Eador -- Masters Of The Broken World for Linux on Steam!

[oldrocker99]

I'd bought it for Windows (back when my Win7 partition actually gave me a usable OS), and found it my Steam library today.

Of course, when it downloaded, there was the (all too familiar for Steam Linux users) "missing executable" error.

We'll see what happens, won't we?

[w-schiller]

It's there, but it's only a wine-port.
Right-click on the game in your library -> Properties -> Betas -> select "linux-version-wine"

and dont expect too much, as it's only a wine-port - it worked with me, but the graphics were broken.

[oldrocker99]

It was so graphically broken, and the Steam Eador:MOTBW forums are full of disgruntled to angry GNU users (Let's stop calling it "Linux," because the OS we actually use is GNU, enabled by the Linux kernel) indignant at a plain wine wrapper used to promote the game as a "Linux" game. And there has not been one reply from any of the developers, whic has left a very, very bad taste in my mouth. In fact, I deinstalled the game. The store page for Eador:MOTBW doesn't even say it's a Linux game any more.

The Witcher 2 got similarly slagged, but that game used a customized wrapper, not wine-based, which fixed the initial bugs quickly enough, and is still being tweaked, with a very good beta (or gamma?) available to Steam users. It crashed regularly for me for about a week, then settled down, and since I enabled the beta, I've been wandering Flotsam for about three hours now without a crash at all.

We GNU gamers (at least on Steam) are a demanding lot, and we will ruthlessly attack a lousy port, and b*tch a lot about a buggy port (lots of people who got the GNU version of Painkiller:Hell and Damnation, a native port, couldn't run it at all on most ATI cards, and couldn't play the game at all until ATI finally managed to scrape together an fglrx driver that worked. The developer was in pretty constant contact with the customers, and contacted ATI himself to help them solve the problem). On the other hand, there has been rapturous praise for the native ports of both CIV V and X-COM:EU. When Aspyr saw that a thread had opened on the CIV V Steam forums simply to express thanks for the port, a company which had produced native OSX ports for around thirty Windows games had never even seen a "thank you" thread from grateful Mac customers. Of course, Mac users aren't exactly hungry for games the way we are, and the machine and its OS, with its walled garden, aren't really set up for gaming. However, ever since for first Humble Bundle in 2009, it has not escaped the notice of game developers that GNU users always have paid a higher voluntary price for each Bundle than Windows or Mac users. That, combined with the rise of Desura, and a bit later, Gabe Newell's determination, has resulted in the embarrassment of riches we are only now beginning to enjoy.

But Eador:MOTBW is still a crappy piece of softare, misrepresented as a "Linux" game. I can install Steam for Windows with wine, and install the Windows version, and get the broken graphics all by myself; I had already experienced that.