Goodbye To Roblox On Linux With Their New Anti-Cheat and Wine Blocking (gamingonlinux.com) 97
Roblox's new anti-cheat software puts a stop to in-game exploits, but at what cost? According to Liam Dawe from Gaming On Linux, it's blocking the Wine application, meaning "you won't be able to play it on Linux any more, at all, unless you find some sort of special workaround." He adds: "Previously the roll-out of this update was being tested only with some users. Now though it's here for everyone giving a 64 bit client and introducing their Hyperion anti-cheat software which they are intentionally blocking Wine with." Here's what one of their staff had to say about this: Hi - thanks for the question. I definitely get where you're coming from, and as you point out, you deserve a clear, good-faith answer. Unfortunately that answer is essentially "no."
From a personal perspective, a lot of people at Roblox would love to support Linux (including me). Practically speaking, there's just no way for us to justify it. If we release a client, we have to support it, which means QA, CS, documentation, etc., all of which is much more difficult on a fragmented platform. We release weekly on a half-dozen platforms. Adding in the time to test, debug, and release a Linux client would be expensive, which means time taken away from improving Roblox on our current platforms.
Even Wine support is difficult because of anti-cheat. As wonderful as it would be to allow Roblox under Wine, the number of users who would take advantage of that is minuscule compared with our other platforms, and it's not worthwhile if it makes it easy for exploiters to cheat.
I'm sorry to be such a downer about this, but it's the reality. We have to spend our time porting to and supporting the platforms that will grow our community.
Again, I'm personally sorry to have to say this. Way back in 2000 I had a few patches accepted into the kernel, and I led the port of Roblox game servers from Windows to Linux several years ago. From a technical and philosophical perspective, it would be a wonderful thing to do. But our first responsibility is to our overall community, and the opportunity cost of supporting a Linux client is far, far too high to justify.
From a personal perspective, a lot of people at Roblox would love to support Linux (including me). Practically speaking, there's just no way for us to justify it. If we release a client, we have to support it, which means QA, CS, documentation, etc., all of which is much more difficult on a fragmented platform. We release weekly on a half-dozen platforms. Adding in the time to test, debug, and release a Linux client would be expensive, which means time taken away from improving Roblox on our current platforms.
Even Wine support is difficult because of anti-cheat. As wonderful as it would be to allow Roblox under Wine, the number of users who would take advantage of that is minuscule compared with our other platforms, and it's not worthwhile if it makes it easy for exploiters to cheat.
I'm sorry to be such a downer about this, but it's the reality. We have to spend our time porting to and supporting the platforms that will grow our community.
Again, I'm personally sorry to have to say this. Way back in 2000 I had a few patches accepted into the kernel, and I led the port of Roblox game servers from Windows to Linux several years ago. From a technical and philosophical perspective, it would be a wonderful thing to do. But our first responsibility is to our overall community, and the opportunity cost of supporting a Linux client is far, far too high to justify.
Oh no (Score:2, Insightful)
Not Roblox! However will Linux users continue to play poor quality user-generated games with low poly count graphics?
Re: Oh no (Score:3)
I don't know but I'm sure all 5 of those people are pissed off.
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Not exactly. Steam are doing great things, once that market picks up there will be less reason to buy into MS. Desktop is another market but that's shrunk since Android.
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I don't know but I'm sure all 5 of those people are pissed off.
Enough with the tired 20-year-old memes about Linux gamers!
We're up to 8 now.
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We're up to 8 now.
--
Randomly posting Futurama quotes on Slashdot since 2003
Sig checks out!
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i'm not sure if I counted or not, about about 50/50 windows linux for gaming...
Re:Oh no (Score:5, Insightful)
Love it or hate it, Roblox is one of the most popular games being played. Lack of concern and disregard for something like that is why Linux is where it is on the desktop
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I have to agree with you here.
Some people must be "31337", no matter what.
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Also full of nasty adults that I don't want my son exposed to, so nothing of value was lost there.
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Also full of nasty adults that I don't want my son exposed to, so nothing of value was lost there.
You just described all of online gaming. The only way to reasonably play an online game these days is with chat and speech muted.
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There are exceptions, but they aren't the most popular games, and they're also games that have a more refined player base, for lack of a better way to put it. I'm never had any of those issues playing Planet M.U.L.E. or multiplayer Civilization VI.
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Welcome to the internet. First time here?
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While I find the Wine team's achievements to be pretty amazing, I keep going back to the point that if you want to run Windows software, run Windows, if you want to run MacOS software, buy a Mac, and if you want to run *nix software run BSD or Linux. If you find someone has written multi-platform software that runs on multiple OSs and architectures, then great, but expect that if you're using something like Wine to get software running on non-Windows system that it was never designed for, your results will
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> it's probably just easier and more trouble free to buy a Windows machine
That's what I thought, too. I was ready to buy Windows for my new gaming PC...and then I started reading about Microsoft refusing to let Windows install on computers that are otherwise perfectly capable of running it, Windows sending data to several different companies, and ads in the OS. I haven't managed to convince myself that this is something I want to pay for.
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Bullshit. Nobody was using Linux for Roblox because it's too difficult for your average 12-year-old to set it up to run Roblox under Wine (or Proton).
I doubt even a majority of Roblox players use Windows. It's perfectly playable on most games in iOS and Android (ironically).
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Unlikely that any kid young enough to care about Roblox would even bother. They are likely not even using PCs to play the game at all.
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Not Roblox! However will Linux users continue to play poor quality user-generated games with low poly count graphics?
First they came for the Robolox, and I did not speak out—
Because I do not like nor play Robolox.
Then they came for all online games with anticheat, and I did not speak out—
Because I do not play online games with anticheat.
Then they came for all Linux users, and I did not speak out—
Because the entire platform died in obscurity and I am too dumb to figure out why as I've been telling p
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Roblox is dropping Linux support (or rather making it impossible to even run it without support) because there are no consequences for them.
The correct answer is to tell them in no uncertain terms,
"Its not such a privilege to pay you to play your game I am going to change my entire computing platform to do it"
This isnt like Microsoft Office or something where your inability to handle Office documents locked you out of the digital economy. Its not even like the media world before Widevine, its just one sill
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How many people play Roblox under Windows?
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I think they would like to grow it by more then 5 users....
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And those 5 users would be bitching and moaning about something because one uses Arch and doesn't have any GNU tools.
2023 will be the year of Roblox on the linux! (Score:3)
Woot!
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I get where you're coming from. People need to think about this mor with MS Office formats.
not important (Score:3)
1. no one above the age of 14 really cares that isn't a child predator a "content producer" or a bot service
2. a venn diagram of the above would likely place bot services into a strongly isolated bubble
This is statistics in action on business decisions. I'm sure there is some 12 year old out there somewhere that is going to cry when roblox no longer works on the family 'puter, but they are the exception, not the norm.
So which is it? (Score:2)
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Linux itself is a bit of a cheat code.
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or could both be true?
Say Linux accounts for 2% of the users and half of them choose it to be cheaters. That potential 1% of cheaters could screw the game up for everyone and its likely the other 1% has access to Windows to play if they desire.
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At Least (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:At Least (Score:5, Insightful)
We release weekly on a half-dozen platforms. Adding in the time to test, debug, and release a Linux client would be expensive
At least an honest to goodness answer was given.
They already do a half-dozen platforms, but it would be a big hassle to add another one, but all anybody actually wants them to do is not block Wine, which they only do because they have to spy on you to make sure you're not cheating, because they trust the client too much. Hmm, they didn't say that part, did they?
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It's not trivial to simply distrust the client for a game like this. Say you want to block wall/map hacks, your server needs to determine exactly what each player can see and send them only that data. There's no way to enforce old data being dumped though, so mapping is still possible. The server probably can't send updates every 10ms either, so it has to send more than is visible to prevent constant pop-in as it catches up with movement in the client.
There are other kinds of cheats like aimbots that can on
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Say you want to block wall/map hacks, your server needs to determine exactly what each player can see and send them only that data.
Or after a hit, your server could determine whether the player could have actually made the shot. Unless the hit has resulted in a kill you can literally undo what it's done, and boot the cheater. It might not save you from an untimely headshot, but it could save you from a second one.
The actual fact is that Roblox does trust the client far too much [roblox.com] (in the example they just accept any walkspeed from the client, and do zero sanity checks!) way more than other games do. They are really just making excuses fo
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It's not trivial to simply distrust the client for a game like this.
They did it decades ago on far less capable hardware and internet bandwidth. They can do it again. The reason they don't is because foisting the blame on the nebulous hackers is an easy way to shove changes people don't like down everyone's throats. One could say another reason is because it costs money to run server-side anti-cheat, but as every major console manufacturer is currently charging for multiplayer access, it would be trivial to create a paid access tier for server side anti-cheat support. (Hel
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Linux is not just a platform. The reality is it is a wide fragmented landscape of different distros setup in different ways with unique quirks.
There's a reason Valve essentially provides zero support for Steam on Linux outside of SteamOS, a system they have direct control over. Sure the client is available but you're completely on your own and left to the community for issues with it. Linux support is hard, and even when it is offered by commercial companies, direct support is often granted for a couple of
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Linux is not just a platform. The reality is it is a wide fragmented landscape of different distros setup in different ways with unique quirks.
On one hand that's fairly true, on the other hand people keep taking "advantage" of different distros' peculiarities, and that's what really screws us. The official Samba admin tool is built on fucking YaST! It's goddamned SuSE-specific. Nobody forced them to do that.
This issue is that a certain level of trust in the client is essential for any online system. Complete server based calculation takes you back to the bad ol' days of unplayable lagfests
You have to double-check what the client is doing, you don't have to perform all of the calculations on the server before they can happen. It's enough to detect that cheating has happened, then you can reverse any necessary transactions and boo
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Yet so many multiplayer games implement these "bad plans" that there just might, might mind you, be technical or economic reasons for doing so that outweigh the downsides of the "bad plan."
Perhaps you could provide examples of similar games that have successfully implemented the "good plan" where the client only displays a solely server-maintained state and is only provided with the information that
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Perhaps you could provide examples of similar games that have successfully implemented the "good plan" where the client only displays a solely server-maintained state
I see you didn't read the discussion, so you're not up to speed on what I actually said. Go do that if you want me to respond, because I never said this and you'd know that if you had read what I wrote.
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No, I read it.
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Yet you're unable to provide examples where this claim can be falsified? Ummhmm.
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Linux is not just a platform. The reality is it is a wide fragmented landscape of different distros setup in different ways with unique quirks.
Pick one then - Steam was able to, there are ways. Considering that the client is free it's for sure not the lack of income justifying abandoning Linux.
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Steam managed to work around the fragmentation.
You just provide an officially supported distribution and DYI for other distros.
Heck, even Microsoft offers support to linux for Minecraft.
Re: At Least (Score:2)
They really just need to support one major distro. From there, users will go "Hey, Roblox works on Mint but not Ubuntu! Why?" From there, the community can start solving the fragmentation problem and converge onto uniformity or compatibility. But if the vendor support zero distros, then there is no place to start from. There's no fragmentation problem to even fix.
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AppImage is Linux environment agnostic. Flatpack and Snap can be installed on almost every distribution, so the native Linux support boils down to supporting Wayland and X11 protocols.
This is the way many Linux games are distributed - for example, FlightGear is distributed via AppImage - just download and run.
If you do not
Roblox - great answer (Score:2)
FInally a company takes a stand, explains the reasons, has someone who really does know the product and its market effects (e.g. a kernel contributor who is pro-linux yet recognizes where the company has to go with its product line doesn't align with that). I applaud the honesty, the lack of mealy-mouthed marketing-talk, the blame-shifting "It's the cheaters", and pretty much the lack of all the BS that typically comes out instead of the truth. Here was have the truth. I'm too old for Roblox but I'm not
Roblox is SURPRISINGLY popular (Score:4, Informative)
I don't find the games fun, but it is a joy to watch kids tinker with it. I desperately wish they had an official client for Linux as well as Roblox Studio on it. It would make Linux "cool" for children. I bought my son a Raspberry Pi and he liked it...but it got old quickly. He thinks Linux is cool...he'd think it was far cooler if he could play Roblox on it.
It blows my mind how much fun my children have playing the most basic games. My 6yo daughter loves pretending to be Wednesday Adams or characters Disney Zombies...an experience that is boring AF to me, she loves just exploring 3D worlds looking like blocky crude versions of her favorite characters. They play lots "...the killer" game, which is just hide-and-seek. If we didn't limit screen time, they'd spend hours just playing around and being curious.
It would be my dream to introduce them to Linux this way...build a dream Roblox machine for them...but the Roblox folks just don't care. Instead, I have to overpay for a mac or buy/build them an ad-riddled windows machine.
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Same situation here. Roblox is one of the key reasons our kids were migrated from Ubuntu to Windows.
Not sure if they'll return or not...
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> I see many posters are shitting on it,
And for good reason: Roblox exploits [youtube.com] children [youtube.com]
If a company can't respect people then it deserves all the flack it gets regardless of popularity.
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I can kind of understand it. Mario Maker is similar. Most content is created by other users, and most of it is terrible. There is some amazing stuff on there though, and for me at least it's worth getting through the crap to find it. The endless supply of fresh stuff is really fun sometimes.
Keep an eye on your kids though. Roblox is basically a giant child labour scheme. A lot of kids get exploited on there.
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Thanks. I often just play endless expert and skip anything completely crap. If I find a good level I check the creator's other ones. I'll take a look at that website.
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Another good approach would be to look at specific communities that come up certain themes / contests. The downside is they quite typically cater to expert players more than anything, example #teamshell. If you play on expert+ you'll no doubt have come across them. But the communities behind them produce some often very nice content.
Can't (Score:1, Troll)
Can't have anything that cuts into the monetization
Are Linux hackers actively cheating on Roblox? (Score:2)
Because actively blocking them out is a good motivation for many to try.
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Huh? People get upset, they don't inherently become vengeful exploit experts. If someone wasn't cheating before, they won't do so now. They'll take their bat and ball and play elsewhere, bitch about it online, maybe a boycott if they are really motivated and angry (but very VERY few players are even able to take it that far).
And nothing of value... (Score:2)
I mean, let's be serious here. Gaming on Linux still requires you to have more than two functioning brain cells. Playing Roblox requires you to have less or you can't stomach it.
So ... I guess the 3-4 people who did it ironically will now have to shrug and move on.
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Gaming on Linux still requires you to have more than two functioning brain cells.
Gaming on Linux is as simple as clicking on a desktop icon, just like on Windows and Mac. The supposed support issues are red herrings, and are there to cover up incompetence by Roblox. This is doubly true once you realize that there is only one target to support: Ubuntu. The rest will be made compatible, to the extent that there are incompatibilities, by their respective communities.
Initially, they blamed the Wine blockage on making the Windows 64-bit client, as Wine users were supposedly filling up their
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Gaming on Linux is as simple as clicking on a desktop icon, just like on Windows and Mac.
Absolutely completely false, something that can be seen by a quick look at the Wine compatibility list. Gaming on Linux beyond a few curated choices is very much a clusterfucks of "maybes" and "even if it does start..."
The supposed support issues are red herrings
They are absolutely not. Almost no support exists for Linux gaming. There are some very targeted and specific support regimes, i.e. Valve supports games if the specific variant of Linux you run is SteamOS, and if it doesn't then you're on your own very much back to maybes, compatibility lists
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Gaming on Linux is as simple as clicking on a desktop icon, just like on Windows and Mac.
Absolutely completely false ..."
It is neither absolutely nor completely false. Proton will always be behind win APIs as Windows will keep evolving, hence compatibility issues, but, for verified games, is just install & play. So, for me, it was just as simple as clicking on a desktop icon.
The supposed support issues are red herrings
They are absolutely not. Almost no support exists for Linux gaming. There are some very targeted and specific support regimes, i.e. Valve supports games if the specific variant of Linux you run is SteamOS, and if it doesn't then you're on your own very much back to maybes, compatibility lists, and online forums. This includes Ubuntu. There isn't some kind of magical universal support there either for any games.
Yes I play games on Ubuntu.
When they work.
Which they often don't.
Quite a few things work on my Steamdeck though, but not everything either, and that is unrelated to its hardware capabilities.
Since you mention Ubuntu, so far, I have never had any issues installing & playing verified games on Ubuntu.
Misspelling (Score:3)
> But our first responsibility is to our overall community
You misspelled "the almighty dollar".
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Understandable if you don't have principles (Score:1)
So, growth is what makes these decisions. Economically justifiable decisions. It's rational.
Only if you don't hold principles about freedom of computing whatsoever.
Android emulation workaround (Score:2)
Proves my point (Score:2)
Are many Linux playing Roblox? (Score:2)
If you're a Roblox user and you're running Linux and this ruins your life, I'm sorry in advance. However, how many Linux users are really playing Roblox? This is primarily a kid's game, so how many users are we really talking about? I would be curious, because if you're using a Linux box, Roblox might be one of the few multiplayer games you can play. Does anyone have any numbers? I'll admit, I didn't RTFA, so if the numbers are there this is the most /. of all /. posts.
If you are using Linux in any serious capacity (Score:2)
Heck off, kernel spyware (Score:2)
Meanwhile, on Windows... (Score:2)
The new anti-cheat can cause problems on WIndows. If you have too much clutter on your desktop, Roblox will crash and burn, causing something that looks like a GPU reset.
On my Windows 7 this can be demonstrated on a freshly restarted machine by opening 30 instances of windows calculator then starting Roblox.
I discovered this when playing during a lunch break (honest!!) at work and eventually figured out that whatever the new code in Roblox is doing, it is simply sensitive to a cluttered desktop.
Whether this
We are tired of criminals (Score:2)
Let me exploit you and forget you. (Score:2)
and I led the port of Roblox game servers from Windows to Linux several years ago
Translation: Yes, we will exploit the Linux community's software to run our servers faster, more reliably, and much more cheaply, and therefore make much more money. But fuck you all, we won't support a client for you.
Ignore the fast growing steam deck? (Score:1)
Roblox vs. Linux (Score:1)
Uh, bad logic much? (Score:1)
So the user base under wine is minuscule, but by allowing it they will be inundated with cheaters?
Sus. Weak. Dumb.
Wonder who is bribing them away from supporting linux.
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They're probably trying to curry favor with Microsoft and look like they're the next Minecraft so Microsoft will also buy them for 2.5 billion.