Posted: 19 Aug 2008 13:18

Then, seriously, go to google. Best of luck there. No one is twisting your arm to join the Army. KCToker is right, if this is making you question whether you should join the Army, maybe you really need to think about why you want to join the Army.

If you join the Army, you are going to face much tougher times than a video game not supporting your preferred OS.

It is certainly not my place to say, I am not the gatekeeper of the Army, but I don't want anyone on the line that is not really sure why they want to be there in the first place.

Posted: 19 Aug 2008 16:52

Quote:

Then, seriously, go to google. Best of luck there. No one is twisting your arm to join the Army. KCToker is right, if this is making you question whether you should join the Army, maybe you really need to think about why you want to join the Army. If you join the Army, you are going to face much tougher times than a video game not supporting your preferred OS. It is certainly not my place to say, I am not the gatekeeper of the Army, but I don't want anyone on the line that is not really sure why they want to be there in the first place.

Regardless of future job opportunities this is off-topic. I'm looking to prove there are enough Linux gamers to warrant a reconsideration of the Army's decision not to maintain Linux and Mac Client. If a Moderator were to create 1 Sticky Thread for it, I'll be sure to circulate the news to the Linux Gaming communities.[/quote][/code]

Posted: 19 Aug 2008 23:05

http://forum.americasarmy.com/...2709478

I suggest reading that.

Posted: 22 Aug 2008 14:46

you may be able to use a program like WINE or cedega to play AAO on linux, but the problem lies with punkbuster. other games can be played using these software packages, but pb has always been the sticky point.....maybe you guys should be lobbying pb to be more friendly to such forms of media. just a thought

Posted: 22 Aug 2008 20:44

Unitas)x(Death wrote:

you may be able to use a program like WINE or cedega to play AAO on linux, but the problem lies with punkbuster. other games can be played using these software packages, but pb has always been the sticky point.....maybe you guys should be lobbying pb to be more friendly to such forms of media. just a thought

There are other games who's implementation of punkbuster work with WINE. Also the effort it would take to get Punkbuster and AAO to perform respectably in WINE would take far more effort than to to rebuild AAO for Linux and Mac.

Orignialy with AAO, Linux and Mac clients were easy to build as the Unreal engine was largely platform antagonistic as most game logic is written in a language called unreal script. However to improve game performace, the Army Devs made many changes to Unreal's implementation of Direct 3D. These improvements were difficult to reproduce in OpenGL so OpenGL support was dropped(and thus Mac and Linux Clients). Also there are the issues that Coe linked in the post above yours.

Although I do not know the specifics of the issues the Army had with OpenGL, switching to the Unreal III should provide a clean slate in which the Army Dev's can support OpenGL with abstraction Layer such as SDL.

However this is may or may not be complicated by other legal issues with the Unreal III engine being ported over to Linux and Mac. These legal issues have kept Unreal III from being ported for almost a year now. It would be nice If a Dev could address if these issues apply to America's Army.

It would also be nice if the Moderators of this forum gave Linux and Mac user's a Thread to discuss our interest in seeing a Linux and Mac port of America's Army.

Posted: 22 Aug 2008 22:37

They are only making a windows client,
NO MAC OR LINUX!
I use linux as well as windows.

I guess you will have to put up with a emulator like wine.

Posted: 23 Aug 2008 00:58

Milyardo wrote:

Unitas)x(Death wrote: you may be able to use a program like WINE or cedega to play AAO on linux, but the problem lies with punkbuster. other games can be played using these software packages, but pb has always been the sticky point.....maybe you guys should be lobbying pb to be more friendly to such forms of media. just a thought There are other games who's implementation of punkbuster work with WINE. Also the effort it would take to get Punkbuster and AAO to perform respectably in WINE would take far more effort than to to rebuild AAO for Linux and Mac. Orignialy with AAO, Linux and Mac clients were easy to build as the Unreal engine was largely platform antagonistic as most game logic is written in a language called unreal script. However to improve game performace, the Army Devs made many changes to Unreal's implementation of Direct 3D. These improvements were difficult to reproduce in OpenGL so OpenGL support was dropped(and thus Mac and Linux Clients). Also there are the issues that Coe linked in the post above yours. Although I do not know the specifics of the issues the Army had with OpenGL, switching to the Unreal III should provide a clean slate in which the Army Dev's can support OpenGL with abstraction Layer such as SDL. However this is may or may not be complicated by other legal issues with the Unreal III engine being ported over to Linux and Mac. These legal issues have kept Unreal III from being ported for almost a year now. It would be nice If a Dev could address if these issues apply to America's Army. It would also be nice if the Moderators of this forum gave Linux and Mac user's a Thread to discuss our interest in seeing a Linux and Mac port of America's Army.

You reference Pye's post, but you completely ignore every point he made.

Posted: 23 Aug 2008 02:13

me or milyardo,
who referenced pye?

Posted: 05 Sep 2008 09:10

Sorry to pinch on thread to the other but....

Quote:

1. MBS is not available on Mac. Sure, Gamespy is but that isn't what we're using and to use it on Mac requires licensing it again for that platform. We don't have unlimited funds to do those kinds of things.

At least Linux does not require a licence (FOSS). MAC users will have to partition and run Linux there...at least its not windblows..

Quote:

2. Beta testers alone simply don't cut it. And even if I could entertain the idea of using Beta testers for testing Linux and Mac versions, in order to get them a testable build it still requires QA time & effort thus invalidating your argument that QA effort can be avoided by using Betas. Understand that I'm not knocking Beta testers, especially ours; we simply could not survive without them. For many years that's all this project had, but they simply cannot be your only testing solution.

Beta test reporting is easily handled through a ticket system similar to say, WINE's bug reporting tool. http://bugs.winehq.org/

You can download the CMS here
http://www.bugzilla.org/
And install it in a few hours...no problem really, just read and report on what you can when you can. If some things are "fixable" in the AA community then half your job is done yes?

Quote:

3. What planet are you from? Do you not understand that money is not an unlimited commodity? No, I can't go to the Army and say "hey, just another 10k to equip the office with Macs, that's all we need". I'd end up doing that every other day, that's why they have this thing called a "budget". And no, there isn't room to expand the team and our available equipment to do a Linux or Mac version under that budget. Before I'd even entertain the notion of trying to move to another platform I'd take three or four good engineers, an LD or two, more artists and definitely more QA. Our entire team is a little under 30 people, for comparison there were a total of 35 people who made up just the art and design teams on Call of Duty 4.

You could always open source some things to the community. Or LLC the licence..

The main problem is not the native solution for MAC per se. Its the silly Punk Bunster app that limits Linux MAC users entirely. Are there other solutions that want the business? If so then mebbe that PB contract is not worth the paper its written on? YOu know that old saying, money talks and....

Linux should be a no brainer. MAC is a licensing nightmare as too is windows..Both Win and MAC charge you, the developer, to make software for thier OS. What a nice little scam! And MAC and WIN users wonder where thier money goes....Tax on tax ..market penetration..scam!

Sorry devs but Windows is a lost cause for me. Linux is just the most basic and sleek customizable system anyone could ever want. Its market share increased 5% (the population of the US) over 12 months and over the next 3 to 4 years it will leave MAC behind..

Laptops, phones and all sorts of Motherboards are running linux at boot as a default OS. It means you can turn on your PC and surf the net without installing anything. It loads in 4 seconds and you can use it for anything else you need. In 4 years buying software will be for strictly for those who really need to...

http://www.slashgear.com/video...877.php

Windows for the home user is history...unless they sell it for $50

Play Ubuntu will gladly post AA Native if you produce it..that's around 1 million people right there.

http://www.playubuntu.com

Remember this?
http://playubuntu.com/linux-ga...53.html

You could also make a linux version, the Americas Army Linux Distro with pre installed AA and configured with X11 for optimum ease of use and totally portable live boot DVD version of anything Linux, even Damn Small Linux and Puppy Linux...(90mb distro). Going to school? Take said DVD and fang it up in the library LAN..

How much advertising does the army want for from this? Be creative ....

Posted: 05 Sep 2008 09:37

Quote:

You could always open source some things to the community. Or LLC the licence..

No, no we can't.

The game is based on Unreal technology which cannot be open sourced. Epic is the only entity that can make a decision like that.

Quote:

The main problem is not the native solution for MAC per se. Its the silly Punk Bunster app that limits Linux MAC users entirely.

PB is not necessarily a barrier to Mac. I've been looking into this and there are ways to make it work. We are exploring that possibility.

Quote:

MAC is a licensing nightmare as too is windows..Both Win and MAC charge you, the developer, to make software for thier OS.

This is simply not true.

Posted: 05 Sep 2008 09:53

Pye wrote:

Quote: You could always open source some things to the community. Or LLC the licence.. No, no we can't. The game is based on Unreal technology which cannot be open sourced. Epic is the only entity that can make a decision like that.

No the engine you can't. Maps, (Already done) assets and some in game coding can be done elsewhere e.g. some binaries for Ubuntu, some for Fedora. some for MAC. People will get on board I have no doubt..

Quote:

PB is not necessarily a barrier to Mac. I've been looking into this and there are ways to make it work. We are exploring that possibility.

Great to hear. fantastic in fact.

Quote:

This is simply not true.

You mean windows and MAC don't charge for their custom C compilers anymore?

Posted: 05 Sep 2008 11:00

You should be very clear about what it is you are trying to say and frame your argument properly. The way in which your argument is stated is a form of FUD, your statement implies that there is a license and fee structure that must be navigated to develop on Windows and OS X. While there is a grain of truth there, in reality it is no more difficult than going to Home Depot and buying power tools. You pay the money, you get the tools. The fact that you have to buy a compiler is no different than having to buy the computer, you need the right tools and you are going to have to buy them regardless of which platform you are targeting. To put it in other terms for example, it is not accurate to say that a carpenter has to pay for the privilege of building a house because he has to buy a hammer. Try using this argument in the future; It would be fair to say that the start up costs for developing on Windows or OS X are higher than what a Linux developer has to pay.

Posted: 05 Sep 2008 11:16

I think what a lot of people who want the support overlook is that the army (the idea thereof) is the one who is running this project. Not Pye, not any of his co-workers. They work for it, but they don't control the agenda except with the output of the end result.

Just like with a major company, the guy paying the bills is the one who makes the demands and the schedule for the company. The army, is in no shape or form any different - it's run like a really structural business, and it's very efficient with its work and output. To even afford a free game for over 6 years is a statement on its own.

The point I'm getting at is don't attack Pye or any other dev as if they aren't supporting your cause. I would think that specifically those in the gaming and design communities can appreciate what mac and linux are capable of so you're very mistaken that the devs don't agree with you. It's just they have there hands tied.

A good way to think of this is the episode of House (if you folks follow the show) where the business man (black guy) donates millions of dollars to the hospital, only difference is it's his hospital and he'll run it how he wants.

The upside, you have lots of funds, the downside you can apply to get certain things, but you have no control over what you actually get or what you can actually do.

To fight that in order to get what you want, you have to sacrifice not having the funds to do it. That's just reality.

Money is a secondary desire, it's not what people want, it's just what they need to get what they want. So those who have it, use it for their purposes. The purpose at hand for the army is to better prepare their citizens with information about what the army has to offer in hope that more people join part of the "business" of the army. That's US citizens, their tax dollars and they are the targeted audience.

That means that the big man's schedule and ideal revolves around how what he does today, helps him double his cause tomorrow in his defined location. That basically means that from the army's general viewpoint, what the rest of the world thinks of the game is not as important as what it does for the recruiting and informing of the US public. (so arguments about Europe paying double for vista, doesn't matter - not their problem.)

You got to remember, it's not just getting new joiners, but having family supports, understanding what the army does and why it's important. All of that comes to play.

I like mac, I like linux - they can be very open and resourceful to various different computer tasks. But they aren't on a massive build for compatibility like microsoft is, at least not yet. I know the day will come but the point is, the time now is Microsoft and PC's and until that changes completely - that's what organizations will target. No need to attack the small fries because they don't give you what they want, sometimes they don't get what they want either.

Now I'm a Canadian Citizen, and I have loved and enjoyed this game since it's beginning. But above all else, I admire and appreciate what the US government and Army has done with it's project and by far they have surpassed the normal closed views of what military life is like. I respect what they have done and how they still consider the rest of the world as a part of this project. So however this game turns out and whichever way it goes down the road - it may disappoint me if they lose support for outside countries, but in the end I still support the cause because they have taken a general idea of interest and turned it into something more. If anything, all our countries in the world should consider doing the same idea. Building your own free form platform of what your countries military is like. Then based on the country, it would be able to target it's computer OS audience.

Anyway carry on

Posted: 06 Sep 2008 11:23

Pye wrote:

The fact that you have to buy a compiler is no different than having to buy the computer, you need the right tools and you are going to have to buy them regardless of which platform you are targeting. To put it in other terms for example, it is not accurate to say that a carpenter has to pay for the privilege of building a house because he has to buy a hammer..

Since you put it that way, my bad

[-R-]Whoopass-SF wrote:

The point I'm getting at is don't attack Pye or any other dev as if they aren't supporting your cause

I don't think anyone in this thread had the devs in mind, more the directors. I know the devs do the best they can, simply replying to my clutching at straws shows they are interested. The main issue is platform compatibility. I am simply attempting to address the shallowness of the windows argument and present the general picture in which *nix based operating systems currently hold 25% of the market and soon, much more. The reality is there is a whole world of people out there, Americans who use Linux and MAC. The entire distribution network is sitting there and this game is not using it. Isn't that the whole purpose of it?

[-R-]Whoopass-SF wrote:

The purpose at hand for the army is to better prepare their citizens with information about what the army has to offer in hope that more people join part of the "business" of the army. That's US citizens, their tax dollars and they are the targeted audience.

Exactly my argument. Linux / MAC is on more desktops than people think or server logs show. in most studies of data gathered there were more Win 95 users than Linux users. And you want people to believe this? Win 95 does not really work well with todays internet so how they get these figures I have no clue. Basically Java runtime does not work at all with win 95, you can't even install it and M$ have not supported it for what 6 years? When was the last time a lan card came with a Windows 95 driver? And there are more of these on the net than Linux users?

[-R-]Whoopass-SF wrote:

If anything, all our countries in the world should consider doing the same idea. Building your own free form platform of what your countries military is like. Then based on the country, it would be able to target it's computer OS audience.

It would be good. Australia has a SIM they use and you can buy it or at least could. Its not a game though and graphically ancient. IMHO they should have taken it further.

Posted: 06 Sep 2008 15:03

Quote:

The main issue is platform compatibility. I am simply attempting to address the shallowness of the windows argument and present the general picture in which *nix based operating systems currently hold 25% of the market and soon, much more.

We're going to assume you are talking about US market share (and that this 25% is actually true, would appreciate it if you gave us a source or two to verify that number).

Now how many of that 25% are teenagers?

Now how many of those teenagers might possibly be influenced by this game to join the Army?