Just in time for the sequel!

It’s not about how easy it is to compile, my first point in my original comment was that they actively maintain an engine for Linux.

The install base is too low right now. Hopefully as our numbers grow we’ll have enough market impact to warrant pushing other store fronts.

Fortnite is great for Epic, but their debacle with Apple kind of proved that one popular game isn’t enough to push the public off one store front onto another.

Totally made up, meant it more as a “this is my ballpark estimation of what their Linux player base would be” - though I agree I worded it poorly. I don’t know what % of Epic Games users would play on Linux if given the chance.

I’m editing my original message, sorry about that!

Here’s a different take, as a game dev:

Epic actual employs quite a few people who work with Linux. The Unreal engine (and even, to a certain degree, editor) has native support for Linux.

The reasons they’re not including Linux support in their store front are two fold:

1. There aren’t enough pure Linux users to matter, and whatever percentage of their userbase would use Linux isn’t going to be large enough to make a dent^[1].

2. The only serious Linux user base in gaming relates to the Steam Deck, a product that pushes a rival (and the dominant) store front.

While Valve’s move to push Linux gaming is brilliant for us gamers, it also kind of cements us in their camp.

There is absolutely no reason for Epic to support Linux in anyway, and it absolutely supports their bottom line to attack it.

And, no, it isn’t because of any David v. Goliath tale of a little guy standing up to a brute: it’s because a fellow giant has decided to ally itself with Linux, and all of us have - invariably - been shuffled into their camp.

I think the Epic Games Store has a place in this world as a niche storefront with limited visibility but higher access to sales profits as a result of that.

They’ll never grow to the size of Steam, and that’s okay. The largest storefront in the world supports Linux not just on its platform, but by developing tools for everyone that makes Linux gaming viable. That is enough, IMO.

~[1] Edit: I was throwing around a made up 0.1% number earlier to indicate what I thought the number’d be - wasn’t meant to be factual, and was poorly worded, so I removed that.~

I’m very much with you.

Never understood why Plex, a once open source fork of XBMC, was seen as a positive thing when they switched to the closed source, SaaS model.

I also don’t understand the love for Tailscale when Wireguard exists.

But, anyway, the same people who are reacting shocked to Plex can be shocked when Tailscale does the same.

They’ll probably hop on Discord to vent their frustrations before there, too, they find themselves spurred by a company with no clear plan on monetization finding out that offering hosted services at a yearly loss can only exist for so long.

Open source isn’t just about idealogy, it’s about longevity for software that can’t be clearly monetized - harken back to “amazing” services like Keybase that worked great for a few years until their VCs started asking for return of investment.

Use the shit that was made for you, not to exploit you. And if that shit isn’t up to your standard, learn to contribute, or just enjoy the corporate graveyard in which you choose to live.

(so sorry for the pseudo-unhinged rant, but between the recent Win11, Discord controversies - and now, this - I’m just fed up with all the shocked_pikachu.jpg posts I’m seeing on Lemmy)

Matrix doesn’t have multiple standards, it only has the one? Certain servers expose older API endpoints for backwards compatibility with old clients, but that’s all. The spec is standard and relatively stable.

Likewise, it is very much a federated protocol - dunno where you got the idea that it isn’t.

But, yeah, spec changes do take a while to get accepted/implemented.

QR code login is technically out, you just need to be running your own homeserver (and MAS) to use it.

But, yeah, exciting to finally have that.

Matrix does have all of that, though? Except for voice.

I use matrix/element for socializing and Mumble for voice chat while gaming.

To respond to each comment:

• Element is a unified UI, available on PC/Web/Mobile.
• Starting and managing a community involves hitting the + button, creating a community, creating rooms in that community, then setting permissions and ACLs - pretty similar to discord, though with more control as you own the server.
• Embedded content is possible through the embed button.
• Video and voice work, but aren’t great for gaming (see below).

Element Call (aka the new MatrixRTC spec) is great for video calls, but leaves a lot to be desired for chatting while gaming.

From a chat standpoint, the two are near identical - yes - but Matrix lacks the “voice/video calls as persistent rooms” feature that Discord has. This was planned a while back, but has recently been pushed on the backburner^[1] as they work on Element Call.

Early on Matrix was sort of being built up as an IRC/Discord alternative, but recently they’ve pivoted more towards a WA/Telegram/Slack alternative as most of their financial support comes from European governments and companies looking for strong and secure internal communication solutions they can manage themselves.

So, TL;DR you probably won’t see the exact Discord like features you want land in the spec any time soon as they’re not being funded.

So that means, right now:

• No persistent voice/video rooms (but they are on the roadmap!)
• No push-to-talk or “game friendly” settings like voice auto-detection (also not really on the roadmap)

Having said all that, Matrix is brilliant and I highly encourage people to check it out. I use a Matrix <-> Signal bridge for most of my comms with my friends, and we voice chat on Mumble. Not ideal, but you get to avoid Discord and you get a very similar experience! Bonus points for Mumble as it’s super lightweight.

~[1] It’s not really on the backburner so much as it’s something that will have to be worked on after the new VOIP stack - Element Call - is integrated in the wider Matrix ecosystem. There is an experimental “video rooms” feature, but that really isn’t the same as a native, persistent voice-only room.~

Agreed.

Re: “(…) fuck however they want it spelt.”

As a Turkish person, I’m with you on this.

If the Turkish government wants you to refer to Turkey as Türkiye, then they shouldn’t be allowed to call the US “Amerika Birleşik Devletleri”: they should be required to pronounce it United States of America.

Let’s see how they like it then, lol. “Yunayıted Sıtets af Amerika”, hah.

Mumble existed then, and still exists now. Vent was literally never clean, it was always bloated and behind.

(sorry, I’m very passionate about the Vent vs. Ts vs. Mumble debacle of the early aughts)

I’m not harping on OP. If they thought it was worth sharing, great.

The people whom I take umbrage with are those who make a blog post that is reporting on a public announcement (E.g. Signal’s news post on their website) without linking to said announcement.

You’re not talking about world events with your reporter on the scene - your entire post is literally “someone else posted something to the internet!”; linking to it is the bare minimum required, if you ask me.

Blogs like these drive me fucking crazy: there’s a primary source out there, why not just link to that at the end of your (evidently pointless) opinion piece?

It’s almost like they know their commentary isn’t adding anything and they’re worried we’ll click away immediately.

I’m up voting you simply because I think it’s brave to say that on Lemmy 😅

I can’t believe I bought a windows license in July, back when I built my new PC - was planning to use Windows for games exclusively and Linux for everything else.

Haven’t booted into Windows since at least November, it’s a great feeling. Every game I play (including new releases) runs fine on Linux.

What a time to be alive!

(note: the only game I can’t play is Valorant, but that’s the same on Windows, too, as it requires secure boot)

You don’t have to be “pretty sure”, you can just read their law enforcement policies here.

They’re not, nor have they ever been, a group of folk trying to hide from governments/LE: they’re a legal company headquartered in the UK, and are bound by its laws.

Having said that, they’re also historically against the UK Government’s attempts at instilling things like encryption backdoors.

If you’re still paranoid, host your own server; you can still use Element (the client hosted at Element.io) to access it.

Your client might be showing you the thumbnail; the image’s resolution is fine, here.

I live in New York, so that’s probably why. Shame :( enjoy the covid protection!