While previously you've been able to play League of Legends on Linux, and there's some pretty die-hard fans using Wine to play it, that's set to end soon with Vanguard being introduced.

This also applies to Valorant. I know a lot of people look down on both games, but it’s still unfortunate for Linux to lose access to such a popular game.

I thought this part was particularly interesting:

Half of anti-cheat is making sure the environment hasn’t been tampered with, and this is extremely hard on Linux by design. Any backdoors we leave open for it are ones [cheat] developers will immediately leverage for cheats

  • Miss Brainfarts
    29•3 months ago

    Linux only grants access inside user space, so yeah. Says a lot about any game that refuses to adapt to that

    • loiakdsf
      14•3 months ago

      I get your point, but that is only 50% of the article. 800 players simply don’t justify the effort of porting everything to Linux and risk more cheaters. Issues with cheaters affect the entire playerbase, not just those 800.

      I’d like more Linux compatibility in large games as much as the next guy, but I get the justification not to do it.

      • @Specal@lemmy.world
        12•3 months ago

        I mean, the question should also be, does league of legends have a big enough cheating issue to justify having an invasive anti-cheat. I played the game for 10 years and not once did I knowingly encounter a cheater.

      • @pandacoder@lemmy.world
        11•3 months ago

        Vanguard was announced and was supposed to be added to League imminently a while ago. I stopped playing months ago as a result. I can hardly imagine that I am the only one, so the number seems cherry picked for convenience.

        I’d like to know what the average daily player count on Linux was prior to 2024, I suspect it’s higher than 800.

        That said, I get the trade-off. I won’t support that trade-off though because I will never agree with an anticheat implemented like Vanguard is.

        • loiakdsf
          0•3 months ago

          Well if you and assumingly many others decided to quit the game for good after that announcement, the number might be cherry picked, but not misleading as you said yourself that you are not going to play anymore.

          In that case they also get what they want - solely Windows players.

          • @pandacoder@lemmy.world
            3•2 months ago

            I mean I’m not really picking to not play anymore because I don’t want to. They said they were going to turn it on like two months ago and I believed them. I wasn’t about to risk my account on the odd chance my crapple device is good enough to play it.

            • loiakdsf
              -1•2 months ago

              Yes, and exactly that is reflected in the player numbers… By your and many others’ choice. They couldn’t care less about the reason.

              I’m just saying that announcing their move ahead of time affects player numbers and they probably reported the player numbers after that announcement.

      • Miss Brainfarts
        7•3 months ago

        Is Vanguard actually that much more effective than say, the EAC that we have on Linux?

      • @vinhill@feddit.de
        5•3 months ago

        Well LoL has no official Linux support, so a low current number of users is no indication of the size of the potential Linux player base.

        • loiakdsf
          0•2 months ago
          1. this plays in their favor
          2. clicking install in lutris rather than just downloading is not much more effort for the end user. Beit supported or not, a rather tech savvy group such as linux users can handle that obstacle and thus the numbers will not change drastically (just my asdumption)