Recently, the voice & text chat app Discord released a pretty fun sounding new feature called "Go Live" which sadly seems like Linux will miss out on.
Go Live is a feature that allows you to share your game screen with a group of friends on a Discord channel, have them join the chat for it and watch you play. Like smaller and more intimate version of Twitch, only it's just for Discord.
Tweeting out about this new feature last week, the official Discord Twitter said "We just rolled out Go Live to... 100% of you! Everyone can now launch a game, click a button, and start streaming to their friends."
That 100% of people apparently didn't include Linux or Mac. When queried about it, an official Discord staff member said on Reddit "Go Live is a Windows 10 feature, will also be coming to Win7.". It wasn't noted in the changelog either, it was buried in their FAQ.
Not the first time Discord has ignored Linux for a feature. None of their store or Nitro game features work on Linux, which has caused issues for a few developers doing Early Access through Discord that wanted to provide Linux builds. A quick example that I can actually mention in public is Vagrus, so they added an additional option to tick on Fig for Linux users to get access from itch.io. It's the constant little barriers like this, that do put some off using and supporting Linux so it's a real shame.
Note: If you do wish to see the Discord Store features supported on Linux there's a request for it here.
Heck, Discord haven't even been able to get spellchecking supported in the Linux version despite the open source Hunspell being around and no doubt others they could hook into.
Before you go throwing Discord under a bus and gathering any pitchforks though, it's worth noting that Valve still haven't even managed to get their own Steam broadcasting feature into the Linux client. So Discord certainly aren't alone in not being able to do support such a thing on Linux.
Hat tip to ryao.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
And indeed, the Steam broadcasting is also one of those fun features. Even more so because you can broadcast just fine if it is to your own Steam Link of equivalent apps.
it's worth noting that Valve still haven't even managed to get their own Steam broadcasting feature into the Linux client.
Let's not forget the Hammer editor for TF2.
That's their own game they ported to Linux.
heidi.wenger 11 Sep 2019
Just a heads up, though we can't broadcast from the Linux Steam client, we can use OBS to stream to our Steam profiles: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/broadcast/setting_up
Last edited by Corben on 11 Sep 2019 at 2:03 pm UTC
Kimyrielle 11 Sep 2019
Why would i ever use Discord over say Riot ? Discord is starting to treat its Linux users like the good old Microsoft and their Skype huh
Same reason why (almost) every business in the world is using MS Office: Because everyone else does! Good luck finding a guild/clan these days NOT forcing you to use Discord...
Before you go throwing Discord under a bus and gathering any pitchforks though, it's worth noting that Valve still haven't even managed to get their own Steam broadcasting feature into the Linux client.
I wonder if the problem to support sharing screen have something related to X.org
Why would i ever use Discord over say Riot ? Discord is starting to treat its Linux users like the good old Microsoft and their Skype huh
Simply boycott proprietary IM services. That's the only way to deal with their proliferation. They are welcome to support open protocols federation (Matrix, or XMPP for example). And if they refuse - don't use them.
This insanity is only getting worse. E-mail managed to support federation for many years just fine. And all these new IMs refuse to do it, even though they can and there are open solutions like above.
https://matrix.org
Last edited by Shmerl on 11 Sep 2019 at 5:23 pm UTC
Before you go throwing Discord under a bus and gathering any pitchforks thoughHey! Give me back my pitchfork!
I clicked on the link provided buuut it only brought me to the feedback main hub and not in any specific request thread about it .
I tried to find one but apparently no one created one so far .
Soooo are my infos outdated and its useless to even ask or should we coordinate our efforts ?
Last edited by TheSyldat on 11 Sep 2019 at 6:10 pm UTC
legluondunet 11 Sep 2019
Last edited by legluondunet on 11 Sep 2019 at 7:46 pm UTC
Edit: typo
Last edited by Caenth on 11 Sep 2019 at 9:55 pm UTC
GustyGhost 12 Sep 2019
This is a good thing. It is a good thing because it erodes people's faith in an untrustworthy black box.
But that's the life of using Linux. It's not a bad thing. Being the mainstream OS with the hordes of consumer low-hanging fruit normies would only serve to kill everything that makes Linux good.
I think it's finally time to switch to W7.
Not a bad idea if you have to dual boot. I still have Win7 for very few things (MMO mouse keybinds, GPS map update).
Draconicrose 12 Sep 2019
Even their basic screen sharing isn't working properly on Linux (but it does if you use chrome) and hasn't been for years. They don't even bother. Or spell check. Discord just doesn't care about linux anymore but sadly they're not going anywhere until they upset the windows users enough like Skype did.
Sir_Diealot 13 Sep 2019
I couldn't join the stream mind you, clicking what looked like a voice chat channel did... zilch.
Turns out you can only stream from Windows 10 and only watch using Chromium.
At least in this instance the stream was suffering from /packet loss throughout, causing drops in video quality and cuts in audio.
So far I'm not impressed.
It's a shame Discord has become the norm for game devs as well as streamers to use, it will be damn hard to get people to use anything else.
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