I recently wrote about how it's looking pretty unlikely that Rust will actually be supported on Steam Deck / Linux with Proton, and it's not looking any better right now.
Previously it was just comments from Facepunch Studios' Garry Newman on Twitter, with Newman trying to explain their thoughts on why it hasn't happened yet. Now, we have another and perhaps a bit more public / official answer with their latest official news post on the Rust website including a note at the bottom about it from Alistair McFarlane, the Producer at Facepunch, that reads:
You know, we switched to EAC's new platform with the intention of providing support for the Steam Deck, and so far we haven't done that. So when is it coming?
Well, short answer is we don't know. We don't know if it is. When we discontinued linux support in 2019, one of the core reasons was how the cheating community was exploiting the Linux platform. That's not to say that cheating was super widespread on Linux, but it was safer for cheat developers. And that's not good in a game like Rust where a cheater can ruin weeks of hard work.
Enabling proton support would mean we're asking the EAC team to provide support for a whole other platform, which we fear would reduce their ability to support Windows - our main platform. We don't know whether we should enable one platform at the disadvantage of another.
The one thing we don't want to do is to enable Proton support to only discontinue it six months later. We don't want to encourage players to spend their money on a Deck to play Rust and then be in a position where we want to take that ability away.
For now, we're still weighing up the risks and will continue to explore options with EAC. Don't expect to see Proton support in the near future, but we hope to have it enabled someday.
So it's basically the same story as what Newman explained. They don't wish to potentially open up Rust to more cheat developers again, where they don't seem to feel confident that EAC would be able to keep up with it on top of preventing the cheats on Windows too (which is obviously the main platform).
It is a genuine shame, since Rust is (while quite brutal) a great survival game and very popular. It's also interesting, because clearly they think that EAC don't provide all that great protection on Linux if they're that worried about what would happen again. While again, other games like Apex have it, they're very different games.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
1. They can disable crosplatform multiplayer. You have problem with cheaters? Let linux users be on separated servers. Some players want to play with linux frieds? Just allow windows users to join to linux servers with warning of greater risc of cheaters.
2. If game has ability to create own server, just give ability to run game without EAC for "not EAC servers"
Linux can be unofficially supported with these limits.
Mohandevir Oct 7, 2022
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2016/01/garry-newman-of-rust-and-garrys-mod-regrets-supporting-linux/
Please excuse me if I don't believe there is an once of good faith in this new statement. It feels like they are being pressured by demand into answering with some form of a P.C. answer. They do not have any intention of supporting Linux, imo.
Maybe when Valve will have sold it's 5th million Steam Deck...?
Last edited by Mohandevir on 7 October 2022 at 12:56 pm UTC
mr-victory Oct 7, 2022
Apparently they are still considering it, enough to switch to EOS EAC but still have doubts. Maybe a few more hundred thousand Steam Decks could resolve their doubts.
Quoting: Stevencheating is as bad as everIf cheating is bad as ever, I don't think Linux would make it worse
Quoting: mr-victoryIMO the problem with Rust is that Linux playerbase is tiny. I remember that they shared user stats where Windows was 200K, Mac was 1-2K and Linux was a shy 200. The ratio (%0.1) doesn't correlate with Steam stats (%1) so the playerbase is really tiny. Also they expect cheat makers to switch to Linux which makes everything worse.The Linux userbase was tiny at that time because the native port was really really bad and wine didn't work well, either. It's only natural Linux gamers would rather not play it. The 0.1% ratio just reflected how bad the port was handled. They even acknowledged that when they shut down the Linux port.
Apparently they are still considering it, enough to switch to EOS EAC but still have doubts. Maybe a few more hundred thousand Steam Decks could resolve their doubts.Quoting: Stevencheating is as bad as everIf cheating is bad as ever, I don't think Linux would make it worse
The SteamDeck and Proton have changed up the situation, a lot of former windows gamers now own a Linux gaming machine, yet we won't know how many people would play Rust unless they open it up.
I still own a copy of this game since I got it from a humble bundle and wasn't able to refund it that way. I'll never consider buying a game from them ever again.
Last edited by const on 7 October 2022 at 1:22 pm UTC
I’m glad I never bought a copy of this game.
Another thing that confuses me. They implemented EAC for Linux support because that’s the platform it’s easiest to write cheats on. However they want the EAC people to focus on Windows… which platform is providing the easy cheating access again?
Mohandevir Oct 7, 2022
QuoteWhen we discontinued linux support in 2019, one of the core reasons was how the cheating community was exploiting the Linux platform.
They are trying to convince me that 0.1% of the userbase, by their own numbers and assuming that it would mean that all of Linux users are cheaters... Yeah... Right... wrecked the game so much that it attracted their attention to Linux cheating?
I'm... not... buying... it.
I would really like to know on what fact they based this assumption, if it's not just pure made up BS, because they can't say they won't support Linux, because they don't want to and because they hate the platform.
Seriously, it's more insulting than anything else.
I needed this new statement as much as a Facepunch!
Last edited by Mohandevir on 7 October 2022 at 1:56 pm UTC
Quoting: ArtenI don't know rust, i didn't play it, so dont know how multiplayer work in that game. But generaly, there is solution how to solve linux cheater "problem".
1. They can disable crosplatform multiplayer. You have problem with cheaters? Let linux users be on separated servers. Some players want to play with linux frieds? Just allow windows users to join to linux servers with warning of greater risc of cheaters.
2. If game has ability to create own server, just give ability to run game without EAC for "not EAC servers"
Linux can be unofficially supported with these limits.
Well, their reasoning explains clearly that they don't want to open it, even a bit, so that cheats cannot be developed on Linux. So it makes sense that they would disallow even that.
However, a cursory search shows that it's possible to run the game with EAC disabled: `+server.secure 0 +server.eac 0 +server.encryption 0`.
Since it's possible to run it with EAC disabled, I have trouble to see what else Linux could bring to the table for helping cheat developers?
They would just develop their cheats with EAC off; then add EAC evasion techniques to the lot before shipping to windows... cheaters mostly cheat on Windows anyway; they don't want to dual-boot just to cheat, which is understandable. So that windows EAC evasion has to be developed anyway. And they can develop the cheat part just fine on Windows too by disabling EAC. What's left? Developers slightly prefer Linux, so let's inconvenience them? That might slow down cheat makers by 1%, if anything.
Kuduzkehpan Oct 7, 2022
later then that *garry man start crying about how bad is supporting linux with unity. And they dropped linux support they refunded nothing so i felt that they are robbers as in emotional and material. But now i guess they are trying to convince people that its not their fault to drop linux support its all fault of environments as player base and lack of anti-cheat softwares and development tools
But there are plenty of player base nowadays and at least two anti-cheat solutions (battleeye, eac.) and unity development kit is very mature yet we can see many working titles on linux. now they are still crying to justify their ideolgy get over with it kid.
Yet again most of their game is played on private servers where admins selling - or could sell aimbots cheat like premium advantages like faster harvesting gathering building aim damage recoil modifiers via server web site (they have admin rights to change user configs in serverside ) and EAC cant detect these as these are configurations by server.
and 2 more things i guess they believe %1.2 of gamers are(linux gamers) has more evolved brains to control sofwares and hardwares remotely and hacks cheats everything.
and Pronounce of "Garry" means; back, backwards, and idiot in Turkish.
Give me refund and just stop BSing. you are free to support or not. Just be fair for your players.
Patreon
PayPal
See more from me