This is so amazing, but I'm really hoping that they release a way for mod developers to recompile their mods to work... Do they have the multiplayer aspects working?
Edit: Yep, sure enough HL1 shows up in the Steam Linux CDR (http://cdr.xpaw.ru/linux/), and interestingly enough, so does Counter-Strike - albeit with the message "Not Marked for Linux"...
What a small world! Never would have expected to find another AHL fan here. The map-making community for that game was absolutely amazing. There was a server than ran a a neat event around Halloween, AHL-loween, where they had a special Halloween-themed map rotation. So much fun.
My son and I played so much of HL and the mods, AHL was awesome! This is so cool. I even bought a new gaming PC, first time in years, couldn't get it without Windows 8 but it won't be running that. It will be running Ubuntu just like this machine and my laptop. Thanks Valve! Take my money!
Natural Selection was probably the funnest mod (with CS being my favourite). I've been trying to find reviews on NS2 from those that actually played the original - any chance you've given NS2 a go?
I made ns_shiva for the original, so that should speak to how much I liked it. :) I am completely in love with the sequel. It is fantastic.
Here are the main differences:
* Commanding is much less stressful. Giving the marines their own resources and the ability to buy their own weapons means you can focus more of your attention on just coordinating attacks and getting upgrades.
* Stalemates are much less common. In NS1 taking down the turret factory would mean that there's an opportunity for everyone to rush it to take the rest of the base, now every room has a power node in a fixed location that powers down all the structures when it is destroyed. This makes it much easier to force a beacon, and to end the game once the marines are down to their last base.
* Each class is much better balanced. Excellent Fades are no longer the sole backbone of a good team. Lerks now are useful at all skill levels. Exosuits are extremely powerful but very vulnerable when alone.
* Gorges are now a nice-to-have when building instead of absolutely necessary. This means they can be on the front-lines more often.
* Graphics (obviously) and very dynamic environments. The infestation spreading is beautiful, and taking the power down makes for some very tense moments.
Because you can only build comm chairs at tech points, you can't have insane creativity in relocations. I hate this SO MUCH. God, it was so awesome when you'd find some new insane place to tuck a commchair.
Letting marines spend their own resources dilutes the game. Weaksauce.
Maybe I'm getting old, but I find the maps incomprehensible. This last is the real reason I'm not logging any time on NS2.
>Because you can only build comm chairs at tech points, you can't have insane creativity in relocations.
True, but this also means that the maps are possible to balance. You don't have to worry about things like red room or cold turn that break otherwise promising maps.
>Letting marines spend their own resources dilutes the game.
Way too many pub games of ns1 ended early because no one wanted to take on the stress of being commander. I've never seen that happen in ns2.
>Maybe I'm getting old, but I find the maps incomprehensible. This last is the real reason I'm not logging any time on NS2.
I think you are getting old. :) No seriously, I think it's just a busier art style that comes with more polygons and higher res textures. I had the same initial reaction being so used to older games with simpler graphics, but once you are accustomed to it most of the maps end up being pretty easy to learn. Tram and mineshaft are particularly hard, but veil is ported perfectly from the original, and summit and docking are both pretty straightforward.
> You don't have to worry about things like red room or cold turn
Right, but also don't get comm chairs and spawns balanced up on the manifolds (above the reach of onosen) in Processing, outside DCD, on ns_hera.
> I think it's just a busier art style that comes with more polygons and higher res textures
I agree. And it's too much for me. I've been thinking someone should make a mod that's just racing from techpoint to techpoint, with no one shooting at anyone, and with highscores for best times, to help learn maps.
I don't think its just about the stress of being commander. People still have team work, commanders sometimes still buy things for marine. It just makes it a lot easier in publics, when you've got someone who is dieing all the time, from consuming the team resources unfairly.
Also when playing a PCW last night I was ordered by my comm to buy more mines and welders because "I am just a waste of a shotgun", he was a little bit upset with me.
It's more democratic, as it allows players to opt-in to such things, I've bought guns for my team mates before as a planned saving for dual exo was never going to happen.
I have given NS2 a go actually. Last I played NS1 personally was just over a year ago.
Regarding NS2, graphics are sweet, but I do not like the gameplay changes coming from NS1. I literally thought NS1 was perfect, and NS:Source would have sold like hotcakes.
That being said, I did happen to stumble across NS2 Classic (http://ns2cmodpreview.com/), and was very intrigued. Search for "Classic" in the NS2 server browser and just connect to play it. I found one with just 3 people on it, so not much gameplay was to be had.
Long story short, it was everything it was advertised to be - it felt JUST like NS1, with additions where needed. There was even a ported NS1 map we were playing on (I think it was ns_eclipse), although the textures weren't done. It still needs lots of polish to be done, but man, is it promising.
Very promising though if NS2 classic takes off, and I think (hope) it will see more adoption as the NS1 crew starts to move out of HL1... And as more people in NS2 discover the wonders of NS2 Classic.
I've played around in both and enjoy them. Tellingly, I've noticed a lot of the original community (at least, in my area) has come back and is sticking with NS2 strongly; the couple of hardcore-ish NS friends I have really like NS2 too. It's worth the money :).
NS2 is a great game but it seems to require a supercomputer to run. My Q6600 and GTX560Ti can run most new games smoothly at decent settings, but not this one. I can barely reach 30 fps at some points.
Seems to be using the original Goldsource content GCF, so it appears indeed to be Half-Life. Interestingly enough, the OS list shows both Linux and OSX.
BM:S is very, very nice looking and fun, but it's still not finished yet, anyone looking bear in mind multiplayer and the Xen levels are not implemented yet.
It's passed steam greenlight, so once finished, should be available for a nice one click install. I look forward to this :)
But if you're reading this thread and excited, you'll probably get a kick out of it.
All the pre-Xen levels are very well finished. If you just want the single player gameplay up to the point of the Lambda Complex, install Black Mesa now :-).
You can get a preview of the gorgeous Xen graphics in one of the rooms of the Questionable Ethics chapter.
Whenever I used to replay the original Half-Life (I think I've completed it 5 or 6 times), I would get as far as Lambda Complex, pretend that was where the game finished, and promptly stop playing.
I think plenty of us hated the Xen levels, and the BM:S team knows how challenging it will be to modernise. I'm looking forward to see what they do!
I personally enjoyed the Xen levels (except the fact that Nihilanth brought my PC to a near standstill when the game came out), but to each their own. I'd be interested to hear your complaints about Xen.
A common complaint involved the tiny little orbiting platforms that had to be jumped between. It turned an excellent FPS into a frustrating 3D platformer and interrupted the rhythm of the game.
At least gameplay-wise Black Mesa is very different from Half-Life. To me it is different in a bad, dumb, modern way. Please do not suggest that it is the same or even superior to the original game.
I found HL1 to be unplayable but loved Black Mesa. I didn't have any nostalgia factor for HL1 (I was ten and computerless in '98) but had always wanted to enjoy the game. Black Mesa made that mostly possible.
I agree. Game design has come a long way since 1998. I remember playing Perfect Dark when it came out in 2000, and it was the epitome of FPS perfection. I still love it just as much today, but I can't pretend that other people are going to feel the same way. It's nostalgia, and if you don't have those fond memories of the game, you're going to notice that it is very clearly a 3D game from a decade and a half ago.
You enjoyed Black Mesa then, not Half-Life! Sorry for being so nit-picky, but I find the distinction important. You would not tell some Star Trek Deep Space Nine nerd that watching Star Trek Voyager is the same. The biggest similarity between BW and HL is the general story/setting and general level layout.
You are not being nit-picky; you are being ridiculous.
You are replying to a comment which clearly states "I loved Black Mesa," and then go on to suggest that he enjoyed Black Mesa.
The general story, setting, and level layout are a tremendous amount of what would be considered a single-player, narrative-driven, FPS experience.
All that's left is the level of difficulty, and the feel of the code, as seen inside a particular engine. It's fine that you feel these are important aspects of Half-Life, but, when people wax nostalgic about this game, those who loved it remember their reactions to the setting they were in, the feelings they had inside the narrative, and the difficulties they had with particular aspects of the level design.
These are the things that were translated well, in your depiction. I haven't played it, but I suppose we can take your word for it: the team that made Black Mesa did a good job of replicating the Half-Life experience.
> You are replying to a comment which clearly states "I loved Black Mesa," and then go on to suggest that he enjoyed Black Mesa.
He was replying to a comment that stated that they didn't enjoy Half-Life but wished they had, and that Black Mesa let them do that. The reply is correct; Black Mesa and Half-Life are different games.
Half-Life is a good game, but it's also overrated because it was so novel for being narrative-driven at the time. It's still a Quake-like arcade shooter at its core, which is great but not new anymore, so people going back and playing the original expecting to be surprised may be disappointed.
No, what is left is much more than that. You left out the whole gameplay, which to me defines a game.
Invisible brushes, different physics, monsters are different, some attack much quicker and harder, others are dumbed down.
This might feel like an improvement to some people, to me it did not. It does make the GAME a different one though. If only you notice minor changes, don't even mind the different graphics and sounds, then it may very well be a better game to you.
But please do not say it is the same. If you have played Black Mesa, you did not play Half-Life. You played Black Mesa.
The gameplay is the way the code feels. That's what defines the gameplay, as you describe it.
I never played it, and don't particularly care about what people think of either experience.
I didn't say it was the same, but, if someone feels that way, they are entitled to care about different aspects of the single player experience.
People are entitled to be as aggressive as you are, and I find it strange that you would ask others to keep their opinions to themselves, if they found Black Mesa to be the superior experience.
I said to me, I did not say it is objectively. I am just saying that a fan-made mod for a modern engine, using modern gameplay ideas is not the same as the original game.
Just imagine the effect an exclusive linux release of HL (ep?) 3 would have. If Valve really wanted to piss on Microsoft's foot, that's what they should do.
Well given (a) Valve's distaste for Microsoft's strategy and (b) their anyways insane profitability per employee I could see them at least releasing a title a few weeks earlier on linux and OSX than on Windows.
Valve's problem with Windows is that they perceive them to be going after a more closed system. Snubbing Windows for the far more closed OSX would be ridiculous, so that's never going to happen. The Linux market for games is absolutely tiny compared with Windows, so there's no way they are going to release a major title on Linux first either.
Valve's problem with Windows 8 is the Live Store, and Metro interface. Specifically the fact that the Live Store is the only way Microsoft will allow applications to be distributed to Metro interface, with the revenue cut that Microsoft want.
OS X is not "far more closed". Darwin, the UNIX kernel and utils that OS X runs on top of is fully free and open-source. It's just the Apple-specific APIs like Cocoa, Carbon, Quartz, Aqua and all that jazz that is closed-source and proprietary.
Can I get source access to the NT kernel on Windows? Nope. That's Microsoft's secret and novel invention that is supposedly the best OS in the world, so they have to keep it on lockdown. </s>
Just being restrictive of what computers can run your OS does not make it closed. When has Microha$h ever supported FOSS? Think about it for a second.
Good luck building them. Many of the code dumps are incomplete (like dyld and ld64). They reference private apple headers and won't build without them. Granted, they can probably be hacked to build in some cases and having the source just for reading is still nice.
Steve Jobs proudly described the Mac as closed as opposed to Windows "open and fragmented" approach.
OS X is specifically designed not to work non-Apple hardware, even hardware that is perfectly capable of running it.
Parts of it are open source, mostly because those parts were an extention of existing open source software.
"OSX" is not free in any sense of the word.
Microsoft are still a far cry from the likes of GNU/Linux in terms of openness, but almost nobody would describe the Mac platform as "more open" than Windows.
It's all about Microsoft's rule that you can't put anything on the "Metro" launch screen unless it's installed from the Microsoft App Store.
Which means Steam and all its titles would have to be launched by explicitly navigating to the classic desktop. Which is beyond Apple's simply providing a parallel way to get software onto OSX.
If Apple didn't allow icons in the Dock, unless the app came from the Mac App Store, I'm sure you'd see a similar reaction from third-party platform creators like Valve.
With launch screen, you mean the new Start screen? All Start menu shortcuts automatically appear there (except if they appear to be uninstallers and such, but those are still searchable and can be added manually). So if you tell Steam to create Start menu shortcuts for a game, they automatically appear on the Start screen.
If Steam can still trivially get its third-party-bought programs onto the metro-styled start screen, the popular reporting on that situation was off.
And I can't even find a story where Gabe himself actually expresses an opinion on, or concern about, the MS App Store. His comments seem to entirely revolve around Metro being bad for desktop usability and Windows 8 not selling. So the popular reporting that Gabe was specifically upset about the store (via it's limitations) seems to have all been bullshit/editorial.
Upon digging deeper, it seems his concerns about Windows 8 aren't materially different than his comments about Vista (via complaints about DX10 being Vista-only, as Vista wasn't selling).
"If Steam can still trivially get its third-party-bought programs onto the metro-styled start screen, the popular reporting on that situation was off."
All mine are, by default. Valve is concerned about the competition from the Windows app store, not the UI revamp.
If it were about the app store, why does Gabe have nothing to say about the Mac App Store?
In my poking around on this, I saw plenty of assertions that this was all about the app store, but nothing is ever attributed to Newell except his lament that the usability is off and the sales aren't there.
Because Mac and iOS gaming doesn't represent such a large share of their business. The doom and gloom doesn't make sense otherwise, Steam functions perfectly well on Windows 8, as do all other desktop, non-"Modern UI" apps, so there's no other conceivable reason for him to get irate.
> "The doom and gloom doesn't make sense otherwise"
But the 'doom and gloom', from Gabe's mouth, doesn't seem to be any more extreme than his stated position on DX10/Vista. As far as I can find, the press are the ones taking his comments to extremes, reading into them about app stores, etc.
Seems like wishful thinking. If there was going to be any snubbing, I would expect it to be an early release for the PS3 or some other platform that would make Valve money. Even during the heyday of Linux ports in the 90s, from Quake 3 to SimCity 3000, Linux on the desktop never took off.
I could see a world where they HL3 is exclusive to the Steambox (or whatever it's called) for a period of time. Alternatively, they could offer lower prices (or subscription things) to make obtaining valve games significantly cheaper/easier on their own hardware.
I think they have to move quickly though - the steam-sale model is getting copied by other PC download services and they stand the chance of getting lost in the crowd.
Serious question: was Linux able to play any kind of game in 1998? Linux releases are a little more fluid so there aren't as many big moments, but I'd imagine it was a hell of a lot less capable in '98.
There was a fair amount of AAA gaming support around that timeframe (say 1996-2000). Almost a golden age. Games based on the Quake engine were the most obvious example. Besides them, Loki ported maybe 20 games over to Linux. The ones I still have CDs around for somewhere are Railroad Tycoon 2, Heroes of Might and Magic 3 and Myth 2.
A friend bought a Quake III for Linux tin box from the discount bin because they had put a sticker on it saying it also worked for Windows.
Inside was a instruction sheet informing Linux users how they could use CVS to pull and compile 3D support, depending on their distribution. I thought it was rather funny that someone felt they could market a game to people who were compiling their own operating system. I guess that's why it was in the discount bin.
I am pretty sure that the Quake 3 demo was released for Linux first and my memory is that this was an intentional move by Carmack to promote Linux [1].
1. Wikipedia lists the release dates for the full game, which were in Dec 1999 for both Windows and Linux (windows a few weeks earlier). I don't recall exactly when the demo came out, but I think it was sometime in the winter of 1999.
The Linux installation got easier, but from a Desktop user's point of view features did not change much since '98 as far as I remember. Sure there is now (serious) support for all the new fancy Hardware like Webcam or SMP Processors. (I'm having doubts whether it's correct to say that Audio improved^^) But OpenGL was always there. Actually SDL was very popular during that time (SDL = OpenGL + X ~ Direct X) Interesting, I just read that it was actually Loki who developed it in '99 -- all their games were SDL based.
Otherwise you're right, setting up Linux Gaming computers with working OpenGL Hardware Acceleration was painful, especially for us poor people who could not afford the most expensive OpenGL Hardware. ;) On the other hand I think audio was easier to setup :P
Around that time, companies were relaxed enough to have employees care for ports if they wanted to. Unreal and Unreal Tournament had great ports that - to my knowledge - were produced in off-hours.
For me, it was a great first trip to Linux-Land - I was in my gaming-and-hacking phase, so I hacked together a Linux that could actually run UT :).
In those days, Voodoo cards were all the rage. There was a binary Glide library available for Linux; Mesa could link against it and give you full OpenGL (with some limitations, such as texture size) support. GLQuake and Quake 2 ran; and non-3D games could certainly have been made to run had the developers cared to. (I coaxed StarCraft into running with Wine, but it didn't have IPX support so no LAN play.) About a year later, the Quake 3 demo and eventually Quake 3 itself ran under Linux.
Though your comment is clearly sarcastic, you might be able to get an old CD copy of HL1 from eBay, which only has CD key protection and works in Wine.
Why sarcastic, the question is sincere. It's nice to see Valve pushing for more native Linux games, but on the other hand I'm not using Steam because of its DRM. So that's why I asked if it would be possible to buy the Linux version somewhere outside Steam. Buying CDs in the age of digital distribution sounds crude.
I think people (myself included) took your initial inquiry as sarcastic because you didn't so much as ask if it were possible as ask where it could be done. The wording kinda to presume one COULD purchase the game without DRM. And if you know Valve (and you may not, that's fair), then you should know DRM is their bread and butter. They're more synonymous with their DRM scheme/store/toolset Steam than they are with games.
To use a more readily recognizable name... It would be like seeing a post about a new version of Windows releasing, and someone saying "Great! Where can I get the source so I can roll my own?" Maybe that person wouldn't know... But the assumption is going to be they're making a comment rather than asking a genuine question.
Well, I never used Steam preferring DRM free distributors like GOG, so I can't say much about Valve in this regard except that I know that Steam uses it :) It's unfortunate that they are too engrossed in DRM as much as preventing their games form being distributed by DRM free channels.
Valve is not "engrossed in DRM". They have the most lenient DRM that still qualifies as DRM, and the only objectionable aspect of it is the theoretical inability to install a game without access to the Steam servers. Valve's "DRM" scheme has imposes fewer restrictions on the user than most EULAs, and pretty much never gets in the way of legitimate usage. The fact that they don't want to sell their games without Steam is a business decision that is quite unrelated to the DRM question, and more related to their profit motive and the other services Steam provides that vendors like GoG don't.
What don't you like about Steam's DRM system? Does it in any way inconvenience you or restrict you from doing something reasonable with your purchases? Or are you against it for the mere reason that it's been called DRM? Based on your comments, it sounds like you might be trying to make a principled stand without being fully informed, or else there's some nuance to your principles that isn't yet clear to me.
What I (not previous poster) am mostly against when it comes to Steam and it's DRM is that in any kind of conflict with Valve, they will ban access to your _complete_ steam library.
This means, if you ever have a PayPal-froze-my-account issue, you are guilty of Fraud, and thus they take back all your bought (Erm, rented?) games.
This is something I do not like and that always gnaws at me about the platform. Especially combined with their very poor customer support. ( Approaching Google-level of user hostility )
Offline mode has made me realise just how easily DRM means denying me access to my own computer.
- need to be single-user admin with saved password
- didn't know that before? tough! you're locked out from all games including DRM-free ones
- happened again and still can't get offline mode? tough!
- support limits how big a message you can send so I couldn't send complete info (not that they looked)
- support promotes racial hatred, closing issue with poor English and telling me I didn't do what I did.
- follow up support also closed.
- considered small claims court but was convinced it really wasn't worth it.
lesson learned: There is no such thing as "friendly" DRM. When the system decides you are wrong, there is no recourse[1]
[1] Unless you're a famous blogger, have a personal contact or other out-of-band means unavailable to the masses.
I don't think any clients from Steam or other distributors need to run in order to install or play some game. And as the other commenter pointed out - you don't want suddenly to lose your whole collection if Steam terminates your account.
> and pretty much never gets in the way of legitimate usage.
In my experience the steam client is physically painful to use (unpausable downloads, cache verifications, slow startup, unresponsive store). It's not as bad as iTunes, but it's getting there.
This looks interesting. So one can get the installers for these games through Steam and use them without running their client and etc.? I thought all their games require the client running and it's already DRM for me which I don't accept.
Is there an easy way to filter games by this criteria on Steam itself?
> So one can get the installers for these games through Steam and use them without running their client and etc.
Yes, that is the case case with the DRM free Steam games I have played. I guess that this is common among indie games at Steam, but I have not really looked into it.
> Is there an easy way to filter games by this criteria on Steam itself?
Do not think so. I do not think Valve want to dissuade developers to use their DRM.
Unfortunately no Steam uses its own package format, so it must run the installer the first time to get steam to unpack it. Steam provides DRM but it is up to the author of the game to use it, their own, or none as they see fit. And no Steam doesn't provide any clues as to what DRM is used by a game.
It seems like I have run across other games that use secuROM but don't mention it. I don't know if it was because that was before they added the listing or because there was no restriction like the activation limit.
Well, Valve owns Steam, their publishing arm/store/DRM. And like EA now sells their games with their online store/DRM "Origin", Valve does the same with theirs, Steam!
Yeah, they get more by shoehorning people into Steam than they would lose from not selling DRM-free versions.
There may have been a point to stop this from growing into what it's become early on... But it's too far gone to be broken free of save a major scandal. And even then, it'd probably take a few. It's just by far and large a non-invasive tool. They've worked out many kinks.
I'm not saying it's perfect, nor am I saying we should be happy with it. But it's avoided the major problems most other DRM efforts see in "making things more difficult for legit users than pirates". I haven't had any issues with any aspects in years.
CD Projekt Red who own GOG naturally distribute their own games through GOG, but note that they as well distribute them through Steam. I see no clear reasons for Valve to restrict the distribution of their games to Steam only. Yes, historically it came with this not very invasive DRM, but there is still no reason to keep it forever, since DRM has no good reasons to be used altogether.
I understand that Valve can be already too involved with game producing companies which still have backwards thinking that DRM is a must. But Valve can start pushing them to drop it, instead of being passive.
I tried this on OS X, but I get stuck running the thing
I get:
Error:dlopen(/Users/barbs/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/Counter-Strike/hw.dylib, 2): Library not loaded: release/vgui.dylib
Referenced from: /Users/barbs/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/Counter-Strike/hw.dylib
Reason: image not found
Could not load hw.dylib.
In linux, vgui.so and vgui2.so are in the directory above. Try adding them to the LD_LIBRARY_PATH env var or whatever the OS X equivalent should be. (that maybe why it didn't work in the first place, I don't know).
I guess it may be a whole different story on Mac. I haven't heard of anyone getting the native OS X Half Life running through Steam, though someone on reddit said they had it downloading...
Finally!! Us Mac users are used to waiting a little longer than PC users to get a compatible version of the game, but 15 years must be some kind of record.
It almost made it out way back when, but was cancelled at the last minute. There’s an interview with one of the developers about it on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBg6L4H7WdE
If a problem is that easy to solve, I wonder why it doesn't get fixed by the developers. That way thousands of tech impaired users have to google and spend hours to solve this.
Doubtful, because they're a primarily closed-source company.
Anyway, I'm mad at Adobe not because they didn't port CS6 over to Linux, I'm mad because they didn't even TRY to ensure Wine support for it. Tweaking your application to work under Wine is just as good as writing a copy for a different OS from scratch, and that's the least they could have done.
I hope this doesn't offend anyone, but I get the impression that Linux-on-the-desktop peaked a couple of years ago, Now, with the Unity/Gnome 3/Mint/etc. mess, the momentum Ubuntu had has fragmented into several diverging paths. It seems harder now to recommend one single Linux distribution for the average user than it was two years ago.
On top of that, the PC itself seems to have peaked. It's hard to think that Valve sees this as the right time to pour resources into PC gaming on Linux. It's much more likely to have something to do with the console we know they're working on.
I think you are right. But this is not necessarily a bad thing.
Majority of Linux kernel is pretty good because of servers, super-computers and Android.
The only reason Linux needs Desktop users is for better graphics drivers and games. Now that Valve is making their game-console, the graphics drivers should improve tremendously, and there should be a lot of new games.
So there is no real need for wide acceptance of Linux desktop.
Of course, this is a rather selfish point of view. I believe that the world would be a better place if everyone used Free Software (and Linux). It would encourage collaboration of many groups of people, and would be really beneficial for all software.
Yeah the PC has peaked... sure... 355 millions of PCs sold in 2011, versus 346 millions in 2010 worldwide. What peak are you talking about exactly ?
Even with all the Smartphone BS out there, the PC market is still immensely bigger than all of of the smartphone/tablets combined. Why do you think people still make games and applications for PCs ?
Yeah, and guess how much time are people spending on their Smartphones vs time spent on average on a PC ? That should be fairly obvious that the number of minutes of usage per device is greatly in favor of computers vs smartphones. Smartphones are a fashion trend: people like to change them all the time when new models come out because there is a great technological advance currently on their specs. The same is not true on PC anymore, yet they are still selling by truckloads. Utility wins.
Dismissing smartphones as a fashion trend seems naive. There is a segment of PC users who emotionally react to the suggestion that the "PC", in reference to a box sitting on a desk, is in its twilight. I think it's due to a fear of losing mastery over the system.
PCs are horrendously complex for what most people would use them for--taking pictures, browsing Facebook, watching movies, and so on. It's no surprise that, as mobile devices have made these things easy to do, PC sales have been on the decline.
its a valid concern. basically you want all the economies to thrive so new things are being created by new players and everything remains affordable. and a healthy level of openness and modularity is so important too.
What mess? Unity is getting to be quite tolerable. Gnome is forging ahead with their vision and Mint provides a nice alternative to Ubuntu with several different UIs. I don't understand the argument that this is "bad". People have been saying that since the dawn of Linux and it's boring and an non-point.
If you accept that "PC" has peaked, Valve/Steam is screwed anyway. If consumers keep flocking to iOS/Windows8, let alone to Android... then Steam will die a painful death and modern computing will be reduced to mindless one-at-a-time "apps".
Ironically, the "mess" of Linux desktop is the only platform that isn't going for a signed, verified, OEM only software model eroding consumers' rights and freedoms along the way.
The same people were probably complaining about the mess with IE6, Firefox and Opera a few years ago. Some do not like choice and prefer to have a single standard to rely on. :)
Fine, I'll admit it -- I used Unity again last week and I liked it. And if compiz weren't so buggy, it's a really good environment all around and I'd probably have stuck with it. HUD is absolutely brilliant. I literally can't say enough good things about how much I used it in that week. It makes development so much faster, especially if you're using an IDE.
Unity allows me to utilize more screenspace, very effectively. The latest version is pleasant to look at. I'm still not a huge fan of the default lens, but that will get better with time or as someone creates a replacement for the default lens.
Beside, that's a pretty pithy lame reply to your original remarks. Disappointing.
Elementary is great, although currently only working well with 12.04. Cinnamon is great, my mother figured it out intuitively immediately based on Windows XP (much faster than with Windows 8 or OS X). Gnome-Shell is "OK", I find it's a taste thing and most people what more out of it.
Speaking of Dota 2, with this enthusiasm for the linux platform, let's hope they start pushing for a Linux client, and maybe they'll finally release their OS X client along the way ><
>It's much more likely to have something to do with the console we know they're working on.
Which, by all accounts, will be more-or-less a Linux PC.
And Linux-on-the-desktop seems healthier now than a couple years ago. The reason it's harder to recommend one single Linux distro, is that even casual users have more than one good choice. I don't see "Unity/Gnome 3/Mint/etc." as a "mess". If you want a single, monolithic platform, we already have that. It's called "Microsoft Windows".
Obligatory plug for my favourite HL1 mod: http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns/
Edit: Yep, sure enough HL1 shows up in the Steam Linux CDR (http://cdr.xpaw.ru/linux/), and interestingly enough, so does Counter-Strike - albeit with the message "Not Marked for Linux"...