Guild Wars 2

Since ArenaNet has already created a Mac client, they have already done the majority of work they would need to get a native Linux version up and running.

So what do you say, ArenaNet? How about showing us Linux fans some love?

Mac users do not have a choice regarding their OS all they can do is have Windows emulated, Linux users however chose to use Linux and they can very well have a windows partition and be done with it.

So with that in mind I do not see why would a company waste resources in to making a client for a minority of players who deliberately chose to use a different OS.

As another very well known games developer said., Once the linux community decides on a standard distribution to focus on, then we will start developing games for it.

The problem with linux is that there are vast numbers of different distros in use. And it’s normally the people that know absolutely nothing about linux that are asking for games to be developed for that codebase.

Considering that the Mac client is just a commercial variant of a WINE port, there already is a comparable Linux client.

Siveon.8759:

Mac users do not have a choice regarding their OS all they can do is have Windows emulated, Linux users however chose to use Linux and they can very well have a windows partition and be done with it.

So with that in mind I do not see why would a company waste resources in to making a client for a minority of players who deliberately chose to use a different OS.

Mac users can run Windows natively on their systems using Boot Camp, so that excuse doesn’t work.

As for “a minority of players”, you should check out the stats for the Humble Indie Bundles sometime where Linux purchases are at least equal to and often greater than Mac purchases ( http://www.humblebundle.com/ ), so there is clearly a large number of Linux gamers willing to support games developed natively for their platform of choice.

In short, none of your rationalizations hold water.

On a related note, Steam is coming to Linux in the near future with Valve planning to create native Linux versions of all of their games. That in and of itself shoots down any notion that Linux is not a viable platform for games.

Renegadeimp.8439:

As another very well known games developer said., Once the linux community decides on a standard distribution to focus on, then we will start developing games for it.

The problem with linux is that there are vast numbers of different distros in use. And it’s normally the people that know absolutely nothing about linux that are asking for games to be developed for that codebase.

Whoever made that crack about a “standard distribution” either doesn’t know anything about Linux or was just making a cheap excuse to not support the platform. If something can run on one Linux distro then it can run on any Linux distro. There are even a number of cross-platform installers to make a developer’s life easier.

So it looks like another silly rationalization goes right out the window.

Yes they do. It’s the main reason why most developers dont go anywhere near linux. There needs to be a standard distro, which means a standard codebase in order for a developer to decide to dedicate resources to that platform.

Unless of course, you are saying that you know more than pretty much every games developer on the planet does.

Renegadeimp.8439:

There needs to be a standard distro, which means a standard codebase

Um, yeah, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Every single Linux distro in existence has the exact same code base. A program that can run on one Linux distro can run on any Linux distro. Literally.

And besides, professional developers have been supporting Linux for years, including major studios like id, Epic, BioWare (Neverwinter Nights), Croteam (Serious Sam games), and soon Valve, along with hundreds of independent shops. If Linux is really so hard to develop for then how do you suppose they’ve managed it? Voodoo magic?

They were set to one codebase. Go read up on it if you dont believe me. Thats why some distros had to be edited or use third party programs to make it run.

Add to this, the very simple fact that creating a FULL client for linux would not be financially viable, and you have the main reasons why the vast majority of devs wont have anything to do with it.

Linux is a horrible, terrible platform for a gaming machine – way too fragmented.

First of all, this is merely a wrapper, not an actual port of the game. You could have done the very same thing ArenaNet did by using one of the various wrappers available out there. It has limited success and most people are noting significant FPS hits using the wrapper compared to running it on bootcamp.

So if you want to run it on Linux, I suggest you do exactly what ArenaNet did, take one of the wrappers out there that allow you to play Windows games under your OS and use that. THAT IS ALL ARENANET DID with this Mac Beta Client. They did not rewrite that game for the Mac.

pmiles.3489:

First of all, this is merely a wrapper, not an actual port of the game. You could have done the very same thing ArenaNet did by using one of the various wrappers available out there. It has limited success and most people are noting significant FPS hits using the wrapper compared to running it on bootcamp.

So if you want to run it on Linux, I suggest you do exactly what ArenaNet did, take one of the wrappers out there that allow you to play Windows games under your OS and use that. THAT IS ALL ARENANET DID with this Mac Beta Client. They did not rewrite that game for the Mac.

I wouldn’t have an issue if Arena.net OFFICALLY supported wine as they did with Cider (be it cider an older branch off of wine on a different licensing agreement.) The latest build of Wine 1.5.13 now supports the raw input needed by GW2 to rotate the camera, however the awesominium browser used by GW2 became broken, even with the patches, after the OS X beta updates, so there is no way to use the trade center currently, even after trying to import the native libraries from XP SP3. So yeah, if they support OS X, they should support Linux. Linux has a brighter future of the 3, considering the practices Microsoft and Apple are now employing.

Linux fragmented? Almost all current Linux distributions support either the latest 2.6.x kernel or the latest 3.x kernel, which is the core of the system.

Sure every distribution may have their own tweaks to the UI or have included specific sets of software, or even have their own repository for software downloads, but the core of the system is still the same.

I guess if you are an Apple fanboy, you can easily use the word fragmented in place of convenience/customization/choice.

Personally, I’d appreciate the recognition afforded by an official Linux client download, with or without official technical support (recognition being the primary benefit Mac users gain from a client on the website, along with improved awareness and ease-of-use).

I would especially appreciate it considering there has been more support from the Linux community than the Mac community since ArenaNet’s founding (Boot Camp didn’t even exist when GW1 was first released, and x86 Macs barely did), and the Mac “port” owes much to the GNU/Linux and open-source community. Mac users, Transgaming, and ArenaNet have all benefited from it (Wine), and regardless of market share, it would be a very fair gesture.

P.S.
Just to reiterate what others have said, as a primary linux user, there is no noteworthy distinction between any of the major distros within the context of software development.

Not to mention that Linux has stayed true to standards much more than windows or mac has. Its rather simple to add a option to the application menu by putting a .desktop file in the users application file. All games can either be installed to main system with root privleges or just to the users home directory. However what works on one distro will work on all distros baring some wierd dependancy issues that windows and mac can also suffer from.