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Tim Sweeney has a point about Fortnite EAC support
10 Feb 2022 at 10:29 am UTC
10 Feb 2022 at 10:29 am UTC
Quoting: SamsaiEAC also contains a kernel-level component, which on Windows is installed as a kernel driver. This allows EAC code to run at a very privileged level and inspect essentially any and all parts of the system in order to detect tampering. This provides a very broad level of monitoring, which is also harder to bypass. Based on Sweeney's comments, this is the mode of operation used by Fortnite. It is also a mode of operation that is technically incompatible with the Linux way of doing things.I was thinking... we can paraphrase this: "with EAC cheaters will have easier time to cheat on linux. By design." Or for the average Joe out there "Linux is the OS of cheaters to cheat". Fast forward 2-3 years and I don't like where all this is going.
Tim Sweeney has a point about Fortnite EAC support
10 Feb 2022 at 8:59 am UTC Likes: 3
10 Feb 2022 at 8:59 am UTC Likes: 3
I still believe anti cheat like that shouldn't exist period. And I won't shed tears if Fortnite or other games won't end on linux is the price is the privacy.
As for client side spying to prevent cheating, it might be a solution but not like it's done now. It can't be about letting untrusted corporates learn verything about who you are and what you do on your personal computer. It needs some kind of containerization. Inside you can spy whatever you want. Outside you only spy with open source stuff. And if it can't be done inside linux screw it. Windows partition for Fortnite, linux for trading and banking. Live happy and secure.
As for client side spying to prevent cheating, it might be a solution but not like it's done now. It can't be about letting untrusted corporates learn verything about who you are and what you do on your personal computer. It needs some kind of containerization. Inside you can spy whatever you want. Outside you only spy with open source stuff. And if it can't be done inside linux screw it. Windows partition for Fortnite, linux for trading and banking. Live happy and secure.
KDE Plasma 5.24 is out now and what a beauty it is
8 Feb 2022 at 2:52 pm UTC Likes: 2
8 Feb 2022 at 2:52 pm UTC Likes: 2
Quoting: pbI used and loved KDE 2 and 3, but version 4 pushed me towards other DEs. It will be interesting to revisit it thanks to SteamDesk.Oooh... that KDE2 screen brings me back to the uni.
[edit] found some old screenshot ;-)
[edit2] and here's KDE 2 :wub:
Epic Games CEO says a clear No to Fortnite on Steam Deck
8 Feb 2022 at 2:04 pm UTC Likes: 2
8 Feb 2022 at 2:04 pm UTC Likes: 2
I love my Canada free and pristine. :grin:
Stellaris 3.3 Unity gets a Beta available on Steam
4 Feb 2022 at 9:35 am UTC Likes: 1
So, with the game centered about pops for everything how do you circumvent pop growth? You steal pops! You can straight on conquer, but if you do that you have to offset some of that pop on admin jobs to keep the governing capacity high enough (this update removed this though, so it's interesting to see what will happen). The better way is to find a way to relocate them into your worlds, so you have both the pops and low sprawl for having few systems. Which will require less administrators and instead allow to recruit more researchers for instance. Barbaric despoilers are the best one here, hands down, since you can effectively double your pop size without increasing your space size with the first war and then snowball from there. Xenophiles amassing immigration pull are also a choice if they can make open borders agreements. But only mid game when they can stack pull bonuses. If your lucky and some crisis starts to erase planets and you get a huge influx of refugees. One can mix in robots so you build two pops at the same time one bio and one mech. But aside from the x2 multiplier you are still stuck with the growth malus. Other than that it's the creative human workarounds like conquer, relocate pops and then abandon planets and systems.
To be honest I don't want pop importance to go away entirely. Great powers in all ages used to be assimilation machines, grabbing foreign pops in all possible ways. The Romans were the most infamous masters at doing this. But they also fell the moment they stopped being able to assimilate these large amount of pops. So it's also a dynamic that should come with its own risks. In Stellaris it's a little bit to convenient I think (Hello? Long awayted internal politics expansion? Where are you?). Imho in general allowing also smaller pop empires (at certain conditions) to produce more of everything is a starting point to reduce a bit the pop importance.
4 Feb 2022 at 9:35 am UTC Likes: 1
Quoting: Purple Library GuyPop growth was nerfed because of performance some time ago. Now growth time increases linearly depending on your total pop. On mid game there is already stagnancy. Wide is still the way to go to increase growth, since each planet can build a pop separately and having more worlds allow you to frow more at the same time (although all those worlds will remain empty). But you will see that after a while it takes forever to build a new pop.Quoting: MalThe (only) optimal way to game now, due to severe pop growth limitations, is essentially finding an effective way to steal population. Even cause disasters in foreign space to produce some hundred billions refugees to then welcome in your Ecumenopolis is legit (never trust egalitarian xenophiles).Huh. That approach never occurred to me. I can see where it would work pretty well. Maybe I play at lower difficulty levels. I find the old fashioned approach of just exploring aggressively, maximizing Influence and such to grab as much real estate as possible and terraforming every planet in sight gives me enough places growing pop that I get handily ahead just from ordinary organic growth. In the earlier game I pretty much never do diplomatic deals or influence-costing Edicts because dash it, I have systems to claim.
So, with the game centered about pops for everything how do you circumvent pop growth? You steal pops! You can straight on conquer, but if you do that you have to offset some of that pop on admin jobs to keep the governing capacity high enough (this update removed this though, so it's interesting to see what will happen). The better way is to find a way to relocate them into your worlds, so you have both the pops and low sprawl for having few systems. Which will require less administrators and instead allow to recruit more researchers for instance. Barbaric despoilers are the best one here, hands down, since you can effectively double your pop size without increasing your space size with the first war and then snowball from there. Xenophiles amassing immigration pull are also a choice if they can make open borders agreements. But only mid game when they can stack pull bonuses. If your lucky and some crisis starts to erase planets and you get a huge influx of refugees. One can mix in robots so you build two pops at the same time one bio and one mech. But aside from the x2 multiplier you are still stuck with the growth malus. Other than that it's the creative human workarounds like conquer, relocate pops and then abandon planets and systems.
To be honest I don't want pop importance to go away entirely. Great powers in all ages used to be assimilation machines, grabbing foreign pops in all possible ways. The Romans were the most infamous masters at doing this. But they also fell the moment they stopped being able to assimilate these large amount of pops. So it's also a dynamic that should come with its own risks. In Stellaris it's a little bit to convenient I think (Hello? Long awayted internal politics expansion? Where are you?). Imho in general allowing also smaller pop empires (at certain conditions) to produce more of everything is a starting point to reduce a bit the pop importance.
Stellaris 3.3 Unity gets a Beta available on Steam
3 Feb 2022 at 9:47 am UTC Likes: 1
3 Feb 2022 at 9:47 am UTC Likes: 1
Oh I understand now. I won't enter in this discussion "society have success because of X". As far as I know for instance in Europe things were set in motion by the black death aftermath. But that might totally be wrong ofc.
My sole point was that, for any reason which might be whatever you like (resources, climate, superior race, grace of God, alien uplifting, WHATEVER), we can agree that at a certain point a society "grows" and becomes "better" and its members start to make more with less jsut because they are part of it. It's not a starting condition, it's a consequence of something else (in Stellaris that would be excess influence I guess). But it sticks to societies and it adds up.
I was just happy Pdx timidly tried to add some of that in the game, since I believe that is key to allow vertical gaming. All I see from them is until now is wide gameplay, only that they try to replace "land" (or space in this case) with pops. And imho that's boring. When not just silly. The (only) optimal way to game now, due to severe pop growth limitations, is essentially finding an effective way to steal population. Even cause disasters in foreign space to produce some hundred billions refugees to then welcome in your Ecumenopolis is legit (never trust egalitarian xenophiles).
So on my part is just that. No history rewrite agenda.
My sole point was that, for any reason which might be whatever you like (resources, climate, superior race, grace of God, alien uplifting, WHATEVER), we can agree that at a certain point a society "grows" and becomes "better" and its members start to make more with less jsut because they are part of it. It's not a starting condition, it's a consequence of something else (in Stellaris that would be excess influence I guess). But it sticks to societies and it adds up.
I was just happy Pdx timidly tried to add some of that in the game, since I believe that is key to allow vertical gaming. All I see from them is until now is wide gameplay, only that they try to replace "land" (or space in this case) with pops. And imho that's boring. When not just silly. The (only) optimal way to game now, due to severe pop growth limitations, is essentially finding an effective way to steal population. Even cause disasters in foreign space to produce some hundred billions refugees to then welcome in your Ecumenopolis is legit (never trust egalitarian xenophiles).
So on my part is just that. No history rewrite agenda.
The legendary classic Supaplex series comes to Linux on Steam
26 Jan 2022 at 1:12 pm UTC
26 Jan 2022 at 1:12 pm UTC
Wow. The nostalgia.
Stellaris 3.3 Unity gets a Beta available on Steam
24 Jan 2022 at 12:42 am UTC
Move the same person from one cultural area to another, and that average person will produce % more or less on average. That's how countries with smaller pops can topple countries with much more pops. Their society multiplier compensate the demography. And moving "tech" will certainly give a boost. As can money, weapons or resources. But only temporarily: the disparity in production overtime enlarges the gap again.
Anyway I read on reddit that the first impression on the beta is that those ascension bonuses are negligible, so I guess PDX is far from enabling actual vertical gameplays (it's not just countries, also game companies have hard time in ascending their culture :grin:).
24 Jan 2022 at 12:42 am UTC
Quoting: Purple Library GuyTech advantage is more of a consequence of a more efficient society, rather than the cause. After all real world research doesn't grow on land tiles for pop lucky enough to settle nearby to gather. Even today, inside the same nation, you might find areas where it's "easier" to make art, produce something or make reseach. That's not because of better tech, but because of the local culture (sub culture in the case of different areas in the same nation). Which produce, among other things, better tech.Quoting: MalUhm. Interesting.In history, as far as I can make out numerically small communities were only stronger than large ones if they had a tech advantage.
That's the first time they actually do something for the (fabled) vertical gameplay.
Planetary ascension tiers finally try to capture those mechanics that in history allowed numerically small communities to be stronger than larger ones.
Move the same person from one cultural area to another, and that average person will produce % more or less on average. That's how countries with smaller pops can topple countries with much more pops. Their society multiplier compensate the demography. And moving "tech" will certainly give a boost. As can money, weapons or resources. But only temporarily: the disparity in production overtime enlarges the gap again.
Anyway I read on reddit that the first impression on the beta is that those ascension bonuses are negligible, so I guess PDX is far from enabling actual vertical gameplays (it's not just countries, also game companies have hard time in ascending their culture :grin:).
Easy Anti-Cheat gets much simpler for Proton and Steam Deck
23 Jan 2022 at 7:22 pm UTC Likes: 1
One is technical support for proton. And, according to them, it's about getting the latest libray (which everyone will do at some point regardless) and tick the checkbox.
Another one is client support for proton. Which require I guess some kind of eula, or at least some kind of commercial campaign or documentation that sugggests to your (potential) buyers -and thus commits you- that you will support their proton setup.
One is not the other.
You can check the box and not "-contractually?-" commit yourself to support proton.
The only way I would, as a customer, require you to give support on proton is when you explicitly advertize proton compatibility. Like with the proton badge.
But if you don't want, you can check box, don't apply for the badge (and thus that marketing advantage against that "negligible purchaser audience" that is the 0.x% of deck owners) and just rely on protondb or the likes to generate interest on your product (from said negligible % audience).
23 Jan 2022 at 7:22 pm UTC Likes: 1
Quoting: poiuzWe're mixing different support meanings here.Quoting: MalFalse. Even today you can (try to) run any windows game on wine or proton, and if works fine, if it doesn't work the developers don't owe you support.If this was the case then we wouldn't be having this discussion. To quote Valve (emphasis by me):
[…] it does require you [the developer] to manually enable support for your build […]Proton without EAC => Unsupported action by users
Proton with EAC => Supported action by the developers
One is technical support for proton. And, according to them, it's about getting the latest libray (which everyone will do at some point regardless) and tick the checkbox.
Another one is client support for proton. Which require I guess some kind of eula, or at least some kind of commercial campaign or documentation that sugggests to your (potential) buyers -and thus commits you- that you will support their proton setup.
One is not the other.
You can check the box and not "-contractually?-" commit yourself to support proton.
The only way I would, as a customer, require you to give support on proton is when you explicitly advertize proton compatibility. Like with the proton badge.
But if you don't want, you can check box, don't apply for the badge (and thus that marketing advantage against that "negligible purchaser audience" that is the 0.x% of deck owners) and just rely on protondb or the likes to generate interest on your product (from said negligible % audience).
Easy Anti-Cheat gets much simpler for Proton and Steam Deck
23 Jan 2022 at 6:53 pm UTC Likes: 2
23 Jan 2022 at 6:53 pm UTC Likes: 2
Quoting: furaxhornyxErrr... That's EAC job, not mine. If I have to worry about with cheaters myself, I don't see why I should pay EAC license and bind my code to theirs.Quoting: kon14Quoting: poiuzThere is a simple reason, not to ship it: If they ship it, they have to support it! That will always cost resources (i.e. money).Except they don't need to officially support Linux through Proton either. They can just enable it for anyone wishing to play the game while clearly stating they do not offer any support or guarantees about the compatibility continuing to work in the future.
Sure, sounds a bit hypocritical, because it is, but if this was opt-out instead of opt-in nobody would ever call them out for their game breaking at some point.
Lets be real, EAC and BattleEye won't just drop support for Proton now that it's officially included, not unless there's a huge reason to do so, nor would it just stop working for anyone using the official Proton builds from Steam.
The only real world issue with any of this is how userspace detection of cheats on the client side is never going to catch up with kernelspace detection, therefore devs might be reluctant to potentially downgrade the experience for the majority of their userbase over us.
With that being said, I'm not even sure if EAC or BattleEye is actually kernelspace on Windows at this point.Quoting: MalUnfortunately, it may be a bit more complicated than that.Quoting: poiuzThere is a simple reason, not to ship it: If they ship it, they have to support it! That will always cost resources (i.e. money).False. Even today you can (try to) run any windows game on wine or proton, and if works fine, if it doesn't work the developers don't owe you support. You can open tickets ofc. But they can copy paste "not supported" and close them faster than you open them.
As a customer I would expect that "proton supported" games, with the badge clearly visible on the steam page, will offer support. But that's on voluntary basis.
Sure, they may choose to enable compatibility and not support Linux users.
However, they still need to support their current users against cheaters, be they using Windows, Linux, or whatever. Which means testing, to be sure that some nasty people don't find a way to cheat through this compatibility, and ruin the game for your player base, which would be terrible.
Source: i.imgur.com
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