Riot Games talk Vanguard anti-cheat for League of Legends and why it's a no for Linux https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2024/04/riot-games-talk-vanguard-anti-cheat-for-league-of-legends-and-why-its-a-no-for-linux/
@gamingonlinux I guess it's not a bad thing in terms of time for other games and less toxicity, but I will miss playing with my brother. Just annoying overall.
@gamingonlinux TLDR version: Riot doesn't support Vanguard on Linux because Linux doesn't have an Xbox-style game lockdown mode like Windows 11.
@arazil @gamingonlinux What's this about lockdown? Its been years since I've played a game on windows, but do they do something to your computer when you try to play a game?
@hstone32 @gamingonlinux This is a good primer on all the various lockdowns and restrictions: https://support-valorant.riotgames.com/hc/en-us/articles/22291331362067-Vanguard-Restrictions
@hstone32 @arazil The anticheat system they and many others use is known as kernel-level anticheat. Another word for it is "rootkit" which you may recognize as the worst form of malware you could possibly attach to your system. Kernel anticheat has 100% access to both your software and hardware, it is an insane level of administrative control that is not necessary to stop cheaters, and would be a MASSIVE liability against their customers were it ever to be compromised.
@gamingonlinux As a recovered League of Legends player, I think we should all see this as Riot protecting us from their own curse XD
@gamingonlinux It should be a “no” for Windows users as well. That “anti-cheat” basically has permanent admin privileges and is executed automatically in the OS’ background, even when Valorant isn’t running (the process can be killed but you’d need to RESTART your pc to play Valorant afterwards…).
It’s either sending private data straight to Tencent’s servers or a critical security vulnerability in your system (likely both).
@meziu @gamingonlinux It's basically malware. There's precedent for that claim too, Sony (or to be pedantic, Sony-BMG) tried a similar thing back in the 2000s to stop CD ripping and were sued for it when they were caught. Won't be surprised a bit if Vanguard is used by malware.
@gamingonlinux Implement server-side Anticheats and everything is solved.
@gamingonlinux pity, but hey only 800 people isn't that much for such a large company. I think that number will only go up for other games though. Gradually we are seeing more and more Linux gaming machines. If there is interest, there should be money to be made there now :0
@vancha @gamingonlinux The number might also be so low because the game is unplayable every other month for months :), it has always been a buggy mess on linux, and since they announced that vanguard was coming prob a lot of people gave up.
@merlijn @gamingonlinux hah right, you can't be online if the game won't launch ^^
@gamingonlinux another victory for linux!!!
@gamingonlinux
"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"
That's so incredibly damning I'm surprised they admit it in the open
@gamingonlinux Giving people their money back if they refuse to install a rootkit on Windows is also a no for #riotgames