unhappy mac player - [Merged]

[sniperman.1738]

@Veprovina.4876 said:

@sniperman.1738 said:the mac users are a small margin of gw2, plus reality is if you are going to game you should be buying a windows pc not a mac, as windows is designed more for gaming and is more realistically priced.

That's not the point. Some people have a mac for whatever work they need it for, and just hapen to play one or two games on it, GW2 being and example.For those people it wouldn't make sense to buy a gaming PC just to play GW2. So until now they had the option, but Apple took that option away from them.

Don't make this into Mac vs PC because that's not the issue. Most Mac players didn't specifically buy their mac to play games, they bought it for X reason and just

happened

to play GW2 on it.

thing is even for work purposes you can still build a far better windows pc for work purposes that would be cheaper and far outweigh a mac for work related speed, and multi tasking. Mac or apple tries to be innovative when they are going to wind up cycling themselves out of the system as more business's adopt windows as the main form as its cheaper to build and results in better work machines. I mean don't get me wrong guild wars 2 is going to need to figure something out because even Windows has plans to drop x86 and legacy coding all together and start from scratch and make a whole new operating system/ architecture without any legacy code in it. So I can agree though that Anet is going to need to adapt or their game will die off.

[Steve The Cynic.3217]

@"Teratus.2859" said:The same issue exists on Windows PC's as well although are far more forgiving.. take a look back at some older PC games for example and you'll find a bunch that either have a lot of issues running on modern tech or straight up don't work at all anymore due to some dead component that is no longer a part of modern PC hardware or some old software that is no longer used and supported etc.Off the top of my head Black and White comes to mind.. getting that running on a modern computer/OS is an absolute nightmare.

It's usually down to those games playing fast and loose with the rules of Windows programming in some way (especially in exclusive full-screen mode(1)), and more recent versions of Windows have become progressively more strict and pedantic about them.

Good news, through. Ziggurat has been buying up the rights to publish older games with (as far as possible) fixes to allow them to work on modern versions of Windows (especially Win10). Fans of Bloodrayne from back in the day will be pleased to hear that the "Terminal Cut" version that was recently released by Ziggurat runs just fine on a totally up-to-date Win 10, and in 4K as well. Pity that a bunch of the user reviews on Steam were by people who assumed (without justification) that it was an HD remaster rather than a bug fix...

(1) Some games work fine in Windowed mode but break horribly in full-screen.

[Hypnowulf.7403]

This has become a bit of a ghetto, hasn't it? Sound and fury changes nothing.

I don't think that the average man-on-the-street consumer of Apples has any concept for just how different Metal is from other APIs. I don't think they grasp just how desperate Apple is to be special—so they blame the developer.

Apple was entirely responsible for the death of Flash. Do we blame Flash game developers for that? That'd be silly, wouldn't it? Well, that's what this is too.

It isn't only the change of chip architecture—which might be more manageable—but rather that Apple is going to murder OpenGL on their platform because that's what they tend to do. Both Apple and Google are really bad about that sort of thing. APIs need a degree of similarity for decent cross-platform porting, it's helpful as well when these APIs exist on a variety of systems as well. This is why Vulkan has seen adoption, because it makes things easy to port.

Apple could've chosen to move from OpenGL to Vulkan. Instead, they created their own elite club API which no one else is allowed to use. This is Apple's treehouse, peasants stay out et al. It's folly and inanity to blame developers for that.

I have to stress here—not only did Apple refuse to move to a more accepted API like Vulkan, but their Metal API handles things in ways that are intentionally different to be hostile to porting efforts. I am not joking about this. It's to encourage exclusivity, I suspect, but that isn't going to happen. Apple's always lived in their own world.

Not only is Metal special in regards to porting things that rely heavily on OpenGL, but it's more strict as well. In other words, Apple is forcing one of two binary outcomes.

Outcome 1: ArenaNet rewrites the entire engine from the ground up to work on Metal instead of OpenGL.

Outcome 2: ArenaNet ends support for the Mac client.

I mean, if Apple were really serious about the adoption of their API? They could drop bags of money on companies to subsidise it. I mean, you know Apple is loaded, I know Apple is loaded, it would be effortless for them to pay for ArenaNet to bring on all the staff necessary for them to do this. So why not ask Apple and see what they think?

[Gyro.9182]

@"Hypnowulf.7403" said:Apple was entirely responsible for the death of Flash. Do we blame Flash game developers for that? That'd be silly, wouldn't it? Well, that's what this is too.

I don't think that (apart from developers in firms that produced Flash) you will find too many people mourning the demise of Flash, permanent source of performance and battery drain and security leaks that it was.

As for the rest of the discussion, you probably missed a couple of relevant points - ignoring your opinions on Metal:

• OpenGL support by Apple ended in 2018. OpenGL is still included in macOS today (yes, even in the latest versions), and I have not yet seen Apple stating that it will be removed in a concrete macOS version. The support is "frozen", so there are no further updates and one has to live with shortcomings and bugs that exist, but it does work.
• Anet had time since 2018 to adapt their client from OpenGL to Metal. That is quite an amount of time. Perhaps doing so was impossible, unrealistic, or financially unattractive for Anet - that's for others to judge -, but one can hardly argue that there was not enough time to work on it.
• Apple is not killing OpenGL on February 18, and even if it did, it could only do so by providing an update that would remove OpenGL. Users would then be free to either install that update or not. (My best guess is that some future release of macOS will remove support - but it's up to the user to decide whether they upgrade to it or not, it's not like the Windows 10 "OS upgrades", but an intentional act by the user to install a new macOS version.) Thus, there is nothing that enforces "end of life" for GW2 by February 18 caused by Apple.
• Killing off the client, even for those users who don't care about M1 issues (99% of the current Mac users probably have an Intel-based Mac which includes OpenGL) is an intentional decision by Anet, and not caused by Apple. There may be perfectly valid reasons for that (lack of developers, consequences of 2020 and the pandemic, ...), but talking about M1 and OpenGL just doesn't give an honest picture. And that's what upsets me more than the fact that a beloved game is killed for a share of its players.

[lare.5129]

@"Hypnowulf.7403" said:Not only is Metal special in regards to porting things that rely heavily on OpenGL, but it's more strict as well. In other words, Apple is forcing one of two binary outcomes.MoltenVK - MoltenVK is a software library which allows Vulkan applications to run on top of Metal on Apple's macOS, iOS, and tvOS operating systems. It is the first software component to be released for the Vulkan Portability Initiative, a project to have a subset of Vulkan run on platforms which lack native Vulkan drivers.So exist way rum vulkan on metal

Outcome 1: ArenaNet rewrites the entire engine from the ground up to work on Metal instead of OpenGL.not need. Enough be like mainstream.

Outcome 2: ArenaNet ends support for the Mac client.x64 vulcan app run on maxos. Don't worry about mac client

I mean, if Apple were really serious about the adoption of their API?metal api nice soft. Yes, it not open source. But I can't say that it written bad.

They could drop bags of money on companies to subsidise it.?? for what? opposite, it perfect way get money for apple. And why they need subside someone? want share market - make action.

I mean, you know Apple is loaded, I know Apple is loaded, it would be effortless for them to pay for ArenaNet? passages ask train to pay him and he will travel whit that train?

So why not ask Apple and see what they think?they think: "Metal provides near-direct access to the graphics processing unit (GPU), enabling you to maximize the graphics and compute potential of your apps on iOS, macOS, and tvOS. Building on an approachable, low-overhead architecture with precompiled GPU shaders, fine-grained resource control, and multithreading support, Metal further evolves support for GPU-driven command creation, simplifies working with the array of Metal-capable GPUs, and lets you tap into Pro power of Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR."https://developer.apple.com/metal/

[maddoctor.2738]

@"lare.5129" said:they think: "Metal provides near-direct access to the graphics processing unit (GPU), enabling you to maximize the graphics and compute potential of your apps on iOS, macOS, and tvOS. Building on an approachable, low-overhead architecture with precompiled GPU shaders, fine-grained resource control, and multithreading support, Metal further evolves support for GPU-driven command creation, simplifies working with the array of Metal-capable GPUs, and lets you tap into Pro power of Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR."https://developer.apple.com/metal/

So they think it's something to be used exclusively by their products ("tap into Pro power of Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR") so not really worth considering it as an option for any developer.

[Gyro.9182]

I think that the direction this discussion is taking is not really helpful for the matter at hand. Apple's motivation, the quality, ease of use or performance of Meta, while interesting, do not have that much of a bearing on the topic listed at the top...? In general, posts that focus on either criticising Apple's policies or defend them are in my opinion not really of interest here.

[Veprovina.4876]

I love how there's new Apple knights in this thread defending Apple all of a sudden.

Just ask yourself what would happen if Microsoft did this.

Everyone would instantly blame Microsoft for anti consumer practices, "oh the poor developers they have to recode everything to work on the new system", "oh the poor users, Microsoft ended support for their favorite programs how dare they".

Yet, since it's Apple and its zombie army, we get stuff like "Apple does stuff you either fall in line or it's your fault for not following Apple's whims"...

Hilarious! :sweat_smile:

[Fuchslein.8639]

I really wonder how such thinking arises.Even as an outsider who has little knowledge about apple and all this, you can see as clearly as night who is sitting on the longer lever.In another thread I even saw that someone wrote that you can't really reach Apple, which is why they rather go after Anet and others (if I understood that correctly).

But what else can companies like Anet and Co do?I personally think that Anet is doing the right thing. They should not be responsible for Apple's decisions and spend resources on this.And it's not like they're excluding Apple users. I doubt that even without support everything will suddenly go down the drain for Mac users from one day to the next. Enough time to adjust to it. Help was already offered what you can do, besides buying a new PC.

[lare.5129]

@"maddoctor.2738" said:So they think it's something to be used exclusively by their productsthis is not "exclusively ". this is api on 15% pc market and 50%+ on mobile market in USA

[lare.5129]

@"Fuchslein.8639" said:I personally think that Anet is doing the right thing. They should not be responsible for Apple's decisions and spend resources on this.So you say - They should not be responsible for Apple's decisions and spend resources on " 15% pc market and 50%+ on mobile market in USA"?yes, may be.

And it's not like they're excluding Apple users. I doubt that even without support everything will suddenly go down the drain for Mac users from one day to the next.yes, it perfect work on windows binary with Parallel wrapper

[Veprovina.4876]

@lare.5129 said:

@"Fuchslein.8639" said:I personally think that Anet is doing the right thing. They should not be responsible for Apple's decisions and spend resources on this.So you say - They should not be responsible for Apple's decisions and spend resources on " 15% pc market and 50%+ on mobile market in USA"?yes, may be.

And it's not like they're excluding Apple users. I doubt that even without support everything will suddenly go down the drain for Mac users from one day to the next.yes, it perfect work on windows binary with Parallel wrapper

Apple could own 100% of the mobile market and it wouldn't have any impact on Anet because Guild Wars 2 is not a mobile game. So that statistic is pointelss in this discussion. Anet's interest is in the Global desktop market which Apple has very little of. If GW2 was a mobile game you'd have an argument, but since it isn't, what Apple does with its mobile OS is irrelevant.

But agreed on the second thing, windows version of GW2 can run on Mac just fine so i don't know what the big deal is. Just like Linux users have done forever, Apple users can support each other when it comes to getting GW2 to run, create a community, their own forum or even threads on this forum so it's not like people can't get help if something doesn't work.

[lare.5129]

@Veprovina.4876 said:Apple could own 100% of the mobile market and it wouldn't have any impact on Anet because Guild Wars 2 is not a mobile game.it not mobile game today. If it not have plans to be mobile also - I think it is fail. But me, and you, don't know what realy vision about this have ncsoft/anet

So that statistic is pointelss in this discussion. Anet's interest is in the Global desktop market which Apple has very little of.7 global - is little of? for me not. For me it is VERY big value.

But agreed on the second thing, windows version of GW2 can run on Mac just fine so i don't know what the big deal is. Just like Linux users have done forever, Apple users can support each other when it comes to getting GW2 to run, create a community, their own forum or even threads on this forum so it's not like people can't get help if something doesn't work.true

[killerkram.5129]

@tetmikem.5608 said:

@"killerkram.5129" said:virtual windows os on local machine, virtual windows through some streaming software like shadow or geforce now, new computer. those are the options for mac users that i can think of if they want to keep playing. honestly for mac users they should either have another pc or access to some windows environment if they want to play video games. My wife used to have a mac and her solution for gaming was own a second computer that can have the fun while using the mac to do the work. now she just has one good pc that can do that work and have the fun.

Not everyone can afford to own two computers.....

To me mac computers scream money. They are pretty expensive and premium machines. We got our mac because we had the extra cash to go for it and the wife wanted to try it out. I know not everyone is in that position since some people require mac computers for work or whatever but virtualization should still be an option right? Also as long as you have decent internet cloud gaming is an option. But over all Guild Wars 2 is a pretty old game that does not need a very powerful machine to play so you do not need a very expensive second computer to play it. We bought a cheaper dell laptop and it plays guild wars 2 just fine. Funny enough that is the main machine my wife uses now and the mac is collecting dust, so much for that. I guess we aren't mac people here but that's fine people can do whatever they want.

I may be out of the loop when it comes to mac computers as I don't use them or like them so maybe they are not as expensive as I think they are but my mindset runs to "macs are expensive computers" so if you have that kind of money buying a cheap second computer should not be that big an issue. Otherwise as stated, cloud gaming or running windows in virtual to play games should be an option.

[Sobx.1758]

@lare.5129 said:

I mean, if Apple were really serious about the adoption of their API?metal api nice soft. Yes, it not open source. But I can't say that it written bad.

...you can't because you don't know how it's written and you're just bent on repeating "apple good" no matter what? :D

@lare.5129 said:

@"Fuchslein.8639" said:I personally think that Anet is doing the right thing. They should not be responsible for Apple's decisions and spend resources on this.So you say - They should not be responsible for Apple's decisions and spend resources on " 15% pc market and 50%+ on mobile market in USA"?yes, may be.

How does the mobile market have anything to do with it?What does "15% pc market" have to do with people playing gw2?

You understand that you've grabbed some random stats from random sites and now you're holding onto them despite them being absolutely irrelevant in this case/thread/complaint, right?

[lare.5129]

@"killerkram.5129" said:To me mac computers scream money.wrong. look demo how works native wow on m1. The same performance laptop from another vendor will coast TWICE more. On gw2 now we not have that perfonance compared, if no native client will come.

They are pretty expensive and premium machines.m1 notebook is 1000+ euro ? ofc if you not select 1Tb sdd .. :)) this is expensive and premium ? I don't think so. My non premium mid-high laptop (intel+2060) buyed more that 2000 euro some time ago.

know not everyone is in that position since some people require mac computers for work or whatever but virtualization should still be an option right? Also as long as you have decent internet cloud gaming is an option.

But over all Guild Wars 2 is a pretty old game that does not need a very powerful machine to play so you do not need a very expensive second computer to play it.yes, possible play on laptop from any vendor, and from apple.

"macs are expensive computers"I though same, till check price on current new mac wiht m1 and looks how WoW works on on. But GW2 have native metal api. :'(

Otherwise as stated, cloud gaming or running windows in virtual to play games should be an option.not need that option. on m1 works window version of gw2, on mac intel - - bootcamp

[lare.5129]

@"Sobx.1758" said:How does the mobile market have anything to do with it?people already play it on mobile phones

So official mobile version relize only question "when"

What does "15% pc market" have to do with people playing gw2?have to extend and keep

You understand that you've grabbed some random stats from random sitesyes. I grap concept. In this concept no matter it is 5 % or 55%

complaintfrom me no any complaint You ask question - I answer.

[Linken.6345]

@lare.5129 said:

@"Sobx.1758" said:How does the mobile market have anything to do with it?people already play it on mobile phones

So official mobile version relize only question "when"

What does "15% pc market" have to do with people playing gw2?have to extend and keep

You understand that you've grabbed some random stats from random sitesyes. I grap concept. In this concept no matter it is 5 % or 55%

complaintfrom me no any complaint You ask question - I answer.

If nothing else these videos hows how little input is needed to play core game.And still people wish to go back to that difficulty.

On topic, the % do matter since if its to low and 5-10% of personal computer market is said to low to dedicate resources too.

[Qida.5648]

Anyone know why they pick the date 18 Feb? Why not just let it expire when it no longer runs.. like when Apple really removes OpenGL or something.

What about users who are on Catalina or older MacOS versions and are not upgrading.. so should have some form of OpenGL always available?

Why not just keep those users who are not updating? ie. support up to Catalina only or Big Sur 11.2 etc etc.

What i can see is they have no resource to deal with the new Mac architecture, and newer MacOS versions. That is understandable, and i completely support it if that means they can continue to develop during these hard times.

But.. why old Macs gets the chopping block as well?

[Fuchslein.8639]

@lare.5129 said:

@"killerkram.5129" said:To me mac computers scream money.wrong. look demo how works native wow on m1. The same performance laptop from another vendor will coast TWICE more. On gw2 now we not have that perfonance compared, if no native client will come.

They are pretty expensive and premium machines.m1 notebook is 1000+ euro ? ofc if you not select 1Tb sdd .. :)) this is expensive and premium ? I don't think so. My non premium mid-high laptop (intel+2060) buyed more that 2000 euro some time ago.

know not everyone is in that position since some people require mac computers for work or whatever but virtualization should still be an option right? Also as long as you have decent internet cloud gaming is an option.

But over all Guild Wars 2 is a pretty old game that does not need a very powerful machine to play so you do not need a very expensive second computer to play it.yes, possible play on laptop from any vendor, and from apple.

"macs are expensive computers"I though same, till check price on current new mac wiht m1 and looks how WoW works on on. But GW2 have native metal api. :'(

Otherwise as stated, cloud gaming or running windows in virtual to play games should be an option.not need that option. on m1 works window version of gw2, on mac intel - - bootcamp

Just because you don't seem to compare prices doesn't mean that normal Windows PCs, and even laptops, are more expensive than Macs. Quite the opposite.Especially if you only play one title like GW2, you can get really good notebooks for less than 600€. And for this price you can get even better Destop PCs.

[Fuchslein.8639]

You don't see?

Well, good luck then.

[lare.5129]

@Fuchslein.8639 said:you can get really good notebooks for less than 600€.Can you share link for me that good notebook, with 8gb ram, 256gb SSD, and ips LED-backlit display with something about 2560*1600 native resolution, whit price less than 600€? I am very interested.

[Fuchslein.8639]

@lare.5129 said:

@Fuchslein.8639 said:you can get really good notebooks for less than 600€.Can you share link for me that good notebook, with 8gb ram, 256gb SSD, and ips LED-backlit display with something about 2560*1600 native resolution, whit price less than 600€? I am very interested.

Here in Germany there are sites like Notebooksbilliger where you can find something like that. If I google your information, I am offered some notebooks for 599€ and below. If I enter your settings with Mac, nothing under 1k is displayed.I played for years on a Thinkpad, which cost something around 626€ at that time and where I could play GW2 smoothly on high most of the time. And that was only so expensive because I play more than just GW2.My current PC setup cost just under 800€ with 2 monitors and I can play the latest games like Cyberpunk on High-Ultra.

[lare.5129]

@"Fuchslein.8639" said:Here in Germany there are sites like Notebooksbilliger where you can find something like that. If I google your information, I am offered some notebooks for 599€ and below. If I enter your settings with Mac, nothing under 1k is displayed.I don't find any notebook whit " ips LED-backlit display with something about 2560*1600 " , most of them only 1920 x 1080 Pixel (Full HD) or less resolution. If person don't see different - nice to way save money.

[Qida.5648]

@lare.5129 said:many 'why' but no one from common public people can't say true, because don't know. You can find many theories about that, fromt intel fans who scared the new arm and pressure other software to push put apple, and till theory about word crysis and pressure from hackers groups to more share windows pc market to let hem more easy main cryto on zomby windows machines ... BUT this is only THOERIES,. real true is hidden.

I see. I really hope someone inside can come clean and explain it clearly. Its kinda scary, its like Anet could be on its final legs.. with news like this, they may just announce the game's EOL suddenly in just a few weeks before doing it.

And look, i understand most Mac user's anger. Mac users are always second citizen when it comes to GW2, and having to be looked under by the PC gaming community.

As for me, i am perfectly ok for them to remove the MacOS client, so long as i can continue to see the story goes on. I use Mac for work related, during my free time i can always run parallels / bootcamp to play the game on the same Mac (now that i have the M1 Mac, its powerful enough to play most games on the go) . I am just concern for them, hoping they have the capability to continue onwards beyond 2021, and not EOL suddenly.