CCP To Discontinue EVE Online Support For Linux 299
maotx writes "CCP's recent support for EVE Online in Linux is now set to be discontinued this March. Released last November along with the Mac OS X client, it has failed to share the expected continual growth as seen with Mac client. Feedback on the EVE Online forums, which includes the e-mail in which CCP announced this decision, suggest that the client was not preferred for Linux users as it did not support the Premium graphics client and did not run as well as the win32 client under Wine. For those who wish to stop playing EVE Online, CCP is offering a refund towards unused game time. Select quote from the e-mail: 'The feedback and commitment we obtained from players like you helped both CCP and Transgaming with our attempts to improve on the quality and stability of the client. Many of us in CCP use Linux and are convinced of its merits as an operating system.'"
Who would of thought that.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Sub par graphics and an inability to compete with its wine counterpart would contribute to its own death.
Re:Makes you wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
makes you wonder how they failed to realease an official client that performs better than under WINE.
Re:Is it really so hard to support Linux natively? (Score:5, Insightful)
To your title: Yes.
Its easily a support nightmare.
OTOH, i am very sure that CCP looked at their stats, counted the number of linux cusomers and made some quick calculations that showed they will never make the money they would need to spend.
Re:Is it really so hard to support Linux natively? (Score:3, Insightful)
They use DirectX, so pretty hard.
Re:Epic fail (Score:2, Insightful)
Valve can see how many people are running Steam in linux by the type of virtual sound card wine uses. What a bummer that they apparently measure how many linux users are online by the client they downloaded.
Re:Surprisingly hard (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but by standardizing API's and kernel goo it would make it easy for so-called proprietary vendors like CCP to support Linux. According to som in the Linux community it is fact better to provide random API's that change all the time--that way proprietary vendors get scared off.
The fact that Linux is so hard for vendors like CCP is seen by some in the Linux community as a feature, not a bug. Hopefully, those very same people in the community are cheering CCP pulling out of native Linux support, as it clearly shows their plan is working as intended.
It ran on Linux? (Score:3, Insightful)
I saw tons of webpage ads for Eve Online, but I never noticed anything about it running on Linux.
If I'd known that, there's a good chance I would have signed up, partially for the fun and partially to support games companies that support Linux.
Is the real lesson here that they didn't properly advertise their Linux compatibility? Or is it just that I need to get glasses?
Re:I use Linux heavily (Score:2, Insightful)
Really, I don't see what the big deal with dual booting is and since people like me are just going to dual boot, I can't imagine why any game maker would waste money on a Linux port.
If I can play my game even marginally better on windows I have no reason not to get the windows version.
Not everyone is going to pay >100 USD, or use a pirated copy of Windows, just to play one game.
Re:I didn't say they were wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
But the by product of the kernel developers actions does two things:
Bullshit to the first one. The logic is as follows:
Re:I use Linux heavily (Score:3, Insightful)
"Aside from that it has an enormous industry devoted to developing windows games."
Wouldn't count on that forever. Take for example EA not releasing Madden NFL on the PC this year.
Two reasons Windows may fail as a games platform:
- Piracy on PC's is more rampant than on consoles
- Cheating on PC's is rampant in multiplayer games
I gate consoles for gaming but the fact is closed platforms are proving to be inherently better for online games.
Not sure of the economics of the piracy issue but if you are sinking tens or hundreds of millions in a game I can see why it would be an issue. WOW beats the issue with subscription servers but there isn't room in most people's budgets for multiple game subscriptions.
In, BF2 and COD4, in particular the cheating pretty much wrecks the platform for multiplayer PVP. WOW does a somewhat better job at suppressing it or maybe its just not quite as obvious because their combat system is so boring.
As for EVE dropping Linux because it wont do premium content... like who cares. The premium content adds nothing to the actual game play, no one should really care if the visuals look a little better. EVE's biggest problem is simply making their damn game more interesting to play. Their combat mechanics are awful, their economy is mostly annoying. EVE is a great concept for a game, and I wish it was better than it was, its just poorly executed. Its only real appeal seems to be if you are willing to sell your soul to big corps and alliances for big fleet action, along with a whole lot of back stabbing, drama, being used, etc.
Re:Competing with itself?! (Score:3, Insightful)
You have to read it in context with the first sentence. The sentence says that CCP is discontinuing support for the Linux client because it isn't doing as well as the Mac client. The sentence doesn't say they will be discontinuing the Mac client.
Wow...
Released last November along with the Mac OS X client, it has failed to share the expected continual growth as seen with Mac client.
Why is this so hard to understand.. Both released same time. One showing continual growth, the other doesn't and gets the axe. It doesn't say anywhere they held the performance of a platform with a larger install base as the baseline to judge Linux against (what an absurd concept). They just wanted to see _continual growth_. If they didn't want Linux client growth, they probably wouldn't being running these ads on Slashdot every other day. You can't say they didn't try.
Re:Did anyone use the Linux client? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, I didn't use it, even though I was probably one of very few who had even heard of it (publishers, take note -- if you don't market something, how do you expect the customers to come flocking to you?)
The reason I didn't was that it wasn't a native client. It was just a Windows executable running under Wine (in this case transgaming's tweaked winex, which is still wine).
If you don't invest the time to make a port, I do not see why I should invest the time to play it.
Re:I didn't say they were wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
That is all nice, but the byproduct of that process is that it is a bitch to write drivers for the kernel. Since the kernel development process is seen as a role model for how to develop open source projects, others follow suit. Result? There is no consistent application stack to build against--thus supporting the amorphous pool of code that comprises your average linux distro is a very, very expensive process.
The only way out is to open source your code. Some companies are cool with that, but many are not. Clearly the WoW guys are not. If you want the WoW guys back, you'd make it easy to sell profitable applications that run on linux. However, that would require a shift in the culture and values of the entire linux ecosystem and I'm fairly positive that such a shift would never, ever, happen.