Well, there it is, the update for Roblox has arrived that now forcefully blocks it from working with Wine on Linux systems (like Steam Deck).
It's been a bit of a saga hasn't it? Roblox has always been somewhat iffy to play on Linux, at times being broken while people working on the likes of Grapefruit and Vinegar repeatedly kept up with changes to make it work. The Roblox developers then introduced Hyperion anti-cheat software, although they continued to make it work unofficially with Wine but that wasn't to last as a developer explained that it has caused cheating.
Now if you try to run it, you will simply be told "Wine is not supported.":
This is an intentional change by the Roblox dev team, to block Wine, as noted in the previous article linked above where a Roblox developer clearly replied to note it wouldn't work in future.
Despite what you may think of Roblox (and it's historically had plenty of problems) as one of the biggest gaming platforms ever, it's certainly a shame to see it go. There's plenty of people out there that have Roblox as their main thing, and so not being able to do it on Linux is quite a loss.
Any game that intentionally prevents it from working on Linux is a loss as it just increases the uphill battle Linux has as a gaming platform. There's not exactly many accessible alternatives to it for Linux fans.
Know any alternatives for people looking? Let readers know in the comments.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Quoting: doragasuAh, yeah, they did say that. Um, is that actually a thing? Does Wine itself help you do that? In a way that blocking just running the software under Wine will stop? I have no idea, so I'm hoping someone knows.Quoting: BlackBloodRumI've always found this "Wine causes cheating" to be a bit of an excuse. The majority of cheat software is made specifically for Windows and in-turn windows games. They make these claims, but never back it up with anything other than saying "we just know".
Although for me it also looks a bit of an excuse, their rationale here is: people are using wine to debug Roblox and with that knowledge come up with cheats that are then used on Windows.
For that matter, whatever they're doing to block people from running Roblox with Wine presumably is going to continue working because the Wine people are too polite and too US-oriented to violate the DMCA by sidestepping it. But presumably anyone using Wine as a tool for cheating will not be deterred by this issue and will alter the open source Wine software in whatever way they need to get it to work again, and distribute the altered version to the cheater community. Sooo, if Wine is actually used by cheaters to analyze the Roblox software, blocking Wine will probably stop legitimate use but not the cheaters. Um, congratulations?
This is a bad thing. Certainly any idea I might have had of getting my grandkids onto Linux is now gone.
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Quoting: CatKillerWell, these days they could just say "For anticheat reasons, we allow only the Steam Runtime Environment--any Linux that doesn't use that is out."Quoting: EhvisWhy would that be? I'm not a mac person, but I highly doubt that Apple would make it easy for software to run something at elevated permissions. So maybe the mac built is running with the same restricted "anti-cheat" as they did to support wine. If that is the case, some of these cheaters may just move over to try their luck on a mac. Maybe not as many since that would require a fairly significant investment.
The thing to remember is that "anti-cheat" isn't really anti-cheat at all; it's anti-tamper. They want to know that the software and environment that it's running in hasn't been modified to do anything unexpected. On Windows, you've got a fairly standardised environment, but the broad range of hardware means that you need the ability to load, for example, hardware drivers... so people can load a "driver" that's actually modifying the running environment of user software. So the software developers put their anti-tamper software at the kernel level to be able to check on all the drivers as well as the user software. Macs have a hugely reduced breadth of hardware, so drivers can just come from Apple, and there's a built-in attestation mechanism to say that software hasn't been tampered with. They just use that. On Linux, every OS install is a special snowflake, so you don't even have a baseline standard environment to look for deviations from.
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Quoting: Purple Library GuyThis is a bad thing. Certainly any idea I might have had of getting my grandkids onto Linux is now gone.We should all be playing Bomberman instead, anyway.
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Quoting: Purple Library GuyWell, these days they could just say "For anticheat reasons, we allow only the Steam Runtime Environment--any Linux that doesn't use that is out."Oh yes, they definitely could do it if they really wanted. We have all sorts of containerisation solutions that are used for srs bsns that would probably be a good starting point. But... we have 2% of, like, 20% of the gaming market, and the srs bsns containers are predominately geared up to put iron-grip control in the hands of the system administrator rather than some third-party game publisher.
They could also implement actual anti-cheat where they control the playing field and players are only able to take actions in accordance with the rules. It doesn't matter at all what state the client is in then. But every decision made server-side introduces latency, and they would have to pay for running everything rather than offloading a lot of it onto their players. They don't like either of those things, either.
Last edited by CatKiller on 1 March 2024 at 6:43 pm UTC
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Cheaters will still find a way. As with any type of blanket restrictions, it only ends up being the honest, paying customers who get punished. The actual cheaters, pirates, etc. will always still find a way to do what they do.
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Quoting: PenglingHey, Liam, I have a question, since I don't recall it being addressed in any of the recent articles about this, though it did come up in one a while back: Does this mean they're now blocking their game-creation suite on Linux as well, or are they happy to leverage child-labour for that whilst not letting them actually play what they create on Linux? They weren't blocking the creation tools before.AFAIK the creation side does not have the anti-cheat, so it should work, but naturally it has no support at all.
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Quoting: Liam DaweAFAIK the creation side does not have the anti-cheat, so it should work, but naturally it has no support at all.That's what I expected! Thanks - I find that most interesting!
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When Roblox first blocked Wine, people started playing it via Waydroid. Might be worth a shot now.
However, this does absolutely nothing, not a damn thing, to stop cheating. The idea that it does is completely asinine.
Most cheaters use Windows and software specifically designed for Windows. Disabling Linux support isn't going to magically stop them.
Last edited by pilk on 1 March 2024 at 7:29 pm UTC
However, this does absolutely nothing, not a damn thing, to stop cheating. The idea that it does is completely asinine.
Most cheaters use Windows and software specifically designed for Windows. Disabling Linux support isn't going to magically stop them.
Last edited by pilk on 1 March 2024 at 7:29 pm UTC
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Quoting: pilkMost cheaters use Windows and software specifically designed for Windows. Disabling Linux support isn't going to magically stop them.Tech-savvy types educating kids about the risks posed by Roblox is probably more of a threat to their bottom-line than the infinitesimal number of cheaters using and/or allegedly enabled by Wine.
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legluondunet Mar 1
So there will be none cheaters now? (joke)
I think the cheaters reason is an excuse.
Or the problem is they can not collect informations they want on our Linux system when using Wine?
Last edited by legluondunet on 1 March 2024 at 7:48 pm UTC
I think the cheaters reason is an excuse.
Or the problem is they can not collect informations they want on our Linux system when using Wine?
Last edited by legluondunet on 1 March 2024 at 7:48 pm UTC
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