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Do you support a Mac OS X client in Star Wars the Old Republic?


Pencilvania

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If the market were that large - large enough for the revenue for the port to overcome the cost of producing it - they would have already done it.

 

The hero engine does not support mac. Regardless of any other reasons. This is the most basic reason it does not exist.

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  • 1 year later...
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  • 2 months later...
I don´t play this beautiful game with bootcamp or parallel desktop! I am really angry about the situation, why they don´t offer the people who play this game with mac client! I spend a lot of time in this game and i play it since release! They promise us, that they want to bring it for us! But nothing! i am said about the situation, because they can do it, but they don´t. :(:(:(:(:(:(:(
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No, Apples star has reached it's peak, with Jobs gone there is no innovation, the big announcements are not big at all.

 

Plus people are starting to wake up and realize what a closed system it really is.

 

It would be crazy to invest millions in a new client.

Edited by Foambreaker
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Yes, I support anything that makes players happy to play games the way they prefer.

 

Some of these comments are crazy. What impact would a Mac client have on you Apple doomsayers? How would it impact your game at all? I've never understood this Mac vs Windows, iPhone vs Android etc. debate.

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Yes, I support anything that makes players happy to play games the way they prefer.

 

Some of these comments are crazy. What impact would a Mac client have on you Apple doomsayers? How would it impact your game at all? I've never understood this Mac vs Windows, iPhone vs Android etc. debate.

 

The impact it would have is a lot of developer hours burned to produce ZERO new content and features, and all to support a platform that's already workable if the player wants to make it work.

 

Stated more exactly, burning a ton of developer hours for a net zero benefit is not good for the game.

Edited by DarthTHC
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  • 2 weeks later...
Here is my belief. Currently, Windows is an all around stable platform ahead of Mac because of its presence in the business world and gaming world. Mac has its place because of the simplicity of upgrading operating systems and ease of use. If you play a lot of games, you should consider getting a Windows desktop, that can at least make 30 FPS in your favorite games. If you own a Windows desktop, you should consider getting a mac for everything besides gaming. My point is having both is what will provide you the best experience because they both have things they are good at. And if money is an issue then a 2012 Mac Mini may be the way to go, and you can get a $500 windows desktop that can run SWTOR on at least 30 FPS high graphics settings. I do support a Mac client only because I feel it is a smart move for BioWare because I won't deny many people buy Macs with an expectation of a great gaming experience. Edited by Gharith
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The impact it would have is a lot of developer hours burned to produce ZERO new content and features, and all to support a platform that's already workable if the player wants to make it work.

 

Stated more exactly, burning a ton of developer hours for a net zero benefit is not good for the game.

 

this

 

quite a few ways to run swtor on a mac already why waste , time , money or effort. Same could be said for linux/Unix , much larger base than mac users, but still plenty of ways to play. Whoever buys macs for gaming knows very little about computers in general, sowe are not going to be able to reason this one away xD, having more than one OS supported in client doubles the work into any update, patch or fix, it's bad for all of us and only good for a very tiny few

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  • 2 years later...
I doubt it would burn developer hours as there seem to be a team in EA/BioWare porting games over both SW: Knights of the Old Republic games have made the move this last year. It also seem that the other major developer houses (ie NCsoft, Blizzard, Trion) are providing Mac client as part of the PC platform. It make sense as you are able to generate more revenue. I think that while there will still be a Windows Vs Mac debate the days of developers only supporting one or the other are starting to disappear.
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I never support anything from or for a company solely living (and living well with obscene profit margins thanks to stupid customers) from clueless and superficial morons like Apple. Not in this life. 😊 Edited by Khaleg
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Not sure there is enough demand. Plus they would have to re-write the game engine in OpenGL which isn't likely to happen for a long time.

 

Not if you run the game in a wrapper. A full rewrite of an engine is not going to happen, however, there are third party companies who can make the game work on a Mac and provide the support.

 

I don't have a Mac anymore, but I used to have an iMac back when SW:TOR was released. By my experience in other games... it was possible to run Warhammer Online under Mac OS X in a Cider Wrapper, it didn't perform as well as under Windows 7, but it did work. On a resolution of 2560x1440 which was way above the norm back then. By now computers have vastly improved, no one would use a stone age Mac like I had back then anymore. It should be possible to run SW:TOR in a Cider wrapper with decent performance. You won't be able to use max settings, but good settings.

 

I am puzzled why EA decided against it (I suppose that wasn't a Bioware decision), just hand the game to a third party company that does the magic and maintains it on a Mac. It won't be glorious in terms of revenue, but I am certain they'd earn more than they pay.

 

(Looks like I got caught in necromancy and stepped into a necro thread.)

Edited by Rabenschwinge
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I think they have way more important things to do than worry about developing a native client for an audience who (if they actually want to play the game) are already playing on bootcamp.

 

Would a native Mac client uncover some huge untapped market for the game? No, all it would achieve is making life a little easier for the existing bootcamp using Mac playerbase., so there is no ROI for the money and time spent developing and supporting two distinct code bases for a game already faltering in popularity on the platform it was built. for.

 

TL : DR - No.

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  • 4 weeks later...
Interesting to note the Hero engine is used in ESO and it support Mac fine. So it might just need to be upgraded to the newest version of the engine thus saving developer hours from having to switch to another game engine.
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Interesting to note the Hero engine is used in ESO and it support Mac fine. So it might just need to be upgraded to the newest version of the engine thus saving developer hours from having to switch to another game engine.

 

SWTOR used an early beta version of the hero engine that they then basically rewrote/hacked to bits.

 

You cant 'upgrade' it, it is a completely discrete piece of software now.

 

(Same is true of ESO afaik, but they prototyped the game in HeroEngine then re-wrote it for the release client)

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Interesting to note the Hero engine is used in ESO and it support Mac fine. So it might just need to be upgraded to the newest version of the engine thus saving developer hours from having to switch to another game engine.

 

The issue is Bioware licenced a beta version of Hero that they then highly modified beyond what full versions of the engine supported at the time.

The engine was changed so much that it's not covered under any Hero update or support, so they can't even ask Hero for help.

It's these changes that have caused all the problems with lag, bugs and the ability to add certain features since launch when most of the coders left Bioware. The Dev team are still trying to decipher some of what those coders have done.

When people say the engine can't handle it, they aren't talking about a full version of Hero, they are talking about this beta, customised, abortion version of Hero.

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The Hero Engine has nothing to do with why there isn't a Mac client.

 

Typically the mac gaming market is signicantly smaller then Windows at the the time SWTOR was developed I believe Blizzards said 4% of their players used a Mac.

 

That's a huge disparity and while it has surely increased it is just not worth the Devs time to create a Mac client when they have Boot camp and other ways to run the game currently.

 

You have to consider what do they really gain by deving a Mac client at this point in SWTORs life cycle?

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The Hero Engine has nothing to do with why there isn't a Mac client.

 

Typically the mac gaming market is signicantly smaller then Windows at the the time SWTOR was developed I believe Blizzards said 4% of their players used a Mac.

 

That's a huge disparity and while it has surely increased it is just not worth the Devs time to create a Mac client when they have Boot camp and other ways to run the game currently.

 

You have to consider what do they really gain by deving a Mac client at this point in SWTORs life cycle?

 

We understand why they didn't do one. But you are missing what some of us are saying. They couldn't do it even if they wanted to because of what they did to the engine and the fact that a lot of the coding still isn't decipherable.

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The Hero Engine has nothing to do with why there isn't a Mac client.

 

Typically the mac gaming market is signicantly smaller then Windows at the the time SWTOR was developed I believe Blizzards said 4% of their players used a Mac.

 

That's a huge disparity and while it has surely increased it is just not worth the Devs time to create a Mac client when they have Boot camp and other ways to run the game currently.

 

You have to consider what do they really gain by deving a Mac client at this point in SWTORs life cycle?

 

^^^^^

 

With Bootcamp it's easy peasy to run any game. You can even use the Bootcamp in a VM, for regular Windows work. Then you want to game, reboot into Windows native.

 

I play Skyrim, this game (SWTOR), and a few others on Bootcamp WIndows 10 all the time. On my MBP.

 

I don't need a "native" mac client.

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