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No Man's Sky: Update 1.03

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Re: No Man's Sky: Update 1.03

#31

Post by c22 »

mvkel wrote: post #9
ekimekim wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a) A few years ago it was a sub 1% market share and no games bothered. Now it's a sub 5% (disclaimer: I'm making these numbers up) and i'd say approx 50% of indie games and 10% of AAA bother. We fight because we're slowly winning. b) A dual boot setup is awfully annoying. I keep a ton of things open in a "i'm in the middle of this" state, and shutting everything down/losing that state in order to reboot is a massive…

It's still sub-1% market share. Would you design a site that only works on IE6?

No, but I might design one that also works on IE6.

Re: No Man's Sky: Update 1.03

#32

Post by rhubarbquid »

shmerl wrote: post #24
rhubarbquid wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mac used to be the same story, but now I would bet that at least 10% of indie game sales are on Mac. One of the big things that changed was that Macs got a lot more popular and became a bigger market. I think the main reason we don't see more games for Linux is that it's just not a big enough market (yet?)

Actually we do see way more games for Linux. If you paid attention, their amount increased a lot in the past several years. From major engines, to major distributors, Linux is now in the gaming mainstream. Only legacy publishers mostly lag behind (the likes of EA and Blizzard). But they are always followers, not innovators.

I think we agree, I meant "more than we could" not "more than there used to be" ;-)

Re: No Man's Sky: Update 1.03

#33

Post by sandworm101 »

flashman wrote: post #16
wmf wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does sound kind of weird that the three paths (whatever that means) were added after the game went gold.

I've read lots of comments from people bewildered that Hello Games is continuing to add features and work on bugs after the game has gone gold. Gold is the 1.0 release: they got the game to a state where there were no showstoppers, and now they're continuing to add value to the game, as well as address issues that only become obvious when large numbers of naive users (and their myriad hardware specifications) encount…

Lol, Have a look at what Monkey Squad is doing with Kerbal Space Program. They added many game-altering and save-breaking "features", even migrated to a new version of unity, post-1.0 release. The days of distinctions between alpha, beta and release are gone. Developers are free to release most anything they want under whatever banner they choose.

Re: No Man's Sky: Update 1.03

#34

Post by yoklov »

shmerl wrote: post #30
JesseMeyer wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anything seriously graphical, you're wrong.

For anything seriously graphical there is Vulkan which is basically the same where it's supported.

This is not a good argument, Vulkan is both brand new and much more difficult to support than other graphics APIs.

Also Vulkan support doesn't fix busted drivers, wonky fullscreen, OS integration, etc.

It also doesn't fix audio, or HID support, which is both huge headaches on linux.

Re: No Man's Sky: Update 1.03

#35

Post by yoklov »

mpd wrote: post #5
pduan wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood why people on Linux always fight to have games on the platform. From the dev perspective, Linux is probably a sub 5% market share so it's never worth the effort compared to releasing new features/content. Why fight this losing trend when you could easily dual boot or even have a dedicated gaming rig?

Because as a developer, it's often easier to develop for Linux than other major platforms. You often get Linux compatability for "free". It's worth asking for for this reason.

This is true for certain types of software, but it is neither easier nor free to develop games for linux, by any stretch.

Re: No Man's Sky: Update 1.03

#36

Post by NEDM64 »

CyberShadow wrote: post #18
pduan wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood why people on Linux always fight to have games on the platform. From the dev perspective, Linux is probably a sub 5% market share so it's never worth the effort compared to releasing new features/content. Why fight this losing trend when you could easily dual boot or even have a dedicated gaming rig?

> I never understood why people on Linux always fight to have games on the platform. Because it is important to challenge monopolies least they abuse their position of power. With DirectX, XNA etc., Microsoft pretty much holds the monopoly as the PC gaming OS. Microsoft has made bold moves against individual freedom and privacy in Windows 10, and I'm sure more will follow. And what better platform to compete against…

Sorry, but you're being naive.

Rarely there are standards bodies that aren't controlled by companies and their interests.

If they allowed OpenGL to flourish, it would ultimately be controlled by either Nvidia, ATI, PowerVR or someone else in the interest group to suit their hardware. Somebody has to pay the engineers.

Look at W3C, if is practically controlled by Google, and they only do what suits their needs, the way they want.

Look at Bluetooth, Apple is controlling the thing, and now they are releasing a newer version that's selfishly taylored for Apple to sell expensive headphones probably with patented methods, which they will use to protect themselves in court in case someone goes on a patent war against them.

Re: No Man's Sky: Update 1.03

#37

Post by shmerl »

NEDM64 wrote: post #36
CyberShadow wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I never understood why people on Linux always fight to have games on the platform. Because it is important to challenge monopolies least they abuse their position of power. With DirectX, XNA etc., Microsoft pretty much holds the monopoly as the PC gaming OS. Microsoft has made bold moves against individual freedom and privacy in Windows 10, and I'm sure more will follow. And what better platform to compete against…

Sorry, but you're being naive. Rarely there are standards bodies that aren't controlled by companies and their interests. If they allowed OpenGL to flourish, it would ultimately be controlled by either Nvidia, ATI, PowerVR or someone else in the interest group to suit their hardware. Somebody has to pay the engineers. Look at W3C, if is practically controlled by Google, and they only do what suits their needs, the wa…

So, you think it's better not to have open standards and let lock-in and monopolies run rampant? Hard, doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.

Re: No Man's Sky: Update 1.03

#38

Post by shmerl »

yoklov wrote: post #34
shmerl wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anything seriously graphical there is Vulkan which is basically the same where it's supported.

This is not a good argument, Vulkan is both brand new and much more difficult to support than other graphics APIs. Also Vulkan support doesn't fix busted drivers, wonky fullscreen, OS integration, etc. It also doesn't fix audio, or HID support, which is both huge headaches on linux.

So what if it's new? Technology shouldn't stand in one place. MS got so scared of it, that they rushed to push their NIH lock-in alternative (DX12). It demonstrates they understand the strong potential of competition here.

Drivers can be busted anywhere (including Windows). But with Vulkan they are reduced to hardware layer which is ironed out rather fast normally. Not sure what you mean about OS integration (sounds too vague). Fullscreen, input and etc. are mostly issues related to X11, which should be cleaner with Wayland usage. The later takes longer than it should to get adopted, but all major DEs are already close to it.

Sound - never had any sound problems on Linux for a while. Are you sure you aren't measuring it by experiences of some early broken Pulse releases?

Re: No Man's Sky: Update 1.03

#39

Post by Negative1 »

It's funny how he cites Carmack's plan/finger updates as a source of inspiration since these kind of changes went in over the course of the games development, not on a day 1 patch! If you consider the game on 'disc' as the finished product, there is no way you could consider this game complete given the incredible number of changes in this patch. A while back reviewers tried to pull this 'on disc review only' thing and I don't think that's even possible anymore due to DRM like Steam requiring a patch before the game can start.

Even so, bravo to the team for the extra effort to make sure the experience is as good as it can be.

(Oh, and atmospheric refraction? Surely he means improved mie/raleigh atmospheric light scattering)

Re: No Man's Sky: Update 1.03

#40

Post by CyberShadow »

NEDM64 wrote: post #36
CyberShadow wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I never understood why people on Linux always fight to have games on the platform. Because it is important to challenge monopolies least they abuse their position of power. With DirectX, XNA etc., Microsoft pretty much holds the monopoly as the PC gaming OS. Microsoft has made bold moves against individual freedom and privacy in Windows 10, and I'm sure more will follow. And what better platform to compete against…

Sorry, but you're being naive. Rarely there are standards bodies that aren't controlled by companies and their interests. If they allowed OpenGL to flourish, it would ultimately be controlled by either Nvidia, ATI, PowerVR or someone else in the interest group to suit their hardware. Somebody has to pay the engineers. Look at W3C, if is practically controlled by Google, and they only do what suits their needs, the wa…

You are talking about something else.

> If they allowed OpenGL to flourish, it would ultimately be controlled by either Nvidia, ATI, PowerVR or someone else in the interest group to suit their hardware.

As opposed to DirectX, which is not implementable on other systems without large reverse-engineering efforts, because the technology depends on proprietary and encumbered middle-ware. Does a former specification for DirectX even exist (aside the documentation for Microsoft's implementation of the API)? Or it is one and the same, is it not? Where is the DirectX equivalent of MESA?

W3C, Bluetooth etc. have nothing to do with PC gaming. Why are you bringing this up? But since you mentioned W3C, what would you prefer - proprietary technology controlled by a single entity, such as Adobe Flash, or an open standard, such as HTML5?

An open platform allows free choice of technologies to use it with. A closed platform restricts those choices. A monopoly in control of a closed platform has even more freedom to restrict freedom of choice, and push forward with platform lock-in.

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