Any Mac gamers out there (RANT)
#1
/rant on

And people wonder why I like Blizzard. At least with Blizzard I know if I buy the game, I can play with the PC users of the game, and will get the same patches, same editors, i.e. a level playing field for the money I spend.

On the other side of things, take Civ 3. The Mac version is at this time stuck one patchlevel behind the PC version, and no PTW expansion is planned, last I knew. And, the editor the Mac users waitied a year for is BUGGY!. I won't be buying from that company again, I assure you. There went 35 or 40 wasted dollars. I thought I'd be able to play with the RBD bunch? Hah! Every time I'd get patch parity with them, a few months after their patch, they'd get another! Now they say we won't get any more. What a bunch of crap!

We were also told by a programmer from a porting company that most companies don't patch games after the first year or so. Too expensive. Guess I've been playing Blizz games too long, and didn't know that. And the other game I play a lot, Harpoon 3, is still gettting patched all the time.

/rant

I just had to vent that. Anyone want to commiserate?
Oh, and PC/Mac flames can skip it. I have my opinions, you have yours. Leave it at that. I'm venting on *support* of Mac games versus their PC versions. And don't think that I don't know anything about PCs/Windows/networks. I'm a network admin, supporting 1000+ networked PCs, with the help of one other person. I keep PCs going for a living. I have a Mac at home. Anyway, keep on the subject at hand, and let's hear some ranting.
--Mav
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#2
I spent 5 years dealing with limited releasesmited support that companies give to their Apple versions. Diablo was the first company (and situation) where I found myself on a more or less even-keel for support and overall "glad to have you onboard" feelings.

Alas... even with the minor delay that the Mac version of D2 suffered vs. the PC release... I'd had enough.

I fell to the Dark Side.

*shrugs*

*pats his Dell laptop*
Garnered Wisdom --

If it has more than four legs, kill it immediately.
Never hesitate to put another bullet into the skull of the movie's main villain; it'll save time on the denouement.
Eight hours per day of children's TV programming can reduce a grown man to tears -- PM me for details.
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#3
I feel for you. I'm on my 6th, 7th, and 8th Mac. I hadn't realized things were so bad with Civ 3, as it didn't catch my fancy as much as Civ 2.

A little off topic, but I did talk to Richard Garriott about putting out games for the Mac. He's quite fond of the Mac platform, but at the time (he said) it was just not economically feasible to port to the Mac. I suppose times have changed, as he's got an OS X version of Lineage out now. And if porting a game in the first place is uneconomic, aftermarket support no doubt gets left hanging. I just wish that if companies are going to go to the trouble of porting, that they make a commitment to support the platform in a reasaonable and timely manner.

Oh, and Mav, I know all about going to the Dark Side. I do Windows programming for my living.
At first I thought, "Mind control satellites? No way!" But now I can't remember how we lived without them.
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WoW PC's of significance
Vaimadarsa Pavis Hykim Jakaleel Odayla Odayla
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#4
Yes. In my job, Windows = Job Security. The clients are Windows. The servers are not.

Oh, and Nicodemus: If you're going to buy a Windows laptop, at least you picked the right one. Dell does the best Wintel laptops.
--Mav
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