When will Character Builder be formatted for Mac?
When Microsoft makes .Net 3.5 work on Mac.
So... not soon.
Mac has a 10% market share. And most Mac users know how to run Windows apps on their machines. I access my character builder from a Mac at work (the workstation PC I normally use leaves too long of a vapor trail to use it for this kind of personal stuff). Works just fine.
Given limited resources, the "Windows-only" approach is still the wisest.
(Disclaimer: I access the character builder using WINE on my Linux machine at home.)
About the same time the millions of other much higher D&DI priorities are addressed.
Mac has a 10% market share. And most Mac users know how to run Windows apps on their machines. I access my character builder from a Mac at work (the workstation PC I normally use leaves too long of a vapor trail to use it for this kind of personal stuff). Works just fine.
Given limited resources, the "Windows-only" approach is still the wisest.
(Disclaimer: I access the character builder using WINE on my Linux machine at home.)
It's accelerating. They have gone from 4% to 10% in a matter of a few years. Meanwhile, Windows has dropped to 88% in that same time and continues to decline. Windows may not be going anywhere but their best days are far behind them and a smart company would take steps to use technology that lends itself to being used cross-platform. What WotC has done is to put themselves into a position where if it turns out that they feel that it is worthwhile to supports Macs, they have to do a total re-write. Which of course they aren't going to do.
All of this doesn't even take into the account demographics. Much of the Macs target is the same as D&D's and I would bet that the total numbers of D&D players that are Mac users is higher than the marketshare would indicate.
That's also not to mention the installed base. Apple's installed base is close to 30% and is also rising…up 30% in the last 5 years or so. Apple targets consumers which is also significant. That marketshare of Windows also includes a massive business base.
What the point of all this is, is that it isn't as simple as "Macs are only 10% of the market". I know we like to think that if a company chooses to ignore Macs it must be for a good reason but often it is not. I would bet real money that they didn't REALLY give an HONEST thought about whether to go with Macs as well as Windows.
I know we like to think that if a company chooses to ignore Macs it must be for a good reason
I don't think very many people think a company ignores Macs for a good reason. I just don't think it is nearly as bad a decision as pro-Macs make it out to be.
Personally, if I were writing software, I wouldn't make it for the Mac. Not until those Mac users go out and buy a real computer. But then the software would work on it. Go figure. :D
My computer has an Intel quad-core chip, an Nvidia video card, four gigs of RAM and a 500gb Seagate SATA drive. Is it a Mac or a PC?
I don't think very many people think a company ignores Macs for a good reason. I just don't think it is nearly as bad a decision as pro-Macs make it out to be.
Well I'm not sure I think it's a "bad decision" not to go cross-platform. I just don't think they would have lost anything by doing so. They would still reach all of the Windows people and yet also serve the Mac people. Maybe they would have made a little less off of the Mac people, but I just don't buy the excuse that it would have hurt the rest of their profits.
But that would have taken intelligent forethought and concern for serving everyone. They haven't shown any of those traits when it comes to their technological efforts. They won't even create a decent website.
My computer has an Intel quad-core chip, an Nvidia video card, four gigs of RAM and a 500gb Seagate SATA drive. Is it a Mac or a PC?
Really, don't bother. He didn't come to his opinion by using his brain, you won't influence him by using yours.
Well I'm not sure I think it's a "bad decision" not to go cross-platform. I just don't think they would have lost anything by doing so. They would still reach all of the Windows people and yet also serve the Mac people. Maybe they would have made a little less off of the Mac people, but I just don't buy the excuse that it would have hurt the rest of their profits.
But that would have taken intelligent forethought and concern for serving everyone. They haven't shown any of those traits when it comes to their technological efforts. They won't even create a decent website.
How about the excuse that they were trying to develop it quickly(keyword trying) and it was faster to develop it for Windows only? As that was the reason given a while ago by the former head of the project.
How about the excuse that they were trying to develop it quickly(keyword trying) and it was faster to develop it for Windows only? As that was the reason given a while ago by the former head of the project.
"Yeah, we wanted to hurry up and get it done for Windows because we've been dragging our feet yet again…"
That's no excuse either.
These things can be done in a timely manner if the right people are in charge, and the right people are working on the project.
Would it really have been such a huge deal to work on getting everything working on Windows and then Mac soon after? The Mac community is quite used to getting things like this late and I don't think people would have minded as long as the Mac version was actually in the works and was finished in a reasonably timely manner.
Nothing they are doing with DDI is all that complicated and IMO their lack of support for Macs is reflective of a lack desire to support Macs rather than practical decisions by competent people.
You can run it under Parallels or BootCamp.
Yeah. It's as simple as blowing a wad on another OS that has no other use, and booting into an inferior environment in order to use it.
Or…people could stop treating the Mac community like it's 1997.
Yeah. It's as simple as blowing a wad on another OS that has no other use, and booting into an inferior environment in order to use it.
Or…people could stop treating the Mac community like it's 1997.
Wasn't saying that it's desirable. Just that it's an option.
The Character Builder could easily have been written as a web application. There are numerous ways to make them run offline as well, so that a user wouldn't need a net connection to access it.
Oh, there's also a cross-platform .NET development framework.
http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page
So if WotC wanted, they could likely port it as-is.
How about it guys? Native Mac version? Show us you love us?
As for it being on .net there are those reporting that it works with one of the Linux 'emulators' for the .net framework and since Mac OSX is *nix based it could possibly work for MAC as well.
Also they likely have a small dev team and can only focus on doing a limited set of work. The company does have to work with a budget and limited resources (as in programmers). That's why MAC gets left behind for a lot of things as most companies don't feel they'd get ENOUGH out of the mac market share to make up for the added costs of developing for it, at least while they're actively developing for another platform.
City of Heroes has been out almost five years and is only just now getting a MAC client though some have had it running in Linux for almost 4 years and I know someone who's new to Linux that already got WoW to run on it. You can't always rely on the company to provide support and sometimes have to look to the community to come up with 'non standard' platform support (and I mean as in what hte app wasn't written for).
I was under the impression that when they first planned this they did surveys and found that the vast majority of the people who said they'd use the tools (not just CB but all software for 4e) were on PC and therefore that guided their design proccess.
I think it was more that they have been using .NET for a while and when they made the decision to move to client apps they wanted to use what they knew which left them with Windows Only apps. And since .NET for client apps gives you great access to ActiveX for graphics (for the Visualizer & the 3D Game Table) it seemed the obvious solution.
As for it being on .net there are those reporting that it works with one of the Linux 'emulators' for the .net framework and since Mac OSX is *nix based it could possibly work for MAC as well.
IIRC, Mono is only now compatible with .NET 2.0 -- it'll be a long time before they reach compatibility with .NET 3.5
Mac has a 10% market share.
This counts corporate purchases. In the consumer market Macs were more than 2x that in early 2008, and so are probably a much bigger portion of the market now. And as smacintush points out the install base is more important.
I still don't understand why the Character Builder wasn't a web application w/ offline functionality. Only the Game Table (and maybe the Character Visualizer really needs to be a client application (and only because they want to do 3D work).
My computer has an Intel quad-core chip, an Nvidia video card, four gigs of RAM and a 500gb Seagate SATA drive. Is it a Mac or a PC?
my guess would be Mac...I am betting that based on the fact that you care enough to argue...
also
as far back as I remember PCs and Mac has been like 90% PC 10% Mac...now I have been told Mac might have hit 17%... doesn't it just make good buisness sense that if you can only work on 1 you go for the bigger one...
now I will admit there are companies that make apple softeware...so there most be money in it...
This counts corporate purchases. In the consumer market Macs were more than 2x that in early 2008, and so are probably a much bigger portion of the market now. And as smacintush points out the install base is more important.
ok...so if anyone has real numbers to quote it would be helpful...but intill the numbers are atl least 60/40...Windows will always get more...
All of this doesn't even take into the account demographics. Much of the Macs target is the same as D&D's and I would bet that the total numbers of D&D players that are Mac users is higher than the marketshare would indicate.
I would tend to disagree as most D&D players are avid games of all types, and Mac has never done games well. The best thing Apple ever did was make Macs PC clones.
The reason it was made PC only is because they are using pre-existing code that was written for a PC.
I can World of Warcraft on a Mac.
I petition for it! We should create a group of Mac-users who officialy ask for a Mac version of the CB! :-)
Of course, .NET is not officially supported on the Mac OS. Whoops.
But people clamoring for a 'port' to the Mac need to understand that there is no 'port'. The entire program would essentially need to be re-written from the ground up. That's no small undertaking.
I think those who want a web version have a stronger case here. .NET has robust support for web development and the concept of a 'port' would make a lot more sense in such a scenario.
Of course then they'd get complaints from those who don't want to be connected to the internet to use the app...
Rightly or wrongly, the CB was developed in .NET, doubtless because that's what the programmers were most familiar with. Hard to blame them, .NET is well-supported, object-oriented and makes all that pesky GUI programming fairly straightforward.
Of course, .NET is not officially supported on the Mac OS. Whoops.
But people clamoring for a 'port' to the Mac need to understand that there is no 'port'. The entire program would essentially need to be re-written from the ground up. That's no small undertaking.
I think those who want a web version have a stronger case here. .NET has robust support for web development and the concept of a 'port' would make a lot more sense in such a scenario.
Of course then they'd get complaints from those who don't want to be connected to the internet to use the app...
I think only having a web based only version (as in having both downloadable and web only) of the Character Builder (and the FULL Monster Builder, or at least one that lets you make Minion, Elites and Solos not just standard) is a small price to pay for Mac users like me. I want to create some monsters for my game, I want to fiddle around with characters... but I can't because I got a Mac. Its why I don't buy a DDI subscription.
And don't tell me to dualboot and all that crap. I don't have the budget for it, nor the computer space (my computer is old) OR the knowledge to make it all work.
Rightly or wrongly, the CB was developed in .NET, doubtless because that's what the programmers were most familiar with. Hard to blame them, .NET is well-supported, object-oriented and makes all that pesky GUI programming fairly straightforward.
Of course, .NET is not officially supported on the Mac OS. Whoops.
But people clamoring for a 'port' to the Mac need to understand that there is no 'port'. The entire program would essentially need to be re-written from the ground up. That's no small undertaking.
I think those who want a web version have a stronger case here. .NET has robust support for web development and the concept of a 'port' would make a lot more sense in such a scenario.
Of course then they'd get complaints from those who don't want to be connected to the internet to use the app...
I think only having a web based only version (as in having both downloadable and web only) of the Character Builder (and the FULL Monster Builder, or at least one that lets you make Minion, Elites and Solos not just standard) is a small price to pay for Mac users like me. I want to create some monsters for my game, I want to fiddle around with characters... but I can't because I got a Mac. Its why I don't buy a DDI subscription.
And don't tell me to dualboot and all that crap. I don't have the budget for it, nor the computer space (my computer is old) OR the knowledge to make it all work.
I agree, I would like to be able to use the Character Builder on my mac, it would make it much nicer, and while I could dualboot, it makes it a tad bit more bothersome, and I don't want to buy another operating system. But it isn't that hard to set up bootcamp, it walks you through it rather well.
another mac user here.
my 2 cents:
companies like blizzard started porting for Macs and PCs alike back when diablo 2 came out. same game, different "exe" files (about 1mb big) for each system. warcraft 3, as well as WOW & the expansions work the same way.
it was a mistake not to make the CB work on Macs too. the hard data is just txt (feats, powers, monsters and such), lots of it is added every month, and the CB has nothing going on that requires animation.
also, I don't think we'll see any 3D-internet-supercool-D&D tool in the next few years. WotC is a publishing house, not a software developer. eventually they are going to pull the plug, because they see it as an extra feature, not a product that will provide revenue. it is a business after all.
& just like everyone here, I'd like to see a map maker that uses the dungeon tiles, an encounter builder and of course an adventure builder. that'd be useful . . . soon, not 2-3 years from now, when there will be 3rd party software that do it for free.
enough rant!
The only option may be to print your character sheet to a free PDF creater and view it on the iPad.
About the same time the millions of other much higher D&DI priorities are addressed. Mac has a 10% market share. And most Mac users know how to run Windows apps on their machines. I access my character builder from a Mac at work (the workstation PC I normally use leaves too long of a vapor trail to use it for this kind of personal stuff). Works just fine. Given limited resources, the "Windows-only" approach is still the wisest. (Disclaimer: I access the character builder using WINE on my Linux machine at home.)
I love this argument, it's such a royal old chestnut.
To be fair, I did terribly at math when I was at school, but I'm pretty confident that "several million" is a big number - on average, Apple sells "several million" new computers each quarter (eg: www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/07/21resul...)
I'm no marketing genius either, but I think I could pretty safely hazard that ignoring such an easy and obvious market, even if it is 10, 5 or even .000321% of a larger market isn't good business.
Do you ever see many iPods, iPhones or imagine there'll be many iPads around? There doesn't seem to be an app from Wizards for any product category on the app store... no widgets, CSS templates, math tables for easy inclusion in (whatever DB you happen to prefer), OpenOffice/MS Office templates.... but there's a massive investment in monolithic, proprietary .NET software
Just because you decided it was important to purchase a product with less support doesn't mean that everyone should cater to your choices. Next time you purchase a computer you might realize that in the forseeable future the Mac will always be a second place machine in terms of software support so maybe you should look at a PC or not complain.
When you purchase a Mac the lack of software support should be one of the factors used in the decision making process. If it made financial sense for WotC or any other company that only makes software for a PC to make their software available on both platforms they would.
Just because you decided it was important to purchase a product with less support doesn't mean that everyone should cater to your choices. Next time you purchase a computer you might realize that in the forseeable future the Mac will always be a second place machine in terms of software support so maybe you should look at a PC or not complain.
However, if user demand increases, then there's always a possibility that they WILL move into this market, because it MIGHT become economically feasible. Doubt it though, because we're a VERY vocal MINORITY.
When you purchase a Mac the lack of software support should be one of the factors used in the decision making process. If it made financial sense for WotC or any other company that only makes software for a PC to make their software available on both platforms they would.
Just because you decided it was important to purchase a product with less support doesn't mean that everyone should cater to your choices. Next time you purchase a computer you might realize that in the forseeable future the Mac will always be a second place machine in terms of software support so maybe you should look at a PC or not complain.
However, if user demand increases, then there's always a possibility that they WILL move into this market, because it MIGHT become economically feasible. Doubt it though, because we're a VERY vocal MINORITY.
I will agree that Mac users are a very vocal minority and that we will continue to see more Mac support. In the 15ish years I've been a computer user I've seen Mac support slowly increasing every year and don't expect it to stop. Macs are slowly becoming more mainstream and with the switch to the same hardware as PCs they took another step closer.
In my mind, Wizards could not care less about Mac support or Linux, and are satisfied with the current state of affairs.
Each time the service gets something else going, and more features that it gets, the more expensive it becomes. It would not be so bad, but they are actively going after any program that allows character generation at the same time, limiting the choose to pen and paper, or overpaying for a lackluster service.
I be waisting trees.
So in short: Decisions made because of applications that don't (and probably never will) exist are responsible for lack of Mac compatibility. It sucks, but there it is.
Hell, even if tied to Windows, they should have had the sense to make the logic platform agnostic, which would have made a Cocoa version pretty trivial. But that's what you get when you stray too far away from your core competencies...
I believe that the Visualizer, 3-d map, and other things not on the service yet will be done, but at a later point.
It isn't DNF yet.
To be fair, to do a Character Generator right, you need a database. Java just doesn't have the support for this, though a database can be used through it, it still needs basic support that Java simply doesn't have.
I believe that the Visualizer, 3-d map, and other things not on the service yet will be done, but at a later point.
It isn't DNF yet.
Yes, but a multi-platform database engine could have easily been chosen.
As for those other apps not turning out like DNF: I really hope you're right.
For January 2010, Windows 7 averaged a 7.57 percent market share. By comparison, Windows XP held 66.15 percent, Windows Vista held 17.47 percent, Mac OS X 10.5 held 2.37 percent, Mac OS X 10.6 had 1.80 percent, and Linux claimed 1.02 percent. Net Applications draws its statistics by aggregating data from some 40,000 Websites, allowing it to track numbers for PCs, mobile devices, consoles, handhelds and servers
. For those interested, here is a link to the entire article:
www.eweek.com/c/a/Windows/Microsofts-Win...
In the few minutes I searched, I found multiple articles all with similar numbers, so I don't think the above numbers are far off.
That said, I will say I have a 24" iMac sitting on the desk next to me so I'm not anti-mac, but I do currently use a PC as my computer of choice (that I just bought 5 days ago). Until the above numbers drastically improve, I don't forsee many companys going out of thier way to support the mac system. It ended up being one of the reasons I went back to my PC. I got tired of the extremely limited programs available for it. (I'm talking about specific programs I wanted, not "Text Editors, Word Processors, etc." I know in general there are programs for about everything, but I'm more interested in getting the specific programs and games I wanted. I spent the last 2 1/2 years wishing for more support, but I just got tired of wishing, and to be honest, with Windows 7 our now, I'm very happy I was able to bypass the whole Vista nightmare phase of Microsofts life.
I'm also happy to say along with my new computer I got a subscription to DDI. Something I had been wanting for a while.
Jadaar
But that's what you get when you stray too far away from your core competencies...
Eh, they're a table top game company and hacking together some .net is the easy way to coble a builder together.
This 10% (or whatever is current) figure is totally misleading. It includes the entire installed computer base. The thing is, the vast majority of that user base will never be running D&D character building tools.
In this statistic, I am a null variable, and I suspect many Mac users are similar. I have two computers I use at work - my networked office computer and my work laptop, which only leaves the office when I attend work functions. Both of these machines run Windows, in no small part because I need a number of proprietary programs which were designed for the Windows environment. I have no need to run these tools on my personal PCs.
In my private life, I have been a Mac user since the days when people said "do they still make those?". I have a desktop iMac and a netbook which has been hacked to run OS X.
In the statistics of "market share", my uses cancel each other out. I use 2 Windows PCs and 2 Macs.
But not only would I never install a tool like Character Builder on my work PCs, I'm not even able to, since they are locked down by network administrators.
My iMac does have Parallels installed, but my netbook is not powerful enough to run Parallels. So I can run Character Builder on my desktop, but not my portable. I've fiddled with Character Builder, and I think it's great. But since I can't run it on my netbook - which is the machine I have in front of me during a D&D session - I can't justify paying for an Insider subscription.
Not only should WoTC be seriously thinking of developing an OS X version of Character Builder, they should be seriously considering developing it as an iPhone/iPad app. To ignore the massive base of Mac users who use Macs for their personal recreative use, not to mention the obvious fit a tool like Character Builder would have on the iPhone (and especially) iPad platform, is simply ignoring a huge user base and potential boon of Insider subscribers they are more or less completely ignoring at the moment.
So don't try to tell me it makes "good financial sense" to ignore the OSX/iPhone/iPad market because a whole bunch of businesses with computers so locked down they can't even check Twitter dominate the overall market.
Release an iPad version of Character Builder for $20 and I would buy it tomorrow, plus pay for an Insider subscription to support it. As it is now, I'm using the demo Character Builder on my iMac to print blank cards and fill them in with a pen, since I have no other option.
This is not something I am ever going to pay a fee for. My loss is minor, since it's not going to stop me from playing D&D. The loss to WoTC is tangible.
When will Character Builder be formatted for Mac?
When Microsoft makes .Net 3.5 work on Mac.
So... not soon.
Mac has a 10% market share. And most Mac users know how to run Windows apps on their machines. I access my character builder from a Mac at work (the workstation PC I normally use leaves too long of a vapor trail to use it for this kind of personal stuff). Works just fine.
Given limited resources, the "Windows-only" approach is still the wisest.
(Disclaimer: I access the character builder using WINE on my Linux machine at home.)
About the same time the millions of other much higher D&DI priorities are addressed.
Mac has a 10% market share. And most Mac users know how to run Windows apps on their machines. I access my character builder from a Mac at work (the workstation PC I normally use leaves too long of a vapor trail to use it for this kind of personal stuff). Works just fine.
Given limited resources, the "Windows-only" approach is still the wisest.
(Disclaimer: I access the character builder using WINE on my Linux machine at home.)
It's accelerating. They have gone from 4% to 10% in a matter of a few years. Meanwhile, Windows has dropped to 88% in that same time and continues to decline. Windows may not be going anywhere but their best days are far behind them and a smart company would take steps to use technology that lends itself to being used cross-platform. What WotC has done is to put themselves into a position where if it turns out that they feel that it is worthwhile to supports Macs, they have to do a total re-write. Which of course they aren't going to do.
All of this doesn't even take into the account demographics. Much of the Macs target is the same as D&D's and I would bet that the total numbers of D&D players that are Mac users is higher than the marketshare would indicate.
That's also not to mention the installed base. Apple's installed base is close to 30% and is also rising…up 30% in the last 5 years or so. Apple targets consumers which is also significant. That marketshare of Windows also includes a massive business base.
What the point of all this is, is that it isn't as simple as "Macs are only 10% of the market". I know we like to think that if a company chooses to ignore Macs it must be for a good reason but often it is not. I would bet real money that they didn't REALLY give an HONEST thought about whether to go with Macs as well as Windows.
I know we like to think that if a company chooses to ignore Macs it must be for a good reason
I don't think very many people think a company ignores Macs for a good reason. I just don't think it is nearly as bad a decision as pro-Macs make it out to be.
Personally, if I were writing software, I wouldn't make it for the Mac. Not until those Mac users go out and buy a real computer. But then the software would work on it. Go figure. :D
My computer has an Intel quad-core chip, an Nvidia video card, four gigs of RAM and a 500gb Seagate SATA drive. Is it a Mac or a PC?
I don't think very many people think a company ignores Macs for a good reason. I just don't think it is nearly as bad a decision as pro-Macs make it out to be.
Well I'm not sure I think it's a "bad decision" not to go cross-platform. I just don't think they would have lost anything by doing so. They would still reach all of the Windows people and yet also serve the Mac people. Maybe they would have made a little less off of the Mac people, but I just don't buy the excuse that it would have hurt the rest of their profits.
But that would have taken intelligent forethought and concern for serving everyone. They haven't shown any of those traits when it comes to their technological efforts. They won't even create a decent website.
My computer has an Intel quad-core chip, an Nvidia video card, four gigs of RAM and a 500gb Seagate SATA drive. Is it a Mac or a PC?
Really, don't bother. He didn't come to his opinion by using his brain, you won't influence him by using yours.
Well I'm not sure I think it's a "bad decision" not to go cross-platform. I just don't think they would have lost anything by doing so. They would still reach all of the Windows people and yet also serve the Mac people. Maybe they would have made a little less off of the Mac people, but I just don't buy the excuse that it would have hurt the rest of their profits.
But that would have taken intelligent forethought and concern for serving everyone. They haven't shown any of those traits when it comes to their technological efforts. They won't even create a decent website.
How about the excuse that they were trying to develop it quickly(keyword trying) and it was faster to develop it for Windows only? As that was the reason given a while ago by the former head of the project.
How about the excuse that they were trying to develop it quickly(keyword trying) and it was faster to develop it for Windows only? As that was the reason given a while ago by the former head of the project.
"Yeah, we wanted to hurry up and get it done for Windows because we've been dragging our feet yet again…"
That's no excuse either.
These things can be done in a timely manner if the right people are in charge, and the right people are working on the project.
Would it really have been such a huge deal to work on getting everything working on Windows and then Mac soon after? The Mac community is quite used to getting things like this late and I don't think people would have minded as long as the Mac version was actually in the works and was finished in a reasonably timely manner.
Nothing they are doing with DDI is all that complicated and IMO their lack of support for Macs is reflective of a lack desire to support Macs rather than practical decisions by competent people.
You can run it under Parallels or BootCamp.
Yeah. It's as simple as blowing a wad on another OS that has no other use, and booting into an inferior environment in order to use it.
Or…people could stop treating the Mac community like it's 1997.
Yeah. It's as simple as blowing a wad on another OS that has no other use, and booting into an inferior environment in order to use it.
Or…people could stop treating the Mac community like it's 1997.
Wasn't saying that it's desirable. Just that it's an option.
The Character Builder could easily have been written as a web application. There are numerous ways to make them run offline as well, so that a user wouldn't need a net connection to access it.
Oh, there's also a cross-platform .NET development framework.
http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page
So if WotC wanted, they could likely port it as-is.
How about it guys? Native Mac version? Show us you love us?
As for it being on .net there are those reporting that it works with one of the Linux 'emulators' for the .net framework and since Mac OSX is *nix based it could possibly work for MAC as well.
Also they likely have a small dev team and can only focus on doing a limited set of work. The company does have to work with a budget and limited resources (as in programmers). That's why MAC gets left behind for a lot of things as most companies don't feel they'd get ENOUGH out of the mac market share to make up for the added costs of developing for it, at least while they're actively developing for another platform.
City of Heroes has been out almost five years and is only just now getting a MAC client though some have had it running in Linux for almost 4 years and I know someone who's new to Linux that already got WoW to run on it. You can't always rely on the company to provide support and sometimes have to look to the community to come up with 'non standard' platform support (and I mean as in what hte app wasn't written for).
I was under the impression that when they first planned this they did surveys and found that the vast majority of the people who said they'd use the tools (not just CB but all software for 4e) were on PC and therefore that guided their design proccess.
I think it was more that they have been using .NET for a while and when they made the decision to move to client apps they wanted to use what they knew which left them with Windows Only apps. And since .NET for client apps gives you great access to ActiveX for graphics (for the Visualizer & the 3D Game Table) it seemed the obvious solution.
As for it being on .net there are those reporting that it works with one of the Linux 'emulators' for the .net framework and since Mac OSX is *nix based it could possibly work for MAC as well.
IIRC, Mono is only now compatible with .NET 2.0 -- it'll be a long time before they reach compatibility with .NET 3.5
Mac has a 10% market share.
This counts corporate purchases. In the consumer market Macs were more than 2x that in early 2008, and so are probably a much bigger portion of the market now. And as smacintush points out the install base is more important.
I still don't understand why the Character Builder wasn't a web application w/ offline functionality. Only the Game Table (and maybe the Character Visualizer really needs to be a client application (and only because they want to do 3D work).
My computer has an Intel quad-core chip, an Nvidia video card, four gigs of RAM and a 500gb Seagate SATA drive. Is it a Mac or a PC?
my guess would be Mac...I am betting that based on the fact that you care enough to argue...
also
as far back as I remember PCs and Mac has been like 90% PC 10% Mac...now I have been told Mac might have hit 17%... doesn't it just make good buisness sense that if you can only work on 1 you go for the bigger one...
now I will admit there are companies that make apple softeware...so there most be money in it...
This counts corporate purchases. In the consumer market Macs were more than 2x that in early 2008, and so are probably a much bigger portion of the market now. And as smacintush points out the install base is more important.
ok...so if anyone has real numbers to quote it would be helpful...but intill the numbers are atl least 60/40...Windows will always get more...
All of this doesn't even take into the account demographics. Much of the Macs target is the same as D&D's and I would bet that the total numbers of D&D players that are Mac users is higher than the marketshare would indicate.
I would tend to disagree as most D&D players are avid games of all types, and Mac has never done games well. The best thing Apple ever did was make Macs PC clones.
The reason it was made PC only is because they are using pre-existing code that was written for a PC.
I can World of Warcraft on a Mac.
I petition for it! We should create a group of Mac-users who officialy ask for a Mac version of the CB! :-)
Of course, .NET is not officially supported on the Mac OS. Whoops.
But people clamoring for a 'port' to the Mac need to understand that there is no 'port'. The entire program would essentially need to be re-written from the ground up. That's no small undertaking.
I think those who want a web version have a stronger case here. .NET has robust support for web development and the concept of a 'port' would make a lot more sense in such a scenario.
Of course then they'd get complaints from those who don't want to be connected to the internet to use the app...
Rightly or wrongly, the CB was developed in .NET, doubtless because that's what the programmers were most familiar with. Hard to blame them, .NET is well-supported, object-oriented and makes all that pesky GUI programming fairly straightforward.
Of course, .NET is not officially supported on the Mac OS. Whoops.
But people clamoring for a 'port' to the Mac need to understand that there is no 'port'. The entire program would essentially need to be re-written from the ground up. That's no small undertaking.
I think those who want a web version have a stronger case here. .NET has robust support for web development and the concept of a 'port' would make a lot more sense in such a scenario.
Of course then they'd get complaints from those who don't want to be connected to the internet to use the app...
I think only having a web based only version (as in having both downloadable and web only) of the Character Builder (and the FULL Monster Builder, or at least one that lets you make Minion, Elites and Solos not just standard) is a small price to pay for Mac users like me. I want to create some monsters for my game, I want to fiddle around with characters... but I can't because I got a Mac. Its why I don't buy a DDI subscription.
And don't tell me to dualboot and all that crap. I don't have the budget for it, nor the computer space (my computer is old) OR the knowledge to make it all work.
Rightly or wrongly, the CB was developed in .NET, doubtless because that's what the programmers were most familiar with. Hard to blame them, .NET is well-supported, object-oriented and makes all that pesky GUI programming fairly straightforward.
Of course, .NET is not officially supported on the Mac OS. Whoops.
But people clamoring for a 'port' to the Mac need to understand that there is no 'port'. The entire program would essentially need to be re-written from the ground up. That's no small undertaking.
I think those who want a web version have a stronger case here. .NET has robust support for web development and the concept of a 'port' would make a lot more sense in such a scenario.
Of course then they'd get complaints from those who don't want to be connected to the internet to use the app...
I think only having a web based only version (as in having both downloadable and web only) of the Character Builder (and the FULL Monster Builder, or at least one that lets you make Minion, Elites and Solos not just standard) is a small price to pay for Mac users like me. I want to create some monsters for my game, I want to fiddle around with characters... but I can't because I got a Mac. Its why I don't buy a DDI subscription.
And don't tell me to dualboot and all that crap. I don't have the budget for it, nor the computer space (my computer is old) OR the knowledge to make it all work.
I agree, I would like to be able to use the Character Builder on my mac, it would make it much nicer, and while I could dualboot, it makes it a tad bit more bothersome, and I don't want to buy another operating system. But it isn't that hard to set up bootcamp, it walks you through it rather well.
another mac user here.
my 2 cents:
companies like blizzard started porting for Macs and PCs alike back when diablo 2 came out. same game, different "exe" files (about 1mb big) for each system. warcraft 3, as well as WOW & the expansions work the same way.
it was a mistake not to make the CB work on Macs too. the hard data is just txt (feats, powers, monsters and such), lots of it is added every month, and the CB has nothing going on that requires animation.
also, I don't think we'll see any 3D-internet-supercool-D&D tool in the next few years. WotC is a publishing house, not a software developer. eventually they are going to pull the plug, because they see it as an extra feature, not a product that will provide revenue. it is a business after all.
& just like everyone here, I'd like to see a map maker that uses the dungeon tiles, an encounter builder and of course an adventure builder. that'd be useful . . . soon, not 2-3 years from now, when there will be 3rd party software that do it for free.
enough rant!
The only option may be to print your character sheet to a free PDF creater and view it on the iPad.
About the same time the millions of other much higher D&DI priorities are addressed. Mac has a 10% market share. And most Mac users know how to run Windows apps on their machines. I access my character builder from a Mac at work (the workstation PC I normally use leaves too long of a vapor trail to use it for this kind of personal stuff). Works just fine. Given limited resources, the "Windows-only" approach is still the wisest. (Disclaimer: I access the character builder using WINE on my Linux machine at home.)
I love this argument, it's such a royal old chestnut.
To be fair, I did terribly at math when I was at school, but I'm pretty confident that "several million" is a big number - on average, Apple sells "several million" new computers each quarter (eg: www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/07/21resul...)
I'm no marketing genius either, but I think I could pretty safely hazard that ignoring such an easy and obvious market, even if it is 10, 5 or even .000321% of a larger market isn't good business.
Do you ever see many iPods, iPhones or imagine there'll be many iPads around? There doesn't seem to be an app from Wizards for any product category on the app store... no widgets, CSS templates, math tables for easy inclusion in (whatever DB you happen to prefer), OpenOffice/MS Office templates.... but there's a massive investment in monolithic, proprietary .NET software
Just because you decided it was important to purchase a product with less support doesn't mean that everyone should cater to your choices. Next time you purchase a computer you might realize that in the forseeable future the Mac will always be a second place machine in terms of software support so maybe you should look at a PC or not complain.
When you purchase a Mac the lack of software support should be one of the factors used in the decision making process. If it made financial sense for WotC or any other company that only makes software for a PC to make their software available on both platforms they would.
Just because you decided it was important to purchase a product with less support doesn't mean that everyone should cater to your choices. Next time you purchase a computer you might realize that in the forseeable future the Mac will always be a second place machine in terms of software support so maybe you should look at a PC or not complain.
However, if user demand increases, then there's always a possibility that they WILL move into this market, because it MIGHT become economically feasible. Doubt it though, because we're a VERY vocal MINORITY.
When you purchase a Mac the lack of software support should be one of the factors used in the decision making process. If it made financial sense for WotC or any other company that only makes software for a PC to make their software available on both platforms they would.
Just because you decided it was important to purchase a product with less support doesn't mean that everyone should cater to your choices. Next time you purchase a computer you might realize that in the forseeable future the Mac will always be a second place machine in terms of software support so maybe you should look at a PC or not complain.
However, if user demand increases, then there's always a possibility that they WILL move into this market, because it MIGHT become economically feasible. Doubt it though, because we're a VERY vocal MINORITY.
I will agree that Mac users are a very vocal minority and that we will continue to see more Mac support. In the 15ish years I've been a computer user I've seen Mac support slowly increasing every year and don't expect it to stop. Macs are slowly becoming more mainstream and with the switch to the same hardware as PCs they took another step closer.
In my mind, Wizards could not care less about Mac support or Linux, and are satisfied with the current state of affairs.
Each time the service gets something else going, and more features that it gets, the more expensive it becomes. It would not be so bad, but they are actively going after any program that allows character generation at the same time, limiting the choose to pen and paper, or overpaying for a lackluster service.
I be waisting trees.
So in short: Decisions made because of applications that don't (and probably never will) exist are responsible for lack of Mac compatibility. It sucks, but there it is.
Hell, even if tied to Windows, they should have had the sense to make the logic platform agnostic, which would have made a Cocoa version pretty trivial. But that's what you get when you stray too far away from your core competencies...
I believe that the Visualizer, 3-d map, and other things not on the service yet will be done, but at a later point.
It isn't DNF yet.
To be fair, to do a Character Generator right, you need a database. Java just doesn't have the support for this, though a database can be used through it, it still needs basic support that Java simply doesn't have.
I believe that the Visualizer, 3-d map, and other things not on the service yet will be done, but at a later point.
It isn't DNF yet.
Yes, but a multi-platform database engine could have easily been chosen.
As for those other apps not turning out like DNF: I really hope you're right.
For January 2010, Windows 7 averaged a 7.57 percent market share. By comparison, Windows XP held 66.15 percent, Windows Vista held 17.47 percent, Mac OS X 10.5 held 2.37 percent, Mac OS X 10.6 had 1.80 percent, and Linux claimed 1.02 percent. Net Applications draws its statistics by aggregating data from some 40,000 Websites, allowing it to track numbers for PCs, mobile devices, consoles, handhelds and servers
. For those interested, here is a link to the entire article:
www.eweek.com/c/a/Windows/Microsofts-Win...
In the few minutes I searched, I found multiple articles all with similar numbers, so I don't think the above numbers are far off.
That said, I will say I have a 24" iMac sitting on the desk next to me so I'm not anti-mac, but I do currently use a PC as my computer of choice (that I just bought 5 days ago). Until the above numbers drastically improve, I don't forsee many companys going out of thier way to support the mac system. It ended up being one of the reasons I went back to my PC. I got tired of the extremely limited programs available for it. (I'm talking about specific programs I wanted, not "Text Editors, Word Processors, etc." I know in general there are programs for about everything, but I'm more interested in getting the specific programs and games I wanted. I spent the last 2 1/2 years wishing for more support, but I just got tired of wishing, and to be honest, with Windows 7 our now, I'm very happy I was able to bypass the whole Vista nightmare phase of Microsofts life.
I'm also happy to say along with my new computer I got a subscription to DDI. Something I had been wanting for a while.
Jadaar
But that's what you get when you stray too far away from your core competencies...
Eh, they're a table top game company and hacking together some .net is the easy way to coble a builder together.
This 10% (or whatever is current) figure is totally misleading. It includes the entire installed computer base. The thing is, the vast majority of that user base will never be running D&D character building tools.
In this statistic, I am a null variable, and I suspect many Mac users are similar. I have two computers I use at work - my networked office computer and my work laptop, which only leaves the office when I attend work functions. Both of these machines run Windows, in no small part because I need a number of proprietary programs which were designed for the Windows environment. I have no need to run these tools on my personal PCs.
In my private life, I have been a Mac user since the days when people said "do they still make those?". I have a desktop iMac and a netbook which has been hacked to run OS X.
In the statistics of "market share", my uses cancel each other out. I use 2 Windows PCs and 2 Macs.
But not only would I never install a tool like Character Builder on my work PCs, I'm not even able to, since they are locked down by network administrators.
My iMac does have Parallels installed, but my netbook is not powerful enough to run Parallels. So I can run Character Builder on my desktop, but not my portable. I've fiddled with Character Builder, and I think it's great. But since I can't run it on my netbook - which is the machine I have in front of me during a D&D session - I can't justify paying for an Insider subscription.
Not only should WoTC be seriously thinking of developing an OS X version of Character Builder, they should be seriously considering developing it as an iPhone/iPad app. To ignore the massive base of Mac users who use Macs for their personal recreative use, not to mention the obvious fit a tool like Character Builder would have on the iPhone (and especially) iPad platform, is simply ignoring a huge user base and potential boon of Insider subscribers they are more or less completely ignoring at the moment.
So don't try to tell me it makes "good financial sense" to ignore the OSX/iPhone/iPad market because a whole bunch of businesses with computers so locked down they can't even check Twitter dominate the overall market.
Release an iPad version of Character Builder for $20 and I would buy it tomorrow, plus pay for an Insider subscription to support it. As it is now, I'm using the demo Character Builder on my iMac to print blank cards and fill them in with a pen, since I have no other option.
This is not something I am ever going to pay a fee for. My loss is minor, since it's not going to stop me from playing D&D. The loss to WoTC is tangible.