Operating System

[TheDeath]

What do you think

[Zelgadas]

Isn't this ultimately a moot point now that the game is released? I'm not sure that this is the kind of thing that they can fix in a patch.

[TheDeath]

i'm not suggesting they fix it, i just want to see what people think.

[MajorHealy]

Sure, it would be nice if the game ran on earlier Windows versions, as well as Mac, Linux, PS2, etc. Anyone voting "the game should be limited to 2000/xp" based on anything but development and maintenance costs is out of perspective.

Now, if the poll says "I agree that support for OS's prior to 2000/XP should have been omitted due to cost and timeliness", then you have a good poll question, imho.

If the 3% of the market for 98/ME is an accurate figure, and say Thief3 sells 500,000 copies (which is a LOT of games), we're talking about 15,000 copies that would remain unsold. Not sure what the profit margin for the development house is, but let's say they get $20 a copy (which I suspect is VERY high, but don't know for sure) - this means $300,000 in unrealized sales, assuming no one upgrades their OS. Let's put the PC copies sold at a more realistic 250,000 copies --- this nets out a $150,000 loss - again, assuming my very generous profit margins are accurate.

Stack these numbers up against developmentand maintenance costs, and it's not a huge profit by any means. It may net a loss if the numbers came out more realistic.

Of course, I could be totally out in left field on this - these numbers came straight out of my ... well ... At the very least, though, I'd imagine if it had been profitable, they'd have done it.

But I'd love to see the real stats...

[TheDeath]

I still think they shouldn't have limited it just because of profit, there is opinion as well they should think about, besides who cares if they go bust; someone else can just take over like what happened to Looking Glass.

[bravus]

I'm with the Major on the quality of the poll question - I didn't vote. As he said, if the question is 'in an ideal world, could I play Thief on my Palm?', then sure... But given that we're in a non-ideal world, and making the game playable on other OSes would have taken development money away from making the game as amazing as possible, I'd have to say 'yes', it made sense as a practical decision to make the game work with the most popular and current operating systems.

[thegrommit]

Originally posted by TheDeath
I still think they shouldn't have limited it just because of profit,

So, they should work for free then? Or perhaps the devs should pay to create the game? Riiiiight.

[TheDeath]

The makers make thousands/millions of £££s from each successful game they can afford to cut a minute section of that profit* to adding better support for other OSes.

* They make profit and lots of it they don't just spend money on the game and get back what they paid they can afford to pay for a better game and still get a huge profit.

Also i bet they got 'convinced' by microsoft to limit it so they could further their monopoly. I say this because before the Halo HEK came out it said it would be Gmax compatable and available to all OSes but discreet 'convinced' them to force you to use 3dsmax (£3000), and worse than that they limited the OS as well, which i bet microsoft 'convinced' them to do that too.

[FrozenNorth]

Originally posted by thegrommit
So, they should work for free then? Or perhaps the devs should pay to create the game? Riiiiight.

I think he meant that if they really wanted to create something that is going to last as lond as half-life for example they should see more trouble to get more players. Windows 98 is still a very popular operating system 'cos it runs fine, the bugs are mostly fixed and people don't see any need to upgrade.

IF they really love the Thief-universe and the game-series the money factor shoudln't be what counts...they must think of the profit of course but it has always been with Eidos that they think mostly about the money. For example their sports-series, the sims and tomb raider. Not much new in the next games, a little something for the players and then they want us to pay about 50€ to play the game. I have NHL2001 and I see no apparent reason to buy a newer one 'cos they have brought absolutely nothing important to the game. So my point is that Eidos is very greedy and in most cases the players aren't necessary in the first place...

EDIT: Sorry, mixed up EA and Eidos but I think the same thing applies still. I think the game companies think all too much about the profit, that's the reason why 9/10 published games are total crap!

[Heero]

Originally posted by TheDeath
I still think they shouldn't have limited it just because of profit, there is opinion as well they should think about, besides who cares if they go bust; someone else can just take over like what happened to Looking Glass.

thats a stupid thing to say... infact it goes beyond stupidicy into idiocy!

the Thief license was only *just* kept afloat... Deadly Shadows almost didn't get made (infact, I think it was cancelled just before LG went tits up)...

If Deadly Shadows doesn't break even, EIDOS wont hesitate to bin IS (especially after DX2's flop) and refuse to take up the Thief license again because in their eyes it simply wont be profitable!




And my opinion on this poll?

It's good that developers are finally killing off supporting the rancid Windows 9x kernel... its a thorn in the PC's side...
I wasn't an early adopter of XP (late 2002), but I havent looked back either...

The only thing Windows 9x has going for it is DOS support... everything else is woefully out of date...
(if anyone can give me any other credible reason for not using Windows 2000 or any version of XP i'll accept it... although saying 'I cant afford it' isn't a reason, since XP is cheap as dirt nowdays)

Originally posted by FrozenNorth
I think he meant that if they really wanted to create something that is going to last as lond as half-life for example they should see more trouble to get more players. Windows 98 is still a very popular operating system 'cos it runs fine, the bugs are mostly fixed and people don't see any need to upgrade.

IF they really love the Thief-universe and the game-series the money factor shoudln't be what counts...they must think of the profit of course but it has always been with Eidos that they think mostly about the money. For example their sports-series, the sims and tomb raider. Not much new in the next games, a little something for the players and then they want us to pay about 50€ to play the game. I have NHL2001 and I see no apparent reason to buy a newer one 'cos they have brought absolutely nothing important to the game. So my point is that Eidos is very greedy and in most cases the players aren't necessary in the first place...

1) Windows 98 has been 'fixed' yes, but its an archaic OS with roots taht are over a decade old and its just not suitable for todays world... it does not properly support Firewire, Bluetooth or USB2, it can only read hard disks up to 32GB in size and its core is less stable than Juan Pablo Montoya's driving style...

2) DO NOT brand EIDOS in the same stable as Electronics Arts... Whilst yes, they milked Tomb Raider for more than it was worth, they finally realised their ways, removed Core Design from the equation and gave the series to the much more capable Crystal Dynamics... a clever idea in my opinion...

EA are the owners of all the stupid sports licenses and The Sims...

[TheDeath]

I just HATE MICROSOFT

[Heero]

then go install Linux... I doubt you'll be missed

[TheDeath]

Originally posted by Heero
although saying 'I cant afford it' isn't a reason, since XP is cheap as dirt nowdays)

It may be cheap as dirt (as little £5 new but resold) but the time taken to install it, upgrade it and change the settings so it is right, isn't.


Besides, XP is too bubbly in appearance and looks as if it was designed for babies.

[Heero]

you just scream 'I use 98SE'...

XP is designed so there is no trudging thro menus and other crap like 98 to set stuff up... infact, there are more wizards in XP than ur average disney movie...

it is blatantly easy to turn the XP 'bubbly interface' into the standard Windows 2000 one...
infact, its as easy as changing the screensaver...

If you are going to criticise the operating system, please at least show some knowledge of how it works... kthx

[TheDeath]

Yes, although that is easy it takes yet more precious time, which could otherwise been spent playing thief.

[Heero]

as opposed to your current situation, where you CANT play Theif...

[TheDeath]

As oppossed to the game allowing more OSes and me being able to play

[FrozenNorth]

Heero:

Who the hell needs Firewire, USB2 or Bluetooth to play a game? And my other computer has 98SE and a 120gb HDD and it works fine...

We all have our opinions for sure but as I see it there is no reason not to support 98SE. But as Microsoft does it when they release something and then you must download atleast 200megs of updates to get the program to work and then there is a new OS released while all the old bugs havenät been even fixed many of us won't necessarily bother to buy a new one 'cos they know that the new OS will be buggy as hell

[TheDeath]

Originally posted by FrozenNorth


And my other computer has 98SE and a 120gb HDD and it works fine...

We are talking about thief deadly shadows here? it doesn't work on 98SE

[Heero]

Originally posted by FrozenNorth
Heero:

Who the hell needs Firewire, USB2 or Bluetooth to play a game? And my other computer has 98SE and a 120gb HDD and it works fine...

We all have our opinions for sure but as I see it there is no reason not to support 98SE. But as Microsoft does it when they release something and then you must download atleast 200megs of updates to get the program to work and then there is a new OS released while all the old bugs havenät been even fixed many of us won't necessarily bother to buy a new one 'cos they know that the new OS will be buggy as hell

Ok, you dont need Firewire, US2 or Bluetooth to play a game, but if you use your computer solely for games playing, then surely a console would be a better allocation for your money?

And while yes, you can use a 120GB HDD in 98SE, it has to be partitioned into 4 chunky partitions as the FAT32 filing system cannot cope with bigger... then the OS has to manage 4 separate drives, despite them being one physical item... it gets confusing... it causes the OS to crash (although with it being Windows 98, you should be used to it)...

and as of the end of this year, Microsoft will be totally withdrawing support from Windows 98SE...

Next year ME is out of the window(pun not intended)...

remember Microsoft implementing their 5 year lifespan system?
Regardless of what several people say, this is not a marketing ploy to get you to buy their new operating systems... its so all their development teams dont have to spend time fixing problems with an ancient OS that has such a small part of the market it aint worth it...
Hell, ATI withdrew driver support for 98/98SE based systems last year... thats over quarter of the graphics card market unable to use 98... surely a sign eh?

Developers are catching up with this as well...
Theif doesn't support Windows 98 because it makes calls to graphics cards that require the latest drivers... Since those drivers dont work in 98, it cannot make said calls... the game doesn't work...

ipso...
facto...

[u5ndh]

I think it won't be too long before all new games will be made just for 2000 and XP. As microsoft is stopping supportsing 98 then why should people write programs for it.

I'd just accept that 98 is dying and upgrade to XP.

Neil

[Guineapiggy]

Okay, 9X based OSES are an archaic official failure. They were 32 bit shells for a 16 bit patch for an 8 bit OS, as said many times before. They're just DOS with loads of patches, and it just isn't stable.

9X bases do not support more than 512mb ram, anyone who says otherwise is a liar. It will not function in a remotely usable fashion with anything over that.

The last 9X based OS was, I belive, released in 1999, a full five years ago. 98 V4.9 (AKA ME.) That's pretty old.

FAT32 is an inferior, insecure, limited File Allocation system compared to NTFS.

ATI dropped 9X support a while ago.

Ion Storm's survey showed only 3% of systems were 9X based and powerful enough to run the game. Even if that's inaccurate, unless it's GROSSLY falsified, it's still pathetically small.

If you really need 95, 98 or ME for whatever reason, you can still have it alongside XP or 2K in a dual boot system. This isn't hard to set up.

There have been NT exclusive pieces of software for a couple of years now.

Ion Storm/Eidos are NOT GOING TO PATCH THIEF3 FOR 9X COMPATABILITY unless they want to reprint all game boxes in production and correct the SYSREQs.

I'm sorry if I sound blunt but this is the 5000000th post of this nature and it is just getting annoying.

[Heero]

Originally posted by Guineapiggy
If you really need 95, 98 or ME for whatever reason, you can still have it alongside XP or 2K in a dual boot system. This isn't hard to set up.

unless you put the 9x OS on another drive, you will have to but XP or 2K on a FAT32 drive... the defnition of counter productive?

[Guineapiggy]

Ever heard of partitions, genius?

[Heero]

same difference... remember, Windows sees partitions as separate drives...