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Any hope for Mac Users?


jeremyacrawford

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I use boot camp to play on Mac and I'd rather it just stay that way. I'd rather have the developers actually fixing aspects of the game rather than prioritizing a new client. Following the trend lately, wouldn't be surprised if they said "Hey! Mac Users! The client costs 20 USD to buy! GO GO GO".
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I won't expect it anytime soon, as Mac isn't exactly DirectX compatible. So they'd be required to rewrite their rendering engine to support OpenGL, which isn't the easiest of tasks to do for a major project such as SWTOR. And considering as to how little the OS X userbase is for gaming thus far, it's quickly not worth the development effort.
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No new info. As you are probably are aware this question has come up through various interviews and live events. And while they have never said no to a Mac Client, they have indicated that there are other priorities in terms of content and updates.

 

Reading between the lines and adding my own bit of speculation it seems to me they have looked at it to some extent, but are reluctant to spend time and resources on a Mac Client. Unless players can show a real need for it and demonstrate a marked impact to the success of the game, my guess is we won't see one until there is an engine revamp IF that ever happens.

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No new info. As you are probably are aware this question has come up through various interviews and live events. And while they have never said no to a Mac Client, they have indicated that there are other priorities in terms of content and updates.

 

Reading between the lines and adding my own bit of speculation it seems to me they have looked at it to some extent, but are reluctant to spend time and resources on a Mac Client. Unless players can show a real need for it and demonstrate a marked impact to the success of the game, my guess is we won't see one until there is an engine revamp IF that ever happens.

 

It will not just need to be an engine revamp, they will essentially need to hire themselves an additional set of programmers experienced with OpenGL in addition to DirectX. Not something a set of knowledge which is standard for all programmers, essentially not during this day and age where OpenGL became some sort of a lost art over the last decade, one which only recently is starting to see a better pickup again. And you're going to need keep them staffed for further development down the line.

 

Beyond that you're going to be needing to hire CSR staff experienced with Mac systems in order to be able to offer support to Mac users.

 

Additionally, there may also be the desire to keep the retail version up to date as long as its sold, so introduction of a Mac version would in that case mean a pullback of all current boxes, and production of new PC/Mac capable versions.

 

Quite the potential investment involved there, for a most probably minimal number of additional players to be gained.

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Gaming computer...

 

 

My professional video and music editing Mac Pro blows those toys into the stratosphere.

 

 

 

*uses Static Barrier*

 

Oh we won't say (or at least me) it can't be good hardware, but it sooo expensive... The price of your professional Mac can probably also blow people's bank accounts into stratosphere too.

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Oh we won't say (or at least me) it can't be good hardware, but it sooo expensive... The price of your professional Mac can probably also blow people's bank accounts into stratosphere too.

 

 

 

Truth be told, it indeed is overly expensive. But having designer parents, I didn't adopt Macs, I was born into them :D

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Here's one surprising thing that devs can't seem to wrap their heads around: Sure the actual amount of people gaming on Macs may be low, but in MMO land, what about all those Mac users friends? If I am a guild leader of a 600 person guild in WoW (which I am) and a Mac user, I may not be inclined to bring over those 600 users to start a guild in a new game. This, in fact, is precisely why our guild never went over to Rift when that game launched.

 

So that one Mac user they choose not to make the game for could, in fact, mean a huge mass of lost potential subs for them... Which in turn leads to less word of mouth users to pass good info around.

 

Honestly, devs really have to wake up and start recognizing this.

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