https://steamdb.info/app/1422450/charts/
Valve keeping up with the trend of “worst kept secrets”. You need an invite to join the alpha but since everyone who owns it can refer their friends, it spread very quickly.
I’ve been playing it the past few days and it’s honestly very fun. Still a bit rough around the edges (especially in terms of balance) since it’s in early access, but it has serious potential to be dota 2 levels of popular.
For the unaware, Deadlock is a 3rd person shooter MOBA. It feels like a mix of Dota and Overwatch/Team Fortress. Nobody is allowed to share footage or screenshots, but obviously with so many playing there’s a ton of leaks out there.
Somebody needs to tell the games team that they make their own operating system. This is Windows-only. WTF.
Runs perfectly fine on Linux though, with DX11 or Vulkan. On Windows, Vulkan has some performance issues that make it quite unenjoyable, but in Linux for me it plays a lot better with Vulkan than Windows DX11.
Runs perfectly fine on Linux though
The quality of Proton is not the point, the point is that they’re not dogfooding their own platform. They’ll likely follow the same course as CS2: Lengthy prerelease test exclusively on Windows, then a few days before actual release someone will port the game to Linux/SteamOS and release day is the first day of the Linux port’s alpha test.
How can anybody at Valve expect game publishers to take Steam Deck and SteamOS seriously if the developer of the actual platform is not dogfooding it with their own games?
Yeah I get what you mean, but with Linux gaming I think it’s great enough that it runs with Proton and no one is blocking it. I also believe they’ll port it to native Linux after the alpha stage is done, but remember that the game is in a closed alpha state, so at no point this should be taken as “Valve not dogfooding their platform”. All we can do right now is wait and see.
They are beta testing, remove the OS issue and they van focus on games issues
Valve is probably perfectly happy with just making sure proton compatibility is good. They don’t expect developers to change their whole workflow to cater to the Deck, that’s why they’ve done so much work with proton.
It’s really not? You can play it perfectly fine on linux. Performs great for me with 0 issues so far.
It’s really not?
The quality of Proton is not the point, the point is that they’re not dogfooding their own platform.
You guys making the same comments over and over again. I can literally paste previous replies because nobody of you cares to actually read.
That’s because I don’t understand your point. You complain about it being only for windows yet push away their efforts of bringing windows games to linux (which is proton). So indeed, the quality of proton is very much the point as it dictates the quality of the game on linux to a general extent.
Not to mention that this IS an early development build, I would say that its perfectly reasonable for them to only make the early builds for windows since that is where a majority of the play testers are likely to be (not to mention that linux -> windows tools don’t exist unless you want to game on WSL2).
So what are you trying to complain about? The fact that they aren’t exclusively pandering for steam deck users? If that is the case, I must admit that it’s very childish to just expect that and I hate other companies for making this the norm.
It’s almost as if they are a for-profit company that doesn’t want to waste development time on an OS that have significantly fewer players to sell to and will choose to optimize for Linux as an afterthought.
I use Arch, btw and play only on Linux, so I’m not being biased, just speaking truths.
Yeah but Valve, who is making this game, made SteamOS and the Steam Deck in house. It’s their own product. It would be a monumentally stupid move to release a first party game that doesn’t run on their own first party hardware.
I wouldn’t say that’s the case because it’s Valve, and they work on a very unique way. Besides, the work they did with Proton, SteamOS and Steam Deck shows that at no point they believe developing for Linux is waste of efforts or an afterthought. They go out of the usual way to make things better for Linux. I fully expect them to port Deadlock to Linux once it hits beta or release.
I fully expect them to port Deadlock to Linux once it hits beta or release.
Like CS2 that has severe bugs on Steam Deck to this day? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PycIuATXaw
It’s almost as if they are a for-profit company that doesn’t want to waste development time on an OS that have significantly fewer players to sell to and will choose to optimize for Linux as an afterthought.
Yeah, why would Nintendo develop for Switch or Sony for PlayStation when it’s clearly a waste of development time and and money and Windows is clearly the superior development target?
I’m not being biased, just speaking truths.
No, you speak nothing of truth regarding game development has a platform holder.
I expected this from the start once proton was introduced, just not from Valve themselves… Welp. It’s now inevitable.
I expected this from the start once proton was introduced, just not from Valve themselves… Welp. It’s now inevitable.
Clueless people act as if Proton was like Java, a “write once, run everywhere” environment…🙄
Not sure what you mean here with your sarcasm. Proton means that developers can just write games for Windows and expect to make that version compatible with Linux with minimal changes as opposed to making a native Linux version.
As a developer myself, I know that it doesn’t make sense for a developer in most cases to write a Linux version and support it when the Linux user base is tiny by comparison. It happened with OS/2 and it can happen again. Not to mention Linux game developer tooling pales in comparison to Windows with DirectX.
I’m with you in principle, but I think it’s unlikely that Valve are building the game themselves, given that they haven’t done much of that in ages.
It’s reasonable to think their first priorities were finding a development studio [Edit: or even in-house developers] capable producing a good game, and helping them to do so. If the developers are most familiar with Windows tools and APIs, then the path to a successful game would be letting them use those, at least to begin with.
Let’s just hope that they’re being guided along to way toward design decisions that make a native port relatively easy if the game turns out to be good.
Edit:
The project is reportedly led by “IceFrog”, which looked like a studio name when I first read it, but it’s apparently a person. So maybe this is in-house development after all. Great! It would be nice to see Valve making significant games again.
Nevertheless, gathering a team with the talent and vision to make a good game is harder than finding people who can learn a certain API or platform, so if they have the former, it would make sense to let them target the platform they already know and get the game out the door. Doing it in-house just makes it even easier for Valve’s linux folks to guide them in design choices that would simplify multiplatform support later. (Cross-platform development isn’t all that hard if you plan for it from the start instead of painting yourself into a corner.) If the game is well received, it would then make sense to invest more time into training the devs on linux and doing a linux-native port.
Or to put it another way: Yes, Valve has an OS that keeps them independent from Windows, but that’s just one tool in their kit. Proton is another tool. That gives Valve flexibility in how they bring a game to market, and how they prioritize/schedule various phases of the project. This still-unannounced game might be Windows-only for now, but I would not assume that will be forever.
If that studio’s developers are most familiar with Windows tools and APIs, then the path to a successful game would be letting them use those, at least to begin with.
So you’re saying, if Sony or Nintendo made a new console and contracted an outside developer, that developer should develop for Windows instead of the new consoles because they are unfamiliar with the new tools and APIs? Why even develop using Source Engine (2)? Why not also give in to a total Unreal Engine monopoly because that’s what every game developer knows? CS2 on Steam Deck is bad right now.
No, that is not what I said at all. Either you’ve misunderstood, or you’re arguing in bad faith. Given that you’re now pushing an unrealistic all-or-nothing point of view and putting words in my mouth, I think it’s some of both.
