed his mind.

Quoting: Guestalso, what is Borderlands? Is there a solo campaign?
Borderlands is a mix of FPS and hack'n slash: it has a FPS gameplay but with monsters respawning and random equipment being found (like e.g. Diablo). You play a kind of treasure hunter on a distant planet, each one (there are 4 characters in each game) having a specific skills tree that you unlock while playing (again, like Diablo 2).
There is a solo campaign with a bunch of sidequests. In fact, the multiplayer game isn't different: it's simply the campaign that you play with friends instead of doing it alone (they can even join/leave your game, you don't have to play the campaign twice in solo/multi).

The main bad point of the first game is that during 90% of the campaign you play in the same environments (which is a desert) and encounter only a few enemy types (bandits, a few desert creatures and soldiers) so it gets a bit boring.
As I said, I haven't played Borderlands 2 but from what I know it has more various zones and enemies.

Borderlands: The Pre-sequel Looks Like It May Come To Linux (UPDATED)
6 August 2014 at 11:12 am UTC Likes: 1

Well, it's indeed a bit odd after the comments from Pitchford about Borderlands 2. I'd wait for an official confirmation before being too much enthousiastic.

Anyway, I played the first Borderlands and it was pretty fun but a bit too repetitive and boring after a while. I've heard that Borderlands 2 addresses these issues but I've not played it. If the pre-sequel is more like the second episode, it can be a good game.

Torchlight & Torchlight II Look Set For Linux & Steam
16 July 2014 at 11:13 am UTC

Quoting: RutineIt's good that they seem to be working on a Linux port of Torchlight II, but I wonder if it's worth buying it. I mean, how much different can it be form the first ? If anyone has played Torchlight 1 and 2, and can give me some advice..
Well, I played Torchlight 2 during its beta I think, so it was quite some time ago and the game might have evolved since (and the version I played was somewhat limited with only the first zone and so on).

Basically, while Torchlight is a pretty neat clone of Diablo, Torchlight 2 is a pretty neat clone of... Diablo 2: more zones with outlands, more character classes I think, a skill tree working quite the same. Gameplay is pretty much the same as D2 but with more colorful graphics.

It is quite a good hack'n slash but I think it was released about the same time as Diablo 3, which made the D2 gameplay kind of old. It deserved Torchlight 2, which seemed dated and too oldschool.

If you played and enjoyed Diablo 2, you'll probably like Torchlight 2 a lot. The same if you played the first Torchlight, the sequel being bigger, with more varied gameplay and a lot of stuff. Besides, Diablo 3 isn't available on Linux so there's not much to compare.

Whatever Happened To Torchlight On Linux? UPDATED
16 July 2014 at 5:56 am UTC

Oh, have you seen that Torchlight Linux has appeared in the Steam base (see steamdb.info)? And more: Torchlight 2 Linux has appeared too! That's unexpected.

Mount & Blade: Warband Out Of Beta For Linux, Free All Weekend & Thoughts
12 July 2014 at 8:46 am UTC

Quoting: STiATWhat you get? A segfault? Freeze? Can you take a VOGL snapshot?
No segfault, just the game window opening and freezing, rendering nothing while CPU usage goes to 100% on each core. Nothing special happens in the terminal. All I can do then is kill the process (the whole system is not frozen, only the game window).
Don't know what is or how to do a VOGL snapshot.

Anyway, I didn't buy the game, I only wanted to give a try during the free week-end, so that's not really important. On the Steam forum, they (players, not the devs) say it's a bug in Catalyst that has to be fixed on AMD's side. Not sure it's identified or they only assume this because the game works with Mesa and not Catalyst.

Maybe I'll try Oibaf PPA again, hoping drivers work better than when I tried a few days ago (I see mesa has been updated since but not xserver-xorg-video-ati).

Mount & Blade: Warband Out Of Beta For Linux, Free All Weekend & Thoughts
11 July 2014 at 8:48 pm UTC

No specific output when running Steam from a terminal. And not sure where I can find a log for the game.

But I've checked the Steam forum and the problem seems to be the ATI Catalyst driver. Looks like the game works with the free Mesa driver (has to be updated to Mesa 1.3, though) but doesn't with Catalyst. Which isn't a really big suprise...

Mount & Blade: Warband Out Of Beta For Linux, Free All Weekend & Thoughts
11 July 2014 at 7:52 pm UTC

Quoting: edoFor some unknown reason I already have that game in my library :)
Because there's a free week-end going on. You'll have to buy it if you want to continue playing it after sunday (if you don't, it'll disappear from your library the same way it appeared).

Anyway, on my PC, the game doesn't even start. I have installed libaudio2 so that the setup runs but the game itself just gets stuck at launch, eating all CPU power...