Messages

1

General / Re: Supported Platforms

« on: July 10, 2007, 02:46:55 am »

do the quake 2 modders see it as an inconvenience? do the ut2k4 modders see it as an inconvenience? how about the doom modders? of course not, because they all understand that modding and coding require case sensitivity.

please correct me if im wrong here (and i really do hope i am), but it sounds like to me you are looking for any and every excuse not to do a linux port, almost like you have already made up your mind and just want to convince everyone else that its not worth it. you are making case sensitivety out to be a much bigger problem than it really is. the whole modding community understands case sensitivity and also understands about proper naming structures. you call it an inconvenience while everyone else calls it proper naming schemes.

if the sound porting is too problematic for you, have you thought about getting outside help? the guys at icculus are always looking for freelance work, of course, at a small fee, but its always an option.

2

General / Re: Supported Platforms

« on: July 10, 2007, 12:05:05 am »

but, C++ in nature is case sensitive. any developer or modder would understand this and just follow the same paradigm.

and to say that windows and OSX are case insensitive is not entirely true. when it comes to passwords, it is very case sensitive (windows got around that with their LM Hashing algorythm by converting everything to upper case). all OS's are natively case sensitive, its just that with windows and OSX it will convert everything to upper case (i believe OSX is lower case, but, i could be wrong).

3

General / Re: Supported Platforms

« on: July 07, 2007, 04:15:21 am »

That kind of group mentality, that seems to be based on supporting people just because of what platform they develop for, and not necessarily due to quality - scares me more than it reassures me.

I do think it would be a nice gesture to make a Linux port, and I think Linux as a whole is a worthy endeavor... but.

there is nothing to be scared about. in fact, that is actually something you should embrace.

currently, its more like a cult-classic film. those that actually know about it, love it and will promote it on their own free will.

please take no offense to this, but i see way too many indie projects just go no where because of their failure to cater to alternate niches (a perfect example is the game Crimsonland, a wonderful game, but for windows only and because of that, they arent selling as many copies as they had hoped). it is really hard for indie games to make it big unless they get a big name publishing house to deliver the game. then, there are the indie games which make it big, but big with the linux market because they develop for cross-platforms. take, for example, BZFlag and Battle for Wesnoth. two games which are completely cross-platform, of course, there are more windows players than there are linux players, but without the linux community to back that game, the number of players would not be enough to warrent them to continue development. there are two ways to look at application development. you can either cater to windows users and ship as soon as possible or cater to everybody and take an extra few months to get everything working.

in the end, its your call. im just giving you my two cents which is based off personal experiences within the linux and FOSS community.

4

General / Re: Supported Platforms

« on: July 07, 2007, 12:53:51 am »

I just signed up to tell you that the Linux gaming market isnt as small as you think. All of the numbers released about how many people run linux are wrong because they all make the assumption that you can only run one OS (as if heterogenous doesnt exist in the english language). the truth is that the huge majorty of people who run linux also run windows because of the small select number of programs that they need for work (and in some cases, pleasure).

there is one thing you should remember and that is this, the linux community looks after those who support as many platforms as they can. this is why companies like Id and Epic are so well known. the entire Doom series wouldnt be as big today as it is if it wasnt for John Carmack open sourcing the doom 1 engine. Unreal Tournament wouldnt be where it is today if Epic didnt hire Ryan Gordon to make linux and mac ports of the unreal engine, clients and servers. if they only catered to windows, Valve would have dominated the FPS market. now, valve is the one who is trying to catch up to them.

as mentioned before, OpenAL is a fine choice for delivering audio and is used in all linux and mac port projects (same with SDL with OpenGL).

someone posted a few links to discussion about this topic and i feel that i should also include a few to help back up my feeling about this.

http://www.linux-gamers.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=2710&forum=8
http://www.linux-gamers.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=2982&forum=8

if you were to make a linux port, i would support you 100% in your ventures.