Recently, there were was an upgrade to the Battle.net client that caused it to break on Linux desktop / Steam Deck but it seems the issue is thankfully solved now.
The thing is, Blizzard don't support Linux as a platform at all for the client or their games. However, they do have a bit of history of now and then fixing up major issues preventing people playing with the Wine compatibility layer. Seems that level of support is still ongoing after the latest incident.
Around 9 days ago, it seems an update just broke it entirely and the app wouldn't install and update properly resulting in some sort of loop. While it's a shame no testing is done for Linux and Steam Deck before updates are rolled out, at least we're not stuck forever as they've now solved it:
Howdy Everyone!
I do apologies we didn’t post here sooner but the development teams was aware that a recent change did cause havoc with Wine and the software used for Steam Deck. This wasn’t intended.
A fix was deployed and it appears it’s working. If you are still having issues please try a reinstall of the app so it fully updates to the 8020 build.
Check on it today and it seems all good on my end now too.
Good news, since Overwatch 2 releases next month and I'm sure plenty will want to play it.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
slaapliedje Sep 27, 2022
Yeah, I was wondering if they made a vulkan renderer how it would perform.I'm surprised they directly addressed it instead of a quiet fix. I know Blizz has been secretly pretty Linux/WINE friendly, but they don't usually come out and say it like they did here, do they?
Longer time ago, they even officially sent some patches to Wine to make WoW run better.
Never knew that. Way back they even had that unreleased internal Linux build of WoW, so the desire is/was there. Nice to see them keeping it up, even if it is unofficial.
Apparently there were ways to allow WOW to run with opengl with some ini file tweaks and it would run better on linux than on windows
I'm surprised they directly addressed it instead of a quiet fix. I know Blizz has been secretly pretty Linux/WINE friendly, but they don't usually come out and say it like they did here, do they?
Longer time ago, they even officially sent some patches to Wine to make WoW run better.
Never knew that. Way back they even had that unreleased internal Linux build of WoW, so the desire is/was there. Nice to see them keeping it up, even if it is unofficial.
Apparently there were ways to allow WOW to run with opengl with some ini file tweaks and it would run better on linux than on windows
Way back when it came out, like many games, it supported multiple APIs for compatibility. It became deprecated around Wrath/Cata but you could still run it with a simple flag; you'd lose a few high end graphics options but that ran better in WINE back in the day.
Having their games eventually move to Vulkan and become easier to port to Linux would of course be even better.
I can imagine Hearthstone being a nice addition to a portable computer like the steamdeck :)
slaapliedje Sep 28, 2022
They don't have to support Linux really. However, supporting proton compatibility would be nice since the largest PC game store is popularizing it.Blizzard doesn't care. They don't sell any of their games on Steam, and likely never will.
I think having a native Linux version of Battle.net that uses Proton to start their games like Steam does it, would be fine.
Having their games eventually move to Vulkan and become easier to port to Linux would of course be even better.
I can imagine Hearthstone being a nice addition to a portable computer like the steamdeck :)
You'd think they would figure out a way to get more players via a console-like thing. I'm betting Diablo games would be the only ones they make workable with controller though.
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