Linux & Fantasy Ground II

[sakmerlin37]

I have FGII running in Wine, no problem. In fact, I tweaked the settings a bit and it looks fantastic.

I noticed that there was an idea thread to vote on for a Linux client; however, it received limited votes :(

What would the possibility be of creating a Linux-based client (portable to Mac, as well, if done correctly) and allowing Smiteworks to own the copyright (if & where applicable)? I would be more than happy to provide coding towards this project, if not outright lead it.

[Invictys]

Considering that Linux has about a 1.25% market share for desktop OS I'd say the chances of that happening are negligible unless someone just did it completely on their own time for free as a labor of love. Even then, I doubt Smiteworks would let anyone under the hood of their proprietary program.

That said, try to make it happen! Mods and options are good for the community as a whole even when they make little financial sense :D

https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0

[sakmerlin37]

Yeah, I'd be that guy: I'd do the development for a cup o' coffee. I wouldn't necessarily even need their full code, creating an interface in QT or what-have-you would be a separate challenge; what I would need is how, specifically, the client connects to the server to show images, maps, tokens, etc.

Signing a non-disclosure agreement is industry standard and can protect a company from unintended releases of information. I'd be only happy to do that.

As for % of desktop users, I know of 4 people who use Linux and have Fantasy Grounds; the 5th person I know who uses FGII does so on a Mac. Not a single Windows user in the lot.

[Invictys]

That's great man, I'm all for it like I said. If you can work out an arrangement everyone can live with do it!

Your self-selected sample doesn't surprise me as people tend to associate with those that have similar interests, in your case Linux and FG2. My own self selected sample is 9 windows users not a single Mac or Linux user in the lot.

Neither of our anecdotal samples are relevant and are in fact expected anomalies. Its the population sample which is relevant and the fact is only 1.25% of Desktop users run Linux and about 7% run Mac OS.

Everything else is Windows. It's not discrimination for developers not to have a Mac or Linux port of their program its just simple economics, the costs outweigh the benefits.

This becomes a more acute issue the smaller the pool of customers is in the first place as with a niche product like FG2. You need people who play tabletop RPGs, who want a virtual tabletop program, who like the feature set/useability/community/whatever of FG2, then you create a port to service only 1.25% of those customers? You've split your niche within a niche into yet another niche.

Even Mac OS with 7% market share only gets ports of the largest and most successful programs, most developers just can't get over the economy of scale needed to make that happen cost effectively.

Now, if you're trying to say that the population sample of Desktop users who also play games is somehow different from that then that's another issue entirely which would need different data to substantiate. I'd be interested in knowing, and I'm sure some marketing research company has that information.

That being said, I'm all for it if you can make it happen at no cost to Smiteworks (from an Intellectual Property or monetary perspective). More options and a dynamic community is always a good thing.

[sakmerlin37]

Aye, I completely agree on the economics of the situation & understand why businesses choose not to make a version for Linux.

I do know that if I had the C++ code of a program, I could evaluate and change line-by-line until it worked correctly. I've done that before for programs: )

I'm currently working on the correct window structure for the beginning of a native Linux client. I'm trying several different languages, at the moment, to see what would be more portable (i.e., not dependent on specific DE's - Gnome, KDE, etc.); I am leaning towards either PyQT or Python Tkinter so far.

[Doswelk]

My understanding was that a large amount of the code would need to be rewritten as it is built around DirectX.

[ddavison]

sakmerlin37, thanks for the offer. Even though that would appear to get us over the hump and get a native version out to Linux, there are reasons we would not want to go that way.

The biggest and insurmountable reason is future parity between new versions. Since we are actively developing the product and we release new product enhancements throughout the year, this would put us in a position of having to maintain it in two states on different platforms. They may behave differently and there would be potential issues with a GM or player running the newest version on PC/Windows and another user connecting to the game on a Linux distribution that is one revision back. Currently, we know that the experience is the same for PC, Mac and Linux -- other than the file structure and slight differences when using Wine.

The second major issue is the dependability of external developers. We have had some fantastic community supporters who were programmers or graphic artists and who have worked with us on some very cool features. We've also had a number of them disappear for health issues, personal issues, increased real-life work or any number of reasons. Once the community starts to depend on something being available, it would be very hard for us to have it abandoned. That would mean we'd have to jump back in and start maintaining two code-sets again ourselves. While it may be a worse case scenario, we'd need to prepare for it that way from the very beginning.

The third issue is security of the IP. There are several competitors out while we don't mind the competition, we wouldn't want to expose ourselves to any unfair leakage of techniques or methods.

[sakmerlin37]

@ddavidson

No worries, I completely understand about IP concerns. If & when you ever want to develop for Mac/Linux, I will make myself available :)

[Blacky]

Considering that Linux has about a 1.25% market share for desktop OS
Shortsighted, look at Android.

[Invictys]

First, it's not shortsighted that's how business is done. Smite works isn't trying to champion the age old geekery argument that Linux is superior...they are trying to make money.

Second, comparing an established market segment such as desktop operating systems with a still developing mobile OS market is not an apples to apples comparison (no pun intended lol). The race is ongoing and the technology is still new.

The current Facts I cited are facts like it or not. If you think Linux is going to explode onto the desktop OS market like Android has for mobile OS I'd say you are guilty of wishful thinking. That ship has sailed! if apple cant grab more market share no way Linux will. Either way, if and when that unlikely event happens then and only then would it be economically feasible to have Linux ports of software.

[Blacky]

I'm not a blind, neither a strong supporter of Linux. At the most, I'm a timid supporter of libre *nix.

What's shortsighted, is to limit rpg virtual tabletop software to desktop. Who doesn't want to be able to play real rpg on their couch, on laying on the grass in their garden or the nearest park, on even in their swimming pool? There's no hardware limitation right now, only software ones.

In other words, Smiteworks doesn't need to champion anything. But when the next big Fantasy Grounds rewrite comes, using portable code and development tools to bypass artificial limitations and prepare a somewhat painless future is a smart business move.

And before that, looking at making FG2/3 behaving better with Wine and the OSX Wine-like, would be nice.

And of course, open-sourcing Fantasy Grounds would be a tremendous help to the dev team. But that's another debate.

[Invictys]

Currently tablets from ipad to surface to galaxy only have 1.5-1.7 ghz processors and 1-2gb RAM. Not exactly a powerhouse for running truly robust programs like FG2.

Personally I'd never play on a 10 inch touch screen and give up my dual monitor stretched Fg2! Plus I like to have tons of PDF reference material close at hand. I don't use a single hard copy book, but if I did I wouldn't be lugging them to the park either.

Then there's the fact that the whole program would have to be rewritten and kept up to date for essentially 3 versions. Windows, Linux or whichever open source, and One for the ipad.

Sounds reasonable and economically feasible....

[Blacky]

Currently tablets from ipad to surface to galaxy only have 1.5-1.7 ghz processors and 1-2gb RAM. Not exactly a powerhouse for running truly robust programs like FG2.
First, computing power is growing fast. Second, and most important, “robust program”? It just display some images and minimal layers across through network, some text, does some calculation (the biggest should be like a 4 chain additions, or a square, things that were light for a 1980 computer), and very minimal interpreted scripting.

I mean, Angry Birds is more “robust” than that.


Then there's the fact that the whole program would have to be rewritten and kept up to date for essentially 3 versions. Windows, Linux or whichever open source, and One for the ipad.
Linux or whichever open source? That's nice… 3 usenet lines on top of that. Thanks for the gem :)

No, that's one portable version, and a script that compile binaries and link installer for several OSes in one click.

[Trenloe]

First, computing power is growing fast. Second, and most important, “robust program”? It just display some images and minimal layers across through network, some text, does some calculation (the biggest should be like a 4 chain additions, or a square, things that were light for a 1980 computer), and very minimal interpreted scripting.
I think you're grossly underestimating the amount of coding and data handling that an FG client does. "very minimal interpreted scripting" - errr, there is well over 25,000 lines of LUA code in the 3.5e ruleset, I certainly wouldn't class that as minimal. This is just the ruleset specific code, there is obviously lots and lots of base FG application executable code that we don't see. Then there is all of the module data handling - a lot of this is done on the client. Frequently, in an ongoing campaign, the memory use for a client (player computer) will be pushing 2GB. Then there are multiple windows all over the place...

[Blacky]

Currently tablets from ipad to surface to galaxy only have 1.5-1.7 ghz processors and 1-2gb RAM. Not exactly a powerhouse for running truly robust programs like FG2.
That's not what they say:


System requirements:
Pentium 3 500MHz or equivalent
RAM: 256 MB
Video memory: 32 MB

[Moon Wizard]

Both Doug and I agree that there are possibilities for using all platforms for gaming, whether large physical tabletop displays all the way down to cell phones. However, we think that the "tabletop" portion of the game works best on larger screens (at least 9-10 inch screen). This is proven out in how well board games have transitioned onto mobile devices. You can play a board game on your phone, but it's not the best experience. The smaller screens are best used as auxiliary devices or references. I envision a time when we have a large virtual tabletop in our homes for the main display, and use smaller displays (phones, etc.) as our "personal" view of the game (character sheet, cards, etc.).

The computing power point that Trenloe mentioned is currently valid, and something I have cited as well. However, I know that mobile devices will be there relatively soon.

The main issue is actually platform fragmentation. There's just not enough time to write native code for so many different platforms with a 2-person team. I'm guessing that we'll have to move to some sort of cross-platform development platform for future versions. So, it's just a matter of timing the transition vs. the amount of work. Also, one of the other benefits of a cross-platform system is that a lot of libraries are built-in, such as image processing and networking. The drawback is that most of the change will be lateral feature-wise, or potentially even have to scale back features to fit into a new platform.

Also, the specifications have not been updated since 2008, and are not really valid. Guess we should update the specs. ;)

Regards,
JPG

[Invictys]

I'm not a programmer so most of that is Greek to me lol. I will say though that everyone knows minimum system requirements are usually bogus and will result in barely useable performance. But still they do need to update them to be at least somewhat realistic lol!

The salient point is here is that it would require a ton of work for not much benefit in my opinion. The 8.25% of non windows users out there are not precluded from playing FG2 because of Wine and the like. Frankly any gamer not using windows already knows that they will need to use a windows emulator, it's not unique to FG2.

I doubt many if any at all sales have been lost because of a lack of native Linux or OSx versions. People who use those operating systems just don't expect it in the first place for gaming software.

One could argue that even if there were a native Linux and OSx version that the sales would not be meaningfully impacted because of that. So now the issue becomes are there enough people out there who want to play on their tablets to make it worth converting to cross platform. I think given the niche within a niche within a niche nature of FG2 the answer is no.

Interesting conversation though thanks for that ;)

[Blacky]

I'm guessing that we'll have to move to some sort of cross-platform development platform for future versions. So, it's just a matter of timing the transition vs. the amount of work.
Tup, that's what I said several posts back. At some point, the amount of work to emulate some features and amount of rewrite to correct long standing issues will outweigh the time needed to switch to portable code.


Also, the specifications have not been updated since 2008, and are not really valid. Guess we should update the specs. ;)
Indeed :)


Frankly any gamer not using windows already knows that they will need to use a windows emulator, it's not unique to FG2.
FG is not a videogame.

[Invictys]

FG is not a videogame.

Yes let's talk semantics not substance

[eavawter]

Those of you who use a Mac computer and want to run FGII on it will probably need a virtual machine. (yes, there are some free ones out there). I use VM Fusion, but there is also Parallels. They're both about the same. You will need to have a disk with the WINDOWS operating system you wish to install on it. My personal choice (for OS stability alone) is XP. So, I have a Mac that runs any windows applications I need it to inside the virtual machine. If you need more info feel free to email me.



Yeah, I'd be that guy: I'd do the development for a cup o' coffee. I wouldn't necessarily even need their full code, creating an interface in QT or what-have-you would be a separate challenge; what I would need is how, specifically, the client connects to the server to show images, maps, tokens, etc.

Signing a non-disclosure agreement is industry standard and can protect a company from unintended releases of information. I'd be only happy to do that.

As for % of desktop users, I know of 4 people who use Linux and have Fantasy Grounds; the 5th person I know who uses FGII does so on a Mac. Not a single Windows user in the lot.

[eavawter]

I partially solved this problem with a computer that's a tablet and windows in one. Yes it's an 18 inch tablet, but you get used to it. All I'll say is the brand name is Asus. Just look up Android and Win8 to find out more particulars on the internet. I got this idea from wanting to write android apps on my tablet, which is impossible, since there is still no way to do that. Now I can switch from my tablet to windows as long as I can connect wirelessly (or remotely) to my windows network.