I think the Kickstarter page implicitly states that Alpha and Beta access will be for PC/Linux/Mac, but update #17 says “The Alpha version access is confirmed for Windows version only”. I think this is very important for us Linux/Mac backers and should be clearly stated in Kickstarter project page. For instance, I may downgrade my pledge before Kickstater campaign ends (and my credit card gets billed) if I (as a Linux user) will not be able to play Alpha.
Any official word on this?
Aye, I have also pledged for Baron tier and using Linux. I really hoped to help with testing such great game as Kingdom Come: Deliverance has potential to be.
I agree completely with @Avatar, that it’s quite low tactic to hide the fact that Alpha access is only confirmed for Windows operating system. Before the update (that came quite lately) there wasn’t any specification: only written that Alpha access is for PC (which of course includes all operating systems). I’m sure that there are more than few Linux users that pledged for higher ranks in good faith that they’ll get Alpha access and some of them haven’t surely even read your update. Such information should have been on the main page from the beginning.
For me personally it’s not so much about the money (I probably won’t downgrade), but I am somewhat disappointed in you guys. There should have been clear notification in the list of pledges (from the start of the campaign!), that you currently can only confirm Alpha access for Windows. Not being sneaky with your supporters and hide the fact until 3-4 days before the end of the campaign.
That makes me wonder if we can really trust Warhorse Studios’ ability to even develop the game for Linux and not announce that they’ll drop the support completely before the release.
Your resentment is understandable, but I don’t think they deliberately hid that fact from the backers. They were completely honest to us about everything else every step of the way, so why should they suddenly lie to us?
Also, only because the Alpha was confirmed for Windows so far does NOT mean that it will not come for Linux and Mac. CryEngine supports both these platforms, and there are still six months to go until the Alpha starts, so nothing is settled yet.
@boxcarhobo Of course, it doesn’t mean that. However, as far as I know and when you look it up from Wiki, then it would be first CryEngine game for Linux. Just last summer there were first news about Crytek porting the engine. So, it’s not like with Windows, where it has been used for years. Don’t get me wrong. Of course, I hope that everything comes out fine, but don’t make it look like it is few clicks - ‘compile for Linux’ - and done.
I just hope that they don’t wine us.
I didn’t mean to make it look like that and I agree with you. However, one of the biggest problems is with Linux itself. I like Linux, and I have used several different distributions over the years, but they all shared the same issue: Display drivers never, EVER seemed to work 100%, whether it was NVIDIA or AMD. I don’t know if it got better over the years (the proprietary drivers for my ATI card are still broken as hell) and if it will change with the switch from X.Org to Wayland, but it doesn’t surprise me that game developers where reluctant so far to port big games for Linux.
What I’m trying to say: AAA-Titles are still a novelty on Linux, so you have to give Warhorse credit for trying to bring the title to Linux users as well. However, I understand that you are upset about the fact, that the Alpha might only come to Windows. I would be upset as well, but let’s hope for the best.
I would encourage people to contact them directly through Kickstarter with this concern and seek a clearer answer of what they’re hoping to do with alpha/beta on Linux/Mac, unless they’re able to respond here.
I think NVIDIA has made great progress with their drivers on Linux. Perhaps, because their partnership with Valve regarding developing SteamOS, which is based on Linux. According to Phoronix’s article “SteamOS vs. Windows 8.1 NVIDIA Performance” the performance is getting closer to what you get on Windows. Gamespot also got pretty good results with NVIDIA card, but with AMD device there were indeed more problems and generally lower frame-rate (“How To Install SteamOS”). Well, I have had more problems with AMD drivers even on Windows, so I have preferred NVIDIA for a long time even if their cards are more expensive. But it’s just me: others may have had different experiences.
Anyway, it can be indeed considered the dawn of gaming on Linux and there will certainly be a lot of different problems. That’s also why I think that Kingdom Come: Deliverance should be tested on variety of Linux systems as early as possible. If it will be left near the end, then the game may indeed come out with Linux support, but it’s another question how good it shall be on that platform (performance, bugs and so on). I know that they’re doing their internal testing first, but there are a lot of different distributions, versions, hardware configurations and as you said it’s novelty to have AAA-title on Linux.
However, I’m not so much upset about the Alpha coming out on Linux or not, but that it seemed at first, that they’re very sure about Linux support. So, I thought that they are developing the game for all platforms at the same time. But it seems that they’re not very far with Linux/OS X versions, otherwise it wouldn’t make sense not to release the Alpha for those too.
But well, we’ll see. And, of course, if they manage to pull it off - thinking more about good release of final game for Linux, not Alpha - then it will be pretty big thing for gaming on that platform.
That’s my whole point. This should have been very clear from the beginning.
A quote from todays’ Update: "Next month, we will be joined by twelve new colleagues (some of them quite experienced senior developers from the recently disbanded 2K Czech studio in Prague). In just a few months, we plan to grow to more than 50 people, so we can make the big game we first dreamed of. "
Hopefully, there will be some Linux experts among them 
Well, I didn’t have any problem with seeing it at all? Days before the pledge was paid, but it’s not like it’s so hard to get Windows anyways? The point is you should have read all of it before you pledged or soon after like I did.
If you look at the part in the project page where it says “Early access for backers”. You can clearly see that it says “When the game is in Beta stage, we will release the full game beta as Early Access on PC (or any other platform where it’s going to be possible) for all backers up from the Knight Tier.” so it is not that hard to figure out that they’re planning to make the PC version first and therefore there will be no Alpha for Linux and Mac before the PC one. Also, when people say PC they only mean Windows PCs.
Also I’m aware that the quote says beta, but you must be able to assume that they also make the Alpha version for PCs first and then for Mac and Linux later.
PC == Personal Computer, which doesn’t say anything about which operating system will be supported. Linux is a PC operating system. So is Apple’s OS X, as well as other variants of *BSD. So is Windows. Thus, the quote about “Early Access on PC” suggests that it will be available on linux and OS X, as well.
It seems that Warhorse did use “PC” to mean “Windows” throughout their campaign, which is confusing to many techies - especially linux users. I actually got confused about the modding tools that they made an announcement about - I had to dig through kickstarter comments to find out if they meant to say “Windows” instead of “PC” (they did).
My own two cents: I think they ended up being ambiguous on accident by using the term “PC” when they meant to use “Windows”; but I also think Warhorse does want to release alpha and beta on linux. Note that they didn’t outright refuse linux and OS X versions, but instead said they can’t guarantee it. My guess is that a large part of the reason for that is that CryEngine is still not released for linux or OS X, which is something that Warhorse has no control over.
I usually am very wary of companies releasing a linux or OS X version later than the Windows one, because it suggests that they’re developing for Windows first and then porting to other systems later. That is a very bad practice and ends up costing a lot more time and money, so I would normally condemn them for releasing linux and OS X versions later.
In this case, I’m just not sure that the ball is in Warhorse’s court. I think they want to release the alpha on other platforms, but with CryEngine’s multiplatform support not fully released, they might simply not be able to compile and debug the non-Windows versions, yet.
I agree with everything that @valczir has written here.
PC being Windows operating system is utter nonsense. However, it’s reasonable to believe that Warhorse Studios meant it that way like some companies still do. Probably because historically Windows was the only wide-spread x86 operating system on Personal Computers. Mac OS (X) run on PowerPC architecture, which even has PC in its name, but was marketed as Mac and sold as hardware plus software package. Nowadays even though Windows is still most used desktop operating system on x86(-64) platform, the alternatives have reasonably high percent of “market” and growing. Even Apple switched to Intel’s CPU in their Personal Computers years ago. So, meaning Windows as PC operating system is outdated and technically totally wrong (even historically it was, but it was at least somewhat reasonable). Just check games’ information from Wikipedia: it’s always clearly stating Microsoft Windows as platform if it’s so, not Personal Computer or not even something called “Windows PC”.
And, yes, @boxcarhobo, that’s indeed great news that they’re increasing team size! That’s huge feat to pull off such game successfully on five platforms. I hope for best, but am still wary.
One of the main reasons I funded this projects was to also get Alpha access on Linux :/. I will not be very happy at all if it turns out they have fibbed and only Windows gets Alpha access :(. I won’t be able to play until the game is finished 
First of all I thought Cryengine didnt support MAC?
What?
I funded it to have a game to play with the thematic that was proposed on the platform that I chose, not because I would have alpha/beta access to anything. In fact I was just happy to have it on linux all together.
For the others that are frustrated about PC not meaning Linux: I just imagine you seeing some wonderful game at your local game store written PC at the box(forgetting to read the specs), buying happily 
and when you insert the disk it only runs on windows (natively). And you all making a very sad face 
.
SteamOS is actually slower than a regular Linux distro, because their compositor isn’t working alright at the moment. Not a huge performance regression more like 10-15% when I measured it. The NVIDIA Linux drivers easily match and even surpass Windows in terms of performance. NVIDIA Linux drivers have always been excellent due to NVIDIAs focus on professional graphics which always use OpenGL and workstations which often don’t use Windows.
Intel drivers are pretty excellent aswell. Slowly getting mesa up to the newest OpenGL version. Currently that’s only OpenGL 3.3. AMD drivers are kind of shit, though.
Personally I think the semantics on the broader use of the word ‘PC’ (because 99% of people will understand it to refer to PC = Windows) doesn’t really help with the subject.
It is obviously not used in a way to ‘hide’ anything but simply using terminology which is widely understood (even if it is not strictly correct) When people buy the game will have labels on it like any other game with PC, Mac, Linux, PS4, XBoxOne. it’s just common usage.
While, as a Mac gamer I would love to see a Mac client for the Alpha, Beta etc at the same time as the PC one. But I’m realistic that this will probably not happen for a few of reasons;
PC games development mostly happens on PCs and it is natural that the initial development work will be on that platform with a larger pool of experienced developers.
Generally they develop the core of the game this way; get it up and running; then work on porting to other platforms. it makes sense working that way and doesn’t mean the other platforms are any lesser for it.
The broad audience parameters will be fixed early on in the development cycle and will be the deciding factor in what kind of optimisations, support will be in place for the final game. The creation of the clients for other platforms then work within those parameters (based on what is possible and what is realistic)
Reflecting the first point, there are actually very few experience in creating a Mac client/ port which limits the options. I imagine this is also true for Linux. For consoles I imagine there are more. It seems likely from what has been mentioned already, that the team will be looking to take this forward themselves and have staff who have experience in other platforms more generally. This is one of the most exciting aspects of this project for me.
As proposed, this will be the first Mac or Linux game developed and published using CryEngine. Nothing about such a venture will be straight forward however exciting the prospect from a Mac gamers perspective and making promises even before details are made public would be irresponsible.
The prospect of actually playing a Mac game developed using the CryEngine is a large factor in my backing this project. But not the only one. It looks a great game regardless and even if we have to wait longer to play it natively, I can help the development during Alpha via Bootcamp.
I’d like an official word on this. I pledged to get into the alpha but if the alpha is Windows-only I won’t be able to play for another year. I can cope but I did want to get into this early because it looks so good.
I was rather disturbed to read the FAQ which seems to indicate something fairly different on actually supporting other platforms, let alone access to alpha or beta:
We can offer all version in all tiers (i.e. Windows PC / Mac / Linux / Xbox One / PS4), with the proviso that on consoles the game must be approved by the platform holders first. In case we are not able to finish or release the game on the platform you chose for any reason, you will be able to choose again from available platforms.
Until there is confirmation of a Mac version I wont be pledging at this time. I think the game looks great and would love to get involved in tsting feedback etc. But unless I know there will be an OS X native client then I’ll pass for now and consider buying it on release to play via Bootcamp or not.
If it is confirmed but it wont be available for Alpha then I’m happy to pledge and test via Bootcamp if needed just to know it is working towards a native Mac client (not a Wine port etc.)
