For those hanging on hoping Facepunch will go back to officially supporting Linux with Rust, you might want to sit down. They've made a comment on it on their latest blog post.
As a little reminder, back in July last year I reported on how Facepunch removed Linux support and any mention of the Linux version of Rust from Steam. Since then though, they have continued to update the Linux version so people could still play it, it just wasn't advertised any more (you could also still buy it new and play it on Linux). That may be changing, going by what they said as quoted below:
This update brings a new set of fixes for the Linux client that should resolve some of the issues that have been reported. Unfortunately I also have to take this moment to address the future of Rust on Linux. We are currently debating internally whether or not to end Linux support in the near future. There are many reasons for this but the biggest issue right now is the problematic state of Linux support from third parties. Any software that supports Linux faces the same problem of putting in a lot of effort for an extremely small customer base, so we are sympathetic for the decisions our partners have been making. Unfortunately this means we keep encountering problems with Rust on Linux that cannot be solved by us directly and require us to wait around for fixes, which can take months or in some cases never materialize. We have not made a decision on whether or not to continue supporting Linux yet, but we wanted to communicate this process early so the community is aware of it.
I have to say I am still really sad about this. Rust did become my favourite survival game on Linux, we had a good community server going and plenty of people were enjoying it. However, if they're not able to support it due to issues outside their control (like the many issues Unity has had over the last year) it's obviously a big problem for them and somewhat understandable. I also appreciate how they're being a little more open about it now.
My issue is, what happens if/when they do decide to entirely stop supporting Linux? Most people would obviously be way past the usual time for a refund so we would be left with nothing. Steam Play could help in situations like this, if it wasn't for Easy Anti-Cheat not working under Steam Play. Not good.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
I stopped playing after the big patch that broke everything. Just got fed up with their lack of communication on the issues, I also took my server down, which was a thriving server, but if I cannot log into it to play or admin it, what's the point, right?
Facepunch has always been quite negative towards Linux gamers, so this doesn't surprise me, and I also do think I believe them 100% when they blame it on unity. Sure some issues can be Unity, but I also feel they don't want to invest time and money into finding a real solution to the issues, because they really don't give a sh*t about us.
-Fratm
Kimyrielle 2 May 2019
apocalyptech 2 May 2019
Developers who plan to release on platforms without making sure that any middleware they want to use is working on their target platforms will never cease to amuse me. Maybe "Facepalm Studios" would be a more apt name for them?
In their defense, it does sound an awful lot like their middleware did have Linux support but just ended up doing so badly. I definitely have some sympathy for them on this one, because it's an unpleasant situation to be in. Think about all the folks who were hopping on UE4 for its crossplatform functionality but then running up against perpetual problems on the Linux side, etc. If the middleware/vendors seem initially good but then turn out to be not so great, remediation can be difficult, especially if the vast majority of your userbase doesn't have the problems.
(I have no particular dog in this race, as I've never even tried out Rust.)
Just going by Facepunch's wikipedia page it looks like they cancelled more games than they've released. Not exactly trust-inspiring. :|
Support SteamPlay Proton.
I know there are issues with anti-cheats, but I bet that dealing with those companies (anti-cheat producers) would be much easier than dealing with Unity3D.
Many games already run much better on Proton.
If there was a group of developers put together from different companies in a joint venture to significantly improve Proton support, that would mean the end for needing native ports. Everybody would be happy with more games to play and a broader audience to consume.
Last edited by Thormack on 3 May 2019 at 9:34 am UTC
I'm still sceptical, google cancels more projects than they release, and even more they released than they sustain. Though, gaming market is a huge one, they may put in some more effort in this.
I personally would like if they could bring real cross platform gaming. Not playing shooters, I don't have issues with latency, so for me it's an option.
The biggest issue so far were the weird artifacts filling the screen, issues that was "solved" by un-ticking a box in the Unity editor.
Yeah, and that was because a clever Linux guy with an hex editor discovered that for them, while they pretended for two months that "they're working on it".
There's still the flickering issue, but I hardly believe that this one is caused by third parties.
salamanderrake 2 May 2019
What do they want to do if Steam games are streamed via Stadia in the future? What runs on the desktop becomes less and less important. No data center in the world will ever run on Windows. Just because of the license costs.
We're doomed... Linux gaming will die. :'(We're not, we're really not. Let's not go down that road. Out of all the games we have plus Steam Play, how many have removed Linux support? An absolutely tiny fraction compared to the overall amount.
Last edited by cprn on 2 May 2019 at 10:28 pm UTC
[...] What we can expect from developers is spending some time (1% of their time because we are 1% [...]
That's not exactly accurate. A good developer understands the benefits of compiling for 2nd, 3rd and 4th platform and knows how that translates to overall architecture and stability improvements. Bugs found while building for Linux are there in builds for all other targets. What causes rendering artifacts on Linux might be responsible for slowdowns on Windows. What looks like flickering on Xbox might be just a different light colour on Mac. It doesn't translate 1% to 1%. I bet porters like Aspyr, Fanatical, Icculus and Ethan Lee reported thousands of issues in original codebase they had to work with that improved everything from load times to frames per second.
ElectricPrism 3 May 2019
2. Make sure to publicly defer blame via blog with "Hey guys, it's not our fault"
3. Pull the plug on a customer base that has given you money for a product thereby revoking their ability to use their license.
When the shit hits the fan every Linux gamer who has a copy needs to spam the fuck out of their refund system to remind them how much of a pain in the ass and mistake they made for themselves.
To clarify: Their profit model isn't SaaS (Software as a Service), it's selling licenses.
Last edited by ElectricPrism on 3 May 2019 at 3:02 am UTC
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