There is no excuse why Counter-Strike doesnt come to mac...

[couch potato]

and for that matter, the whole Half-Life series. I played half-life, and counter-Strike, and its just what the mac needs. for one, it would run great on most macs, as the HL series and mods don't require the fastest hardware. I think aspyre should port half-Life, or at least counter-strike. i want team fortress 2. although i have a PC, i always would prefer a game for mac over PC.

oh, btw, this is for all you people who are just plain annoyed by CS threads:D

[P-Worm]

I know this is frustrating, this game rocks and yet Macs don't have it.

I know! Why don't we set up ANOTHER petition! :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

P-Worm

[idkew]

humm... how about e-con-om-ics.

i want! i want! i want! stop whining.

[sawaguchishinji]

Originally posted by couch potato
and for that matter, the whole Half-Life series. I played half-life, and counter-Strike, and its just what the mac needs. for one, it would run great on most macs, as the HL series and mods don't require the fastest hardware. I think aspyre should port half-Life, or at least counter-strike. i want team fortress 2. although i have a PC, i always would prefer a game for mac over PC.

oh, btw, this is for all you people who are just plain annoyed by CS threads:D

I think the problem is Sierra. They asked too much money or they don't wanna a HL port.

[Vlade]

Or if we can find someone working at Sierra we can have him execute this plan.

1. Steal Sierra's underwere
2.
3. Counterstrike on the mac

Thanks to all the little gnomes on SP for this great idea.

[qwerpafw]

they actually did port halflife a while back

see? (http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/9904/23.logicware.shtml)

Look here (http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/9909/30.games.shtml#Mac_Half-Life_developer_offers_status_update)

and here (http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/9910/14.games.shtml#Half-Life_imbroglio_continues,_Mac_developer_speaks_out)

and finally :( (http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/9910/19.halflife.shtml)


The last link explains it all, really. Sierra was unable to make the mac and pc versions compatible, and so realized they would get no end of bitching about it. They also figured that people wouldn't buy enough copies to make it worth their while (I disagree with this... but the bitching is a valid complaint). So, finally, after taking a lot of flak about feature set, release dates, and so on, they decided to cut their losses and quit before they were behind. Also, this was around the time when apple's hardware was going nowhere, and FAST, what with the yikes 400Mhz-350Mhz debacle and the lack of decent graphics accelerators. Sierra can't really be blamed for this, though I'm sure you will be more than happy to do so.


Anyhow, this was probably one of the few games ever to be sunk by flames. Keep that in mind the next time you send off an angry email to a software company :)

[sawaguchishinji]

Originally posted by qwerpafw

The last link explains it all, really. Sierra was unable to make the mac and pc versions compatible...

Is it really different to make these two versions work flawlessly (anyone working in Mac ports of games)? I heard that Return to the Castle of Wolfenstein is having the same problem.

[iJon]

half life isnt worth porting anymore. its old and getting old in gameplay. in my opinion there are much better games developers need to focus on instead of half life.

iJon

[couch potato]

well, i think its not too late for gearbox to make condition zero compatible. also Team fortress too. i just thought of this game above all else because the graphics are extremely demanding. the reason im not complaining about games like BF1942 is because i know few macs could run it......well, that is. i just see no reason at all:(

damn i hate some of those developers out there. how come we get games like MOHAA and rtcw? Galactic battlegrounds? ok, dont give us the old ones, but at least try to give us the new ones.

[ChoMomma]

It would be nice to see the Omni Group port Counter Strike, they work quickly on most of their projects.. :(

[OSXrocks]

Please quit these posts :(

I playes CS, and it is old an I think it just sucks. Get Soldier of Forune 2 is much better :P

[syco]

It had problems during development, so Sierra (who was making it at the time, not a company like Aspyr) dropped it. However, companies today have the ability to make two versions of it compatible, easily and cheaply, thanks to Mac dev houess.

So, your question is, why don't they port over Half-Life now? Well, you gotta ask yourself - how many people would buy it? There are other games that emulate Half-Life. The graphics are terrible by today's standards. Many people, myself included, play it on a PC already, and we're sick of it (yup). Plus, the game is 4 years old and really only has a multiplayer fanbase anymore.

[ChoMomma]

Originally posted by OSXrocks
Please quit these posts :(

I playes CS, and it is old an I think it just sucks. Get Soldier of Forune 2 is much better :P

YEP! SOF2 all the way!

:D

That games rocks like nothing else!!!

[Jaykay]

Originally posted by iJon
half life isnt worth porting anymore. its old and getting old in gameplay. in my opinion there are much better games developers need to focus on instead of half life.

iJon

Exactly...........

[Das]

CS can't stand up to a good SOF2 match. That game is just freaky tiki fun. I have tried and tried to get into CS, but it's always so craptacular. The gfx engine is old as dirt, the gameplay is littered with haxors and crapple, the play mechanics are fun for a limited while and as much as I love the elimination modes, waiting for 2 campers to duke it out sucks arse. I also like MOH which has some of the best sniper matches.

[mattmack]

Originally posted by iJon
half life isnt worth porting anymore. its old and getting old in gameplay. in my opinion there are much better games developers need to focus on instead of half life.

iJon
Fianlly some one says it half life and CS are based on a very old engine and there are a lot more games coming out with more and more potential. Vesides the ai in half life just plain sux

[qwerpafw]

Originally posted by syco
It had problems during development, so Sierra (who was making it at the time, not a company like Aspyr) dropped it. However, companies today have the ability to make two versions of it compatible, easily and cheaply, thanks to Mac dev houess.


no. Did you even bother to read my post and the attached links?

Obviously not. Logicware was porting half life to the mac, not sierra or valve. And I reiterate, flaming maclots sunk the port.


Like I said, keep that in mind before going "OMG SOF2 RULZ ADN YUO SI TEH SUXOR!!!111," as it is exactly that sort of mentality which destroys game ports to the mac.

[syco]

The real question is did you even bother to read my post?

Yes, Sierra had problems porting the game. Hell, you said so yourself: "Sierra was unable to make the Mac and PC versions compatible". Sierra funded the now-defunct Logicware for Mac-Life.

Pardon my temporary jargon stupidity, but what is a "flaming maclot"?

Please don't test my patience. I have no problems with respectful arguements, but do not accuse me of being foolish.

[qwerpafw]

logicware ported the game. They were an independent company from Sierra and Valve--a dedicated porting house.


You mentioned the main reason why such a port would work today as being "the advent of the specialized mac porting company." Logicware was such a company. And they failed. Lucky for them, they got paid anyways. So, nothing much has changed since then. One might argue that omnigroup (or any one of countless other software companies) would do a better job, but the fact remains that logicware, who had some quite good coders, didn't release the game.

Logicware basically finished the game, as you can see if you read the links. The main problems were mod compatibility with the PC version, and multiplayer compatibility with the PC version.

Both were promised for future releases. However, all companies involved recieved a large number of hate mail nastygrams, convincing them both that (1) people didn't appreciate their effort and (2) due to the aforementioned there was not an appreciable market for the game. No company wants to be hated. So, (I think the decision was made by valve and sierra mainly, since they would be responsible for marketing the game to some level, and would certainly be associated with it since the IP, underlying code, and name were all theirs) the parties involved decided to drop the game, which seemed like it would be an unprofitable money-sink (if you break off an unfinished port, you lose a given amount of money to pay for the effort of the programmers. If you finish the port, spend the $$ on marketing and establishing a brick and mortar presence for the app, spend the manpower on support, and so on, and only *after* all the previous discover that the game does not sell well and loses money on each copy, you're significantly further in the red than if you had scrapped the port before it was finished.)


A "flaming maclot" is a mac-zealot who chooses to flame rather than making thoughfully researched points, with "flame" being slang for a nasty letter designed to provoke an argument. I am pretty damned close to being a flaming maclot (a bit of a double entendre, since all mac users are gay, and flaming is often used to describe a conspicuously effeminate gay individual). I'm not gay though (well, not any more gay than the baseline level of gayness required to purchase a bondi iMac the day it came out).

[syco]

Originally posted by qwerpafw
logicware ported the game. They were an independent company from Sierra and Valve--a dedicated porting house.
If that's true, I'm sorry. I thought they were a subsidiary of Sierra.


You mentioned the main reason why such a port would work today as being "the advent of the specialized mac porting company." Logicware was such a company. And they failed. Lucky for them, they got paid anyways. So, nothing much has changed since then. One might argue that omnigroup (or any one of countless other software companies) would do a better job, but the fact remains that logicware, who had some quite good coders, didn't release the game.

I'm guessing that Mac OpenGL today is much more compatible with its PC counterpart than it was back in Half-Life's hey-day. Much of the graphics code could probably be moved over to Mac with very little effort. A few years ago, this was probably not the case, as Apple was just getting its eggs in the basket in terms of games and graphics, not to mention the less-than-stellar graphics accellerators of the 4-digit PowerMacs.

A "flaming maclot" is a mac-zealot who chooses to flame rather than making thoughfully researched points, with "flame" being slang for a nasty letter designed to provoke an argument. I am pretty damned close to being a flaming maclot (a bit of a double entendre, since all mac users are gay, and flaming is often used to describe a conspicuously effeminate gay individual). I'm not gay though (well, not any more gay than the baseline level of gayness required to purchase a bondi iMac the day it came out).

That's a great way to show off your maturity. GAY JOKES!! WOO HOO!!

[Haberdasher]

I don't know about you guys, but I would've gladly welcomed a terrible port of this game...I think there are very few things that could have dampened my want for a mac version. No PC/Mac multiplayer? SO??? The single-player rocks! I don't care about Team Fortress Classic...I can MANUALLY update...

Man, I REALLY wish they hadn't cancelled that. Seems like a pretty stupid idea.

Release game=Barely break even
Don't release game=Loose ALL your money

[iJon]

damn guys, cs can play on the s***iest of comptuers. go buy one off ebay and youll have a crap rig to play cs on.

iJon

[sawaguchishinji]

Originally posted by syco
I'm guessing that Mac OpenGL today is much more compatible with its PC counterpart than it was back in Half-Life's hey-day. Much of the graphics code could probably be moved over to Mac with very little effort. A few years ago, this was probably not the case, as Apple was just getting its eggs in the basket in terms of games and graphics, not to mention the less-than-stellar graphics accellerators of the 4-digit PowerMacs.

The problem was with the multiplayer compability PC/MAC. Apple is at least helping to get it fixed.
http://developer.apple.com/darwin/projects/openplay/

[yzedf]

Mac is 3% of personal computer market.

What % of Mac users are gamers???

That is why...

Look at Loki. Great job porting stuff to linux, and they went bye-bye too.

[FelixDerKater]

If they released HalfLife with the PC/Mac network incompatibility, you would still be fussing. You wouldn't be able to join up in games with your PC using friends.

[MrMacMan]

Originally posted by FelixDerKater
If they released HalfLife with the PC/Mac network incompatibility, you would still be fussing. You wouldn't be able to join up in games with your PC using friends.

Nah, we would create something. They probably made some stupid mistake.

Anyway CS is great. We aren't getting it. Sorry. Too bad.

I wish the upcoming Half-Life 2 and Condition Zero were gonna be ported but no word yet on anything mac like...

OKAY?

[howard]

half life 2?? i havn't heard of that yet...hmm i guess i'm not as up to date as i thought i was

[hvfsl]

Half Life 2 is coming, it will be released around christmas 2003. Lets hope they release this for Mac.

Also Half Life runs on most G4s with virtual PC, remember Half Life is based on the Quake 1 engine which only needed a P75. Most people play half life using software graphics anyway (60%), so Mac users using VPC would not be in the minority.

[iJon]

Originally posted by hvfsl
Half Life 2 is coming, it will be released around christmas 2003. Lets hope they release this for Mac.

Also Half Life runs on most G4s with virtual PC, remember Half Life is based on the Quake 1 engine which only needed a P75. Most people play half life using software graphics anyway (60%), so Mac users using VPC would not be in the minority.
haha, good luck playing that. half life doesnt play good on vpc. i tried for a bunch of people. i got about 10fps with 640x480 on a dual ghz 1.25 w. a radeon 9000.

iJon

[BrittasMac]

Originally posted by sawaguchishinji
Is it really different to make these two versions work flawlessly (anyone working in Mac ports of games)? I heard that Return to the Castle of Wolfenstein is having the same problem.

Code is a pain in the arse to port. Newer games are a lot easier to port thanks to the more extensive use of cross platforms libraries. An older game like that would most likely use some x86 machine language in there somewhere. If the networking code for CS contained any machine language then it would be virtually impossible to get working right on PPC and it would be easier to just rip out the code and start from scratch.

In a nutshell, yes.