World of Warcraft for Linux

[Snipersnest]

Sign the World of Warcraft Petition so we can get a Linux version!

http://www.blizzpub.net/petition/

Theres about 12,000 signatures already. Only 20,000 are needed before the petition is pushed over to Blizzard for World of Warcraft the Linux version.

Read the petition and post your comments. This has been going around the Linuxquestions.org forum for a while now.

[darkoptix]

signed... I prey that they do this.

[dewey]

I don't know if they even have the know-how to put out a linux version, as far as I'm aware, they've never put out any type of a linux version, and they might view this as a moneysink.

I'm a big WoW fan...but they should spend that money on updating their network code, because the lag and que lines can be horrendous.

WoW is one of the few reasons I even boot to windows, untill I get the ATI drivers working.

Are you having that hard of a time with Cedega?

[Snipersnest]

They've always had ported versions that work great with Wine or "Cedega" (winex)... They've always released Mac versions which is very simple for them to convert to Linux code. They just don't want to fix anything about WoW right now for Linux user issues because they don't see the money in it unless they have enough signature to back it up.

Thats why the petition askes for 20,000. Personally I want to get rid of Windows, I'm tired of the lies and pointless Windows updates Microsoft does. Lets face it Bill Gates is greedy....Just Support Linux, its always worth a shot to get Linux out there rather than just giving into Windows again.

[cyphur]

I signed up..

I only boot windows for this game also.. would be nice to not have to..

[HungSquirrel]

Is WoW OGL or D3D?

[dracnor]

Is WoW OGL or D3D?

It is Open GL, and there is a patch for wine that lets you run WOW at decently. However, it would of course run much better natively, and that's why I still boot into windows for this reason. Dewey is right, there are enough problems with the game, and they need to devote their time to taking care of these issues before moving on to porting (which would be some effort, but not as much as some games seeing as how they already have a mac port). P.S. Already signed petition. :)

[Snipersnest]

It is Open GL, and there is a patch for wine that lets you run WOW at decently. However, it would of course run much better natively, and that's why I still boot into windows for this reason. Dewey is right, there are enough problems with the game, and they need to devote their time to taking care of these issues before moving on to porting (which would be some effort, but not as much as some games seeing as how they already have a mac port). P.S. Already signed petition. :)
WoW works pretty good on Cedega/Point2Play ... I don't seem to have any problems. But not everyone has a high dollar video card either. I subscribed to Transgaming just so I could play CS and CS:Source in Linux.

[jdodson]

i signed this petion EONS ago. they started it when the game was in its infancy.

does blizzard has the technical ability to port the game or not... ?

the game is made using open gl. blizzard ports all thier games to mac and windows. mac is now using a unix underpinning. blizzard is one, if not, the best computer gaming companies around. dumping the code to a third party, like epic does to get unreal ported to linux and mac is not a big deal. but i bet blizzard could do it in house. so as far as i am concerned the have the ability. but to they have a reason?

though i agree with many who have stated they need to work out the existing bases "stability" before working on a port.

20,000 signatures is good, but i would imagine most of the signers are playing the game in windows or wine. so what point is there in a gnu/linux port? don't get me wrong, i would LOVE to see one, but when people will dual boot or use wine, i really don't see the native port benefits from a profit standpoint.

[dewey]

Profit dictates what a company will do. If blizzard thinks you will continue to play WoW, even if you have to use Cedega, Wine, or even a Windows partition, they'll keep you playing that way to save money.

[davro]

Hi all,

Quality Games on Linux, the old addiction.

Gamers Anonymous,
Anonymous: So John would you like to talk about your problems ?
John: Damn i just turned the corner and 'BOOM' Frag city, nothing like the sound of nail guns.
Anonymous: John we all fear some thing.
John: Fear Fear, when i smell fear i **** in its face, then send there fraged remains to hell, first class mofo.
Anonymous: Computers are dividing us not joining, what do you think John.
John: Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of my mind, the hard drive would get corrupted,
Anonymous: So your saying you are insane totally mental then John.
John: No just i have a ancient instruction set, then kernel only uses goto, kill, die instructions.

I accepted that i had an addiction, and got a better job to support it.

Davro

[p!=f]

Perhaps they could hire mighty Icculus to port it. ;)

[asbjornu]

As this petition seems to be deleted (or something; it only returns 404 at least), then please consider signing this petition on PetitionOnline (http://www.petitiononline.com/wowlin/petition.html) instead! It's currently only got 67 signatures, which can't be representative of the total Linux users interested in WoW or WoW users interested in Linux.

http://www.petitiononline.com/wowlin/petition.html

[AcidicChip]

I don't think Blizz will care of a petition, but I signed the 2nd one just in case. ;p

[LauraSakura]

I only boot windows for this game also.. would be nice to not have to..

Yes, at this point that is true for me also.

[Seraed]

You know... for those that say Blizzard won't release Linux because they would have to devote development time to port it consider these facts:

1. Runs on Mac already... BSD based OS. Would take little time to convert to Linux from the Mac version.
2. Slouken = Sam Lantinga (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Lantinga)

a. Is the father of SDL
b. Was once part of Loki, which ported games to Linux.
c. Is one of the UI devs for World of Warcraft
3. The IsLinux flag present in the API

It wouldn't surprise me if Slouken has made his own Linux client.

The most probable argument for why Blizzard hasn't released a Linux client has to do with the high amount of variation that exists between Distros. If they 'supported' a Linux client, their support team would have their hands more than full trying to diagnose issues for all their customers' different systems. It's easier for them to just not support it at all than open a can of worms that their team would probably have no experience with.

I have to say, that a petition that large is probably the best way to get their attention. If enough interest was shown among the customer base, perhaps at least they can release an unsupported Linux client. I'd be fine with that.

What I think would be really cool is if Mark Shuttleworth approached Blizzard with some deal to maybe support Ubuntu :P
Think about it: sudo apt-get install wow
:lolflag:

[Flashstar]

Online petitions are cool, but the only real way to truly get their attention would be to dump 20,000 paper petitions on their doorstep. Then they will have to consider Linux.

[tombug]

As this petition seems to be deleted (or something; it only returns 404 at least), then please consider signing this petition on PetitionOnline (http://www.petitiononline.com/wowlin/petition.html) instead! It's currently only got 67 signatures, which can't be representative of the total Linux users interested in WoW or WoW users interested in Linux.

http://www.petitiononline.com/wowlin/petition.html

ya the reason you cant find it is cuz this topic is over what 2 years old now, and your a little late, but thanks for the support anyway

but blizzard has already stated they know it runs fine in wine, so there is no need for them to spend there time/money on a linux client

[tlink]

Buddy of mine that alpha and beta tested it said that a linux client was there for alpha and disappeared when beta hit. Sad.

[asbjornu]

ya the reason you cant find it is cuz this topic is over what 2 years old now, and your a little late, but thanks for the support anyway
No reason to remove a petition because it's old. That's why I'm promoting this new petition, since with PetitionOnline, it's more likely that it'll stay for a long time than it is (was) with BlizzPub. And it isn't a little late, not for a petition like this. Linux still exists, WoW still exists, interest is great for both, but there's still no WoW client for Linux. So the message is still important and it's still relevant. Even though it's been 2 years.


but blizzard has already stated they know it runs fine in wine, so there is no need for them to spend there time/money on a linux client
It doesn't run "fine" under Wine. It runs, yea, but it's a PITA and it runs at 50% of the speed on the exact same hardware as it does in Windows XP. I'd bet a pretty large amount of money that with enough investment from Blizzard, they could make the OpenGL version run at least 15% faster on Linux than Windows XP (with the same hardware). And compare it to Vista, you'd see a 20% increase for sure.

More and more users are abandoning Windows in favour of Linux. It's accellerating. Blizzard might ignore this fact for a long time (they have already), but if enough people sign this petition and put their weight behind it, they can't continue to ignore it anymore.

[benhagerty]

I don't play wow, but i probably would if it was ported to linux

[Sammi]

There actually was a native Linux client for WoW when the game was still in development, and it's existence was pretty much confirmed, but it was never released and I think that no one outside of Blizzard ever got to try it. A logical assumption is that this is why it has been relatively easy to run under Linux using Wine.

See this old tread: http://www.learninglinux.com/postp734.html

My educated guess is that they just didn't find it commercially viable to release and support it, because it would cost more to do bug fixes and customer support, than the income for the client would have been. I think that we should respect and understand that things must be profitable, for a company to be willing to do it.

So this is a plead to all Linux gamers: Please PAY for your Linux games. Seriously.

You may find it to be cool to stick it to the man by pirating blockbuster games from the big, selfish, and corrupt game distributors, but it's not cool to pirate those very few and dear commercial Linux games. Not cool.

[Arceliar]

Honestly, with how well Wine runs it right now, I'm understanding as to why there's no linux client. I just wish blizz would write hardware cursor support into the client for OpenGL mode.

I realize OGL is a graphics library and has nothing to do with input, but, seriously, that's what stuff like SDL is for (just as an example). Other games do it. And it is the only thing that bothers me with WoW on 'nix right now.

[asbjornu]

So this is a plead to all Linux gamers: Please PAY for your Linux games. Seriously.

You may find it to be cool to stick it to the man by pirating blockbuster games from the big, selfish, and corrupt game distributors, but it's not cool to pirate those very few and dear commercial Linux games. Not cool.

Amen! Kind of sad to think of how "sticking it to the man" in too many cases ends up being "sticking it to yourself". This is one of those cases.

[hikaricore]

Honestly, with how well Wine runs it right now, I'm understanding as to why there's no linux client.

I'm sorry but this is the exact attitude that will keep a Linux client from EVER existing.

[DanDwalker]

Any update on this, I won't play wow again till it is out on linux... for now EVE will be good