Keep in mind that this is not a petition, but is intended for healthy discussion. Posts with one or two words will be considered off-topic.
I'd be interested in collecting feedback on the reasons why people don't feel that running the applications in PC emulation mode is inadaquete. I'll pass these comments onto the team. (Hint: Saying, "Because I shouldn't have to run my machine in emulation mode," while true, isn't the compelling type of feedback I hope to pass on.)
As a disclaimer: I own several machines at home, my main runs XP, my laptop is a Linux/XP dual boot, and I do all the Gamer Radio Zer0 editing on a Mac. I also managed to get my RHCT certification a year or so ago which will mean nothing to people who don't know who it is, and mean even less, to those that do.
Thanks!
-Mike
For this reason, I'm going Apple-exclusive. I've been reviewing the list of programs that are on Macs vs. Windows and the only thing I'll be losing will be games which I don't play much anymore anyway. In many ways, I'll actually be gaining in terms of creative software (iLife) and overall user friendliness from my experience and research.
I do not plan on using Parallels, Boot Camp, or any other form of emulation for Windows on my Apple computer. I won't have any programs that are Windows-exlusive so installing Windows and any software needed to support it would be a waste of hard drive space (and, unlike some people, I don't spend huge sums of money on hard drives or DVDs. I stick to what can fit inside the computer itself and an external back-up).
The short form (and sorry for this sounding so bad): If D&DI won't run natively on a Macintosh, I won't be subscribing.
Thanks,
The Shadow
The implication of this is that someone on a Mac that can afford a monthly budget of $10-$15 a month might not be able to afford $200 for Windows Vista Home Basic just to play D&D on D&DI's virtual game table. That might hinder a group of friends from being able to use the table together, despite some might be paying for the service anyway.
Personally, I'm in no such situation. Everyone I know is on a Windows machine or is running a Mac with Windows, but that's purely anecdotal and doesn't mean this issue shouldn't be taken into serious consideration.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Parallels on a Mac still require a licensed copy of Windows?
Running Windows on anything, even a virtual machine, requires you to install a copy. That's why I brought up the point about not running it once I get an Apple. I'm specifically trying to get away from Windows entirely.
Running Windows on anything, even a virtual machine, requires you to install a copy. That's why I brought up the point about not running it once I get an Apple. I'm specifically trying to get away from Windows entirely.
For me the issue isn't having to install it as much as it is with having to pay for the license.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Parallels on a Mac still require a licensed copy of Windows? That's a significant cost to add onto playing D&D on a virtual game table.
The implication of this is that someone on a Mac that can afford a monthly budget of $10-$15 a month might not be able to afford $200 for Windows Vista Home Basic just to play D&D on D&DI's virtual game table. That might hinder a group of friends from being able to use the table together, despite some might be paying for the service anyway.
Personally, I'm in no such situation. Everyone I know is on a Windows machine or is running a Mac with Windows, but that's purely anecdotal and doesn't mean this issue shouldn't be taken into serious consideration.
What he said.
I'll already be spending nearly $100 dollars on the core books. I'd love to play with my friends online. We had already purchased Fantasy Grounds some time ago to accomplish this. Now that DDI is moving in, Fantasy Grounds has been denied the ability to be a D&D-operating application (unless I'm mistaken). If WotC delivers a good program, I'd be more than willing to pay the monthly fee so I may play games with my friends. However, I will not be willing to pay another $200 on top of all that to accomplish this.
Beyond my own personal financial reasons, the Mac gaming community is growing at an incredible rate right now. I think it would be silly to not get a piece of that action, considering that D&D is intended to reach as wide of an audience as possible. Macs are selling more and the games are being programmed at a much faster rate. It didn't take to terribly long for NWN 2 to make it's way over, after all. EA has caught on and is starting to push the envelope (compared to other companies) for Mac releases.
I don't have enough experience to speak for Linux, unfortunately. But, I do know that Macs are certainly prepared for DDI.
If you mean a dual boot, then it's because booting across OSes is a pain.
If you mean a virtual machine, it's because they are slow and would almost be certainly be inadequate for products like the Game Table.
If you mean WINE, it's because the .NET framework doesn't work all to well in WINE, in my experience.
If you mean Mono, it's because Mono doesn't implement a large selection of Microsoft's proprietary library, and so most likely wouldn't work with D&Di.
If you can make it function using either of the latter two options though, I would be fine. (Mono would be preferable to WINE) A native executable would obviously be preferred, but I don't believe that's possible while using the .NET Framework.
EDIT: And for the first two, the price of Windows is a factor. I happen to have a copy of Windows XP available, but I may not in the future, and I would not purchase one for the sole purpose of running D&Di, or anything else for that matter (and don't even say Vista).
Getting windows in Europe costs about twice as much as it does in the states because of the value of the euro.
Even in Australia, where the rate is approz .90 AUD to the USD, software is still twice the price for no apparent reason.
Back OT. Almost all Blizzard games (from at least Diablo and Warcraft 2) run on the Mac. Unreal and onwards ran on the Mac (Tourney 99,2k3,2k4 and 3 also ran on linux natively). The Quake series also ran under Linux from 2 onwards. There 3 big software houses (Blizzard, Epic and iD Software) that have released their games on more than one platform since 1996. That shows that it really can't be that difficult to write cross platform games. The worlds most popular MMORPG, WoW, runs natively on Windows and Mac.
Really, for new software development where you're trying to reach the broadest target audience, there's no excuse not to develop cross-platform software.
Nor will I be unless they get to the point, where they are dominating the business/home market, and im forced to be.
That being said, it couldnt hurt to have it developed for other platforms than Windows. I support the idea of allowing your customers be able to run whatever type of OS they wish to run and stil be able to enoy your products.
Also, emulation, or v-consoles of any type pretty much suck balls. Dual booting is all right, but it stil bears the cost of purchasing a second OS (this assumes that no one is stealing them OS's of the interwebs).
But if they DON'T work properly under Wine, as many games, particulary those that use DirectX, don't, then "Well, emulate it" is not a valid response, imho. It's developers ignoring non-windows users.
As it stands, dual booting is looking like the only way and personally I feel it's unreasonable to require that for use of DDI. I'm certainly not going to.
There are many cross platform solutions available. However it's my understanding that the choice was made to use a DirectX based library to speed up development time. For what DDI intends to be, it was a poor choice. Let's face facts here, you guys aren't writing Half Life 3 over there, you're building a communication tool, one that doesn't require commitment to a single platform to implement effectively. A cross platform suite could have been chosen just as readily at the same cost of development.
The "games come out primarily for Windows" argument isn't holding water as well as it used to either. More and more companies are supporting OS X at release, and more still produce a Mac version at some point.
All that being said, and given that a Windows only solution was already chosen to start with, the only convincing argument is going to be money. That's an argument none of us here can really provide.
The revenue lost by ignoring Mac users is either worth going after or it's not. WotC should already have that information, at least their best, informed, guess at it. If the decision was made without market assessment I'm not sure I know what to say, other than whoever was responsible for that decision needs it to come up in their performance review.
Is there an official answer on which portions of DDI will only be accessible if you're running Windows?
Emulation is not an option. Neither Parallels or VMWare Fusion sufficiently supports DirectX to make them a valid option. It's possible that Wine works, but I wouldn't know, and I don't intend to find out.
I friend of mine with a Mac and Windows on Parallels says he runs DirectX apps just fine.
I friend of mine with a Mac and Windows on Parallels says he runs DirectX apps just fine.
The short answer is: he's wrong.
The more detailed answer is that selected 3D PC only games will run under Parallels (it's right there on the new features list for Parallels 3.0), not all of them. You can't just expect that every 3D app will be able to be dropped in and run under Parallels. Which is why I said they don't sufficiently support DirectX, not that they don't support it at all.
The only truly reliable way to get DirectX apps to run on Mac hardware is still to boot into Windows. That can and will change, but right now it is the state of things.
The short answer is: he's wrong.
The more detailed answer is that selected 3D PC only games will run under Parallels (it's right there on the new features list for Parallels 3.0), not all of them. You can't just expect that every 3D app will be able to be dropped in and run under Parallels. Which is why I said they don't sufficiently support DirectX, not that they don't support it at all.
The only truly reliable way to get DirectX apps to run on Mac hardware is still to boot into Windows. That can and will change, but right now it is the state of things.
So what you're saying is that you don't actually know whether or not D&DI apps will run sufficiently on a Mac in Windows on Parallels?
For what it's worth, I also think the additional $80 cost of Parallels for Mac users is a bad assumption on WotCs behalf. In essence, it's assumed that a Mac user would spend $80 for Parallels + $200 for Windows Vista Home Basic just to possibly use D&DI applications.
Hey, Gamer_Zer0, since you have access to a Mac, are you able to give D&DI apps a spin to see how well they work in Parallels, if at all?
Some people will still have older PCs/laptops and use Linux to get a bit more life out of them. I am one of them. I am not buying a new laptop yet, and still use my P4 1.6Ghz. Vista wouldn't run adequately on it, so I moved to Linux. It runs smoothly now, and I get what I want out of it. It is also my D&D machine. I bring it with me to the playing location, to use gametable right now, and if Linux support is there, then DDi.
I guess I just want to try to get the Linux users to pipe up and let "the team" know that there are enough Linux users to make it a viable option.
If it's decided that it's not, I guess they won't get all of the money, even though they seem to want it that way, as is posted in other threads ;) .
I'd like to pipe in for Linux.
I'd like to pipe in for Linux, too.
Show
Just teasing.
Just teasing.
So what you're saying is that you don't actually know whether or not D&DI apps will run sufficiently on a Mac in Windows on Parallels?
For what it's worth, I also think the additional $80 cost of Parallels for Mac users is a bad assumption on WotCs behalf. In essence, it's assumed that a Mac user would spend $80 for Parallels + $200 for Windows Vista Home Basic just to possibly use D&DI applications.
Hey, Gamer_Zer0, since you have access to a Mac, are you able to give D&DI apps a spin to see how well they work in Parallels, if at all?
Yes. Also that it's unlikely that it will run correctly at this point. Both Parallels and VMWare are getting better at emulating DirectX apps, but both are far from perfect at this point.
What he said.
I'll already be spending nearly $100 dollars on the core books. I'd love to play with my friends online. We had already purchased Fantasy Grounds some time ago to accomplish this. Now that DDI is moving in, Fantasy Grounds has been denied the ability to be a D&D-operating application (unless I'm mistaken). If WotC delivers a good program, I'd be more than willing to pay the monthly fee so I may play games with my friends. However, I will not be willing to pay another $200 on top of all that to accomplish this.
For those of you that do not own or have never owned a Windows PC, this will not be an option. However, I have converted several of my boxes to Linux and most of them came with Windows pre-installed. The point is, you may have licenses that you are not using. I used the license from my old Dell Laptop ( which now runs Ubuntu ), to install windows on my Boot Camp partition on my MacBook Pro.
My point, don't go running out for a fresh copy of windows if you do not have to.
1) It entails a significant cost.
2) I don't like exposing my computer to a vulnerable OS.
PS: My group has 8 players, including 3 mac users, of which 2 are the DM's, no one is buying DDI.
'I would buy a Mac if I didn't work for Microsoft'
- James Allchin, Windows development chief
I don't intend on dual booting, because:
...
2) I don't like exposing my computer to a vulnerable OS.
I don't blame you, that is why, if I use the tools, it will be in a VMWare virtual machine. Fortunately, I am a software developer and use VMWare for other reasons so I have all the software I need already.
Requiring to run in Parallels/VMWare/BootCamp requires purchasing additional software (the emulation software + a licensed copy of windows).
This is on top of the cost of the books and other required bits and pieces (paper, ink/toner cartridges, etc for those who prefer face to face tabletop gaming).
Not all applications run well on emulation applications.
Emulation tends to be slow.
Emulation ties up more resources than native applications.
DirectX is NOT corss-platform, and is proprietry by Microsoft.
OpenGL is open, and cross-platform!
Java is cross-platform.
Older PC's (donated to under-funded schools/community centres/libraries by individuals or companies) can easily run Linux plus X-Windows plus OpenGL.
On a personal note, I am on a Mac, and I do 80% of my productivity on the OS X side (word processing, e-mail, web surfing, etc).
If I'm on the D&D Website, and (theoretically) I have a D&Di subscription, and I read an article on these forums or somewhere else about a new character concept, and I wanted to try it out, I would have to:
1] save the information/link
2] transfer it to the Bootcamp disk
3] save all work and close all programs
4] boot into BootCamp, open up a web-browser
5] log into D&D insider
6] try out the concept
7] print out the character sheet and other bits and pieces
8] save my work and close all programs
9] shutdown Windows
10] restart Mac OS X
11] re-open all my programs
12] re-open all the documents that I was working on.
What a pain!
So please, drop the DirectX stuff and go cross-platform and Open-GL! it's not that hard, and there's plenty of software that uses Open-Gl already. it is a very mature graphics library system!
Anestis.
In contrast, full emulation mode requires a $80 product plus a $lots Windows license plus a sizeable amount of system resources (memory and disk) plus potential stability and security concerns. And still doesn't support DirectX to any great robustness.
$40 is about 1/4 of a yearly DDI subscription. $~300 is over two years subscription. Given that many already feel DDI is pricey (not necessarily overpriced, but pricey), proposing that consumers pay another 2.5 years worth in order to actually run the software (and even then it might not work properly) doesn't go down well. $40 is not nothing, but it's about the price of a single supplement and thus significantly more palatable.
You could even ship a "bottle" - a prepacked Crossover install - that has been factory tested and is mostly reliable. While it's not the same as native, it would be seen as going a lot more than half way and placate at least a large chunk of potential users.
(Hint: Saying, "Because I shouldn't have to run my machine in emulation mode," while true, isn't the compelling type of feedback I hope to pass on.)
Ah, but its a good response in my book . . .
I am a Mac user and I want to know why I should have to run my machine in emulations mode, or in BootCamp mode, to run D&DI Apps, especially when there is ample evidence that cross-platform, native gaming environments, are not just possible, but viable!
A number of other posts have noted the extra expense we Mac users will be faced with if we are forced to use our platforms of choice in either emulation or BootCamp modes, but let me lay out a cost to WotC . . .
I use a Mac and wont be running D&DI in emulation or BootCamp mode . . .
I am a DM for a group of 10 regular players . . .
If D&DI is implemented in a Non-Cross Platform manner, WotC will lose out on 11 sales . . .
It is, of course, up to WotC as to whether they need these sales . . .
I don't need D&DI . . . . Want? It would be nice, but we don't need it . . .
Eric C. Smith
These opinions are mine alone, er, well, others may agree, but thats not my fault . . .
Anyways, these are my opinions and not that of any organization that I may choose to associate with, er, unless they agree as well, but I'm not speaking for them right now anyway . . .
To boot, my group only plays once a month, so that's only about 6-7 hours of server use per month from us. That's good money for WotC, by my calculation.
I wonder why they don't see it as viable?
Thats about $270 / month right there. hmm.. how much more?
Maybe if we start talking money...
All that said, the second strongest reason WotC should be doing this cross-platform is because the USA != the Rest of the World. In India and South America, Linux uptake is slaying Windows installations. WotC's largest market is the USA, but only a fool would ignore the rest of the world.
Reason number three is future proofing: The biggest reason why Windows has market dominance these days is because, well, because Windows has market dominance. If it makes any sense to say this, then when Windows doesn't have market dominance, there will be much less reason to go with a Windows system. We could be around the corner from a substantial shift in OS usage and some of the big players (Dell, IBM, Google) are certainly acting like we are. Even Microsoft is tacitly preparing for such a seachange with introductions of new licensing models. WotC does not want to have to go through a late-development spec change. This is both costly and usually leads to buggy code. And you can take that to the bank. ;)
Reason four would be publicity. Word of mouth and good press are always valuable. You'd get some from going cross-platform, you really, really would. Both from users and from outsiders who'd talk about it.
Reason five would be the demographics of different platform users. It's not worth stereotyping over, but there is some overlap between the more technically aware users and RPG gamers. WotC should not care about whether Windows has 98% of the general population usage. They should care if Windows has 78% of the RPG market. (Note figures made up, but illustrative of point). Taking into account factors such as home usage rather than work, age of gamers, technical knowledge, affluence level, larger student percentage and others, you're going to find that the figure you have for how much of the market Windows has, is a lot lower when that market is confined to your customer base.
Reason sox would be because virtualisation is not a solution to running Windows systems on non-Windows boxes for those of us who wouldn't be running such a system anyway - the Windows O/S license still costs, even if virtualised.
Reason seven would be because Lurkalot uses Linux at home and doesn't want to have to run it in a virtual machine all the time. Admittedly, I am unlikely to factor into WotC marketing plans by name, but that's why I've put it at the bottom of the list. ;) Hey - it matters to me.
So I hope that helps. As an aside, I'd just note that there's no good reason why things should be more integrated than they have to be. I sincerely hope that I will be able to access Dungeon and Dragon magazines as well as other static content with my subscription, even if the online gaming software doesn't work for me.
And thanks for starting this thread - it's good to be able to offer this feedback
Regards,
Lurkalot (aka Knasser, elsewhere)
Your reasons were excellent, however I would like to mention that in order to view the static content of DDI, you will still need to pay the 15$/month (because WotC has forgone the 'a la carte' option). Frankly 15$ is way too much to pay for a magazine that is leagues away from it's competition IMHO.
PS: Other then the 3d figures the rest of the DDI suit is available for free online. Further more, the 3d figures will cost extra on top of the 15$...
(back to topic)
As an I.T professional, I run Windows Vista on my home PC to gain experience with it. My machine is less than a year old and is quite a power house. (8gig of ram, 8800GTX video card, etc) Even with all that, Vista can bring my machine to its knees quicker than a power failure in a hurricane. I have a 2nd machine that is a 5 year old Dell piece of junk running Ubuntu 8.04 with all the graphical goodies turned on and it runs circles, performance wise, around my Vista powerhouse most of the time when running typical programs. I am not a MAC expert, but I hear similar stories about OS X vs. Windows XP/Vista performance. As many people out there do not have the $$ to by the latest Alienware PC and run non-windows OS's for their better performance, why not make the DDI tools available to that market as well?
Again, I agree w/ Lurkalot....better to start the programming now, in the beginning than a year down the line when there are more tools to reprogram.
Lurkalot,
Your reasons were excellent, however I would like to mention that in order to view the static content of DDI, you will still need to pay the 15$/month (because WotC has forgone the 'a la carte' option). Frankly 15$ is way too much to pay for a magazine that is leagues away from it's competition IMHO.
PS: Other then the 3d figures the rest of the DDI suit is available for free online. Further more, the 3d figures will cost extra on top of the 15$...
(back to topic)
Thanks for the info. I'm not interested in playing online (and I would consider the art generation package to be actively detrimental to my game if I used it). That leaves me with the $15 for the magazine subscriptions. Hmmmm. I live in the UK so the way the dollar has sunk means it's about £7 for me - not too bad for two magazines, but then it's paying for access to an archive which is a bit different. And odd. Someone who subscribes in June for a year will have an overall level of access to much less content than someone who subscribes in December, because there will have been a greater accumulation of material. Shame WotC didn't retain my services some months back - I can do business model analysis consultation.
Oh well, as you say... back to topic.
Let me bring a different angle to the discussion.
I don't know the intricacies of computer programs, nor do I want to. I have no interest in computer programming or other such 'messing around' with how my computer is supposed to work.
Although I understand the concept of dual booting or emulation software, I don't know:
a) where to get it from
b) how to install it
c) how to run it
d) How to run another program in it
e) what it does to my computer
f) how vulnerable it leaves my computer
G) how useful it will be to perform this task
More to the point, I don't want to know. I specifically bought a Mac BECAUSE of it's user friendlyness and intuitive nature. I specifically DIDN'T want a PC (windows) computer because of all the endless faffing around you have to do with them.
My point is this, all the DDI stuff sounds good (especially gamer table) and I would genuinely want to use it (finding real word games is becoming too hard) but I cannot utilise it.
All this talk of emulation options means nothing to me as I wouldn't have the foggiest of how to go about it. And I wouldn't be surprised if I was the only person who held this opinion.
This isn't a technical reason why to to reconsider but one of accessibility. It seems to me Wizards is cutting off some of their potential users for what seem (from the outside) like arbitrary reasons.
just something to think obout
Daz
We do not want Emulations, OS that is NOT MAC nor anything to do (if possible) with Windoblows.
I'm trying to save to "go back to Mac" because while I had to change my PC 3 or 4 times since 2000, I have my PowerMac since 1999 and only needs it to get some memory (it has 400 megas since 1999) to keep up.
Not to mention the fact that we don't want to get any viruses or similars that happens to all PCs no matter what firewalls/antiviruses or similar things you add on.
And last, there is MONEY in the MAC environment... if you don't want it....
Further more, the 3d figures will cost extra on top of the 15$...
It was my understanding, and I could surely be wrong with the habit there seems to be of information changing on a second by second basis, that the complete subscription would be $15/month or you could pay for up to a year ahead of time for a discount that comes to about $10/month. Also, that the subscription would include all aspects of the DDI, including the 3D models of your characters, made from the Character Visualizer, for use in the virtual table top system.
The micro transactions are what scares a lot of people. I used to be waiting anxiously for this product, but now, I'm on the wait and see plan. I'll judge it when it comes out. Hopefully they get the message that people aren't willing to pay for the extras that are to be had, and that they should be part of the fee in the first place.
I don't really like the idea of seeing this great rendition of the table, all 3D'd out, and then have a 2D pog representation of a monster pop out, and go "rarrr, I'm a monster". wooo.
As an I.T professional, I run Windows Vista on my home PC to gain experience with it. My machine is less than a year old and is quite a power house. (8gig of ram, 8800GTX video card, etc) Even with all that, Vista can bring my machine to its knees quicker than a power failure in a hurricane.
That's odd to me. Even as a non-IT professional, I've been able to get excellent gaming performance out of a machine running Vista. I have the same graphics card you have, only 4 gigs of RAM, and a quad-core AMD processor. Works great.
I dual boot into Linux, and of course Linux runs even faster, but Vista has been stable for me in the year and a half or so that I've been using it, and I can't play the games I want in Linux.
Running Windows on anything, even a virtual machine, requires you to install a copy. That's why I brought up the point about not running it once I get an Apple. I'm specifically trying to get away from Windows entirely.
Actually, the emulater that ran on the Amiga would not need a copy. It also would not be able to emulate anything past WIN98, but that simply because Workbench is no longer around.
The fact that Windows is needed for PC games and the Xboxification of the Direct X and Microsoft games titles (and the Live sub service being offered for games in Vista) is cause for concern. If I have a computer game I should be able to play it no matter what computer I happen to have. IBM's OSwarp was suppose to be able to do this, but it never caught on and might have been pulled from the market.
These days, it is sitting between 15-20%, and growing every quarter. By not allowing for cross-platform compatibility, you are going to alienate a lot of your customers.
EDIT: Also, consider the iPhone and iPod touch.
Fully fledged web browser (Safari) running on BSD Unix with an OS X interface designed for the phone.
New iPhones coming out in June (soon to be followed by new version of iPod touch) will have Wifi, Bluetooth, and 3G capability.
Those people with this little fully-working mini-computer in their pockets will not be able to use the iPhone to use those DirectX only D&Di apps on the go.
Also, if one person in a gaming group can't use the apps, they won't subscribe. If they won't subscribe, then their whole group wont subscribe. This will be anywhere from 4 to 6 other people who won't sign up for D&Di.
Consider each Macintosh/Linux person who has posted on this thread. Then add another 4 to 6 people for each person.
It turns out to be a lot of people all up, and that's a lot of revenue (per month) Wizards will be missing out on.
So, if those aren't good enough reasons (including the ones I posted above) to create and support a cross-platform initiative, I don't know what is.
If Neverwinter Nights can be made to run on Mac, Linux, and Windows, and each can play with the other online, then D&Di should be able to as well.
EDIT 2: Over a week and a half ago I downloaded trial versions of Crossover, Crossover Games, VMWare, and Parallels.
Crossover and Crossover Games ran games and programs too slow, and not all programs run. So I gave them the flick.
Parallels and VMWare fail running my Boot Camp Windows Partition as a Virtual Machine. I created support tickets for both programs with the support staff for each company.
A week and a half later, VMWare has yet to respond or assign the ticket to anyone.
The day before my trial of Parallels was due to run out, I got an e-mail saying so. I sent an e-mail back to sales saying that Parallels didn't work, I lodged a support ticket, and I have not had anyone respond. I mentioned this was poor service and I was considering not buying the program.
Oh, what a surprise when someone e-mailed me the very next day asking me tech-type questions to fix the problems. However, his suggested fixes could not be run because my trial version of Parallels had expired.
Having to rely on a third-party program with third party support to run emulation software to run the D&Di DirectX applications is cumbersome, and will do nothing but frustrate the end-user. Gleemax/WotC/whoever will claim it is the emulation software's fault. The emulation software company technical support will point fingers at Gleemax/WotC/etc. Nothing will get fixed. The end-user will be left out in the cold.
Anestis.
We see a LOT of people screaming already about certain aspects of the proposed offered product, and have heard hardly a peep out of the developers or those that represent the product on those issues, so all we can do is hope they make the right move(s), and hear what we are saying and asking for.
If not, then they either make enough money on the Windows users willing to pay for the product/ multiple user households with Windows who are willing to pay for two or more accounts/ groups who all have Windows and who are all willing to pay for the product/ people who will forgo their group to play only online with other Windows users who are willing to pay for the product/ etc, etc., or it tanks.
It's almost here. We will see.
You know what? the bottom line is that they have already committed to doing it with DirectX and they are banking on that. We will see if it fails.
Yeah, I heard that as well. Seems like a mistake. I'll be using Windows to run it, but why tie the development to something like DirectX so if you want to later make MacOS or Linux versions available it's that much more difficult (or at least time-consuming)?
Yeah, I heard that as well. Seems like a mistake. I'll be using Windows to run it, but why tie the development to something like DirectX so if you want to later make MacOS or Linux versions available it's that much more difficult (or at least time-consuming)?
I agree that it could be a mistake, and believe that they should use a better cross-platform technology. I just wanted to point out that we will just have to wait. We are doing a lot of complaining, and hopefully they are seeing it, but it could just be futile.
Hopefully it works out.
You know what? the bottom line is that they have already committed to doing it with DirectX and they are banking on that. We will see if it fails.
We see a LOT of people screaming already about certain aspects of the proposed offered product, and have heard hardly a peep out of the developers or those that represent the product on those issues, so all we can do is hope they make the right move(s), and hear what we are saying and asking for.
If not, then they either make enough money on the Windows users willing to pay for the product/ multiple user households with Windows who are willing to pay for two or more accounts/ groups who all have Windows and who are all willing to pay for the product/ people who will forgo their group to play only online with other Windows users who are willing to pay for the product/ etc, etc., or it tanks.
It's almost here. We will see.
You're missing the point of this thread.
Gamer Zer0 asked for feedback. That is what we are providing.
Anestis.
You're missing the point of this thread.
Gamer Zer0 asked for feedback. That is what we are providing.
Anestis.
Yeah, I know. I also provided a bit. I was just pointing out the possible futility of it. I'm on the same team as everyone here. I believe that they need to make it cross platform. It's just that we have been giving this same feedback throughout the course of time, and really aren't getting any type of reaction, other than it's coming, wait and see.
I really think it's too late to give the feedback, however, because it's a done deal already. If this thread existed, say, last year sometime, maybe we could have had an impact on the initial release. Now, no way.
Time will tell, I guess.
Also, if one person in a gaming group can't use the apps, they won't subscribe. If they won't subscribe, then their whole group wont subscribe. This will be anywhere from 4 to 6 other people who won't sign up for D&Di.
You're going to have to explain this one to me...personally I plan on getting D&Di because I'm the DM, and supporting the pen and paper group so none of them need to get it themselves. As I gather, if you don't want the online table and just have in the flesh meeting, one copy for one group works just fine. Is there something I'm missing.
A bit more relevant to the issue at hand - I personally use windows at the moment. When I get a laptop, I intend to run linux on it, and dual boot windows whenever I become separated from my desktop. There are so many windows exclusive apps that I think it's necessary. Yes, it would be more lucrative and great if this worked with all OSs, but you can make that argument about everything.
Personally I think it would be smart to, despite the dislike of a la carte, have a sort of "D&Di mini" program with the errata and new content but sans the game table, character generator, etc. The content without the pretty graphics - seems pretty feasible to me.
New iPhones coming out in June (soon to be followed by new version of iPod touch) will have Wifi, Bluetooth, and 3G capability.
I agree. If you could get something like the online game table working on an iPhone / iPod touch it could well be a killer app for geeks. An iPhone can be taken anywhere in a way that a laptop (even a notebook) can't.
I agree. If you could get something like the online game table working on an iPhone / iPod touch it could well be a killer app for geeks. An iPhone can be taken anywhere in a way that a laptop (even a notebook) can't.
Unfortunately, Apple is so absolutely hostile to developers on the iPhone that the odds of that happening are probably worse that 0.
That's odd to me. Even as a non-IT professional, I've been able to get excellent gaming performance out of a machine running Vista. I have the same graphics card you have, only 4 gigs of RAM, and a quad-core AMD processor. Works great.
I dual boot into Linux, and of course Linux runs even faster, but Vista has been stable for me in the year and a half or so that I've been using it, and I can't play the games I want in Linux.
Agreed Steerpike. I am not saying that Vista doesn't do fine with games, but take a game that is playable on Linux and Vista and compare the performance of the 2. I will bet $$ that the Linux box handles the performance better overall...all other variables being equal, of course. My comment was directed more at the fact that not everyone that plays DnD wants to be required to have some sort of Windows machine to run the DDI apps on. Several people in my DnD groups have a Mac and will, at the very least, need to run an emulator and suffer the performance hit of running Windows on top of the Mac OS. This could have as easily been programmed in OpenGL or even Java as to be compatible across more platforms.
Yes, I agree. There's no doubt the game performs much better under Linux if it can be run in that OS. The games I have even perform better under XP (except for the dx10 components, if they exist) than under Vista. But with my current rig I run most games at top settings even in Vista, so the performance difference isn't really that noticeable, if at all.
I do think it would have made more sense to program in a cross-platform environment. I hate running things inside of emulators, personally.
Idont think that there is a chance that I and several others in my group will install a windows our macs, just because of DDI. DDI is nice and maybe worth 15$ amonth, but it is not worth buying additionally a vmware and a MS Windows for additional 300 euro. Never. this alone cost more than 2 years subscription.
The D&D4 ed. is sold to us gamers as "flexible", "modern" and extremly user friendly. But it seems that is not really true with the digital part of it which is made only for MS users. This means not only "un-openess" its also not wise regarding sales. Its not only ignoring approximately 15% of their customers directly it means also ignoring many more than 15% of the gamer groups, because the 15%mac users are not clusterd on a single mac-only planet. And so it comes that today in many gamer groups there are the usual 1 or 2 mac users. Such groups will not be able to use DDIs gamer table at all and in the end no member will subscribe. (not even the PC owners) I mean if our group shells out over 100$ a month we want to play with each of the friends and not just with those who have a PC. So to the wizards in charge of this project: roll once more against WIS and change your strategy of mac/linux discrimination. Its a communication and community tool and not a solo adventure game. Such tools should not exclude a part of the community.
Microsoft has it's reasons for bringing out the Xbox, since it will be out of the OS business within 10 years.
WoTC know these:
1) Emulation software costs.
2) Emulation software slows down the machine.
3) Emulation software usually needs partitions of your system.
3) Running multiple OSes (especially Windows) vastly increases suscepibility to malware of all kinds.
4) Windows licences are very expensive, and some of us like to stay legal.
WoTC also know:
a) The only way to get a multiplatform system running would be to get serious about investment in a modern programming team. One or two years ago.
And the only motivation that could actually (have) work(ed):
i) They will lose potential subscribers.
So, I'm not sure why there needs to be a discussion thread, other than to corral the complaints away from productive discussion.
General comments: I understand why WoTC are keen to dabble in a market that has proved so massively successful for a closely related consumer base, so I can see how the various mistakes were made. But the approach has always been on the 'dabbling' side, no matter what it felt like within the company. Look at the production teams and server support produced by (say) Blizzard North for years before WoW came out. And even for their non-subscriber games, which they supported for over a decade after release with serious resources. For free. That's not a success story that can be sampled by dabbling, because at the end of the day, consumers either buy in or they don't, and the package has to be complete to get that buy in. WoTC are currently even planning on charging for extra digital content on top of a WoW-sized subscription!
I'm not upset or anything - I just want the game content, which I think WoTC does very well. And since I don't even have the target OS of DDi, I don't need to decide whether I want it or not - it just doesn't apply to me. But I find these kinds of questions disingenuous, since the will was never really there.
But I find these kinds of questions disingenuous, since the will was never really there.
I suspect the thread is to some extent actually a bid by someone who's been arguing for, or wishes to argue for, cross-platform support internally. They are canvassing for supporting arguments or to show a market to those with the power to effect change. At least that's my impression and I think it more likely than trying to corral dissenters if only because I don't think WotC care that much to try and manipulate forum discussion that way. ;)
I hope WotC do come to their senses and start trying to achieve cross-platform support. If they'd taken that approach in the beginning, then it would not have cost them much in the way of extra resources and might even have resulted in a better product or timelier delivery of features due to the sort of people they'd have had to hire to do such a job. (Not saying Unix developers have higher potential standards - just that they have higher minimum standards, so risk is mitigated, imho). Now that they're in this situation, though, it's impossible to say how difficult it will be to get themselves out of it without seeing the software itself. But the longer they leave it the harder it will be, and the longer they leave it, the more they'll find their potential customers wanting to use non-Windows O/S's.
Lurkalot.
Please use this thread to have a discussion of why you'd like to see different platform support for D&Di.
Keep in mind that this is not a petition, but is intended for healthy discussion. Posts with one or two words will be considered off-topic.
Not everyone owns 400 computers in home with every operating system known to man on at least one of them, meaning some people may not run Windows. I think that should end the discussion quite simply, not everyone uses Windows or Internet Explorer.
Their are two choices fo DDI:
Make software for cross-platform compatibility.
OR
Lose customers that will not buy a computer just to use DDI/people who right their own software clients to connect via other operating systems as was done with Neverwinter Nights. Look at the rest of the gaming industry and see how many "exclusive" to one console game the biggest named products are. Spideman video games as on every platform/system not proprietary to XBOX or Playstations, etc.
I don't use those other systems, but see no reason why they should be left out when today there are so many options for cross-platform compatability. Does the rest of the website require Windows operating system?
Unfortunately, Apple is so absolutely hostile to developers on the iPhone that the odds of that happening are probably worse that 0.
Behind the times, are we? iPhone Developer Program When the iPhone 2 launches next month, developers will not be limited to webapps. Here's an upcoming MMORPG for the iPhone, as an example: Parallel Kingdom
As for me, I am in a Mac-only household and I run my games online, currently using IRC but I'm open to the idea of a cross-platform Virtual Tabletop, preferably one that supports a z-axis.
(Hint: Saying, "Because I shouldn't have to run my machine in emulation mode," while true, isn't the compelling type of feedback I hope to pass on.)
Let me just add my voice to those saying that it isn't so much a matter of "shouldn't have to run my machine in emulation mode" and more a matter of "shouldn't have to shell out $200 to use D&Di in emulation mode without violating Microsoft's IP." I do use Bootcamp on my MacBook Pro, having had to already buy a copy of Windows XP for work-related purposes, but I have a great deal of sympathy for those who aren't in my position.
I'm hoping that I can run D&Di in VMWare, because if I have to boot into Bootcamp the odds of me continuing to use it drops dramatically. I wouldn't be using it in a vacuum, but alongside other apps (email, chat, irc, etc), with access to my document library (I have MS Office for Mac, but not Windows), sound and music library, etc. Keep in mind that I cannot access my OS X directories while in Bootcamp. I could keep key files in the Bootcamp partition, but that's problematic (among others, it creates problems for Time Machine).
I don't know what percentage of Wizard's customers use OS X, but it may be higher than the average, keeping in mind that the oft-quoted 5% takes into account large corporate install bases, etc. We should also keep in mind Gartner reports that show the market share of OS X growing. But hey, let's say it's just 5% and staying there. Is standing outside your store and telling every twentieth customer to go away, that you don't want their money, a part of a good business plan?
I don't know what percentage of Wizard's customers use OS X, but it may be higher than the average, keeping in mind that the oft-quoted 5% takes into account large corporate install bases, etc.
According to THIS ARTICLEApple's Q1 2008 retail (brick and mortar) reached 14% (by limiting it to retail, they've excluded online sales and institutional/enterprise sales). However, if you limit the data to computers priced above $1,000, Apple represents 66% of all retail computer sales.
The $1,000+ computer crowd would be the one that doesn't mind a monthly charge for the DDI, one would surmise.
I would give anything to toss my really nice, home built, fast enough for anything, PC out of the window and switch completely over to Mac. Windows OS is getting worse and worse with each passing year (Vista is a disaster). My Mac just works. That's not to say it doesn't crash....but when it does, it reboots it about 30 seconds and I am back up and running.
The number of applications I use that are PC exclusive are dwindling rapidly and as soon as that number gets down to one or two I will phase them out of my life completely.
I would use emulators if they worked. As others have stated, they just don't seem to work nearly as well as they should.
Jaime
This is said with 0 exposure to take with a large grain of salt. I will be trying this out using Vmware and may subscribe.
Being a Mac user currently (windows user in the past) I am biased towards wanting cross platform solution. I am surprised in the day of Javascript, Ajax, that WOTC did not build this with cross platform in mind. While they do have some 3d widgetry going on it does not appear to be that complex that a solution using java or other cross platform language could not have been used.
This is said with 0 exposure to take with a large grain of salt. I will be trying this out using Vmware and may subscribe.
Much as I like Java, I was expecting them to go with something like Flash which is amazingly widespread. When I heard they didn't have a Mac version, I was honestly taken-aback. "Version? Huh? You mean they didn't just go web-based and cover everyone? Holy missed-opportunity, Batman!"
It was discounted, not unknown.
Somehow I can not picture Java as a cross platform application for game table, though I have not looked at it much. Perhaps someone could provide a brief description of how Java could provide all that DDI promises.
You mean like RPTools, which is Java and cross-platform?
http://rptools.net/doku.php
Admittedly, it's not what DDI is offering but it's not that different.
Java is slow and clunky. PCGen was unbearable because of it.
Have you tried PCGen recently? The code team has been hammering at the code for several versions now cleaning it up.
How can we answer these questions? We can certainly speak in general terms about why running non-native software on a system is not ideal but without knowing what form of emulation it runs under it's tough to answer that question.
If it runs under WINE as well as Google's Picasa then I would be fine with it. Picasa performs well but has a few quirks but overall is a good product. There are quite a few programs that run well under WINE but the ones that don't run well can be extremely frustrating.
If it requires VMWare or Parallels then the expenses are prohibitive for many ($99 for the Emulation and another $150 for Windows) and performance is even worse using VMWare or Parallels than applications that run under WINE. Further, you are forced to maintain a Windows OS, and since that Windows OS is attached to the internet you should probably run anti-virus software which will further degrade your performance.
Back to my original question though, what emulation does it work under?
Java is slow and clunky. PCGen was unbearable because of it. I would much rather have native Mac/Linux solutions, or failing that, web-based ones.
Java hasn't been "Slow and clunky" for a few years. Java 5 was a vast improvement over previous versions and can start up a vm faster than .NET, depending on the app.
Back to my original question though, what emulation does it work under?
I do not have the answer to this question at that stage, as all our resources are focused on what we need to deliver first.
I do not have the answer to this question at that stage, as all our resources are focused on what we need to deliver first.
That part isn't obvious. This thread has shown quite clearly that what you need to deliver is not what you are planning to deliver.
Java hasn't been "Slow and clunky" for a few years. Java 5 was a vast improvement over previous versions and can start up a vm faster than .NET, depending on the app.
Regardless, it's not written in Java, so this whole line of discussion is aside from the point.
I do not have the answer to this question at that stage, as all our resources are focused on what we need to deliver first.
So the answer to G0's query is all hypothetical. Typical concerns with emulation boil down to cost, performance, compatibility, and increased maintenance (of the windows OS). Additional concerns: Does it interact directly with the desktop or does it run in a VM? Will it work on older systems (this is a bigger issue with VM setups).
Regardless, it's not written in Java, so this whole line of discussion is aside from the point.
Discussion of cross-platform languages that other RPG tools (in the general sense) are written in is the point. If other, smaller companies/individuals can produce cross-platform RPG apps that show up in a basic Google search, why didn't WoTC think of it?
That part isn't obvious. This thread has shown quite clearly that what you need to deliver is not what you are planning to deliver.
I think what is meant here is echoed in similar to What WotC_Michelle stated about repairs to the chat server, and the podcast server. WotC currently is missing deadlines with MTGO Shadowmoor and the release of DDI, that they have all IT teams working on geting those done (also mentioned by someone else). So they do not have time to "fix" anything at this time until they get done getting these NEW releases ready. So any fix to the older things (or newer) will have to wait until after the new things come out and the IT people have a chance to actually look into them rather than rollout new things.
So AFTER DDI comes out and they have the existing minimums "needed" by WotC running they will look into and address what they can dealing with other "options".
So what they need, is not ever the thing consumers need. At this point they need to meet their deadlines with existing projects.
So what they need, is not ever the thing consumers need. At this point they need to meet their deadlines with existing projects.
See, the point is that they are working on getting stuff up and running for services that no one wants.
It also serves to have Wizards look back and try and see what they need to do in the future or if some of that wasted effort can be redirected to worthwhile pursutes.
See, the point is that they are working on getting stuff up and running for services that no one wants.
It also serves to have Wizards look back and try and see what they need to do in the future or if some of that wasted effort can be redirected to worthwhile pursutes.
I am just saying for at lesat a PR standpoint they "need" to meet some sort of deadline ONCE.
Also that they FEEL that they only needed Windows support, and since they have seemingly done no other testing of other platforms, they are devoting all "resources", as WotC_Michelle called them, to just geting the things done for those things they FEEL they "need".
Not the actual things the customers want. So they are not worrying about what customers want at this time, as they are unable to devote anyone to meeting those customer needs.
I agree this was all done wrong. I was meerly explaining that under the current circumstances any other platforms being discusses would not be implemented or even tested prior to the initial release from the looks of what was posted in regards to the chat server "going down within the week".
I don't use these other platforms, and I only make webpages for IE because it is all I know. But I can understand that other people need platform cross-compatiblity. HEck if I new all the web browsers out there and could program for them all I would make money from doing it! But, unlike WotC, I am not a business that must provide compatible toolsfor its customers, I am just a hobby webpage maker.
Discussion of cross-platform languages that other RPG tools (in the general sense) are written in is the point. If other, smaller companies/individuals can produce cross-platform RPG apps that show up in a basic Google search, why didn't WoTC think of it?
Umm... no it's not on topic. You might want to reread the original post.
Don't get me wrong, I am with you on this. There are tons of great ways they could have done this multi platform and I would have loved to see them do it. The thing is they didn't, what you are talking about is the proverbial spilled milk.
I am a mac user, and was extremely disappointed to find out that DND
Insider tools (the ones that matter, Game Table, character creation)
will not be mac compatible. I did in fact read the reasons for this, on
your support page. I would like to firmly state this is absolutely
ridiculous, due to the fact that there is a large growing market of
young people, who have purchased macs in the last 3 years. Furthermore I
would like to state that you are limiting sales on your product, due to
the fact that you also are charging a monthly fee. If you are willing to
charge a fee, wouldn't it make more sense to reach more consumers by
allowing mac users to be able to use your product as well? The fee isn't
the problem, its the compatibility. Look at Blizzard's success with
World of Warcraft, which you seem eager to mold your new edition off of.
Blizzard has made it their mission to make all games pc/mac compatible
from the very beginning, and because of this platform they have been
able to reap success as gaming company. I do not believe your marketing
research was accurate when you surveyed the PC/Mac industry, I believe
you took the easy way out, which was seem to be done with other features
of fourth edition as well. Sure the PC market is larger than Mac, but
not large enough to exclude mac users from using your product, which is
exactly what you are doing. The only reason I had interest in your
product was so that I could play it online with friends in the east
coast, and international countries all whom share the same gaming, and
computer tastes as I do. 80% of the people I know who are interested in
using 4th edition, are Mac users. You have severely crippled our
interest in your product and you can expect us not to purchase it until
a change is made. I believe in the long run your company will feel the
effects of your actions towards the exclusion of mac users, instead of
profiting from it, by including them in your target consumers.
If anyone shares this sentiment, and I know there are lots out there who do, Please, post, write [email]dndinsider@wizards.com[/email] and express your opinions. It isn't fair to mac users to have to deal with this.
Did you see the color blind thread yesterday? Same principle, you're the minority. You could however, go and buy a real computer. It's cheaper and does more. Like D&D Insider.
You also just trolled the **** out of 4E, so why do you care?
Oh my, this post cracks me up.
Did you see the color blind thread yesterday? Same principle, you're the minority. You could however, go and buy a real computer. It's cheaper and does more. Like D&D Insider.
You also just trolled the **** out of 4E, so why do you care?
... and are you not baiting and flaming the OP?
I think he has a valid concern...
To Whom it may Concern,
I am a mac user, and was extremely disappointed to find out that DND
Insider tools (the ones that matter, Game Table, character creation)
will not be mac compatible. I did in fact read the reasons for this, on
your support page. I would like to firmly state this is absolutely
ridiculous, due to the fact that there is a large growing market of
young people, who have purchased macs in the last 3 years. Furthermore I
would like to state that you are limiting sales on your product, due to
the fact that you also are charging a monthly fee. If you are willing to
charge a fee, wouldn't it make more sense to reach more consumers by
allowing mac users to be able to use your product as well? The fee isn't
the problem, its the compatibility. Look at Blizzard's success with
World of Warcraft, which you seem eager to mold your new edition off of.
Blizzard has made it their mission to make all games pc/mac compatible
from the very beginning, and because of this platform they have been
able to reap success as gaming company. I do not believe your marketing
research was accurate when you surveyed the PC/Mac industry, I believe
you took the easy way out, which was seem to be done with other features
of fourth edition as well. Sure the PC market is larger than Mac, but
not large enough to exclude mac users from using your product, which is
exactly what you are doing. The only reason I had interest in your
product was so that I could play it online with friends in the east
coast, and international countries all whom share the same gaming, and
computer tastes as I do. 80% of the people I know who are interested in
using 4th edition, are Mac users. You have severely crippled our
interest in your product and you can expect us not to purchase it until
a change is made. I believe in the long run your company will feel the
effects of your actions towards the exclusion of mac users, instead of
profiting from it, by including them in your target consumers.
If there are more of you out there who share this sentiment! Please post, or write [email]dndinsider@wizards.com[/email]. This isn't fair to mac users who have to deal with this problem.
... and are you not baiting and flaming the OP?
I think he has a valid concern...
He might, and no, I'm not baiting him on purpose. OK, maybe a little good natured ribbing based on his choice of hardware, but reality sucks, it's still a PC world.
Simply put, it costs money to develop for anything, with PC, they can see a profit, with Mac, not so much.
He might, and no, I'm not baiting him on purpose. OK, maybe a little good natured ribbing based on his choice of hardware, but reality sucks, it's still a PC world.
Simply put, it costs money to develop for anything, with PC, they can see a profit, with Mac, not so much.
;)
80% of the people I know who are interested in
using 4th edition, are Mac users.
80%? I don't 80 people who own a Mac.
He might, and no, I'm not baiting him on purpose. OK, maybe a little good natured ribbing based on his choice of hardware, but reality sucks, it's still a PC world.
Simply put, it costs money to develop for anything, with PC, they can see a profit, with Mac, not so much.
Truth,
if it came down to one or the other to kick off DDI, I would choose PC too.
Just joking.
Umm... no it's not on topic. You might want to reread the original post.
Don't get me wrong, I am with you on this. There are tons of great ways they could have done this multi platform and I would have loved to see them do it. The thing is they didn't, what you are talking about is the proverbial spilled milk.
G0 was asking why the community thinks that emulation is inadequate. That question has been answered repeatedly (Having to purchase more software, another OS, maintain it, etc..). The other side to it is why should Mac users be treated as second class citizens when the technology to make software cross-platform has existed for years (case in point: Blizzard Entertainment)? There are examples today of RPG game table software that is cross-platform (written in Java, Python etc.). Why didn't WoTC pick up on a market that demonstrates this need already exists?
Oh my, this post cracks me up.
You could however, go and buy a real computer. It's cheaper and does more. Like D&D Insider.
ok fetch me a real computer that weights less than air, that uses more frendly user tools than air
oh my this post cracks me up, Ill have to use my sub-par heavier than iron tool to play, I really hope that they either adapt it to MAC or give room to do it
This is particularly true considering the nature of this product. The raw market share does not indicate how many potential sales are lost by not supporting the Mac. Decisions to subscribe to the service are going to often be made by gaming groups rather than individuals. All it takes is one member of a 5 to 10 person gaming group who is Mac only to veto that decision.
For example, in my case I prefer to use my notebook for roleplaying. If I choose not to use this service because my notebook is a Mac, then my entire group of six players, all of whom have PCs, are unlikely to subscribe to the service.
I'm quite sure that I'm not the only one in a similar situation. In fact, in my case it's a choice because I could run from my desktop PC if I so chose, it would simply be less convenient for me to do so. For many others it won't be a choice because one of their group only has a Mac.
I don't intend to rant and rave about it, that's simply the way it is.
What strikes me funny is the timing, as if this is a new revalation. We've all know thing for a good 6 months, and there have been a ton of these threads. Now, all things considered, I agree with the OP. I'm not a MAC user, but I agree that Wizards should have released their tools for PC, MAC and Unix. However, this thread still makes me laugh.
Better get used to it. I've known for a few weeks now that this service won't support Macs, but the people who have been following the development of this product as much as you have are an even smaller percentage of the overall market for D&D than are Mac users.
With the imminent release of the rules, more and more people are going to make their way to these forums for the first time, and they will encounter the limitations of this product for the first time. Some of those reactions are going to be explosive to say the least.
There are examples today of RPG game table software that is cross-platform (written in Java, Python etc.). Why didn't WoTC pick up on a market that demonstrates this need already exists?
I agree with you 100%. I just feel recriminations are pointless and not the reason G0 started this thread.
I agree with you 100%. I just feel recriminations are pointless and not the reason G0 started this thread.
I'm not upset with WoTC with their decision (I'm sure there are lots of reasons for it that we haven't seen). I'm upset that they've effectively told the [Insert *major* foreign language here](i.e. another OS) community that they're not going to be producing books in that language and that you'll have to buy the English book snd get it translated (emulated) yourself.
I'm not upset with WoTC with their decision (I'm sure there are lots of reasons for it that we haven't seen). I'm upset that they've effectively told the [Insert *major* foreign language here](i.e. another OS) community that they're not going to be producing books in that language and that you'll have to buy the English book snd get it translated (emulated) yourself.
I'm on your side, but I spot a bad analogy. You have some elves, some dwarves and some goblins. They all speak Common, but you chose to write your book in Goblin only. I'll leave it to people's own prejudices to decide which OS corresponds to which race's language, but that's the correct version of your analogy. You don't need to publish the book in multiple languages anymore - just the one language that everyone can understand.
Web server logs show browser and OS types. They know what % of the market has a Mac.
At this point, it seriously appears that they are struggling to get DnDInsider released as they are officially saying only part will be available on launch day.
So they're doing what they can by targeting a reduced set. Once they get that set, maybe they'll move on to support more.
WoW for PC release: Nov 24, 2004
WoW for Mac release: Apr 15, 2005
I'd think you Mac people would be used to this by now.
"You know which games to get because you've played them all on your friend's PC."
Of course Dragon and (especially for me) Dungeon content is still usable, but at $15/month the price is too high. Paying for the bits I can't use doesn't sit well...
Luckily for WotC I'm not interested in 3d characters and online game tables. A few reasonably simple things might convince me to sign up:
- Downloadable PDF or HTML versions of the rulebooks
- Fillable PDF character sheets (they don't need to generate characters, just fill the sheets in nicely for printing)
- Online rule lookup from nice, simple standards-based web pages
- An iPhone-optimized version of the above ('cuz I'm just that much of a geek)
Simple things really, that should tide me over until the rest of the tools get rewritten to be cross-platform...
I'm on your side, but I spot a bad analogy. You have some elves, some dwarves and some goblins. They all speak Common, but you chose to write your book in Goblin only. I'll leave it to people's own prejudices to decide which OS corresponds to which race's language, but that's the correct version of your analogy. You don't need to publish the book in multiple languages anymore - just the one language that everyone can understand.
Fair enough. That one fits the theme better also. Thanks for the more relevant analogy.
If, at some point in the future, the tools become accessible for me (I am not buying a license for Windows and I am not going to Bootcamp or put Parallels on my machine), I will reconsider. Until that time, I will be using alternatives.
WoW for PC release: Nov 24, 2004
WoW for Mac release: Apr 15, 2005
WoW Burning Crusade release: same day (& discs) for both.
WoW WotLK release: same day (& discs) for both.
Starcraft 2 release: same day (& discs) for both.
Now, that is Blizzard, who's Mac support has always been top-notch (I can't fault them in the slightest for releasing a huge MMORPG later on the Mac, and they've kept patches & expansions at the exact same time as Windows computers).
That said, it does irk me that Wizards can't be bothered to release a Mac version of their tools. It's not hugely difficult to port many programs over to the Mac these days; just make them Intel only.
Meh, as long as I can get my Dragon & Dungeon PDFs I'm happy.
It took time, but they do now have a team with the experience to do the simultaneous releases.
Insider is a big new step for Wizards. They're not a software company. They're just learning to walk here.
Luckily for WotC I'm not interested in 3d characters and online game tables. A few reasonably simple things might convince me to sign up:
- Downloadable PDF or HTML versions of the rulebooks
- Fillable PDF character sheets (they don't need to generate characters, just fill the sheets in nicely for printing)
- Online rule lookup from nice, simple standards-based web pages
I agree, I don't need 3d stuff, I'm just going to print character sheets for my pen and paper game. A web based tool for generating characters and NPCs would be great.
I know this is a bad word around here but the d20SRD is an awesome tool and if you don't have such a thing it will be a crime: http://www.d20srd.org <-- It doesn't have to be free (though I wouldn't pay $15/ month for it either) but it should be that simple (and standards compliant) and easy to use for any browser.
The pirates already have a full version PDF of the CORE rules, how about getting something comparable for the legitimate users? Check out what Paizo does with stamping the PDF versions of the rules, it's a great model for releasing digital content (without the frustrating DRM).
If you are not developing for the Mac, I assume it is because the market is small enough that it isn't worth the cost of development. That's fine, it's business 101.
But suggesting that a VM is an acceptable way to serve that market overlooks the basic fact that just getting Windows running on your Mac in the first place will cost $220, just to dual-boot. If you want to run it in a virtual machine, tack on another $150 for the software and a RAM upgrade. Then you've got the $150/year fee for the software subscription, which puts your Mac owner $500 down just to use the software.
That's not supporting the Mac in any way shape or form.
But, what about that small percentage of Mac owners who have already made the investment in Windows and VMs and RAM? Why would they want to or not want to run D&Di in this environment?
Let's start with video performance. 3D support is spotty at best, and is pretty well only capable of supporting a subset of older games. Let's call it "workmanlike."
Then you've got the MacBook, Apple's most popular computer. It has an onboard video chipset that is equally "workmanlike," and it may be a kindness to call it that. This chipset has trouble with modern 3D apps even when running natively in Windows (in a dual boot configuration).
Likewise, streaming video and audio runs poorly in a virtual environment. And even if these intensive apps are running natively, having the virtual machine running at the same time will cause skips and pops and drop-outs. A VM is just a lot of load for a computer to carry.
And lastly you have the inconvenience. If I want to play my game, I have to boot my Mac, boot my VM, and then open the program. Anything I'm running at the same time (and who, these days, only runs on program at a time?) will slow down, thanks to the hogging VM, so my whole computing experience suffers.
And that's not saying anything for the general cognitive dissonance of having to work in Windows when I'm accustomed to the Mac.
And what about the impact on your PC users?
If you try to support virtualized Windows, you'll need to set the bar for your graphics very, very, low. Likewise, you'd have to avoid anything especially CPU intensive, and forget about streaming video and audio of any quality. Who wants that?
Yes, you can work around this by letting people set things to lower quality so it runs acceptably on their minimal VM "hardware." All that's going to do is make the VM'ing folks feel even more like second class citizens.
Okay, so that's why it's rough on a Mac user. Bottom line: Don't fool yourself into thinking that the availability of fast (compared to emulation) virtualization of Windows makes it unnecessary to develop native applications. People are accustomed to finding software that doesn't work on their platform of choice, that's fine. But suggesting that it's unnecessary or that a virtualized experience is "good enough" borders on insult.
What I really can't figure here is why it's so hard to justify cross platform development.
Macs comprise 15% of retail computer sales. Mac users are also, generally speaking, more affluent and willing to spend more money on computers. (Apparently 2/3 of expensive -- over $1K -- computers are Macs) Not a bad market to target for $15/month just to play a game with their buddies.
And then you're looking at a steady revenue stream in that $15/month. You can pay a reasonable developer's salary from the revenue of 400 or so subscribers. No idea what the size of your market is, but that seems like a pretty low number.
But, hey, it's a business decision WotC will have to make. Obviously there's already been a decision that there needs to be a richer experience than a web-based system can provide, and it may not be practical to develop this for more than one platform. So it goes.
I hope my feedback is helpful to you.
"Dividing notebook price ranges into fifths, or quintiles as the statisticians call them, Apple already has a 29% share of the U.S. market for notebook computers in the highest quintile — up 'stunningly,' notes analyst Toni Sacconaghi Jr. of Bernstein Research, from 8% three years ago. In the consumer and education market (i.e. excluding business computers), Apple share of the top quintile notebook market is nearly 46%," Phillip Elmer-Dewitt reports for Fortune.
[Nov 2007]
Even for desktops (for which sales are not so good for anyone) if you take out the gazillions of business PCs which will not get used for games, the percentage of macs/linux are much higher than the 12% overall figure suggests.
So for high-end consumer laptops, macs might very soon be in the *majority*. Let's face it, with Vista failing, and the pre-look at the next windows os majorly disappointing all reviewers, I can't see why this number would fall. It might already be over 50%.
The reason you don't tie yourself to an OS is because you sink or swim wit hthat choice. The days of assuming windows is a certain swim are well, well over.
All of those same day releases are after multiple other delayed Mac releases.
It took time, but they do now have a team with the experience to do the simultaneous releases.
Insider is a big new step for Wizards. They're not a software company. They're just learning to walk here.
Actually, THEY aren't learning anything, it's a third party developing the software.
Also, the program should run theoretically fine on your mac under bootcamp. (Look, a real answer instead of: You should have bought a PC)
Secondly, I agree with the person who said penny for pound. Mac OS X is on a Unix Kernel BSD core, so with one fell swoop they could have had mac AND linux practically done within the same development cycle.
I am, by the way, a Mac user. Also the GM of a group. I have people that will not be playing because they are Mac only. So we're investing in tabletops (where you don't have to buy the minis and map tiles and items to populate said map tiles) that don't require a monthly fee.
WoW for PC release: Nov 24, 2004
WoW for Mac release: Apr 15, 2005
Actually I started playing WoW in the Open Beta, in November 2004... on a Mac. And I was playing the day it went live... on a Mac. So Blizzard rocks.
Not that I'm really contributing to this thread, but I hate to see someone take a dig at macs with wrong information.
Wait, I can contribute! Half of my six person group uses mac lap-tops when we play on-line, so we will stick to the truly awesome free tools we have used since I was DMing from Japan.
Also, the program should run theoretically fine on your mac under bootcamp.
That's absolutely true. I'm ashamed to admit I forgot I could do that. I was using bootcamp awhile ago and it worked great, though I have to admit it felt funny to see and hear Windows on my MacBook.
Now where the heck did I stash that Windows disc...
Actually, THEY aren't learning anything, it's a third party developing the software.
Yes, they are.
When you move your code over to the Mac, you need the developer. And you need the hardware. And you need the test team to have the hardware and do all the same testing they're doing on the PC. This doubles your testing.
Now you need to test your PC/Mac interactions. Now you've MORE than doubled your test work.
Finally, you kick it onto the web and you then need support people that know how to support Macs. Another hit.
It adds up real big, real fast.
Mac users typing in ALL CAPS screaming that lack of support in product X is the greatest travesty in history.
I work in software, and we the same crap, we support firefox on MacOS but NO! MUST BE SAFARI!!! JOBS-IS-GOD-JOBS-IS-GOD.
Is there some code that says you have to use every board to evangelise your platform?
When you insist on MacOS only you limit your self to the stuff for that platform, at least it tends to be high quality though pricy.
While your market share has recently climbed to %7, its just not enough for most developers, use bootcamp or parrallels.
and please the reason you think %80 of people would play on mac only is Macusers only tolerate other mac users, kinda like Scientologists.
I had rather assumed that they were mostly web based with one or two offline tools, and as a result would be some combination of server side processing, flash and/or Java - thus making them mac friendly.
I have to say, that sucks. I develop for both mac and PC although my main machine is a mac. With macs now using an intel architecture, there's not really any excuse for porting delays between the two systems.
With MacOS providing an enormous number of libraries and interface builders, a simple character builder would take hours to program. Maybe a couple of days if you want to add some fancy 3D portrait system.
An online tabletop system would be harder. But I'll bet there are free libraries around for streaming audio/video.
You'd think it's easier to produce code for an open source OS, would you not?
Cheers!
You can't blame WOTC for not paying through the nose to support a very small minority of users who will make them very little extra money for the extra investment.
Of course since Mac has pretty much given up on the proprietary hardware scheme it tried to force on people, you can now happily run windows on your x86 mac and still feel trendy and superior while running main stream software.
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/04/23/mac_users
They did a presentation of DDi on a Mac, and when the audience asked if it would be compatible with Mac, the answer was no. I found that very funny.
Good point there. I too find this a paradox. If they cant or wont put DDI on a Mac, then why show a demo on a Mac in the first place?
In my opinion, I would have gone PC at first simply do to the fact that there are currently more PC users then Mac. But I (as any 'smart' company) would immediatly follow with the development of a Mac version.
Its a well known fact that all companies either follow the market trends or they fizzle out. Wizards is not stupid, and its easy to see how much of a boom Mac is making lately. It may be a PC world right now but I think PC better watch its back. Mac is catching up.
I currently own a PC but my next computer will be a Mac for various reasons. I intend to have both in house (one for my art programs (Mac) and one for gaming (PC)) so I wont have to worry about the DDI problem but I feel for the Mac users out there that are pretty much getting kicked in the balls on this one.
In retrospect, it is possible to install a Windows OS on a Mac. Wouldn't that solve the problem for Mac users for the time being? Not in my opinion a satisfying resolution to the problem but it is doable right? Thoughts?
Good point there. I too find this a paradox. If they cant or wont put DDI on a Mac, then why show a demo on a Mac in the first place?
In my opinion, I would have gone PC at first simply do to the fact that there are currently more PC users then Mac. But I (as any 'smart' company) would immediatly follow with the development of a Mac version.
Its a well known fact that all companies either follow the market trends or they fizzle out. Wizards is not stupid, and its easy to see how much of a boom Mac is making lately. It may be a PC world right now but I think PC better watch its back. Mac is catching up.
I currently own a PC but my next computer will be a Mac for various reasons. I intend to have both in house (one for my art programs (Mac) and one for gaming (PC)) so I wont have to worry about the DDI problem but I feel for the Mac users out there that are pretty much getting kicked in the balls on this one.
In retrospect, it is possible to install a Windows OS on a Mac. Wouldn't that solve the problem for Mac users for the time being? Not in my opinion a satisfying resolution to the problem but it is doable right? Thoughts?
The idea that "Macs are catching up" is somewhat of a fallacy that mac users have been saying since the beggining. The truth is yes Mac's market share has risen but it is no where near competetive. As of the end of last year Mac's market share was 7%. While gaining .5% market share could be considered "Catching up", it still doesn't make sense to create niche software targeting such a small market.
http://www.macrumors.com/2008/01/01/mac-market-share-over-7-in-december/
The group I run now consists of 2 mac users (one of which is me, and I still have my old xp machine), a 2 win xp users, and one ubuntu user. Luckily the VT we use now (battlegrounds) works on all platforms (although the linux user has to use wine). I will say that I will always want a VT that supports my friends, rather than friends that support my VT. Part of me is hoping that the D&D insider tabletop won't be amazing, because there is no way I could use it without breaking up the band...
The idea that "Macs are catching up" is somewhat of a fallacy that mac users have been saying since the beggining. The truth is yes Mac's market share has risen but it is no where near competetive. As of the end of last year Mac's market share was 7%. While gaining .5% market share could be considered "Catching up", it still doesn't make sense to create niche software targeting such a small market.
http://www.macrumors.com/2008/01/01/mac-market-share-over-7-in-december/
Well I would like to point out since market share is a center point of this topic that Apple actually has a bigger market share then some think according to FORTUNE magazine and NPD
http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/05/19/report-apples-market-share-of-pcs-over-1000-hits-66/
And then this from NPD
http://www.macobserver.com/article/2008/05/19.7.shtml
I am a Mac user and think that it is a mistake to not port this to the mac platform. Look at the largest PC game distributor EA they are producing mac versions of there games now. Their next big game Spore will be on both systems at launch. With this alone its hard to think that the Mac is not worth developing for. I think that WoW's and Blizzard's popularity very well could be attributable to it and their games being released on PC's and Mac at the same time. Mac users don't have very many game choices so to put a game like WoW on the Mac is pure genius. The logic behind this is that if Mac users are or tend to be more affluent. Then their friends who may own PC's who may never play a game might be persuaded to try it based on their friends suggestion. I know that anything can be twisted to make since, but in the same case it is still a plausible outcome. I have been seriously thinking of making a gaming PC so I don't have to reboot when I play one of my game that I still play. I wanted an SLI system Quad core and the works. The biggest reason for doing this is that I miss tinkering with systems since I got my Mac. But the underlying reason is in some cases the overall system power that I could use for RTS's like World in Conflict. The one thing that turned me off from doing this is the extremely insane power requirements for this system. Just having the system run would drain more power then my iMac at full power. I for now and awhile to come will be very content with my current iMac and my future iMacs.
You have to rate market share of SOFTWARE which is what we are talking about here not computers. Since mac now changed to an x86 platform and many do buy them to put windows on them.
Not only that but 90% of PCs over 1000 dollars are built by individuals or boutique retailers which YOU CANNOT do on a mac. These PC's are not part of the market data you are looking at. When I built the 4 PC's in my home not a one would go on that list because I didn’t go down to the mac store and pay a rediculous premium to make myself feel superior.
The only numbers that matter are software which is what the 7% reflects. If you are going to quote numbers make sure you are basing them on facts. The fact is you can run DDI on a mac, just get rid of Mac OS.
You are the only one bashing "Noob" I was just trying to explain why DDI was unlikely to support mac. It's just not worth it, look at how many new software packages support mac and how many don't and then tell me I'm wrong.
I tried to keep things civil but your direct attacks got me a little worked up.
Next time you post and get schooled on a reply, Im sure you'll give the same excuses.
Hey Just cuz your a PC user doesn't mean your right its ok man we get it you love pc and hate mac but that still doesn't prove anything champ. I myself was a PC user and I find mac to be 100 times better. Sure the PC market is bigger than mac thats agreed, but your forgetting the Millions of corporate users that contribute to the PC market, im sure its well above the gaming pc market. Mac is not a small enough market that it needs to be excluded. Besides your only good excuse, actually your only excuse is the numbers are wrong. Check the site tell the CNN reporter he's wrong. Plus, where is your answer to Vista VS Mac OS, you ignored that point. Infact you ignored several issues in my post. Your only defense is the numbers, because you think you know they're wrong when in fact they couldn't be more dead on. I showed proof from a reputable source, wheres your source for information buddy? Im sure you'll post several links to try and counter my response but the fact is you didn't do it the first time to present an argument, plus I doubt you'll find any convincing ones that will decredit just ONE of mine which I posted. A simple CNN report. Theres a shitload more where that came from. Don't be upset little man, you got pawned, owned, schooled, whatever you wanna call it. This post isn't to argue with people of less knowledge such as yourself. It's to ask why WotC hasnt responded to the issue and for people to present an argument as to get it moving. What does it bother you that Mac users want a compatible Version of DNDI, we all share the same love for DND as you PC guys whats your deal bro, learn to relax. oh and realize that your bashing comments and response made no sense. This is the last i post to argue with you cuz i don't need to keep humiliating you, or waste my very valuable time to prove my point. All I know is Mac users will contribute a healthy percentage to DNDI profits if they decide to make a mac platform which I'm sure they will, once they realize how much they can potentially make.
I am done with you, you can happily live in your ignorance.
It'd be nice of them to add Mac support down the line if DDi does well. Despite the fact that I hate Macs (one-button mouses annoy me, plus every Mac I've ever touched lost its magic blue smoke), the more the merrier says I.
You sound like a ranting Mac fanboy. No one can or should take you seriously if you can't present your arguments better. Even if you have good arguments you aren't going to persuade anyone acting like that.
As a user of both PC and Mac, my view is they're both fine. I can do anything I need to do with either of them and neither gives me many problems at all. The only people who get over-emotional about it or throw out profanity or say the other sucks are a bunch of irrational fanboys on both sides of the platform discussion.
I think it would have been nice to see WotC go with a cross-platform option. They didn't. Hopefully a Mac version will show up in the near future. Since DDI apparently relies on DirectX, I don't know whether it will be relatively easy or hard to provide the software for Mac (I'm not a developer, and I'm not sure how limiting the incorporation of DirectX will be).
In any event, we have what we have for now. If DDI is successful, it is more likely that they will expand to Mac. If DDI doesn't do well, I suspect they won't.
* Marketshare: Statistics include business use, and are thus skewed. Most US businesses are windows based, and purchase a LOT of workstations. These are not workstations to be considered for DDI. I only have relevant anecdotal data to supply, but I can say that there has been a massive switch in my own extended clique (of software developers) to macs over the last two years. I now know more "mac users" than pc users, although most of us have both machines and develop for windows and linux (using the mac as our development platform). However, anecdotal evidence isn't statistically significant, and I don't know any survey that could be said to be representative of the D&DI target market.
* Implementation strategy. The mistake has already been made, but I think that D&D Insider's decision to go with DirectX as opposed to openGL/AL was a huge mistake. Either technology would perform adequately for an application of the magnitude of a virtual game table. Both are relatively comfortable to develop for. OpenGL is a technology that is easily ported to Linux/OSX- DirectX is windows proprietary (yes, it can sometimes be bypassed with wine/cedega- but it's not always perfect and requires a lot of user effort). When people talk about supporting the mac with these tools, you should understand that design decisions were made that make this much more expensive and time-consuming proposition.
8<--------------------------
everything else is just mac/pc debate stuff
* Hardware cost: Macs are comparable to pre-built pcs from dell/gateway whatever. Nothing is as cheap as building your own (as long as you consider your labor free). The Imacs appeal to me as a good value, but primarily because I prefer getting a middle-of-the-road pc every 1.5-2 years to building a superjesus machine that I replace every 3. This is primarily because I make good money, and have friends who don't. Being able to hand off a self-contained machine like the imac to a less affluent friend has an appeal to me. I built my own pcs for years, and it stopped being fun and just became work. Apple does hardware extremely well, and the cost differential between buying an apple and building my own pc is just not high enough to bother me. It should also be mentioned that the mac pros have pci express slots, and you can throw whatever you want in there.
* Software: The OSX operating system is really nice, and not in the ways advertised. It has a very nice implementation of virtual desktops. It is a system 5 unix, which makes it a more solid kernel than linux. There is a package manager (fink) that is comparable to Ubuntu's apt. The OS comes with a set of sofware development tools that I prefer to visual studio- and they are free. The administration layer includes network tools like port scanners and packet sniffers. Why apple doesn't market to geeks is a mystery to me- if you are a programmer/IT professional, you will find things in OSX that aren't at all advertised that will blow you away. If you love unix, this is just a unix that has an extremely nice UI layer- you can still use all your favorite tools (emacs ftw!)
* Mouse: Since someone mentioned the one-button mouse, I should mention that I am using a logitech MX Revolution, and the software I use to drive it is much more powerful than the logitech software I use on windows. I have full customization of every button/scroll wheel on the mouse, in the context of whatever application has focus.
* Game support: This is still the achille's heel of macs. Bootcamp and parallels don't get the kind of performance for FPS games that windows does, because the bootcamp drivers just aren't as high performance. Paralells works great for developing stuff in a sandbox, or running project or whatever- but not for competing in an online game.
* Userbase: Hateful. I really dislike being part of a community with as many ignorant but smug users as apple has. It's like being part of a cult (although truthfully, the linux community has a lot of these features these days as well). I believe choosing an OS should be similar to choosing a screwdriver from your toolbox- most Apple users treat it like choosing a football team or a religion. I feel as though I just gave AOL a chance, and found that it had a next-generation network driving the whole thing.
In short, don't let apple's marketing department, or the brain-dead userbase normally associated with apple color your opinion of the current mac product. OSX is a very impressive technical product, and for some reason this is a big secret.
DDI should support pre-existing game GROUPS not individuals.
It is likely that someone in a group will not use windows (3/5 of my group don't).
Lack of support for one member of the group has repercussions on the rest of the group.
Whether or not emulation mode is sufficient:
* There is a significant expense involved with emulation mode- players would have to spend a few hundred additional dollars to use your application
* Performance suffers in emulation mode
* Emulation mode isn't user friendly, and not all D&D players are technical (most of my group isn't)
That's all I have =)
The decision to purchase an Apple computer precludes people from being in on most new mainstream software and hardware releases. It's something that should have been made crystal clear to anyone purchasing an Apple computer while they were still on the showroom floor. It's a decision that the computer owner made and has to live with.
Honestly, I'm not sure why someone would consciously make the decision to pay (in most cases) twice as much or more money for a computer that can't run a great many programs that come out. Even if it is more reliable, and made better. Doing so has placed you in a niche market where you pretty much have to fend for yourself.
In a previous thread people were yelling about the recent growth surge of Apple market share and how they should be catered to. I asked people to present numbers from accredited sources and not just make them up. Many of the articles that were linked were touting headlines like "40% market share growth from 06 to 07!"
Upon further investigation, however, this article showed that the 40% market share increase was from 6.2% in Oct. 2006 to 8.1% in Oct. 2007.... The whopping 40% surge in growth actually amounted to less than a 2% increase in market share.
Again in this thread people are starting to throw out numbers without backing them up. "15%" "20%" "80% of the people that I know!" "2/3rds of computers over 1000$" etc... situationally, these may be true.. But overall, Apple still has less than a 10% market share. And as recently as April of this year, it was closer to 5%.
Web based or cross platform development is expensive, and the decision was made based on the numbers at the time to develop in the Windows environment. That really can't be that much of a surprise to most people.
IF it takes off, and IF it makes money, a decision may be made down the line to move it to a set of web based apps. or other Apple compatible platform. Mac users actively boycotting it, trash talking it, or convincing their friends to not buy it is actually the WORST thing they can do for themselves.
Mac users should be hoping that DnDI is the most successful computer program to come along since World of Warcraft. Because that would pretty much ensure that they have the means to make it Mac compatible at some point later on.
I also find it a little humorous that Mac users can afford to buy Apple computers, but are complaining about having to purchase a copy of Windows to be able to boot cross platform. That's just a personal pet peeve of mine, though... :P I mean really... If you are so elitist that you would stubbornly refuse ANY alternative that involves MS Windows, on principle. Then you really don't deserve to have fun with the rest of us. You're not doing anything positive but propagating the stereotype of the typical elitist Mac User
I only have one point to give you about the Mac vs PC. Vista is a bad OS, and will not get better. Most programs that is more than 2 years old will have trouble running on it, if not completely incompatible. Anything older than 5 years is hit and miss, and has no support from all but a few companies. Microsoft will not help to run old programs, telling users to contact the "Original Publishers" instead of actually making an OS that works.
DRM is a self checking virus that will eventually tell the computer user that everything he is trying to use is stolen so it is being downgraded/disabled. This is not a good way to keep a customer.
This is why people are talking about Macs, Linux, and other things that compete with Vista, and why some will not make the jump to the new OS.
/sigh... This again?
Meh.
What we have here, for the most part, is a Wizard's staffer asking Mac users for feedback, and getting it.
Honestly, I'm not sure why someone would consciously make the decision to pay (in most cases) twice as much or more money for a computer that can't run a great many programs that come out.
I'm going to have to ask you to cite an example using comparable hardware.
IF it takes off, and IF it makes money, a decision may be made down the line to move it to a set of web based apps. or other Apple compatible platform. Mac users actively boycotting it, trash talking it, or convincing their friends to not buy it is actually the WORST thing they can do for themselves.
Mac users without a copy of Windows don't have too much of a choice but to boycott it. If a group includes one or more of these Windowsless Mac users, this tool is pretty close to useless for the group. That's not "convincing their friends not to buy it", that's simply acknowledging the facts on the ground.
You're not doing anything positive but propagating the stereotype of the typical elitist Mac User
It's a damn good thing you're not propagating any negative stereotypes yourself there, sparky.
Out of curiosity, has anyone at WoC considered asking Apple for assistance. Given the way Blizzard & Apple worked together to keep WoW Mac friendly, Apple might be very generous in lending a hand. DnD players would seem to fall into Apple's cliche market share - could be an easy recipe for some enlightened self interest on Apple's part.
This isn't about developing for a Mac but for developing across the widest range of machines. I would love to be able to play D&D on any machine I happen to be sitting at with a flash client rather than have to install software everywhere I go or every machine I'm on.
WoW for PC release: Nov 24, 2004
WoW for Mac release: Apr 15, 2005
Where did you get that from? I don't know about the US, but the EU launch on Feb/2004 had mac support on the same discs.
This thread seems to indicate that the US launch was dual-platform as well: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=96281
Nice troll though.
Simply put, it costs money to develop for anything, with PC, they can see a profit, with Mac, not so much.
First off, the cost of developing for 2 platforms is not twice the cost of developing for one. A lot of the effort (dragon & dungeon articles, PDFs, models and textures) does not need to be duplicated.
Also, for a group-based game such as D&D, the value of developing for os x is not directly proportional to it's market share.
I'm pulling the stats out of thin air, but let's assume that D&D players are 85% windows, 10% mac, 5% linux.
For a group of 6 people (DM + 5 Players) the chance that everyone uses windows is (0.85)^6 = 37%
Changing from windows to mac+windows gives you (0.95)^6 = 73%
So, if these numbers are correct, adding mac support could double the player base.
Of course, these numbers are probably not correct, and even then, the calculations don't take into acount people with 2+ computers, mac folks who will pay DDI for the PDFs, people with bootcamp, groups that drop mac users, groups with players who won't pay for anything, people with unsupported PCs and a bunch of other factors. Even so, I'm convinced that an OS X version would be profitable.
Also, since WoTC is not a software company, they might not have the manpower to deliver high-quality clients for both platforms at launch (Blizzard was doing dual platform launches since D2:LoD for comparison). However, after dealing with the launch and early bugs, I think that a mac version would be both feasible and economically sound.
Using freely available, cross platform, openGL, 3D libraries (irrlicht, ogre3D, among others...), I'm pretty sure you could use exactly the same code on Mac, PC and linux for the character builder. There are examples of FPS games on the web which use cross platform libraries and exactly the same C code for all three platforms.
An online game tabletop? Trickier. I don't know of any cross platform libraries for online voice chat. I'll bet there is one somewhere though.
If it's allowed by the GSL, I'll probably see if I can build a basic character generator for mac. There wouldn't be any 3D or anything, just a basic pop up window with options and may even some kind of pretty printer so you can pop out a professional looking character sheet.
Assuming there's interest of course.
Vista is a terrible OS. Granted. Most people that weren't forced into it are, or should be, sticking with XP until 7 comes out. BUT it doesn't have as great an effect on your average end user as you are making it out to. Several of my friends and family members are using Vista and are yet to have any trouble with it.
For price comparison:
Mac
PC
After adding the 2gb ram upgrade to make the systems nearly identical stat wise, the Macbook Pro becomes $2,699.00 Vs. the ASUS's cost of $1,299.00.
Mac desktops are a bit more comparable but still more expensive.
I apologize if the last part of my post came off as trollish, but one of my biggest pet peeves is people who are overly zealous about their dislike of, and unwillingness to run Windows. It's a piece of software. It's just a tool. Not a religion.
As far as groups being affected. The ONLY time this is true is when you want to use the gaming table to play online, and not in person. Personally, I'm looking forward to DnDI for the map makers, character generators and other tools that I can use for my live game.
WoW for PC release: Nov 24, 2004
WoW for Mac release: Apr 15, 2005
Where did you get this information? I bought my copy of WoW on the original release date and the CD had both Windows and Mac versions on it. I started playing the game, on my new iMac G5, on the release day.
For price comparison:
Mac
PC
After adding the 2gb ram upgrade to make the systems nearly identical stat wise, the Macbook Pro becomes $2,699.00 Vs. the ASUS's cost of $1,299.00.
Mac desktops are a bit more comparable but still more expensive.
Hmmm, yes. I was thinking more of a comparison of desktop hardware. Also, quality needs to be considered, and as you allude and various PC magazines have found in their tests Macs are extremely nice pieces of hardware. But point well taken on the laptop price.
I purchased my MacBook Pro, after having used various PC laptops (mostly Toshiba and IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad models) in spite of the cost, my decision swayed by the quality and performance of the computers. Also, as a power user (I design custom software for businesses, my current project being an online commodities brokerage system) I was impressed by the available software and tools, and the operating system in general.
As an aside, I bought my MacBook Pro direct from Apple as a refurbished model, and saved several hundred dollars. It was in mint condition and has been a solid performer. Also, don't buy RAM direct from Apple (or most computer makers). It's considerably cheaper, and these days fairly easy, to just buy it separately and install it yourself.
I apologize if the last part of my post came off as trollish, but one of my biggest pet peeves is people who are overly zealous about their dislike of, and unwillingness to run Windows. It's a piece of software. It's just a tool. Not a religion.
Oh, I agree. Can we also agree that this religious fervor is not unique to Mac users? Try this experiment; start a thread somewhere asserting that Vista is problematic and a disappointment to Microsoft. Prepare to have your head handed to you by the zealots of the Vista Defense League.
As far as groups being affected. The ONLY time this is true is when you want to use the gaming table to play online, and not in person.
Right. However, this is one of the main features being promoted by Wizards, and a fairly important one. If that feature isn't usable by a group, the members of that group are less likely to subscribe; the value proposition of DDI is greatly diminished for them, lowering the incentive to subscribe.
And that value proposition is critical. It's not a matter of spending X on a computer, so you shouldn't have a problem spending $200 on Windows. It's a matter of having to spend $200 on Windows, and then spend $15 a month, to access the tools of DDI. At that price, the value proposition of DDI takes a ferocious beating.
Here's hoping they wise up and make an OpenGL version. I have no intention of going back to Windows after I purchased my MacBook.
Try this experiment; start a thread somewhere asserting that Vista is problematic and a disappointment to Microsoft. Prepare to have your head handed to you by the zealots of the Vista Defense League.
Vista Defenders are becoming rare, and the OS is being replaced, as has been posted above. Vista is the ME of the new cycle of Windows.
... full emulation mode requires a $80 product plus a $lots Windows license plus a sizeable amount of system resources (memory and disk) plus potential stability and security concerns.
While Nom was speaking for WINE, the sentiment also carries on for Mac users. We would have to purchase Windows, partition our hard drive with enough space to be able to install and run Windows and DDi, boot our computers once to use DDi, and then finally reboot again if we keep any gaming documentation Mac-side (Pages, Keynote, Numbers, or even just email).
I'm not averse to spending a little money or doing a little work to get what I want, but this is simply ludicrous.
I'm sorry to say that until DDi is native for Mac, I won't be using it.
Please use this thread to have a discussion of why you'd like to see different platform support for D&Di.
It gives users warm fuzzies to see their OS of choice supported, and folks with warm fuzzies inside make tremendously loyal customers.
I thinkthat WotC knows that there is a lot hanging on D&Di.
I really don't think they do. Or, if they do, then they're just so far away from their core business expertise that it's not going to happen anyway. Listen to some of the behind the scenes explanations of decisions, and it's utterly clear that they're trying to manage too many projects with an insufficient IT effort. IT teams are hard to grow well - I understand that they can't just write checks to fix things now.
It makes sense to start out with the PC version, get it done, and then port it over to the Mac. While it will delay the ability for MAC users to use the tools, it will ensure that Mac users, when the tools are released, will get mostly bug-free tools.
The original question was more or less aimed at "should we even bother about that?"
Because their decision to not go about it professionally from the beginning are deeper than you might realise - they partially based their decision on the fact that they had some DirectX code lying around they could cannibalise. In other words, virtually the entire codebase would have to be rewritten if they wanted a product that wasn't limited by choice of operating system.
The advantages of interoperability go up enormously when you're expecting groups of people to interact with it.
To WoTC listeners: Standards adherence, cross-platform usability and simplicity are critical to your online venture. Boutique applications can work to some extent, but there are deep reasons that certain ventures have gone ballistic on the internet while other services with equivalent content have bombed. A good analogy might be a supermarket. It's not the freshest, it's not the cheapest, it's not the nearest, yet it wins because it always works. In other words, an internet-based service that only a fraction of any group can access will always be crippled.
WoTC content is good. Best in the business for game design, I reckon, though obviously not flawless. Your production for printed products is excellent. Good luck with DDi, but I reckon you've missed the monster product you might have hoped for.
As long as the Insider stuff actually works in emulation, then there is no problem at all with running it that way. Honestly, *nix people are accustomed to poor commercial software support, hence projects like Wine.
To everyone else:
Especially for the purpose of this thread, Wine works amazingly well. Wine works for Linux and Mac, and does not require or even encourage anyone to purchase anything, especially not a windows liscense. As long as you're using an x86 cpu, it will most likely get the job done. If you're on an older powerpc based mac, then you are most certainly accustomed to limited commercial software support, and you've already learned to live with it.
Also, I suspect that development on the Insider tools is getting to a point where some decisions need to be made that will affect platform compatibility. I further suspect that this thread is an attempt to determine if making an intentional effort to improve cross-platform support is worthwhile, and so they are giving the community the opportunity to voice any concerns they have with running software in emulation vs natively. Obviously everyone prefers native software support, but if for some reason it's not there, then the only problem with emulation is when it doesn't work. If I could, I would suggest a model for the system that uses open source tools with closed source content, and wotc could simply charge for the content and allow various platforms to provide their own support for the software.
EDIT:
For everyone's benefit, please understand the difference between emulation and virtualization.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtualization
VMware and Parallels are not emulators, they are not what OP was talking about. Based on what he told us about his home computers, I am hoping and assuming that he already knew that.
It's a coin-toss. If DDi winds up with at least a silver rating in the WineHQ app db, then Wine will do the trick. If not, if it winds up bronze or garbage (about 45% of apps listed are so rated), then not so much.
If Wizards decides to go this route, they would be wise to have some of their developers work with Codeweavers to ensure DDi works well with Wine. Otherwise, we're back to that coin-toss.
However, if the development team hasn't written the D&Di applications in such a way that they're easily portable, I don't have much faith that they will work fully and properly under emulation. Instead, I see one or two features being "missing" another feature being "not quite right" and perhaps some annoying interface issues for good measure. As mac/linux won't be "officially supported", these issues will never quite get fixed.
Being a mac user (with parallels), my experience is that DirectX applications rarely work properly (and I've tried a fair few).
The major reason why wizards *ought* to support other operating systems is that they'll actually be able to support those other operating systems properly. Better that than a heap of users running it under emulation and then moaning when it doesn't work so well.
Besides, these applications are hardly complex and the data files are presumably independent from the application itself. At $180 / year, how many extra subscribers would it take to pay for the port? 100?
Personally, I shan't pay for a non native version of the D&Di applications, and I won't pay for a subset of the features. I'll either code them myself or make do without.
When you move your code over to the Mac, you need the developer. And you need the hardware. And you need the test team to have the hardware and do all the same testing they're doing on the PC. This doubles your testing.
Now you need to test your PC/Mac interactions. Now you've MORE than doubled your test work.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that the extra work is quite significantly less than double.
(1) Blizzard's discussions of cross-platform development reveal that cross-platform testing made it easier to find a wide range of bugs. Why? Because for a key coding error to slip by it has to fail to manifest on two different systems, not just one. Your unitialised variable that works on the Mac version causes bad output on Windows. Your buffer overflow that doesn't manifest on Windows causes all sorts of problems on the Mac. This is a good thing.
(2) My job involves cross-platform development for (currently) about six different platforms. Do you know what we do? We build a solid, tested platform-independent library and then build our code on top of that. This avoids us making stupid assumptions about the underlying architecture, and gives us about 95% confidence that stuff that runs on one machine will also work on the other.
Of course, every so often we experience the same thing as Blizzard does. Multiple platforms means that stupid mistakes (like, say, byte ordering errors) manifest a lot sooner.
The best thing about cross-platform work is that it forces good design and partitioning. A well-written cross-platform app has only very small, well defined pockets of platform-specific code. When not forced to do this, it's easy for foolish dependencies to spread throughout the entire code tree.
You have to rate market share of SOFTWARE which is what we are talking about here not computers. Since mac now changed to an x86 platform and many do buy them to put windows on them.
Actually, no, the relevant number is the hardware market, because it's hardware that limits your potential customers. If there are 90 windows users who each buy 10 games and 10 Mac users who each buy two, the market for a single unique product is 90:10, not 900:20. It might be a harder sell in the Mac market, but that's not a concern if you're offering something unique, rather another crappy clone of an existing product.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that the extra work is quite significantly less than double.
[snip]
Not to mention that all their data files are likely to be stored outside the application.
So all the 3D models and textures, any animations, spell names and effects, monster names and effects, races, and so on are unlikely to require any conversion at all.
Literally, all they need to code is a little program to show some 3D models and do some trivial calculations like hit points, initiative bonuses, etc.
At $180 / year, how many extra subscribers would it take to pay for the port? 100?
Are you crazy? Even a junior programmer would cost at least $50,000 a year. $18,000 a year would not even come close to covering the costs. Most developers I know, and I am one, make more than that and it would take more than one to do the job and, since it is a .NET program, at least a few months. Just a WAG, but you are looking at around 400K - 500K for a project like this. And that doesn't take into account non-developer costs.
To justify that kind of expenditure they would need project at least 10000 subs that would provide enough revenue to pay for initial development costs and on going maintenance ( probably at least 250K/year just in developer costs let alone network, administration, and infrastructure costs ).
Now, if they had written the thing in a cross-platform language like Java or used a cross-platform tool like OpenGL to their graphics, they might have eliminated a TON of this cost. They still could have targeted Windows first but it would have left them an opening to move to other platforms as the market trends move away from Windows.
Mac sales are increasing significantly at the cost of PC sales. Most college students are buying Macs. I think the figure I read somewhere was around 60%. Something like 30% of people in the market for a laptop are planning on buying a Mac. These trends are significant shifts from a few years ago when WotC probably made their decision. However, the writing was on the wall. Many industry pundits were already saying that they expected a shift of market share to Macs. In other words, they should have known better.
In any case, only time will tell what the outcome of this choice is. My bet: they will do fine with Windows for the near term.
Maybe the can get with Transgaming and use their Cider technology to port the apps. That would cost much less then a traditional port. It might not be possible, depends on the APIs they use, but they should look at it.
I'm pretty sure I could write their character generator in a week, using freely available 3D libraries. Heck, if you use something like irrlicht (which is free), there are even tutorials for loading a multi-part textured mesh based on a series of combo boxes and popups (http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/tut009.html).
I wouldn't have a clue when it comes to actually making 3D models, but if they're already available, it's not like it's any extra work.
Anyway, even if we go with your numbers and say they needed junior programmer for an entire year, they'd still only need 278 accounts. If you really want to go ahead and double that, do so, I suspect there'd easily be 500 mac users waiting to sign up.
Please use this thread to have a discussion of why you'd like to see different platform support for D&Di.
I'd be interested in collecting feedback on the reasons why people don't feel that running the applications in PC emulation mode is inadaquete. I'll pass these comments onto the team. (Hint: Saying, "Because I shouldn't have to run my machine in emulation mode," while true, isn't the compelling type of feedback I hope to pass on.)
Here's why I want to see different platform support for D&Di. I don't want to pay N dollars a month for X services and be only able to use a subset of those services. At the current time, I will not pay for D&Di access. There are only two ways to gain my business:
- You introduce a pricing structure that includes only Dungeon and Dragon access, but none of the e-tools (preferred)
- You port the e-tools to Mac, so I can at least say "well, I COULD use them, even though I'm not going to."
As you can see, I'm not particularly interested in actually running the tools, but paying for a service I cannot use leaves a very, very bitter taste in my mouth.
As to why I shouldn't have to run emulation on my computer, let's start here:
Windows costs money. I don't want to pay $200+ to make my computer dual-boot into windows, or even more to run parallels. I don't run windows on my computer, and I've no particular desire to do so. I use Vista a fair amount at work, and can see no compelling reason to use it at home. In a word (two actually): Windows Sucks.
This isn't a flame or a troll. I don't care who loves Windows or whatever. It's just my opinion. I'm not going to pay money to do what feels like lobotomizing my computer. Did you know that the shiny 5Gb of ram I have in my mac won't even be RECOGNIZED by windows? Windows will only use 2Gb of it, unless I install 64 bit Vista, which has all sorts of crazy compatibility issues.
So, back to the point. I really hope G0 reads this part. This is the part that's really important.
I should not be convincing you to make D&Di Mac compatible. You should be convincing me to give you my business. Telling me to just pay an extra $200 or more dollars to run your software is a slap in the face, absolute and sheer arrogance that makes me even less likely to want to buy your product.
So, here we are. Give me a way to just buy Dungeon and Dragon article access, without having to pay for crap I can't use and don't particularly want, or don't get my money. It's that simple.
In short, don't let apple's marketing department, or the brain-dead userbase normally associated with apple color your opinion of the current mac product. OSX is a very impressive technical product, and for some reason this is a big secret.
Agreed. I don't use it on moral grounds, though. I can't stand the way Apple locks in their product - you can only use the operating system on a Mac, which I view as being overpriced when put up against comparable hardware. And their marketing practices make me shiver.
Microsoft's business practices aren't a whole lot better (actually I'm torn as to which is worse), so I don't use their stuff either.
I'll already be spending nearly $100 dollars on the core books. I'd love to play with my friends online.... If WotC delivers a good program, I'd be more than willing to pay the monthly fee so I may play games with my friends. However, I will not be willing to pay another $200 on top of all that to accomplish this.
Same here ! My gaming group has 3 people with MACs. Please find a way not to shut us out !
Also, as said above, having a price structure for Econtent only OR Econtent+Apps is a good way the solve this problem short term. I'll certainly not pay 15$ for half the services. It doesn't make sense economically speaking.
I also find it a little humorous that Mac users can afford to buy Apple computers, but are complaining about having to purchase a copy of Windows to be able to boot cross platform. That's just a personal pet peeve of mine, though... :P I mean really... If you are so elitist that you would stubbornly refuse ANY alternative that involves MS Windows, on principle. Then you really don't deserve to have fun with the rest of us. You're not doing anything positive but propagating the stereotype of the typical elitist Mac User
Perhaps it's not really based on principle. Maybe some people's Mac ownership is purely situational. So, you can drop that pet peeve that is largely based on a false assumption.
I've been a Mac user since the 80s. I've used Mac, Windows, LINUX, Solaris, DOS, etc. For various reasons I'm sure will convince nobody anything about which OS is truly better, I chose Macintosh for my home and business needs.
Other than a few minor annoyances–not being able to play EQ2 every so often... (sorry, I hate WoW :D)–all applications I needed for my computer were available.
Nowadays, I am living out of my laptop. Unfortunately, my laptop is one of the last ones before they switched to Intel. As such, Boot Camp and Parallels are not available for me to use. Also, I'm not having any problems running my applications, even the high end ones (heck, I can run the graphic intensive Poser 7).
But I'm not going to be able to use D&Di.
I heard the news and rolled my eyes. It's just one more thing for me to sigh over in regards to WotC's business practices lately. Nothing for me to get peeved off over.
Wizards is just insuring that I'm not a customer of their products. Nothing personal. A consumer decision is just business, and it would be stupid of me to buy something I can't use. At this moment in time, I'm simply not part of WotC's target audience.
No biggie. I've gotten more fun and action out of a dry erase board and markers than I ever did with Neverwinter Nights, and certainly more than from any miniatures.
In the end, it saves me 15 bucks a month.I'm not being a snooty cheapskate when I decline to use Boot Camp to run D&Di. There are a lot of reasons why I won't or can't do it, money is part of it, and convenience is another.
It's unfortunate that the people writing D&Di aren't forward-thinking enough to make it work cross-platform. There are good ways to write somewhat-graphical programs that run in all platforms (mac, windows, linux, what have you), ESPECIALLY when you're not doing anything too harsh. I mean, you could probably write all those tools in Java or even Flash for heaven's sake.
But in the end, it doesn't matter. What matters is that I'm not interested in spending $15 a month on software I can't use. If the software came unbundled from the magazines, I'd pay for the magazines, but as it is, I guess I'll have to go without the PDFs.
What matters is that I'm not interested in spending $15 a month on software I can't use. If the software came unbundled from the magazines, I'd pay for the magazines, but as it is, I guess I'll have to go without the PDFs.
Agreed. I'm not at all interested in paying for things I can't use. I am interested in paying for the magazines -- I was a Dungeon subscriber back in the Paizo days, and I would like to be again.
I could see my way to paying $10/mo for the mags, assuming there's no advertising in the PDFs. And of course assuming the quality stays up there (I do like the new formatting we've seen so far).
But without that option I won't be signing up until native Mac versions of the apps appear. Which, by the looks of things, will be a very long time indeed...
Other then the 3d figures the rest of the DDI suit is available for free online. Further more, the 3d figures will cost extra on top of the 15$...
(back to topic)
Actually, I don't think this is correct. They haven't laid the final stuff down yet, but the only stuff that's going to be free is the 2-D dungeon builder and some of the character creation program (as far as I know, some rules stuff might be free). I can tell you that the 3-D table is definiltely NOT free, and I think some aspects of the character builder/visualizer are also going to be available only to subscribers.
*Illithich*
I only have one point to give you about the Mac vs PC. Vista is a bad OS, and will not get better. Most programs that is more than 2 years old will have trouble running on it, if not completely incompatible.
This is misinformation. I have plenty of 2+ year old software running in Vista, and I have rarely had a problem in almost a year and half of Vista on two machines.
That said, I prefer XP and Linux. But the anti-Vista nonsense usually comes from people who have never even used it and are perpetuating bad information.
But the anti-Vista nonsense usually comes from people who have never even used it and are perpetuating bad information.
+1.
I've been running Vista since it came out and the only game that is giving me hassles is Diablo II: LOD, which refuses to work.
That said, WoTC should have made the offerings cross-platform. The Mac is a perfectly capable system (See: Any Blizzard game, Unreal series, etc...
however, it seems that help may be at hand:
http://www.hothardware.com/News/VMware_Fusion_20_Beta_Supports_DX9_Shader_2/
which while still beta shows some promise, again only for Intel based Mac's.
- A very disappointed customer.
Look, everyone who is having a fit about this needs to stop for a second and think about what is going on. Look, I LOVE Mac, and if I can avoid it, I don't use Windows. And while I have an Intel Mac with boot camp, this D&DI business is still is annoying to me because a member of my group has a pre-intel Mac so now he won't be able to play. Which blows.
BUT, at this point in time, I REALLY don't think we can complain about this. Don't like 90% of users still run Windows? 10% of the market is hardly grounds for you guys to have a fit. Yes, I believe they SHOULD do it, but you guys need to calm the flip down. And seriously, we're going to complain about Mac programming when they can't even get the PC version done even CLOSE to time? 4th Edition has been out for a week. And the official report is that D&DI is still MONTHS away. And not like two or three months, we'll probably be well into fall (at LEAST) before this sucker is completely ready, so I'm not even going to touch this platform argument. I got much bigger complaints. MAYBE after it comes out for Windows, when they have time. Maybe.
BUT, at this point in time, I REALLY don't think we can complain about this. Don't like 90% of users still run Windows? 10% of the market is hardly grounds for you guys to have a fit. Yes, I believe they SHOULD do it, but you guys need to calm the flip down. And seriously, we're going to complain about Mac programming when they can't even get the PC version done even CLOSE to time? 4th Edition has been out for a week. And the official report is that D&DI is still MONTHS away. And not like two or three months, we'll probably be well into fall (at LEAST) before this sucker is completely ready, so I'm not even going to touch this platform argument. I got much bigger complaints. MAYBE after it comes out for Windows, when they have time. Maybe.
/shrug
A Wizards staffer started this thread specifically for Mac/Linux users to provide feedback on the supported OS issue. Mostly, that's what people are doing. And when you consider market penetration of the different OSs, you need to consider what goes into those numbers, including massive corporate installations (not really part of DDi's possible customer base) vs. high-school and college use (which would match up better with the potential base of DDi customers). You also need to consider the fact that it just takes one Mac/Linux user out of a group to kill much of the usefulness of DDi for all members of the group. Finally, just what percentage of customers walking up to your store is it acceptable for you to send away, tell them to take their money elsewhere.
The issue is much more complex than simple overall market-share numbers.
BUT, at this point in time, I REALLY don't think we can complain about this. Don't like 90% of users still run Windows? 10% of the market is hardly grounds for you guys to have a fit.
Well this has been covered before but as you've asked the same question as others, you get the same answer as others. Even if you're willing to turn away one customer in ten, that all falls apart when you're selling to groups. If the average group is five members then one in ten means one in two groups. Half your market, unless people are willing to exclude their friends from the group. Now we can argue over the actual percentages and whether some of those Mac and Linux users might be willing to purchase Windows as well, but it's clear that arguing on the basis of individual users doesn't work.
The other question is whether or not it is worthwhile is meaningless without actual figures to consider. I'll say that developing a cross-platform solution should not be double the costs. It should be a moderate increase. Converting a completed product to another platform can be bad, but if you know what you're doing at the start, then it's nothing like as bad. I wont go into technical details though as others have done this. But even if you say it doubles costs (unlikely) it is still pointless to say this is necessarily a bad thing. It's all about return on investment. If WotC gets $180 per year per subscriberm and they have fifty-thousand subscribers, then that's $9,000,000 income. Now maybe it cost $100,000 dollars to develop the software and you think to yourself that doubling that cost is a bad thing because it costs you an extra $100,000 dollars. But if it increases your number of customers by just five percent, you've now earned an extra $450,000 in one year alone. See? It's all about return on investment.
Now these figures are arbitrary. A five percent increase in customers is probably low seeing as (a) the percentage of non-Windows systems figure that people keep bringing up includes all those office machines. The relevant number will be home machines which will be a higher percentage of Linux and Mac boxes. And (b) the percentage of users is higher than five percent anyway. And (c) we have the group effect as covered in the first paragraph. So people saying "supporting Macs and Linux boxes would double the costs" is (aside from being only guess work and almsot certainly an overestimate), wouldn't necessarily be an argument against supporting non-Windows OS's anyway.
Sadly, WotC went with using DirectX 10 which may make it quite hard to support cross-platform at this late stage. It was a severe mistake for a number of reasons. It's been said earlier that it's no use in crying over spilt milk and that's correct. But when someone spills milk everywhere, they have to expect other people to point it out to them. Humans are pretty predictable in that way.
Anyway, all I know is that I wont be subscribing to D&DI because I don't have a Windows machine.
Correction they are using DirectX9 (not 10 which I infer is Vista OS).
Direct X 10 is separate from the OS, but only available if you have the virus WINvista on your computer.
Correction they are using DirectX9 (not 10 which I infer is Vista OS).
Hmmm. I read DirectX 10 somewhere, though I don't have a source to hand. DirectX 9 will help for those that want to run D&DI via WINE so it may become more viable on Linux, but WINE can be a real pain and though some may get it working, it's not going to help in the general case of achieving cross-platform availability.
Anyway, thanks for the information.
Lurkalot.
Hmmm. I read DirectX 10 somewhere, though I don't have a source to hand. DirectX 9 will help for those that want to run D&DI via WINE so it may become more viable on Linux, but WINE can be a real pain and though some may get it working, it's not going to help in the general case of achieving cross-platform availability.
Anyway, thanks for the information.
Lurkalot.
To be fair, Wine has tools specifically aimed at developers which allow them to publish "Linux-compatible" versions of their products, bundled with the relevant parts of Wine. This is how Picassa was ported to Linux; Google took their Windows-only program, bolted on some elements of Wine, and could provide a Linux version which works out of the box. If Wizards followed suit, very few Linux users would have grounds to complain. As for Mac, I believe it's harder; the Wine project has been working on this, but I don't think it works nearly as well, and probably requires the use of OS X's X11 server, rather than native windowing tools.
Please don't shut us out!:D
One, as far as I know they will offer the magazines seperate from everything else, though that price point has not been determined yet (and may not be determined till after they get a full magazine out or even till D&DI is fully released).
Also, again from my understanding, the reason they are doing basically Windows only at this point is they had a back engine that was DirectX 9 and written in .NET. These two facts make porting to a different platform very hard. Also as been stated, the majority of people still use Windows. You then have the possibility of people using boot camp or parallels. Also you have Linux people who can probably get Wine to work (Wine 1.0 was released today as a matter of fact).
What this means is they catch everyone except the following:
People still using older than Windows XP SP2 (at least as far as their requirements go)
People using pre-intel macs or post-intel macs that don't have a Windows install
People using Linux who can't get Wine to work (or if Wine won't function with DDI, Linux in general).
I suspect that the above list is a small amount of people. And its well and good to say "Damn I wish they had it for whatever." but if you look at just about any game that comes out, it only comes out for Windows. Every once in a while you will get a Mac version and theres like 2 games that work on both (Blizzard is the only company I know that generally makes games for both Windows and Mac).
Blizzard is the only company I know that generally makes games for both Windows and Mac.
Just to note, I believe EA does too. At least with some games. And other companies may make one or two (or more)games for both platforms (I know, for example, Microsoft released Halo for Mac a few years ago, Quake 4, etc.).
(Blizzard is the only company I know that generally makes games for both Windows and Mac).
Which, lets be honest, as a business model, this is a good one to follow.. they have what, 10 million+ subscriptions for this game? at $14.99 or so a month? Seems like a pretty good idea to follow to me.
And this is from someone who has a Dell home computer, and a mac laptop (which sees a hell of a lot more use). I only have my home computer because I used to be really into games, and selling it, I'll get next to nothing because it's a few years old, so I keep it around for a few games every once and a while. Basically... I don't play video games much anymore, and that is IMHO, the biggest reason to have a PC.
So, I personally would like DDI to use a Mac, because, frankly, I don't plan on carrying my huge tower case to a friends house every week, but I do carry my laptop almost everywhere I go. I think it was a bad decision to make it only run on windows based machines, even with a PC that I could use.
Which, lets be honest, as a business model, this is a good one to follow.. they have what, 10 million+ subscriptions for this game? at $14.99 or so a month? Seems like a pretty good idea to follow to me.
And this is from someone who has a Dell home computer, and a mac laptop (which sees a hell of a lot more use). I only have my home computer because I used to be really into games, and selling it, I'll get next to nothing because it's a few years old, so I keep it around for a few games every once and a while. Basically... I don't play video games much anymore, and that is IMHO, the biggest reason to have a PC.
So, I personally would like DDI to use a Mac, because, frankly, I don't plan on carrying my huge tower case to a friends house every week, but I do carry my laptop almost everywhere I go. I think it was a bad decision to make it only run on windows based machines, even with a PC that I could use.
My understanding the main reason is they had some engine they bought/already had that was DirectX9 and written in .NET. Not sure what that was and if there was an engine, why does it take so long to finish the thing if they didn't have to design it from the ground up (thats another discussion, one which I do not have the information to nor do I want to get into as its all pure speculation).
And people perhaps misunderstand my argument on this. Its not that im saying that they shouldn't create a mac client or that there isn't a reason to do so. Im just saying thats where I see it coming from. Since its apparently DirectX driven and also written in .NET, it more than likely will make it impossible/very hard to port to Mac (or Linux). And im sure the main reason behind it was "We have two options. Spend X money and time, use the engine we already have. OR spend Y money (Y probably being substantially more than X), work from the ground up on a cross compatible product between Mac and Windows." And im sure what probably happened is Y was more than they figured they would get back on the relatively few people who want to use Macs. Plus as I stated in one of the other threads (or possible on this one, I lose track easily) that they also weighed the fact that Intel Macs and Wine on Linux should allow the client to run, so the only ones that are basically screwed on pre-intel macs and people who don't have a copy of XP to use on their new Intel macs.
Well, there is one other issue that the recent posters have neglected to mention. The issue of not everyone in a gaming group wishing to use DDI has Windows. If there are 6 people in the group and one has a Mac, then the other 5 can't use it effectively either.
This has been mentioned before. It is a scenario that Wizards didn't see coming or care about.
This has been mentioned before. It is a scenario that Wizards didn't see coming or care about.
Let me ask this to you and others who thought a mac version should come out. Lets pose two scenarios.
1) Current chain of events. DDI comes out say late Fall (hopefully sooner but lets just say late fall for sake of the argument). Windows only.
2) They rewrite it from scratch (either now or even from the beginning). Now it comes out sometime middle of next year.
I don't know if option two would take that much longer, but I am sure it would take longer than option one. Lets say 10% of people use macs exclusively and did not have a PC/parallels to play it on. This means 90% of the people would have to wait potentially 6 months (maybe more, maybe less, maybe way more. Not sure but still, longer). Thats 6 months of not getting $15 a month from that 90% because 10% needed the version to run on their computer. The return on investment is probably very low. Even if it were 60/40% it may have still not had a ROI worth dedicating the increased resources/time needed to design a mac compatible client.
The only reason I can think of that this idea does not work is if much of the delays that have occured are caused by severe issues working with the existing engine that would not have cropped up had they designed a new one (tho I suspect that would be option two would still come out beginning of next year instead of middle, still a delay).
I know at this point, even with the increased amount of people buying macs and the perceived lameness of Vista (which I generally have shared from what I had seen on other computers but I have one at work I now use that has Vista and its been pretty good) that if I had to design software, and I could choose between an existing system written in .NET/DirectX and cost is X or a brand new system where cost would be X plus Y(increased programmers at the bare minimum plus also more lab systems to test on) and I was only looking at getting a small increase of subscribers (at least perceived) that really would not make up for the Y, then I would choose option 1.
Obviously none of this changes peoples opinion that they wish wotc had created a mac client as people with pre intel macs are screwed or post intel macs required (if they didn't already have it) to get Windows XP and parallels. And as I have stated before, it would be nice to have a Mac client. Means more people. But people should be aware that more than likely, the decision was based on ROI.
Its not really a question of can I find a way to use their tools as a Mac user. The question is, is it worth the effort of choosing their game over the Xbox or WoW or whatever 800-pound gorilla of a video game is trying to pull my attention away from Wizard's products.
They might have made the best business decision for them, however I don't think that there is any evidence to suggest that WotC has the ability to execute in the online world. They clearly did not give this initiative the proper level of attention by the fact that is has been delayed for an undetermined amount of time. Of course, they are not a software company so I guess its to be expected that they [continue to] make mistakes in that arena.
The other apps are web or client based, OS neutral as far as I know.
The fact that they went with the cheap, ready made program instead of developing one of their own and didn't even think of cross platform concerns is the reason for this thread, and why DDi is going to be a novelty instead if the killer app that Wizards want.
Let me ask this to you and others who thought a mac version should come out. Lets pose two scenarios.
1) Current chain of events. DDI comes out say late Fall (hopefully sooner but lets just say late fall for sake of the argument). Windows only.
2) They rewrite it from scratch (either now or even from the beginning). Now it comes out sometime middle of next year.
I don't know if option two would take that much longer, but I am sure it would take longer than option one. Lets say 10% of people use macs exclusively and did not have a PC/parallels to play it on. This means 90% of the people would have to wait potentially 6 months (maybe more, maybe less, maybe way more. Not sure but still, longer).
First off, you present a false dilemma, but I'll come back to that shortly. Second, the factor that thaX refers to in the message you quoted, a factor you didn't address, makes option 1 a bad move. You're still talking as though the issue is losing the x% of Wizard's customers who use Macs and don't have a copy of Windows. That's not the issue. The issue is losing every group that includes even one of those Mac using Windowless users.
Option 1 isn't allowing the tools to be usable for 90% (give or take) of Wizards customers. Once you drop those who have even one Windowless Mac users, that percentage is much lower.
So the best thing is unmentioned option 3, develop a Mac version in parallel with the Windows version. This isn't nearly as daunting as it might sound, as a good deal of the cost of developing 3d gaming software is the artwork, which is cross-platform.
To be honest I've been a niche OS user for the last 10 years and I forgive that you made a choice and don't want to go to the expense of porting to other OS's. Now, your licensing actively prevents others from supporting me? Sorry, that is just too much.
Unfortunately, the Tabletop and Character Generator won't.
The only significant reason why the Character Generator won't is WotC's insistence that a 3D mini visualizer is required for the Character Generator. A truly great Character Generator could be made to run in any browser. Since they are going to be storing all your data on their server, there really is no excuse for not taking this approach. If it were browser based (Ajax, JavaFx, Flex, whatever), then every player (with a computer) all over the world could use the Character Generator. Kewl 3D pictures are not required for a great character generator.
The 3D visualizer could be part of the Tabletop that everyone is going to have access to anyway, if they're using the Character Generator. Conflating the 3D display with the Character Generator needlessly complicates the application, and alienates a portion of their customer base.
The two main reasons I can see for insisting on having a 3D display in the Character Generator are for customers to go "kewl!", and to sell you actual 3D minis. While the first is a nice feature if you can pull it off, neither of these reasons should be used to keep a usable character generator from their customers.
The Tabletop, on the other hand, could have been developed using OpenGL rather than DirectX. That is the technology used for many other cross-platform applications. There would still be significant work to make up the glue to hold it all together on the Mac and Linux, but it would not be like rewriting the entire application.
WotC is essentially trying to sell D&DI as "Software as a Service". Unfortunately, they're using Web 1.0 thinking to try to solve a Web 2.0 problem.
Let me ask this to you and others who thought a mac version should come out. Lets pose two scenarios.
1) Current chain of events. DDI comes out say late Fall (hopefully sooner but lets just say late fall for sake of the argument). Windows only.
2) They rewrite it from scratch (either now or even from the beginning). Now it comes out sometime middle of next year.
I don't know if option two would take that much longer, but I am sure it would take longer than option one. Lets say 10% of people use macs exclusively and did not have a PC/parallels to play it on. This means 90% of the people would have to wait potentially 6 months (maybe more, maybe less, maybe way more. Not sure but still, longer). Thats 6 months of not getting $15 a month from that 90% because 10% needed the version to run on their computer. The return on investment is probably very low. Even if it were 60/40% it may have still not had a ROI worth dedicating the increased resources/time needed to design a mac compatible client.
The only reason I can think of that this idea does not work is if much of the delays that have occured are caused by severe issues working with the existing engine that would not have cropped up had they designed a new one (tho I suspect that would be option two would still come out beginning of next year instead of middle, still a delay).
I know at this point, even with the increased amount of people buying macs and the perceived lameness of Vista (which I generally have shared from what I had seen on other computers but I have one at work I now use that has Vista and its been pretty good) that if I had to design software, and I could choose between an existing system written in .NET/DirectX and cost is X or a brand new system where cost would be X plus Y(increased programmers at the bare minimum plus also more lab systems to test on) and I was only looking at getting a small increase of subscribers (at least perceived) that really would not make up for the Y, then I would choose option 1.
Obviously none of this changes peoples opinion that they wish wotc had created a mac client as people with pre intel macs are screwed or post intel macs required (if they didn't already have it) to get Windows XP and parallels. And as I have stated before, it would be nice to have a Mac client. Means more people. But people should be aware that more than likely, the decision was based on ROI.
Wow, I normally don't respond much on forums (normally a lurker). But you just spout all kinds of tripe don't you. You don't have a mac that is apparent. You don't program that is also apparent. Do you know what percentage of people have macs and play D&D and what percentage have windows and play D&D? All your arguments are supposition. Maybe you should try lurking more
Wow, I normally don't respond much on forums (normally a lurker). But you just spout all kinds of tripe don't you. You don't have a mac that is apparent. You don't program that is also apparent. Do you know what percentage of people have macs and play D&D and what percentage have windows and play D&D? All your arguments are supposition. Maybe you should try lurking more
Your right I don't have a mac, tho my Dad has one as well as my roommate (who works in IT fixing Macs). And your right, I don't program. And the argument is such a waste of time (as I mentioned in the other thing you replied to of mine on this same useless subject) as they have announced that they are not making a Mac client. So unless you have a PC or an Intel Mac with Windows, your screwed.
Now, I would love if WOTC came on and gave us the numbers on what they believe would cost to make a Mac client as that would be some useful information.
Some useful information for you.
http://www.macrumors.com/2008/01/01/mac-market-share-over-7-in-december/
That shows that Mac market share is a little over 7 percent vs the 91% that Windows has. I suspect WOTC did not want to dedicate any resources, let alone the necessary ones on that 7%.
That shows that Mac market share is a little over 7 percent vs the 91% that Windows has. I suspect WOTC did not want to dedicate any resources, let alone the necessary ones on that 7%.
So you've pretty much decided to just ignore the issue of those Windows users who also find DDi unusable because they have even one Mac user in their group.
So you've pretty much decided to just ignore the issue of those Windows users who also find DDi unusable because they have even one Mac user in their group.
No, there is going to be some people that will be affected by that. I have not forgotten that. But theres not much that can be done right now about it. Either get boot camp/parallels, a new intel mac to do the first suggestion or get a PC. Otherwise the Mac person won't be able to use it, and unfortunately (for all of us, WOTC and the end users) that may mean that there will be many PC people who won't be able to use it.
However if it came down to two options for WOTC, do DDI Windows only or don't do DDI at all (assuming the decision against a Mac client was that doing so would make the whole project not worth doing) Im personally glad they chose not to make a Mac client. Sucks for Apple users but at least Windows people have something.
No, there is going to be some people that will be affected by that. I have not forgotten that. But theres not much that can be done right now about it. Either get boot camp/parallels, a new intel mac to do the first suggestion or get a PC. Otherwise the Mac person won't be able to use it, and unfortunately (for all of us, WOTC and the end users) that may mean that there will be many PC people who won't be able to use it.
However if it came down to two options for WOTC, do DDI Windows only or don't do DDI at all (assuming the decision against a Mac client was that doing so would make the whole project not worth doing) Im personally glad they chose not to make a Mac client. Sucks for Apple users but at least Windows people have something.
Wow, you have so much empathy...
If you don't care why get in this discussion gizmois? "Personally glad they chose not to make a Mac client", feeling the love there. Go troll some other forums please.
Wow, you have so much empathy...
If you don't care why get in this discussion gizmois? "Personally glad they chose not to make a Mac client", feeling the love there. Go troll some other forums please.
You don't read my posts so not sure why I respond. Are you claiming that you would rather them just not do DDI at all? Talk about empathy for the 90% of people who have Windows who might want DDI. And I even said that it was unfortunate as it does eliminate people with Windows who have Mac players who will all have to not use DDI to play online.
You don't read my posts so not sure why I respond. Are you claiming that you would rather them just not do DDI at all? Talk about empathy for the 90% of people who have Windows who might want DDI. And I even said that it was unfortunate as it does eliminate people with Windows who have Mac players who will all have to not use DDI to play online.
I love the 90% number that keeps bouncing around. It ignores the fact that tons of those computers in question are owned and managed by corporations and would never be used for running D&D.
[url=http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/04/01/analyst-apples-us-consumer-market-share-now-21-percent/]Fortune magazine pegs the Mac market share of Consumer OSes at 20%
... one out of five people. That's the consumer market, private individuals buying computers for home use, the only market that matters when it comes to DDI.
Further, their market share with higher end computers and among younger people is even higher... both markets which are desirable target markets for Wizards. I suppose those people that but the $400 Dells might have the cash to drop $15 on DDI but the guys who dropped $1500 on a new 24" iMac are probably more likely to have the cash.
It also ignores the millions of people who would like to use the software but for some reason or another can't install it on their local machine (for example people who would plug away at DDI over the 'net while at work
)You don't read my posts so not sure why I respond. Are you claiming that you would rather them just not do DDI at all? Talk about empathy for the 90% of people who have Windows who might want DDI. And I even said that it was unfortunate as it does eliminate people with Windows who have Mac players who will all have to not use DDI to play online.
And I'm afraid you clearly haven't read mine. Avoiding getting drawn into personal attacks, there are a few important points that have been made in this thread which are relevant to what you're saying.
1. The 7% of MACs figure (and I think it's actually over 8% now for non-Windows OS's), is a total figure that includes all those millions of work machines sitting in offices. These machines are almost always Windows boxes and are almost certainly not going to be used for gaming. So we discard all these machines from our figures because they're not part of WotC potential market. What happens when you discard millions of Windows machines from your group? Yes - the percentage of machines in that group which run Windows is now lower. I don't have a precise figure for the percentage of non-Windows OS's in home use, but it's going to be significantly higher than the 7% figure that keeps getting posted. Higher again if you accept that non-Windows machines are going to be even more common amongst the generally higher educated and younger demographic that play role-playing games which I think is not unreasonable. Your 7% figure will be too low.
2. You haven't taken in the effect of marketing to groups. You say "some people" but if we take 1 in 10 people to have a non-Windows OS (Linux is growing too, remember), and we think that the average group is six people, then slightly more than half the groups will have a non-Windows player in that group. Actually, variance in distribution will reduce that, but saying that WotC is eliminating 1 in 3 of their customers because of this is a reasonable estimage. 1 in 3 customers! That is a terribly, terribly ill-thought out business plan and massively significant. This isn't "some people." You have to take in just how large that is. When you're marketing to groups, 1 in 10 people is a very big thing.
3. You have made a very large assumption which is
"However if it came down to two options for WOTC, do DDI Windows only or don't do DDI at all (assuming the decision against a Mac client was that doing so would make the whole project not worth doing) Im personally glad they chose not to make a Mac client."
You are willing to give them the benefit of the doubt in allowing an either / or between doing it without non-Windows OS, or not doing it at all. I don't think many people in the know share that graciousness. I have done formal requirements specification and project management for software applications development and though I'm not an expert in cross-platform development, I feel able to offer an industry perspective. The increase in cost would not be significant in comparison to return on investment, relatively small percentage difference in comparison to their likely budget and the increase on time scale to development would have been smallish if they were contracting programmers with the relevant expertise from the start. If they were doing things in-house with people who needed re-training, then it would have had a larger impact but that's a management decision, not a condition they can't negotiate.
WotC have extremely poor in-house IT ability. They have a web-site where you can get access to anything without logging in simply by tagging &authenticate=true onto the end of any of their URLs.
We can't justify not doing cross-platform support through cost, difficulty or good marketing sense. We can only attribute it to ignorance or bad project management.
People are therefore right to criticise.
@mtbOgre: You got me, ninja!
You don't read my posts so not sure why I respond. Are you claiming that you would rather them just not do DDI at all? Talk about empathy for the 90% of people who have Windows who might want DDI. And I even said that it was unfortunate as it does eliminate people with Windows who have Mac players who will all have to not use DDI to play online.
gizmoiscariot,
As I pointed out above, WotC could have chosen an actual Web 2.0 design to address most of this issue so that all players with a computer could have access. It wasn't a choice of support 90% or support none (given the stats above, more like 75%-80%). It was a choice of support 80% or support 100%.
The way that they've chosen to implement the applications limited them to 80%. In other words, for any group of 5 or more friends that want to get together using DDI, at least one of them will not be able to participate.
There are other technologies available that could have supported 100%. At some point a decision was made to use the more restrictive DirectX, and to make sure to put 3D into the character generator so that 20%+ of their market has no computer support, and can't get any because of the GSL.
They could have done this better in any number of ways.
The questions WotC should answer are:
1) Why was the more restrictive technology chosen? If they had chosen OpenGL or some other cross-platform technology, they still could have focused on the Windows release, but been able to do a much easier rehost to other OSes such as Mac and Linux, if/when they decided to support the other platforms.
2) Why was the 3D considered integral to generating 2D character sheets that have never before needed 3D? By insisting that 3D be part of the Character Generator, they cut out the most basic of computer support for 20%+ of their customers. And, because of the GSL, these customers cannot get computer support for character generation from anyone else either.
Inquiring minds want to know? I have my own theories, but they're just theories. Can someone from the WotC software team answer these questions?
Inquiring minds want to know? I have my own theories, but they're just theories. Can someone from the WotC software team answer these questions?
I would imagine the WotC software team (or at least the person in charge of them) is just glad that his employers aren't themselves gamers or reading this thread. There are numerous posters here, by the sounds of it, who could give a very good presentation on exactly why it was not necessary to focus on Windows only and the consequences of not supporting non-Windows OS's. I could give such an overview myself (but would charge money).
I've seen no good defense of WotC's decision. I'm making an educated guess that someone who didn't know much about computers listened to the wrong person.
And I was posing a possible scenario when I said that they may have said to themselves "Windows or nothing." I am not even saying its a great idea, im just saying I can see that thought
Obviously im in the minority here so ill stop arguing the point. Especially since there is no mac client and at this point unless they have secretley been working on a Mac client, we won't be seeing one anytime soon.
And for tpkurilla question one, it was decided to use an existing engine they had that was already in DirectX and .NET. Obviously it was a shortcut and has screwed a portion of mac users and even pc users with mac friends. I still find it surprising that out of those 20% of mac users that its implied that none of them could run DDI. I would be curious to find how many of those people are running parallels. However, im tired of arguing (on all topics, but at least especially on this one). I have Windows, plan on trying DDI and if there is enough people on there and the tools are good, ill more than likely continue. As someone stated before, I should bow out and I shall.
I agree that the above marketshare I looked at includes work machines that probably won't be used for DDI. Even 1 in 5 using a mac is still a lower percentage.
And I was posing a possible scenario when I said that they may have said to themselves "Windows or nothing." I am not even saying its a great idea, im just saying I can see that thought
Obviously im in the minority here so ill stop arguing the point. Especially since there is no mac client and at this point unless they have secretley been working on a Mac client, we won't be seeing one anytime soon.
1 in 5 may be smaller but that does make it a lot more probable to have mac users in a gaming group. Also you keep pointing out there is no Mac client, we know that, that is why the different threads were started. We are not only asking why we also hoping that if enough of us get together that maybe they will see a point in it and make one, if not at the initial release maybe in the future. So it is not a moot point to us, it is a moot point to a Windows user. It was (like many things with this launch in my opinion) poor choices on their part.
I have Windows, plan on trying DDI and if there is enough people on there and the tools are good, ill more than likely continue.
For so long as the service is kept running. I really do not believe that Wizards considered the Mac population among consumers, but looked rather at the overall Mac percentages which included vast corporate installations. I also do not believe they considered the loss of a significant percentage of Windows users (33% sounds about right, and may be optimistic) due to the group problem.
That's a staggering loss of potential income. Running this service is going to involve certain significant costs to Wizards. Even more, updating the service to reflect new rule books, new graphics, new content, etc, will have significant costs. To pay for all of that and provide a satisfying amount of profit flowing upstream, they require a certain minimum number of subscribers. Will they get the numbers they need? Possibly, but I'd have to say it's less likely than they originally believed.
As someone stated before, I should bow out and I shall.
As someone who was debating with you, I hope you haven't received that impression from me. Am happy to debate and it's always possible to disagree amicably. Think you're wrong, mind you, but no ill will. ;)
Regards,
Lurkalot.
Obviously im in the minority here so ill stop arguing the point.
Looking at the thread title I'm not sure why this would surprise you at all. ;)
I still find it surprising that out of those 20% of mac users that its implied that none of them could run DDI. I would be curious to find how many of those people are running parallels.
The thing is no one outside WotC has any clue whether it will run on Parallels or not. As has been pointed out several times in this thread Parallels does not run all DX9 stuff... or maybe none of it, I'm not sure. Wizo's have already said they aren't even testing it outside of Windows yet this question won't be answered until it's released. Wine is likely the best bet but until they release something we are in the dark. Based on the Mac users I know very few own parallels.
Gateway was going to try and re-release the OS as the code name Chameleon on the same named computers models. It didn't happen and they lost the OS right after having it for three years.
So, really, the only real solution for a Mac to use the table and Visualizer is to have Wizards support cross platform development. Techies may be able to get it to work but an average guy is screwed in the current situation.
Seeing that the development consisted of finding some old program and changing it to fit the desired effect of the whole package. It just happened to use the inferior tools of Direct X and windows to run on. It can be worked to be cross platform eventually, but it won't happen over night and requires a basic port over to the other OS.
[indent]I am a purist. ... I'm also a very loyal customer.
You are me!
'I would buy a Mac if I didn't work for Microsoft'
- James Allchin, Windows development chief
For so long as the service is kept running. I really do not believe that Wizards considered the Mac population among consumers, but looked rather at the overall Mac percentages which included vast corporate installations. I also do not believe they considered the loss of a significant percentage of Windows users (33% sounds about right, and may be optimistic) due to the group problem.
That's a staggering loss of potential income. Running this service is going to involve certain significant costs to Wizards. Even more, updating the service to reflect new rule books, new graphics, new content, etc, will have significant costs. To pay for all of that and provide a satisfying amount of profit flowing upstream, they require a certain minimum number of subscribers. Will they get the numbers they need? Possibly, but I'd have to say it's less likely than they originally believed.
I agree. I will not fire up **** xp on my lovely imac only because of DDI. In our group there are 2 mac users and we all decided not to subscribe to DDI.
Bye bye WotC. you just lost 6 potential sucribers.
I run openBSD, which is neither Linux or Mac (which is based on the freeBSD tree), but is another alternative to Windows. I wish the D&Di platform took advantage of a programming language to make it platform independent. Any chance that would happen, or is this a windows only environment?
It's not going to happen any time soon. They're using DirectX, firstly, and from what I can tell there is no effort to go platform-independent at this time.
It's not going to happen any time soon. They're using DirectX, firstly, and from what I can tell there is no effort to go platform-independent at this time.
Yeah they used a preexisting engine they had that was written in .NET and uses DirectX. They basically would either have to port that which im sure would be a pain or start from scratch, which I doubt and even if they did (unless they have been and are hiding it) you are probably a couple of years off getting a working product.
I run openBSD, which is neither Linux or Mac (which is based on the freeBSD tree), but is another alternative to Windows. I wish the D&Di platform took advantage of a programming language to make it platform independent. Any chance that would happen, or is this a windows only environment?
Well wine support is likely your only possible solution, actually it's probably the most likely way anyone will see DDi off of Windows. Considering how far behind they appear just getting Windows support running don't hold your breath about any cross platform testing.
I wish people would stop throwing out make-believe numbers like 33% unless they can back those numbers up with some kind of report or survey. ONCE AGAIN: That may be the case with your local group. But many groups do not have anyone that owns a mac. I, personally, know a single person out of about 300 people that uses a Mac as their primary computer. And that person doesn't play D&D.
I have nothing against Apple computers. I service them as part of my job. and I think they are wonderful machines. I do, however, have a problem with the spoiled sense of entitlement of certain members of the Mac community.
There is nothing wrong with stating "Hrmm. No Mac version. Unfortunate. I wish they would make one so that me and my group can play."
While there is something very wrong with "WOTC is stupid because they won't make a Mac version. The research that they did, though I don't think they did any at all and are just completely ignoring us, is wrong. Mac users make up a very sizable portion of the D&D player base [though I won't provide any proof of that beyond my own conviction, I'll even possibly make up a completely fictitious percentage that I can't cite anywhere, while at the same time completely refuting their ACTUAL market share percentage as skewed.] and we the mac using community should be catered to, because we are special and deserve it." And "Yes, even though my Mac CAN boot windows, this solution is completely unacceptable to me. I'll cite a bunch of little reasons why, but the real reason is that I absolutely refuse to run Windows, ever."
It is unfortunate that the game table and character visualizer isn't going to be usable on a mac that can't boot windows. But really. Is that attitude really necessary? Solutions are available. Most newer Macs can run it if they really wanted to. Most of the Bitterness I see in this thread is simply stubbornness. The absolute refusal of people to, on principle, run Windows. Once again, It's just a piece of software. It's not a religion. It's just a tool. A means to an end. If you are doing a job and the tool you have doesn't work, you get the tool that does.
Windows only development will be a death nail for future computer programs (Be they games, word processers, character generators or databases) and cross platform development will be more likely done with most of the future releases. The abandonment of Direct X will begin the slide to go away from Windows.
Fact. WINvista played a part in the downturn in windows machines
Despite the fact that MS is selling way more copies of Vista than XP ever did in proportion
and MAC is getting a bigger share, as well as Linux and other OS's. I would not be surpirsed to see OSwarp to make a return after the snafu with WINvista.
Can we stop the MS bashing in this thread and focus more on constructive reasons for supporting other platforms? I'm surprised you didn't childishly use the acronym M$ either.
Most people that bash Vista have either only used it for 5 minutes or never used it and are preaching the opinion of some person they don't know on the Internet who has only used it for 5 minutes (or the very early betas).
I've been using Vista since it came out and I have never had any of the "problems" people keep complaining about. It just works for me, day in and day out. Just like most Macs.
FACT: Despite the "Vista Apocalypse" you keep bringing up, US Apple market share has actually gone down from 8.1% in Oct of 07 to 6.6% in April of 08. That's just in the US. Check the articles from my post on Page 5 in this thread for details. Apple didn't break top 5 computer manufacturers worldwide in either article. Which means they have less than a 4.3%-4.4% market share globally.
And yes, yes. I know.. Numbers skewed... Big business... Blah, blah, blah.
Honestly, which do you think is more likely?
a. A huge number of people are buying Mac computers rather than PCs, but a whole bunch of companies just placed huge orders for new Windows machines and that offset the numbers, causing it to appear that Apples market share has shrunk, when it's actually growing in leaps and bounds!!!
b. The numbers speak for themselves.
WINxp sold more when most of the WIN2000 lag problems was taken care of with SP2. When WIN95 and all the others were shut off and no longer supported it threw the XP OS into the forefront.
WINxp isn't the greatist of OS's, but it works and has most of the bugs well out of it. Microsoft, I beleive, is trying to update it to death in the last two months, and the update several months back that broke Netscape was on purpose, no matter what anyone says.
Microsoft is not winning any friends, and the loss of XP on new machines will cause a further jump in "sales" in the future, but is still nowhere near what WIN95 was at in that part of the cycle.
They are already working on the new Windows to replace Vista, and it will come out next year. Look for WINvista be the 2007 version of WINme.
WINvista is a resource hog, has problems with older programs, and needs single drivers to run hardware. DRM checks are running constintly in the background, taking up more space and time, keeping your hard drive running more.
Pure FUD. Quote your sources or we'll continue to laugh at you.
WINxp sold more when most of the WIN2000 lag problems was taken care of with SP2. When WIN95 and all the others were shut off and no longer supported it threw the XP OS into the forefront.
Windows XP was also targeted at consumers as a replacement of 98 and ME. 2000 was never targeted at consumers.
WINxp isn't the greatist of OS's, but it works and has most of the bugs well out of it. Microsoft, I beleive, is trying to update it to death in the last two months, and the update several months back that broke Netscape was on purpose, no matter what anyone says.
Netscape is no longer in the business of making a web browser and hasn't been for several months. Why should MS bend over backwards to make sure a product that is no longer made/supported, works on it's currently supported OS?
Microsoft is not winning any friends, and the loss of XP on new machines will cause a further jump in "sales" in the future, but is still nowhere near what WIN95 was at in that part of the cycle.
They are already working on the new Windows to replace Vista, and it will come out next year. Look for WINvista be the 2007 version of WINme.
Windows 7 is slated for a 2009/2010 release (2-3 years after Vista). Which is nothing out of the ordinary. Win 3.1 -> Win 95 was 3 years. Win95 -> Win98 (3 years). Windows NT 4 -> Windows 2000 (4 years). Win98 -> WinME (3 years). Windows 2000 -> XP (1 year). WinME -> XP (1 year). They were already working on Windows 7 before Vista was in RC stage.
And, this is way off topic for this discussion and any further discussion/FUD spreading about MS should be deleted.
So, I can utilize the tools.
Why PC emulation is inadequate:
Clunky - functionality doesn't perform consistently
Stability - Emulation has hiccups that cause the system to degrade from time to time.
Cohesion - Emulation breaks cohesion with the current OS. Causing the user to strain, antagonize, or frustrate from time to time
Cost - Prohibitively expensive. To legally use the tools could cost hundreds of dollars for initial setup: emulation software, OS license, upgrades.
Performance - Although performance could be close to the intended speed. Requiring two operating systems and duplicated functionality consumes CPU cycles and memory utilization. Over all performance can and will be degraded.
Longevity - Any updates to the current software stack could cause issues with the relating applications. I.E. update to emulation could create issues to tool set and vice versa.
Maintenance - One would be required to maintain separate entities. Performing software patches, maintaing backups, virus detection, File system contingency.. etc.
That's my reasoning to the original question.
Now, I'm off to make a gnomish warlock...
I wish people would stop throwing out make-believe numbers like 33% unless they can back those numbers up with some kind of report or survey. ONCE AGAIN: That may be the case with your local group. But many groups do not have anyone that owns a mac. I, personally, know a single person out of about 300 people that uses a Mac as their primary computer. And that person doesn't play D&D.
Your call to stop posting numbers without backing them up with some sort of report or survey would carry a lot more weight if you didn't post your own numbers without backing them up with some sort of report or survey. I'm going to assume you know enough to know that your own observations do not constitute a statistically significant sample.
In January of this year, the Gartner Group estimated Apple's computer market share at 6% (incidentally, they also predicted that market share would double in the next three years, given that they saw 44% unit growth and 47% revenue growth over). Let's work with that number, ignoring the effect of large corporate installs.
If we assume the average group has 6 members, and that groups which do have a Mac user only have 1, that leaves us with 35% of groups which include a Mac user. That's not some made up number, that's just math starting with reliable market share data.
I really don't know why I keep coming back to this thread...
I'm wondering this myself considering every post you've done in this thread is off topic and inflamatory. Maybe you should read the top post to figure out what this thread is about.
b. The numbers speak for themselves.
Indeed they do: Fortune magazine pegs the Mac market share of Consumer OSes at 20%"
20% of computers bought by people for home use are Macs. Computers sold that are being installed in corporate America are completely irrelevant. Unless you think millions of people are going to install DDi at work?
Market Share: According to IDC, Apple’s worldwide market share grew from 2.4% in 2006 to 2.9% in 2007. (See chart below.) Munster is conservatively modeling global market share to remain flat this year, but he notes that enterprise sales account for 70% of the worldwide market, a segment Apple is not aggressively targeting. In the consumer market, where Apple does compete, he estimates the Mac’s share is now 10% worldwide and an impressive 21% in the U.S.
Solutions are available. Most newer Macs can run it if they really wanted to.
You're giving the impression here that it's merely a matter of desire, which I'm sure you know is false so this is probably just a case of miscommunication. In fact, it's not nearly that simplistic.
Users can purchase a copy of Windows XP as well as a copy of Parallels or VMWare Fusion, which adds a significant cost to using D&Di. Would you pay hundreds of dollars on top of the subscription fee to use D&Di? They could install Windows XP under BootCamp, removing about $80 from the additional costs, but that carries it's own problems and will be unworkable for some people.
They can try to run it under Wine. Wine is a coin-toss (only about half the software they track runs acceptably well under Wine), as well as being unknown to average users. Wizards could help this situation by working with Wine developers to ensure that it will work, and then advertise the fact the D&Di works on OS X with Wine.
Your call to stop posting numbers without backing them up with some sort of report or survey would carry a lot more weight if you didn't post your own numbers without backing them up with some sort of report or survey. I'm going to assume you know enough to know that your own observations do not constitute a statistically significant sample.
Check the links in my post on Page 5. They show Apple's market share actually shrunk by about 2% from Oct of 07 to April of 08.
In January of this year, the Gartner Group estimated Apple's computer market share at 6% (incidentally, they also predicted that market share would double in the next three years, given that they saw 44% unit growth and 47% revenue growth over). Let's work with that number, ignoring the effect of large corporate installs.
Predictions, even from accredited sources, are speculation, no matter how educated. I love how that prediction stands even in the face of Apple's 2% market share loss over 6 months (A 25% loss) reflected in the links in my post. I also love seeing numbers about growth in relation to Apple. It's very easy to get excited about 44% growth, until you realize that you are talking about 6% of the market, and that 44% = about 2.6% of actual market growth. Numbers like that are thrown around to get people to invest, and shouldn't be interpreted into "Mac growth of 44% means that Mac will eventually replace PC as the computer of choice." Despite seeing these numbers thrown out every year Apple continues to float always within a couple of percent of 6% total market share, like they have for years and years. Which seems to be totally fine with them. They are a successful company.
If we assume the average group has 6 members, and that groups which do have a Mac user only have 1, that leaves us with 35% of groups which include a Mac user. That's not some made up number, that's just math starting with reliable market share data.
Postulating for the moment that your numbers are correct and that 35% of gaming "groups" contain one Apple user let us pose the following dilemma:
What's more likely?
A: A single mac user that can't use the DnDI Gaming table [or could, but refuses on principle] will cause his entire group to not subscribe to DnDI at all.
B: Members of the group who can use it will still subscribe for the other tools, but just not use the game table.
C: Members of the group will find someone else who can to fill the spot, or simply play without the mac user.
While I'm sure that answers in EVERY category are likely, it's my belief that the majority will fall into groups B or C. It doesn't really solve the mac users' problem, but that's the situation we're talking about here.
I find it a little weird [and a bit pretentious] that a majority of what I see on this board is "I'm a mac user so none of my group are going to subscribe!" and not "I'm a PC user but one of my friends owns a mac and so I won't subscribe." Wouldn't there be more people posting the latter if answer A was going to be the most frequent answer to our dilemma?
Let's look at it in another light... All of your friends have XBox 360's. But you have decided that the PS3 was better and got one of those instead. You and all of your friends love playing 1st person shooters. Are none of your friends going to buy or play Halo2 because it won't work on your PS3? It's not a perfect side by side example, but I hope you get the drift.
You're giving the impression here that it's merely a matter of desire, which I'm sure you know is false so this is probably just a case of miscommunication. In fact, it's not nearly that simplistic.
Users can purchase a copy of Windows XP as well as a copy of Parallels or VMWare Fusion, which adds a significant cost to using D&Di. Would you pay hundreds of dollars on top of the subscription fee to use D&Di? They could install Windows XP under BootCamp, removing about $80 from the additional costs, but that carries it's own problems and will be unworkable for some people.
They can try to run it under Wine. Wine is a coin-toss (only about half the software they track runs acceptably well under Wine), as well as being unknown to average users. Wizards could help this situation by working with Wine developers to ensure that it will work, and then advertise the fact the D&Di works on OS X with Wine.
Hobbies cost money. Is it worth it to you to pay a couple of hundred dollars to be able to enjoy your hobby with your friends? For me the answer would be yes. I'm far from rich, but to me it's worth it. Lord knows I have enough expensive hobbies already. One more, one time purchase of a couple of hundred dollars, to be able to use the gaming table, wouldn't be the end of the world for me. Especially, like in this case, where I have a few months to save up for it.
As to the actual compatibility issue with windows emulators and dual booting. I know. It's problematic, to be sure. But a solution IS available. And if you are serious about wanting to use the game table, then you really don't have much of a choice but to pursue the solutions that are available.
Hobbies cost money. Is it worth it to you to pay a couple of hundred dollars to be able to enjoy your hobby with your friends? For me the answer would be yes. I'm far from rich, but to me it's worth it. Lord knows I have enough expensive hobbies already. One more, one time purchase of a couple of hundred dollars, to be able to use the gaming table, wouldn't be the end of the world for me. Especially, like in this case, where I have a few months to save up for it.
As to the actual compatibility issue with windows emulators and dual booting. I know. It's problematic, to be sure. But a solution IS available. And if you are serious about wanting to use the game table, then you really don't have much of a choice but to pursue the solutions that are available.
You see, it isn't the fact that we, as hobbiests, are not willing to spend money for the enjoyment of the hobby but that the money required to make a service work for a particular section of Mac users is on top of the overprice subscription cost and the micro payments for Vminis and PDF's of issues "best of" mags that are online. It isn't worth it or the hassle for most, and the real question should be... Why?
Why did Wizards choose a program that is so limited in it's scope that uses an proprietary Direct X and .net programing that it would be another year of actual development to port it to other platforms?
As much as I hate to say it, Mac is the main computer that has done the graphical and digitized effects on most movies that is seen today. Some have started to use Intel systems, but have an OS that is based on the old toaster systems use back in the B5 days with an Amiga (and slaved to a Mac in later seasons)
Even when the WINvista fallout happened, though they were already committed to the old program, Wizards should have had the foresight to already start the process to port the program over to Linux and Mac.
As far as the WINvista "FUD"
Show
*Goonerw* your convinced that your right when I know I am, so I am done going in circles with you on this.
WINvista is a bad OS, and nothing that they do with it will make it better. DRM has to go, period, and hopefully WIN7 guts it out and puts in the new filing system that was supposed to be in VISTA. WINme is a bad OS, and nothing could be done with it. WINxp was a broken OS when first released (Remember the blue screen of death going up during the conference to show it off?) and has been improved, though DOS support (sorta mute at this date) is still sorely lacking. DOSbox does a good job for most stuff but is a shell that takes up resorces and a better intergrated support should have been offered, even as (something Microsoft doesn't like to do) a separate application that could be sold on the web sight.
Mac will grab more shares as WINvista stalls in 2009, and Linux has a major supporter coming out with a version of the OS that will begin to be sold with company computers later this year.
WINvista is a bad OS, and nothing that they do with it will make it better. DRM has to go, period, and hopefully WIN7 guts it out and puts in the new filing system that was supposed to be in VISTA. WINme is a bad OS, and nothing could be done with it. WINxp was a broken OS when first released (Remember the blue screen of death going up during the conference to show it off?) and has been improved, though DOS support (sorta mute at this date) is still sorely lacking. DOSbox does a good job for most stuff but is a shell that takes up resorces and a better intergrated support should have been offered, even as (something Microsoft doesn't like to do) a separate application that could be sold on the web sight.
Mac will grab more shares as WINvista stalls in 2009, and Linux has a major supporter coming out with a version of the OS that will begin to be sold with company computers later this year.
A: A single mac user that can't use the DnDI Gaming table [or could, but refuses on principle] will cause his entire group to not subscribe to DnDI at all.
B: Members of the group who can use it will still subscribe for the other tools, but just not use the game table.
C: Members of the group will find someone else who can to fill the spot, or simply play without the mac user.
I would hope A and B would be more likely. Regarding B, certainly some will still subscribe for the other tools. There can be no doubt that the loss of usefulness of the game table reduces the value proposition of D&Di overall. In some cases, it will lower the value proposition too far to subscribe. In other cases, they will still find enough value.
And I would hope that C would not happen very often. Is it uncommon for people to play with friends, or become friends with their group? I can't wrap my head around a group of friends kicking someone out because of technology choices Wizards made. If such a group was indeed a group of friends, I would think a great deal less of them as people.
I find it a little weird [and a bit pretentious] that a majority of what I see on this board is "I'm a mac user so none of my group are going to subscribe!" and not "I'm a PC user but one of my friends owns a mac and so I won't subscribe." Wouldn't there be more people posting the latter if answer A was going to be the most frequent answer to our dilemma?
Well, given that web-based surveys are considered statistically meaningless (due to factors such as self-selection), I wouldn't read too much into web forum postings.
Hobbies cost money. Is it worth it to you to pay a couple of hundred dollars to be able to enjoy your hobby with your friends? For me the answer would be yes.
Fair enough. Will some pay the price? Sure. For others, it will price it beyond what they are willing to pay. For the record, it's about $350 here for Windows XP and a copy of VMWare Fusion, or almost the equivalent of two years of D&Di subscriptions. If I hadn't already gone to the expense myself for the purposes of my business, I doubt I'd do it for D&Di.
As far as the WINvista "FUD"Show*Goonerw* your convinced that your right when I know I am, so I am done going in circles with you on this.
WINvista is a bad OS, and nothing that they do with it will make it better. DRM has to go, period, and hopefully WIN7 guts it out and puts in the new filing system that was supposed to be in VISTA. WINme is a bad OS, and nothing could be done with it. WINxp was a broken OS when first released (Remember the blue screen of death going up during the conference to show it off?) and has been improved, though DOS support (sorta mute at this date) is still sorely lacking. DOSbox does a good job for most stuff but is a shell that takes up resorces and a better intergrated support should have been offered, even as (something Microsoft doesn't like to do) a separate application that could be sold on the web sight.
Mac will grab more shares as WINvista stalls in 2009, and Linux has a major supporter coming out with a version of the OS that will begin to be sold with company computers later this year.
I'm not going to get into the argument about windows versus mac. Both have problems. But one thing is certainly true about macs:
http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=121342811626863&w=2
This is Theo -- the guy who runs the openBSD project. And I have to agree with what he says:
When you buy from Apple, you do not get what you paid for. Instead
you get exactly what you got suckered into buying.
Is DDI good enough to warrant switching operating systems? Based upon what I am currently seeing, the answer is no.
Now HERE is an excellent point. A LOT of the decision will come down to the quality of the actual product upon release.
We haven't [well, I haven't anyways] really seen anything but a few screen-shots and some crappy resolution YouTube clips of the Game Table in action up to this point. A couple of dungeon tiles and digital minis and some light sources. It doesn't really look that thorough at all. I'm certainly hoping it is FAR more fleshed out when it's finally released.
I'm holding out hope that it's going to be great, or at the very least good enough to use to get together with old friends on different sides of the country to play again without detracting from the actual gameplay experience. I guess we'll see.
I would love to game across state-lines...and even national boundaries, but on my tiny college student budget it is impractical for me to run more than my principle OS (Mac OS 10.4).
I am sure supporting multiple operating systems for DDi would be no small thing. Neither, perhaps, would be developing a web-based, platform-independent application (my personal preference...if I had my druthers and all that jazz), but I guess the folk at WotC (and its parent company) have to decide whether they wish to so tightly bind a table-top gaming product to any one particular computer operating system.
Good luck. I do not envy your decisions, WotC, Hasbro, et al., and I earnestly hope some future day will find DDi accessable to more players.
---Iemrael
Saying they will never (or, at least, not in the near future) create a Mac version is one thing, saying that no one can is a completely different thing. As a Mac developer, I'd be interested in working on a Mac version of the Character Builder, even if it were a contract w/WotC who then took over ownership and distribution (I'd even be interested on doing an iPhone version)...
(All those who are arguing market share in this thread seem to be missing the point of the thread, and I don't think any of them really have a clear grasp of the subject).
Vista and DRM
Which is any CD, DVD, Blu Ray, HD DVD, iTunes MP3, Windows media, most games, software, and some of the packed in applications within WinVista itself. Don't fool yourself, it is running all the time, taking anywhere to 5 to 18 percent of resources at any time, jumping up to 30 percent when software/media is attempted to be used or installed.
You talk of when the blue screen of death was displayed with much amusement? Just trying to see the connection here.
XP had problems when it first came out, though not as bad a problem with drivers that Vista still chokes on now. It is stable and better now, since some of the issues were simply removed. Most have a better experience when using browsers other than the behind the times IE. I have XP now, and other than a slow boot up, it runs fine.
Linux is getting a major software release that standardizes the OS, and hopefully the Direct X emulater will allow Windows software to be run without windows double boots or some such. Time will tell.
Look, Win7 is being shipped almost 3 years early at the end of the year, and most think of it as Vista 2. I hope that DRM is gutted out or at least severely hampered to be a check sum system instead of a search and destroy. It is gonna need to be done sometime, since lawsuits are costing these companies millions with faulty programing that attacks the Kernel or cloak and dagger instalation of DRM that damages CD drives.
Vista is a bad OS, one that is still being worked on and "rereleased" as Win7. I am gonna take a good look at the next OS, and most likely get it instead of Vista. What I will not do is get WinME... oops, sorry, WinVista.
The DRM features are *NOT* running constantly, unless you're actually playing media that requests it. That one has been proven time and time again. From: http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/wi...d-answers.aspx
When are Windows Vista's content protection features actually used?
Windows Vista's content protection mechanisms are only used when required by the policy associated with the content being played. For Windows Vista experiences, if the content does not require a particular protection, then that protection mechanism is not used.
Which is any CD, DVD, Blu Ray, HD DVD, iTunes MP3, Windows media, most games, software, and some of the packed in applications within WinVista itself. Don't fool yourself, it is running all the time, taking anywhere to 5 to 18 percent of resources at any time, jumping up to 30 percent when software/media is attempted to be used or installed.
The popular BSOD when MS was showing off Windows at a conference video is of a guy showing Bill PnP with a scanner and Windows 98 (before it shipped).
The NT product line never had true DOS support, XP being on the NT product line.
You talk of when the blue screen of death was displayed with much amusement? Just trying to see the connection here.
I had been using Windows XP since its RC days and I never had any problems with it. It always worked flawlessly. Which was the opinion of the majority of people. There will always be a vocal minority of people who have experienced problems and complain loudly about them. Credit goes to MS for not having more problems than there was in XP.
XP had problems when it first came out, though not as bad a problem with drivers that Vista still chokes on now. It is stable and better now, since some of the issues were simply removed. Most have a better experience when using browsers other than the behind the times IE. I have XP now, and other than a slow boot up, it runs fine.
Dell has been selling desktops and laptops with Linux for yeas, so has HP.
Linux is getting a major software release that standardizes the OS, and hopefully the Direct X emulater will allow Windows software to be run without windows double boots or some such. Time will tell.
Look, Win7 is being shipped almost 3 years early at the end of the year, and most think of it as Vista 2. I hope that DRM is gutted out or at least severely hampered to be a check sum system instead of a search and destroy. It is gonna need to be done sometime, since lawsuits are costing these companies millions with faulty programing that attacks the Kernel or cloak and dagger instalation of DRM that damages CD drives.
Vista is a bad OS, one that is still being worked on and "rereleased" as Win7. I am gonna take a good look at the next OS, and most likely get it instead of Vista. What I will not do is get WinME... oops, sorry, WinVista.
There are lots of runtimes other than the .NET one, which make this kind of programming across platforms a lot easier. Qt, Java both spring to mind.
While we're on the subject, the very least you could do is release the D&Di software in .exe form - the crazy installer program won't run in Mono. But if you're going to stick with this msft runtime, try and make your releases work (or semi-work) with Mono. There are other .NET apps that I have to use from time to time that run acceptably well in the Mono environment. It's not pretty, but it works.
Until then, I'll settle for not playing 4e. I'm serious about that - I don't play 4e (still playing 3.5e with a good and fun group), and one of the big reasons we're not making the switch is the general feeling of a lack of support from WotC. The "you'll play it and you'll like it, or else" attitude that comes from this chargen decision is a nice exemplar of the overall "meh" feeling that comes from the 4e brand, which is too bad because it really is a pretty good game.
Oh yeah, and +1 for iPhone integration.
Rpg-tools.net has great stuff that runs in Java and does EVERYTHING a game table program should. emas-web.com has a GREAT 3.5e and 4e character sheet system, and even has iPhone "integration" (at least, an iPhone-optimized site, but it doesn't have local data storage so if you play in a basement you might be in trouble).
So the software needs to be so compelling that it's worth dumping the existing tools AND either bootcamping or buying a windows PC for. That would have to be a great piece of software. Given what we've got so far, I don't see that happening.
I'm even more saddened by this business tactic. Emass-web wasn't taking business away from WotC; by providing this great service, he made my D&D experience that much better, and me more likely to buy more books to continue playing D&D.
Oh well. Now I'm even less likely to play 4e. What you should have done is hired that guy - he managed to show you up working out of his garage. But instead, you've really lost a customer for life. Straw, camel, etc. And I've been a loyal customer since 1e to boot. I suppose I'm too old for this crap anyway.
Some contractor sold some executive at WotC or Hasbro on .NET, probably because that's what the contractor knew how to program for. The executive who made the decision probably didn't know the difference between .NET and a fishing net, so took the contractor's word for it. I've seen this happen before in similar situations.
The fact that they'd decided on this didn't become public (or probably even common knowledge within WotC) until months after the decision was made, at which point it was pretty much irreversible due to the amount of work that had already gone into the project.
I'm sure that in retrospect there's plenty of people at WotC that wish they could go back and change things, but at this point it's just not going to happen.
I think there wasn't enough research, myself, and more like the scenario you describe.
Reason five would be the demographics of different platform users. It's not worth stereotyping over, but there is some overlap between the more technically aware users and RPG gamers. WotC should not care about whether Windows has 98% of the general population usage. They should care if Windows has 78% of the RPG market. (Note figures made up, but illustrative of point). Taking into account factors such as home usage rather than work, age of gamers, technical knowledge, affluence level, larger student percentage and others, you're going to find that the figure you have for how much of the market Windows has, is a lot lower when that market is confined to your customer base.
Lurkalot (aka Knasser, elsewhere)
This is actually the real error we are finding in any Mac versus PC versus cross platform audience, and that is failure by many corporations to read and understand marketing demographic information.
Take Macs. On the surface, they appear a weak market choice, and the person who does not understand market research will immediately jump to that conclusion (which is why people who do understand market research get so rich, they can literally run rings around the other guy who merely knows some statistics). And realize it is impossible for a Exec at a big corp like Hasbro to admit they are wrong on anything once they have moved in the wrong direction. Only the very strongest corporate cultures are capable of turning on a dime and dumping a bad idea for a good one (oddly enough, both Microsoft and Apple have these sorts of corporate cultures, to different extents).
Macs by current research make up around 11% of every machine sold in the US. Since Mac hold value longer than PC (average turn for Macs is 6 years per machine, average turn for PC 3 years per machine) this translates to an installed user base of around 19% of the U.S. audience today.
BUT, the PC is more popular in business, outselling the Mac 5 to 1. Here is where market research gets misread.
An unskilled market researcher looks at the PC market and says that Macs are only 11%, PCs 89%, thus for the developer dollar, PCs make the most sense to develop for. Then they turn to the code developer they have hired who has MS dot Net cert but would not even know where to begin working on a Mac, and ask which platform makes sense to you. What answer do they get?
In reality, market research should say this. Studies of home computer use say that approximately 1 million Macs go into US homes per year, and homes are who buy US games. Those Macs stay current and used for 5 years (although the average user keeps them for 6, they buy their new Mac in year 5 and then use both). Around 6 million PCs go into US homes each year and are current for 3 years (this is because over half those PCs are the bargain basement sort, not because PCs are bad machines). Thus installed user base is around 5 million machines to 18 million machines.
Where you ask are the other PCs made in mass around the US? They are in businesses. Ask yourself how many PCs taking orders at the Home Shopping Network, or monitoring the factory floor at General Motors, run active purchased copies of any game and you will understand why these machines are not counted. At the same time professional media industry and Education Macs do not get counted, although you are a heck of a lot likely to find the big iron in these businesses getting some game use after hours.
Thus Macs are around 5/23rds of the market, or a little less than 22%. Oddly enough, only 1 in 10 of those Macs sit at the low end, while nearly half of the PCs sit at the low end, which is why Apple has such a huge Market Cap compared to units shipped.
Next, a successful market analyst looks at the numbers and asks about the quality of each user. This does not mean that PCs users are bad and Mac users are good. Quality means how much disposable income do they have, are they emerging or receding in the market place, and so forth. Mac users are, for the most measurements, more useful market segments. The average Mac user has more education, more disposable income, and more consumer loyalty. Mac users spend less of their money they spend on technology on maintaining their computer, meaning more of their money goes to software, mice, screens, and so forth. And all those figures are key figures to determine how much upsetting you can do to this market. The biggest down side, and what actually does scare software developers away from the Mac, is users have a far larger concern for quality over PC users. PC users will spend 20 bucks on a game, install it, find out it is nearly unplayable buggy crap, then go out and spend another 20 dollars on a new game, where this does not happen as much on the Mac platform.
So in terms of dollars gained per developer hour, it makes little sense not to develop for the Mac platform, and indeed, all the big boys do. Most PC only shops are smaller boutiques.
So why do some developers avoid the Mac? First, to cross platform develop you have to have a lot more talent in the upper ends of your development team, because documentation of your software must be better. In essence, programmers do not like to document. While it would seem software development is an organized and very planned affair, in reality the hacker model can often hold sway, and software development can be a chaotic process. This is why maddening bugs can exist in games that should be fairly stable. The bugs exist because the developers have to search through tens of thousands of lines of poorly documented code to find the offending bit.
Cross platform development requires a lot more discipline, and this can scare the hell out of a coding team. In the example of WoW, going cross platform at times required that code be combed through to find out why it existed. The process of going cross platform actually made the PC side of the code better, since bits of code that where not well optimized where discovered.
I really don't know why I keep coming back to this thread...
I wish people would stop throwing out make-believe numbers like 33% unless they can back those numbers up with some kind of report or survey.
Illithich
One problem you are finding is the best numbers come from a series of marketing reports which you have to have access to because they cost a lot of money. Gistics, Marketread, Simmons, and the like all charge big bucks for looks at their stuff. Academics can get them sometimes, but the normal person needs to pony up the money.
33% installed user base is wrong, but might not be so far off from reality if you use a weighted scale. We know how many computers are sold. We know who buys them. We know that a significant number of PCs go into business, we know that more than half of all PCs sold cannot play 3d games out of the box because of RAM or video card costs (leading to the very successful aftermarket video card business). So while my readings of Simmons show the number should be 21%, I think an argument could be made for higher in terms of quality users.
Certainly most of the highest profit game companies do not leave this market on the table.
As for your measure of computer usage based on a non-random survey of friends, this probably is a worse measure than throwing 33% out. People tend to travel with like people. If you are a soccer mom, other soccer moms travel with you. Marketing is based more than anything else on psychographics, and since you hang with people like you, you will find they use the computer you use. College campuses right now are running a strong 60% Mac / 40% PC, so if you are a college student at UNC-Asheville, you will tell everyone that 6 in 10 people have Macs, which is not true either.
The fact is, there is money to be made on the Mac platform. That does not mean that Wizards can make that money. It may come a time when DnD gets the 77% of the PC users, and some other game gets the 33% of the Mac users, which has happened more than once in game designs.
Vista and DRM
Which is any CD, DVD, Blu Ray, HD DVD, iTunes MP3, Windows media, most games, software, and some of the packed in applications within WinVista itself. Don't fool yourself, it is running all the time, taking anywhere to 5 to 18 percent of resources at any time, jumping up to 30 percent when software/media is attempted to be used or installed.
You talk of when the blue screen of death was displayed with much amusement? Just trying to see the connection here.
XP had problems when it first came out, though not as bad a problem with drivers that Vista still chokes on now. It is stable and better now, since some of the issues were simply removed. Most have a better experience when using browsers other than the behind the times IE. I have XP now, and other than a slow boot up, it runs fine.
Linux is getting a major software release that standardizes the OS, and hopefully the Direct X emulater will allow Windows software to be run without windows double boots or some such. Time will tell.
Look, Win7 is being shipped almost 3 years early at the end of the year, and most think of it as Vista 2. I hope that DRM is gutted out or at least severely hampered to be a check sum system instead of a search and destroy. It is gonna need to be done sometime, since lawsuits are costing these companies millions with faulty programing that attacks the Kernel or cloak and dagger instalation of DRM that damages CD drives.
Vista is a bad OS, one that is still being worked on and "rereleased" as Win7. I am gonna take a good look at the next OS, and most likely get it instead of Vista. What I will not do is get WinME... oops, sorry, WinVista.
That is a good question, and it is related to what I call the Windows tax. The Windows operating system has come down in recent months to an average of $130 per copy in recent months. This is the so-called Windows tax. To use modern Windows applications you have to fork over a tax of 130 bucks.
To see if it is worth it, you take the number of applications you have to run and divide that into 130. That is the cost per application up front. If Windows was a free downloadable, then this would be a moot point, Mac users would have little to complain about (they would still have some, but not much).
Tests show it is harder for a Mac user to move to Vista than a Vista user to move to Mac. This is mostly because Vista uses a less efficient user paradigm than Mac, meaning tests show that to accomplish action X on a Mac takes a time of 1 time unit, while to accomplish that same action on Vista it takes 1.2 time units. Almost all usability surveys that rate Macs as superior are in reality just measuring this.
All people who use another OS experience initial frustration. But the Windows frustration goes on a LOT longer than the Mac frustration. In fact, Windows users who use Macs for a while tend to switch on next computer purchase because of user interface (mac users traditionally switch because of work demands). This measure becomes what we could call the frustration tax.
Mac users spend very little time maintaining their systems, in terms of trying to keep the OS working. PC users spend a good amount of time buried in control panels, at least according to usability surveys. Oddly enough, a fellow researcher found out that fanboy PC users tend to actually enjoy the time they spend tinkering with their system, removing viruses, getting the new mouse to work, while fanboy Mac users tend to abhor time spent on overhead, so it may be that there is a useful reason for Windows to continue with it current model.
The summation is that the Windows tax will scare away a lot of users from the new Wizards efforts at a time when they need every customer they can get to buy into their hybrid paradigm, especially in younger, more wealthy, more educated users, who are the power base of the MacOS.
Imagine this simile. More people drive gas cars than electric. So you choose to only develop gas cars. This makes current financial sense. But the growing market is electric. So unless you can get a piece of it, you may be setting yourself up for a fall. Better to develop gas cars, but do the legwork to keep an electric car on the market as insurance against the day when the dominant paradigm shifts.
Though a lot of machines use in the animation/CGI industry today might be on PC's, I wouldn't be surprised of some have a different OS than Windows (Linux or such)
Thank you, Dark Father. This was what I had been trying to get across, though I wouldn't say the figures are "wrong" but simply counting a segment of the whole that wouldn't be used for leisure activity.
I still miss the Amiga. It was so much better than win95. Wonder what Gateway did with the rights.