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Valve Pushes Out Half-Life For Linux

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Re: Valve Pushes Out Half-Life For Linux

#131

Post by rednukleus »

kunai wrote: post #124
rednukleus wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve's problem with Windows is that they perceive them to be going after a more closed system. Snubbing Windows for the far more closed OSX would be ridiculous, so that's never going to happen. The Linux market for games is absolutely tiny compared with Windows, so there's no way they are going to release a major title on Linux first either.

OS X is not "far more closed". Darwin, the UNIX kernel and utils that OS X runs on top of is fully free and open-source. It's just the Apple-specific APIs like Cocoa, Carbon, Quartz, Aqua and all that jazz that is closed-source and proprietary. Can I get source access to the NT kernel on Windows? Nope. That's Microsoft's secret and novel invention that is supposedly the best OS in the world, so they have to keep it o…

Steve Jobs proudly described the Mac as closed as opposed to Windows "open and fragmented" approach.

OS X is specifically designed not to work non-Apple hardware, even hardware that is perfectly capable of running it.

Parts of it are open source, mostly because those parts were an extention of existing open source software.

"OSX" is not free in any sense of the word.

Microsoft are still a far cry from the likes of GNU/Linux in terms of openness, but almost nobody would describe the Mac platform as "more open" than Windows.

Re: Valve Pushes Out Half-Life For Linux

#132

Post by TheAnimus »

moultano wrote: post #73
jholman wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you can only build comm chairs at tech points, you can't have insane creativity in relocations. I hate this SO MUCH. God, it was so awesome when you'd find some new insane place to tuck a commchair. Letting marines spend their own resources dilutes the game. Weaksauce. Maybe I'm getting old, but I find the maps incomprehensible. This last is the real reason I'm not logging any time on NS2.

>Because you can only build comm chairs at tech points, you can't have insane creativity in relocations. True, but this also means that the maps are possible to balance. You don't have to worry about things like red room or cold turn that break otherwise promising maps. >Letting marines spend their own resources dilutes the game. Way too many pub games of ns1 ended early because no one wanted to take on the stress of…

I don't think its just about the stress of being commander. People still have team work, commanders sometimes still buy things for marine. It just makes it a lot easier in publics, when you've got someone who is dieing all the time, from consuming the team resources unfairly.

Also when playing a PCW last night I was ordered by my comm to buy more mines and welders because "I am just a waste of a shotgun", he was a little bit upset with me.

It's more democratic, as it allows players to opt-in to such things, I've bought guns for my team mates before as a planned saving for dual exo was never going to happen.

Re: Valve Pushes Out Half-Life For Linux

#133

Post by moccajoghurt »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #118
ysangkok wrote: post #109

A couple of problems/solutions for problems I encountered using Ubuntu 12.04: * It will crash right after start using NVIDIA drivers 310.19. Upgrade to the latest, I used 310.32. * It does not work with plain ALSA, I only get sound after starting PulseAudio.

It will, put export SDL_AUDIODRIVER="alsa" in your .bashrc and relogin

If a problem is that easy to solve, I wonder why it doesn't get fixed by the developers. That way thousands of tech impaired users have to google and spend hours to solve this.

Re: Valve Pushes Out Half-Life For Linux

#134

Post by austinshea »

aw3c2 wrote: post #106
Camillo wrote: post #15

Nowadays, you might want to play Black Mesa instead: http://www.blackmesasource.com It's officially just for Windows, but it runs fine in Wine.

At least gameplay-wise Black Mesa is very different from Half-Life. To me it is different in a bad, dumb, modern way. Please do not suggest that it is the same or even superior to the original game.

A ridiculous imposition. To you it is different in a bad, dumb, modern way.

Why can't people express their opinion? Why do you care so much?

Re: Valve Pushes Out Half-Life For Linux

#135

Post by jevinskie »

kunai wrote: post #124
rednukleus wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve's problem with Windows is that they perceive them to be going after a more closed system. Snubbing Windows for the far more closed OSX would be ridiculous, so that's never going to happen. The Linux market for games is absolutely tiny compared with Windows, so there's no way they are going to release a major title on Linux first either.

OS X is not "far more closed". Darwin, the UNIX kernel and utils that OS X runs on top of is fully free and open-source. It's just the Apple-specific APIs like Cocoa, Carbon, Quartz, Aqua and all that jazz that is closed-source and proprietary. Can I get source access to the NT kernel on Windows? Nope. That's Microsoft's secret and novel invention that is supposedly the best OS in the world, so they have to keep it o…

Good luck building them. Many of the code dumps are incomplete (like dyld and ld64). They reference private apple headers and won't build without them. Granted, they can probably be hacked to build in some cases and having the source just for reading is still nice.

Re: Valve Pushes Out Half-Life For Linux

#136

Post by austinshea »

aw3c2 wrote: post #121
yawgmoth wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found HL1 to be unplayable but loved Black Mesa. I didn't have any nostalgia factor for HL1 (I was ten and computerless in '98) but had always wanted to enjoy the game. Black Mesa made that mostly possible.

You enjoyed Black Mesa then, not Half-Life! Sorry for being so nit-picky, but I find the distinction important. You would not tell some Star Trek Deep Space Nine nerd that watching Star Trek Voyager is the same. The biggest similarity between BW and HL is the general story/setting and general level layout.

You are not being nit-picky; you are being ridiculous.

You are replying to a comment which clearly states "I loved Black Mesa," and then go on to suggest that he enjoyed Black Mesa.

The general story, setting, and level layout are a tremendous amount of what would be considered a single-player, narrative-driven, FPS experience.

All that's left is the level of difficulty, and the feel of the code, as seen inside a particular engine. It's fine that you feel these are important aspects of Half-Life, but, when people wax nostalgic about this game, those who loved it remember their reactions to the setting they were in, the feelings they had inside the narrative, and the difficulties they had with particular aspects of the level design.

These are the things that were translated well, in your depiction. I haven't played it, but I suppose we can take your word for it: the team that made Black Mesa did a good job of replicating the Half-Life experience.

Re: Valve Pushes Out Half-Life For Linux

#137

Post by bitwize »

untog wrote: post #23
bitwize wrote: post #7

That's great but... where were you 15 years ago, Valve? I was trying to keep Windows 98 taped together to run HL...

Serious question: was Linux able to play any kind of game in 1998? Linux releases are a little more fluid so there aren't as many big moments, but I'd imagine it was a hell of a lot less capable in '98.

In those days, Voodoo cards were all the rage. There was a binary Glide library available for Linux; Mesa could link against it and give you full OpenGL (with some limitations, such as texture size) support. GLQuake and Quake 2 ran; and non-3D games could certainly have been made to run had the developers cared to. (I coaxed StarCraft into running with Wine, but it didn't have IPX support so no LAN play.) About a year later, the Quake 3 demo and eventually Quake 3 itself ran under Linux.

Re: Valve Pushes Out Half-Life For Linux

#139

Post by vor_ »

austinshea wrote: post #136
aw3c2 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You enjoyed Black Mesa then, not Half-Life! Sorry for being so nit-picky, but I find the distinction important. You would not tell some Star Trek Deep Space Nine nerd that watching Star Trek Voyager is the same. The biggest similarity between BW and HL is the general story/setting and general level layout.

You are not being nit-picky; you are being ridiculous. You are replying to a comment which clearly states "I loved Black Mesa," and then go on to suggest that he enjoyed Black Mesa. The general story, setting, and level layout are a tremendous amount of what would be considered a single-player, narrative-driven, FPS experience. All that's left is the level of difficulty, and the feel of the code, as seen inside a par…

> You are replying to a comment which clearly states "I loved Black Mesa," and then go on to suggest that he enjoyed Black Mesa.

He was replying to a comment that stated that they didn't enjoy Half-Life but wished they had, and that Black Mesa let them do that. The reply is correct; Black Mesa and Half-Life are different games.

Half-Life is a good game, but it's also overrated because it was so novel for being narrative-driven at the time. It's still a Quake-like arcade shooter at its core, which is great but not new anymore, so people going back and playing the original expecting to be surprised may be disappointed.

Re: Valve Pushes Out Half-Life For Linux

#140

Post by vor_ »

DeepDuh wrote: post #35
daenz wrote: post #34

I read this as a hint/signal that Half-Life 3 may be available on Linux as well.

Just imagine the effect an exclusive linux release of HL (ep?) 3 would have. If Valve really wanted to piss on Microsoft's foot, that's what they should do.

Seems like wishful thinking. If there was going to be any snubbing, I would expect it to be an early release for the PS3 or some other platform that would make Valve money. Even during the heyday of Linux ports in the 90s, from Quake 3 to SimCity 3000, Linux on the desktop never took off.
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