Rockstar Games’ servers have been under heavy fire from massive DDoS attacks in recent days, causing widespread login and connectivity issues for players of GTA Online. These attacks come in the wake of Rockstar’s recent implementation of BattlEye, a new anti-cheat system designed to crack down on in-game cheating, sparking backlash from a segment of the player base. Protesters, unhappy with the new system, have resorted to using distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks to disrupt the servers, escalating tensions between the gaming giant and its community.
Imagine being such a butthurt little pussy that you DDoS a video game because you’re not allowed to cheat it or play it.
Outside of the political spectrum, I cannot imagine a more pathetic type of person.
Just to explain the completely warranted deluge of downvotes to you: Using Linux doesn’t mean that you’re cheating and the anti-cheat solution they’re using has Linux support, they simply opted to not enable it. I’m not in the loop when it comes to GTAV but usually cheating software isn’t even available for Linux.
The onus isn’t on them to cater to everyone. If it can’t be used using Linux, deal with it like a grown up and find something else to do.
But you’re not going to justify DDoS attacking a company because you don’t like that you’re excluded from their product.
These people need to grow the fuck up. The real world doesn’t give a shit about what they think they’re owed- which is nothing by the way.
This shit just makes me hate the arrogance of Linux users that much more.
Oh, and that you all think that downvotes are relevant to a discussion shows your immaturity on the topic. My opinion isn’t popular because it’s nuanced. And everyone within and outside of lemmy know damn well that this platform hates anything that doesn’t paint in the colors of black or white. So… it’s expected to be downvoted. If I posted this anywhere else- it’s be a mature discussion.
The onus isn’t on them to cater to everyone.
Gazillions of people have been playing on Linux, in particular on the Steam Deck, for ages. Those are paying customers. They pulled the plug on that without warning and without need, technical or otherwise, people are pissed. Depending on jurisdiction, Rockstar might be in for at least refunds.
I don’t condone ddos’ing either and what I also don’t condone is you saying “oh the only reason people are pissed is because they can’t cheat”. Now that is, if I’m charitable, ignorant, and allthewhile you have the gall to accuse others of arrogance. Nuanced my ass to be that you’d first have to acknowledge basic contextual facts about the matter. Getting downvoted is also not “the ignorant sheeple not understanding your brilliance”. Get your head out of your arse and look in the mirror.
I don’t give a fuck what their reason is. Whether it’s cheating or the plug was pulled on them.
There’s no reason to act like fucking spoiled little entitled children. No one involved in this childish shit is a victim.
Stop excusing this bullshit.
Is there, in your mind, any situation in which any consumer can ever legitimately complain about the practices of any business, or is it all whining?
See? There is a huge failure of comprehension here as you have mistaken a DDoS attack with a “legitimate complaint.”
They are NOT the same thing. And I won’t entertain a discussion where I have to suspend belief to assume they are.
The onus isn’t on them to cater to everyone. If it can’t be used using Linux, deal with it like a grown up and find something else to do.
You went far beyond “ddos’ers are silly boogers”, which I agreed with, but delegitimised critique of Rockstar in general: You told Linux gamers to stop playing: “Find something else to do”. Don’t motte and bailey now.
Your words, they get interpreted. In specific contexts. Failing to acknowledge that those contexts can differ from whatever the context is in the privacy of your own mind is a failure of both theory of mind and communication on your part and, going out on half a limb here, probably the reason why everyone around you seems so hostile. Read the room. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you are right because what you say is met with hostility, rather, work towards having what you think is right accepted with gratitude. For starters, don’t go on tirades – which starting an argument with “butthurt little pussy” definitely is no matter how correct your assessment of the situation may or may not be. Develop tact.
According to Mutahar:
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The Anti Cheat has already been bypassed by a free cheat menu on Windows.
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He’s fairly sure he has figured out some kind of way to temporarily bypass (as in, it’ll probably get caught in a few weeks) the linux block by some kind of custom virtualization method (requiring only one GPU) that he says he may explain in detail at some point.
In general, he’s done with playing GTO.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eMSagozpKPs&pp=ygUSbXV0YWhhciBndGEgb25saW5l
But yeah, obligatory reminder for BattleEye and EasyAntiCheat games that refuse to allow linux play:
All these game devs have to do is flip a switch, click a few options in their developer portals, to allow BattleEye or EAC to work on linux, through Proton.
And its been that way for 3 years, since 2021.
There is literally no reason for games that use these services to not work on linux, the devs just don’t fucking care.
Dont blame developers. It’s never developers that make decisions. It’s the management, the shareholders, the project manager, the product owner, the whatever-mba-dipshit on top. But never the developers. They just execute and comply and if they refuse, they’re let go. A developer is a fleshy code printer. A resource. They don’t have real power. They’re a factory worker. Remember that. Don’t blame the worker, blame the boss.
Source: i’m a professional software developer.
This.
I follow code of ethics and raise concerns where applicable. But even if you refuse, they’ll just pick another development team out of their hats to implement anyway.
So many are afraid to lose their jobs now they will keep their heads down and do it anyway.
Some devs sure do fear linux users.
It feels like it’s part and parcel with an overall, growing trend in software to be openly hostile to any system wherein the user has proper admin rights.
Because the potential for someone to use those rights to fuck with the software merits refusing to support systems where they can.
Further entrenching the notion that, to participate in a “modern” consumer software environment, the user must agree to be handcuffed on their own hardware.
The potential?
People are hacking the shit out of any online game without proper anticheats
*with or without
FTFY
Normal users do that on Windows, why would anyone install Linux for that
I’ve heard devs say that Linux users come up with something like 90% of the bug reports. They’re often bugs that only affect Linux,so you’ve got, say 10% to the player base reporting 90% of the issues, and about 85% of those issues only affect the 10% of the player base.
Simply from an economics standpoint it doesn’t make sense to spend that much resources on such a small percentage of the player population. Additionally about half of those Linux users do have Windows computers, that they are prepared to buy your game on, if that’s the only option. So again it makes no financial sense to actually support Linux.
As far as the studios see it they are taking a 5% cut in profits, in order to reduce workload by 85% - seems like a good deal.
I can’t even really argue with that, because they make a good point. Indie devs have it even more difficult because they often have much smaller teams, and really can’t handle the workloads that Linux users would give them.
Thats was a. From years before proton, b. from a dev renowned for being linux hostile, c. ignores the fact that linux users are far more likely to be technical and likely to submit a proper bug report rather than shrugging and moving on.
I’m not sure who you’re referring to but I got this off a developer forum about 3 years ago. I don’t know which dev came from just a number of developers chimed in to say they agree
I don’t want to discount what you saw, but I don’t think Linux gamers are even asking for official support. If they don’t want bug reports from Linux gamers because the reports would be “tainted” by an unsupported operating system, then they could have a banner on the submission page. I would argue, however, that they would be missing out on a lot of free bug testing where all of these companies are far too cheap to pay for proper bug testing these days.
At this point, Linux gamers would just appreciate the bare minimum being put forth with developers not breaking the games for them.
Quite a bit has changed with regards to Linux gaming, even within the past 3 years.
I presumed you were refering to this which was quite high profile at the time.
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I’m not confused what they said. That’s what they said, now what they said may be wrong, but I’m not confused about what they said.
However what I have been told is that actually that’s not necessarily the case. Because the reporting issues that only affect Linux operating systems so most of the user base are not actually benefiting from the reports.
Wisdom is that they would submit better quality tickets and they do but since most of them are disproportionately Linux limited is not really as much of an advantage as you would think.
Wrong on every point, especially the personal opinion.
Go look at the other user which quoted accurately without misrepresentation.
I’m not aware that I provided a personal opinion for me to be wrong about
rockstar is such a small indie company, how could they even afford to fix bugs…
Because Linux users file bug reports.
The devs from ΔV: Rings of Saturn give a completely different story. Yeah, most bug reports come from Linux - but platform specific ones a vanishingly rare: https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/qeqn3b/despite_having_just_58_sales_over_38_of_bug/
Do you know how many of these 400 bug reports were actually platform-specific? 3. Literally only 3 things were problems that came out just on Linux. The rest of them were affecting everyone - the thing is, the Linux community is exceptionally well trained in reporting bugs. That is just the open-source way. This 5.8% of players found 38% of all the bugs that affected everyone. Just like having your own 700-person strong QA team. That was not 38% extra work for me, that was just free QA!
Not to mention the quality of the reports from the Linux users was vastly more details and useful to them.
Cool game, btw, if anyone hasn’t heard of it.
Who was that developer? Where are those numbers from? Any sources?
I remember ~9 years ago the Blizzard CEO said this: “[…] I would assume most of those people also have access to a Windows or Mac device capable of playing Blizzard games.” https://www.change.org/p/blizzard-entertainment-support-please-release-native-linux-clients/u/9982826
Which is pretty disrespectful, but just one part of these arguments.
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I had been wondering why everybody was so angry at them for implementing anti-cheat software. I didn’t realize that they were locking out Linux users. That’s a bunch of bullshit.
Especially a big problem for people who play on Steam Deck. Which most game companies don’t consider it a Console, which is stupid.
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I’m not going to condone this, but also… haha.
That’s disgusting! Where do those criminals gather, so I could go an express my utter disappointment to them directly?
Their mom’s basement, most likely.
Sounds like it’s working
I don’t play these games or really any game that needs anti cheat. What’s the controversy? I assume the anti cheat is awful?
While I haven’t looked into this particular anti-cheat; they frequently prevent Linux users from playing altogether, ban users due to false positives, and sometimes even gain/require access to data entirely unrelated to gaming, such as your personal documents or even browser data (cookies, history, passwords/tokens, etc) as many of them contain Rootkits
Seriously, personal documents? What in the ever loving fuck. Jeez, no I don’t want to play your game so bad I need to prove it with a passport.
To be fair, they aren’t specifically targeting this data.
Rootkits give the software unrestricted access to all the data on the computer. You then trust that they don’t use that access for anything nefarious… Aswell as trusting there’s no bugs/vulnerabilities in that software that give a third party access to that data.
Ah, my misunderstanding - kernel level anti-cheat is also a bit bizarre tbh, like people really really don’t understand the level of control they’re handing over to random games companies.
On top of that they dont really seem to actually stop cheating. Im sure they reduce it but games with anti cheat still deal with a ton of cheaters
What’s happened is GTA Online suddenly switched to using BattlEye for it’s anti-cheating. And this broke Steam Deck compatibility suddenly. Now, this is bad enough but reports state that BattlEye will work with the Steam Deck, and all Rockstar needs to do is just send a message to BattlEye and it’ll just work. But Rockstar doesn’t seem to be interested in sending that email.
As someone who is pretty old and is a crap gamer - well firstly I only play single player so I guess it wouldn’t effect me. But what’s the problem with anti cheat? Aside from it being code you don’t want on your machine. I dunno, I don’t get why people cheat. Isn’t it a better feeling when you just play and get good?
Edit - I’m not defending rockstar btw. Don’t know the politics here. In fact last game I enjoyed was vice city on the PS2. I’m trying to hey caught up on everything I missed. But yeah, what’s the problem with anti cheat?
Aside from it being code you don’t want on your machine. I dunno, I don’t get why people cheat. Isn’t it a better feeling when you just play and get good?
I’ve done some cheating on GTAO, so I can speak to this a bit.
For me, the next biggest reason after the one you listed is that their game is grindy as fuck. I want to be able to play with the cool vehicles and toys in the game, but they’re locked behind hours and hours of grinding, even just for a single item. I understand some people like that, but it’s not for me. But it’s also not just grinding that’s the problem. Their loading screens in the game are frequent, slow (1-5 minute of loading each), and are filled with shitty crews that make it impossible to do the missions.
So back when I used to play I had a script that would just give me shit loads of money. I could buy what I wanted, have fun, and move on. Games are for fun, not for feeling like they’re a second job.
What’s worse, is that Rockstar intentionally makes it grindy so you’re motivated to steal your mom’s credit cards and use real world money to buy fake world money that lasts you about 20 minutes. It’s very scummy behavior, and cheating is a way to get around that.
The script kiddies that just like to fuck with other people are a whole other can of worms. Those people can get bent.
Hmm thanks for the reply. Actually mate I kinda see your point. Like I said, I’m just getting into gaming after maybe a twenty year gap and I’ve not played much online stuff. Yeah I can see it would be frustrating to have all the cool shit behind a grind wall.
I guess when I heard cheating I was thinking of people who gain an unfair advantage and ruin the game for others. That’s the sort of cheating I don’t understand.
Back in the day, there were cheats in computer magazines, a sequence of key presses that would give you loads of lives or money or bullets or whatever. I used those an loved em.
Back in the day, there were cheats in computer magazines, a sequence of key presses that would give you loads of lives or money or bullets or whatever. I used those an loved em.
I still use those for my Nintendo DS. My dad had an extension card for his Sega genesis that did the same.
Cheats like that are as old as games themselves, and they’re not going to be going anywhere any time soon.
It’s just that now we have online versions, and if you’re on PC you can edit any memory address you like, directly, with any value you like.
Yeah, I remember the days when you’d get computer magazines for the Sinclair spectrum (I had the 48k) or the BBC b (now that’s was a great machine, basic interpreter and assembly compiler). When you bought games back then they were on a cassette tape. Sometimes the magazines would have those cheats - like you said, a code or sequence of keys for more lives n stuff. Back when I was playing vice city on the PS2 I remember finding a cheat that would drop a tank. Loved that shit. I am just getting back into gaming after a long gap (just finished bioshock, wow!) and I’ve not really done any online stuff. I probably won’t for a while, I’m way too old and shit, I’d get slaughtered by kids! Last time I played stuff against other humans was unreal tournament on a kinda LAN thing we set up in a squat way back. But I dunno, I think if I was playing that shit and getting slaughtered by kiddies a quarter of my age - I’d just play something else. Anything we do in life, there’s always people who are gonna be better at it. I’m thinking the way to deal with that is to put the work in and get good or accept that we’re not, or just do something else. I hear there are cheats for call of duty type things that people pay subscriptions for. I don’t get it.
But I’m not pissing on anyone else’s choices, plus like I say I’m way out of the loop on this. Thanks for sharing your experiences mate.
just finished bioshock, wow!
Fantastic series, I’m glad you liked it, because I sure did as well.
I’m sure you’re already loaded up with a backlog of recommendations and games you bought but haven’t yet touched. But I’d highly recommend FTL: Faster Than Light, as well as Into The Breach. They’re both from the same publisher, and are both amazing games that arguably are a defining feature of modern gaming.
I hear there are cheats for call of duty type things that people pay subscriptions for. I don’t get it.
Yeah, I’m right there with you. Could not care less about subscriptions, let alone for cheat subscriptions.
Thanks for sharing your experiences mate.
Of course. Enjoy whatever is next on your list!
Ethical cheating? Nice. I can get behind that.
I wasn’t expecting the perspective of an online game cheater on this to be so interesting, but that was really very interesting. Thanks for sharing it.
Of course, you’re welcome
I think the problem is implementation. it was constantly a top 10 game on steam for steam deck users, and now they can’t play online because rockstar decides to not configure the game to support Linux. I think thats the issue lol
If you play in Linux assuming this game even runs on Linux. Good chance they will ban you from running this game on that OS. They could allow it but most companies see Linux as a minority and will mostly willing to take the hit of blanket banning the whole OS. I guess Steamdecks would be out of question now. Another is security risk this kind of anti cheat tend to be invasive they have access to your kernel, the part of the OS that has access to everything on your system. If that thing is compromised good chance you’ll be affected also if you have that in your system. Think of something like crowdstrike issue.
Rockstar have already mentioned that they are working to get the game working on Steam Deck, and by extension Linux in general.
Shouldn’t be too hard since BattlEye is supposed to be compatible and there’s a BattlEye Proton runtime.
Yet they rolled this out before that comparability works, essentially updating out some people’s ownership of the game
Aside from it being code you don’t want on your machine
Code you don’t want on your machine, that have sometimes more permissions than you yourself have on your own files, is completely opaque, and have the legitimacy to keep constant outgoing network data that you can’t audit.
Yes, aside for that, no reason at all. No problem with a huge risk on your privacy for moderate results that don’t particularly benefit you in the long run.
(and all that is assuming that they’re not nefarious to begin with, which is almost impossible to prove)
Anticheats can be very invasive, they can theoretically scan all the files inside your computer (whether it is practically done, I don’t know but it surely feels like it’s been done), take screenshots regularly, send your hardware information, etc. So yeah, if you are someone who takes security seriously…
Yeah I get that. I don’t like foreign code on my machine. Trouble is, I dropped the ball with coding over twenty years ago and I kinda feel like the whole of windows is foreign code. I trust Linux more, but I don’t really understand it. I tend to assume that when I’m online my device is sending something I don’t want sent to some fucker I never even heard of. Insert shrug emoji
i never liked the online to begin with so, x
Since when TF did everyone decide cheating is fine and anti cheat is bad?!?
When it stopped people from being able to even play a game they paid for. In case it wasn’t clear, this breaks the game completely for non-cheating Linux users.
People are against invasive kernel-level that spies on them and prevent them from playing games on their OS that would otherwise run fine.
No one here has decided that cheating in online games is fine or okay.
No one decided cheating in multiplayer games is fine. But invasive anti-cheat software is significantly worse, and frankly doesn’t actually work. Automated detection tools can help, but ultimately you need mods / admins to properly stay on top of cheating. Trying to replace those jobs with incredibly invasive software installed on every user’s device is just a sign of a trash developer or publisher.
Nobody likes cheating.
However, a lot of people don’t like anti-cheat mechanisms that are essentially rootkits, and especially nobody likes when a product is changed long after it’s release in a way that makes it unusable (as the new anti-cheat forbids Linux).
Since they shut out Linux players last week. Taking away access to things someone bought, used and can’t use anymore because of something the supplier did could be interpreted as theft.
Good.
At least you can turn it off in singleplayer and still use your mods there. That’s a pretty important consideration imho.
How do those community servers for RP work? Do they require mods? Do they still work?
Pretty sure Rockstar allows community servers to disable the anti-cheat as well, just like single player.
The GTA RP community at this point is a considerable part of why people are still playing GTA.
Couldn’t we avoid all this by giving players the option to host and moderate their own servers?
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Things like FiveM exist, which is exactly that. I’m not sure if that is at all affected by the anticheat though, I didn’t read the article.
Rockstar has apparently bought FiveM.
I sure hope not cause GTA Online is trash if you want to do anything other than Free Mode. I got so sick and tired of all the loading screens, disconnects, and empty lobbies.
Even when they apparently “fixed” the loading issue, all it did was speed up the connection to Free Mode. Hosting/joining a mission still takes ages and nobody ever joins any of my games anymore so I gave up and went to FiveM full-time. If that gets shut down by anti-cheat then I’m going back to GTA IV. Cops N’ Crooks is more fun than anything GTA Online has to offer, anyway.
I’ve heard rockstar recruited fivem developers
And owns everything now
Most of them got kicked from the project
removed by mod
That would lose a ton of profits!
At one point I had been playing GTA V online pretty consistently when I had a cheater start targeting me. It was pretty frustrating and after 30 minutes of that I gave up and closed down for the day. I shifted my attention to other games after that. I definitely get that they want to stop cheaters - cheaters ruin the fun for others. It’s a shame that the new anti cheat has made it so that Steam Deck players are stuck unable to play online.
The very annoying this is that BattleEye supports Linux, rockstar has just apparently decided not to ask for that from BattleEye
Not that I particularly want to play it, but the Fortnite requirement has stopped me from installing Mint across some computers for kids for this reason as well.
They’re kinda proving rockstar’s point, I am fairly sure the venn diagram of “protesters” (ddosers) and cheaters is more or less a circle
Without hard data it’s difficult to tell to what extent this is accurate, but there seems to be a substantial portion of Linux gamers (including Steam Deck users) who are pissed off that due to the anti-cheat they can’t play the game on their platform of choice anymore. Some of them may have joined the DDoS campaign, so there is a genuine venn diagram.
I think people misunderstood my comment, I meant I think the ddosers and the cheaters are more or less the same group. Don’t imagine the majority of people in the Linux community would think that’s a good way to get rockstar to listen
I don’t play multiplayer games, so I can’t tell what kind of people the cheaters are. But speaking for myself, I did change my ratings from 5 stars to 1 and was very vocal whenever an upgrade to a game I purchased broke that game on my system, and there wasn’t a way to roll back. Given that those were single player games, DDoS wouldn’t hurt them, so I just kept spamming their support e-mails.
If you were to treat cheaters as you may treat pirates, a service problem, then the overlap of Linux users and cheaters is a circle of unsatisfied users.
Cheating is absolutely not the same issue as piracy though, one is people wanting an unearned power trip over others and one is the service issue piracy is
You’re not gonna convince cheaters to stop cheating by offering them a better experience
As a player I agree but as a software user and maker I don’t. Users should be in control of their own computing, therefore client-side anti-cheat is the unjust power over the user (edit, because it is proprietary).
Has anyone tried? As far as I know the most that has been done is to shadowban cheaters to their own servers for matchmaking. No one has tried having built-in multiplayer cheats to compete with 3rd party cheats.
I don’t think clientside anticheat is a good solution by any means.
Built in multiplayer cheats? Isn’t that just pay to win?
I didn’t mean to imply charging additionally for the cheats. Is the state of the games industry so bad that was a reasonable assumption :(
I was thinking of dedicated servers aimed at attracting cheaters, and a server that encourages players to fight handicapped players (various levels of cheat users).
The actual cheaters completely bypassed the new anti-cheat in about 6 hours. They had to update their cheats a bit, but are otherwise essentially unaffected. Linux users, Steam Deck users, and people who don’t want to give a single game full hardware access, are all affected. None of those can play GTA:Online anymore, unless they mod the game to bypass the anti-cheat, which can be seen as cheating in itself, and could result in a ban.
The ddos attacks are likely being orchestrated by a small group of people or even an individual, it probably does not represent the vast majority of affected users.
What’s the overlap of cheaters and people who perform DDoS attacks?
That’s what I mean, I imagine most of the people ddosing are cheaters, hence the quotations around protesters
Iam out of the loop. What kind of cheats are available in gta online? Edit: or what was available.
The most common cheat is probably gaining money or experience, but there have always been pretty extensive mod menus for GTA Online with tools from invincibility to making your vehicles rainbow, to randomly causing other players to explode or setting hundreds of muggers on them.
In 2015ish, I used to cheat, other than getting rich, all I was interested in doing was making an indestructible chrome bus with smoke trails that I’d drive around picking up players in, to teleport us all to North Yankton and back like a tour guide.
Aren’t there like cheat servers and non-cheat servers? Or is that a “gentleman’s agreement” that not everyone is playing fair with if you can’t fully block it because of mods etc?
Thanks for the insight! Random chromebus with smoketrails sounds fun, thought.
None, now.
They didn’t enable linux support on the anticheat, so the game no longer runs on Linux/steam deck
Hackers like to glitch other users. Randomly turn into a toilet, have all of your ammunition disappear, suddenly fly into the air and die on impact. It made public servers unplayable. Friends only sessions were necessary
