While we're doing that, we can also host the game's wiki and help pages on the Steam Deck as well. And the email server so you can contact the devs. Oh, and run the backup system and the source control. We can even run a virtual machine with Windows, and test the game on that too. (Messing, heh!)

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Something I feel like mentioning here with respect to Proton and WINE:

I go out of my way to favour Linux builds of games when I'm making purchasing decisions. If the game has a native Linux version I will typically buy it sooner and at a higher price than I would otherwise. For example I bought both Slay The Spire and Dicey Dungeons during their Early Access phase BECAUSE they had native Linux builds. And I'm really grateful to those developers because I really liked and enjoyed those titles.

Moving on, there are games which "could" have been built on Linux natively, but that hasn't happened and I have held back from buying those games until there is a substantial sales reduction. I held back on The Witcher 3 until it was 80% off, I held back on Shadow Warrior 2 for a similar discount. I still haven't bought Serious Sam 4, Dying Light 2, Doom Eternal - because their discount is not low enough for me to go ahead and buy the non-Linux game.

Croteam and Techland both released Linux builds of their earlier games (Serious Sam 3: BFE, Dying Light) and they presumably made the decision due to poor return on Linux sales (or whatever) to not apportion development man-hours into cross-platform builds. I completely blame the developers/publishers for this, and *NOT* Steam Deck or Proton.

Thankfully, Proton and WINE allows me to play assorted Windows titles on my Linux desktop, with great ease. I can fire up Steam, Heroic Launcher, Lutris and enjoy whatever titles I desire. Windows or not. I view the open-source community about Freedom - i.e. Freedom to use my computers as I see fit. Freedom to choose to play a Windows-only title if I want to play it. For purposes of Freedom, I'd rather be able to do these things than be forced to boot up Windows in order to enjoy them.

Other people's free choice might be to purposefully not play a game if it isn't natively supported. That's their choice - They are imposing restrictions on themselves. If it works with WINE or Proton, then I'll play it that way, no problem.

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Quoting: SolarwingAs someone famous said:"Steam Deck is trash. Why? Because if you buy it your wife/girlfriend will you leave for good when she sees Valve's logo smouldering in your eyes. From it She knows what is coming and will end your relationship. So If you wanna end your marriage/relationship buy Steam Deck!" Wow what a commercial speech!:happy: Don't blame me. I didn't invent this speech.I'm innocent:smile: But future looks good for Steam Deck.The next months will be very intresting.I hope for the best.:smile:

Now we just need a song by Shirley Bassey - "Steam-Decks are Forever"

Steam-Decks are Foreverrrrr,
They are all I need to please me,
They can stimulate and tease me,
They won't leave in the night,
I've no fear that they might desert me.

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Quoting: nocriAccording to the trend line in the plot, linux will hit 50% of the market share sometime in June of 2500. I need to make memo for my grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand children to check this out :)

Heh. I did a similar calculation a year or two ago, regarding the length of time before the Earth became completely broken and not habitable and it is shorter than that, i.e. 300 years.

I'm guessing your calculation is based on linear growth, rather than exponential (or other) mathematical model?

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Quoting: WMan22A lot of people are just waiting for the mere opportunity to pick up their Steam Deck. The platform's rolling out so slowly, though I'd prefer they do it this way over just bulk releasing them and have scalpers snatch em all up and run into the same problem anyway.

Still plenty of scalpers around, noticing Steam Decks for sale on Ebay at big mark-ups. Sure, you can only reserve one Deck per Steam account - but that doesn't stop you owning multiple accounts.

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Used to play quite a lot of this before I started off GOG and Steam accounts, and began Linux PC gaming in earnest. Downloading the new update to see what it's like now.

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Love FTL - Indifferent about Into The Breach.

The reason - because with FTL you are not siphoned into a single path to achieve your objectives. Into The Breach is basically a game of chess where you have to look moves into the future, and if you don't play exactly right your game is over. To be honest, I'm being ungracious to the game of Chess with this comment. At least in Chess, you can typically weedle your way out of a bad situation.

Sorry Devs! =/

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Quoting: Deleted_UserI like the new format of the report with the protondb ratings included, thank you for that!

Yup, agreed. QoL FTW ;)

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I'm interested in playing it again.

There were three reasons touted for why the Linux build dropped:

1) Extra effort supporting the build, dealing with support requests from low market-share of Linux users.

However as many people are familiar:
- Game problems with Linux build probably also affects the Windows build, so the support ticket likely helps all players.
- FacePunch were known for just making the native build without testing it, so it's not as if they bothered much with Linux support in the first place.

2) Unity 3D Game Engine had features which weren't available for Linux builds.

- This was a fair reason, but I believe the situation with Unity 3D now means those features work on Linux too (now).

3) Linux players were blamed for being the cheaters and scripters within the game.

- Completely unfair comment, because Linux was running EAC just like Windows, and during the last couple of years where Linux users were unable to play, there are *just as many* scripters and cheaters spoiling the game. (i.e. The cheating tools work on Windows, and you don't gain any advantage using Linux instead.)

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Clearing up about trackers and privacy following some comments earlier on this article:

The article's link to "The Wheel of Time" looks like this:

https://af.gog.com/game/the_wheel_of_time?as=1636858786 [External Link]

My understanding is that this is an affiliate link, i.e. It is a way for the GOL website to gain favour and/or financial support from the seller website.

Once a person clicks on that link, then it redirects instantly to a advert tracker link, which looks like this:

https://track.adtraction.com/t/t?a=1578845458&as=1636858786&t=2&tk=1&url=http://www.gog.com/game/the_wheel_of_time [External Link]

With uBlock Origin as the blocking technology, it pops up a page offering choices - Do you wish to go through the tracking link, do you wish to block adtraction website permanently, or other options?

The eventual end-point, where the link ends up is here:

http://www.gog.com/game/the_wheel_of_time [External Link]

Privacy advocates would prefer to go straight to the end-point, and not through the tracking bit in the middle.

It's the usual thing with stuff like this:

- Do you not visit the link at all?
- Do you purposefully jump to the end-point avoiding the tracking bit? (i.e. Cutting and Pasting the url to manually dodge the tracker)
- Do you grit your teeth and accept the tracking "this time" because it possibly helps out GOL?
- Noting that you could always "clear your cookies" afterwards so that this tracker cannot follow you around the internet (A good idea, methinks!)
- Most normies aren't even aware that the tracker stage is there.

I'd add that GOL does a good job of not putting Adverts all over the GOL website. In my opinion it is worth considering supporting GOL over Patreon, to help fund the site. If you do not support GOL with contributions, then accepting affiliate links (and then deleting the cookies afterwards) is a helpful alternative.

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