OSX Version

Karajorma wrote:

zero0w wrote: See this update on Facebook:

www.facebook.com/wcsaga/posts/10151125278112114

Unfortunately I can't get at Facebook at the moment. What does it say?

It says:

Wing Commander Saga on Facebook wrote: As you may have noticed, we have been pretty quiet over the last few months. The reasons behind this are tedious, and I won't bother detailing them here, but the general burn-out meant that we needed a long(-ish) break. It just felt right to go on a temporary hiatus rather than to try and limp onwards in some sort of shoddy half-hearted way (or at least a more half-hearted way than we used to). Suffice to say we are back on track now. What you can expect in the coming weeks/months:

- Unix ports,
- Translation framework,
- Possibly a patch (containing a number of small tweaks and fixes).

GOD COME ON UHHHHHHHHH

Judging from the number of clicks on this post (12000+), this certainly is a hot topic attracting many Mac gamers. An update can be found from the main site news section:

Status on the Mac OSX port:
www.wcsaga.com/news-archive-2012 ... -port.html

Thanks for the update, zer0w, but I've already given up on this. At release day, late March, they promised Mac and Linux ports would be following soon. But once the initial Windows release got out the door, we only got the sporadic update that work was still underway, but at a slower pace due to real life constraints. Which I can understand, but it's been 9 months already; you'd think that porting a game based on a cross-platform engine to one of the platforms supported by that engine would take less time than creating a human being from scratch. Even for one guy who can only work on it a couple of hours a week. Then last month, after months of "working on" the Mac/Linux port, they finally announce that they found someone to work on the Mac port? So in essense: nothing was done on the Mac/Linux front for 8 months, and given the lack of communication around the Linux port, I'm guessing that's going to take even longer, if they'll release it at all.

Now consider this: Chris Roberts just started working on Star Citizen. David Braben is close to securing funding for Elite: Dangerous (Elite 4) on Kickstarter. Both projects aim to support multiple platforms, amongst which Mac and Linux. The sad thing is that right now I expect cross-platform binaries from these two projects sooner than I expect them from WCS.

At least with Roberts and Braben, when they say work is underway on Mac/Linux ports, I know they're not just lying and then making up excuses for the lack of progress. Sure, there's a difference between creating something in the context of your day job, and doing it in your spare time. But there's also a thing called sticking to your commitments, and I've seen very little evidence of that here.

I know it's quite a change of tone compared to my previous posts, but I simply got disgusted with the lies and excuses.

Nighty: I can understand your sentiment and disappointment. But I still think we can cut some slack for the developer team.

Yes, the FreeSpace SCP should be cross-platform to begin with. Yet, I heard that the dev has made use of other tools to create or playback the cutscene animation (eg. Mission Briefings with human figure are rendered by Poser), etc. Things like that (not originated from the Freespace SCP) might pose a bigger challenge than expected. Mac OSX 10.7/10.8 is switching compiler from GCC to Clang+LLVM, I don't know if this brings some technical challenge there....

Another point is do remember the developer team has spent 10 years making this fan game. If they were easy to give up, they wouldn't last this long and still keep up their effort. They invested time & also money (eg. buying some game assets like 3D Human models for use) to make this happen, and yet not charging us one bit. So I won't question their goal to build a great game and make the Mac/Linux port happen.

I guess it feels letdown to keep waiting (true, we knew the dev didn't owe us, they volunteer their time). But, don't give up on it yet, and no need to question their motive. They make this game because they love Wing Commander, and I don't see that love going away yet.


PS: As someone who supports Linux/Mac gaming, I share the same feeling that these platforms are not receiving enough attention. Only recently with Humble Indie Bundle & Unity4 starting to make Mac&Linux games available with 1st class citizen treatment. I hope the dev team understands the constant frustration of Mac&Linux gamers & this is not incidental.

Hey its been a while since last post.. is there any update on the mac version?

Also on a mac related topic

WINE has been running the PC version fine.. but I just spent some money on a joystick setup, windows recognises the Joystick (joystick 0) but Wing commander does not)

tried changing the reg edit setting... no such luck there... any ideas?

I tried playing with Wine for a while. Certain missions almost always crash in my setup.

I resorted to boot camping to win7. I needed it anyway to provide usoft office for kids schoolwork.

Great. this is versions balance and easy to use.