hawai_74
mac über alles
Civ IV is now announced for 2005, ok fine... but, for you mac cfc'ers how many chances it will come at the same time for mac???
CIV IV and mac
- Thread starter hawai_74
- Start date
Trabpukcip
Agent of Doom
I think it's fair to say... about none.
hawai_74
mac über alles
i was thinking at a game like warcraft... both pc & mac. I'm wondering if it's harder to program for the both OS ?
dojoboy
Tsalagi
CivIV very likely will get published for the mac, IMHO. CivII and CivIII were, both of which sold well.
It's not too difficult to pogram for both platforms ... if you plan for it. I don't get the impression that the Civ programmers spend much time trying to make it easy to port to the Mac. They use M$ proprietary technology for game networking, and PC-specific file formats like .pcx. Some of this has been dealt with, to some extent, when Brad Oliver and Westlake did the port of CivIII, but what's the betting that they've put a few more gotcha's in CivIV? I recommend against holding your breath.hawai_74 said:
dojoboy
Tsalagi
But, does not some of the technology they're using this time work better w/ mac code?
That's the scripting and replacements for the text configuration files like pediaicons.txt. That would help with modding, I guess, but I can't see it having any effect on the actual game engine and networking. They have to be written to talk to the OS file, comms and display drivers, either directly or via an adaptation layer, and can't really use XML or Python.
Vegasgustan
Warlord
Mac is becoming so much more popular, what with iTunes and iPods. Shouldn't this have an effect? I mean even HP and Mac have "teamed up" and HP has always been up PC's bottom. I think the divide is closing a little quicker than it ever has in the past.
"Of Course That's Just My Opinion, I Could Be Wrong." -Dennis Miller
"Of Course That's Just My Opinion, I Could Be Wrong." -Dennis Miller
iTunes and iPod are cross-platform, which is why HP are so enthusiastic. They are not synonymous with Macs.
Sure, they raise Apple's profile and some of that may rub off in the form of extra Mac sales, but in the grand scheme of things that isn't going to be sufficient to cause Atari to change their programming model to favour Mac OS.
Sure, they raise Apple's profile and some of that may rub off in the form of extra Mac sales, but in the grand scheme of things that isn't going to be sufficient to cause Atari to change their programming model to favour Mac OS.
Vegasgustan
Warlord
I thought Atari was over. Am I wrong? Either way, I do see what you are saying. It is funny how Mac is willing to make items that are cross-platform, yet most other companies would never do that.
Apple (there's no company called 'Mac' - I think that's an indicator of where your confusion lies) are making iPods to make profits. They need to sell as many iPods and iTune downloads as they can, so they have to provide iTunes for the majority of the computers in the world. Apple would also never produce a software or hardware product that doesn't talk to a Mac, so their non-Mac product lines have to be cross-platform. Why is that so strange?
Plenty of other companies make cross platform products. The biggest Mac software development team outside Apple is in .... Microsoft. Ever heard of Microsoft Office for Mac OS? You can buy Mac OS versions of most of the important software titles, but not a lot of games.
Games don't take much advantage of the quality of the OS when they are running, as they tend to take over the hardware and do their own GUI and so on. So the best games platform is a cheap one that most game players can afford, with a large installed base, and who cares what crummy OS it's running. That's PCs, not macs.
Re. Atari - you may be right. I can't keepp up with who publishes Civ these days. As far as I 'm concerned it's MacSoft, as that's the only version I'm interested in.
Plenty of other companies make cross platform products. The biggest Mac software development team outside Apple is in .... Microsoft. Ever heard of Microsoft Office for Mac OS? You can buy Mac OS versions of most of the important software titles, but not a lot of games.
Games don't take much advantage of the quality of the OS when they are running, as they tend to take over the hardware and do their own GUI and so on. So the best games platform is a cheap one that most game players can afford, with a large installed base, and who cares what crummy OS it's running. That's PCs, not macs.
Re. Atari - you may be right. I can't keepp up with who publishes Civ these days. As far as I 'm concerned it's MacSoft, as that's the only version I'm interested in.
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Isn't it the graphics that will cause most of the headaches in porting to Mac? If Firaxis is using DirectX, does that mean a re-write? How was the Mac CivIII port handled?
It was obviously only the network / multiplayer issue that prevent a PTW / C3C port, because the actual game mechanics aren't that different. It would have been nice to simply release it as a freebie, with new civs, units and terrain etc; even if that meant it was without multiplayer even.
It was obviously only the network / multiplayer issue that prevent a PTW / C3C port, because the actual game mechanics aren't that different. It would have been nice to simply release it as a freebie, with new civs, units and terrain etc; even if that meant it was without multiplayer even.
Vegasgustan
Warlord
Okay, I did know that Apple is the company I just usually say Mac when referring to Apple. Sorry that is a stupid thing to say. I will now only refer to Apple when referring to the products they make and Mac when referring to OS or whatnot. What I was trying to say, and poorly I might add, is that Apple will produce non-Mac products because they want to attract "PC" customers. However, a number of companies will not produce Mac products to attract Mac users. You are right about Microsoft, but there are still plently of companies who make multiple types of items that are not Mac compatible. I just think that if they did, then they would see a jump in profit like Apple did when they started making PC compatible products too. Did that make more sense?
Oh and Infogrames sold off their rights to Civ and from what I could find out they did not say to who. However, since Firaxis showed those Civ4 screenshots it was probably to them. Let's just pray it was not to Activision. Hee Hee Hee.
Oh and Infogrames sold off their rights to Civ and from what I could find out they did not say to who. However, since Firaxis showed those Civ4 screenshots it was probably to them. Let's just pray it was not to Activision. Hee Hee Hee.
FWIW, I like how Bioware stepped around Macsoft neatly on NWN. Macsoft did the original Mac port, but Bioware handled all patches, and the PC expansions would work on the Mac version. After a year, Macsoft published the mac versions of the expansions, but, Bioware didn't make it so the earlier setups stopped working. Anyway, Macsoft wasn't given the opportunity to screw it up.....
We can hope someone learned some lessons on this. I did. I won't be buying Civ 4 for Mac, IF it comes out, until I see that it's going to be handled better than Civ 3 was.
We can hope someone learned some lessons on this. I did. I won't be buying Civ 4 for Mac, IF it comes out, until I see that it's going to be handled better than Civ 3 was.
Brad Oliver
Civ3/4 Mac programmer
AlanH said:
Honestly, PC-specific stuff isn't really an obstacle to a port. We've got pretty full and robust DirectX porting libraries at Aspyr - it's how most of our games get ported. Stuff like .pcx files are small potates as well. The only gotcha is DirectPlay. We have a library that automatically remaps that to OpenPlay, but in the process we lose cross-platform play.
Brad Oliver
Civ3/4 Mac programmer
Mavfin said:
If I may be pedantic, MacSoft published the original port, they didn't do the development. That has always been Bioware's responsibility with regards to the mac version.
Alright guys, I've had enough of the lazy Mac developers. I've taken action. Sign the petition!
http://www.petitiononline.com/C4MRD/petition.html
http://www.petitiononline.com/C4MRD/petition.html
nmcul
I have missles
...As Civ 3 1.06 so aptly illustrated. 
Stardog
Chieftain
I have no doubt in my mind that Civ IV will be released for the Macintosh.
