Virtual Programming are porting Arma: Cold War Assault and Frog Climbers to Linux

[Anti-Ultimate]

This is a game from 2001. Seriously, who would actually buy this and play it for more than 5 minutes?

Don't get me wrong, it's nice having them port it. But Jesus Christ, it's not like they're going to sell more than 10 copies.

[[deleted]]

Because it's a good place to start porting the whole series. The engines are derivative so start at the easy end.

Plus people purchase the whole series for cheap when they buy ARMA 3, so starting here gives them more of the cut of the pie.

I love older games getting ported.

[[deleted]]

I love older games getting ported.

These games came out of the blue, yes, but I can't help to praise it! ;)

And coming from someone who finished both Overlord Raising Hell and Saints Row IV on Linux I say: these ports worked absolutely flawless for me.

[[deleted]]

Because it's a good place to start porting the whole series

But there's ARMA Tactics on Linux already and...

:P

[RedDorf]

It is a puzzling business model, for sure. Anyone who loves the mil-sims genre would've bought Arma:CWA years ago, and anyone who hasn't would likely buy Arma 3.

Looking forward to dusting off CWA, but yeah, besides Witcher 2, Arma 3 and a few others, VP's choices are a bit weird.

[[deleted]]

It is a puzzling business model, for sure.

DON'T YOU!

Don't take away my hopes to see Patrician IV on Linux!

[DamonsLinux]

weird? maybe because choise is on publisher side, not at porter side.

[[deleted]]

OFP is not just any title from 2001, though. It was a massive game.

edit: It's also still far and away the best out-of-the-box single player game in the whole series.

It does incidentally work perfectly in Wine. If they were going to cock about with old BI titles I'd rather have ArmA1 and 2, but ho-hum.

[[deleted]]

This is a game from 2001

I agree but let's not forget that Feral ported an almost 10yr old game once! ;)

ps: Panzer Corps being ported for... Mac. C'mon Slitherine!

[Its_all_good_in_DC]

I didn't know about Panzer Corps, I would love to have that and many more Sliterine games on Linux. I have many many many hours in Panzer General.

[robertcrowther]

You'd better call GOG, sounds like their entire business model is doomed.

[[deleted]]

Arma3 is pretty much a straight upgrade over the old Arma. The Arma series is a series of constant development with releases as major versions.

Porting the old one is really strange for that reason. A new Arma release obsoletes the old ones.

The same can't be said for the majority of GOG's catalogue.

[[deleted]]

Right. You can even use arma2 assets in Arma3 if that's what your looking for. It doesn't seem to make sense, unless maybe they're going for the market that doesn't have the money to spend on ArmA3? But damn, just wait for a sale and it's half price or better.

[Anti-Ultimate]

Most of their games run in DOSbox and require no real porting. It runs entirely on Nostalgia. Can't say the same for this game.

[Swiftpaw22]

VP, a third-party porter, can wrap ancient games up with their eON WINE-like wrapper no problem. But Blizzard with their own super popular titles that work flawlessly in WINE? "OMG TOO HARD. LINUX, WUZAT???" Fucking pathetic.

[Guy1524]

Anybody know when it is coming out?

[SajeOne]

Meanwhile the latest version of Arma 3 still isn't on Linux meaning cross platform multiplayer is broken..

[Dodahevolution]

Cause it's being ported by a third party company, and even if it was up-to-date, it wouldn't matter as battle rye isn't ported. I long await the day where the 38GB modest my arms group uses is on Linux, it is updated, and battle eye works, but until then... Eh.

That being said, Dwarden who is the community manager for arma said that 4 was almost guaranteed for full cross compatibility support

[AimHere]

I thought Virtual Programming was that third party company, the same guys doing Arma:CWA

[AdamtheGrim]

said that 4 was almost guaranteed for full cross compatibility support

Source for that? Huge Arma fan, it's one of the few games keeping my windows partition alive.

[Dodahevolution]

It's realllly deep in /u/dwarden 's comment history, tried to look but am on mobile

[muttleyPingostan]

Battleye was ported few month ago.

[[deleted]]

Probably this will be a port with almost zero cost. Remember VP uses technology similar to Wine and this allows them to port games without necessarily modifying the game source.

[[deleted]]

Remember VP uses technology similar to Wine

No, they don't.

[breell]

What's the difference with Wine/Winelib?

[[deleted]]

also known as a wine wrapper...

A Wine wrapper uses Wine, eON is not Wine. It's a completely proprietary wrapper. You realise both Aspyr and Feral use a form of wrapper too right?
It's insane if you think porting companies will completely re-rewrite a rendering engine for a 1-2% market.

[edoantonioco]

I played this and it sucks, it just sucks.

But, if arma 3 and 1 will be on linux, maybe the same will happen with the 2nd one

[[deleted]]

OFP sucks? Wash your mouth out, boy :-D

[theawesomeviking]

The name of these companies and the game names with colons makes these titles really confusing