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MMORPGing on a Mac

The current range of MMORPGs on Mac OS X is pretty sad. The only saving grace is that Blizzard takes a keen interest in Macintosh and we have can play all of their games including World of Warcraft. That leaves us with Vendetta, ToonTown Online, Lineage 1, Minions of Mirth, Oberin, WWIIOL, Shadowbane, a very very outdated, buggy and empty version of EverQuest 1, Second Life, and last but not least A Tale in the Desert. Granted this seems like a lot of games, but look around this site. This list is peanuts. Only two AAA titles, and one of which is almost pre-9/11 (EverQuest).

Mac has been gaining more and more popularity lately. If you go to comic cons, gaming cons, or most anything computer related you will see a lot of mac laptops. Granted BootCamp (which lets you use Windows natively) has pushed some people over the fence to buy Mac who never would have considered it before but still the appeal of native Mac games never really loses it's luster. Apples stock has soared over the past year to points that suprise even the analysts. In short, Apple is doing great and Macs are being adopted by the techno savvy more than ever before.

The only part where Macs are still being left behind is the MMORPG market. It is more the exception rather than the rule that we even have any MMORPGs if you take the total list of availiable titles into account. If it wasn't for World of Warcraft we really wouldn't have anything worth discussing.

My question to you, the avid MMORPG player, is do you think this recent infatuation with all things Apple will translate into more and more MMORPGs for Mac, or will the developers continue to think in one platform? Is the potential trouble to develop cross platform worth the effort? Will Asia and all their development muscle ever realize that the Macintosh even exists?

Apple game developers have continually cited that the biggest hinderence to Mac gaming is piracy. Since the MMORPG genre is piracy proof, could this be the boon to Mac gaming that they have been waiting for?

Comments

  • gschenk3gschenk3 Member Posts: 93
    Note: I had this laid out very nice, but for some reason it is one big bloody paragraph. My appologies to your tired eyes.
  • frkhot97frkhot97 Member Posts: 393

    MMORPG.com messes up for Mac users too -- the editor doesn't really work too well in Safari (granted I haven't checked since the site's redesign).

    With all half-finished MMOs launching I'm not surprised most devs ignore the smaller playerbase on Mac (and Linux). I read somewhere EVE is gonna make clients for more platforms, until then you will have to dualboot.

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