feel alittle sorry for the mac users...

[Ctuchik]

aparently there wont be a MAC release of this game.

Folks,

WAR on the Mac is not a likely scenario for the following reasons:

1) WAR's client is being built on a PC-based rendering engine that has not been ported to run under a Mac's native OS. The cost of porting that engine would be quite high, difficult and potentially a nightmare for us going forward. If we don't have a native version of the game, we would have to rely on Cider,

2) if we have to rely on Cider, then there *might* be a performance hit from using it. How much that hit is, we can't say but there might be a hit. We know more as development and release of other EA titles occur. We will be in touch with the guys at Dice and we will be able to get the full scoop from them on the impact of using Cider. If we have to rely on Cider and take a performance hit,

3) Then the graphics chipset on the Mac would have to be at least equivalent to what our specs are for the PC version. That is not the case with most Macs and certainly would not be the case when we release WAR. The most likely result would be that performance on the game would be significantly worse than on a PC and we won't do that and,

4) As we continue to expand WAR after release, we will do what we did with DAoC, continue to raise the specs for the game as hardware improves (while keeping backwards compatibility for a long-time). If we do so, it is unlikely that the Macs will keep up in terms of graphics hardware and that would mean that Mac users/version would be way behind the PC users. From what I've read on the web, using Cider means that PowerPC Macs or any Mac that isn't an Intel Mac won't be able to run the games at all so Macs that are a year or two older won't be able to run it. This decreases the potential market size for this game significantly as well.

so u best go get urself a real PC

 

[SkarIronfist]

Not really sympathic. You know when you buy a mac, you are entering a very restricted games market.

If they can afford a mac, then a games console would be a good addition.

 

[Ogrelin Blodig]

Bha, I hate MAC! buy a PC

 

[Manisch Depressiv]

Sigh.

Poor excuses, hail to the companies releasing Linux/Mac/Windows versions of their games at realse who are MUCH smaller than EA.

 

[SkarIronfist]

Manisch,

You have to remember that the engine that is used for DAOC and Warhammer is a bought in engine, they don't write it themselves. So if that doesn't support Mac, then there its something that Gamebyro engine has to address.

Also given Mythic experience with Gamebyro engine, it is unlikely unless there was major shortcomings with it, that they would swap it out. This isn't a situation where you would want to swap in Unreal Engine 3 or the Doom 3 engine.

Ultimately the Mac market is relatively small.

This post from Mark Jacobs, explains it better than I could.

EA, Apple and WAR - Warhammer Forums

Ultimately its all about numbers versus effort required. As he points out, Blizzard have had alot of experience with the Mac.

 

[Manisch Depressiv]

Manisch,

You have to remember that the engine that is used for DAOC and Warhammer is a bought in engine, they don't write it themselves. So if that doesn't support Mac, then there its something that Gamebyro engine has to address.

Also given Mythic experience with Gamebyro engine, it is unlikely unless there was major shortcomings with it, that they would swap it out. This isn't a situation where you would want to swap in Unreal Engine 3 or the Doom 3 engine.

Ultimately the Mac market is relatively small.

This post from Mark Jacobs, explains it better than I could.

EA, Apple and WAR - Warhammer Forums

Ultimately its all about numbers versus effort required. As he points out, Blizzard have had alot of experience with the Mac.

It's all about the rendering target in the end. DirectX or OpenGL, it shouldn't be so hard to write an OpenGL backend for an existing 3D engine if it only supports DirectX. I've only looked roughly over both APIs, but properly programmed engines should be abstract enough to allow this. Multi-platform engines exist, some of them are even for free and professional.

The tools to make the games are available on every platform.

His arguments are as valid as mine are. He is running the game, I am a customer, we have different point of views.

Mark's argument are a bit shortsighted though if you ask me, if the game is supposed to run for years they might lose some of the pie's share as long as more companies start to provide MacOS and Linux versions.

I suppose that a lot of MacOS and Linux users are running a Windows just for playing, if those would stop, and I don't stop it myself for now, to do so, maybe those companies only supporting Windows would reconsider if it's worth the effort.

 

[GReaper]

We're talking about the same company which took months to become more compatible with Vista, even though they could've tested it on beta versions long before then. (They should never have been saving files in the game directory in the first place, but this is getting off topic).

I've been trying to find some very tough figures to see if it's possibly worthwhile for Mythic to bother with a port. Some random news suggests a 4.8% market share of Q2 2007 US sales. If WAR gets 1 million subscribers (seems viable considering what WoW has achieved) and that just 1 in 100 uses a Mac then that would be 10,000 players. 10,000 people paying $15/month would be $150,000/month revenue, $1.8m/year.

Are these figures even vaguely accurate? I'd say the only company who can tell us that would be Blizzard, they have 8 million subscribers and could tell us exactly what percentage of their players use Macs.

 

[SkarIronfist]

Gents

But it would be the gamebyro people who would have to write the support for openGL. You could change the bespoke engine if you choose, however the problem is not so much changing the engine now, but if at a later date you want to take an engine upgrade from them (Gamebyro). This is where the real work happens, since any changes you have made to the game have to be rolled back into the new version of the software.

I have done this on commercial software a few times over the last 20 years and it can be a massive job. The more you bespoke the software, the more work you give yourself the next time the next point release comes along. Now an engine upgrade is more than likely to happen to an MMORPG that it would be for something like Quake 4 etc, since there product life cycle is different. Its not a simple job of "diff" the code bases and applying the changes, since then you have to analyses the impact of the newer engine code on the bespoke code etc etc etc.

You could sense the depression in the team when they knew there was a code base upgrade coming.

Unfortunately 4% of X is not that much when you have no idea what X is going to be and you certainly if don't have any experience of developing for a MAC. You have to take into account that War has a big team .... a very big team. If you are going for a deadline, and you find that missing the deadine by say 3 months, because of providing mac support, then your cost justification for providing that support is not that much.

Just a couple of my thoughts on the joys of software development