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Lar_q Offline OP
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We're really sorry about how long it's taking, but there's a bunch of good reasons why the Linux version is taking so long and it has everything to do with the many cool things we're doing to D:OS for the moment (but which we're not ready to announce just yet)

Without going into too much details, here's the story:

First of all, we don't want to use a wrapper like Wine. We want to do it properly, but our own ambitions have been causing us quite a lot of pain.

Since the Linux version wasn't intended to be released on the day of release (we were clear about that from the beginning I hope), little work was done to it prior to release. The reasoning was that if we got the Mac version working (which we didn't expect there to be for release either), the step to Linux was going to be small.

Right.

Once we recovered from release and started getting serious on the Linux version, we discovered a truckload of middleware problems, including the non-existence of something we thought existed and the fact that most vendors consider it a separate platform for which they charge extra.

In an ideal world, we would've checked all this sooner, but we didn't, assuming that it was covered. To fix this, we needed to make pieces of middleware ourselves, and so we did. Obviously that delayed things a lot. (The alternative was the wrapper, but we didn't want to do that as we wanted our engine to natively support Linux)

By the time we sorted out the different problems with the middleware, we had two branches of development going because obviously we were doing other things too.

The Linux version was being built on an old branch but ran out of synch with the new branch where plenty of improvements were happening and so we decided to stop integrating it in the old branch and instead focus on the new branch only.

If we wouldn't do that, then Linux would only have been supported on the old branch, and that didn't make a lot of sense going forward, especially since we wanted it to be part of our core engine. Supporting both branches wouldn't have worked since our Linux team is small.

All this wouldn't have been such a big problem if not for us starting to doing something *cool* on the new branch that quickly ran out of hand because we really liked it. So much work ended up being done that the new branch became a lot bigger than we'd anticipated and so it's all taking longer than we thought.

As long as we're not ready, we can't finalise the Linux version and release it. Obviously we've been offering refunds to people who backed with the express intent of playing int on Linux, but so far most in the Linux community seem to have been content that we're trying to integrate it into our core engine such that our future offerings will also include Linux support. It's something we really appreciate.

The long Linux delay is unfortunate but we think a lot of players are going to be really surprised and happy with what we're working on, and hopefully we'll be able to continue to support Linux over different games as a result of the effort it's taking now.

Anyway, it's a long story but the bottom line is: it's coming and we're working hard on making it good.

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Thank you! Thats all I need to know..
I really appreciate your efforts to support Linux!
Will there be a way for you to tell how many people will be playing the Linux version once its out on steam ?

Regards Webcreature

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This should probably also be pinned on the Steam D:OS forums.

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Quite the tantalizing post, and also explains why the hardcore mode has taken longer than most of us (or at least me) had anticipated. Obviously reworking every fight, rebalancing the economy, new and rebalanced skills and abilities, rewriting things, etc. is a lot on its own, but now there's another "something *cool*" that's taking more time than anticipated? The wait will be even more worth it laugh Considering how good D:OS already is, knowing a feature packed patch is on the way makes me all the more excited to play D:OS again.

I know It's hard to think this way Linux users, but playing the best possible version of D:OS from the start instead of playing a somewhat incomplete version and then the better version will probably make for a better experience overall.

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Swen thank you for fair answer!Keep up your work !!
I can undestand your position,but sometimes people want to know what`s going on especially during a long period of silence,a litlle piece of info would be really appreciated!!
Personally I would (I assume not only me)like to know about Kirill`s health condition in the next Kickstarter update ,piece ,just a little piece about it would be really great! I hope he is very well for now !
That`s all what I want to say.Thank you!


Last edited by James 540; 12/03/15 05:58 AM.

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Originally Posted by James 540
Swen thank you for fair answer!Keep up your work !!
I can undestand your position,but sometimes people want to know what`s going on especially during a long period of silence,a litlle piece of info would be really appreciated!!
Personally I would (I assume not only me)like to know about Kirill`s health condition in the next Kickstarter update ,piece ,just a little piece about it would be really great! I hope he is very well for now !
That`s all what I want to say.Thank you!




Indeed !! hehe
I can only say it again :
Many many Thanks to Lar & Larian Studios' team,
You all are the Best !!


On 7th of february 2015 : I start a new adventure in the Divinity world of Original Sin,
it's a Fantastic Freaking Fabulous Funny ... it's my All Time Favorite One !
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As one of the backers at a high level that was looking to play on Linux, I never intended to pull my pledge, but was disappointed in the long delay. The "no news" part in the delay is the worst part though, and is the reason I think, a lot of the Linux gamers were complaining so much. Your response to the Linux community in this thread was a good start to alleviate the concerns.

I am happy that from this experience your in-house development team will be able to create Linux builds in future games, with the knowledge gained from D:OS.

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Originally Posted by Lar_q
Once we recovered from release and started getting serious on the Linux version, we discovered a truckload of middleware problems, including the non-existence of something we thought existed and the fact that most vendors consider it a separate platform for which they charge extra.


Can you please elaborate on what exactly those missing middleware issues were (unless it's some kind of NDA)? I know that for example Tex Murphy - Tesla Effect stumbled over Bink Video not being available for Linux at the time (now it is). I think they should learn their lessons and use free codecs like VPx instead.

Last edited by shmerl; 15/03/15 11:20 PM.
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Nice!
As far as I can see, you are still early on the timetable as I predicted it to take. I still cannot believe that you really have finished D:OS for windows in such a short time, as I would have expected for you to only finish the game this summer.
Anyway: we get to play the game without mission bugs hehe.
And games like these are timeless.

Thanks for the update, and the trust in linux as a gaming platform.

Last edited by SirDirty; 16/03/15 02:44 PM.
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Originally Posted by Lar_q
Since the Linux version wasn't intended to be released on the day of release (we were clear about that from the beginning I hope), little work was done to it prior to release. The reasoning was that if we got the Mac version working (which we didn't expect there to be for release either), the step to Linux was going to be small.

Having done that already (thankfully without any user interface), I know what a pain it must be.
If it wasn't too much, I'd say my heart bleeds with your brains.

Good luck.

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Thank you for the update, and if you want alpha testers I volanteer my self and a friend whom I haven't consulted yet, but whom I think I can guilt into it.


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"First of all, we don't want to use a wrapper like Wine. We want to do it properly, but our own ambitions have been causing us quite a lot of pain."

If I would have known that the expectations were so low, that the game running natively is an ambition worth noting, I would have never backed this project (nevermind backing it twice as I did). I think that overall I have been quite understanding (yet unhappy) of the situation and don't plan on getting my money back yet. But you could spare me the b.s.

It is interesting to see that since I backed this, I have completely forsaken kickstarting any other games. I am honestly not angry (disappointed, yes) about it all...I understand that maybe you made a promise you couldn't keep--I just seem to have lost my ability to trust blindly. You need to understand that you made a commitment and by any reasonable standards, you most certainly didn't keep it. In doing so you not only tainted your image but that of the whole process that gave you so much. It was irresponsible. Saying that there is a "good" reason for it is missing the point in _such_ a naive way. It has been an entire year...and your excuse is that you don't want to give me a game wrapped in wine (which is not worth a cent of my hard-earned money) and you want to give me the best? It honestly astounds me. Keep these communications at "We are sorry...we decided that we wanted to do [this and that...] knowing that this will significantly delay the release. Despite our irresponsible promises, we still want to make Linux a first-class platform for this game."

Instead, you tried to make yourself look good from a situation that is 'meh' at best.

As a Linux user, but more importantly as a customer that has yet to run any binary sequence in this game...I just wish I felt a little more appreciated. I wish I got a more human answer and one that looks less like something from a suit in EA or Ubisoft. But I guess one customer from a platform with a small market share is a drop in the ocean.

I do hope you humble yourselves so as to understand why this situation is not ok. We all make mistakes and promises we can't keep. Integrity?

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The intent to have a native port is directly relevant to the problems that caused the delay; it had to be 'noted'.
If anything, expectations were too high, given the issues with some of the the middleware.

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First, the way that the Kickstarter presented the information...it was always implied that it would be a native port. As I mentioned, I would not pay a single cent to get a game wrapped in Wine...which already seems to work https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=30603 .

Considering that a native port was the minimum expectation by 100% of linux users who paid for this, I don't think mentioning so is very relevant. It is like someone building a car for me and after a delay just saying "...Oh, we are taking longer because we are building a car, not a motorcycle." Well, no sh**. it is completely superfluous because NOBODY expected any less.

Oh my! You promise me a car and you build me a car instead of a motorcycle! How unexpected, I now understand all the delays.

"If anything, expectations were too high..." It is possible that their engine makes a native port harder, and maybe their efforts deserve praise. But the reality is that they should have known from the beginning, and patting yourself (Larian) on the back regardless, does not inspire trust in me. From the perspective of a consumer, the expectation is a bare minimum. If this game had announced Linux support out of nowhere, I would have been impressed by his post. But their advertisement of multi-platform support is the sole reason they got my money (more money than I have payed for any of my ~180 native linux 'ports'. It has been a year.

To reiterate. I understand the situation, but the communication is tactless at best...

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Considering that a native port was the minimum expectation by 100% of linux users who paid for this

Of those who paid for it, yes. Not everyone waiting for the Linux version backed the kickstarter or has been following development since then, though.


"...Oh, we are taking longer because we are building a car, not a motorcycle."

IMO a better analogy would be 'it turns out we we couldn't make some of the car parts with the tools we had available, so we had to make the tools ourselves, since we didn't just want to jerry-rig an existing car and call it custom'.


they should have known from the beginning

Yes, as Lar said in his post.


and patting yourself (Larian) on the back

That really was not the intent of the post.

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I think you need to cut them some slack @mbf

I too had a complaint originally (on a different matter, but again related to their KS goals)
Now i do not know what your experience with RPGs is, or related to that, how many you have happened to play, but let me tell you..
Once i saw just how much they -did- manage to do, and to what an extent they had pushed forward certain factors that were all but missing in "other" KS projects, not only did i excuse them, i actually felt gratified for what i got in the first place. What you see now took a shitload of work to achieve. More than most bother to put in in the first place.

Of course your arguments here will be reasonable: yes they did under-deliver, at least according to what they'd scheduled for, yes it is not right to have such a mentality (of leniency) as it can only endorse further goal "skippings" (which were indeed paid for). True, but in theory. Practice as always takes its own course. Paths branch out, and the odd exception takes place.

They are still working on the game, almost a year later, still patching, expanding, improving. And we do (or could have if bothered) know something of their history as a studio, and what they had had to overcome to get to where they are. It is rather safe to say that they are an exception to the rule. Thus far mind you. An exception they have not taken lightly, as they do apologise, acknowledge and continue to work so as to overule it.

Mistakes and delays will always happen. This is not a Molyneux-revisited. Maintain your judgement criteria, sure, but also realise how there may be original, honest, transparent issues that will cause problems, no matter the capabilities of those involved. They do their best to predict the future, and demand the equivalent price (man hours + licences) to meet it. No human has of yet managed to do that successfully. Predict the future smile

Last edited by Aenra; 11/04/15 03:12 PM.

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As I have heard of these problems from a few other games (for example a game a few years ago had the same problems with Bink video as Tex Murphy) I'm not at all surprised.

Naturally I'm not happy about the further wait, but in light of the promise (or at least intention) to make the next games ready for linux too I think we linuxers get more out of it than expected. To paraphrase Don Corleone, Larian made me an offer I couldn't refuse ;-)

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Originally Posted by Raze
"...Oh, we are taking longer because we are building a car, not a motorcycle."

IMO a better analogy would be 'it turns out we we couldn't make some of the car parts with the tools we had available, so we had to make the tools ourselves, since we didn't just want to jerry-rig an existing car and call it custom'.


I feel I should quote this again, just in case someone didn't see it.

Also, comparing Larian to EA is just low, man. Serious.


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@nstgc I picked a random company...I wasn't comparing them directly. The point is that the post does not seem to come from someone who values transparency. I trust this is not the case.

@Raze That might be a better analogy for the entire situation, but not for the point I was trying to make. I want to believe them and therefore I can understand his "reasons" and your analogy seems appropriate. My analogy was merely meant to highlight how ridiculous it is to even hint at the idea that wine (making a motorcycle instead of a car) was a possibility. Granted, the analogy could have been better, but in my mind it still gets the point I want to make across.

I understand Lars mentioned it, maybe I should have quoted him instead. The concept afterwards is what matters here. They should have known, so own the mistake and leave it at that.

@Meganoth I fail to see how I am getting _more_ than expected. But of course, this depends on your expectations. My expectation are implicit (a few times rather explicit) in what I wrote before.

@Aenra Thanks for the post. I don't think I need to be more lenient than I am being, honestly. I am not attacking their decisions, or belittling their challenges and achievements. I am also not demanding my money back. It is ok that they made a mistake and promised more than they could deliver. But in communicating this, one should try to humble oneself and understand the ramification of those mistakes. I need to reiterate though, you are not "ambitious" for wanting to get something more than a wine wrapper..honestly...saying this is sad.

I should also note that while other kickstarter goals have not been met. This one in particular prevents me from playing this game at all.

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Well i cannot call your stance inappropriate or unreasonable, but i think you got that already smile

As far as lenience be concerned however, i believe it depends on your definition of it, context specific of course. In my mind, they are doing the right thing; it is in light of said "right thing, right way of approach" that i base my own remarks/leniency approach on.

They will be using this very engine for more games. According to a latest interview, in fact plenty more. It is both cheapest and most efficient for them to work these things out now, get them to a state deemed appropriate, so as to forgo needing to address them again come the next game, where 'x' or 'y' feature will be once more, impossible to be ported over. By developing whatever middleware required themselves and then reshaping the Linux client around them, they ensure more time can be spent in (future) games development and less on the technical aspect of things, the outcome of which you will be unable to gauge in any case. Whereas inversely, a game with obvious oversights or weak 'factors' really IS something anyone would tend to notice. And you will get that if they have to redo this for each and every future title smile

That does of course imply a conscious decision somewhere along the line, sure. Hence my saying that in strictest terms, no one could possible blame you, not per se.
In reality however..Linux can have Win installed on top of it, and as a backer, you could redeem your key this very instant, and enjoy the game just as everyone else. Does this rectify past events? No. Is it however a more thoughful, moderate response on your part? Definitely.

It is one thing to delay, no matter for how long, and another to forgo. Officially. As far as the former is concerned, i am personally lenient. Why? Because norms. Most people get it into their heads that KS pledge = rewards or fuck off. Reality is you help someone make something (and risk paying them for nothing). I do not contribute because my name will be on the credits. Or because i will get a special pet, don't even use it anyway. I contribute because i want a D:OS out there, playable.

Which brings me to the second point, again from my view obviously. We have barely three (semi-major-ish) studios making AAA "true" RPGs as we speak. Three*. Dedicated on titles that take years of iteration alone. Forget the developing part prior to that. I think they deserve a support, since lacking it, i will be back to playing nothing at all. That's why i pay. Could torrent and call it a day, any day.
So to recap, as long as:
A) They are making good, qualitative true RPG games
B) i have not the slightest reason to feel as if my money is unnecessary to them?

I can excuse. Plenty of scenarios where neither of the above held. Not here however smile

* plenty of peoiple would say they are far more than three. I beg to differ. Just me

Last edited by Aenra; 13/04/15 06:51 PM.

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