If you accidentally ban linux users in three[1] different[2] banwaves[3], then linux was only halfway supported in the first place, even if they overturned (almost) all of those bans.

I think the real reason they did it was EA’s financial situation. Since money is tight, the amount of resources they were willing to put into real linux anti-cheat probably dropped to “none at all,” and now we’re here. Otherwise other cheater-prone games like Counter Strike, Overwatch, Halo, The Finals, DayZ, Hunt Showdown, etc would have probably dropped/blocked linux by now too.

If I played any Rockstar games, I’d be unhappy with their new anti-cheat too, since it needlessly blocks linux, but this isn’t the way this should be protested. If anything, this probably validates their decision.

The way this should be protested is to just stop playing. Stop giving them money. Stop boosting their month active user numbers that they can flaunt to investors. Hit them financially, since it’s the only hit they really care about. There’s a sea of other high-quality games you can play instead.

@helios@social.ggbox.fr @griefreeze@lemmy.world, a Respawn employee responded on reddit and wants a list of user IDs/gamertags for those banned on linux:

https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/1fi77vs/comment/lnh13kj/?context=8

EDIT: A Respawn employee on reddit is now asking for the user ID/gamertag of those banned on linux: https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/1fi77vs/comment/lnh13kj/?context=8

— Original comment —

Looks like you’re not the only one:

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1f5kyd1/psa_using_proton_experimental_or_at_least/

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1ffxfjb/apex_legends_proton_epic_bug_that_do_that/

They’ve falsely banned linux players before, once in March 2023 and again in August 2023.

I got hit in the Aug 2023 ban, and had my permaban overturned after 1-2 weeks. Expect to have your appeal rejected, we had to make enough of a fuss about it to get a community manager to reach out to the development team to get people unbanned:

https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/15uqt7w/linux_users_getting_falsely_banned_again/

https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues/Linux-players-getting-banned/td-p/12338557/page/50

I haven’t played in 9-10 months since the false positive put a really bad taste in my mouth, so I don’t have any datapoints to add for the current state of things, but I wish you the best of luck getting unbanned.

I had a very similar issue with Heroic Games Launcher (streaming to steam link, steam shortcut added, game thought I was using mouse and keyboard instead of controller). I fixed it by enabling “minimize heroic on game launch” in Heroic’s options. Maybe see if something similar exists for Lutris

It’s a shooter with no aim assist, and the UI isn’t setup particularly well for controller (at least not yet)

Valve has manually selected the game to be run with proton experimental under linux, and it works on my linux desktop. So it will probably at least run on Deck, but I don’t imagine it’s a very controller-friendly game. I have no idea about Mac.

Comet has a list of supported requests on their github readme, and at least the achievement requests seem to be present. I’m not sure if Heroic utilizes them though

One of my main tools has been SteamDB’s instant search - it’s basically a giant list of all steam games, sorted by review score, with a TON of different filters you can apply. Looking specifically for something released this year? You can filter for it. Looking specifically for a co-op action shooter, or a singleplayer 2d platformer? You can filter for those too. Wanting to exclude early access games or exclude games with a min/max number of reviews? You can do that too. Very handy tool

Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed Collection is a blast if you’re okay with a kart racer.

Flatout 2 is the OG combat racer.

If you’re looking for a true “racing sim” type game I would probably recommend one of the Assetto Corsa games, either the original or competizione.

CarX Drift Racing Online is probably not what you expect, but is really fun. Not exactly a traditional “racing” game because you don’t compete for time, but rather compete for “drift points,” with longer/wider drifts getting more score. It has a surprisingly thorough singleplayer mode, and the multiplayer is relatively relaxed. Multiplayer is setup in an open-world style; you join a big lobby and can just drive around with friends or randoms without actually competing for anything, although people in each lobby can start competitions that everyone else can opt-in to. The main reason I’m recommending it is it has very thorough car customization and is a chill, non-competitive driving game, whether that be singleplayer or multiplayer.

I thought this might be a similar situation to Ghost of Tsushima where a PSN account is only required for online play, but Ragnarok has no multiplayer.

I don’t understand why Sony is so insistent on this. PSN is still unsupported in 170+ territories; this requirement is just going to turn most of those “would-be” buyers in those territories into pirates.

SteamOS uses PipeWire, Pulse Audio isn’t even installed

You didn’t list your distro, but I had the same issue on Pop!_OS. I fixed it by modifying the ALSA properties in /usr/share/wireplumber/main.lua.d/50-alsa-config.lua. I’d first try uncommenting headroom and changing it to 1024, then logging out and back in. If that doesn’t work, go 2048. If that still doesn’t work, then I’d maybe try adjusting period-size.

For me, a value in the ~1200 range for headroom fixed it completely. But it will entirely depend on your sound card/hardware. And note, these values will probably be overwritten with any wireplummer updates.

Also keep in mind, increasing headroom will increase audio latency, so try not to increase it too drastically.

These don’t exactly “fit in” with the rest of the list, but on Deck I’ve personally had a blast with CarX Drift Racing Online and the Sonic &ASRT Collection

This is already fixed in proton experimental bleeding-edge.

Unfortunately they block old reddit for VPN users now

There are major cheating and botting issues in Valve’s games because Valve has ~360 employees, where a company like Riot has 4,200+, 10x+ Valve’s headcount. The manpower issue is the problem, not the lack of kernel-level AC.

I specifically bought a Pixel 5a because it was the last Pixel with a headphone jack. Then after a year, it died on me, and they sent me a 6a as a replacement.

I miss the jack. A lot. But it’s hard to justify buying a whole new phone for one. Once this one dies, I don’t know what I’ll do.

I would check the linux gaming wiki’s distro recommendations: https://linux-gaming.kwindu.eu/index.php?title=Getting_started_with_Linux#Recommendations

Mint is fine for daily use type stuff, but there are some odd gaming bugs. IIRC Cinnamon (Mint’s default desktop environment) specifically has higher input lag than Gnome or KDE, and Lutris dropped official Mint support due to issues from Mint’s tweaks.

I personally use Pop!_OS and it’s been pretty good, although I have been a little frustrated about the 22.04 base, as I’ve noticed some packages (like Mangohud and GOverlay) are very out of date. But aside from that, I have no complaints.

This game has been free on Epic, free on GOG through Prime gaming, and free through gamepass. Does anyone know if they’re counting those free claims as “sales”?