Well this whole area is mostly based on deceit. Like if they claim they MAY do something they will absolutely do it all the time, if they claim they aren’t getting anything from it, it just means they aren’t getting anything directly, but indirectly instead, or from a different involved party. I also like the message at the top of the page: “Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data.”. Under some circumstances you have rights. Which is weirdly accurate. Because in most circumstances, they will just sh*t on data protection rights. Which is also evident by everything being opt-out, rather than opt-in. And then, most likely, even when you disable everything, data will still flow somewhere. Then again, it’s an industry-wide problem. Not specific to Jagex.
Runs perfectly fine on Linux though, with DX11 or Vulkan. On Windows, Vulkan has some performance issues that make it quite unenjoyable, but in Linux for me it plays a lot better with Vulkan than Windows DX11.
The quality of Proton is not the point, the point is that they’re not dogfooding their own platform. They’ll likely follow the same course as CS2: Lengthy prerelease test exclusively on Windows, then a few days before actual release someone will port the game to Linux/SteamOS and release day is the first day of the Linux port’s alpha test.
How can anybody at Valve expect game publishers to take Steam Deck and SteamOS seriously if the developer of the actual platform is not dogfooding it with their own games?
Yeah I get what you mean, but with Linux gaming I think it's great enough that it runs with Proton and no one is blocking it. I also believe they'll port it to native Linux after the alpha stage is done, but remember that the game is in a closed alpha state, so at no point this should be taken as "Valve not dogfooding their platform". All we can do right now is wait and see.
with Linux gaming I think it’s great enough that it runs with Proton and no one is blocking it.
You clearly missed many news from the gaming sphere.
remember that the game is in a closed alpha state, so at no point this should be taken as “Valve not dogfooding their platform
Yes, it is. Sony is developing their games for PlayStation first and Windows as an afterthought. I’m not saying that Windows should be an afterthought but SteamOS should be a development target from day 1.
All we can do right now is wait and see.
Grab your Steam Deck, install Counter-Strike 2, and look at the state of Source2 games right now.
No. Development occurs on windows machines, so this is where they deploy. It’s essential for a studio to work on core mechanics, gameplay loop and feel. It’s obviously going to be steam deck day one.
Who the actual fuck do you think wants to play cs on a motherfucking steam deck? And again, you of course target your own machine first for a pc game. It’s how 99% of all editors work. Why would you try to argue something that you don’t know how it works?
Valve is probably perfectly happy with just making sure proton compatibility is good. They don’t expect developers to change their whole workflow to cater to the Deck, that’s why they’ve done so much work with proton.
Valve is probably perfectly happy with just making sure proton compatibility is good.
Valve is happy that games break all the time? Yeah, sure buddy. If anybody at Valve was happy with that, maybe that Microsoft agent should lose their job.
They don’t expect developers to change their whole workflow to cater to the Deck
The point of cross-platform middleware is specifically not to “change their whole workflow”. 🙄
that’s why they’ve done so much work with proton.
Valve is also doing much work with SDL and so on to target native development, that’s why it’s embarrassing that they don’t target their own platform. All successful platform holders treat their platform as 1st class citizens: Sony targets PlayStation from day 1 of game development, so does Nintendo with Switch. Apple is not prioritizing Windows either.
Failing platforms are those where the platform vendor doesn’t even believe enough in it to properly support it. Since over a decade Microsoft makes ARM-based Surface devices and to this day Microsoft has ported not a single game, not even casual stuff like Minesweeper, over to Windows ARM. “Microsoft is perfectly happy with just making sure Prism compatibility is good” and yet emulated applications crash, perform worse, and result in battery drain. Similar with Steam Deck: The only way to ensure games perform to their best and don’t unexpectedly break on an update is proper SteamOS native versions.
They are going to add Linux support the game is in alpha.
That’s not day 1. Why do I need to say it over and over again? It’s not like I spelled it out already: CS2 had a Windows-only pre-release and the Linux port was only added to the formal release, resulting in the Linux port being very buggy to this day! Their own platform needs to be the top tier development target from day 1. How is that difficult to understand?
It’s almost as if they are a for-profit company that doesn’t want to waste development time on an OS that have significantly fewer players to sell to and will choose to optimize for Linux as an afterthought.
I use Arch, btw and play only on Linux, so I’m not being biased, just speaking truths.
I wouldn't say that's the case because it's Valve, and they work on a very unique way. Besides, the work they did with Proton, SteamOS and Steam Deck shows that at no point they believe developing for Linux is waste of efforts or an afterthought. They go out of the usual way to make things better for Linux. I fully expect them to port Deadlock to Linux once it hits beta or release.
It’s almost as if they are a for-profit company that doesn’t want to waste development time on an OS that have significantly fewer players to sell to and will choose to optimize for Linux as an afterthought.
Yeah, why would Nintendo develop for Switch or Sony for PlayStation when it’s clearly a waste of development time and and money and Windows is clearly the superior development target?
I’m not being biased, just speaking truths.
No, you speak nothing of truth regarding game development has a platform holder.
Yeah but Valve, who is making this game, made SteamOS and the Steam Deck in house. It’s their own product. It would be a monumentally stupid move to release a first party game that doesn’t run on their own first party hardware.
It’s still niche. You’re living in your dream world, not reality. It’s the entire point of proton - not to have to create two versions of the game. As long as it’s compatible it’ll run nicely on their hardware.
I’m with you in principle, but I think it’s unlikely that Valve are building the game themselves, given that they haven’t done much of that in ages.
It’s reasonable to think their first priorities were finding a development studio [Edit: or even in-house developers] capable producing a good game, and helping them to do so. If the developers are most familiar with Windows tools and APIs, then the path to a successful game would be letting them use those, at least to begin with.
Let’s just hope that they’re being guided along to way toward design decisions that make a native port relatively easy if the game turns out to be good.
Edit:
The project is reportedly led by “IceFrog”, which looked like a studio name when I first read it, but it’s apparently a person. So maybe this is in-house development after all. Great! It would be nice to see Valve making significant games again.
Nevertheless, gathering a team with the talent and vision to make a good game is harder than finding people who can learn a certain API or platform, so if they have the former, it would make sense to let them target the platform they already know and get the game out the door. Doing it in-house just makes it even easier for Valve’s linux folks to guide them in design choices that would simplify multiplatform support later. (Cross-platform development isn’t all that hard if you plan for it from the start instead of painting yourself into a corner.) If the game is well received, it would then make sense to invest more time into training the devs on linux and doing a linux-native port.
Or to put it another way: Yes, Valve has an OS that keeps them independent from Windows, but that’s just one tool in their kit. Proton is another tool. That gives Valve flexibility in how they bring a game to market, and how they prioritize/schedule various phases of the project. This still-unannounced game might be Windows-only for now, but I would not assume that will be forever.
If that studio’s developers are most familiar with Windows tools and APIs, then the path to a successful game would be letting them use those, at least to begin with.
So you’re saying, if Sony or Nintendo made a new console and contracted an outside developer, that developer should develop for Windows instead of the new consoles because they are unfamiliar with the new tools and APIs? Why even develop using Source Engine (2)? Why not also give in to a total Unreal Engine monopoly because that’s what every game developer knows? CS2 on Steam Deck is bad right now.
No, that is not what I said at all. Either you’ve misunderstood, or you’re arguing in bad faith. Given that you’re now pushing an unrealistic all-or-nothing point of view and putting words in my mouth, I think it’s some of both.
Not sure what you mean here with your sarcasm. Proton means that developers can just write games for Windows and expect to make that version compatible with Linux with minimal changes as opposed to making a native Linux version.
As a developer myself, I know that it doesn’t make sense for a developer in most cases to write a Linux version and support it when the Linux user base is tiny by comparison. It happened with OS/2 and it can happen again. Not to mention Linux game developer tooling pales in comparison to Windows with DirectX.
Proton means that developers can just write games for Windows and expect to make that version compatible with Linux with minimal changes as opposed to making a native Linux version.
SteamOS is Valve’s own OS. Steam Linux Runtime is Valve’s own development target. Steam Deck is Valve’s on hardware. It’s a stable platform that doesn’t move constantly like chasing Windows compatibility through reverse engineering. Win32 is not Java, Proton is not OpenJDK. Windows games on Proton break constantly. The only way into the future is proper SteamOS versions, not buggy afterthoughts.
As a developer myself, I know that it doesn’t make sense for a developer in most cases to write a Linux version and support it when the Linux user base is tiny by comparison. It happened with OS/2 and it can happen again.
Steam Deck is not OS/2. Steam Deck is more like a video game console and needs to be treated like one with proper ports instead of broken shit like CS2, especially for Valve’s own games. Portal on Nintendo Switch works better than CS2 on Steam Deck because it’s a proper port, not an afterthought.
Stop repeating the same false arguments to me over and over again, as repeating those would make them right. If anyone of you would ever be put in charge of PlayStation, that entire business would collapse within months.
Not to mention Linux game developer tooling pales in comparison to Windows with DirectX.
Maybe Valve should improve that for their own platform then instead of relying of tools by a hostile competitor. It’s just dumb.
That’s because I don’t understand your point. You complain about it being only for windows yet push away their efforts of bringing windows games to linux (which is proton). So indeed, the quality of proton is very much the point as it dictates the quality of the game on linux to a general extent.
Not to mention that this IS an early development build, I would say that its perfectly reasonable for them to only make the early builds for windows since that is where a majority of the play testers are likely to be (not to mention that linux -> windows tools don’t exist unless you want to game on WSL2).
So what are you trying to complain about? The fact that they aren’t exclusively pandering for steam deck users? If that is the case, I must admit that it’s very childish to just expect that and I hate other companies for making this the norm.
one of my favorite games of all time: Prince of Persia 1989 (1990 on PC). it’s a “cinematic platformer” where the animations take priority over responsiveness.
once you get the hang of it, it’s incredible what Jordan Mechner could fit into a ~1MB game controlled with just 5 keys. the realistic platforming and sword fights were unlike anything I’d seen. still impresses me to this day.
it’s kind of notorious for being a hard game you have to finish in an hour, but I think it’s a must play. I always felt like it was one of those zero-fat games. no filler, no repetition without a curveball thrown in every now and then.
flashback and blackthorne were two more in the genre that i really really enjoyed before 3d games came along and ruined the momentum of the genre. other people will suggest another world (aka out of this world) but that one, while iconic and unique, will feel more antiquated by today’s standards and works more like a puzzle than the rest.
Rollercoaster Tycoon. Super chill game, you just manage amusement parks and build rollercoasters. Openrct2 is an updated engine for it, which supports modern high resolution screens, but requires a copy of the game for the art assets.
Not really, SMITE is a moba that happens to be 3rd person, Deadlock actually plays like a 3rd person shooter that needs proper aiming and headshots and a much faster pace.
I see. This is probably a pretty niche reference nowadays, but is it more similar to Monday Night Combat? That was an actual shooter IIRC and had mobs mechanics like lanes and creeps.
Good, cause I played the Smite 2 alpha and it was kinda garbage. I literally said out loud “this is like Dota for babies”. It didn’t even have good FPS mechanics to make up for no depth.
It's actually closer to Battleborn. Like the other commenter said, it's more of a third person shooter with MOBA elements. There's focus on movement (you can dash, double jump, crouch slide, some characters fly), headshots and distance change the damage and melee/parry are just a button, while every character has guns as their man attack means. For the moba elements, it changes a bit since there's 4 lanes and it's a 6x6.
I remember playing Dota 1 and 2 in parallel for a while because so few heroes were in the beta and I wanted to play new hotness like Ember Spirit. Fun times.
Quitting Dota has been great for my mental health, though. But I guess I’m at least curious enough about what the frog is cooking to risk getting addicted to something new.
It’s not super old, but the original BioShock is one of those games that you can point to and say “this is art”. It’s an amazing exploration of Ann Rand, capitalism, addiction, art, deregulation, unions, and greed, all with the most beautiful art deco levels. The mechanics of the powers you get are tied into the themes and your choices of how to acquire them are in themselves a statement of the self vs others. It’s well thought out from the ground up, from aesthetic choices to narrative ones, and one of the few games that absolutely nails it.
I enjoy the gameplay of the second one even better, though I feel the attempt to explore collectivism doesn’t fit as well by using the same motifs as the first one, the dlc Minerva’s Den has the most tragic exploration of identity and the singularity out there.
The third is fun to play but I think they were trying to explore too much of everything at once, between America, racism, classism, quantum states and everything else, and unlike the first two, the mechanics of the plasmids didn’t really lend anything to the story. The dlc is fun, but rewrote a poignant lesson from the base game and watered it down.
I’ll add that while the remastered version of BioShock looks and plays somewhat better, the “improved” lighting completely destroys the original atmosphere. Keep that in mind if you’re trying this game for the first time.
There are entire genres that I think in many ways have passed younger gamers by.
Point and click adventures were the biggest thing in the world at one point. The classics are the Lucas Arts entries, like Indiana Jones and The Fate of Atlantis, The Dig (both based on unused Spielberg pitches), the Monkey Island games, Full Throttle, Day of The Tentacle and Loom. You’ve also got Myst and Riven (Riven being the far superior of the two), and my personal favourite, The Longest Journey, which has an absolutely stellar story and really compelling protagonist with a lot of depth to her. Also, positive queer representation in a nineties game, holy shit.
The next lost nineties genre is the space sim. The kings of the genre were Wing Commander and X-Wing/Tie Fighter. Then you’ve got Privateer and later Freelancer. For the Wing Commander games read a summary of 1 and 2, then jump in with 3, the first to feature FMV with Mark Hamill as the player character (genuinely an excellent performance too, he took the role really seriously and saw it as every bit as important a scifi property as Star Wars). John Rhys Davies (Gimli) and Malcolm McDowell also make appearances.
And of course, the classic nineties FPS, a genre that feels very, very different from modern FPS games, though there have been some good attempts to recreate it. You know Doom, and Wolfenstein 3D (the latter does not hold up; the former absolutely does), but also check out Heretic, Hexen, Rise of The Triad, and most importantly, IMO, the Marathon games. These were the precedessors of the Halo series, and they combined really solid action with a genuinely amazing story. It’s the kind of big, high concept that you rarely get in movies, TV shows and games, with a world that the writers clearly put a tonne of thought into, and some characters who will stick with you long after the game is over.
Finally, some stuff that doesn’t really fit any of the above. Crusader: No Remorse and Crusader: No Regret are isometric action shooters with some fun storytelling and LOTS of explosions. If you get them on GOG be sure to download and read all the supplementary material, it really fleshes out the world and the characters. System Shock probably doesn’t even need mentioning with the recent remake, but the originals truly hold up, especially with the UI and controls polish Nightdive added. Syndicate and Syndicate Wars are very hard to explain, but they’re really fun (That said, I’ll give an even stronger recommendation to their modern spiritual successor, Satellite Reign, which deepened the gameplay significantly while still retaining all of the spirit).
There’s plenty more, obviously, but that’s what immediately comes to mind as worth checking out.
Oh yeah, the Crusader games were fun. They probably also aged well. OK, their controls are really annoying and weird, and you kind of have to “cheat” a bit in that game at some points (e.g. by shooting an enemy outside of the screen, so it can’t shoot back, otherwise some situations are really hard). But yeah, fun games, great action, many explosions and mayhem. And since it’s isometric 2D graphics there’s nothing really bad about them either. Except maybe for resolution or aspect issues. Also good sound/music.
Many of the old Sierra and Dynamix adventure games are great. Kings Quest IV through VII are probably the ones that hold up best. The adventures of Willy Beamish, Heart of China, Police Quest and Space Quest.
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