this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2024
843 points (100.0% liked)

Technology

70415 readers
3460 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 299 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)

According to Mutahar:

  1. The Anti Cheat has already been bypassed by a free cheat menu on Windows.

  2. He's fairly sure he has figured out some kind of way to temporarily bypass (as in, it'll probably get caught in a few weeks) the linux block by some kind of custom virtualization method (requiring only one GPU) that he says he may explain in detail at some point.

In general, he's done with playing GTO.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eMSagozpKPs&pp=ygUSbXV0YWhhciBndGEgb25saW5l

But yeah, obligatory reminder for BattleEye and EasyAntiCheat games that refuse to allow linux play:

All these game devs have to do is flip a switch, click a few options in their developer portals, to allow BattleEye or EAC to work on linux, through Proton.

And its been that way for 3 years, since 2021.

There is literally no reason for games that use these services to not work on linux, the devs just don't fucking care.

[–] [email protected] 144 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Some devs sure do fear linux users.

[–] [email protected] 72 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

It feels like it's part and parcel with an overall, growing trend in software to be openly hostile to any system wherein the user has proper admin rights.

Because the potential for someone to use those rights to fuck with the software merits refusing to support systems where they can.

Further entrenching the notion that, to participate in a "modern" consumer software environment, the user must agree to be handcuffed on their own hardware.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] scaramobo 19 points 8 months ago

Dont blame developers. It's never developers that make decisions. It's the management, the shareholders, the project manager, the product owner, the whatever-mba-dipshit on top. But never the developers. They just execute and comply and if they refuse, they're let go. A developer is a fleshy code printer. A resource. They don't have real power. They're a factory worker. Remember that. Don't blame the worker, blame the boss.

Source: i'm a professional software developer.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 159 points 8 months ago (7 children)

If I played any Rockstar games, I'd be unhappy with their new anti-cheat too, since it needlessly blocks linux, but this isn't the way this should be protested. If anything, this probably validates their decision.

The way this should be protested is to just stop playing. Stop giving them money. Stop boosting their month active user numbers that they can flaunt to investors. Hit them financially, since it's the only hit they really care about. There's a sea of other high-quality games you can play instead.

[–] [email protected] 84 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I did this with Blizzard/Activision years ago.

Zero impact.

[–] [email protected] 58 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Keep it up. There's dozen(s) of us?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago (1 children)

There's dozen(s) of us?

Dozen(s?) Denial Of Service attack

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 51 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Gamers and still buying the same old tired shit while bitching about it, name a more…

You’re absolutely right. The number of great games to play is absurd and the access to them has never been better but for some reason most people just play mediocre games that should have been put out to pasture years ago.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 27 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I've read that Steam is accepting refunds for GTAV - I'd recommend anyone who bought it there refund it.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 23 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (6 children)

Have you tried not buying something in protest? If so have you noticed they keep selling it anyway and you have no alternative? Not giving them money isn't enough.

I'm not a fan of DoSA as it's rather strongarm but at least this actually sends a message to them AND other users.

I'm not interested in having to fight anti-features to play what I paid for, but at least circumventing it sends a message.

load more comments (6 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 108 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 8 months ago (6 children)

Even if it's not compatible, "ok then where's my damn refund?"

Basically theft, really.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago (5 children)

You can request a refund. An earlier post last week said they are offering refunds for rug-pulled players.

load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 89 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (6 children)

Stop making every fucking game and open world mmo wanna be. Bring back single player with couch co op or make private lobby setups so we don’t have to fuck with every douche who wants to make everyone else’s life as sad as their own. I’m a big GYA fan but have refused to buy for this specific reason. Have almost given in repeatedly but just go watch some YouTube’s on it and it reminds me not to contribute to this shit every time.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 8 months ago (1 children)

If a game offers multiplayer, they should also offer a dedicated server that people can setup for themselves.

For MMOs, they can make the servers optionally federated.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 8 months ago

This relates closely to the EU Initiative from https://www.stopkillinggames.com/

[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Around the time gta 5 came out, i lived with two guys and had 3 neighbours and we would often play video games together, but we never really found a game that we all liked. Gtao was just around the corner and the trailers looked so fun. People doing silly shit, skydiving together, play some golf, race around the city. When it actually came out and worked, oh boy. Leave the house, get shot, drive around, get shot, try to do something with friends, get blown up by a fighter jet. The answer is always: it's GTA, of course you get shot, play mario part, or shot like that. Yeah, i get that, but i always felt like it's just people who enjoy to make other people's experience worse, and it's not about pvp. Gta draws such a weird crowd.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 83 points 8 months ago (9 children)

Articles a joke since it doesn't mention that the people pissed off are the linux players. Not the cheaters but the linux users.

load more comments (9 replies)
[–] [email protected] 80 points 8 months ago (13 children)

Don't buy games with invasive user-side anti-cheats that hamper performance, and demand refunds on any game that adds it after purchase.

I don't understand why this is so hard for people. If everyone gave a shit, we could end this. But instead, people would rather just complain while still forking over the money to these companies.

There are so many good indie games without this kind of bullshit. We have better choices.

[–] [email protected] 96 points 8 months ago (4 children)

They implemented this 10 years after the game's release. It's harder to vote with your wallet at that point.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 8 months ago (9 children)

and demand refunds on any game that adds it after purchase.

The way I see it, adding it, even this late, is changing the terms of the agreement and thus justification for a refund. Steam will often see it that way too if you word it as such. And if not, hell, you can still badger the publisher for a refund incessantly so at least it still costs them the equivalent in man hours even if you don't get the refund. The point is not to be passive, even if we don't get to win every single battle.

load more comments (9 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (12 replies)
[–] [email protected] 77 points 8 months ago (9 children)

Couldn't we avoid all this by giving players the option to host and moderate their own servers?

[–] [email protected] 35 points 8 months ago

That would lose a ton of profits!

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] [email protected] 73 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Can't release a sequel or single player update in a decade - can impose cheat engines. Something about a surprised pikachu when they get flak

[–] [email protected] 60 points 8 months ago (6 children)

I bought Red Dead Redemption for myself and three friends, super excited about the game, the lore. I had never spent that much money on a game.

We all played through the single player tutorial, and finally into the open world. We meet up and begin exploring and trying to complete quests when suddenly one of us just ... drops dead.

Then another is hit by a meteor and caught on fire?

I am thrown up into the sky.

An alien ship?! Appears and messes with us for a while. I try begging in pub chat for the hacker to please leave us so we can play, which seems to goad them further. This continued for an hour.

A quick look around the internet told us that this was par for the course for RDR and GTA and Rockstar couldn't/wouldn't do anything about it.

We ended up refunding all the games through steam. Sad times.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (5 children)

Firstly, yeah... RDRO is utterly plauged with all sorts of cheaters using trainers and all kinds of cheats is full of crap, at least for PC.

The standard strategy you basically have to employ is that whenever you see something nonsense like that happen is you have to jump to another instance/lobby. Depending on your luck, you may have to do this every 15 to 60 minutes aaaand some cheats allow the cheater to follow you to your new lobby.

Secondly...

A few years back I was in RDRO and was attacked by a cheater.

I had a broke ass level 15ish character with the just a few of the least expensive guns.

They had infinite ammo. Teleport hopping. Spawned 10 additional NPCs versions of themselves, then of my character, then zombies, then legendary animals (basically fucking monsters).

All the while they're scrambling their name in the scoreboard every minute and create spoofs to make it harder to actually do a report or have the grievance system actually work correctly.

I killed them all. I died over and over again, but I kept killing them. Whittled down the fake names and spoofs and kept doing the grievance thing until it was actually landing on one consistent name.

Then the cheater began spawning gigantic props like boats attached to their character, which rotated and hit with physics force when they rotated, which they could shoot out of but I could not shoot into.

But uh, I managed to juke my way through cracks in the collision mesh, then shoot him.

He got tired of this at some point... and just turned himself invisible.

But, by this point I'd been killed enough times that I'd managed to get him showing up on my radar.

I'd by then long since run out of ammo... and began stalking him, via radar, with just a knife and lasso, sometimes the running tackle with the lasso that leads into a hogtie, other times actually managing to sneak up behind him, executing an invisible foe.

After an hour and a half of this, he started slipping up, and I could see him attempting to flee me, teleport half a klik away and just stand there for 30 seconds, then move a bit, then pause again, presumably fiddling around in his menus.

I killed him a few more times in this state, and he quit, he left.

... I would have just jumped to another instance if he had not killed my horse.

Do not fuck with a man's horse lol.

... anyway, yeah. hung up my hat after that. fucking nonsense.

load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 59 points 8 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 23 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Bitchy cheaters throwing a hissy that they can't keep creating an unfair advantage for themselves in an online environment. I hope their mothers take away their internet connection for the month.

[–] [email protected] 84 points 8 months ago (17 children)

Probably a few Linux/Steam Deck players pissed that Rockstar just nuked their ability to play without warning or reason as well.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Those are legitimate victims, fuck the cheaters.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 8 months ago

The cheaters have already found a way to bypass this stupid shit. It only affects legitimate users and cheaters too stupid to figure out the seemingly trivial workaround.

load more comments (16 replies)
[–] [email protected] 32 points 8 months ago (6 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BattlEye

Interacts with the game at the kernel level.

Fuck cheaters, but also FUCK kernel level shit, it's possible to make a good AC without fucking around in the kernel.

I don't even install third party Antivirus' that hook into the kernel because of all the issues it causes. 80% of all BSODs I've traced back have always had a root cause because of some shit piece of software fucking around in the kernel. 15% is shitty drivers.

Kernel AVs and ACs actually act like malware in of itself with the types of hooks and interactions it performs. Anything operating at the kernel level can basically see just about everything you or your computer is doing

Fuck kernel level AC

[–] [email protected] 22 points 8 months ago

80% of all BSODs I’ve traced back have always had a root cause because of some shit piece of software fucking around in the kernel

CrowdStrike has entered the chat.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago
[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That's disgusting! Where do those criminals gather, so I could go an express my utter disappointment to them directly?

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›