I hadn't tried yet, but its worth looking into. As Bootcamp cost $ to get. Then you have to set it up. Once I get my new IMac, I will look at Wine as well as an alternative. If not I will get Bootcamp, and have them set it up for me. Or get someone to help. I just emailed my IT go to person on this. To see what he says. He really knows his Mac stuff.
BootCamp is free and is included in every OS since 10.6. It's pre-installed. It's not that difficult to do, actually pretty much idiot proof, just have to launch it and it'll tell you what you need to do.
Later I told that newer Macs will have it already on their computer. I bought mine a good decade ago, so at that time. I thought I have to pay for it separate. To get it. However that was a very long time so I couldn't remember it that well.
Yes the new Macs do have it, its in the Utilities Folder.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
I guess the assumptions made about the cost of the emulator used to play the game is not far off. Cryptic no longer wanted to pay a 3rd company for its software. Originally they used Cider.
Correct me if i'm wrong here but there isn't a definate MAC version of STO. it was a 3rd party piece of software Cider in this case that allowed MAC OS to run a Windows Application right ?
Reason i ask this is i just installed PlayOnMac, via Steam installed STO. PlayOnMac is such a piece of software that allows you to run Windows applications. (Steam lists OS requirements for STO as Windows)
So in a nutshell it does appear Cryptic did not want to outsource or pay another company to maintain a piece of software that was outside their control. Which ok sucks for us but i get it. A lot of businesses fall into this cat, some fall into the hardware trap, some fall into the personal trap.
Thats where the support issue comes into it. as the game itself is not an issue. The patches MAC users download are the same ones Windows users download.
It is sad. Would have been cool if they could have developed their own portal/App or reached an agreement with another 3rd party.
I think i'm getting a better understanding of it now. Which helps put out the fires of frustration and anger at this decision.
Still don't like it. But understanding the reasons why helps. Now all we need is some detailed info about the refunds and what will happen to accounts to clear any uncertainty
Reason i ask this is i just installed PlayOnMac, via Steam installed STO. PlayOnMac is such a piece of software that allows you to run Windows applications. (Steam lists OS requirements for STO as Windows)
How is that working for you? I'm thinking about using PlayOnMac as well to keep playing STO.
After only 4 months, 19 weeks, 134 days, it's here. It's real! U.S.S. Tempest
Reason i ask this is i just installed PlayOnMac, via Steam installed STO. PlayOnMac is such a piece of software that allows you to run Windows applications. (Steam lists OS requirements for STO as Windows)
How is that working for you? I'm thinking about using PlayOnMac as well to keep playing STO.
Graphic's were a lot smoother than the wine wrapper i was using. Crystal Entity with all settings set to low/min in Wine was invisible, but showed up on PlayOnMac, plus i increased my graphics settings to medium on PlayOnMac and it handled it better than Wine which couldn't handle the increase game went very sluggish.
I've only had 1 crash to desktop in 10 hrs of use. Tried loading into a ISA for the 1st time. It might have been on demand patching that caused that crash though.
Early days but the i'd go as far as saying its better than Wine as i had no key bind issues which i've mentioned in a previous post.
If the Windows version was closing, it would be because the game servers themselves were about to be shut down. Your comparison is invalid.
Your assumption that they are using a full Windows based server farm is invalid. While they may be running some Windows based servers, chances are most are using some flavour of Linux.
You misunderstood my post. What I meant was that the Windows client comprises the majority of the userbase, and is quite probably their primary target anyway. If that goes down, all evidence indicates that it would be because they're pulling the plug on the game as a whole.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
This is good news. There's no need to support an over priced and inferior platform that virtually no one uses.
If you're going to troll, do a better job of it. Apple overtook Microsoft in 2010. Apple's hardware share increased by over 16% in the 2014/2015 fiscal year. OS X is also built on Linux/Unix, which is a staple server OS in many companies.
As for pricing... what you're paying for is corporate quality, and you'd ultimately pay the same price if you bought business level systems from the PC market. There's a reason why your HP laptop cost you $400 at Best Buy.
So I received a response to my ticket inquiry and was told they have my money, they aren't giving it back and they've provided us alternative methods to continue playing their game. That's what Retribution said in my ticket response and then sent me a survey asking me to tell them how they did.
My response:
The response I received from "Retribution", the Specialist Game Master responding to my ticket, was unacceptable on all levels. It was rude and especially condescending, particularly the part where this person is telling me that you have provided me a sub-standard alternative to continue playing at no cost to myself. So you close the Mac client because in your opinion it is substandard but then you turn around and tell people to use substandard applications to even hope to have a chance of playing the game. Based on this, your "customer service" agent told me to go TRIBBLE myself because you have the money I spent and there is nothing you will do about it. And with this kind of response, you ask me how likely it is that I would recommend your services to a friend?
If this is what Perfect World/Cryptic calls customer service, well I guess it doesn't matter what you call customer service because based on this, I am no longer a customer. So good luck in your future endeavours.
End response
With the number of challenges I've been reading regarding ports and WINE and whatnot, what I understand is that I spent money on a product that I can't use once the snow is gone. I also understand that based on these challenges, the headaches to get this game launched on my Mac aren't worth it. For those of you who are piling on and mocking the Mac players for being upset about their lack of quality options to keep playing this game, look at this company's response to a problem of their own making and ask yourself if you want that kind of response to your big ticket issues. And now Mac players ask yourself how much effort do you want to go through to continue playing a game that has its customer service team give responses like this? Like I said a few pages ago, there's no snark here, just a cause-effect reaction. Although I am somewhat curious how the folks at Paramount would feel knowing they can't play their own flagship MMO if they are a Mac user. Idle speculation and not worth pursuing to inflame the anti-Mac trolls.
Well when the snow melts, I can say it was fun while it lasted.
This is good news. There's no need to support an over priced and inferior platform that virtually no one uses.
If you're going to troll, do a better job of it. Apple overtook Microsoft in 2010. Apple's hardware share increased by over 16% in the 2014/2015 fiscal year. OS X is also built on Linux/Unix, which is a staple server OS in many companies.
As for pricing... what you're paying for is corporate quality, and you'd ultimately pay the same price if you bought business level systems from the PC market. There's a reason why your HP laptop cost you $400 at Best Buy.
Virtually no one uses Macs for games is what salazarraze meant, no doubt. Which is true, and as a business decision it makes sense, because now more resources can be devoted elsewhere to money-making activities. To complain about that would be to complain about capitalism in general---which I do, but I'm just sayin' .
Humm..
Cryptic themselves have not provided an alternative for Mac users to continue playing the game. Other 3rd party developers that have no association or ties with Cryptic have created generic software that allow Windows games and applications to be run on the MAC OS. These 3rd party softwares are not endorsed or supported by Cryptic in any way, MAC users have to go out of their way to download these apps and self install and work out the technical side of making STO work within them. So if something goes wrong you will not have any support from Cryptic as they have nothing to do with the 3rd party software.
No company should be advising its customers to use untested/unauthorised 3rd party software to use its software. Most companies who offer a product with a warranty would void that warranty and not offer any support even if the original product was returned. I point to Apple as a classic example. My Mac breaks i take it to a 3rd party to have it fixed, they failed i take it to Apple they see an unauthorised 3rd party has tampered with their product. They won't touch it in most cases
Comes back to my statement earlier saying Cryptic are gambling that MAC users will take use of the versatility of the OS and find solutions for themselves be it bootcamp or 3rd party software.
The only alternative Cryptic should be endorsing/advising is playing this game via the only remaining supported method and that is Windows
They are probably only going to refund Zen to the Arc Acc balance as i guess they perceive by spending the Zen you bought you had some use of the Ship/Gear ect you used. I don't know if this will or will not happen but it seems like they are not going to be refunding Zen as cash only Lifetime subs and Monthly Subs because any purchases made via the C-Store are not going to be removed from your account and be relocked, they will still be there if you log in via one of the alt methods.
Until someone in Cryptic releases a statement i can only make assumptions on the Zen purchases.
The response I received from "Retribution", the Specialist Game Master responding to my ticket, was unacceptable on all levels. It was rude and especially condescending, particularly the part where this person is telling me that you have provided me a sub-standard alternative to continue playing at no cost to myself. So you close the Mac client because in your opinion it is substandard but then you turn around and tell people to use substandard applications to even hope to have a chance of playing the game. Based on this, your "customer service" agent told me to go TRIBBLE myself because you have the money I spent and there is nothing you will do about it. And with this kind of response, you ask me how likely it is that I would recommend your services to a friend?
I noticed that this section got censored and want to make it very clear that I while strongly expressed my position, I did not use any four-letter profanity towards anyone. Use of profanity underscores the argument I'm trying to make, and does not get me to my desired position. Which is why the euphemism I was trying to use is: I feel I am attached to another object by an inclined plane, wrapped helically around an axis.
And I don't think it's unfair to feel that way considering that it was the Arc team themselves that talked about how zen purchases made after the October date were going to be refunded to the Arc Account balance but that to use any Arc games you need to have Windows. There's a hard breakdown in logic there and that's why I'm frustrated.
So I received a response to my ticket inquiry and was told they have my money, they aren't giving it back and they've provided us alternative methods to continue playing their game.
Cryptic/Arc have not themselves provided any alternative methods for Mac users, so their claim to that effect is a lie. There are other, third-party options (i.e. they are not provided by Arc/Cryptic), but these result in a much poorer performance than the Cider-wrapper that is the Mac client. For those who want to use Mac OS, the game under Wine runs much worse than the client did. Under PlayOnMac is slightly better than that, but still significantly worse than the Mac version.
The best option for Mac users now is to play the game under Windows via Boot Camp, which runs natively just fine (indeed better than the Mac cider-wrapped version, as is to be expected). However, although Boot Camp itself is supplied for free by Apple to all Mac users (contrary to what another user suggested, there is no cost associated with it), using it still requires the ownership of a Windows license. So, potentially this is the most expensive option if one must buy Windows outright. It is also the most cumbersome: one must be willing to carve out a chunk of the hard drive to use for the Windows partition and STO game; then install Windows, &c &c.--all the usual things, which, if one is doing it for this game alone, is probably a big ask.
If I were Jody and unable to use the ZEN that I had just purchased, I would contact my bank and demand a chargeback, as a previous commentor suggested, for 'failing to provide services'. $200 is a substantial sum and, if Jody is not going to play the game in future, it does not matter if they retaliate by yanking the ZEN from the account.
an experience on Mac that meets our expectations of quality
A bar set so low that only Hermes Conrad can limbo underneath it.
In other words, it's too hard and expensive so let's give up.
Just as unhelpful as the anti-Mac bigots posting.
"It's too expensive" IS a good reason for a BUSINESS to stop offering a service. Losing money is BAD for a business. The eventual result of losing money is the business shutting down.
You might want STO to shut down, but if so why are you still here?
an experience on Mac that meets our expectations of quality
A bar set so low that only Hermes Conrad can limbo underneath it.
In other words, it's too hard and expensive so let's give up.
Just as unhelpful as the anti-Mac bigots posting.
"It's too expensive" IS a good reason for a BUSINESS to stop offering a service. Losing money is BAD for a business. The eventual result of losing money is the business shutting down.
You might want STO to shut down, but if so why are you still here?
There's a difference between losing too much money and losing enough money.
Do I believe that STO is losing too much money by supporting the Mac platform? No. I have the impression they are doing extremely well financially, and could afford to improve their Mac support without breaking the bank.
Do I believe STO is losing enough money by supporting the Mac platform? Yes. Enough money in the eyes of the bean counters whose job is specifically to cut corners wherever possible to maximize profit at the cost of customer retention.
They've just decided that customer retention from Mac players are simply irrelevant compared to savings by eliminating Mac support.
The point of making all that money is to improve STO. I'm seeing that money go into more short term goals than long term viability. Eliminating Mac support is another way of saying they don't care about long term viability of the game.
Do I believe that STO is losing too much money by supporting the Mac platform? No. I have the impression they are doing extremely well financially, and could afford to improve their Mac support without breaking the bank.
Does that make sense for a business if they will keep losing money supporting the Mac players?
It only makes sense if you think they will see a large enough increase in paying Mac players to cover the increased costs. If not, it's still losing money and makes no sense for a business.
They already have several years of stats on Mac players and they know how much those players spend. Apparently that number is too low to cover costs, and the "bean counters"'s projections of any possible increase from an improved Mac client were also too low.
Do I believe that STO is losing too much money by supporting the Mac platform? No. I have the impression they are doing extremely well financially, and could afford to improve their Mac support without breaking the bank.
Does that make sense for a business if they will keep losing money supporting the Mac players?
It only makes sense if you think they will see a large enough increase in paying Mac players to cover the increased costs. If not, it's still losing money and makes no sense for a business.
They already have several years of stats on Mac players and they know how much those players spend. Apparently that number is too low to cover costs, and the "bean counters"'s projections of any possible increase from an improved Mac client were also too low.
Then we get into ethics. The same kind of ethics that revolve around other minority player populations, like the KDF. For example, it's not a big secret that the KDF is subsidised by players who primarily play Federation. Cryptic, for a long time, ignored the KDF because it just wasn't cost effective.
But then PWE came along and revitalized their coffers and Cryptic was able to provide drastic improvements to the KDF despite it not being profitable to do so. This is something they continue to do. Why? Because it's the right thing to do.
This brings me back to my criticism about Mac support. Does it cost them more money to keep Mac support going? Yeah, I believe it does. But I also believe that Mac support should be viewed as a cost of doing business, not a corner to be cut. In other words, because it's the right thing to do -- even if it's not the profitable thing to do.
Because they're already making enough money from the game that nobody is going hungry.
Do I believe that STO is losing too much money by supporting the Mac platform? No. I have the impression they are doing extremely well financially, and could afford to improve their Mac support without breaking the bank.
Does that make sense for a business if they will keep losing money supporting the Mac players?
It only makes sense if you think they will see a large enough increase in paying Mac players to cover the increased costs. If not, it's still losing money and makes no sense for a business.
They already have several years of stats on Mac players and they know how much those players spend. Apparently that number is too low to cover costs, and the "bean counters"'s projections of any possible increase from an improved Mac client were also too low.
Then we get into ethics. The same kind of ethics that revolve around other minority player populations, like the KDF. For example, it's not a big secret that the KDF is subsidised by players who primarily play Federation. Cryptic, for a long time, ignored the KDF because it just wasn't cost effective.
And I believe their cross-faction packs are basically a way to make it more cost-effective, and to improve this subsidization. People that might have bought only one FEd ship are now spending money for a Fed, KDF and Rom ship, for the price of two ships.
The thing is however regarding Mac - we don't know what the challenges are in maintaining it. We do not actually know the (opportunity) cost. We only know the end result of the relevant factors. We can idly speculate or claim "but it wasn't that expensive" or "it would ruin the game". But we don't know. We just know it's gone, and that sucks for the Mac players.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
That's making Mac support a charitable activity, in the "would be nice of them" category.
KDF is different because most KDF players are also Federation players. It's additional content for the same players. And they did already cut costs.
KDF and Romulans get some new ships, but many are copy-paste designs of the Fed ships, and they get many fewer ships. There are still no T6 KDF or Romulan science ships. So Cryptic offers ships when they think they can make money on them and the rest of the time it's "no science ships for you."
Also, they did eliminate all endgame story content for KDF and Romulan factions -- they play the same episodes as Fed captains. By that analogy, Mac players can use Boot Camp or WINE
You're right. We don't know the challenges in maintaining it. By all appearances, it's incredibly difficult. But I also believe in JFK's proverb of doing something not because it's easy, but because it's hard.
It's easy to kill Mac support. It's hard to support it.
But I think it's the right thing to do, and the amount of capital Cryptic is making off of STO is large enough that they can support it (and improve on it) without any long term negative effects.
To me, in my opinion, this comes down to sacrificing the long term viability of STO for short term profit. I think the amount of money they're losing on Mac support is a drop of water in the ocean of money they're making from lock boxes.
That's a valid point of view to take, as long as you accept that it's a request for PWE/Cryptic to keep losing money, possibly forever.
Apple has moved away from gaming support not towards it, with newer hardware switching from dedicated graphics to intel integrated in order to offer thinner, lighter laptops. They only seem to care about offering enough graphics power for business type applications and media playback, not for gaming. So I'm not sure the number of Mac gamers would increase much long-term even with an improved Mac client.
If that's what Apple is doing, then I can see the merit in discontinuing Mac support, if Apple is discontinuing gaming support through inferior-quality products.
Still, I do accept I'm asking Cryptic to lose money forever, in the same way I'm asking them to lose money forever by continuing to support the KDF and Romulan Republic despite the playerbase not generating the same revenue as Federation players.
If that's what Apple is doing, then I can see the merit in discontinuing Mac support, if Apple is discontinuing gaming support through inferior-quality products.
Still, I do accept I'm asking Cryptic to lose money forever, in the same way I'm asking them to lose money forever by continuing to support the KDF and Romulan Republic despite the playerbase not generating the same revenue as Federation players.
It could also be that the KDF and ROM player base are still comparably a lot larger than the Mac, with much less technical difficulties in supporting them. It doesn't take extra effort to keep the game working for a KDF player. It does seem to require extra effort to make the game work for a Mac game.
The software I work on is not a game, but even there, we only have ~10 % of our clients on a Mac. We only support Linux because it almost costs nothing (but not nothing) to do so thanks to the underlying framework we rely on.
But it is indeed true that new Mac seem to rely more on the integrated graphics card. Integrated cars aren't as bad as they used to be, but they are not really fit for gaming. It seems Apple itself is not that interested in the market.
But - STO doesn't need the most modern hardware, and for the Mac gamer with a bit of money, the Pro variants of Macs tend to still come with decent graphic cards.
But I also believe in JFK's proverb of doing something not because it's easy, but because it's hard.
A government research program to get the US to the Moon before Soviet Russia is not the same as a gaming company that tries to make a Star Trek game for profit.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Apple has moved away from gaming support not towards it, with newer hardware switching from dedicated graphics to intel integrated in order to offer thinner, lighter laptops. They only seem to care about offering enough graphics power for business type applications and media playback, not for gaming. So I'm not sure the number of Mac gamers would increase much long-term even with an improved Mac client.
That doesn't seem to line up with Apple deciding to push their own cross-platform (iOS and OS X) graphics API, Metal, and then help Unreal, Unity and Blizzard support it in their engines/games. While all standard-configuration MacBooks use Intel graphics, the 15" uses Iris Pro which performs about as well as the Geforce 650M it replaced, and top-configuration MacBooks have Radeon R9 GPUs. iMacs also use Radeon GPUs. While they can't cram a top-of-the-line GTX 980 in there, we're not talking about competitive-play CS:GO gaming where you need to drive three 120Hz monitors. We're talking about a 6-year-old MMO with a player base that likely includes a lot of people who don't identify as gamers. Even if they have a Windows PC, it's probably some $400 Lenovo using integrated graphics. From the latest Steam hardware survey, the most common GPU at 4% of users is the GTX 970. The second-most-common GPU is the Intel HD 4000 at 3.7% of users. It tends to go back-and-forth down the line. (Ultimately, 18% of Steam accounts surveyed were running on Intel graphics.)
None of this likely had any bearing on PWE's decision, though. The STO client is developed for Windows, and Mac "support" was achieved via Cider. Transgaming no longer develops Cider, making it a dead-end, requiring some form of new effort by Cryptic beyond "updating the thing". At this point it becomes a question of: invest an unknown amount of development for the intangible benefits of continuing to support the Mac community, or look at it in a strictly return-on-investment analysis for which there's just a big question mark for cost, to achieve whatever revenue Mac users were bringing in.
This week was really looking up with the announcement of T6 flagships up until five minutes ago when a fellow player named Somak@imperatorpaveli made me aware of this thread. Last year I took money out of my pocket—mind you, before this arbitrary October date—to buy a Lifetime Subscription after pumping hundreds into the game prior to that since the launch of Mac port. I was, and if I'm honest still am, ready to shell out again to Cryptic and PWE knowing full well that I might spend weeks unable to launch my game again.
When I'm told that this is a mercy-killing borne of feelings that the Mac client isn't up to Cryptic's standards, I'm confused. Just what are these standards? If we're to believe you're axing things that are broken, let's talk about the non-existent GMs, the constant DDoS bullying they've gotten for the past month from a misguided child on Twitter, or the fact that characters' eyebrows seem to get a fast pass on the transporter. Not only have I gladly handled those issues, but thousands of other players have, too. I hate reading the disrespectful chats, the "craptic" talk, and the baseless threats just as much as Cryptic's employees probably do. For once, however, I really do feel betrayed.
To everyone who's mentioned what good business-sense this move makes, I have to counter with this: how much better business sense would it make for Cryptic to just hire employees to relieve the under-equipped and overworked men and women they have now? I worried when we saw the veiled plea for "bug-smashers" last year, and this move makes me worry even more. In a chat just two days ago, while other players were saying they wished for T7 ships in the near future, I posited that a more appropriate use of imagination would be to hope that this game could live and thrive for years to come without a chance of mismanagement due to laziness or greed. I guess I spoke too soon.
Cryptic, PWE—I want to give you my money. I really do. I love Star Trek, and I love the laughs I get meeting new people through your game. Please, I'm asking you as someone who genuinely does not want to come across as disrespectful or entitled—will you please reconsider and give us the game we paid for?
Cryptic, PWE—I want to give you my money. I really do. I love Star Trek, and I love the laughs I get meeting new people through your game. Please, I'm asking you as someone who genuinely does not want to come across as disrespectful or entitled—will you please reconsider and give us the game we paid for?
Can they afford to? You seem to be saying "no."
If your idea of their dire finances is correct (instead of iconian's belief that they are making huge profits) then any money-losing part of the game must be dropped. Triage to save the patients who still have hope (Windows players).
My guess is that they are making more than enough to keep the game running, but not enough that they're comfortable developing the Mac client as a money-losing charity.
You can still get your money's worth, but you'll need to use Boot Camp, WINE, Parallels, or buy a low- to mid-range PC desktop.
A government research program to get the US to the Moon before Soviet Russia is not the same as a gaming company that tries to make a Star Trek game for profit.
It's something that applies to way more than just government moon projects and Star Trek video games, though. To strive for mediocrity is wasted potential. Cryptic has potential. I dislike seeing them waste that potential.
I understand they need to make money, and I am all about ethical business practices. However, marginalizing customers intentionally in order to save a few bucks when you're making incredibly large sums of money is not something I agree with.
This is about making your books look nice, not serving your customers.
Virtually no one uses Macs for games is what salazarraze meant, no doubt. Which is true, and as a business decision it makes sense, because now more resources can be devoted elsewhere to money-making activities. To complain about that would be to complain about capitalism in general---which I do, but I'm just sayin' .
He is still wrong. You can use Macs for games. I been doing it for over a decade.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
Comments
Later I told that newer Macs will have it already on their computer. I bought mine a good decade ago, so at that time. I thought I have to pay for it separate. To get it. However that was a very long time so I couldn't remember it that well.
Yes the new Macs do have it, its in the Utilities Folder.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
Correct me if i'm wrong here but there isn't a definate MAC version of STO. it was a 3rd party piece of software Cider in this case that allowed MAC OS to run a Windows Application right ?
Reason i ask this is i just installed PlayOnMac, via Steam installed STO. PlayOnMac is such a piece of software that allows you to run Windows applications. (Steam lists OS requirements for STO as Windows)
So in a nutshell it does appear Cryptic did not want to outsource or pay another company to maintain a piece of software that was outside their control. Which ok sucks for us but i get it. A lot of businesses fall into this cat, some fall into the hardware trap, some fall into the personal trap.
Thats where the support issue comes into it. as the game itself is not an issue. The patches MAC users download are the same ones Windows users download.
It is sad. Would have been cool if they could have developed their own portal/App or reached an agreement with another 3rd party.
I think i'm getting a better understanding of it now. Which helps put out the fires of frustration and anger at this decision.
Still don't like it. But understanding the reasons why helps. Now all we need is some detailed info about the refunds and what will happen to accounts to clear any uncertainty
How is that working for you? I'm thinking about using PlayOnMac as well to keep playing STO.
U.S.S. Tempest
Graphic's were a lot smoother than the wine wrapper i was using. Crystal Entity with all settings set to low/min in Wine was invisible, but showed up on PlayOnMac, plus i increased my graphics settings to medium on PlayOnMac and it handled it better than Wine which couldn't handle the increase game went very sluggish.
I've only had 1 crash to desktop in 10 hrs of use. Tried loading into a ISA for the 1st time. It might have been on demand patching that caused that crash though.
Early days but the i'd go as far as saying its better than Wine as i had no key bind issues which i've mentioned in a previous post.
So its so far so good for PlayOnMac.
You misunderstood my post. What I meant was that the Windows client comprises the majority of the userbase, and is quite probably their primary target anyway. If that goes down, all evidence indicates that it would be because they're pulling the plug on the game as a whole.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
If you're going to troll, do a better job of it. Apple overtook Microsoft in 2010. Apple's hardware share increased by over 16% in the 2014/2015 fiscal year. OS X is also built on Linux/Unix, which is a staple server OS in many companies.
As for pricing... what you're paying for is corporate quality, and you'd ultimately pay the same price if you bought business level systems from the PC market. There's a reason why your HP laptop cost you $400 at Best Buy.
My response:
The response I received from "Retribution", the Specialist Game Master responding to my ticket, was unacceptable on all levels. It was rude and especially condescending, particularly the part where this person is telling me that you have provided me a sub-standard alternative to continue playing at no cost to myself. So you close the Mac client because in your opinion it is substandard but then you turn around and tell people to use substandard applications to even hope to have a chance of playing the game. Based on this, your "customer service" agent told me to go TRIBBLE myself because you have the money I spent and there is nothing you will do about it. And with this kind of response, you ask me how likely it is that I would recommend your services to a friend?
If this is what Perfect World/Cryptic calls customer service, well I guess it doesn't matter what you call customer service because based on this, I am no longer a customer. So good luck in your future endeavours.
End response
With the number of challenges I've been reading regarding ports and WINE and whatnot, what I understand is that I spent money on a product that I can't use once the snow is gone. I also understand that based on these challenges, the headaches to get this game launched on my Mac aren't worth it. For those of you who are piling on and mocking the Mac players for being upset about their lack of quality options to keep playing this game, look at this company's response to a problem of their own making and ask yourself if you want that kind of response to your big ticket issues. And now Mac players ask yourself how much effort do you want to go through to continue playing a game that has its customer service team give responses like this? Like I said a few pages ago, there's no snark here, just a cause-effect reaction. Although I am somewhat curious how the folks at Paramount would feel knowing they can't play their own flagship MMO if they are a Mac user. Idle speculation and not worth pursuing to inflame the anti-Mac trolls.
Well when the snow melts, I can say it was fun while it lasted.
Virtually no one uses Macs for games is what salazarraze meant, no doubt. Which is true, and as a business decision it makes sense, because now more resources can be devoted elsewhere to money-making activities. To complain about that would be to complain about capitalism in general---which I do, but I'm just sayin'
Humm..
Cryptic themselves have not provided an alternative for Mac users to continue playing the game. Other 3rd party developers that have no association or ties with Cryptic have created generic software that allow Windows games and applications to be run on the MAC OS. These 3rd party softwares are not endorsed or supported by Cryptic in any way, MAC users have to go out of their way to download these apps and self install and work out the technical side of making STO work within them. So if something goes wrong you will not have any support from Cryptic as they have nothing to do with the 3rd party software.
No company should be advising its customers to use untested/unauthorised 3rd party software to use its software. Most companies who offer a product with a warranty would void that warranty and not offer any support even if the original product was returned. I point to Apple as a classic example. My Mac breaks i take it to a 3rd party to have it fixed, they failed i take it to Apple they see an unauthorised 3rd party has tampered with their product. They won't touch it in most cases
Comes back to my statement earlier saying Cryptic are gambling that MAC users will take use of the versatility of the OS and find solutions for themselves be it bootcamp or 3rd party software.
The only alternative Cryptic should be endorsing/advising is playing this game via the only remaining supported method and that is Windows
They are probably only going to refund Zen to the Arc Acc balance as i guess they perceive by spending the Zen you bought you had some use of the Ship/Gear ect you used. I don't know if this will or will not happen but it seems like they are not going to be refunding Zen as cash only Lifetime subs and Monthly Subs because any purchases made via the C-Store are not going to be removed from your account and be relocked, they will still be there if you log in via one of the alt methods.
Until someone in Cryptic releases a statement i can only make assumptions on the Zen purchases.
I noticed that this section got censored and want to make it very clear that I while strongly expressed my position, I did not use any four-letter profanity towards anyone. Use of profanity underscores the argument I'm trying to make, and does not get me to my desired position. Which is why the euphemism I was trying to use is: I feel I am attached to another object by an inclined plane, wrapped helically around an axis.
And I don't think it's unfair to feel that way considering that it was the Arc team themselves that talked about how zen purchases made after the October date were going to be refunded to the Arc Account balance but that to use any Arc games you need to have Windows. There's a hard breakdown in logic there and that's why I'm frustrated.
Cryptic/Arc have not themselves provided any alternative methods for Mac users, so their claim to that effect is a lie. There are other, third-party options (i.e. they are not provided by Arc/Cryptic), but these result in a much poorer performance than the Cider-wrapper that is the Mac client. For those who want to use Mac OS, the game under Wine runs much worse than the client did. Under PlayOnMac is slightly better than that, but still significantly worse than the Mac version.
The best option for Mac users now is to play the game under Windows via Boot Camp, which runs natively just fine (indeed better than the Mac cider-wrapped version, as is to be expected). However, although Boot Camp itself is supplied for free by Apple to all Mac users (contrary to what another user suggested, there is no cost associated with it), using it still requires the ownership of a Windows license. So, potentially this is the most expensive option if one must buy Windows outright. It is also the most cumbersome: one must be willing to carve out a chunk of the hard drive to use for the Windows partition and STO game; then install Windows, &c &c.--all the usual things, which, if one is doing it for this game alone, is probably a big ask.
If I were Jody and unable to use the ZEN that I had just purchased, I would contact my bank and demand a chargeback, as a previous commentor suggested, for 'failing to provide services'. $200 is a substantial sum and, if Jody is not going to play the game in future, it does not matter if they retaliate by yanking the ZEN from the account.
A bar set so low that only Hermes Conrad can limbo underneath it.
In other words, it's too hard and expensive so let's give up.
Just as unhelpful as the anti-Mac bigots posting.
"It's too expensive" IS a good reason for a BUSINESS to stop offering a service. Losing money is BAD for a business. The eventual result of losing money is the business shutting down.
You might want STO to shut down, but if so why are you still here?
There's a difference between losing too much money and losing enough money.
Do I believe that STO is losing too much money by supporting the Mac platform? No. I have the impression they are doing extremely well financially, and could afford to improve their Mac support without breaking the bank.
Do I believe STO is losing enough money by supporting the Mac platform? Yes. Enough money in the eyes of the bean counters whose job is specifically to cut corners wherever possible to maximize profit at the cost of customer retention.
They've just decided that customer retention from Mac players are simply irrelevant compared to savings by eliminating Mac support.
The point of making all that money is to improve STO. I'm seeing that money go into more short term goals than long term viability. Eliminating Mac support is another way of saying they don't care about long term viability of the game.
Does that make sense for a business if they will keep losing money supporting the Mac players?
It only makes sense if you think they will see a large enough increase in paying Mac players to cover the increased costs. If not, it's still losing money and makes no sense for a business.
They already have several years of stats on Mac players and they know how much those players spend. Apparently that number is too low to cover costs, and the "bean counters"'s projections of any possible increase from an improved Mac client were also too low.
Then we get into ethics. The same kind of ethics that revolve around other minority player populations, like the KDF. For example, it's not a big secret that the KDF is subsidised by players who primarily play Federation. Cryptic, for a long time, ignored the KDF because it just wasn't cost effective.
But then PWE came along and revitalized their coffers and Cryptic was able to provide drastic improvements to the KDF despite it not being profitable to do so. This is something they continue to do. Why? Because it's the right thing to do.
This brings me back to my criticism about Mac support. Does it cost them more money to keep Mac support going? Yeah, I believe it does. But I also believe that Mac support should be viewed as a cost of doing business, not a corner to be cut. In other words, because it's the right thing to do -- even if it's not the profitable thing to do.
Because they're already making enough money from the game that nobody is going hungry.
The thing is however regarding Mac - we don't know what the challenges are in maintaining it. We do not actually know the (opportunity) cost. We only know the end result of the relevant factors. We can idly speculate or claim "but it wasn't that expensive" or "it would ruin the game". But we don't know. We just know it's gone, and that sucks for the Mac players.
KDF is different because most KDF players are also Federation players. It's additional content for the same players. And they did already cut costs.
KDF and Romulans get some new ships, but many are copy-paste designs of the Fed ships, and they get many fewer ships. There are still no T6 KDF or Romulan science ships. So Cryptic offers ships when they think they can make money on them and the rest of the time it's "no science ships for you."
Also, they did eliminate all endgame story content for KDF and Romulan factions -- they play the same episodes as Fed captains. By that analogy, Mac players can use Boot Camp or WINE
It's easy to kill Mac support. It's hard to support it.
But I think it's the right thing to do, and the amount of capital Cryptic is making off of STO is large enough that they can support it (and improve on it) without any long term negative effects.
To me, in my opinion, this comes down to sacrificing the long term viability of STO for short term profit. I think the amount of money they're losing on Mac support is a drop of water in the ocean of money they're making from lock boxes.
Apple has moved away from gaming support not towards it, with newer hardware switching from dedicated graphics to intel integrated in order to offer thinner, lighter laptops. They only seem to care about offering enough graphics power for business type applications and media playback, not for gaming. So I'm not sure the number of Mac gamers would increase much long-term even with an improved Mac client.
Still, I do accept I'm asking Cryptic to lose money forever, in the same way I'm asking them to lose money forever by continuing to support the KDF and Romulan Republic despite the playerbase not generating the same revenue as Federation players.
The software I work on is not a game, but even there, we only have ~10 % of our clients on a Mac. We only support Linux because it almost costs nothing (but not nothing) to do so thanks to the underlying framework we rely on.
But it is indeed true that new Mac seem to rely more on the integrated graphics card. Integrated cars aren't as bad as they used to be, but they are not really fit for gaming. It seems Apple itself is not that interested in the market.
But - STO doesn't need the most modern hardware, and for the Mac gamer with a bit of money, the Pro variants of Macs tend to still come with decent graphic cards.
A government research program to get the US to the Moon before Soviet Russia is not the same as a gaming company that tries to make a Star Trek game for profit.
None of this likely had any bearing on PWE's decision, though. The STO client is developed for Windows, and Mac "support" was achieved via Cider. Transgaming no longer develops Cider, making it a dead-end, requiring some form of new effort by Cryptic beyond "updating the thing". At this point it becomes a question of: invest an unknown amount of development for the intangible benefits of continuing to support the Mac community, or look at it in a strictly return-on-investment analysis for which there's just a big question mark for cost, to achieve whatever revenue Mac users were bringing in.
When I'm told that this is a mercy-killing borne of feelings that the Mac client isn't up to Cryptic's standards, I'm confused. Just what are these standards? If we're to believe you're axing things that are broken, let's talk about the non-existent GMs, the constant DDoS bullying they've gotten for the past month from a misguided child on Twitter, or the fact that characters' eyebrows seem to get a fast pass on the transporter. Not only have I gladly handled those issues, but thousands of other players have, too. I hate reading the disrespectful chats, the "craptic" talk, and the baseless threats just as much as Cryptic's employees probably do. For once, however, I really do feel betrayed.
To everyone who's mentioned what good business-sense this move makes, I have to counter with this: how much better business sense would it make for Cryptic to just hire employees to relieve the under-equipped and overworked men and women they have now? I worried when we saw the veiled plea for "bug-smashers" last year, and this move makes me worry even more. In a chat just two days ago, while other players were saying they wished for T7 ships in the near future, I posited that a more appropriate use of imagination would be to hope that this game could live and thrive for years to come without a chance of mismanagement due to laziness or greed. I guess I spoke too soon.
Cryptic, PWE—I want to give you my money. I really do. I love Star Trek, and I love the laughs I get meeting new people through your game. Please, I'm asking you as someone who genuinely does not want to come across as disrespectful or entitled—will you please reconsider and give us the game we paid for?
Can they afford to? You seem to be saying "no."
If your idea of their dire finances is correct (instead of iconian's belief that they are making huge profits) then any money-losing part of the game must be dropped. Triage to save the patients who still have hope (Windows players).
My guess is that they are making more than enough to keep the game running, but not enough that they're comfortable developing the Mac client as a money-losing charity.
You can still get your money's worth, but you'll need to use Boot Camp, WINE, Parallels, or buy a low- to mid-range PC desktop.
It's something that applies to way more than just government moon projects and Star Trek video games, though. To strive for mediocrity is wasted potential. Cryptic has potential. I dislike seeing them waste that potential.
I understand they need to make money, and I am all about ethical business practices. However, marginalizing customers intentionally in order to save a few bucks when you're making incredibly large sums of money is not something I agree with.
This is about making your books look nice, not serving your customers.
He is still wrong. You can use Macs for games. I been doing it for over a decade.
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