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Screw you Apple!

A

Agentbolt

Diamond Member
This won't matter a bit to 99.999% of you, but apparently 10.5.3 takes away 256 color compatibility. I tried firing up a quick battle.net game yesterday only to have the game fail to launch. I checked the Blizzard forums and it hapened to everyone who upgraded to 10.5.3

Blizzard and Apple are pointing the finger at each other as well, so this one might take awhile to get fixed, assuming it ever does. Sad face.
 
Honestly, with Starcraft 2 coming out, it seems like the perfect time for Blizzard to update the game a little bit to make it 10.5 compatible and a universal binary and resell the whole game to you again.

On a different note, I would also enjoy a OSX release of a Warcraft 1, 2 and 3 Battlechest. I think 1 & 2 were OS 9 releases which, of course, won't work with all of our newer Macs. Not a big Warcraft fan, more of a C&C fan, but I have had the hankering lately.
 
damn it. I was actually thinking about installing starcraft this weekend. I assume warcraft 3 is not broken?
 
Originally posted by: sourceninja
damn it. I was actually thinking about installing starcraft this weekend. I assume warcraft 3 is not broken?
Click to expand...

Warcraft III works fine. The only other Blizzard title that I've heard is affected is Diablo II.

One thing that irritates me is that there's a large contingent of people on the Blizzard forums saying "Big deal, the game's a decade old, how long do you really expect them to support it for?"

Considering it is still being produced, sells for retail prices, and is still one of Blizzard's better sellers, I don't think that argument holds much water. For all intents and purposes it's not an end-of-life game and we should be able to expect some form of technical support for this.
 
While that's true.. you can't blame Apple for taking away 256 color support. I mean, if you're using a Mac, typically you aren't using that display. I fault Blizzard, if they don't come out with a fix soon. I mean, Blizzard gets 10's of millions a month in revenue, and they can't put a little bit of support into Starcraft? Seems a little silly to me.
 
Originally posted by: Kmax82
While that's true.. you can't blame Apple for taking away 256 color support. I mean, if you're using a Mac, typically you aren't using that display. I fault Blizzard, if they don't come out with a fix soon. I mean, Blizzard gets 10's of millions a month in revenue, and they can't put a little bit of support into Starcraft? Seems a little silly to me.
Click to expand...

I kinda agree here. Part of the reason i've heard apple has been able to speed up their OS over the years is that they drop legacy support for some functions over time, while microsoft takes the opposite approach (long backwards compatibility, at the expense of speed).

I don't think you can solely blame Apple for Blizzard's lack of updating, if they do in fact sell as many copies today as both of you mentioned.
 
Originally posted by: aphex
Originally posted by: Kmax82
While that's true.. you can't blame Apple for taking away 256 color support. I mean, if you're using a Mac, typically you aren't using that display. I fault Blizzard, if they don't come out with a fix soon. I mean, Blizzard gets 10's of millions a month in revenue, and they can't put a little bit of support into Starcraft? Seems a little silly to me.
Click to expand...

I kinda agree here. Part of the reason i've heard apple has been able to speed up their OS over the years is that they drop legacy support for some functions over time, while microsoft takes the opposite approach (long backwards compatibility, at the expense of speed).

I don't think you can solely blame Apple for Blizzard's lack of updating, if they do in fact sell as many copies today as both of you mentioned.
Click to expand...

Sorry if I was unclear, I don't think this is Apple's sole responsibility to fix. I titled it the way I did because Apple's update is what precipitated the problem, but if Blizzard was aware of what the update would do, they should've been better prepared for it.

Frankly I think the responsibility for a fix is going to lie with Blizzard. They're still selling the product, and I think it's unlikely they're going to start listing the official system requirements as "OS X 10.5.2 or LOWER". I've loved Macs since I started using them about 6 months ago, but Apple's probably the least customer-friendly company I've seen in the computer 'biz, so they're certainly not going to fix it. I just think this whole issue could've been avoided with some better communication between Apple and Blizzard. Hell, name 2 games NOT made by Blizzard that are designed to run on a Mac natively. The two companies should be talking more than they apparently are, since Blizzard makes a lot money off Mac users and Macs rely on Blizzard to claim any real gaming titles these days.

What mostly worries me is that the last "official" response from Blizzard was "Folks we've informed Apple of the problem, they're going to have to come up with a solution for it". Historically Apple's attitude to problems is not "Well gee whiz gang, let's get it fixed".
 
Yea, I understand. And I think the problem lies with Blizzard not wanting to put any more money into Starcraft right now. They have Starcraft II that will be coming out soon, and I doubt that they want to put time into make it 16 bit. Who knows...

Honestly, if you game on a Mac, you probably use Bootcamp, so you could just play Starcraft on Windows and that could be your gaming setup. I don't game on my computer anymore, and this stopped long before I got a Mac. I understand why a lot of people do, however, and I think that one of the top rated computer gaming companies should support their products.

If enough people make a stink, I'm sure that Blizzard will do something... Also, I think that Apple is going through some growing pains right now. They're gaining marketshare, and their user group is getting saturated with new users, so Apple is trying to make improvements, but rather than trying to please the people they're getting, they are just updating like they normally do. This will be a problem as more and more people come to using Apple products. And it could cause people to go back to using Windows, as their sole OS choice.

Again, all speculation, and lots of random thoughts.
 
Agentbolt,

If it's that much of a problem for your gaming, use your backup and regress to 10.5.2 until Blizzard fixes it... You do backup, don't you? 🙂

Noel
 
Dammit all!!

I'm not going to lie, I thought 10.5.4 was going to fix this. Turns out it did not. Which would appear to indicate Apple has no intention of re-enabling 256 color support. The threads regarding this are being deleted from the Apple forums in true Apple fashion, natch.

So this means we get to rely on Blizzard for a fix, which as I've stated before seems reasonable. Again, people are paying 20 bucks for this software at retail stores. This is not an EOL product, and therefore Blizzard still has a duty to support it. Of course they almost certainly won't, as any fix to Starcraft will simply hurt the bottom line for Starcraft 2, but I know I'm not alone in saying I simply won't purchase SC2 unless I see even a token effort on Blizzard's part to fix this problem.

And yes, I do have Vista installed via Bootcamp, but I prefer staying out of there if possible, due to various hardware bugs Apple hasn't worked out yet (stuttering sound, thermal issues, etc...) If the best solution to running Starcraft on my Mac is "use Windows" then I believe someone in Cupertino is missing the point.
 
I have a feeling that would require a very large rewrite on blizzards end. I highly doubt they are going to put that effort forth. I wish they would however. I still can't imagine what advantage apple has gained from removing 256 color support.
 
[sarcasm] Haven't you noticed the blistering speed which has been apparent in 10.5.3 and now 10.5.4. The removal of 256 color support, and the gained speed, is blowing my mind!!! [/end sarcasm]
 
Originally posted by: Agentbolt

And yes, I do have Vista installed via Bootcamp, but I prefer staying out of there if possible, due to various hardware bugs Apple hasn't worked out yet (stuttering sound, thermal issues, etc...) If the best solution to running Starcraft on my Mac is "use Windows" then I believe someone in Cupertino is missing the point.
Click to expand...

What about going through Parallels?
 
Originally posted by: sourceninja
So we have reached a point where we have to run windows to play mac native games?
Click to expand...

That's not the case at all... This is an isolated case of Starcraft, which is 10 years old. Most games that are that old require hacks or other methods to run in Windows.
 
I play games like that all the time without hacks. I still play bualders gate, icewind dale, bg2, diablo, diablo 2, warcraft 2, starcraft, doom, quake, the list goes on and on.

Of course the big difference is apple broke a program the actually still offer on the website and claim os 10.3.x+ compatibility. Which is just a lie.

I'm sorry, but the longer I've had my mac, the less impressed I'm becoming with apple. I like the look and feel of the OS, but the company is driving me away.

Apple does not have the excuses MS or linux has. They have exact hardware specs to target. Bugs like this are just piss poor effort on their part.
 
Listen, you are talking about a game that was designed for OS 9, maybe even OS 8, was given new life to work on OS X, and then given new life again to work on OS X intel. Although this is a Mac Native game, it is not an OS X native game, so the fact that over the years Apple has dropped certain things from the OS that breaks other certain things is their prerogative, especially when you consider that in this case it broke a 10 year old game that was never intended to run on OS X since OS X didn't exist when it came out. We are not on the 6th version of OS X, so 7 OSes beyond what the game was intended for.
 
Originally posted by: TheStu
Listen, you are talking about a game that was designed for OS 9, maybe even OS 8, was given new life to work on OS X, and then given new life again to work on OS X intel. Although this is a Mac Native game, it is not an OS X native game, so the fact that over the years Apple has dropped certain things from the OS that breaks other certain things is their prerogative, especially when you consider that in this case it broke a 10 year old game that was never intended to run on OS X since OS X didn't exist when it came out. We are not on the 6th version of OS X, so 7 OSes beyond what the game was intended for.
Click to expand...

That's not really the point.

It worked before in OS X 10.5 and now it doesn't. That's a bad decision on Apple's part to take away something like that. I really would like to know the reasoning.
 
That is not an excuse. It is a game still sold and advertised on apples website. Basically, I don't know if I can trust apple! Their own website tells me this game is supported on OSX and even announces new updates for it. The age of the software is not an excuse. The game may of been written for OS9, but it is today intended for OSX.

I'd like to quote apples website for a moment in reference to the latest diablo 2 patch (released just a short while ago).


System Requirements

* Mac OS X 10.1 or later
* Diablo II: L.O.D. Retail version

It does not say OSX 10.1 or later with ati video card.
It does not say OSX 10.1-10.5.2.

So the game is still supported, still advertised by apple. The fact is the removal of 256 colors is a bug, not a apple design decision. This is why they did not remove it from ati cards. This is a bug that effects a very popular piece of software and obviously people care about. Telling them to just suck it up and deal with it is the attitude that drives me further away from apple.

I left windows for linux to gain more freedom and control. I left linux for apple to get better stability and have the control of unix. I thought that apple would be less prone to major bugs related to hardware because they have such a limited hardware set they support. It should be trival to test that things like a entire graphics mode actually work before deploying a patch.

What I have seen is that apple has no better stability then linux, restricts me more then windows or linux, and wants me on a constant cash shell out upgrade path.

Now if apple had announced a year ago that they had plans to remove 256bit color option from their machines during the 10.5 lifecycle (like they did when they decided to no longer continue carbon development) then that would be one thing. Instead they seemed to release increasingly buggy patches to 10.5 and the users seem to accept that these bugs are features that allow apple to improve their OS.

I love my mac. I found software that made me happy and ways to cope with the issues I had about leaving linux. I was even more happy that mean of the games I had to use wine for would work natively on mac. So far though I have found that my mac is turning into a work around feast that puts the work arounds I did in linux to shame. My wife and I were so impressed when I first got my mac that we had plans to buy her a mac. However I am rethinking that decision and will most likely go with another ubuntu machine for her.

This is not all do to this bug, but rather to the news reports I read about apple, their stances on numerous things, and the way they seem to treat people who want to develop on their platform and their customers.
 
I understand where you're coming from sourceninja. I went from Windows to OS X, but I had quite a few hacks that I had to do in order to make everything useable in Windows. So it was nice for me to just have everything work in OS X.

I haven't run into anything, yet, that makes me regret that decision. And I think the reason for that, is because I don't game on my computer. Well, I try, but if I do.. I just boot into Windows to do it. It might change when new games come out from Aspyr, but right now I'm still using Windows, so I own many of the games there still, and have a license for XP.

I completely understand your frustration, and I do think that Apple needs to understand that they can't do things like that and expect a lot of the Windows/Linux, even OS X, users to be ok with it.

I'm sorry that you're having such a bad experience. I do wonder why Apple doesn't seem to listen to their customers though. They're one of the few companies that just goes their own way, and you have hold on for the ride. Just odd to me. I still love Apple products, but like I said, I haven't run into that issue that really perturbs me, or makes me reconsider my buying decision.
 
I'm a developer by trade, so obviously I want to develop software for a mac when I see it. So things like this really tick me off.
I don't really need tons of games, or the latest and greatest, but I do like to game now and then. I'm fine with getting games a year later or only getting some games. My 360 handles 99% of my gaming needs. However, I do want my software to work. With windows, if my hardware matches the recommend specs for the software, there is a great chance it will work. In fact I've never ran into software that did not work when I had met the hardware recommendations. So again, this frustrates me and makes me more reluctant to buy software for my mac, because I simply have no idea if my computer meets the specs or will continue to meet the specs after an update (not a new OS release like 10.6, which I could understand, but any update). In contrast to linux, on a ubuntu LTS release, your software is only bug fixed, not feature stripped or modified during it's OS lifetime. They use new releases for that.

With apple I have to choose, security with risk of breaking my software, or staying where I am patch level until modern software requires me to ugprade. Again, this is not a good practice.

Now that said, my experience has not been horrible. I love the interface, I love the UI consistency that exists in 90% of the apps (something that I find lacking in linux and windows). I enjoy the ease of installing software (although removing it cleanly can sometimes be a chore), the apple method for that blows windows out of the water and is easily on par with linux (I love the repository system). I love the dashboard, I love xcode (I know, i'm crazy). Objective-C is growing on me the more I use it. I love the native python and ruby support. I love the default apps such as garageband. I like how seemless using admin functions is on a normal user account. There are many great reasons to use OSX over windows.

The problems come with what seems like a culture of the 'we know whats best'. I'm a long time linux user. I like having options and control. I also like to be informed as to what is going to happen to my computer when I do something. I'm not going to list out all of my complaints here, it's not the place for it. I do however feel I had a much more user friendly experience on linux with my old linux laptop. Sure it wasn't as pretty looking, but it seemed when I wanted to do something I would find multiple ways of solving my problem instead of either being told what I want to do is 'not possible because it's not the mac way', given some odd work around, or told there is only one way to do it and any other way is worthless or mac would already do it.

I plan to keep my mac for the short term. I like textmate and adium and as a development platform it is nice. However I think I'll be careful about getting myself to deep. I want to be able to walk away from it with little hassle. I'm not sure it's worth it to develop the apps on the mac if you are not actually apple.
 
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