Hope someone from VALVe reads this and think about. Or, better yet, re-think what they are doing.
http://linuxgames.com/?dataloc=articles/hl2lament/ I'll admit that I've been trying to move away from games on a computer and toward a console-only gaming existence. In the end, however, I'm still a person who really enjoys playing a good game, even when the little Richard Stallman in me doesn't want to support those non-free computer platforms. (For the record, I view consoles more like appliances than computers, which is why you won't see me screaming for a source release for Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness for the PS2 so the community can fix its imperfections.) So I've been trying to decide how I feel about the upcoming release of Valve Software's Half-life 2. If it turns out as well as the original, or perhaps even better, can I bear the self- denial of not playing it? Should I break down and play it on my wife's Windows 2000 machine, provided it even meets the minimum specifications? Wait for WineX to support it, if it can support it, and play it under Linux? Should I throw in the proverbial towel and get an Xbox, thereby sticking to my console-only path? My own inner conflicts leave me wondering where other Linux users, especially the gamers, are going to end up. Time for a little recap of what has happened, where we are, and what is possible, just to give the situation context. In the beginning, when I was a Windows gamer, I played the original Half-life on my lowly K6-2/266 and Voodoo2 (12Mb) as soon as it came out, even getting a cheesy black cap with a day-glow orange Half-life logo on the front for pre- ordering. Over that holiday season, I finishd the game and loved just about every minute of it. The final bits were annoying, but it had a great ending, especially for a first-person shooter. Early the next year, I played lots of Team Fortress Classic when Team Fortress 2 failed to materialize, and then gradually gave it all up. When I moved to Linux full-time at the end of 1999 I sold my Half-life CD to a friend for $5. Since, I've even considered getting the PS2 version (it has sold new for $10) just so I could have it around to replay and possibly try out the co-op experience. Now, five years later, a sequel is on the verge of release. In the meantime, Linux gaming has seen a rise and a fall in synchronization with the rise and fall of the now-defunct Loki Games. Since that fall various games, mostly first person shooters, have made their way to Linux in the form of dedicated servers and the occasional player client. It's seemed a sad state of affairs for a long time, and my dismay has led to my gradual detachment from the Linux gaming scene. Given my perception of a moribund Linux gaming scene, I was a little surprised when I checked GameSpy's stats page and realized that ten of the top twenty most active games are available on Linux with native clients: Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, Unreal Tournament 2003, Quake 3: Arena, America's Army: Operations, Neverwinter Nights, Unreal Tournament, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Tribes 2, and Quake II. Sidestepping, for the moment, that there are only five game engines represented there (Unreal, Q3, NWN, T2, and Q2) and they are mostly all first person shooters and that way too many game names include a colon, this still represents a fairly significant number of options. The most notable exception, of course, is the top game: Half-life. I believe that Half-life has had a Linux dedicated server pretty much since a month or two after its launch. This dedicated server is a headless app that can run on a barebones Linux machine to serve up games to Windows clients. I believe that, without that Linux support, there would be far fewer Half-life servers for all those Windows gamers. There are, after all, only Windows Half- life gamers. A Mac version was developed and then killed by Sierra. The Linux players, which I mention below, are still just using the Windows version, and are still just Windows gamers. What I find surprising is that several new games have arisen and seen fit to put out a Linux version of the client software, as if a token gesture to curry some favor with the Linux geeks they'd like to have running servers for them. Unreal Tournament had a Linux client at launch, even if it was just Glide-only to start with. UT2003 also had a client at launch, this time included on the retail CDs. Shortly before its release Mark Rein even went so far as to characterize the client port as a quid pro quo to get people to run the server. Being based on the Unreal Engine meant that a port of America's Army was relatively quickly put together. The apocryphal port of Deus Ex was indeed mostly done (trust me, I know) and it was up and running on Linux within 24 hours of receiving the Unreal-based source. Only a few bugs prevented it from being perfect. Similarly, Quake 3: Arena had a Linux client at launch, although OpenGL support was spotty in the first month or so. From there, Linux got support for FAKK2, a game which has faded into relative obscurity. Later, however, the two Wolfenstein games were put forth on Linux as were the Medal of Honor games. Other Q3-based games, like Soldier of Fortune 2, do have dedicated servers but no client, so good support for an engine is clearly not a guarantee of a port. Which brings me back to the situation with Half-life: no client, only a server, despite the fact that the client was built on Quake and Quake II technology, both games that were well-supported on Linux. And that well-supported Half-life dedicated server for Linux, if it didn't help make Half-life more popular to start with, has at the very least helped support the level of popularity that it has enjoyed all these years. Just look at the numbers on GameSpy's stats page (which, I realize, are not perfect, thanks): for every 4 players playing all other games there are 6 players playing Half-life or one of its mods (according to the page when I wrote this article). Games with a fraction of Half-life's popularity have made allowances for a Linux clients to go with the Linux servers. I'd have liked to have seen the same kind of allowance from Valve in return for helping support their server infrastructure. Yet it appears that the groundwork has been laid for the next iteration of Linux-as-server-only support. New server software has been released for use on Linux that incorporates the new Steam technology that Valve is promoting. I feel confident that when Half-life 2 is released this fall we will see that server updated to support the new game. Technically, this probably means that some small part of the engine runs under Linux. In the past, dedicated servers have been little more than headless clients, clients without a rendering engine. As with Half-life, there is probably no technical reason that Half-life 2 couldn't run under Linux, especially given that the latest Linux drivers from ATI and NVIDIA have expanded support for even the newest hardware released by those vendors. Given that a game as new as UT2003 runs under Linux, I think that it isn't that much of a stretch to say that Linux could handle Half-life 2 as well. If there is no client, then the Linux community will be asked to make the same decision it made years ago. Will they run the servers, hope for a client port someday, and in the meantime use Windows? Or, having a perspective on the past five years, refuse to run those servers and let Valve go it alone with Windows servers and those Windows users who also run a Linux server? Its a false dichotomy to divide the world into Linux zealots and Windows zealots, I realize, but I feel that almost by definition most Linux users have some philosophical reasons to be running that operating system. Regardless, a good number of them may decline to run dedicated servers for a game they cannot now and probably never will run natively on their system of choice. Of course, nothing is ever very simple, and the situation on Linux is no exception. The WINE project and WineX product may provide some Linux users a way out, as they do now with Half-life. Both software packages offer a way to run Windows binaries on other systems, in particular under Linux. (That's not all they do, but for my purposes, that's the important bit.) It has been said, and I don't know how true it is for sure, that much of the progress in making WINE better has happened because of interest in getting Half-life to run properly. Apparently Half-life runs very well under Linux, and some say better than native Windows, using WINE or WineX. Yet there is a schism in the community over whether WINE and its derivatives are good for the Linux world. I believe that this schism can be compared to the difference between Open Source Software and Free Software: one side (WINE supporters, OSS supporters) promote the practical value of their ideas while the other side (WINE detractors, GNU true believers) promote the philosophical virtues of their ideas. Both sides have good intentions and even some common goals, but because they see the world differently there are sometimes sharp divisions and angry words. Regardless, it is still to be seen if WINE can be used to run Half-life 2 at all, especially with the Steam integration. Steam is this content-delivery system that Valve has built for Half-life 2 and is now promoting to other software developers. It's a patching system. It's a multimedia delivery system. It's an authentication system. It's an instant messaging system. It may also turn out to be a floor cleaner and a dessert topping. While there probably won't be any Windows-specific voodoo that prevents WINE from running a Steam-powered game, some games have needed specific support under WineX to allow for copy prevention schemes to operate properly. Similar issues could creep up on Half-life 2 used under WINE, although the lack of a hardware component could be an essential difference, and then Linux users really will be stuck: no client, only a server, even with WINE. So here I am, a Linux user considering my options. I don't like WINE or WineX because I feel they remove some impetus to provide native software on Linux. I'd prefer not to use Windows just to play this game, even though I maintain such a system for my wife's work needs at home. I'd prefer not to buy an Xbox, just yet, because I harbor some ill will toward Microsoft. These are principled decisions, of little solace to someone who wishes to try Half-life 2. What I really want, and you probably knew this from the start, is for Valve to feel the sentiment that Mark Rein of Epic expressed, that the Linux community deserves a token of thanks for helping on the server end, that a native Linux client is worth their time. Precedent exists for supporting Linux clients, just look at UT2003 and Q3A and their relatives. The platform itself is capable, with a dedicated server probably waiting in the wings and driver support from both ATI and NVIDIA improving with each passing month. Substantial community interest exists, in the form of WINE and WineX users. The only thing I can't argue satisfactorily, and I won't even try, is the money angle: no one, not even Valve, is going to get filthy rich selling game software on Linux. But if anyone can break even on a Linux client, even without figuring in the advantages of goodwill in the community and an army of willing servers ready to fire up when the final game is released, I have to believe it's Valve with their new game Half-life 2. By Matt Matthews, writer for Curmudgeon Gamer. -- dual_bereta_r0x -- Alexandre Hautequest ArenaNetwork Lan House & Cyber -- www.arenanetwork.com.br ICQ 126063524 _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds_linux
