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OS X Call of Duty titles & other Aspyr Games on sale!

macgames

macgames

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 12, 2012
55
0
Hi guys, just a heads up that all Call of Duty download versions on MacGames.co.uk currently are 50% off & so is Company of Heroes (£6.95). See the MacGamerHQ.com article here: http://www.macgamerhq.com/deals/big-sale-on-call-of-duty-games-and-company-of-heroes-at-macgames-co-uk/



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Also, forgot to add - some news from Aspyr if you didn't see it already:

"Aspyr will be hosting a special Black Ops Multiplayer Weekend running from Friday, May 24 – Monday, May 27. You’ll need to keep an eye out for Aspyr players on Call of Duty: Black Ops servers–they will be giving top Call of Duty: Black Ops players instructions on how to get a coupon for a free Aspyr game all weekend long!"
 
macgames

macgames

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 12, 2012
55
0
BRLawyer said:
Worth buying Black Ops for Mac? Are there enough servers?
Click to expand...

Well I'd say yes its worth it, although I'm not a keen online multiplayer person - otherwise I'd clearly just buy it on Xbox not mac. I prefer the actual single player campaign on Mac, and there are definitely servers to play online, although I guess nothing compared to PC or consoles, but the Mac gaming community isn't just suddenly going to grow overnight - it needs people like us to be the guys that play the games and keep the servers busy!

Aspyr are pushing to get more online players all the time - they recently made the steam and mac app store versions compatible so they can play against each other - previously they were separate. Also they just hosted a big Black Ops weekend where they had the developers and other members of their team online all weekend & gave out free games and prizes to players too.

Finally - this is worth a look: MacGamerHQ are running a Black Ops tournament. See - people are trying al the time! http://www.macgamerhq.com/news/join-mac-gamer-hqs-black-ops-tournament/
 
cmsj

cmsj

macrumors regular
Oct 9, 2012
213
73
macgames said:
Well I'd say yes its worth it
Click to expand...

As a very keen multiplayer CoD fan, and having played a lot of Aspyr's port of CoD;Modern Warfare, I decided I was getting a little bored of those maps and so I would buy Black Ops from the Mac App Store during this sale.

I wish I hadn't. The port itself is excellent, I haven't had any problems with stability or rendering, but what they don't mention in the App Store description (but curiously enough, do mention in the "Features" list on Steam) is that the Mac version of Black Ops can *only* play against other Mac users.

In practice this means that there is basically almost nobody to play with at any given time. I'm based in the UK and at 9:30pm last night (a Tuesday) there were only 9 servers with >0 players and about half of those only had a single digit number of players. There's basically only one EU server that plays the gamemode I like (Domination) and isn't running fricking Nuketown 24/7 and that server is almost full all the time, so I'm stuck looking at a list of empty servers, waiting for someone to drop off the one full server.

It's tremendously frustrating, especially considering I own the damn PS3 port, so I could just walk downstairs and play that against hundreds? thousands? of players.

I contacted Aspyr support and they told me it's due to "licensing reasons", but since the CoD games are pretty much all about multiplayer, this seems like a reason not to do the port at all.

Such a shame, but I have to recommend that you not buy this game, unless you're going to want to play Domination maps on an EU server, in which case please do buy it so I have more people to play against ;D
 
5

50548

Guest
Apr 17, 2005
5,039
2
Currently in Switzerland
cmsj said:
As a very keen multiplayer CoD fan, and having played a lot of Aspyr's port of CoD;Modern Warfare, I decided I was getting a little bored of those maps and so I would buy Black Ops from the Mac App Store during this sale.

I wish I hadn't. The port itself is excellent, I haven't had any problems with stability or rendering, but what they don't mention in the App Store description (but curiously enough, do mention in the "Features" list on Steam) is that the Mac version of Black Ops can *only* play against other Mac users.

In practice this means that there is basically almost nobody to play with at any given time. I'm based in the UK and at 9:30pm last night (a Tuesday) there were only 9 servers with >0 players and about half of those only had a single digit number of players. There's basically only one EU server that plays the gamemode I like (Domination) and isn't running fricking Nuketown 24/7 and that server is almost full all the time, so I'm stuck looking at a list of empty servers, waiting for someone to drop off the one full server.

It's tremendously frustrating, especially considering I own the damn PS3 port, so I could just walk downstairs and play that against hundreds? thousands? of players.

I contacted Aspyr support and they told me it's due to "licensing reasons", but since the CoD games are pretty much all about multiplayer, this seems like a reason not to do the port at all.

Such a shame, but I have to recommend that you not buy this game, unless you're going to want to play Domination maps on an EU server, in which case please do buy it so I have more people to play against ;D
Click to expand...

Tks; I actually know about that severe limitation, and this is probably why I will refrain from buying it until Aspyr gets its act together. It's astounding to hear that they can port the whole game BUT for the cross-platform multiplayer part.

At the very least, it smells like negotiation incompetence to me.
 
cmsj

cmsj

macrumors regular
Oct 9, 2012
213
73
BRLawyer said:
At the very least, it smells like negotiation incompetence to me.
Click to expand...

I don't want to suggest anyone is incompetent - they presumably feel that there is enough value in the port if they host their own servers.

My wild guess would be that access to the servers run by Activision was going to attract some kind of one-off or recurring cost that was to high for Aspyr to stomach.
 
5

50548

Guest
Apr 17, 2005
5,039
2
Currently in Switzerland
cmsj said:
I don't want to suggest anyone is incompetent - they presumably feel that there is enough value in the port if they host their own servers.

My wild guess would be that access to the servers run by Activision was going to attract some kind of one-off or recurring cost that was to high for Aspyr to stomach.
Click to expand...

To the extent that people stop buying a game because of that limitation, I don't think that cost was too high for Aspyr to bear.
 
L

LaDirection

macrumors 6502
Jul 14, 2006
288
0
BRLawyer said:
To the extent that people stop buying a game because of that limitation, I don't think that cost was too high for Aspyr to bear.
Click to expand...

Dude, do you know how much copy a triple A title can sell on Mac? Less than 10,000, and usually 5,000 and less. Do the math.
 
5

50548

Guest
Apr 17, 2005
5,039
2
Currently in Switzerland
LaDirection said:
Dude, do you know how much copy a triple A title can sell on Mac? Less than 10,000, and usually 5,000 and less. Do the math.
Click to expand...

Do you work for Aspyr to know the numbers? If that was the simple argument, they wouldn't port it to the Mac in the first place.

I just can't believe that a full game is at the same time worth being ported for the Mac AND without the cross-platform element.

In any case, the reports above say it all - CoD is ABOVE ALL a multiplayer game. If there are no players in servers, it's worth nothing.

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LongSticks said:
Hey

Is it the same licensing story with the COD4 servers, they are normally fairly busy?
Click to expand...

CoD4 servers don't have this problem, and are still fairly crowded.
 
Sdashiki

Sdashiki

macrumors 68040
Aug 11, 2005
3,529
11
Behind the lens
LaDirection said:
Dude, do you know how much copy a triple A title can sell on Mac? Less than 10,000, and usually 5,000 and less. Do the math.
Click to expand...

If they didnt wait months or even years to release ports, I doubt that'd be a problem.

Blizzard and Maxis (when they were a lone company) did it right, for the right games though.
 
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