Old launcher no longer working

[DPZ2]

We're talking over two million dollars a month over a launcher problem. I think they could afford to take a month of our theoretical existence's money, even half of our theoretical existence's money, and fix what is strictly a launcher-only problem.

Operating income (mostly subscriptions and microtransactions) from 1 April 2021 through 30 December 2022 for the entire Digital Entertainment division (MMO, HD Games, Mobile/Browser games) was 49.4 billion Yen (about $425 million dollars). Divide by 9 and you get an average of $47 million per month. With 35.8 million players at $15/month the operating income for the MMO group alone would be $537 million per month, not $47 million per month. Your estimate is off by at least a factor of 10. So no, there aren't 35.8 million subscribers per month. (For reference, WoW at its peak had something like 12 million subscribers.)

There are 37 million 'subscribers' listed in the last set of population charts I've seen. I've also seen 25 million 'registered users', which is probably more accurate, since 'registered users' do not have to maintain active subscriptions. SE reports the number of players based on accounts, not current subscriptions.

Live population statistics appear to hover around 2 million since the WoW explosion. One percent of 2 million active players would be 20,000 players.I find 2 million actively subscribed players to be a better number.

So 20,000 players contributing $15/month would be $300,000 per month, based on an income of $30 million per month for the entire actively subscribed user base. Not chump change, but faaaaaaar from you $2 million per month guesstimate.

There is no way for Square Enix to determine whether that population of players is 20,000 or 40,000 or 2,000. You can create an argument using the fuzzy math that both you and I have used here, but you need solid proof of the numbers, rather than mere conjecture.

It is far easier for the Linux community to do what it has always done for games that are not officially supported by a company -- put their own wrappers around the code and fix any problems that come up themselves. I know it's not what you want to hear, but that's the way things work.

It is entirely possible that SE developers have already heard about this, and they may make small changes to accommodate players in this position, but there is no way you can demand those changes until SE adds official support for Steam Deck and/or Linux. Until now, you've been working with a duct-taped workaround rather than playing on a supported platform.

[HereInPlainSight]

Words

Hey, you've got a better source. Great. In the end, as you said, the numbers themselves aren't entirely significant -- because it's always going to be fuzzy math. In the end, the primary thing to take away was that it won't be an insignificant amount of money, if you're going to cry about 'proving we're worth it.'

And again, to highlight, we're not demanding anything. We're just asking to not make things harder. Fixes, in fact, are all already available, for all instances. However, as users, we'd prefer to have cleaner solutions to offer other new players. To make the experience smoother. Not necessarily for ourselves -- but we do like to have a nice, working, easy solution for newcomers. We like a cleaner experience for users just like, I'd assume, anyone would like to. Can we work around these problems? Yes. We already have. Even better ones are still being worked on. But again, cleaner solutions make for better experiences, not Frankensteining old tech that's not even used by the people who made it any more. Frankly, the solution for playing on Linux hasn't been 'duct taped.' It is, in fact, smooth as hell for years now -- so long as you're not running a steam license, specifically, since Tuesday's maintenance.

Appearently the launcher is ignoring the Browser option in the config file after a recent update. This means the game just turned unplayable on Proton which makes me wonder if SquareEnix has any plans to support Proton or the Steam Deck.

Another thing that is quite concerning is that the browser seems to rely on Internet Explorer, which ends extended support in 3 months.

Are there any plans to fix the launcher in the future?

Not a demand.

This of course has made the game completely unplayable on Proton and I've had no choice but to unsub for the first time in years.

Not a demand either, though certainly a note that there are paying Linux customers who will not pay for a game they're unable to play, or that makes it needlessly more difficult to do so.

I'm not gonna go back through every post -- but no one is demanding fixes. We have an issue, we're trying to make it more heard, and see if there's any developer interest in reasoned arguments. Be they fiscal or technological. Maybe they'll fall on deaf ears, maybe there'll miraculously be changes.

Oh, and by the way -- if Square had programmed the launcher better, to not assume all Wine users were Mac users, they actually could have measured Linux population and growth easily and had solid numbers to know exactly how much revenue we generate. Linked it into how much we spend on the mog station and whatever else. You're right, we don't have the exact numbers. But even with reasoned guesswork -- and again, thank you for having better numbers to work with -- we can at least make the argument Linux users are not insignificantly contributing to the profit margin. Again, you're asking us to prove something that we can't because that information is not available to us -- so yes, we have to work within the numbers we do have.

[Ransu]

You can't make any argument. Linux is not a supported OS. You choose to make that risk and you have to deal with it. Square is under no obligation to ensure any changes they make will work with Linux because they simply do not support it. Making threads about it is pointless because square will 100% do nothing about it. Wait for 3rd party developers to fix the custom launchers and until then tough luck. Install windows and you wont have those problems.

[HereInPlainSight]

Fixes, in fact, are all already available, for all instances.

Wait for 3rd party developers to fix the custom launchers and until then tough luck.

Reading comprehension, not so high. Until then, tough luck.

Reminder that my actual 'argument' is

we'd prefer to have cleaner solutions to offer other new players. To make the experience smoother. Not necessarily for ourselves -- but we do like to have a nice, working, easy solution for newcomers. We like a cleaner experience for users just like, I'd assume, anyone would like to.

Except for people like you, apparently -- people who seem to prefer that other people have a less smooth process for the reason of... mah Windows?

Might escape you, BTW, but I never had this problem.

I just have empathy and understanding for people who are not in my exact situation.

[Kaosuran]

I honestly don't get what's your problem, all you can say is `linux is unsupported, go away` - nothing clever, nor new, comes from you, nothing that would help anyone, except your ego.

All you did thus far was going into a topic, that doesn't even concern you in any way mind you, and cry like little babies that linux users are hackers are should not get any support from SE.

We don't demand SE to fix it, however it would be nice if they did, all that was left in this topic was the matter `how to workaround this issue` - but nay, not until you, great heroes still have something to say!

You literally did no good, only wasted energy on crying one line, that everyone here was already aware of, all over again... P A T H E T I C

Having that said, the fix is here.
1. Get the latest version of Q XIVLauncher
2. Install windows Steam in the same wineprefix as the launcher/game
3. Login into Steam, enjoy the game.

[darkvalefor]

I honestly don't get what's your problem, all you can say is `linux is unsupported, go away` - nothing clever, nor new, comes from you, nothing that would help anyone, except your ego.

All you did thus far was going into a topic, that doesn't even concern you in any way mind you, and cry like little babies that linux users are hackers are should not get any support from SE.

We don't demand SE to fix it, however it would be nice if they did, all that was left in this topic was the matter `how to workaround this issue` - but nay, not until you, great heroes still have something to say!

You literally did no good, only wasted energy on crying one line, that everyone here was already aware of, all over again... P A T H E T I C

Having that said, the fix is here.
1. Get the latest version of Q XIVLauncher
2. Install windows Steam in the same wineprefix as the launcher/game
3. Login into Steam, enjoy the game.

Is there a way to run it with proton?

If I try to run proton on that lutris wineprefix I created it seems to crash with a .NET exception and if I try to install the launcher in the proton prefix on steam it will tell me I cannot run the installer as administrator. While it plays really well through non proton lutris, I get a really small sound stuttering every now and then that I was not when I was running through native steam.

[darkvalefor]

Also no matter a workaround was found and I can run the game perfectly fine, and because that wasn’t the point of this thread I keep the original question.

Does SquareEnix have any plans to support the Steam Deck in the future?

Are there any plans to fix the launcher to a non-deprecated and unsupported library?

[Kaosuran]

I'd recommend you using:
1. https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/wine-ge-custom (or the lutris one)
2. https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom

If these two won't fix the stutter, try this:
In the FINAL FANTASY XIV Online/game/ folder, create dxvk.conf file, and add to it:
dxgi.maxFrameLatency = 1

^ this solved microstutter for me

[darkvalefor]

I'd recommend you using:
1. https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/wine-ge-custom (or the lutris one)
2. https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom

If these two won't fix the stutter, try this:
In the FINAL FANTASY XIV Online/game/ folder, create dxvk.conf file, and add to it:
dxgi.maxFrameLatency = 1

^ this solved microstutter for me

Thank you, I tried wine-ge-custom from the link you provided and it works like a charm.

It also fixed the Steam GUI inside Lutris where I couldn't access the Library from the main window. Before I had to install the game through the context menu on the System Tray.

[DPZ2]

I honestly don't get what's your problem, all you can say is `linux is unsupported, go away` - nothing clever, nor new, comes from you, nothing that would help anyone, except your ego.

All you did thus far was going into a topic, that doesn't even concern you in any way mind you, and cry like little babies that linux users are hackers are should not get any support from SE.

If you're talking about my posts, your reading comprehension is poor. My own words have been on the theme that "Linux is unsupported, and there are developers out there working on a fix. If you want SE to support Steam Deck and Linux in general, you need to present a financial case for them to do so."

True, I did respond to someone who appears to believe that Linux user subscriptions were in the neighborhood of $2-4 million dollars a month based on numbers that made no sense. I dislike guesstimates that are not based on anything except "what I heard/read somewhere" rather than actual financial statements. If someone had said "FFXIV is the only money-maker for Square Enix", without any Linux context, I'd say the same thing.

As far as Linux as the basic OS for the desktop, I abandoned that line of thinking over 20 years ago. The fact was that most games are written for consoles or the PC, and there are relatively few games I've seen over the years that work on Linux natively.

I was playing with MINIX on an Atari ST back in the 1980s, well before Linus took a look at Tanenbaum's work, recreated it from scratch and released the first iteration of Linux back in 1991. I have spent the last 35 years working professionally with numerous iterations of UNIX and LINUX.

I admire those hardy individuals who've decided that they're willing to accept the fact that Linux is not a commercial gaming system and work on playing PC games anyway. But I draw the line at anyone complaining that a gaming company somehow messed them over by making a decision before the launch of an expansion that means they have to do some more programming.