Holy Bovine
First Post
breschau said:
Hey that's me!
A PC owner.
Why does WotC hate Macs?
- Thread starter breschau
- Start date
Hey that's me!
A PC owner.
JVisgaitis
Explorer
small pumpkin man said:
I've never had any memory issues with Firefox. The thing I hate with Firefox and tabs is it fully loads all of the websites so if you open a bunch of tabs that use Flash for instance, they all load the intros and the music starts playing. The nice thing about Safari is it won't actually start Flash until you switch to that tab. I wish Firefox had that feature.
Let's separate out two things.
Writing a game, or really anything involving 3-D graphics, is tricky to do cross-platform. Blizzard is the only big game company that consistently puts out their titles on both Windows and OS X, without farming the work out to a porting company. And they have many years of experience doing it, and their core business is software. WotC's core business is *not* software. So I'm not surprised at all that they would focus on Windows. Just releasing the software at all is a big risk for them.
But then there's the forums, which is a whole different story. Not supporting Firefox and Safari is an indication that their web designers are Very Unsmart. Yes, there are fancy Javascript sites out there, like webmail, calendars, maps, and so on, and these can be tricky to get to work cross-browser. That can take expensive testing and expensive people. But any "professional" who can't get a frickin' forum to work in Safari, in 2008 no less, is essentially getting paid for feeding BS to their bosses, not for doing any actual useful work.
Writing a game, or really anything involving 3-D graphics, is tricky to do cross-platform. Blizzard is the only big game company that consistently puts out their titles on both Windows and OS X, without farming the work out to a porting company. And they have many years of experience doing it, and their core business is software. WotC's core business is *not* software. So I'm not surprised at all that they would focus on Windows. Just releasing the software at all is a big risk for them.
But then there's the forums, which is a whole different story. Not supporting Firefox and Safari is an indication that their web designers are Very Unsmart. Yes, there are fancy Javascript sites out there, like webmail, calendars, maps, and so on, and these can be tricky to get to work cross-browser. That can take expensive testing and expensive people. But any "professional" who can't get a frickin' forum to work in Safari, in 2008 no less, is essentially getting paid for feeding BS to their bosses, not for doing any actual useful work.
jon_m
First Post
TransGaming Cider
I know I would certainly love to see 100% Mac compatibility with all of the DDI material---as would the rest of Hollywood. How about using TransGaming's Cider? It's not a perfect solution.---it only supports Intel Macs---but it's a start.
Lots of "creative" industries are highly Mac-based. That's a good market to support. There have been many articles about how there is greater and greater Mac penetration into colleges over the last several years. That's another good market.
Jon
I know I would certainly love to see 100% Mac compatibility with all of the DDI material---as would the rest of Hollywood.
How about using TransGaming's Cider? It's not a perfect solution.---it only supports Intel Macs---but it's a start. Lots of "creative" industries are highly Mac-based. That's a good market to support. There have been many articles about how there is greater and greater Mac penetration into colleges over the last several years. That's another good market.
Jon
Mutter mutter gleemax wouldn't load for me mutter mutter and neither would the rest of the internet mutter mutter AirPort Security Update my grandmother mutter mutter.
Add me to the chorus of voices that's entirely unsurprised to see that a book-publishing company elected to write a 3-d graphics intensive application for the OS that makes it relatively easy to write said application.
Yes, they could indeed write it on OpenGL. Because that's not fraught with technological mishap waiting to happen. ActiveX really does let you develop your app without caring about system configuration -- OpenGL development has been, in my experience, the death of a thousand configurations.
Yes, they could write it twice, once on Aqua (Carbon?) and once on ActiveX. Pay twice as much now and wait twice as long now, please. And bugs.
Yes, they could make public the communication protocol so that the community could provide their own port of the -- say, wait a minute!
(not gonna happen -- removes the ability to monetize it since you could rewrite the backend and use the table without paying them, given the protocols. Poof, there goes all their money for programming the darn thing, not to mention immediate vaporization of 3-d modeling investments!)
Add me to the chorus of voices that's entirely unsurprised to see that a book-publishing company elected to write a 3-d graphics intensive application for the OS that makes it relatively easy to write said application.
Yes, they could indeed write it on OpenGL. Because that's not fraught with technological mishap waiting to happen. ActiveX really does let you develop your app without caring about system configuration -- OpenGL development has been, in my experience, the death of a thousand configurations.
Yes, they could write it twice, once on Aqua (Carbon?) and once on ActiveX. Pay twice as much now and wait twice as long now, please. And bugs.
Yes, they could make public the communication protocol so that the community could provide their own port of the -- say, wait a minute!
(not gonna happen -- removes the ability to monetize it since you could rewrite the backend and use the table without paying them, given the protocols. Poof, there goes all their money for programming the darn thing, not to mention immediate vaporization of 3-d modeling investments!)
Moon-Lancer
First Post
JVisgaitis said:
color managed icc profiles for jpgs... yeah sexy. Thats the only thing I want from firefox. Its said to be added in v3
Last edited:
Macs comprise 10% of the market. Macs are able to run Windows via Boot Camp or Parallels. WotC looks to be using DirectX for their software. DirectX doesn't work on OSX.
It's really, really hard to justify the cost of porting to Macs, especially for a non-software company. It's simple numbers. Blizzard Entertainment is the only gaming company that does it on a regular basis, but they're rolling in cash.
Remember that DDI is a largely unproven venture. It may fail spectacularly. I suggest that starting with Windows and only porting to Mac if it is successful may be a more prudent strategy.
A larger issue may be that WotC appears to be targetting DirectX 8 (shaders) at a minimum. This is going to cause a number of problems in the PC market, as many integrated video cards (especially in lower end desktops and laptops) will not be able to handle it.
It's really, really hard to justify the cost of porting to Macs, especially for a non-software company. It's simple numbers. Blizzard Entertainment is the only gaming company that does it on a regular basis, but they're rolling in cash.
Remember that DDI is a largely unproven venture. It may fail spectacularly. I suggest that starting with Windows and only porting to Mac if it is successful may be a more prudent strategy.
A larger issue may be that WotC appears to be targetting DirectX 8 (shaders) at a minimum. This is going to cause a number of problems in the PC market, as many integrated video cards (especially in lower end desktops and laptops) will not be able to handle it.
Rumour has it that Mearl's Great Grandfather was slain by rampaging Macs during a big game hunting expedition. He still carries a grudge.
Macs are also known to eat the last cookie you've been saving, and always insist on cuddling when you really just want to get some sleep.
Under the circumstances, I can't really blame them for the decision.
