Guild Wars 2

As we’re all aware, Valve is working on a new game console and they’re getting some big names, Alienware for instance, to make their Steam Machines for them.

Here are some reasons why I think NCSoft should consider creating a Guild Wars 2 client for SteamOS:

If NCSoft gets in on the action before all the specifications are set, it should possible for NCSoft and Valve to meet each other half way and create a platform and game that are perfectly matched for each other. This will be much harder to accomplish once the first Steam Machines are available for purchase.

Some people would prefer to play Guild Wars 2 on a nice soft sofa instead of a firm office chair and it would be easier for those people to use a game controller instead of a keyboard and mouse.

It’s easier to move a gaming console to different parts of the house than it is to move a desktop computer.

Gaming consoles boot faster than regular PC’s.

Gaming consoles are less likely to have their performance degrade over time so Guild Wars 2 will always have smooth animation and the machine will be more responsive than a Windows 8 computer that’s been in use for a few years (sure your new Windows 8 PC/tablet is running smoothly right now but will it suffer the same performance degradation as PC’s running previous versions of Windows?).

I’m curious what other Guild Wars 2 players, as well as the developers for this game, have to say.

They don’t even have a stable mac client yet. I doubt they’ll start making a new client now. Not to mention, why would they start developing a client for Valve (which, mind you, is promising but you never know how much of a market it will have, so in my eyes it would be a risk) when they could make it for Ps4/Xbox/insert random console here.

I don’t really care if they’ll make one or not, as long as they hire new people to do it. I want them to focus on fixing the already buggy client we have on pc. If they want to expand I don’t care as long as they fix the stuff they already made so far.

I agree – Mac would be a better bet or Linux but not the flash in the pan that is SteamOS.

I’m typing this right now from the browser opened up from my Steam overlay on top of Gw2. Valve and Anet may have some money disagreement that prevents them from supporting each other directly right now.

So perhaps a more realistic solution would be to meet in the middle somewhere. More people are having there computers plugged into TVs now with an HDMI so maybe they could give GW2 access to the community hub, discusions, guilds and news with the overlay or let us add sites to it our shelves.

Eventually once Asia gets saturated with GW2, and once steam gets going with more boxes in peoples homes it wouldn’t take that long to have a steambase linux client.

A test run could be done with GW1 that is currently on Steam but dosen’t allow people who already bought the game in all its versions to link it with a steam account as a steam game to become one. to access all the features. I wouldn’t mind paying 5-10 bucks one time fee to link it so I can have access to a steam community and tools during a game. the Experiance is worth it.

I mean i understand people in china might be more into internet cafe’s cause they don’t have as much for a pc at home, which is why priority is given to expand there first instead of steam where NA/European who are more likely to have consoles are home. I would love for it to be the case to have GW2 on an easy to move steambox as I travel around for work to plug into a TV whenever. So maybe if they can’t agree on who gets how much money for a sell, they could add a linkage fee that people for $10 ish can choose if they want so they don’t have to buy the game all over again to access their account.

This way it will be far more accepting than Diablo III’s alienation of pc players when it move to console, and we’ll be able to even crossplatfom like Sony’s FFXIV. I would love to have a friend come over to play gw2 on my tv as I play on my nividia surround monitiors beside em.

SteamOS as a lot to prove before a company like this puts any money towards developing software for it.

Personally I wouldn’t spend a dime, why?
Only PC players are excited about it, do they need it? Not really, it’s gonna be the Wii all over again, after a couple of months who ever bought it already forgot about it.
Console players are the ones that could use it (maybe) but they’re already settle with known platforms they like, it’s unlikely they’ll buy a steambox, doubt they’ll even heard about it.

If we were placing bets I’d bet it will flop, specially since apparently Valve wants to push out versions of the steambox every year or every other year, which again is a mistake considering their biggest potential target market, console players.

This may come as a suprise to some, but a Mac, LInux, and SteamOS port would all be more or less the same thing. This is because they all use an underlying Unix framework and OpenGL graphics. The major differences are on the libraries used, but from a development standpoint that’s just making certain code sections disabled when they are not compiling for the relevant platform.

Unix and OpenGL is actually the most common configuration in the world oustide of Windows PCs, XBox, and a few other exceptions. Even most mobile devices use a small Unix kernel (typically Linux) and OpenGL ES.

The reason game developers don’t do this? Testing. Testing requires that the physically purchase the machines for testing purposes. This means alot of money spent on various configurations of a system for every OS, and man hours to test it.

Porting is almost never the problem; making sure it works is. Thats why bugs don’t easily get fixed in things like the Mac client (which is Wine-based).

There’s also the cost overhead of developing an OpenGL engine. Currentlythey rely on Wine’s Direct3D to OpenGL layer, and Valve has one of these too, but theirs is far simpler and probably wouldn’t work for a game like GW2.

I think I read somewhere that the SteamOS is a modified version of Linux.

NCSoft makes a lot of money off of GW2 as it is. Why would they purposely lose profit for a change that benefits no one but Valve?

Smooth Penguin.5294:

NCSoft makes a lot of money off of GW2 as it is. Why would they purposely lose profit for a change that benefits no one but Valve?

In theory it would bring console/TV users to the gem store. In theory. Unfortunately, the issue is that Valve is trying to market it for other audiences instead of the one they should be targetting – console users.

Feirlista Xv.1425:

I think I read somewhere that the SteamOS is a modified version of Linux.

Shhhhh!!! What’s wrong with you? You’re going to blow my cover!

I expect Debian Linux ultimately to be to SteamOS as Darwin or BSD is to OS X.
It’s my understanding that SteamOS games won’t necessarily run on other Linux based operating systems.

It’s true that Valve has said they won’t be making any exclusive titles for their new platform however, other game developers won’t be required to follow suit although Valve is discouraging them from making exclusive titles.

I’d rather have them fix their PC client first. We haven’t got any optimizations or updates to the game engine since launch. I should be able to run this game at a smooth 60 FPS even in bigger zergs, not having to turn everything down to keep the game playable. I’m running an i7-3770k @ 4.2Ghz and a GTX 780.

SteamOS is just Linux, iirc.

They’d have to rewrite the graphics for OpenGL.

NCSoft isn’t going to pay for it.

Simple as that.

SteamOS really is just linux, it’s that simple. debian based as far as distros go, if memory serves. the steam client itself runs just fine on linux, even if not all games can (different beast, i know, but it shows a trend for valve).

as the percentage of steam-on-linux./steamos users grows, companies will start to rethink their attitude towards linux gaming

Personally I would prefer it on Linux before SteamOS.

tweeve.3782:

Personally I would prefer it on Linux before SteamOS.

SteamOS is Linux.