Guild Wars 2 for Linux

[Zedek.8932]

> @"jbrother.1340" said:

> paying attention is what any linux users should be doing. If you want to just be a slave install MS apps and their OS. If you want to use linux to any power that it actually has you have to be in control and learn how to protect yourself.

 

Haha, yes, this fairtytale again. I rather be a slave of a company that at least pays their programmers and that has a roadmap instead of a bunch of elitist hobby programmers not getting anything done. Due to the typical Linux/UNIX elitism amongst themselves, they tend to split into new groups of developers, resulting in programs for Linux (or any other GNU stuff) never going anywhere. Look at OpenOffice for example. Then it was LibreOffice, because of ORACLE, and for OSX I used NeoOffice. And all of those looked and felt like Office95. I just can't use an ugly pie chart as if it's from 1993 for a modern presentation. I rather pay for a real MS Office. Same with Opera. Once an awesome browser, then it's been split up in Opera with Chromium and without Chromium and now there is Vivaldi, from disgruntled former programmers. And, again, n one of those projects are any good. Yes, there is Mozilla, but they formed during the browser wars mostly.

 

I wonder where your Linux users self-esteem is coming from. If it's the cure for PC problems, the market share would shift on the consumer market, but it is not - Since the mid 90s.Some random VLC/Firefox/Thunderbird things on an eePC or Raspberry Pie is one thing, using a real computer another. You can't tell me that you can use "Linux to any power it actually has" with drivers named "v0.0.0.12.02.0 beta unstable" and such stuff that just hinders any really power being developed. Ubuntu would not boot up on certain CPUs with the internal graphic unit enabled, so even for booting up your Linux you have to Google and add parameters on your own. Do you really sell this as outstanding?

 

I used Linux in the past, especially during the Netbook era. I also tried OSX in 2008 and Leopard was nice. But now I am here, rather a slave of Windows than a bunch o' freaks in Linux boards that are even more condescending than Asuras when you ask a question or the Gilded Cage of OSX.

 

Excelsior.

 

[Laila Lightness.8742]

Why cant anet drop windows support and focus on linux

[GreyWolf.8670]

> @"fatihso.7258" said:

> All I see in this forum is whining about a lot of work, less resources. If linux that sucky, how did Gaijin introduced a native linux client for War Thunder? Wasnt that also alot of work? Did they really need to make it happen?

 

Never heard of War Thunder. Perhaps that's part of the reason?

[dixi.1483]

> @"Zedek.8932" said:

> Haha, yes, this fairtytale again. I rather be a slave of a company that at least pays their programmers and that has a roadmap instead of a bunch of elitist hobby programmers not getting anything done. Due to the typical Linux/UNIX elitism amongst themselves, they tend to split into new groups of developers, resulting in programs for Linux (or any other GNU stuff) never going anywhere. Look at OpenOffice for example. Then it was LibreOffice, because of ORACLE, and for OSX I used NeoOffice. And all of those looked and felt like Office95. I just can't use an ugly pie chart as if it's from 1993 for a modern presentation. I rather pay for a real MS Office.

 

It appears you have no idea what you are talking about. So you do not like other operating systems because ... you do not like LibreOffice pie charts? The real beauty is that if you do not like something, you are free to change it. All major free software projects have a roadmap, including the kernel development. And since you want to compare Windows and Linux, you might want to read something about it, eg. the [article written by a Microsoft employee about Windows development](https://blog.rabimba.com/2013/05/a-microsoft-employees-rant-i-contribute.html "article written by a Microsoft employee about Windows development").

 

You choose to give all your personal information to Microsoft, we choose not to. We all have our own priorities, there is nothing wrong with that.

 

> You can't tell me that you can use "Linux to any power it actually has" with drivers named "v0.0.0.12.02.0 beta unstable" and such stuff that just hinders any really power being developed. Ubuntu would not boot up on certain CPUs with the internal graphic unit enabled, so even for booting up your Linux you have to Google and add parameters on your own. Do you really sell this as outstanding?

> I used Linux in the past, especially during the Netbook era. I also tried OSX in 2008 and Leopard was nice. But now I am here, rather a slave of Windows than a bunch o' freaks in Linux boards that are even more condescending than Asuras when you ask a question or the Gilded Cage of OSX.

 

You used an alternative operating system in ~2008, you did not like it and here you are now, in 2018, telling us how bad it is. Again, you have no idea what you are talking about. Driver and other issues have been eliminated since the time you used it. Calling Linux users "_a bunch o' freaks_" does not really prove your point either.

 

You are acting as if we wanted to you start using Linux. No, we would like our favourite game to be supported on our favourite operating system. Is that too much to ask? We do not care about you.

 

> @"Laila Lightness.8742" said:

> Why cant anet drop windows support and focus on linux

 

Now that is just silly.

 

> @"GreyWolf.8670" said:

> > @"fatihso.7258" said:

> > All I see in this forum is whining about a lot of work, less resources. If linux that sucky, how did Gaijin introduced a native linux client for War Thunder? Wasnt that also alot of work? Did they really need to make it happen?

>

> Never heard of War Thunder. Perhaps that's part of the reason?

 

I have never heard of a game, it must be bad...

Also, if you have never heard of the game and yet it has a Linux port, doesn't that really prove a game does not need your approval, nor a huge amount of players asking for it? Especially for a game like GW2, which already has native MAC support with the same graphics API Linux can use?

[mauried.5608]

Need to compare apples with apples.

War of Thunder is a free to play game , GW2 is not .

It would be more worth asking why doesnt WOW have a Linux client?

 

[Elva.6372]

I'm coming back to GW2, after a last playing right before the Path of Fire. I played on Linux then and it was pretty much fine, I expect it to be even better now with the improvements to Wine since that time. I will know in a few minutes, finishing my install right now. (In regards to WoW and Linux, it's a dreadful mess, each game patch seems to break the game fore Linux players.)

[jbrother.1340]

> @"Zedek.8932" said:

> > @"jbrother.1340" said:

> > paying attention is what any linux users should be doing. If you want to just be a slave install MS apps and their OS. If you want to use linux to any power that it actually has you have to be in control and learn how to protect yourself.

>

> Haha, yes, this fairtytale again. I rather be a slave of a company that at least pays their programmers and that has a roadmap instead of a bunch of elitist hobby programmers not getting anything done. Due to the typical Linux/UNIX elitism amongst themselves, they tend to split into new groups of developers, resulting in programs for Linux (or any other GNU stuff) never going anywhere. Look at OpenOffice for example. Then it was LibreOffice, because of ORACLE, and for OSX I used NeoOffice. And all of those looked and felt like Office95. I just can't use an ugly pie chart as if it's from 1993 for a modern presentation. I rather pay for a real MS Office. Same with Opera. Once an awesome browser, then it's been split up in Opera with Chromium and without Chromium and now there is Vivaldi, from disgruntled former programmers. And, again, n one of those projects are any good. Yes, there is Mozilla, but they formed during the browser wars mostly.

>

> I wonder where your Linux users self-esteem is coming from. If it's the cure for PC problems, the market share would shift on the consumer market, but it is not - Since the mid 90s.Some random VLC/Firefox/Thunderbird things on an eePC or Raspberry Pie is one thing, using a real computer another. You can't tell me that you can use "Linux to any power it actually has" with drivers named "v0.0.0.12.02.0 beta unstable" and such stuff that just hinders any really power being developed. Ubuntu would not boot up on certain CPUs with the internal graphic unit enabled, so even for booting up your Linux you have to Google and add parameters on your own. Do you really sell this as outstanding?

>

> I used Linux in the past, especially during the Netbook era. I also tried OSX in 2008 and Leopard was nice. But now I am here, rather a slave of Windows than a bunch o' freaks in Linux boards that are even more condescending than Asuras when you ask a question or the Gilded Cage of OSX.

>

> Excelsior.

>

 

you might see this a fairy tale but I have not and will use linux until it all goes belly up or I die. Many others feel this way I am not close to alone. This has nothing to do with gaming.

 

I only play 1 game. This game. It either runs or I just don't play it. If one day it won't work again I just won't play it anymore.

 

Much like anything else I had to learn what to do with practice and mistakes. I broke and fixed my junk. I still break and fix my junk.

 

you can make these circular arguments over and over just like I am. We are both actually running down the same path in that way.

 

Use what you want. others will do the same.

 

I am not linux guru and never will be, I support a windows based environment at work and that just how it goes. I don't miss windows when I get home or on my personal laptop at work. There is more room in the world for stuff than just what you and I want or don't want so maybe we can just move on and you do your thing for whatever reason you want and I will do mine and others can take from that what they want. Lot of happy linux user and windows users out there and many more that rue both and use a mac. It is just better for many reasons with variety and choice :)

 

For those out there that don't or won't use windows guildwars 2 does run in linux and if you don't feel like getting in the middle of this really stale argument make up your own minds and don't listen to me or this other guy.

[mauried.5608]

Many Linux users hate Wine even if they dont even understand how it works, because it makes Linux "unclean."

ie the concept of running Windows apps under Linux is just not something that should be done.

 

[Menadena.7482]

> @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> You know how horrid the Mac version is right? You really want them to do that with Linux?

 

Actually, we have had a native build for some time now. It is better than the wine-based version but that one was usable. The only way to truly target linux would be to make the code public and I doubt that will happen soon.

[mercury ranique.2170]

I find it very unlikely this will ever happen. The games that are available for Linux are using a commercial engine (e.g. unreal engine). That means the game is allready suitable for linux and doesnt need a lot of additional programming. GW2 runs on its own engine (a heavily adapted GW1 engine). So making the port is much more difficult and uninteresting.

[jbrother.1340]

> @"mauried.5608" said:

> Many Linux users hate Wine even if they dont even understand how it works, because it makes Linux "unclean."

> ie the concept of running Windows apps under Linux is just not something that should be done.

>

 

Others are welcome to their own desires. I don't agree with this sentiment but then there are many people in the world and this concept is no less valid than my own.

 

Thankfully they can simply choose not to use it. Then again those folks that are this serious about fouling their clean linux probably are not using windows at all and not playing GW2

[Scalyon.7028]

I use Linux for 99% of my daily use. I've distro-hopped between fedora, openSUSE, debian, Mint, and am now using Solus. I boot a Windows 7 partition only to play games - specifically this game. I'm also never going to be upgrading my current copy of Windows. If GW2 were available on Linux as a native app I could finally delete that Windows partition and reclaim the space.

Anet doesn't need to target a distribution. Simply make use of FlatPak or Snaps and that would take care of the distro problem. GW2 doesn't need to integrate well with the desktop. It's going to either be full screen or a window full of gaming graphics.

Given the graphics engine in use by GW2 I'd bet Feral could port this game in no time flat and would allow distros to simply package the Anet game blob via FlatPak/Snap for distribution.

[Nachtlicht.1825]

People keeps thinking a Linux port is a humongous endeavor but honestly it can be achieved by either a) (ideally) Just using OpenGL and some standard interface such as Qt, which simply lets the game run pretty much anywhere, or b) employ a few Linux enthusiasts who know coding and in 1 month you have a port.

 

The problem, I believe, is that companies keep thinking they have to support the OS to the end and track OS changes like in Windows. Not in Linux. Users will happily deal with the OS, as long as the game supports basics such as OpenGL and the logon interface doesn't use crazy code you are pretty much set. No need to support Ubuntu and opensuse and Arch and etc. We deal with that no problem.

[Laila Lightness.8742]

Anet should drop windows support and focus linux, mac?

[Laila Lightness.8742]

> @"mauried.5608" said:

> Many Linux users hate Wine even if they dont even understand how it works, because it makes Linux "unclean."

> ie the concept of running Windows apps under Linux is just not something that should be done.

>

 

For you welcoming the company devil into your pc ?

[starlinvf.1358]

Ironically, it all might be UNIX based in the next several years.

[Castigator.3470]

> @"Nachtlicht.1825" said:

> People keeps thinking a Linux port is a humongous endeavor but honestly it can be achieved by either a) (ideally) Just using OpenGL and some standard interface such as Qt, which simply lets the game run pretty much anywhere, or b) employ a few Linux enthusiasts who know coding and in 1 month you have a port.

>

> The problem, I believe, is that companies keep thinking they have to support the OS to the end and track OS changes like in Windows. Not in Linux. Users will happily deal with the OS, as long as the game supports basics such as OpenGL and the logon interface doesn't use crazy code you are pretty much set. No need to support Ubuntu and opensuse and Arch and etc. We deal with that no problem.

 

Pretty much. I've made some rather stubborn games work by adding their dependencies one by one. That was due to a botched steam installation, but once all the dependencies were in place the game ran beautifully and I was even able to install and run mods.

There has been an argument, that the Linux userbase is too small, but I suspect a good amount of dual booters gets reported as Windows users by default, deflating the actual user base, which I suspect to be closer to 1.5% than 0.7%. Some estimates are even as high as 2.0% to 2.5% for non gaming machines.

 

The benefit of a Linux port is not just the immediate userbase, but also as a hedge against Microsoft. If the Redmond guys do something unreasonable, like switching to a subscription based model, something that makes Windows too expensive to remain the default home OS, then your userbase can switch over without issue. If you support a single platform and that platform experiences sudden death, you share the fate of that platform. Supporting Windows and Mac OS X and vaguely supporting something like Ubuntu LTS (We are willing and able to make it fit) will allow you to weather any storm the OS world may experience.

 

Then there's the potential for userbase migration. In this thread a few guys mentioned they'd switch over to linux as soon as the native client releases.

 

On an unrelated note, there may be some benefit to publishing parts of the source code. There have been some complaints about bad performance, and a dev made an allusion to spaghetti code, which makes it difficult to alter several bugged traits to the point where replacing them was seen as more convenient.

This is a troubling sign of code, that has aged badly. It may be mostly fine, or may be kept together by an enthusiastic layer of duct tape.

You may be able to save a lot of time and money, if you submit parts of the code for public review, or the entire code to a group of coders you trust.

Let them point out the parts where the duct tape is starting to fail and come up with solutions for it.

[Solvar.7953]

I suspect Anet does pay attention to these things and if there was a business case (and thus dollars), they would do so.

If the game is designed with linux in mind from the start, you are likely correct that porting it is not hard. However, if it was designed for windows from the start (and used things like directx, etc), it is non trivial.

Also, each now platform now needs a set of build tools, QA, etc. If they did no QA on the linux release, and it was really unreliable after some update, I'm sure there would be a lot of upset linux users.

Release source code is problematic. There can be licensing issues (Anet may not in fact own all the code). It may open up new security vulnerabilities if people can analyze the code and see flaws. And while people may also see those and get them fixed, the fact that such flaws show up in open source does not mean this is a sure thing.

I'd personally love to see native linux ports for more software. But I also understand the reasons why it hasn't happened.

 

[mauried.5608]

Theres no business case.

If there was Blizzard would have done it with WOW years ago.

Its far too expensive to implement and to support, for what miniscule extra number of players you would get.

 

[alcopaul.2156]

they gotta release the game running in os(es) with broad user share.

[Laila Lightness.8742]

> @"Castigator.3470" said:

> > @"Nachtlicht.1825" said:

> > People keeps thinking a Linux port is a humongous endeavor but honestly it can be achieved by either a) (ideally) Just using OpenGL and some standard interface such as Qt, which simply lets the game run pretty much anywhere, or b) employ a few Linux enthusiasts who know coding and in 1 month you have a port.

> >

> > The problem, I believe, is that companies keep thinking they have to support the OS to the end and track OS changes like in Windows. Not in Linux. Users will happily deal with the OS, as long as the game supports basics such as OpenGL and the logon interface doesn't use crazy code you are pretty much set. No need to support Ubuntu and opensuse and Arch and etc. We deal with that no problem.

>

> Pretty much. I've made some rather stubborn games work by adding their dependencies one by one. That was due to a botched steam installation, but once all the dependencies were in place the game ran beautifully and I was even able to install and run mods.

> There has been an argument, that the Linux userbase is too small, but I suspect a good amount of dual booters gets reported as Windows users by default, deflating the actual user base, which I suspect to be closer to 1.5% than 0.7%. Some estimates are even as high as 2.0% to 2.5% for non gaming machines.

>

> The benefit of a Linux port is not just the immediate userbase, but also as a hedge against Microsoft. If the Redmond guys do something unreasonable, like switching to a subscription based model, something that makes Windows too expensive to remain the default home OS, then your userbase can switch over without issue. If you support a single platform and that platform experiences sudden death, you share the fate of that platform. Supporting Windows and Mac OS X and vaguely supporting something like Ubuntu LTS (We are willing and able to make it fit) will allow you to weather any storm the OS world may experience.

>

> Then there's the potential for userbase migration. In this thread a few guys mentioned they'd switch over to linux as soon as the native client releases.

>

> On an unrelated note, there may be some benefit to publishing parts of the source code. There have been some complaints about bad performance, and a dev made an allusion to spaghetti code, which makes it difficult to alter several bugged traits to the point where replacing them was seen as more convenient.

> This is a troubling sign of code, that has aged badly. It may be mostly fine, or may be kept together by an enthusiastic layer of duct tape.

> You may be able to save a lot of time and money, if you submit parts of the code for public review, or the entire code to a group of coders you trust.

> Let them point out the parts where the duct tape is starting to fail and come up with solutions for it.

 

Honestly i think windows users arent as common. There is probly more mac and linux than windows users have you seen price for one windows license damn expensive

[Goettel.4389]

> @"Laila Lightness.8742" said:

> Honestly i think windows users arent as common. There is probly more mac and linux than windows users have you seen price for one windows license kitten expensive

If we're talking gamers, just no.

Even if you include business users I doubt it. Source?

[mindcircus.1506]

> @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> You know how horrid the Mac version is right? You really want them to do that with Linux?

 

Actually the 64 bit mac client runs well and is definitely playable.

[Solvar.7953]

You can look at browser statistics, like https://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp for some actual data. ~75% windows, ~10% mac, ~6% linux, ~8% mobile. Those numbers may be slightly skewed (linux pretending to be windows), but probably not by much.

So there is some audience in linux, but if those linux users are really desperate, they can just use wine, per posts above. So Anet probably has very little to gain by doing a linux port - most linux users probably have a windows system if they want to play games (I do), and if they don't, they can use wine.

 

[Castigator.3470]

> @"Solvar.7953" said:

> You can look at browser statistics, like https://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp for some actual data. ~75% windows, ~10% mac, ~6% linux, ~8% mobile. Those numbers may be slightly skewed (linux pretending to be windows), but probably not by much.

> So there is some audience in linux, but if those linux users are really desperate, they can just use wine, per posts above. So Anet probably has very little to gain by doing a linux port - most linux users probably have a windows system if they want to play games (I do), and if they don't, they can use wine.

>

 

Depends. If the 6% is anywhere near accurate, I can imagine, that a good chunk of the linux community might express their gratitude in the form of gem store purchases. From what I learned at the market, the linux users tend to spend graciously, once they actually have access to your software. We already have a working x86_64 Mac Client. So OpenGl seems to be supported. The only missing thing seems to be the middleware.

I know this, because I run via WINE and the one issue I have is crashes due to the CoherentUI library.

From what I can tell, Coherent Labs, the company behind this interface library have offices in San Francisco (USA) and Sofia (Bulgaria). They are still around and their earliest product was the Cohherent UI interface library from 2012. At that point Arenanet seems to have integrated their middleware into the GW2 engine, which is otherwise a reworked GW1 engine.

 

Nothing wrong here, back in 2012 Linux was not as ready for gaming as it is today, so the old CoherentUI was not built with that in mind. But times change, CoherentUI 2 released, then they put out CoherentGT, a multiplatform solution.

Sadly, I don't know how similar the two of them are, but both seem to work according to the same principles:

HTML, CSS and a scripting language are used to display interface elements on screen.

The interface library translates the HTML and CSS into graphical instructions to be drawn on the screen. Hopefully in an efficient manner.

 

For us Linux users the old middleware generally works*, except when it doesn't. Maybe some code was written with a Windows (namely Windows XP SP3) specific architecture in mind. I didn't dissect the client to find out, but there only seems to be some minor issue in the interface library.

However, I don't know if Anet can fix this on their own, not for technical reasons, their programmers are certainly capable enough, but rather for legal reasons, as they'd have to modify the way CoherentUI works. Provided the programmers are not needed elsewhere.

They could migrate to another graphical user interface library, maybe from Coherent Labs, maybe from someone else, maybe even the QT library, which can be acquired at no cost, but it may cost time and money to properly implement and I don't know how that time and money may already be planned.

 

All in all Anet will do what allows them to keep Guild Wars 2 successful, porting may be seen as a way to future proof the game engine itself, so I remain carefully optimistic, especially since other engine systems might need an update too. Since 2012 a good amount of middleware with multiplatform capabilities has been released, so they might just kill two birds with one stone.

*Through WINE shenanigans, but still. The FPS with a large zerg is really bad, though. If nothing else, please make an option to not draw all the player models and their skill effects, the latter really kill the fps.