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.
The fact that it’s a top 10 seller on steam deck for years and they just fucked over everyone on Linux, they deserve it. We all paid them and they completely screwed all of us. I feel so cheated. I only run Linux and I have a steam deck. I left a bad review on steam and I contacted their support from all my rockstar accounts, but it’s not enough. Battleye is compatible with Linux, they just had to send an email, but rockstar keeps lying that it’s not compatible.
Even if it’s not compatible, “ok then where’s my damn refund?”
Basically theft, really.
You can request a refund. An earlier post last week said they are offering refunds for rug-pulled players.
One important thing to add is that the refund is offered by Valve, not by Rockstar.
I guess Valve being the escrow, they may hold future revenue payout from sale of other R* games
But I don’t believe at the scale of thousands of players for >1 year.
Remember, they are (supposedly) offering it even if you played a 100 hundred hours. I don’t think that comes only from Valve. They’d burn bridges with publishers should they deduct it from their pay as a “You rugpulled our user base. We are now offering refunds if requested and will take it from your cut as compensation”.
Well at least that’s good tbf.
I was thinking this, because that’s what Facepunch did when they stopped Linux support. If you had played Rust at all on Linux, regardless of hours, you were eligible for a refund.
I still blame valve a lot for this. Their TOS offer us no protection. Publishers should not be able to retroactively lock down a game. Diminishing the game performance or adding unwanted DRM after purchase should be a refundable offense. People choose whether or not to buy games based on properties like these.
Valve has consistently offered refunds in these scenarios. They’re offering them for GTA V, and they also offered refunds for Monster Hunter when Capcom decided to switch their DRM bullshit and broke it on the Steam Deck. I think Valve has done their part.
Valve is going beyond any point in comparison to any other software company I know.
What is the basis of consistently here. Take2 broke Linux support for bioshock infinite a couple years back and valve refused my refund request. IME they have not done so. If they are for GTAV that’s great. Maybe they only started doing this after the steamdeck came out but really they should have protections in the TOS to safeguard consumer purchases.
I’m unsure if GTA V was ever Steamdeck Certified, but I imagine it might have to do with that. They may only offer this for games they said were certified and the devs broke it after the fact. I know Monster Hunter was.
Articles a joke since it doesn’t mention that the people pissed off are the linux players. Not the cheaters but the linux users.
That’s why one never pisses off a Linux user.
There’s a patch for proton for Battleye. My understanding is that it’s really easy for developers to support Linux with it, but I think they’re using their own engine, so things may be harder. Regardless, that’s bullshit if they added something without considering Linux users.
time for refunds.
Steam has refunded games that added anti-cheat that broke linux playability in the past iirc
They have also denied refunds if a game is running in the background and you have 100 hours while editing a spreadsheet, so tread lightly
I’ve been denied a refund for a game I played for 2 minutes and realized was trash. When I quit it went back to a popped-under splash screen instead of quitting to desktop. I turned off the monitor for the night and the next day when I requested the refund, Steam said I played it for too long and denied my refund.
It was a game under $10 so I didn’t lose much but it was still bullshit.
Not related to the refund at all, but: Why would you turn off the monitor and not the computer? Even when idling it eats way more power than a monitor in standby.
I’d always leave my computer on but turn off the monitor. Usually it would go to sleep or hibernate, but certain programs would keep it awake. Keep in mind this was during the Win 7 era so it wasn’t foolproof and it would just stay on.
Didnt hear about that one, but I do recall some stories of people playing hundreds of hours, dev making a major catastrophic change, and steam still giving the refund.
After having talked to some on the GTA V SCUD, so many think we are in support of the cheaters and are framing our frustration around us just wanting the cheaters back.
Couldn’t we avoid all this by giving players the option to host and moderate their own servers?
Ownership of purchased goods?
Are you crazy???
That would lose a ton of profits!
Tons of the problems of modern day matchmaking could be solved by this, but if players are running their own servers then they can just have their server give them the items they want, which means no more premium currency purchases for R$.
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.
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.
Rockstar has apparently bought FiveM.
I’ve heard rockstar recruited fivem developers
Most of them got kicked from the project
And owns everything now
This is actually really effective as a form of protest. From a business perspective, Rockstar probably won’t roll anticheat back, but future companies will assess it as part of the risk when looking to add AC
The most confusing part about this is that people are still playing GTA Online. Why…?
People enjoy video game, more news at 11
Because it keeps getting updates?
I’m still playing old school RuneScape.
Nobody ever stops playing osrs, we just take breaks
something that perplexes me to this day
Hardcore normies.
Cash cow
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.
I’m not going to condone this, but also… haha.
Sounds like it’s working
Good.
I really hope they don’t find a way to blame the linux community for this. Even if we hate kernel level anti cheat, I think most of us were happy with the refund from Valve lol
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
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
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.
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.
Iam out of the loop. What kind of cheats are available in gta online? Edit: or what was available.
They didn’t enable linux support on the anticheat, so the game no longer runs on Linux/steam deck
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.
Thanks for the insight! Random chromebus with smoketrails sounds fun, thought.
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?
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
None, now.
I’m conflicted here
On one hand, I play GTA Online, and the amount of hackers is getting out of hand. Most are chill, some are extremely annoying and blow up everyone in the lobby with 800 million explosions a second. In this case, I’m annoyed that I can’t play it and glad there’s anti cheat.
On the other hand, I didn’t realize that BattlEye would prevent Linux users from playing entirely. I’m not a Linux user (yet) myself, but that really sucks. Also, rockstar is extremely predatory with the shark cards (it was worse with Red Dead Online!) so they do kinda deserve it as some form of karma for being terrible
Edit: EAC -> BattlEye
On the other hand, I didn’t realize that EAC would prevent Linux users from playing entirely.
For the most part any game that “won’t run on linux” totally would if it wasn’t for the anticheat not working (or being supported) on linux, that’s usually the downfall. For instance Destiny runs fine, but if they see you’re using linux they ban your acct because fuck you that’s why. Tbf, even if the anticheat would work it’s usually kernel level spyware that linux users mostly refuse to run, so eh.
Also battle eye works (same with EAC) on Linux you just need to enable it
I believe it’s BattlEye, not EAC
Yeah it is, my bad! It’s in the body of the post and I forgot lol
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.
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.
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
Ethical cheating? Nice. I can get behind that.
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!
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)
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
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
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
