[bf1942] Dont be too hard on DICE

[Scratch Monkey]

--On Tuesday, February 04, 2003 9:52 PM +0000 Daniel Bissett
<d.bissett at student.umist.ac.uk> wrote:

> I agree DICE are a fine bunch of people, my name is AbyssUK and I was
> probably the first person to ever rant at dice to make a dedicated Linux
> server for bf1942. I even pushed them for a Linux dedicated server for
> codename eagle way before battlefield was ever considered. (Codename Eagle
> for the uneducated was the spiritual precursor for BF1942).
> 
> Am telling you it wasn't easy for them to-do it, it took them months of
> arguing with EA just so they could even suggest building a Linux server. I
> never in my wildest dreams considered it would be made, if you remember
> this was going to be an xbox title (hmmm an xbox title with a Linux
> server...). I know that DICE want this server much more than you all
> think, they have fought hard to get it this far.

Hehe, I take it M$ encourages xbox developers to only code servers to run
on Windows....

So the people at Dice definitely have their heart in the right place.

I can tell you from experience, though, that an OS port is a lot easier if
you design for porting from the very start. Or in this case, design for a
dedicated server, as well. Proprietary tools (eg. those from M$) make it
very easy to code for a single platform to the exclusion of competitors,
and make a subsequent porting process quite painful. You have to really
resist the call of the Dark Side as you code, and it sounds like that
wasn't done here, perhaps for lack of experience in this discipline.