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.
Quoting: Code ArtisanThe 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.
orochi_kyo Feb 10, 2019
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.
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
Quoting: orochi_kyoIm 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.
Quoting: 1xokApex 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.
Quoting: HubroQuoting: 1xokApex 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/
Quoting: HubroQuoting: 1xokApex 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.
gradyvuckovic Feb 11, 2019
Quoting: FaattoriEverything started to consistently break after Epic bought EAC.
I'm SURE that's just a coincidence..
(not) >_>
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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