Probably a pessimistic take, but I don't expect this to have any discernable impact on sales, or any other effects that would discourage publishers from these practices. The average user doesn't care about or understand how these things work; they'll see an anti-cheat warning on the store page and think "Okay, tell the colonel I'll be on my best behavior then" and continue to buy the game.
Eli5: your PC has different access levels a program can run at. This prevents a malicious or badly coded program from completely fucking your computer. Kernel level anti cheat runs at the lowest level access that exists under windows. It can do basically whatever it wants to your PC, and if a backdoor is coded in (happens way more than you’d think), it gives malware basically total access to your PC.
To add to this, the owner of this site, gamingonlinux, was a mod on the !linux_gaming community until they were caught abusing their moderator powers. Then they deleted their account and complained on mastodon that it’s stupid design that mod logs are public. [Screenshot]
I sent email to oxenfree@nightschoolstudio.com and told them in no uncertain words that what they are doing is illegal, and asked how they are going to fix the situation.
If I can find time to, I’ll see about contacting the local consumer protection organisation.
No reason has actually been given as to why. Most likely, this is coming from Netflix, who actually acquired Night School Studio back in 2021. Probably as they’re trying to pull in more people to play games under their umbrella directly on Netflix.
It’s sad that digital subscription services reserve the right to remove your subscription. If you are in EU, consider signing the Stop Killing Games Petition
No announcement or confirmation from Night School Studio regarding GOG, Steam, the Playstation Store, or the Nintendo eShop as of yet. My guess is they would give a decent warning announcement if it were to leave those outlets as well, but regardless I did download my copy from GOG to my backup drive just in case.
I only own the game through itch.io, which I got through one of those charity bundles, and they contacted me by e-mail. Then people contacted GamingOnLinux about it, and at least right now, it seems to only be limited to itch.io.
EDIT: I actually do have the game via GOG as well, which is news to me, and I did not receive a similar notification about it.
I have a strong feeling they’ll be working on Deadlock given their experience with third person hero shooters with crazy items that change your build.
Which is a shame because Deadlock is destined for the land of toxicity most other MOBAs exist in unless they do something meaningful to change the game’s design.
30/40min games where you’re unable to concede when loss is clear early on (causing other team mates to become stressed and rude). Games can sometimes be decided in 5 minutes yet there can potentially another half hour to go before you have a chance to requeue with different team mates.
One team mate’s mistake early on can lead to the opposing team snowballing and the rest of the team becomes toxic due to the first point.
The respawn timer increasing in length penalises the team further for being behind the enemy team, and the downtime as someone is waiting to spawn gives them time to type and be toxic. By mid-game, I’ve seen some players spend as much time waiting to respawn than they did playing.
Losing begets losing.
Macro and Meta
The volume of items leads there to be objectively better builds (and meta after each patch as items stats are changed) leads expectations on all team mates to follow that meta and know which build to play otherwise they get raged on.
Map awareness is more important that aiming and it takes the whole team to remain aware of the map for success.
The lack of transparency as to why a person is losing to another (item selection, ability upgrades etc) irritates players into feeling cheated.
Competitive
As a competitive game, players are trying to prove themselves yet, as a team game, individual performance can’t make up for a weak team thus rage. Competition drives emotion.
Note: I played Deadlock for about 15 to 20 matches but all the typical MOBA issues emerged within a couple of games, I’ve already bounced off of it.
I haven’t enjoyed any other mobas, but I’ve put ~100 hours in to this one. The comeback mechanics seem fine enough, I’ve had a few games that have come back from a ~30k soul difference/
Same, I haven’t even slightly enjoyed any other MOBA I’ve played except for Smite, but I’ve fallen in with Deadlock like it’s an old friend. And we’ve come back and won from a couple really depressing looking matches. Just the other day I was at 0/12 running Bebop with a 25k team soul deficit and once I actually got my head in the game, and got a little lane assist, we came back and won it and I finished with a 10/14 K/d.
The comeback isn’t easy, and it shouldn’t be, but it’s doable. Especially so if your opponents get cocky. I’ve been on the other side of that coin as well, going 10/0 with Vindicta and fly out to snipe without a care in the world, to discover that every enemy is suddenly paying attention to where I am.
I think we oughta wait for the game to at least leave the alpha, where huge changes happen from night to day, before concluding how toxic the game and mechanics will be
Totally, my comment is with regards to the current state of the game and so far they’ve fallen into the same pitfalls as other MOBAs.
Personally, allowing the team to vote to concede and to get rid of increasing respawn timers would help a lot in getting rid of the biggest causes of frustration noted so far however these were comments about DOTA2 and sadly Valve never implemented them there either.
I don’t think we should assume this right away. TF2 isn’t really all that toxic (that I am aware of). Valve tends to attract less toxic people in general. OW2 however, hoo boy… that game is agonizing to play. People will not hesitate to insult you.
TF2 isn’t designed to be as competitive as deadlock. It’s a goofy game that’s mostly just designed for fun. (Competitive TF2 does exist and I am a fan of it but it’s not really officially supported in any meaningful way.)
Deadlock on the other hand is designed to be a very competitive MOBA where individual decisions will greatly change a games outcomes. I would look at DOTA as a better comparison than TF2.
I play both overwatch and counter strike. While overwatch does a great job of making sure I don’t see slurs most of the time, the community is toxic af. I can’t go a single game without someone saying “tank diff, DPS diff, support diff” and whatever else directed insult they got.
Counterstrike on the other hand, surprisingly wholesome. Many games players will say good try after you fail and be pretty supportive. Sometimes you get assholes who just say slurs cause they can of course but that’s like, once or twice a month. Overwatch is literally every god damn match minus the slur part.
My experience playing it so far has been pretty overwhelmingly positive. No one really cares who wins, it’s more fun to just make cool plays and do well individually.
That’s just new competitive games in general though. The best time to play a pvp game is the first month when there isn’t a clear meta yet and everyone’s having a good time.
It also helps that there isn’t a competitive mode yet. Until recently it didn’t even track your stats in a visible way. Also, people can only get in by being invited, so you have to have had at least one person who has vouched for you in some way, which probably selects against the most toxic personalities.
I felt the same way about the finals. The beta was amazing and i played it every day. It was just good fun. When the game released it was all meta builds and abusing every mechanic known to mankind.
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Aktywne