EA brings lords of Ultima to Ubuntu

[RuSini Neb]

EA Games Arrive in the Ubuntu Software Center


So will we get to see a UO port to Linux some day. I would love to not have to run UO in a Virtual Machine, and wonder if I am somehow indirectly violating the TOS/EULA...

 

[RuSini Neb]

i understand that asking for a linux port of uo is a pipe dream at best.... /flameshield ??

 

[Mervyn]

This would be great, except, you'd then need uocartographer and assist to work for linux, i can't see that happening.

Matrix Runs on Windows XP - YouTube

 

[Old Man of UO]

No UOCartographer or UOAssist needed... just Pinco's UI!

Steam hired a full time Linux developer, and supposedly has openings for two more software engineers. So, Lunix starting to get some attention from quality developers, so who knows what will happen. By the way, Wine just doesn't work for me and I can't get UO-EC to work in a Virtualbox or VMware machine.

 

[Woodsman]

So will we get to see a UO port to Linux some day. I would love to not have to run UO in a Virtual Machine, and wonder if I am somehow indirectly violating the TOS/EULA...

Lord of Ultima is a browser-based game, so the two are not comparable.

Very few non-browser based MMORPGs truly have ports anyways. It's too labor intensive. World of Warcraft has their own setup, but then again they have over 4,000 people on the World of Warcraft team, and they have well over a million Mac players, so it's actually well worth it. But Warhammer Online, EVE Online, and most others, those are just the Windows versions packaged with Cider.

If games that have hundreds of thousands of subscribers won't do native ports and just use Cider instead, UO is never going to have a native port to Mac or Linux, even though the engine that powers the Enhanced Client does have Mac support. Of course, the engine that powers the Enhanced Client (and Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer Online) is made by a company that is or was bankrupt and out of business. RIFT uses the same engine that the Enhanced Client does, and RIFT isn't doing the native port either.

You are not violating the TOS/EULA, because they have no way of knowing that you are running in anything but a PC. I've played UO on Macs back in 2006 and since I came back last year, and have publicly said so, and Cal even discussed how he played UO on a Mac with one of the fansites.

It's especially true when you stop and realize that the Warhammer Online for Mac setup is basically Wine wrapped around the Windows install.

 

[Wenchkin]

EA attended the Ubuntu Developer Summit and made a short presentation there yesterday. I haven't seen any really detailed reports of what happened but the little that has trickled out is extremely positive. There's a short article about it here.

Lords of Ultima and Command & Conquer are in the Ubuntu Software Centre now. Put it this way, between direct Ubuntu users and those on derivative distributions, a lot of users are going to have these games right under their noses when they go to install/remove software

I don't necessarily think UO is going to get a native linux port, mainly because it actually runs really well on Wine already, but I'd never say never on that front. UOAM/UOAssist certainly work, as do both the CC and EC. Cartographer just sulked the last time I tried it lol. I've never heard of any TOS type issues with UO on Wine - tbh I've been running UO on linux for years now. There's a guide for linux installation on Stratics for anyone who's struggling to get going.

I have a feeling this development is the start of something much bigger than it seems - especially if other games publishers start appearing in Ubuntu.

Wenchy

 

[Old Man of UO]

I don't necessarily think UO is going to get a native linux port, mainly because it actually runs really well on Wine already, but I'd never say never on that front. UOAM/UOAssist certainly work, as do both the CC and EC. Cartographer just sulked the last time I tried it lol. I've never heard of any TOS type issues with UO on Wine - tbh I've been running UO on linux for years now. There's a guide for linux installation on Stratics for anyone who's struggling to get going.

Thanks for the info, Wenchy.

I've tried installing UO/EC on Kubuntu, and could never get it to work either through Wine, Virtual Box or VMware - the 3D graphics wouldn't work. I just upgraded to the latest LMDE which has different 2D/3D support (better? dunno) and will give it a try. I just built a new system using two small SSD drives for the OS, and it takes less than a minute to dual boot into either Linux to Windows, so it's not urgent for me any more.

However, I would love a native port of UO, or any major MMO, Steam game, rather than going through Wine, VB or VM. Once that happens, it would be a HUGE boost for Linux... and maybe revive some old game sales.

 

[RuSini Neb]

Thanks for the info, Wenchy.

I've tried installing UO/EC on Kubuntu, and could never get it to work either through Wine, Virtual Box or VMware - the 3D graphics wouldn't work. I just upgraded to the latest LMDE which has different 2D/3D support (better? dunno) and will give it a try. I just built a new system using two small SSD drives for the OS, and it takes less than a minute to dual boot into either Linux to Windows, so it's not urgent for me any more.

However, I would love a native port of UO, or any major MMO, Steam game, rather than going through Wine, VB or VM. Once that happens, it would be a HUGE boost for Linux... and maybe revive some old game sales.

If you are using Ubuntu as your host O.S and you have a graphics card that supports 3d acceleration try to find restricted drivers ( ie VEndor specific not open source canocal maintained drivers ) and see if that helps any with vmware....

 

[Old Man of UO]

If you are using Ubuntu as your host O.S and you have a graphics card that supports 3d acceleration try to find restricted drivers ( ie VEndor specific not open source canocal maintained drivers ) and see if that helps any with vmware....

Thanks... but I did try that. I'm running with AMD A8-3870 APU, and for whatever reason the generic graphics works better than ATI's restricted driver. It was a disaster.

 

[Woodsman]

I don't necessarily think UO is going to get a native linux port, mainly because it actually runs really well on Wine already, but I'd never say never on that front.

I would say never. The engine that runs the EC has Mac support (although the company behind the engine is bankrupt and I don't think in business any longer), and around 35 million Macs have been sold in the past three years. If they won't support Macs natively, they won't support Linux. EA won't even support Mac or Linux natively on games that sell 5+ million copies. That's pretty telling right there.

And then there is Star Wars: The Old Republic. Most of the major Star Wars games have been natively ported to Macs, and they sell well, but EA didn't bother with Mac or Linux compatibility, even though it would have given them a boost in numbers.

EA has a lot of Mac "ports" for its games and they are increasing the number of "ports", but like I said earlier, they are really just the Windows versions wrapped in Cider which is really just Wine wrapped around the Windows version and packaged for Mac.

I have a feeling this development is the start of something much bigger than it seems - especially if other games publishers start appearing in Ubuntu.

I think all it will mean is that EA will make sure their browser games are listed in as many places as possible.

EA is going to be making a lot more browser games though, which technically will increase the number of people playing on Macs and Linux, and EA can take a look at the data and see just how many people are playing on Macs and Linux.

One other thing to think about: The Elder Scrolls Online game is going to be both Windows and Mac OS X, and Blizzard will most likely release their next MMORPG coming out in 2013 on Macs as well. That means the two largest MMORPGs coming out next year will be on Macs. At some point EA might have to decide to either release everything on Cider for Macs and/or maybe start porting or supporting Linux.

 

[Wenchkin]

I tend to think a lack of Mac ports is just a lack of Mac ports. Mac and Linux are different. Linux can be added to a windows system to dual boot easily on the hardware you want to test it with. For a Mac port, you'd really want to use a Mac. And they're not cheap. Also, Mac's aren't a platform that you first associate with gaming. Design yes, gaming...not so much. I think a lot of older tech folks still view them as that thing you use for graphics design. Which could easily be part of the problem.

It also sounded from that article, as if EA had noticed a change in the market for games and were now going to work towards supporting that. So I think it's a safe assumption to say things may change in the future. If your business isn't making the money you want it too, very often you think "what else can I do?" and "is there another demographic I can try to attract". I thought it was interesting that the EA presentation even went as far as mentioning that women dominated the 3 areas that seemed to be popular now. As opposed to a more male demographic they targeted before. I just hope this doesn't mean we get a ton of pink cooking games from EA now LOL.

And there are indie games coming out that are cross platform and high quality. Some of their games have probably prompted this interest in supporting mobile devices and cross platforming. The Humblebundle site publishes up how much they make on each bundle every month. It's not pennies Linux users frequently pay most under a "pay what you want" pricing model there. The big games publishers can turn a blind eye to the success stories of the indie world, or try to spread their games into as many markets as they can. Maybe EA got tired of buying in talent

Now, the reason I think Linux should do well from this deal is mobile devices. A lot of those are Android, which is Google-flavoured Linux. Others are Macs and MS is in there too. Ubuntu are also interested in putting their OS on mobile devices, so supporting linux as far as Ubuntu gives them both the desktop Ubuntu market (a lot of other distros are Ubuntu based too) and whatever they get on mobile devices. But I don't believe it's a huge leap to go from supporting Android to Ubuntu. Not when there are technologies that work over different platforms as a foundation. I'm not a Google or Android fan, but this is one instance where I think they might have a valuable part to play.

I don't expect instant overnight flooding of the USC. I just think this is a really positive first step for Linux. Especially when other big publishers aren't going to want EA grabbing that market share for themselves. EA making a move is just the beginning. I'm interested to see what others do too

Wenchy

 

[Old Man of UO]

I would say never. ... At some point EA might have to decide to either release everything on Cider for Macs and/or maybe start porting or supporting Linux.

It is very hard to get a good estimate of the number of Linux users, but a general consensus in in the range of 1-3% Linux only users, and perhaps that many also dual booting with Windows, giving 2-5% of all PC desktops running Linux one way or another. The total number of PC computers in the world was about 500 million in 2005-2006, is currently about 1 billion, and projected to be 2 billion by 2015. That's a lot!

Now, there are few (if any) quality native games for Linux - I don't mean Wine or virtual machines running Windows games. Linux users are hungry for a great native game, and would buy it in a high percentage just to see how well it ran, if not play actively. If just 5% of those current 20-50 million Linux users bought a native Linux game title, that would mean 100,000 to 250,000 item sales - that may not be a blockbuster for a new game, but that is still nothing to sneeze at!

 

[Woodsman]

Now, there are few (if any) quality native games for Linux - I don't mean Wine or virtual machines running Windows games. Linux users are hungry for a great native game, and would buy it in a high percentage just to see how well it ran, if not play actively. If just 5% of those current 20-50 million Linux users bought a native Linux game title, that would mean 100,000 to 250,000 item sales - that may not be a blockbuster for a new game, but that is still nothing to sneeze at!

I agree that there is a pent-up demand, but if EA won't do ports for their games that sell 5 million copies, they aren't going to for games like UO that have less than 75,000 subscribers. Hell, they don't even do the Cider releases for all of their best-sellers.

And look at Star Wars The Old Republic. They spent hundreds of millions on that thing, had a team of over 800, plus how ever many they were dragging in from other teams. Not even a Cider release even though you'd think that after spending hundreds of millions, they'd want to spend a little more and increase the subscription pool, especially since they put out a Cider release for Warhammer Online.

EA's idea of cross-platform seems more and more like browser stuff these days. Then again, reading EA's financials, it seems like more and more they want to put out more browser stuff.

 

[RuSini Neb]

Thanks... but I did try that. I'm running with AMD A8-3870 APU, and for whatever reason the generic graphics works better than ATI's restricted driver. It was a disaster.

If you downloaded the restricted ones from Canocal you messed up. GO to ati's websight and use there driver tool they are packaging their own driver... Run the script with sh from the command line as Root... ( i actually do this with out x windows loaded ) then just install.... If this is what you did then i have no clue because mine seems to work fine with this exact setup I have 2 HD6970's In crossfire

 

[Old Man of UO]

...If this is what you did then i have no clue because mine seems to work fine with this exact setup I have 2 HD6970's In crossfire

Thanks for the info. That's exactly what I did... running Crossfire with 6770 and the APU. I might try that again on a fresh install on a spare hard drive, but I don't want to experiment on my main drive now that I got it running just right!