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Will the Star Citizen Project Fund Linux and Mac Ports For CryENGINE 3? 119

Posted by Soulskill from the voting-with-your-wallet dept.
Mr. Jaggers writes "Chris Roberts, game designer of Wing Commander fame, has had great success with his new crowd-funded Star Citizen project — so much that the $2m base goal has been smashed with weeks to go on the Kickstarter portion of the campaign. Now Chris is floating a list of stretch goals for fans to vote on, with Linux and Mac support both listed as stretch goal candidates. Since Star Citizen is based on the popular CryENGINE 3 game engine, these stretch goals are equivalent to funding Linux and Mac ports of CryENGINE. Chris couldn't make any absolute promises yet, since he doesn't own the engine, but CryENGINE 3 already supports Android, so at least there is existing OpenGL ES support to be leveraged towards adding Linux and Mac OpenGL support. If there is enough outpouring of cross-platform support from fans in this poll, Star Citizen could turn out to be the high-profile game that brings a AAA game engine to the growing Mac and Linux gaming communities — analogous to the role played by Wasteland 2 in bringing official Linux support to the Unity 4 engine popular among so many Indie developers."
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Will the Star Citizen Project Fund Linux and Mac Ports For CryENGINE 3? More

Will the Star Citizen Project Fund Linux and Mac Ports For CryENGINE 3?

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  • Why is it using CryENGINE??? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Zobeid ( 314469 ) on Sunday November 04, 2012 @02:35PM (#41873695)

    If there was ever any thought of wanting the game to run on Linux or Mac, why did he base it on CryENGINE to begin with? Isn't that sort of stupid? Really, isn't that all kinds of stupid? I should think that developers would have learned better by now.

    • Re:Why is it using CryENGINE??? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gbjbaanb ( 229885 ) on Sunday November 04, 2012 @02:45PM (#41873775)

      I don't think there was - he chose an engne to work on the platform everyone makes games for - Windows. then he adds the poll option "d'ya want it on Linux?" and 21% of responders have said "yes".

      That does mean 79% think other factors are more important.

      so whilst I think it would make sense to think linux at the start of every project, especially now that Steam's opinion is known, it wasn't the position he started from. I wonder how much work has already started with CryEngine, and whether its too late to change, or too late to get CryEngine updated to work with Linux proper (if it already works on Android, I can't see it being too difficult a task).

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by wormo ( 2645633 )

        I don't think there was - he chose an engne to work on the platform everyone makes games for - Windows. then he adds the poll option "d'ya want it on Linux?" and 21% of responders have said "yes".

        That does mean 79% think other factors are more important.

        From the Star Citizen FAQ on kickstarter:

        Star Citizen is a PC game through and through and could never be played on the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 or WiiU. We currently plan to support Windows and are examining our options regarding possible Linux and Macintosh releases. The Cloud Imperium team includes many Linux and Macintosh fans!

        Even with some core team members who are Linux and Mac fans, they picked the engine they thought would make the game most outstanding on Windows, since that's their only mandatory platform to be successful on a large scale. However, if there proves to be enough interest in the game on other PC platforms, then they have good business reasons to invest some of the additional money to extend their market to these new groups, and boost team morale as a bonus. How many Wi

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Nikker ( 749551 )
          Ahhh all bullshit. If whomever sees that Linux wants to pay, will make the companies make (at the very least) better drivers to support their engine, then it will happen. Look at the state of ARM. Set top boxes, phones, tablets of all sizes will be able to run it. 2 million in cash makes its it even better. Now a Linux, Android port makes even more sense. They can now make a Linux port an be compatible with virtually all machines and OS's. I can set up a S4 Pro chip or a host of others that can play t

          • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

            by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
            Comment removed based on user account deletion

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Nikker ( 749551 )
              Lol wut? All I'm saying is the deversification of the engine will lead to wider range of support by more hardware vendors.

              As for this

              "comparing AN EMBEDDED SOLUTION where the OEMs control ALL of the hwardware AND the code to an actual general purpose operating system, can you? "

              all I can say is, did that really make sense to you as you wrote it?

              Really?

        • Yeah I'm sure flipping off Nvidia because they won't jump through your little hoops is the mature way to handle dealings with a billion dollar corporation that millions of your users depend on, smooth move there

          It's even worse than that. When NVidia did assign someone to work on Optimus support he was told the kernel API he needed to make it work, and had been introduced specifically for Optimus like set ups was GPL only [slashdot.org]. If I were NVidia I'd just EOL the closed source driver on the groups that the open source and community maintained nouveau driver is now "mature enough to replace it". Smirk.

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by chrish ( 4714 )

              Apple didn't "go with" BSD for OS X, it came as part of the NeXTStep bits, which predate Linux by several years (first commercial release in 1989 for NeXTStep vs 0.1 or whatever in 1991 for Linux).

              NeXTStep was a microkernel, with a BSD "personality" module (so people could run portable software), and an advanced (at the time) GUI. IIRC there were plans for other "personality" modules, but I don't think any were ever built... people wanted NeXT GUI software for everything that wasn't "good enough" on the BSD

            • You can use closed-source software in an open source ecosystem, whatever gave you the idea that you can't? Also, commercial is not the same as open source - look at Quake 1, 2 and 3, totally open yet the games themselves still cost money.

              However, Nvidia is a special case - their drivers are NOT their core business model, and developing Open Source ones (or even better, join the Nouveau effort) would, in the long run, gain them so much. Right now it's a bit of a "Meh" situation - but imagine 10 years down th

              • Comment removed based on user account deletion

                • First off: Nvidia can choose any GPLv2 compatible license they want, including GPLv2 itself. It CANNOT choose GPLv3 because it's incompatible with GPLv2 (though not GPLv2+, but kernel is GPLv2 and not GPLv2+).

                  Secondly: Why can't those few, specific parts that must be closed be pushed into a binary blob with hooks in the more open source core? Sounds to me it should be possible especially with a BSD-style license. It could be possible, for instance, to just keep the encryption closed while everything else is

                  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

                    • BSD. License. Is. Compatible. With. GPLv2.

                      Linux. Kernel. Is. Not. And. Cannot. Ever. Be. GPLv3.

                      "As for why they can't just "put those parts" into a binary...because it won't fricking work? you are talking about gutting the very HEART of the system, what would that accomplish?"

                      Spoken like a person who haven't ever refactored code. Yes you can move those business-critical parts into their own functions, and then move those specific functions into a binary blob. BSD allows for that. But seems you can't compreh

                    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

                    • You should know by now that the only thing accomplished by dealing with a FOSS fanboy is an increase in blood pressure. Let them live in their own little reality - so long as it's insulated from the rest of us, they can be as deluded as they want to be. :)

                    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

                    • "why the fuck should they waste all that money? To make some license nazi happy?"

                      No. To not lose market share. [freerepublic.com]

        • The main problem between mr torvalds and nvidia, is that up to that point nvidia has never ever wanted to collaborate with them, nor even try to use whatever already exist in linux.
          nvidia wanted the lazy way and share as much code as possible. their current way to do things is throw everything in the garbage and do things their own way. the problem is that this doesn't play nice with everyone else (including Intel hardware) and thus some functionality is completely broken (Optimus only works though third pa

    • Familiarity with the toolset could be one of the reasons.

    • Re:Why is it using CryENGINE??? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Zocalo ( 252965 ) on Sunday November 04, 2012 @02:55PM (#41873847) Homepage
      Because Chris felt that consoles couldn't deliver his vision for the game and originally wanted the game to be PC only. There was a lot of call from fans on the game forums asking about Linux/Mac ports, so now he's looking into the possibility of providing support for those platforms. It's called listening to your target audience, and it's nice to see a company that is actually prepared to do that these days.

      What I find far more interesting is the current poll standings for the additional platform support; 23% of the voters want a Linux port vs. only 8% for MacOS. Seriously? Almost a quarter of space/flight sim fans run Linux? I know FlightGear is good, but who knew?

      • X-Plane (http://www.x-plane.com) is also supported on Linux.

      • What I find far more interesting is the current poll standings for the additional platform support; 23% of the voters want a Linux port vs. only 8% for MacOS. Seriously? Almost a quarter of space/flight sim fans run Linux? I know FlightGear is good, but who knew?

        I don't understand why the geek gives an online poll any credibility whatever.

        The online poll is trivially easy to manipulate. It is not a random sampling of the potential market for anything.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Zocalo ( 252965 )
          Perhaps you missed the skepticism in my second point - you know, all those question marks and the use of the word "seriously"?

          Of course on-line polls are often easy to manipulate, as Slashdot's poll box likes to remind us, but given the options on this particular poll why would the manipulators apparently single out the options for supporting Linux or MacOS when there are other, more entertaining options? There is also the complication that you need to pick three options, so if someone were poll stuffin

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Because of their budget, they can't justify creating a new engine, and CryEngine currently does everything they need in order to create the game they want to make. While it doesn't currently support Linux, the engine may be ported because of this game, which is the point of this article.

      Are you one of those people who only uses sporks because you never know if your mom might be serving soup with your meal and don't want to look "all kinds of stupid" for having to get up and get a spoon out of the utensil dr

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Sir_Sri ( 199544 )

      If there was ever any thought of wanting the game to run on Linux or Mac, why did he base it on CryENGINE to begin with?

      Because for most projects those are nonsense pipe dreams. 90% of the desktop market is windows, and a large portion of the mac and linux gamers have windows installs already. Doing a Mac/Linux port is good press and good karma, and sometimes a way to keep the linux/mac nerds on staff happy, but from a business perspective it's usually mind numbingly stupid, and throwing money away on bad ideas is a way to find yourself looking for work.

      Now this is where kickstarter comes in. Developing a linux port is a

  • I played Wing Commander all night last night on my Tandy 2500SX/20. Down to the last mission at Venice. Beat it a couple times but my wingman keeps dying. I also played it a few years ago on Dosbox. Somehow it's much more fun on the Tandy, even if it's a little slow when there's 8 ships in play. I'm building a 486 for the rest of the series. WCII should play just right with the turbo off.

    • When you build your 486, get Red Baron also. Other games I enjoyed from that era but you might not be interested are Quest for Glory series, Stunts, Xwing, and a really under appreciated game: Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe. I have fond memories of flying a B-17, and after bombing my target, doing strafing runs on it so my campaign advanced further :P Eventually I got so slick that I'd do a 1/2 barrel roll and strafe the targets with the top turret as well :P

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Hatta ( 162192 )

        Red Baron is on my list. I already have boxed copies of Aces over the Pacific and Europe that I found at Goodwill. Visited the same Goodwill today and found a Thrustmaster FCS joystick. Score!

        Luftwaffe sounds like something I'd be interested in. Also on topic, also looking forward to Strike Commander, another Chris Roberts game.

    • I played Wing Commander all night last night on my Tandy 2500SX/20. [...] I also played it a few years ago on Dosbox. [...] I'm building a 486 for the rest of the series.

      I'm building my own OS. The x86 bootloader starts in Real Mode - Just like "DOS". Right at boot on any of your x86 machines you can write text/attributes and/or graphics directly to video memory (@ B800h for EGA/VGA text). No drivers needed because modern BIOSs, and GPUs provide the old interrupt table and CGA/EGA/MCGA/VGA video modes for backwards compatibility. You can use int 13h to do your disk services. Play sounds to the PC speaker. It's just like writing assembly back in the good 'ol 286 days -

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Hatta ( 162192 )

        That's great, but Wing Commander runs too fast on anything other than a 386 or slow 486. There are also no ISA slots on modern boards, and DOS has never been real happy about PCI sound cards.

  • It has a $500,000 goal, and has so far only gotten $886,252.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The article didn't mention the website RSI almost has 2m on its own.

    • Re:2m? Not even close (Score:5, Informative)

      by Zocalo ( 252965 ) on Sunday November 04, 2012 @02:47PM (#41873803) Homepage
      Kickstarter is only providing part of the funding. The bulk of the funding has been made at the main site [robertsspa...stries.com] for the game, and the combined total of both sites is currently standing at just over $2.7m.
    • But they have raised over 2M, 800k of which is on kickstarter, check out their website in the summary link

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Seumas ( 6865 )

      It's at about $3.8m right now, $900k of which is just from the Kickstarter page.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Seumas ( 6865 )

        Nevermind. I hadn't realized this whole time that the website's tally was already including the Kickstarter funds. WOW. They're doing far worse than I thought. This whole time, I was thinking "holy shit, they are going to reach most of their extended goals by the end, with almost four million raised already!".

        With only about $3m raised, I would hope they would just focus on one solid game and worry about a fucking linux port when and if the main platform is successful and justifies the expense.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Nemyst ( 1383049 )

          The goal was $2M, which would unlock additional investor money. Anything above $2M is going to help fund additional elements, but the game is already funded.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Seumas ( 6865 )

            The basic goal was $2m. The extended goals were $3m, $4m, $6m (it looks like they've since added them at every 500k, though).

            At any rate, having the extended goals seems a little unnecessary. They're going to have a hell of a time accomplishing even the most basic concept at three million bucks -- even considering that this funding isn't to create the whole game, but just to help get a showing of support to then reach out to more traditional investment (as they already stated at the beginning of the fundrai

            • Not really. The kickstarted is currently trending towards 1.6 million alone, about double what it is now. Getting 5-6$ million is impossible, I'd expect them to hit around $4m based on the usual patterns for these games. If it trends like Project Eternity did, it'll hit around $5.5m, but that would take a large last minute rush... which an announcement of Linux support might do.

            • Oh, how do you figure? The traditional investment portion was to be some $8M (to bring the budget up to ~$10M), and is supposedly already lined up, modulo the initial funding goal (I believe Chris stated as much during one of the Reddit AMA's).

              Moreover, of all the extended goal possibilities in the poll, which do you seriously believe would go toward bringing in new backers? More missions than before? More NPCs? I suspect that the lion's share of backers who would be swayed by those (and the "improved F

              • Re: (Score:1)

                by wormo ( 2645633 )

                of all the extended goal possibilities in the poll, which do you seriously believe would go toward bringing in new backers? More missions than before? More NPCs? I suspect that the lion's share of backers who would be swayed by those (and the "improved FPS mode"...) have already pledged.

                That's me! I'm only going to pledge if there are at least 20 more NPCs! I don't know how many there are now, but there must be more!!!

                J/K. In this household we're holding out for Linux support, and strongly hope for Mac for the sake of a couple other friends. The windows gamers in our group are also not likely to pledge without platform support, because they are busy engineers who nowadays mostly just play online games with our group.

            • Pardon, the outside funding is around $10M, not the total funding goal, crowd-sourcing included. I think there is enough funding to extend the goals beyond the original scope (which I agree would have been impossible to meet, even in the $4-5M range).

              • Replying to self... I was right the first time, it's $8M from the silent partner(s), for a total of $10M before stretch goals.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      They also have private backing, apparently around 10 million USD total at the moment according to article on ars: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/11/star-citizens-chris-roberts-discusses-upping-the-ante-on-pc-gaming/ [arstechnica.com]

      That said, for a project of this size, that isn't that great of a budget. We're either looking at something rather mediocre in the genre that has been stale for ages (so even mediocre will look great), or they will go looking for more funding at some point.

      That said, I was a huge fan of freel

  • Good News for Linux Gaming... (Score:5, Informative)

    by dryriver ( 1010635 ) on Sunday November 04, 2012 @02:58PM (#41873863)
    When the original "Wing Commander" was released for DOS, many hardcore Amiga/Atari ST gamers bought PCs just to be able to play it. No game before it had the kind of graphics, story or space combat that Wing Commander offered. And this one game (plus the hugely innovative Ultima Underworld perhaps) turned PCs into a potent gaming machine overnight. ---- Star Citizen may very well do the same for Linux. A Chris Roberts Space Game + Internet Massively Multiplayer + Cryengine 3 graphics + Newtonian Physics simulation on everything in game + Linux = Nerd Heaven!!! ------- I say "Go, Chris Roberts, Go! Bring SC and CryEngine 3 to Linux!!!"

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      A Chris Roberts Space Game + Internet Massively Multiplayer + Cryengine 3 graphics + Newtonian Physics simulation on everything in game + Linux = Nerd Heaven!!!

      Not so much for this one.

      The Christ Roberts part ok.
      MMO not so much. If its 'popular' there are tons of griefers. If its unpopular its a ghost town.
      Cry engine 3. Could care less so long as it looks good and plays cool. Plus whatever he does will not be ported over to the real engine anyway...
      Newtonian physics. This will *suck*. This has been tr

      • Newtonian physics. This will *suck*. This has been tried many times. It usually makes for a painful game to play. Its realistic but usually makes for a pinball machine sort of gameplay. I have played several of these games all the way thru. With a story as good as the original WC. But they were a horrible exercise of fuel management and strafing.

        Depends, if he was going full 100% real physics I'd agree, but he isn't. He's going mostly accurate, but with enough leeway to actually make it fun, which is very much possible (I've played several games that have done it). And it isn't a full-on MMO, it's more of an instanced persistent set of servers, so griefing is unlikely to be an issue, and even if it is a "ghost town" you can still play the single-player story without caring. Besides, a game like this, the players themselves will be able to band toge

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by am 2k ( 217885 )

        Newtonian physics. This will *suck*. This has been tried many times. It usually makes for a painful game to play. Its realistic but usually makes for a pinball machine sort of gameplay.

        From his descriptions, he's found a cheap way out of that: The physics are real, but your ship has so much intelligence of its own, that you tell to what you want to do, and it will fire the correct thrusters at the correct time for the correct duration to do it. Thus, steering is still easy to do.

        This is even dynamic, so if one of your thrusters gets shot down, the computer tries to compensate for that as far as it is possible.

      • Presumably, one of the newtonian physics games you played was Terminus. While some do not like this, others do. Personally I found Terminus so nice, that whenever I play a non newtonian space "sim", I end up stopping being interested very fast.

        The only problem is that if you want to run a newtonian space combat sim, you more or less need two joysticks, one for yaw and pitch and one for vertical and horizontal strafing, and most good joysticks only come in right handed variants.

    • AFAIK, it was more because a new PC clone/parts were cheaper than other platforms while still offering equal or superior sound/video abilities. (My family switched from Apple IIgs to PCs back then in part so I could play the latest Ultima games, but we wouldn't have been able to do it without favorable pricing.) You're conflating two separate years & shifts in computer ownership, though:

      --In 1990-1991, PCs were just starting to dominate the market, and Origin Systems released Wing Commander, Wing Com

  • Linux users have to know the game exists. (Score:3)

    by Zombie Ryushu ( 803103 ) on Sunday November 04, 2012 @02:58PM (#41873869)

    The Linux Gaming community is a different audience than the Windows Gaming community. It has to be marketed to Linux gamers properly.

    • I'll tell you one big difference between them: Windows gamers mostly wait for games to be presented to them, Linux gamers actively pursue their options.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

        This fundraiser seems to be directly contravening your rather bold claims.

        • No, it does not at all.

          This game appeals to a large portion of the population. The number of Windows users greatly outweighs the number of Linux users. Of those who run Linux, few lack the access to Windows or ability to use it. Even if the backers WANT to have Linux support, it isn't surprising to prefer other additions to the game. Given all that, 22% is a really large proportion to see for this work-intensive effort which will not improve the quality of the game.

          I think that is a great sign for gaming on

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

            Asking for something that is a nice, slightly easier way to use the product doesn't equate to demand. Most of these people will simply boot windows to play. In the end there is little to no lost audience to this issue regardless of "would you want one" poll numbers.

            It's nice to entertain thoughts about windows not being the only game in town when it comes to PC gaming. But that is simply the reality at the moment. And as long as windows can be easily booted on the same PCs that runs linux when needed, there

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by wormo ( 2645633 )
      Being on slashdot frontpage is a decent first step to letting Linux gamers know about the existence and possible relevance of Star Citizen; my guess is a lot of us read slashdot (I have for many years, though only recently converted from anonymous coward)

  • If you believe phoronix article at all... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Supposedly, there is already a Linux port of the CryEngine 3:

    http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTA4Mjk

    Again, its from Phoronix, so take it with a grain of salt.

    • HLSL>GLSL probably carries a lot of overhead, and considering , a multi-platform (well, multi-api really) CryENGINE3 would be extremely convoluted from its lack of material nodes.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Gwala ( 309968 )

        Unity does this actually - all shaders are written in Cg/HLSL, then cross-compiled to GLSL for OpenGL & OGLES. It's a surprisingly pleasant workflow - especially with their Surface Shader framework.

  • I pretty much doubt this will even be CLOSE to a triple A title. Starlancer was no Wing Commander. And even though much of the problem with that game was Microsoft buying it and rushing it out the door. Though if they hadn't it would have been a case like 38 Studios, where the game never gets finished, and the devs go tits up.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by wormo ( 2645633 )
      Stepping aside from whether there is significant reason to be skeptical about the success Star Citizen itself... the OP claim was that the *game engine* is AAA class. Are you going to dispute that CryENGINE 3 is not being used for AAA titles? How about the first two Crysis games which have each sold in the millions? I suspect some of the other stuff currently in development will also qualify as AAA titles.
      • An Engine does not a good game make. The engine is great, what is being done WITH the engine is what I'm talking about. Roberts did Wing Commander 22 years ago and was AWESOME, then came WC2 and it was no longer his baby and instead he made Strike Commander which was pretty meh in 93 [19 years ago] WC3 and 4 [as well as privateer] were decent games if you don't put too much into the "Acting" that went into the cut scenes. Roberts wanted to do movies, but it SUCKED and now is back trying to make a couple gam

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by wormo ( 2645633 )
          Those are all legitimate opinions. It looked like you might be arguing with the original post, but I guess you're not. Regardless of whether Star Citizen is an awesome game like original Wing Commander (as some of us hope), the side-effect of having a sweet game engine be ported to non-windows desktops could be enough for some Linux/Mac gamers to pledge some money to the project (those who don't dual-boot and who are fortunate to have some discretionary money to throw around).

  • I am finished with dual-booting just to slurp up the latest and greatest games. The last console I purchased was a Playstation 2, and that was about a decade ago. I have the tablet that supports the most games (guess what one!) and a computer that runs a non-Windows OS.

    It is a pretty simple thing to use one of the many multi-platform game development engines that are kicking about these days. If a game producer decides not to release a game on my OS, they will not see a sale. It's as simple as that.

    The

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by wormo ( 2645633 )
      A sensible policy! Supposing your non-Windows OS is either Linux or Mac OS, are you interested in increasing the number of titles available by having another big game engine support it? Or is CryENGINE just not your style (it is rather different than DF after all).

  • Making out that it's the first? (Score:3)

    by ewanm89 ( 1052822 ) on Sunday November 04, 2012 @05:47PM (#41874847) Homepage

    "could turn out to be the high-profile game that brings a AAA game engine to the growing Mac and Linux gaming communities"
    Is he trying to make out CryEngine 3 will be the first AAA game engine on Mac and Linux? I guess the Quake, ID Tech, Unreal and Source (been on Mac for a while, Linux is in Beta now) engines done count?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by wormo ( 2645633 )

      "could turn out to be the high-profile game that brings a AAA game engine to the growing Mac and Linux gaming communities" Is he trying to make out CryEngine 3 will be the first AAA game engine on Mac and Linux? I guess the Quake, ID Tech, Unreal and Source (been on Mac for a while, Linux is in Beta now) engines done count?

      No, the point is that this game could bring *another* AAA game engine to Mac and Linux, namely CryENGINE. There was no mention of the word "first", but some of us are still excited at the prospect of another former Windows** gaming stronghold going cross-platform. It is not a frequent event that this happens, but your examples are all good ones as well!

      ** yes I know CryENGINE runs on consoles and android too, I'm discussing PC platforms here

  • Other Kickstarter game using Unity (Score:3)

    by the_arrow ( 171557 ) on Sunday November 04, 2012 @09:44PM (#41876441) Homepage

    The developers of the futuristic racer Distance (12 days to go on Kickstarter [kickstarter.com]) has tried a beta of Unity 4 on Linux, and now says that they will definitelly bring the game out on Linux as well.

  • If there is such a large support for the space-flight sim. genre in the Linux community, then they might consider Strike Suit Zero [kickstarter.com], with a stretch goal of $180k that will make them deliver a Linux version.

    • Or you could just go with the brilliant open-source version of FreeSpace 2 http://scp.indiegames.us/ [indiegames.us].
      Actually this is several games include a fun Bablyon 5 game and at least two Battlestart Galatica games along with both FS1 and FS2 ($6 each at gog.com) which with modem graphics stand up very well. The is even a really good new Wing Commander game http://www.wcsaga.com/ [wcsaga.com] (still needs Wine at the moment, but they are working on it)

  • Just to clarify a common misunderstanding in the original article: Wasteland was not a trigger factor in getting Unity ported to Linux. The project Kickstarter happened to coincide with the announcement of the platform support, but did not cause it. Dedicated developers had been working on the port for a long time before it was announced. One does not simply walk into Linux.

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