Kernel anti-cheat systems are currently the bane of Linux/Steam Deck gaming, haven’t actually proven to be effective at stopping cheaters (see Valorant for an example), and lead to various security concerns from giving 3rd parties full access to your machine to being used to install ransomware and malware.
Windows tried to restrict kernel access years ago, but backed down under pressure from various companies. However Crowdstrike’s outages have shown the sever consequences of leaving kernel access open, and we might finally see kernel access to be cut off.
what kills me is we Solved Cheating in the 90s and early 00s. It’s called dedicated servers. People would buy a game someone would setup a server and if you were a dick or cheat you would get kicked and each sever was like a community just like it is here.
But the companies want control they want to be able to shut download the game on their timetable and get you to buy the next game. A tool or system is never going to fix this people and breaking communities into manageable chunks can.
Hell back in the day servers were hacked on purpose to create new types of games. Anyone remember CS Surfing and Sniper only maps in TFC.
the point is people can hack away break the game beyond recognition but they can do that off in their own space.
Now I know that breaks global leader boards and other ego driven things but I’m just talking about having fun with games.
I remember those days, but this was before Microtransactions and battlepasses.
Back then when you bought a game it was complete and you owned it…
Those were the days for sure. Dedicated servers were fantastic, you’d often run across the same people in the same server as well and get to know folks. A community, like you said.
yeah remember heat.net?
I don’t but it’s probably pretty region dependent. In Australia I used to play on Internode servers a lot.
ah cool yeah it was this thing in the US where you connected into rooms that had dedicated servers attached to them but under the hood it was all peer to peer I think that would be a server browser for games that didn’t have that like quake, quake 2 and mechwarrior 2, decent. It was run by sega.
What made it crazy awesome is you generated points by logging in and playing to spend in the heat store and they sold like GPUs like voodoo 2 2000s and gaming mice, etc.
It all crashed in a blaze once people figured out you could just camp in games an minimize and keep generating points.
By that point Half-life and Quake 3 was out and had the server browser built in so it was on the way out anyway.
Oh nice that sounds awesome! The only similar kinda thing I remember from back in the day was Microsoft Zone. Used to play a bit of Total Annihilation on there.
There was global leader boards way back in the day. I think it was called the Quake World League, it was one that would count Counter-Strike. I am not 100% but I think it used gamespy to do much of its work. I remember when it showed millions of people active and I was able to reach a top 20 in Counter-Strike one week. I was able to break the top 100 many times before it changed.
yeah you’re right so it was eventually better than I remembered back then
I mean we have entire genres only because people back in the day modded the shit out of game servers. Team fortress and DotA were both mods before becoming actual games.