Noctournys Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 Mac users are growing, but many of them are not running Mac OS on their machines. Every year there's an industry stat put out for what computers are using what OSes Mac OS was 5% last year Linux was 7% The rest was Windows with a few percentages lost to more obscure OSes I love observational misinformation. Those statistics are for all computers, everywhere. That includes every fortune 500 company who has Linux servers and tens of thousands of cheap desktop terminals running some flavor of Windows. the home market, Apple has almost 17% of the market. iDevices luring people to the Mac camp has been a serious boost. in the laptop market, they have almost 30% of the market. Even if 10% of people with Macs could run SWTOR (which is a little low - it ran totally fine on an older iMac i have in the house, with a fairly minimal GPU), that'd still be 5 or 6 million Mac users as potential clients. If even 5% of those people played SWTOR on their macs, you're still looking at 200,000+ players. At 15 bucks a month, that's still a pretty substantial pile of money. Yes, it will end up being a small fraction of their player base, but no EA shareholder is going to be upset that they are spending the time to add another few million to the pile every month. The main issue, and the reason we wont see an OSX client, is because the version of the HERO engine they used for SWTOR wasn't cross-platform, and it has now been so heavily modified there's simply no way to drop in support for the newest HERO engine version (which IS cross platform) without an almost total re-write. What is potentially likely is that during a major expansion pack, they will overhaul the client and drop in support for the new HERO engine - much like Blizzard did when they made the client 64 bit native - essentially a complete rewrite, or when they dropped in the new OpenGL engine - but it isnt something that will happen outside of major expac time, if ever. Yeah, i support an OSX client, so i dont have to boot back and forth. It's kinda annoying. But ill still be playing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gankstah Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 (edited) No, I do not support. Use bootcamp or yell at Apple for using gestapo tactics in regards to their OS compatibility. It's not BioWare's responsibility to bend over backwards to meet Apple's demands especially when Apple isn't exactly "known" for playing well with others. Edited December 13, 2011 by Gankstah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pencilvania Posted December 13, 2011 Author Share Posted December 13, 2011 All Mac users know that Bootcamp is out there but the topic of this thread is support for an OS X client, not bootcamp. Bootcamping is time consuming and requires an additional financial investment. A native client support is the topic of the thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pencilvania Posted December 13, 2011 Author Share Posted December 13, 2011 No, I do not support. Use bootcamp or yell at Apple for using gestapo tactics in regards to their OS compatibility. It's not BioWare's responsibility to bend over backwards to meet Apple's demands especially when Apple isn't exactly "known" for playing well with others. I think that the larger issue is that Bioware's major competitor, Blizzard, has had Mac OS X support since World of Warcraft Beta just over 7 years ago. In the MMORPG game space that SWTOR exists in the "big guy" is taking all the Mac players. A smart move would be for Bioware to go after that dedicated minority looking for something new. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pencilvania Posted December 13, 2011 Author Share Posted December 13, 2011 They gathered machine information during beta signups to see who was running what, and I imagine they base any client decisions on the information they gathered during that time. The information they gathered on "Mac" users would have been severely skewed. A very small minority have the time and money to Bootcamp their machines to play a single game. The amount of Bootcamped Beta testers would be a small number because of the added hurtles those users would have to go through. Given that the signup required a Windows client most Mac users would choose not to bootcamp and thus not sign up. This also is not an indicator of the demand for that platform. The logic that Bioware based Mac demand on the Beta testing weekend is inaccurate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elstuff Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 Yes. I play on bootcamped Windows 7 now but would prefer native Mac OS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noctournys Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 No, I do not support. Use bootcamp or yell at Apple for using gestapo tactics in regards to their OS compatibility. It's not BioWare's responsibility to bend over backwards to meet Apple's demands especially when Apple isn't exactly "known" for playing well with others. .... what? I have no earthly idea what you're talking about, particularly since it is Microsoft with the proprietary API that they wont liscence to anyone else (DirectX) that prevents porting in 90% of cases. The only reason there's no support for OSX is because when work began on SWTOR, the HERO engine version used had no support for OpenGL, because Microsoft had paid them rather a bit of money to ensure that only a DirectX code path was enabled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dnian Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 I support a Mac and Linux client, its just lazy that they didnt make one, and no i am not a mac or linux user Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catherder Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 Nope and I don't have an iPhone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillageIdiot Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 I'm too poor for bootcamp, so I'm hoping I'll get windows 7 software for Christmas. Unfortunately, that means I have to wait an extra week for the game. I support the Mac Client because I hate third party software. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XargonWan Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 Yes. I play on bootcamped Windows 7 now but would prefer native Mac OS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindsplitter Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 Untrue, Mac users are growing. Also Mac's are not bad for gaming as the hardware in them is usually fairly good for the video editting and 3d rendering software that is used on them. Only windowz supports DirectX, so... out of luck unless they want to re-write the graphic engine to support OpenGL. GG. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Electricdawn Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 Bootcamp Why would I want to do that if I bought a Mac to get rid of Windows in the first place? BTW, Blizz says hello to all the people that think programming a Mac client is not worth it. And I mean a REAL Mac client, no Cider crap. -E Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pencilvania Posted December 13, 2011 Author Share Posted December 13, 2011 (edited) Only windowz supports DirectX, so... out of luck unless they want to re-write the graphic engine to support OpenGL. GG. Actually there is hope, the Hero engine is starting to develop support for OpenGL. http://www.heroengine.com/2011/09/art-features-coming-to-heroengine/ Edited December 13, 2011 by Pencilvania Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Portabella Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 +1 Would love to ditch Bootcamp, which I am currently only using for this game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dohdoh Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 Only windowz supports DirectX, so... out of luck unless they want to re-write the graphic engine to support OpenGL. GG. first... DirectX only games are ported to Mac all the time. While re-write to OpenGL is usually the best performing way, its not required. Wine and Cider ports handle Direct3D calls with OpenGL, and even Valves fully "native" games on Steam have a layer that handles Direct3D in OpenGL so they can still code their whole game in DirectX. But that isn't as important, since the creators of the HeroEngine that is used for Star Wars are already making (finishing up) an OpenGL version of the Engine with both mac and Linux support (as well as iOS). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noctournys Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 first... DirectX only games are ported to Mac all the time. While re-write to OpenGL is usually the best performing way, its not required. Wine and Cider ports handle Direct3D calls with OpenGL, and even Valves fully "native" games on Steam have a layer that handles Direct3D in OpenGL so they can still code their whole game in DirectX. But that isn't as important, since the creators of the HeroEngine that is used for Star Wars are already making (finishing up) an OpenGL version of the Engine with both mac and Linux support (as well as iOS). Like i said earlier, though, it wont happen midstream. The version of the Hero engine that SWTOR uses is so modified they cant just drop the new version in and make it go. Theyd have to retool a lot of stuff to get it in.. which is something they might do for an expansion, much like Blizzard took the time for an expansion to completely rebuild the client in a 64 bit version and rewrite the entire OpenGL framework. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
traft Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 Why buy a mac when it is now just a PC? You can run OSX via VMWare if you are hard-on about using that OS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deceive Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 If you're older, then sure play on your mac. You hipsters need to get with it. You're not artistic and no one will ever listen to your demo. With that being said, if you're a dad, I support mac support for the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brightblack Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 Yes, and saying "Bootcamp" is not helpful. While I WILL be using Bootcamp to load Windows and provide a Windows OS to play the game it's FAR from an ideal solution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kazegiri Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 I would love the option to play on Mac OS X. At home I have a PC for gaming, but at the office we're all Mac and my lunch breaks get mighty lonely. /signed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pencilvania Posted January 14, 2012 Author Share Posted January 14, 2012 Mac users are growing, but many of them are not running Mac OS on their machines. Every year there's an industry stat put out for what computers are using what OSes Mac OS was 5% last year Linux was 7% The rest was Windows with a few percentages lost to more obscure OSes All of your statements are incorrect. Most Mac users do not run Bootcamp. The cost and effort. The Mac was NOT 5% last year. Lunix is also NOT 7%. THIS IS NOT A BOOTCAMP THREAD. Please be so kind as to use the Bootcamp thread for those discussions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lethality Posted January 14, 2012 Share Posted January 14, 2012 Why buy a mac when it is now just a PC? You can run OSX via VMWare if you are hard-on about using that OS. No you can't. Not reliably, nor legally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Racquerr Posted January 14, 2012 Share Posted January 14, 2012 (edited) Do you support a Mac OS X client for SWTOR? This thread is for discussing support for an OS X client for Star Wars The Old Republic. Please keep comments related to that topic. This is not a Bootcamp thread. This is not a Mac Vs. PC thread. Unless the Linux guys get a Linux client as well: Nope Not that either will happen with the availability of dual-booting. It's too much effort for BW right now and their effort is honestly better directed toward other things right now as far as SWTOR is concerned.... Lets give the BSD guys a client too while we're at it. Edited January 14, 2012 by Racquerr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth_Grissom Posted January 14, 2012 Share Posted January 14, 2012 BW needs to make a mac client. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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