LeFrancoy

Just sayin'... Doesn’t it take a fanatic to call someone « fanatic »?
But I would rather say « enlightened » :¬)

Paid way too much?? I spent less then I would have on an AlienWare, and for superior server grade parts... I guess you could say that AlienWare owners are even more screwed than mac owners! :¬0

FL1P, if you really care for a thorough and honnest answer to that question, head over to the nearest Macstore and try a Mac for a few minutes. You’ve got nothing to lose and you will have an honnest, unbiased answer... But only if you’re not scared of liking the feel of it though :¬)


|TG| LeFrancoy
See you at the far flag.

Reaperassault

Well anyone who buys alienware is stupid, but everyone already knew that.

The true power of the PC is that it can be hand crafted for a good price all while offering the highest level of variety and the highest level of gaming.

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Zoraster

It's gotten to the point where the only real thing you need to do to turn a mid-range budget computer into a gaming computer is a few hundred dollars for more ram and a midrange graphics card. While that might not assure you have the system for years and years, it certainly doesn't require a purchase from alienware.

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|TG-Mth| Zoraster | .

FL1Pmode

@ LeFrancoy

My next-door neighbor in my first year of university on campus had a mac and he regularly dropped by to do his programming homework on my laptop because the programs were accessible only on a windows-based OS.

I got to use his macbook during his homework time and I still wasn't able to see what made it so special. Maybe I am biased because I used Windows all my life, but as someone who isn't involved in video or photo editing (supposedly Mac's strong points), I saw no immediate benefits over Windows-based PCs.

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LeFrancoy

Well my belief is always « stick with what you like ». And if you tried a Mac and prefer a PC/windows setup, than that’s what you should do!

To me the mac’s strong points are :
- Design and build
- OS (for reliability, rapidity and ease of use)
- Usable lifespan (ie. not as much bottlenecks as HP, Dell, etc.)

But then again, those exact same points might be analysed from another perspective and be considered weak points :¬)

And to me Windows strong point :
- More games

So of course as a gamer, a Windows system as it’s appeal and I understand that most of you would never use a Mac because of the tradeof that it would represent :¬)

LordKelvin

Really the only reason the Mac isn't a gaming platform is because software companies are lazy... In terms of hardware the machines are usually almost identical.

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Why MTG has lost any sense of balance:
Lotus Cobra

Zoraster

I doubt "lazy" is the right word. Perhaps financially prudent.

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|TG-Mth| Zoraster | .

YdoUwant2know

That may be true today, but even a couple of years ago that is really not the case. Up until Mac's switched over to the IBM (i.e. intel) chip-sets, they used a completely different kind of possessor. One that was specially created for the Mac computers. They also had their own kind of ram, and even their own kind of hard drives (ever hear of SCSI).

Combine that with a proprietary OS and the fact that Macs are still in the extreme minority of use (currently only about 7% of computer users and that is up huge from a few years ago) it really does not make a lot of sense to spend a lot of time or money developing for the platform. Combine that with the fact that the vast majority of Mac users are NOT gamers, (Yes I know you are an exception to this, but you are one out of a hell of a lot of people), and in the end, they really would just be throwing their money away making game for the Mac.

It has nothing to do with being lazy, it has everything to do with being smart, and not running their companies into the ground.

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"The only reason I team killed you is because I though you were already dead...
...Oh god, I just know that is going in someones signature" - Eroak

Lorax74

SCSI was and still is used by systems other than Macs. SCSI isn't proprietary, it's just expensive.

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LeFrancoy

I would add that I think that companies believe that porting a game is a world of pain because of the support...

I mean the port itself is not hard to do (it’s a Unix port for G’s sake). The marketing either (same manuals and boxes, you just have to change CTR key for CMD key and some other terms) and because millions of people walk into an Apple store every year (and Best Buys/Futureshop/what not) wich they already have in their distribution channel.

For them the pitfall is probably the support. They don’t have the guys to answer the phone when a mac user calls. They don’t have the teams to test/debug/patch/fix the games on the Mac/Unix platform. So what they do sometimes is that they hire an independent firm to do the port and voilà; a half hearted mac game is born. And for them it’s done, they don’t bother looking back.

But most companies don’t even go that far.

Blizzard entertainement being the exception...

LordKelvin

Yes, I do commend Blizzard for being thorough with their Mac port and support, at least for WoW. Made my life a lot easier.

And yes, Y, I know how it was a few years back... I was forced to concentrate on console gaming because no one made games for the Mac. The Motorola chipset it used wasn't inferior, it was just different and used by few. But now that the hardware and OS are more universal in nature, and Apple is gaining customers daily, I think these companies could reasonably invest in making Mac ports and supporting them.

As for Mac users not being gamers, thats a rather misinformed generalization, I think. I remember when the Mac 1.5 patch for BF2142 hadn't been released yet... Every day I got on there were still 20 or so servers still running 1.4 and every last one of them was filled to the brim with Mac users that couldn't play 1.5. And in my time playing WoW, I've met at least as many Mac users who play as Windows users.

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Why MTG has lost any sense of balance:
Lotus Cobra

ninkybob

Oh gods, Blizzard rocks in that respect. It's one of my favorite game companies.
I'd say Blizzard has won me over fully. Sucks to you, EA!

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Zoraster

keep a few things in mind: 1) you pay blizzard a monthly fee so they have every reason to update things on time. If they don't, they're going to lose a lot of money. For 2142 updates, if you don't get the update quickly, they lose... nothing. 2) they have a lot more players. I'd also suspect that mac users are more likely to play WoW than 2142, but I can't back that up.

It's really mostly a business decision. While Blizzard has made great games, I don't think their choice to make things mac compatible was out of the goodness of their hearts so much as it made sense financially to do so.

I highly doubt it made sense with NS.

Oh, and I highly doubt that WoW players are on macs.

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|TG-Mth| Zoraster | .

LordKelvin

Well actually I don't pay Blizzard a cent because I play on a private server... Its blizz-like but not run by Blizzard. Free software and no monthly fee = win.

Ofc, that does make my sample size smaller, but I don't doubt that there is a sizeable amount of Mac gamers.

However I do see your point, Zor... All I would add is that EA loses customers in the long run because they don't support and piss off their would-be Mac audience. I guess they don't care, but the only reason I play 2142 still is the existence of TG.

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Why MTG has lost any sense of balance:
Lotus Cobra

ninkybob

I don't play WoW. I don't pay a penny after I actually buy the game (and most of their games sell for extraordinarily low prices; I got WarIII for like 9$), but they still have support for me and my RTSs. Good show, I say!

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