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It seems the game is quite close to running on Linux, with the only issue being the anti-cheat not being compatible. There are several other anti cheats available that work on Linux. I would like to be able to play on Steam Deck or to boot Linux on my laptop and play Mabinogi, Proton is almost enough aside from the Anti-Cheat problem.
MacOS support would also be nice. Proton/DXVK + MoltenVK might work.
Either they would need to port the game and maintain it, which means hiring a team dedicated to that, or they would need to find a commercial emulator to partner with; playing nice with freeware emulators isn't gonna happen.
Related discussion from like half a decade here but they wouldn't need to port the game at all for x86-64 Linux and MacOS (non-ARM based) platforms. It's really just the anti-cheat at this point.
As someone who have been playing Mabinogi for a long time, I'd really like to see Mabinogi to actually run through WINE/Proton on Linux. If you try to run Mabinogi on Linux, it will crash immediately when the anti-cheat portion starts. It's just frustrating that RuneScape with their NXT client (natively), and World of Warcraft (through WINE) can be run on Linux but not Mabinogi. Mabinogi is also being distributed through Steam which has Proton support and it'd be great to be able to see it being able to run it on Linux. Valve, developer of Steam, is pushing for such a move, so why not Nexon/devCat for Mabinogi?
The most common criticisms I've seen for this suggestion from the community or that I can see are:
1. This (WINE) goes against TOS since it'd involve modding/hacking/etc.
On the contrary no it doesn't. WINE is not a 3rd party application that "enables cheating, power-leveling, or accomplishing game tasks that cannot be accomplished". It also doesn't even give the ability to "reverse engineering, deriving source code, modifying, decompiling, disassembling". WINE (and Proton since it is based off WINE) is a compatibility layer that allows Windows applications to be run by translating Windows system calls into Linux system calls. There is no modifying of any Mabinogi files what so ever and it does not give any user any advantages when compared to running Mabinogi on Windows.
2. But WINE is a virtual machine/emulation software. Nexon explicitly bans this kind of stuff.
Yes but WINE is not a hypervisor (virtual machine software) nor is it an "emulator" in any conventional sense. Like I said before, it's a mere compatibility layer. Imagine Google Translating Spanish to English and back English to Spanish. That's all what WINE does. It's even in the name (WINE stands for WINE Is Not an Emulator). WINE can't generate multiple instances of a system so it can't be used to break TOS. If you're more akin to Windows, it's like the Windows 32-bit on Windows 64-bit subsystem (WoW64). Mabinogi actually runs on WoW64 since it's a 32-bit application if you're on 64-bit Windows. If Mabinogi can run on a compatibility layer like this, why can't it run on WINE on Linux?
3. But that means removing anti-cheat. Nexon can't protect its IP if it has to do that.
No it probably doesn't. If you remember when Windows 10 RTM came out on launch day, Mabinogi didn't run at all because of a previous anti-cheat solution that Nexon used. It was modified so it could run properly on Windows 10 after a few weeks. I do not know and will not claim to know what Nexon and its contractors did to solve this problem but it proves that they are capable of modifying an existing anti-cheat solution to a new platform. Although Nexon uses a new anti-cheat solution now, I feel that they could modify it so it could run through WINE/Linux. Because if they couldn't, Nexon would not be able to adjust their anti-cheat system to any new major Windows system changes in the future. I'm pretty sure the developers (or any developer working on a system like this) would have foreseen this coming.
4. But modifying such a(n anti-cheat) system would be a substantial cost to Nexon with little return. What gives?
That might be true. I don't know anything about Nexon's financial outlook/future plans/development plans for Mabinogi or Mabinogi's internal workings. But I will say this. If you could capture an audience, however small, it is still a gain. Even it does not meet a ROI, by putting Mabinogi (or any Nexon IP for that matter) forward to work on Linux (especially though Valve's Proton system), I can guarantee you that it'd be good PR and pretty big news. A large company that using anti-cheat made it work on Linux? What a forward thinking company! I'm not asking for a full re-write/revamp/large new feature or even a server merge. I'm just asking for a small part of the Mabinogi experience to be changed and it doesn't involve a whole new client.
I've always wanted to write a post about this for the last 9 years (and especially the last 3 years) but I was afraid about what others might say or the repercussions for asking for such a feature. Even if this doesn't reach anyone or gets deleted, I just wanted to let you, and the GNU/Linux community know that I tried.
If anyone has any problems with this post or if I got anything wrong, please tell me and I'll try and responds/explain/or fix it. Thanks!
