Just like what happened with Darwin Project only recently, it seems Paladins is no longer playable on Linux with Steam Play.
Late last month, I wrote an article and made a video showing off just how well Paladins was working on Linux thanks to Steam Play. Here we are again, only a couple weeks later and it's now a complete dud, with it almost instantly kicking me (and confirmed by others) out of games. You might get in for a few seconds, but with 100% reproduction it will kick you pretty quickly back to the main menu.
Back when previously writing about such an issue, I did make it clear with a note about how "with multiplayer titles and Steam Play there's nothing stopping the developer adjusting their anti-cheat which could end up locking-out Linux gamers".
It's a real shame, as both myself and my Son enjoyed playing Paladins and apart from a few issues which were also present on Windows, it worked beautifully with some really great performance.
While Steam Play has opened the door to a lot of titles not officially available on Linux, it's not quite the answer to everything as some like to repeatedly claim. This is obviously going to be a repeating problem with multiplayer games, so for now, I would honestly just keep away from any game using Easy Anti-Cheat with Steam Play. I will repeat what I said when I spoke about Darwin Project, I think Valve should really note on store pages what anti-cheat systems are used to help gamers make informed decisions.
What will be interesting, is that Valve said they will be rolling out "Steam Trust" in their post about some changes coming to Steam. Perhaps if more developers use Valve's own tools when they're available, this might not be such an issue since you would expect Valve's own tools to work with Steam Play.
I've reached out to Easy Anti-Cheat, again, to see if they would like a constructive chat about it. They didn't reply last time, so hopefully they will this time.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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salamanderrake Feb 9, 2019
Its strange as there are games EAC that work on linux natively that they wouldn't actually try to get it working with proton, but who knows, developers are sometimes funny and believe that its easier to cheat on Linux then on windows, except that 90% if not all of the cheating software only runs on windows.
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Who cares about yet another Windows game not running on Linux? As if it is the only one…
By now we are basically swimming in good native games, so why bother spending your time on some Windows title which developers don't even care about Linux?
What hero shooters are there with native Linux support?
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On-topic: While I can understand the need to combat cheaters, I never felt comfortable installing intrusive Anti-cheat software. I wish game devs came up with intelligent methods to detect cheating -behaviour- instead of the tools used to make it possible. Ideally, games should be designed from the ground up to make cheating impossible, so that EAC and Co wouldn't be needed. Security as an afterthought (and that's what Anti-Cheat software is) has never worked well anywhere.
I'm pretty sure that game devs would prefer this too, but I guess it is not that easy without locking down your whole system like on a dedicated gaming console.
Please don't get me wrong, I'm also not a fan of these solutions and refrain from using them. (Fortunately for me I'm more of a single player type thus this wont hit me. Though I understand the need for this in multiplayer games, people _will_ cheat and destroy the experience for honest players.
Last edited by jens on 10 February 2019 at 12:43 pm UTC
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Who cares about yet another Windows game not running on Linux? As if it is the only one…Appeal to popularity is a logic pitfall if the argument is about quality. If the argument is about relevance to advancement of Linux as a gaming platform for the masses, then whether things the masses want to play run on it is absolutely a logical question.
By now we are basically swimming in good native games, so why bother spending your time on some Windows title which developers don't even care about Linux?
P.S. And the "But… But… But it is sooooo popular with my classmates!!!" argument is just lame. As it was stated before, "Appeal to Popularity" is a common logic pitfall.
P.P.S. I know I'm also using a logic trick, basically "I personally do not care so every one else should not care" statement thinly veiled as a question. But it is no worse than "Many people care so you also should care" approach. :)
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Last time I checked, the number of big-budget games on Linux was not really stunning, and we seem to get LESS these days than 2-3 years back. Some genres are still missing completely (the number of good MMORPGs having a native client is still zero).What about the number of true Scotsmen? :P
Not that I disagree with your point.
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 9 February 2019 at 11:14 pm UTC
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Its strange as there are games EAC that work on linux natively that they wouldn't actually try to get it working with proton, but who knows, developers are sometimes funny and believe that its easier to cheat on Linux then on windows, except that 90% if not all of the cheating software only runs on windows.Heh. One category we don't mind missing out on. But it probably runs on Wine . . .
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Valve needs to tackle anti cheat. If they do lots games will work and many will probably be whitelisted. It's one of the big things that plagues SteamPlay/Wine (other being Denuvo). Is there any reason to believe that Epic Games will hinder Valve from working with EAC devs? Since Epic Games owns Kamu, the parent company of EAC, and they are now in direct competition to Valve.
Last edited by Linuxwarper on 9 February 2019 at 11:33 pm UTC
Last edited by Linuxwarper on 9 February 2019 at 11:33 pm UTC
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P.P.S. I know I'm also using a logic trick, basically "I personally do not care so every one else should not care" statement thinly veiled as a question. But it is no worse than "Many people care so you also should care" approach. :)
I think the reality here is neither. It would be better described as "there were a lot of people playing this game on linux, and THEY care".
The original statement was that nobody cares. While in fact, some do. Whether you care or not is ofc completely up to yourself. But those that care, exist. So they're not nobody.
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I think the company is shooting itself in the foot. While count of Linux players is not high, they still bring money (by some statistics much more per player than Windows users). I think Blizzard had some issues with WoW and OW, yet they managed to update their anti-cheat to work with Wine.
Linux has some selection of games, but some genres are under-represented and many genre leaders are not on Linux at all. For example Overwatch - there isn't many similar games at all, so you can't really find an alternative even on Windows. I did try Paladins for like 20 hours and Smite for many more (hundred at least). But Paladins seemed to be quite bland to me, majority of characters not really that interesting, some felt unfinished (probably b/c animations?) and their looks not matching, overall it felt quite rubber-bandy compared to OW (maybe an issue with EU servers?). Smite, well, only game mode I was interested in playing (arena?) was not supported by developers even though it was most popular one, so I left after some time (had some fun for free, can't complain).
To the security of games being afterthought, well, maybe, but if constructing special client and mainly server costs times more (if possible at all), then it is logical to make a game with checking main cheating tools rather than investing to development of new tech costing tons of money and in the end players not seeing anything for higher price of a game (which is purely hypothetical, since gamers are not willing to pay more, so publishers would have to cut it from their money). I think vast majority of people are severly underestimating how difficult is to build a fast multiplayer action game and what hoops have to jumped through for it to feel good = responsive, you can't trade game performance for "proper" security, because who would want to pay for old-looking game with simple mechanics? I was quite stunned by all the stuff what is going on under the hood, e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3aieHjyNvw.
You've been playing Smite on Linux? How did you manage that? I've never been able to, because ironically the anti-cheat always screwed me over. FML.
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The real problem here is that Easy Anti-Cheat on Windows is working through a kernel module. Kamu can't port that module to Linux because of the GPL license which would force them to provide the source code. As of now, when EAC detects Wine, a stub module is downloaded instead of the normal one.
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The real problem here is that Easy Anti-Cheat on Windows is working through a kernel module. Kamu can't port that module to Linux because of the GPL license which would force them to provide the source code. As of now, when EAC detects Wine, a stub module is downloaded instead of the normal one.
Like the non-existing NVIDIA binary blob? If anyone is desperate enough to accept kernel level spyware (which any anti-cheat gizmo has to be) to play a game, they are free to taint their kernel.
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orochi_kyo Feb 10, 2019
Im agree that,
1 If is not whitelisted, we should not put the responsibility of this on Valve.
2 Everything started to break when Epic buy EAC.
3 If anyone is mad about this you should be reaching Paladins Devs or Easy Anticheat owners. Pretty sure they dont care.
1 If is not whitelisted, we should not put the responsibility of this on Valve.
2 Everything started to break when Epic buy EAC.
3 If anyone is mad about this you should be reaching Paladins Devs or Easy Anticheat owners. Pretty sure they dont care.
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Apex doesn't works anymore either. And that's what millions are playing right now. Doesn't want to know how many Linux gamers are among them who are now switching back to Windows.
Nevertheless, thanks to DXVK, we are a big step ahead today if you compare it with the sutuation a year ago.
Last edited by 1xok on 10 February 2019 at 7:27 pm UTC
Nevertheless, thanks to DXVK, we are a big step ahead today if you compare it with the sutuation a year ago.
Last edited by 1xok on 10 February 2019 at 7:27 pm UTC
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Im agree that,Is that a fact or speculation? Because as it is Epic is already detrimental to Linux, if this is true as well..then they are bloody garbage.
2 Everything started to break when Epic buy EAC.
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Apex doesn't works anymore either. And that's what millions are playing right now. Doesn't want to know how many Linux gamers are among them who are now switching back to Windows.
Nevertheless, thanks to DXVK, we are a big step ahead today if you compare it with the sutuation a year ago.
Was Apex ever working? From my preliminary Googling I found that you could install Apex and start the main menu, but no other part of the game worked.
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Apex doesn't works anymore either. And that's what millions are playing right now. Doesn't want to know how many Linux gamers are among them who are now switching back to Windows.
Nevertheless, thanks to DXVK, we are a big step ahead today if you compare it with the sutuation a year ago.
Was Apex ever working? From my preliminary Googling I found that you could install Apex and start the main menu, but no other part of the game worked.
It worked great I think:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aG0YeJ7y_g
I was too late to test it. But many were enthusiastic and then very disappointed. There are many discussions on Reddit now:
https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/ao1ypx/before_today_apex_legends_worked_perfectly_in/
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Apex doesn't works anymore either. And that's what millions are playing right now. Doesn't want to know how many Linux gamers are among them who are now switching back to Windows.
Nevertheless, thanks to DXVK, we are a big step ahead today if you compare it with the sutuation a year ago.
Was Apex ever working? From my preliminary Googling I found that you could install Apex and start the main menu, but no other part of the game worked.
Apex was working perfectly for me until EAC.
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gradyvuckovic Feb 11, 2019
Everything started to consistently break after Epic bought EAC.
I'm SURE that's just a coincidence..
(not) >_>
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So much misinformation in one thread :(
As Code Artisan wrote above EAC can't make the Windows version of EAC work on Wine. It's kernel level code that will never run with Wine. It's up to developers to just run the games natively on Linux, EAC *does* support that (since at least two years ago, think it was even longer now).
Epic had no impact on this. It's always been this way and will be, otherwise EAC will be useless (yes, it's considered useless by some people already, but it's at least doing a better job than VAC and seems like even be seen superior (or at least an increased protection) than BattlEye by the PUBG devs, as it's used instead (or in addition?) to it now).
I know, some people say "better no anti cheat solution than one that blocks of stuff" (though again, as per the first part, if devs just release native versions there's no problem ... it's really up to them and not the third party code they use if the third party code supports the target platforms), and for some games it might actually be *kinda* true. Looking at short based games where you don't have any overall progression, like a shooter: You can avoid cheaters by leaving the game and have lost nothing. Looking at games with progression, especially builder type games (like Terraria type or anything Voxel based like MC, 7DtD etc) you can get *hours* of work destroyed by a single cheater incidence. No protection is no choice here.
And lastly the nice argument of "devs should make their games cheat-safe in the first place": Come on, everyone should know that's total bullshit. I agree that there is some work that can be done, but you will never get a game safe against cheating, not even those that rely on heavily server-authoritative gameplay. Even the biggest players like Blizzard with D2, D3, WoW as examples always had issues with them, which is why they end up with ban waves when they've detected stuff.
Just a few cents from my end. Again, don't blame the EAC guys, they know and do their jobs (and in this case it's not on Epic either, no matter how much you hate them), it's on the game devs.
As Code Artisan wrote above EAC can't make the Windows version of EAC work on Wine. It's kernel level code that will never run with Wine. It's up to developers to just run the games natively on Linux, EAC *does* support that (since at least two years ago, think it was even longer now).
Epic had no impact on this. It's always been this way and will be, otherwise EAC will be useless (yes, it's considered useless by some people already, but it's at least doing a better job than VAC and seems like even be seen superior (or at least an increased protection) than BattlEye by the PUBG devs, as it's used instead (or in addition?) to it now).
I know, some people say "better no anti cheat solution than one that blocks of stuff" (though again, as per the first part, if devs just release native versions there's no problem ... it's really up to them and not the third party code they use if the third party code supports the target platforms), and for some games it might actually be *kinda* true. Looking at short based games where you don't have any overall progression, like a shooter: You can avoid cheaters by leaving the game and have lost nothing. Looking at games with progression, especially builder type games (like Terraria type or anything Voxel based like MC, 7DtD etc) you can get *hours* of work destroyed by a single cheater incidence. No protection is no choice here.
And lastly the nice argument of "devs should make their games cheat-safe in the first place": Come on, everyone should know that's total bullshit. I agree that there is some work that can be done, but you will never get a game safe against cheating, not even those that rely on heavily server-authoritative gameplay. Even the biggest players like Blizzard with D2, D3, WoW as examples always had issues with them, which is why they end up with ban waves when they've detected stuff.
Just a few cents from my end. Again, don't blame the EAC guys, they know and do their jobs (and in this case it's not on Epic either, no matter how much you hate them), it's on the game devs.
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