Danji
Gallente
University of Caille
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Posted - 2007.07.06 13:40:00 -
[1]
Here's my pea-brained response to this thread.
A bit of a disclaimer here: I worked for Apple for 5 years, I saw game sales in our stores, I know what the market is like.
Mac users KNOW when a new game comes out. There's usually a rush a couple months after the release as players seem to wait for the first round of patches to surface (and patches there will be). But they KNOW the game is coming.
There are fantastic development libraries available for cross development with DirectX so the game companies don't need to change much of their code. However the libraries are 3rd party, not from Apple, and not from Microsoft. From what I understand, they're decently reliable.
I think a Universal Binary version of EVE would sell madly (as in crazy) on the Intel Macs. As a software developer on the Mac platform I believe strongly in its merits. I have one PC in my house and close to thirty Macs. The PCs purpose is primarily for Command & Conquer, EVE and a couple random other games. Now that C&C is coming to Mac OS X I have one less reason to keep the PC.
If there are EVE users who have gotten the game to run under Linux, there is no reason why they couldn't implement an OS X version. And I would be MOST happy to get the Dev team in touch with the right people at Apple or with numerous 3rd party game porting companies.
The primary reason only the BIG games make it to the Mac is because the 3rd party porting companies are heavily relied upon for their platform expertise. If the companies were to develop the solution themselves it may take longer and have more bugs at the beginning but they would have experience on the platform firsthand and truly understand the developmental benefits Mac OS X offers to their workflow.
While I truly do hope that EVE ends up with a Mac OS X client, I would prefer certain interface enhancements, system structure and backend stability improvements before attempting to bring a new platform on board. The Mac community doesn't tend to put up with crap products or products that feel half-finished. And I'm sorry to those who may be offended by the statement, but EVE does feel that way to me as a Mac user.
To that extent allow me to expound upon the point. EVE's user interface is not really very friendly. The Tutorials are sometimes difficult to follow as a result, and the user is left wondering how to accomplish certain basic tasks.
Mac OS X is the platform of choice for a lot of users with disabilities. As such the tutorials and the game interface should probably offer larger text for better readability. Or perhaps, to some extent anyway, the ability to use CSS to create new visual styles allowing users to manipulate the font size and color to effectively provide themselves and others with the necessary usability settings.
I would post more, but I don't really want 50% of the page length to be my one post. If anyone is interested, please feel free to request me to post more.
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