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


Pencilvania

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Mac users are grossly overstating the actual number of mac gamers vs pc gamers.

 

Trust me on this - Mac users are the 1%ers.

 

You are a HUGE minority - and from a monetary standpoint it is not worth it.

 

Macs are almost 10% of all Steam gamers. Where did you get your 1% from?

Edited by Notannos
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I'm sorry, this thread is ridiculous.

 

Mac users will be the first to tell you how much better desktop graphic design, video editing, etc are so fabulous on a mac, but explain why their platform is inadequate for gaming and they get all indignant. Macs don't do games or Flash. Whether you agree with this or not is irrelevant, it's just how things are.

 

All the mac supporters can do is cite Apple stock and growing marketshare (not in desktop pc's btw guys) and whine about no support when there's already a software solution for them.

 

It's this simple: there are technical hurdles for native mac support. A publicly-held company (EA) no doubt did some kind of analysis to determine if developing that native support would yield an appreciable profit over the costs involved. Since they announced that there will be no mac support, we can assume the analysis didn't show a big enough number.

 

It's not like you can't play the game, because you can. The sooner mac users embrace the fact that their platform doesn't have widespread support for gaming, the sooner you can calm down and just enjoy the game. Since your computer is so much more awesome than a PC, swtor runs great, right?

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Before my subscription runs out and I can still post, I figured a response to this mindless drivel is in order.

 

I'm sorry, this thread is ridiculous.

 

Firstly, this thread is not only relevant, it has been sanctioned by BioWare as the place to discuss this topic. Additionally, co-founder Greg Zeschuk is on record in a recent interview that they fully intend to support the Mac audience soon.

 

Mac users will be the first to tell you how much better desktop graphic design, video editing, etc are so fabulous on a mac, but explain why their platform is inadequate for gaming and they get all indignant. Macs don't do games or Flash. Whether you agree with this or not is irrelevant, it's just how things are.

 

Macs don't do games or Flash? Hmm... I better tell my all-Mac team of Flash game developers. Honestly I almost stopped reading right there, your statement is so ignorant.

 

All the mac supporters can do is cite Apple stock and growing marketshare (not in desktop pc's btw guys) and whine about no support when there's already a software solution for them.

 

Huh? Apple market share isn't growing? You may want to check again. Up domestically 600% since 2002. Some numbers have it as high as 25% of retail computer purchases in the US being Macs. World-wide actual market share is closer to 10-12%. And growing FAST.

 

It's this simple: there are technical hurdles for native mac support. A publicly-held company (EA) no doubt did some kind of analysis to determine if developing that native support would yield an appreciable profit over the costs involved. Since they announced that there will be no mac support, we can assume the analysis didn't show a big enough number.

 

Any technical hurdles at this point are self-imposed by BioWare. If they planned cross-platfom as they should have from the start - like the big boys Blizzard and Valve and id - it wouldn't be an issue.

 

And in case you missed it, it's quite clear BioWare is coming out with a Mac version of TOR though yet unannounced officially.

 

It's not like you can't play the game, because you can. The sooner mac users embrace the fact that their platform doesn't have widespread support for gaming, the sooner you can calm down and just enjoy the game. Since your computer is so much more awesome than a PC, swtor runs great, right?

 

We can't play the game. The computer I brought home from the store - my Mac - does not run Star Wars: The Old Republic. Fact, and period.

 

The Mac does have widespread support for gaming, and at the very least, the leading competitor - World of Warcraft - is standing right there to take our money. Millions of Mac users, untapped by BioWare.

Edited by Lethality
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Any technical hurdles at this point are self-imposed by BioWare. If they planned cross-platfom as they should have from the start - like the big boys Blizzard and Valve and id - it wouldn't be an issue.

 

I have to disagree with you on this one. I guess the technical hurdles are not self-imposed by BW. It's the Hero Engine that doesn't support openGL but the engine developers said it will later this year (around October, I think). I'm pretty sure that as soon as that version of the engine comes out BW will test it and make the needed additional development to roll out the Mac version. The down side of buying/licensing a 3rd party engine are its own limitations. Also, if they decided to develop the engine in house, I think the game wouldn't be live by now.

 

Check the Hero Engine roadmap here http://hewiki.heroengine.com/wiki/HeroEngine_Roadmap

 

(edited to include link and typo fixes)

Edited by BrunoLogan
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I have to disagree with you on this one. I guess the technical hurdles are not self-imposed by BW. It's the Hero Engine that doesn't support openGL but the engine developers said it will later this year (around October, I think). I'm pretty sure that as soon as that version of the engine comes out BW will test it and make the needed additional development to roll out the Mac version. The down side of buying/licensing a 3rd party engine are it's own limitations. Also, if they decided to develop the engine in house, I think the game wouldn't be live by now.

 

Check the Hero Engine roadmap here http://hewiki.heroengine.com/wiki/HeroEngine_Roadmap

 

Still self-imposed - they selected the engine instead of a cross-platform solution or building their own (again as Blizzard, Valve and id and others have done.) The Unreal engine is out there, for example, at the very least.

 

BioWare hasn't for a long time been taking code drops from HeroEngine - years, in fact. They are separate products now, I've heard it referred to as the BioWare Engine now since it's so customized. It's highly unlikely that anything on the roadmap of the HeroEngine is going to be plug-n-play with what BioWare has done...

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Still self-imposed - they selected the engine instead of a cross-platform solution or building their own (again as Blizzard, Valve and id and others have done.) The Unreal engine is out there, for example, at the very least.

 

BioWare hasn't for a long time been taking code drops from HeroEngine - years, in fact. They are separate products now, I've heard it referred to as the BioWare Engine now since it's so customized. It's highly unlikely that anything on the roadmap of the HeroEngine is going to be plug-n-play with what BioWare has done...

 

I believe that at renderer level the integration shouldn't be that hard. However, I don't know if BW did any changes at the renderer level. I'm assuming they didn't. Also the Hero Engine is target at MMOs. Unreal Engine would require much more work to put a MMO running on top of it. Again, this is what I think with the info I have.

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Macs are almost 10% of all Steam gamers. Where did you get your 1% from?

 

That's great and all but...

 

Originally Posted by StephenReid

There are no current development efforts to create a Mac OS client for Star Wars: The Old Republic (or indeed, for any other operating system or platform).

 

No-one here hates Macs (in fact, many of us quite like them :)) but development efforts are currently focused on expanding and improving the game for PC/Windows.

Edited by Notannos
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That's great and all but...

 

That's great and all but...

 

Don't make assumptions, please.

 

I said we're not currently working on a Mac client. That doesn't rule out the possibility of a Mac client in the future; as various interviews have stated, it's always possible.

 

However, currently, there are no development efforts directed towards a Mac client. Unless it's being done in an underground bunker far from here by stealth-suited developers.

 

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/01/02/bioware-mac-version-of-star-wars-the-old-republic-is-something/

Edited by Lethality
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I may need a de-mystify, what's wrong running swtor (including other games) in bootcamp?

 

And if/ when the MAC vers. comes, are you guys willing to pay more? since it does requires more resources & time allocation devoted to its creation?

Edited by pangwl
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I may need a de-mystify, what's wrong running swtor (including other games) in bootcamp?

 

And if/ when the MAC vers. comes, are you guys willing to pay more? since it does requires more resources & time allocation devoted to its creation?

 

Boot Camp doesn't run TOR. You have to buy Windows at significant extra cost, install and maintain it, and reboot to play.

 

And why on earth would anyone pay more?

Edited by Lethality
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Boot Camp doesn't run TOR. You have to buy Windows at significant extra cost, install and maintain it, and reboot to play.

 

And why on earth would anyone pay more?

 

Thanks, but.. think carefully and reflect how you had just answered. And take the standpoint of BW/ the devs.

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Thanks, but.. think carefully and reflect how you had just answered. And take the standpoint of BW/ the devs.

 

Thanks, but... think carefully and reflect on what you just said. And take the standpoint of the Mac owners. Who are already supported by other companies, including Blizzard.

 

And will be by BioWare, if you haven't been paying attention.

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Thanks, but... think carefully and reflect on what you just said. And take the standpoint of the Mac owners. Who are already supported by other companies, including Blizzard.

 

And will be by BioWare, if you haven't been paying attention.

 

Indeed, I havent been paying attention, so when exactly will swtor's mac client be released?

Edited by pangwl
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Absolutely false. Apple machines contain the same hardware a pc machine does. There is nothing that makes windows 7 run better in an apple machine. However, I chose not to use that garbage foxconn communist slave produced motherboard apple uses.

 

As opposed to the re-branded foxconn communist slave produced motherboard you actually do own?

 

And if it's not made by Foxconn it's pretty much guaranteed that some of its components are, as well as other components in your PC.

 

:rolleyes:

 

EDIT: and I take you don't own anything by any of these manufacturers?

 

Acer Inc. (Taiwan)[32]

Amazon.com (United States)[33]

Apple Inc. (United States)[34]

Cisco (United States)[35]

Dell (United States)[36]

Hewlett-Packard (United States)[37]

Intel (United States)[38]

Microsoft (United States)[39]

Motorola Mobility (United States)[36]

Nintendo (Japan)[40]

Nokia (Finland)[34]

Samsung Electronics (South Korea)[41]

Sony (Japan)[42]

Toshiba (Japan) [43]

Vizio (United States)[44]

(source)

 

All are Foxconn customers. :rolleyes:

Edited by iain_b
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Thanks, but... think carefully and reflect on what you just said. And take the standpoint of the Mac owners. Who are already supported by other companies, including Blizzard.

 

And will be by BioWare, if you haven't been paying attention.

 

I guess that's one way to interpret Stephen Reid's post. :rolleyes:

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Thanks, but... think carefully and reflect on what you just said. And take the standpoint of the Mac owners. Who are already supported by other companies, including Blizzard.

 

And will be by BioWare, if you haven't been paying attention.

 

Instead of responding segment by segment to your astounding sense of entitlement, i'll just respond to the above.

 

Are you both a game developer and a financial analyst with F500 company experience for either position? I doubt it. The people paid to do the research on the REALIZED TECHNICAL AND FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY of a native Mac port have done so, and they didn't think it added up to big dollars. You can stamp your feet and argue with other unqualified neckbeards who also aren't F500 company developers or analysts, why you think a publicly traded company should lose money and man-hours on your behalf, but it won't translate into real world results.

 

If your next predictable response is "I am in fact a big time developer with over 9000 projects experience for the largest companies on earth," then I encourage you to instead of spending energy on these forums, you email your analysis to those ivy school grads at EA. Let us know how that goes.

 

Why there's this special snowflake sense among mac gamers is beyond me. As a (theoretically) informed consumer, you make a choice on platforms, and their true capabilities. Mac is not a well-supported gaming platform. Period. Bioware doesn't care that blizzard supports Mac. They care about revenue. That's also why Blizzard did a port, they had a large enough playerbase and handle on the technical issues for it to make sense. Revenue.

 

Also, what would your dead patron Saint Jobs think of your "team" developing in Flash instead of html5? Shameful.

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Instead of responding segment by segment to your astounding sense of entitlement, i'll just respond to the above.

 

Are you both a game developer and a financial analyst with F500 company experience for either position? I doubt it. The people paid to do the research on the REALIZED TECHNICAL AND FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY of a native Mac port have done so, and they didn't think it added up to big dollars. You can stamp your feet and argue with other unqualified neckbeards who also aren't F500 company developers or analysts, why you think a publicly traded company should lose money and man-hours on your behalf, but it won't translate into real world results.

 

If your next predictable response is "I am in fact a big time developer with over 9000 projects experience for the largest companies on earth," then I encourage you to instead of spending energy on these forums, you email your analysis to those ivy school grads at EA. Let us know how that goes.

 

Why there's this special snowflake sense among mac gamers is beyond me. As a (theoretically) informed consumer, you make a choice on platforms, and their true capabilities. Mac is not a well-supported gaming platform. Period. Bioware doesn't care that blizzard supports Mac. They care about revenue. That's also why Blizzard did a port, they had a large enough playerbase and handle on the technical issues for it to make sense. Revenue.

 

Also, what would your dead patron Saint Jobs think of your "team" developing in Flash instead of html5? Shameful.

 

Thank you. You actually did him a favor and interpreted my reply to him earlier, which I'll quote again below. Futhermore, that's exactly the reason why I asked if the mac users community would pay extra to get swtor in Mac client (if BW decide to charge them more.) But, he replied with a "why on earth people need to pay extra for it." I don't understand his logic, and really beats me. You pay the extra dime for being special and unique.

 

Thanks, but.. think carefully and reflect how you had just answered. And take the standpoint of BW/ the devs.

 

@ Lethality: And again, let me emphasize, I'm not saying BW shouldn't do it or what not, but realistically, it's not feasibly good enough profit margin to do it.

Edited by pangwl
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Bioware doesn't care that blizzard supports Mac. They care about revenue. That's also why Blizzard did a port, they had a large enough playerbase and handle on the technical issues for it to make sense. Revenue.

 

Every Blizzard game you buy works on both Mac and PC and you can even copy the game folder from your Windows PC to your Mac and it will work without any updating.

 

They develop all their games from the ground up to work on both Mac and PC. That's not a port.

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Instead of responding segment by segment to your astounding sense of entitlement, i'll just respond to the above.

 

Are you both a game developer and a financial analyst with F500 company experience for either position? I doubt it. The people paid to do the research on the REALIZED TECHNICAL AND FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY of a native Mac port have done so, and they didn't think it added up to big dollars. You can stamp your feet and argue with other unqualified neckbeards who also aren't F500 company developers or analysts, why you think a publicly traded company should lose money and man-hours on your behalf, but it won't translate into real world results.

 

If your next predictable response is "I am in fact a big time developer with over 9000 projects experience for the largest companies on earth," then I encourage you to instead of spending energy on these forums, you email your analysis to those ivy school grads at EA. Let us know how that goes.

 

Why there's this special snowflake sense among mac gamers is beyond me. As a (theoretically) informed consumer, you make a choice on platforms, and their true capabilities. Mac is not a well-supported gaming platform. Period. Bioware doesn't care that blizzard supports Mac. They care about revenue. That's also why Blizzard did a port, they had a large enough playerbase and handle on the technical issues for it to make sense. Revenue.

 

Also, what would your dead patron Saint Jobs think of your "team" developing in Flash instead of html5? Shameful.

 

Thank you. You actually did him a favor and interpreted my reply to him earlier, which I'll quote again below. Futhermore, that's exactly the reason why I asked if the mac users community would pay extra to get swtor in Mac client (if BW decide to charge them more.) But, he replied with a "why on earth people need to pay extra for it." I don't understand his logic, and really beats me. You pay the extra dime for being special and unique.

 

@ Lethality: And again, let me emphasize, I'm not saying BW shouldn't do it or what not, but realistically, it's not feasibly good enough profit margin to do it.

 

However most of what was said above presumes that it's strictly a financial decision and I think it's been somewhat established that the biggest reason is due to limitations of the engine itself.

 

As further evidence of that, EA traditionally releases many of their most popular games for both MacOS and Windows. That includes the hugely-successful Sims franchise. With the original Sims and Sims 2, they were ported. With Sims 3 however, both versions for the base game as well as each and every expansion and enhancement pack have been released simultaneously (the most recent expansion came out 10 days ago). I find it unlikely that they'd follow one method in the instance of TOR and do the reverse in many other cases. Especially given that there is already a precedence set and some solid numbers on the size of the audience.

 

Anyway, it's pretty much been stated that there will likely be a Mac client in the future. Would it cost more for Mac users to purchase it? Highly doubtful. The client would be delivered via the same mechanism--i.e. both versions would be on the same physical media as has been the norm for a number of companies, EA included.

 

I'm going to throw one other thing out there, is anyone who's been speaking for or against actually done any real coding for games that run under both platforms? Do you even know what's actually involved and how much "new" is even necessary?

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