Play Neverwinter MMO on Linux

The short version:

- Download the game via torrent: http://nw.perfectworld.com/download/torrent
- Download & save this POL script: http://pastebin.com/RihAd2qz
- In POL, run the script as a local script. When asked select the setup.exe for Neverwinter.
- Proceed with the installation (don’t change install path & don’t automatically run the game).
- Check some of the notes below: “Running the game”.

The illustrated version:

- Download the game via torrent: http://nw.perfectworld.com/download/torrent

- Install POL if you don’t have it already. Instructions here: http://www.playonlinux.com/en/download.html
- Download & save this POL script somewhere (~/Downloads/nw.txt for example): http://pastebin.com/RihAd2qz
- In POL, select run a local script and then select the script you downloaded.

- Click through the prompts (Next/Agree/Next) and you will be ready to go.

- Wine will be downloaded if you don’t already have the version I specified in the script (you can change this afterwards in settings btw). You don’t need to install Mono when asked.

- Next step will install IE8, we need this for the launcher, sadly. The first step is in French (some of the devs of POL are French) but it’s just asking us what language we want for IE. Just select English.

- Select the options like I did (not that it matters much)



- DirectX will be installed as well but you won’t get any prompts there (hopefully). Eventually you should be asked to point to where you downloaded the game (setup.exe):

- Just select the setup.exe and the installer for the game will be loaded. As always when using POL, don’t change the installation path and when asked don’t automatically launch the game. You can do that manually afterwards via POL.





- Eventually the installer will finish and you’ll end up with a nice shortcut both in POL and on your desktop.

Running the game

Right if you got this far you want to run the game. The servers are frequently down though. Check https://twitter.com/neverwintergame when in doubt.

For example if you get something like this, it means their patch servers are down:

When the patch servers are up, you should get a launcher window. First thing to do is go to Options at the top.

Unselect everything and select Safe Mode and Disable On-Demand Patching. The first option will allow us to get past the initial loading screen (you can check later without this option if it works for you), the other option will download all the patches beforehand and not on-demand (when you first enter an area) which is less annoying. Now log in with your account (If you don’t have one, register here: https://register.perfectworld.com/nw_splash). The patches will download.

Once you’re fully patched, select the big Play button. You’ll get a prompt about video drivers. Just select use lowered settings. Don’t worry, once the game is loaded you can just set the settings to whatever you like.

Eventually the brightness calibration menu will be shown:

This will only be shown the first time. After this you can go to Options and select Fullscreen (or max windowed), change the graphic settings etc.

Unfortunately you’ll have to do this every time you load the game (including toggling the Safe Mode). For me at least, if I don’t do this, I get stuck at the loading screen.

If you want to see your FPS in-game: /showfps 1
If you want to check for FPS spikes (purple is bad): /fpsgraph 1
If you want to see your ping: /netgraph 1

I get around 30-50 FPS on Medium, it’s worse than running native, but it’s perfectly playable. Putting AA higher than 2x gives me a really bad performance hit as well.

BTW if you want to launch the game from commandline (script, openbox menu, etc) use this:
playonlinux --run "Dungeons and Dragons: Neverwinter"

Enjoy,

If you want to get in touch in game, I’m @teppec (on server Dragon).

Play Resonance game on Linux

Notes for Ubuntu 12.10 x64 and GOG.com version of the game.


sudo apt-get install git ia32-libs debhelper pkg-config liballegro4.2-dev libaldmb1-dev libfreetype6-dev libtheora-dev libvorbis-dev libogg-dev gdebi-core innoextract
git clone git://github.com/adventuregamestudio/ags.git
cd ags && fakeroot debian/rules binary
sudo gdebi ../ags_3.21.1115~JJS-1_*.deb


Now download Resonance from GOG.com and place it in $HOME/Downloads.


cd ~/Downloads
innoextract setup_resonance_1.0.0.5.exe
mv app ~/Games/Resonance
rm -fr tmp


Now make a startup script.


cat > ~/Games/Resonance/playresonance.sh <<EOF
#!/bin/bash
cd $HOME/Games/Resonance && ags Resonance.exe
<<EOF
chmod +x ~/Games/Resonance/playresonance.sh


Now start the game with ~/Games/Resonance/playresonance.sh

Windowed mode can be enabled by editing ~/Games/Resonance/acsetup.cfg
More settings can be found here http://www.gog.com/forum/resonance/resonance_linux_gamers

For my laptop I changed:
windowed=1
gfxfilter=StdScale3

Play GOG version of Defender’s Quest on Linux

Note: Instructions for Ubuntu 12.10 x64

I bought Defender’s Quest from GOG rather than use the Linux version from the official site. Why?
- Don’t have to pay extra VAT because I’m from EU
- Extra goodies (soundtrack, etc)
- GOG download servers will be up for a long long time, so I’m sure I can always grab the game from there again if I lose my local backup.

FIRST install the demo. See here.

If all that works, leave the demo installed (we’ll use those files).
The following instructions assume you have the demo installed in ~/Games/DefendersQuestDemo.

If so, then proceed:

1/ Buy Defender’s Quest from GOG.com
2/ Download the Mac install file defenders_quest_1.0.0.4.dmg in ~/Downloads
3/ Open terminal (ctrl + alt + t)


cd ~/Downloads
wget http://vu1tur.eu.org/tools/dmg2img-1.6.4.tar.gz
tar xzf dmg2img-1.6.4.tar.gz
sudo apt-get install libghc-zlib-dev libghc-bzlib-dev libssl-dev
cd dmg2img-1.6.4
make
(ignore the warnings, if you have dmg2img file in the current dir after compilation, it should be ok)
./dmg2img -p 4 ~/Downloads/defenders_quest_1.0.0.4.dmg
sudo modprobe hfsplus
sudo mount -t hfsplus -o loop ~/Downloads/defenders_quest_1.0.0.4.img /mnt
cd /mnt/Defenders\ Quest.app/Contents/Resources/Defenders\ Quest.app/Contents/Resources/
rm -fr ~/Games/DefendersQuestDemo/share/*
tar cf - * | ( cd ~/Games/DefendersQuestDemo/share/ ; tar xvf - )
cd ~/Games
mv DefendersQuestDemo/ DefendersQuest
cd DefendersQuest/bin
mv DefendersQuestDEMO DefendersQuest


Now start the game from terminal:

./DefendersQuest &


It should work fine now. Congratulations.

You may get prompt to update your version:

From here you can download the .deb file or whatever version your prefer using.
If you just want to update your game (like I do), select the tar file. It will download it somewhere in /tmp (it says on the screen where it is saved).
Close the game and update your files like this:


cd ~/Games
tar xzf /tmp/FlashTmp.oaD1fm/defenders_quest_1_0_50.tar.gz


Relaunch game and now you have the latest version:

cd ~/Games/DefendersQuest/bin
./DefendersQuest &


Cleanup (optional):

cd
sudo umount /mnt
rm ~/Downloads/defenders_quest_1.0.0.4.*
sudo apt-get purge libghc-zlib-dev libghc-bzlib-dev libssl-dev
sudo apt-get autoremove
rm -fr ~/Downloads/dmg2img*


Defender’s Quest (Demo) on Ubuntu 12.10 x64

Download the needed files.

cd ~/Downloads
wget http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/lin/download/2.6/AdobeAIRInstaller.bin
wget http://www.defendersquest.com/files/defenders_quest_demo_1_0_1_linux/defenders_quest_demo_1_0_1.tar.gz

Install 32-bit libs:

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

(Get a cup of tea since it takes a while).

Now install Adobe Air:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgnome-keyring.so.0 /usr/lib/libgnome-keyring.so.0
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgnome-keyring.so.0.2.0 /usr/lib/libgnome-keyring.so.0.2.0
./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

After Adobe Air installs successfully, just remove the links again:

sudo rm /usr/lib/libgnome-keyring.so.0 /usr/lib/libgnome-keyring.so.0.2.0

To install the game, I use the tarball because I don’t like .deb files that much for games (personal preference).

mkdir ~/Games/ ; cd ~/Games/ ; tar xzf ~/Downloads/defenders_quest_demo_1_0_1.tar.gz
cd DefendersQuestDemo/bin
./DefendersQuestDEMO

This will launch the game in a window. You can select fullscreen & other resolutions from the options, but since this doesn’t really change the size of the game itself, you might just as well play in a window.

Set resolution in “Avadon: The Black Fortress”

For some reason, when starting this game (from Humble Bundle) on linux, I don’t get any screen for settting the resolution. It defaults to 1024*768 fullscreen.

To change it manually just edit this file:

~/.local/share/Avadon/Avadon.ini

GOG versions of Broken Sword 1/2 [ScummVM]

Ubuntu 12.10

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:arx/release
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install scummvm innoextract

Download GOG classic versions in ~/Downloads

cd ~/Downloads
innoextract setup_broken_sword.exe
mkdir ~/Games
mv app ~/Games/Broken_Sword_1_Classic
rm -fr tmp

Now add the game in ScummVM.

Same for BS2, however, the intro vid didn’t work… So I had a look in BS2 folder, the intro file is in a folder called Extras, while in BS1 it’s in a folder called video. Not sure why.. So, after you extracted the game, just do this:

cd ~/Games/Broken_Sword_2_Classic (or wherever you moved the app folder of BS2)
ln -s ./Extras video

Now everything works fine.

Quick Notes: Linux Gaming From Scratch

1. Download latest stable Ubuntu 64-bit. Put it on USB stick and boot from it (F12).
2. Next, next, next. Reboot. Done.

Notes on Nvidia drivers

Latest drivers aren’t always available in the Ubuntu repos. The easiest way is probably to add the Ubuntu-X PPA and upgrade from there.

You can check here when the latest drivers are added:
https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat/+archive/x-updates/+packages

1. First install linux-source and headers, in Ubuntu 12.10, else it goes terribly wrong (don’t ask me why..)

sudo apt-get install linux-source
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic

2. If you already have nvidia drivers installed remove them.

sudo apt-get purge nvidia-current nvidia-current-settings
sudo apt-get purge nvidia-current-updates nvidia-current-updates-settings
sudo apt-get purge nvidia-current-experimental-304 nvidia-current-experimental-304-settings

3. Now add the PPA and install the driver.

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-current
(reboot)

Add additional software

Skype:

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://archive.canonical.com/ $(lsb_release -sc) partner"
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install skype

Spotify:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 4E9CFF4E
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://repository.spotify.com stable non-free" >> /etc/apt/sources.list'
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install spotify-client-qt

Desura:

wget http://www.desura.com/desura-x86_64.tar.gz
tar xvzf desura-x86_64.tar.gz
mkdir ~/Games
mv desura ~/Games
cd ~/Games/desura
./desura &

Steam:

cd ~/Downloads
wget http://media.steampowered.com/client/installer/steam.deb
software-center steam.deb

Mumble:

sudo apt-get install mumble

Tweaks

Use fluxbox instead of Unity
sudo apt-get install fluxbox

1/ sudo apt-get install preload
2/ ext4:
- noatime,barrier=0,errors=remount-ro
- GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash rootflags=data=writeback” in /etc/default/grub
3/ swapiness
Add vm.swappiness=10 in /etc/sysctl.conf
4/ disable cups & bluetooth
/etc/init/cups.conf
/etc/init/bluetooth.conf
Comment the line with “start on”.
5/ Reboot