LinuxGameCast Weekly 306: Flaming Hot Canadian

The Paradox PDX Launcher comes to Linux, Valve replaces Steam Spy with “something better”, NVIDIA goes full-metal NDA and 2D Vulkan?

All this, plus your hate mail!

Special thanks to:

David S (increased pledge)

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Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

Steam: News

Killall Bot

https://www.pcgamesinsider.biz/news/67304/valve-brings-down-hammer-on-csgo-skin-trading-bots-holding-2m-in-value/
https://www.reddit.com/r/GlobalOffensiveTrade/comments/8poohf/psa_there_are_other_alternatives_to_opskins/

Opskins literally opened a door to gambling with their PUBLIC API and that door got shut down really fast.
VALVe doesn’t like people taking money away from them.
So they nuked all the Bots they identified as holding skins for OpSkins

Good luck
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta/discussions/3/1694924244566215904/

Oh, you think bots are bad now?
Yeah, not gonna happen. Google championed xmpp for the longest time until they wanted to lock people in to hangouts, which they’re very slowly killing
It’d be easier/far more likely for VALVe to open the chat via API than to change the entire backend for an open one.

New Metrics
https://help.steampowered.com/en/accountdata/SteamLoginHistory
https://help.steampowered.com/en/accountdata/ThirdPartyLogins

-192 (Linux) -1 (Android) -400 (Web?)
Even WINE logins are identified as -192.
Holy buffer overflow batman?

ValveSpy
https://www.pcgamesn.com/steam-spy-alternative

It reads like they are working on their own version of Steam Spy for developers.
Makes sense to make this available for developers.
Also, why didn’t they already have something like this for Developers?
Publishers don’t want the data to be public and Valve knows they can sell it.
And I better see a tweet from the Steam Spy guy about his upcoming move to Washington.

IRL VAC
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/3k49z9/dota-2-player-who-used-programmable-mouse-disqualified-his-team-from-dollar15-million-tournament

I kinda assumed programmable gerbils were allowed.
Now they need to ban the real performance enhancing drug, RGB.
Banning programmable mice makes sense and is consistent with the no software macro rule
You might ask why, but I’d remind you that this isn’t a mechanical switch programmable mice. It’s all software
Real talk, do they test the FKRs for adderall and the like?
Is DPI adjustments on the fly considered cheating too?
Is setting a single keyboard key to a mouse button also cheating?
Why aren’t Razer and Roccat and the rest of them kicking a fuss about this?

Rob
https://twitter.com/robyescombe/status/1011562387625906176?s=19

With the acquisition of the firewatch team and now this guy, it seems pretty clear that valve has some narrative VR thing in the works
Now will it ever see the light of day? That’s the $64,000 question

Hate running backwards
http://www.croteam.com/ihrb-available-linux/
https://steamcommunity.com/games/575820/announcements/detail/1705058617787957713

This is the first game to come out of Croteam’s talent incubator.
Looks like their support also results in linux versions
I’m going to assume Croteam educated them on the benefits of cross-platform development.
Big thanks to the devs for sending us some keys!

Coming Fall 2027
http://refract.com/post/175365965296/your-first-look-at-distance-v10

Six years old, Dude.
Well, shit! If it does get a 1.0 soon we can only keep throwing shade at Carmageddon.
100% of this latest round of holdups has been due to the completion of the story mode.
I don’t give a singular FK about story mode.
They are also adding some community made maps to the official game.
Menu is getting reworked but there is an option to go back to the old one.
And it’s going to have cheats, because we were all clamoring for that.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker
https://store.steampowered.com/app/640820/Pathfinder_Kingmaker/

Pathfinder, for those not.in the know, is an older version of D&D with the serial numbers filed off. Same version Neverwinter nights is based off of
So this is multiplayer-less nwn
Since this is unity based, it’ll probably work better than NwN:EE
Some multiplayer would be nice though

Physiology and Anatomy
https://store.steampowered.com/app/873230/The_Kings_Request_Physiology_and_Anatomy_Revision_Game/

Free to play educational game
Utilize eugenics to take over a fantasy world!

Taco Bell (RTheren)
https://steamcommunity.com/games/690250/announcements/detail/1670152547969988786

100% OpenGL accelerated card so don’t try it with any of that 97% bullsh*t.
- Do they mean we need a GPU which supports 100% of all OpenGL extensions?
- Including the 4.6 ones?
- Needs 100% Organic grain fed non GMO openGL
Whycome sega genesis game needs 1GB of storage?

News:

GG NVIDIA
https://videocardz.com/76645/nvidias-new-non-disclosure-agreement-leaked

Must be great to be so high up above everyone else that you don’t even care for a shitstorm like this.
So, much, reeeeeee!11!! over this.
In non lawyer speak this is what the NDA says.
- Don’t post your review before date/time/timezone.
- Don’t test it in some FKY setup e.g. RedHat 5 /w Nouveau drivers.
- If we give you non-public (trade secret) info during the review period you can’t tell anyone for 5 years.

Linux from the devs
https://www.back2gaming.com/b2g-interviews/what-do-game-developers-think-of-supporting-linux-part-2/

At least the Trine developers are being honest.
I think it’s important for developers to remember the Linux support comes with free marketing.
That said, it can come with unrelenting (and unending) backlash if you renege on the port.
Just ask those fk mothering clowns @ Stainless Games, the creators of Carmageddon Reincarnation.
I’m noticing a recurring theme. The devs who are more supportive of Linux are the ones actually using it
Speaks to something we’ve been preaching for a while. Capture the developers, make them use cross platform tools and support will follow

Paradocks
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/paradox-store-launcher-updates-and-changelogs.1076735/page-4#post-24417606

It works, with one game.

C#
https://plus.google.com/+flibitijibibo/posts/4t72TQYCW3u

Apparently mono depends on some very specific ncurses behaviour that got changed in the latest curses update
Putting export TERM=xterm fixes this issue until the mono devs fix their shit
Flibit’s hint at updating old games makes me happy.

2D Vulkan
https://github.com/nyorain/rvg

No more “use Vulkan for 2D” jokes… grr.
Might be necessary now that the apple environment is determined to excise itself of opengl
- MoltenVK is the single best thing to happen to MacOS since they started using the BSD kernel and they just don’t give a damn.

BG2:EE-2.5
http://blog.beamdog.com/2018/06/baldurs-gate-ii-enhanced-edition-25.html

Whole whack of fixes being made to the core game
BG1 had a Priest class, BG2 has a cleric class with kits. There were some issues with character importing that they mostly have solved

This orphan of mine
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/studioblackflag/orphan-age
http://orphan-age.com/OrphanAge_Linux_Test.zip

Makeup and Vanity music is pretty good, so this has my attention
I’m concerned this’ll fall into the same trap as this war of mine though
“Sitting somewhere between The Sims and This War of Mine,…”
- ZZZZZzzzzzZZZZZZZzzzzzzZZZZZ- Urgh… talk about making a game with a serious message into something boring.

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope
– Not sure if want
– Check it out
– Shutupandtakemymonies

Game: Turok
Webzone: https://store.steampowered.com/app/405820/Turok
Devel: Iguana Entertainment / Nightdive Studios / Ryan C. “Icculus” Gordon
Engine: KEX
Price: £14.99 / US$19.99 / CA$21.99
Wazzat: A world where time has no meaning – and evil knows no bounds. Torn from a world long gone, the time traveling warrior Turok has found himself thrust into a savage land torn by conflict.

Mandatory Disclosure: Bought ourselves

Venn:

Does It Launch

No problems.

Performance @ 1080

60 @ 1080 / 60 @ 2160

Graphics

WHAR FOG?
I knew something was off and Bradley brought it up in the YT comments.
Turns out you it’s not enabled by default for FK all reason.

Control

WASD standard and everything was mapped logically OOTB.
Works /w the Steam controlla, bonus soda.

Jordan:

Does It Launch

Doesn’t launch on steam beta with the overlay on. Doesn’t bode well if you wanna use the areola controlla

Performance @ 1080

The N64 dev kits were significantly more powerful than the console, so often times there were peformance problems back in the day
Not so much now

Graphics

I like the lack of fog
Otherwise junky 1997 goodness

Control

Doesn’t require an n64 controller to play. 0/64

Pedro:

Does It Launch

Performance @ 1080

FerPS are capped at 60 even if you disable VSync.

Graphics

It does give you the option to play in fog world by disabling the “Extend Draw Distance” option.
Also, thank goodness for the option to disable the camera bobbing.

Control

Fully rebindable keys and mouse sensitivity sliders.

QA Score:

Fedora:
Soulless:
Ubuntu:

Fun?

Venn:
- Most of the graphics scale up quite nicely.
- The sounds, not so much.
- Some of them are down tight bad. Now I’m not talking about the beeps and boops but anything that was sampled.
- Also something added for the N64 version was aim assist; so you only have to shoot in the general direction.
- N64 cheat codes work and that’s good for a little fkn around.
- All in all I had a good time with it despite it being the nerfed N64 port.
- Yeah, it’s primitive as all shite but the level design and enemy placement still hold up.
- However, unless you have a raging nostalgia boner I would stay away unless it’s on hella sell.
- Right now it’s $5 and that’s what it should be, not $19.99.
- I’m still curious how a 8MB ROM turned into a 200+ MB PC game.
  - Music folder.
Jordan
- I mean, it’s turok. Played it on a rented n64 cartridge from blockbuster 20 odd years ago
- It’s still pretty solid after all of these years
- Sure the enemies are vulnerable to circle strafe, but everyone in these old games were
- It’s nice that we can play old n64 games on modern hardware
- If were a playstation kid back in the day, this might be a nice pick up when it’s on sale
- Gotta agree with Venn though, this should be GOG budget price, not B+ game prices
Pedro
- Old school FPSs always have this timeless feeling of FUN to them
- None of them RPG elements, forced story bits, pointlessly taking control away from you to show you a cutscene, or even the sense there is only one way to progress and no point in backtracking.
- Well, Turok seems to have been the daddy of pointlessly taking control away from you to show a cutscene.
- What exactly is there to be had by seeing the titular Turok holding a key aloft in such a way that it looks like he’s drinking from it?
- That said, the rest of it is just so much pure unbridled fun I can’t help but enjoy it very much.