Feral Interactive Creates Mac App Store Splash: 'BioShock', 'Borderlands', and More

[*LTD*]

Hello!



Borderlands doesn't do mods… I agree though, it would be awesome.



It's a native Mac app!



Yes!



Yes!



It'll run fine… I'd recommend turning off ambient occlusion and dynamic shadows, and possibly dropping the resolution one step below native. But as ever, it all depends on what settings you're happy with.



It is! And you should be able to turn up all the settings too.

– Ian

(This reply sponsored by Exclamation Marks™, for all your enthusiasm needs!)

Thank you!

It's great that you're here to answer questions. It's really appreciated.

 

[(GIT)r-man]

Borderlands doesn't do mods… I agree though, it would be awesome.

I had to register to point out that Borderlands does indeed do 'mods' and has a very healthy modding community...

You can find instructions on how to enable them and an up to date list of all released maps/map-packs at the following url:- http://gbxforums.gearboxsoftware.com/showthread.php?t=108800

If you can get them to work on the MAC version of BL I know a few people that would be happy to buy that version just to play some of them (pricey or not)

In particular I'd be interested personaly if Mapslot9 "Valley of Death" can work on the MAC...

 

[qwerty2k]

There doesn't seem to be an option for vsync on borderlands? anyway i can force vsync?

 

[roadbloc]

Ouch! Bit of a sting on the price. I'll be sticking to Steam for now methinks, but it's great to see OS X get some decent games.

HOPEFULLY... prices will go down and this will trigger a game centre for mac. And then I can finally ditch this stupid mac version of Xfire.

 

[HAL-00]

There doesn't seem to be an option for vsync on borderlands? anyway i can force vsync?

You have to do it the traditional PC way - edit confinguration files. The one you want in this case is WillowEngine.ini, make a backup of it, then look for string UseVsync and than change it to either False or True to disable or enable it.

Do a google search for "Borderlands Tweak Guide" for more information.

Ouch! Bit of a sting on the price. I'll be sticking to Steam for now methinks, but it's great to see OS X get some decent games.

non-Mac Borderlands GOTY costs 10 euros more at Steam right now.

 

[qwerty2k]

Thanks Hal.

Must say im impressed with the port of borderlands, PS3 controller worked flawlessly out of the box with all the right keys mapped correctly, performance is really good with it running really well on my 2010 MBP.

 

[IanAtFeral]

I had to register to point out that Borderlands does indeed do 'mods' and has a very healthy modding community…

I stand corrected! In order for these to work on the Mac DVD or download (non-App Store) version (and we haven't tested them, so we can't guarantee they do work) you'd have to convert the game's data dmg into a read/write dmg, as it's a Read-only file right now. Then you should be able to mod to your heart's content. I'm 99% sure though that this wouldn't work on the App Store version, as as far as I can see Apple is quite good at preventing you from messing with the contents of an app.

There doesn't seem to be an option for vsync on borderlands? anyway i can force vsync?

There's no option to force v-sync on Borderlands, but if you were able to blink 60 times per second that might simulate it!

[EDIT: There is a force v-sync option in an .ini configuration file, but it's not actually hooked up to anything]

– Ian

 

[Apple-Guy]

I stand corrected! In order for these to work on the Mac DVD or download (non-App Store) version (and we haven't tested them, so we can't guarantee they do work) you'd have to convert the game's data dmg into a read/write dmg, as it's a Read-only file right now. Then you should be able to mod to your heart's content. I'm 99% sure though that this wouldn't work on the App Store version, as as far as I can see Apple is quite good at preventing you from messing with the contents of an app.



There's no option to force v-sync on Borderlands, but if you were able to blink 60 times per second that might simulate it!

[EDIT: There is a force v-sync option in an .ini configuration file, but it's not actually hooked up to anything]

– Ian

I contacted you guys on user created content today and the same answer was given, convert to a read write, i will try that when i have bought an iTunes card and bought the game.

Will report afterwards

Also, since you mention the V-Sync in the ini isn't tied to anything, does this also count all the other tweaks? like message of the day/ ragdoll physics time/connection timeout/ loot lifespan/ Advanced graphical tweaks/ many many more

As for the modding community, there's lots of it, and it's awesome

Greetz Apple-Guy

 

[IanAtFeral]

Also, since you mention the V-Sync in the ini isn't tied to anything, does this also count all the other tweaks? like message of the day/ ragdoll physics time/connection timeout/ loot lifespan/ Advanced graphical tweaks/ many many more

I think it depends on the individual settings in that file… there are definitely settings you can tweak in the .ini files that do have an effect (we have an ini file tweak on our support site to enable zoom-toggle), but I know that the v-sync option is ignored.

– Ian

 

[Apple-Guy]

I think it depends on the individual settings in that file… there are definitely settings you can tweak in the .ini files that do have an effect (we have an ini file tweak on our support site to enable zoom-toggle), but I know that the v-sync option is ignored.

– Ian

Was that intentional? because on the pc version it is applied

And just bought my card, will redeem it and start the super long download

Greetz Apple-Guy

EDIT: downloading right now

 

[Apple-Guy]

Alright, it's downloaded and installed

Some handy information, ini files form pc can not be transferred to mac version.
Savedata can be transferred in either direction
Ini files are adjustable and located in User/Library/Preferences/Feral Interactive/Borderlands GOTY/MacInt

They seem to defer quiet a lot form the pc files , as in more things enabled?

Anywho, the game works as a charm, much better than on windows
Colors are better in mac than in windows too

Downside; Multiplayer... I can't figure out how to see my friends , i've got a lot of friends on my GameSpy account but can't see them anywhere, pressing o for friends list in-game, results in a pop up message saying you're not signed in.

Very major downside; When you want to join a public game or private, you can not do this in-game, when you would normally select "online" in pc, the option in mac is "gameranger" and clicking it results in your game quitting and going to gameranger. If you then want to join a server, you've got to select one from gameranger and start the game (the whole startup process that is) which will then automatically start loading the public game once you've reached the main menu.

Suggestion: implement the gameranger listed servers into borderlands
OR, make it so that the game does NOT quit when going to gameranger...

Also a nasty bug, while scoped, i can't seem to be able to fire a gun, this is when i use a keyboard button to zoom (right control) it'll zoom in when i press it, but when i click the mouse to fire, it'll just zoom out... i can shot unscoped though =/

Another bug; when switching to windowed mode, and afterwards switching to another open windows and then back to borderlands. The keyboard input will be ignored from then on =/

Summary;

Performance: Better than windows (what did you expect )

Single player is perfect Great job to all of you

Multiplayer needs some patches =/, however, it does work, which is the most important thing , but still, the quitting is very annoying..

Oh and i don't know where to submit bug reports/ suggestions, so if anyone knows, a link would be great

I'm now going to try user created content and will report back when done

Greetz Apple-Guy

 

[IanAtFeral]

Hey,

Downside; Multiplayer... I can't figure out how to see my friends , i've got a lot of friends on my GameSpy account but can't see them anywhere, pressing o for friends list in-game, results in a pop up message saying you're not signed in.

Your Mac and PC playing friends will all need to be on GameRanger to play in online games with you. GameSpy is Windows-only.

Also a nasty bug, while scoped, i can't seem to be able to fire a gun, this is when i use a keyboard button to zoom (right control) it'll zoom in when i press it, but when i click the mouse to fire, it'll just zoom out... i can shot unscoped though =/

Are you using an Apple Mighty or Magic mouse? This kind of effect can occur because those Apple mice can't tell when both the left and right buttons are being clicked – it just registers as a single click. The solution is to enable zoom toggle; we have an article on our support site about this: http://support.feralinteractive.com/borderlands/faqs_EN.html#i_zoomtoggle

Oh and i don't know where to submit bug reports/ suggestions, so if anyone knows, a link would be great

The best thing to do with bug reports is to send them to our support team. The details are in the 'Support' tab of the pre-game options window. They have a very direct link to development, so when they see trends in bugs, we can act on them pretty quick.

– Ian

 

[Apple-Guy]

Hey,



Your Mac and PC playing friends will all need to be on GameRanger to play in online games with you. GameSpy is Windows-only.

Mawwwww... pretty annoying =/

[EDIT]: went over the history of gamespy... my rage is beyond imaginary..... i hope they crumble far beyond the point of possible recovery...
Stupid pc fanboys IT'S A CONSPIRACY WITH MICROSOFT GRRRRRRR!!!!

I understand your choice with gameranger completely now, i'm sorry for any nagging about it [/EDIT]

Are you using an Apple Mighty or Magic mouse? This kind of effect can occur because those Apple mice can't tell when both the left and right buttons are being clicked – it just registers as a single click. The solution is to enable zoom toggle; we have an article on our support site about this: http://support.feralinteractive.com/borderlands/faqs_EN.html#i_zoomtoggle

I read that, but that's for when you want to use the mouse to zoom, i'm using a keyboard key "right ctrl" to zoom, so it should act normal =/, I do use a mighty mouse and that's also the reason i use the keyboard key to scope, so scoping withe that key does work, but when shooting it disables the scope. i'll have a look at the binding in the ini files

The best thing to do with bug reports is to send them to our support team. The details are in the 'Support' tab of the pre-game options window. They have a very direct link to development, so when they see trends in bugs, we can act on them pretty quick.

– Ian

Will do thx

Greetz Apple-Guy

ps still working on user created content implementation, the dmg files get biiiiiig if you convert them lol, ran out of disk space after the first one, so will have clean up some stuff and convert the add ons image , i'll report back so you know if it's possible or not (in case you'd get that question asked again )
And yes, the files were protected, but got past that

 

[IanAtFeral]

went over the history of gamespy... my rage is beyond imaginary..... i hope they crumble far beyond the point of possible recovery...
Stupid pc fanboys IT'S A CONSPIRACY WITH MICROSOFT GRRRRRRR!!!!

Hehe, we don't really have anything against GameSpy, it's just not avilabale for the Mac! Also we quite like GameRanger… the interface is easy and it tends to just work.

I read that, but that's for when you want to use the mouse to zoom, i'm using a keyboard key "right ctrl" to zoom, so it should act normal =/, I do use a mighty mouse and that's also the reason i use the keyboard key to scope, so scoping withe that key does work, but when shooting it disables the scope. i'll have a look at the binding in the ini files

Ah interesting, let me know how you get on.

ps still working on user created content implementation, the dmg files get biiiiiig if you convert them lol, ran out of disk space after the first one, so will have clean up some stuff and convert the add ons image , i'll report back so you know if it's possible or not (in case you'd get that question asked again )
And yes, the files were protected, but got past that

Hehe, yes the DMGs do expand rather a lot

– Ian

 

[Sambo110]

Right control plus left click equals right click. I assume that means you are right clicking, meaning you can't shoot?

 

[Irishman]

Hate to break it to you, but gaming in OS X is really bad. Poor performance and it's costly. Your computers are capable of running windows. May as well run it if you actually want playable games. The mac versions are jokes.

Yes, 100 FPS on the Mac versus 200 FPS on the PC means mac versions are jokes.

 

[kingtj]

re: Mac games are jokes?

Irishman: Unfortunately, to some of these "hard core PC Windows gamers" out there, yes - that *does* mean the Mac is a "joke".

That's ok. IMHO, the only real joke is the one played on those folks, who keep shelling out multiple hundreds of bucks for new video cards every year or two, and hundreds more to water-cool whatever system they've got, plus still more for "bling" like blue LED back-lit cooling fans or plexiglass windowed cases -- all to maintain that "cool gamer" mystique when they show up at a LAN party.

Meanwhile, they rant about the state of Mac gaming, without having a single clue about why we REALLY bought Macs in the first place. I have a long background using custom-built Windows PCs, so I know their mentality REALLY well. Fact is, I got older and more mature, and realized that although I still enjoy games, I really need my computer mainly as a reliable, efficient communications tool and business machine. Instead of investing money to have the highest benchmark score for FPS or whatever else, I'd rather spend it on a computer that won't constantly need tinkering with. Those over-clocked processors or water-cooled home-built rigs are NOTHING you'd ever want to rely on for running a small business - or heck, even balancing your checkbook! And the Windows operating system itself is a big part of the problem, with its bloated registry full of problems waiting to happen, not to mention being a prime target for all manner of spyware/malware attacks.

Sure, I *can* boot into Windows on my Mac Pro and play Windows versions of games on it. Occasionally, I even do. But I dislike that option, and will ALWAYS go with a native OS X game instead, whenever possible. I don't want to have to keep rebooting! If the frame rate is high enough so the game is playable, I'm good! I'm not going to inconvenience myself by rebooting into Windows (and waiting for the 20 update patches it inevitably wants to download and apply since the last time I was using it!) just for a little more video performance.

Yes, 100 FPS on the Mac versus 200 FPS on the PC means mac versions are jokes.

 

[Irishman]

Irishman: Unfortunately, to some of these "hard core PC Windows gamers" out there, yes - that *does* mean the Mac is a "joke".

That's ok. IMHO, the only real joke is the one played on those folks, who keep shelling out multiple hundreds of bucks for new video cards every year or two, and hundreds more to water-cool whatever system they've got, plus still more for "bling" like blue LED back-lit cooling fans or plexiglass windowed cases -- all to maintain that "cool gamer" mystique when they show up at a LAN party.

Meanwhile, they rant about the state of Mac gaming, without having a single clue about why we REALLY bought Macs in the first place. I have a long background using custom-built Windows PCs, so I know their mentality REALLY well. Fact is, I got older and more mature, and realized that although I still enjoy games, I really need my computer mainly as a reliable, efficient communications tool and business machine. Instead of investing money to have the highest benchmark score for FPS or whatever else, I'd rather spend it on a computer that won't constantly need tinkering with. Those over-clocked processors or water-cooled home-built rigs are NOTHING you'd ever want to rely on for running a small business - or heck, even balancing your checkbook! And the Windows operating system itself is a big part of the problem, with its bloated registry full of problems waiting to happen, not to mention being a prime target for all manner of spyware/malware attacks.

Sure, I *can* boot into Windows on my Mac Pro and play Windows versions of games on it. Occasionally, I even do. But I dislike that option, and will ALWAYS go with a native OS X game instead, whenever possible. I don't want to have to keep rebooting! If the frame rate is high enough so the game is playable, I'm good! I'm not going to inconvenience myself by rebooting into Windows (and waiting for the 20 update patches it inevitably wants to download and apply since the last time I was using it!) just for a little more video performance.

I'm glad you got my sarcasm

 

[Apple-Guy]

Hehe, we don't really have anything against GameSpy, it's just not avilabale for the Mac! Also we quite like GameRanger… the interface is easy and it tends to just work.

Yes it does indeed work great, there's just a bug with steam versions, those don't load up automatically like they should =/, works great with retail and fellow mac versions

Ah interesting, let me know how you get on.

See below

Hehe, yes the DMGs do expand rather a lot

– Ian

They sure do lol, also tried to implement the 3PDLC, but it crashes when loading towards it.
Got a question which i'm not sure if you may answer, did you guys need to port the .umap files or the .upk files?

EDIT: It might also be ram shortage (see below )

Greetz Apple-Guy

ps was on holiday

Right control plus left click equals right click. I assume that means you are right clicking, meaning you can't shoot?

That could very much be it thank you for this, i'll see if i can disable that binding in mac, but that is probably it, thank you

Greetz Apple-Guy

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

@ the 2 people above, don't make it a windows vs mac thread plz
The mac version works great on my comp, mac osx just takes more ram than windows which results in a bit of ram shortage, but apart from that it works flawlessly

Greetz Apple-Guy

 

[IanAtFeral]

Got a question which i'm not sure if you may answer, did you guys need to port the .umap files or the .upk files?

If it's data, we usually leave that alone and work solely on the App itself. Modifying the data can lead to serious badness and weird side-effects.

– Ian

 

[Apple-Guy]

If it's data, we usually leave that alone and work solely on the App itself. Modifying the data can lead to serious badness and weird side-effects.

– Ian

Aha, thanks for that info , so if the contents remain the same, it's a problem with the path or the console, i'll keep looking into this

Greetz Apple-Guy

 

[brock2621]

So i decided to pick this up and on my brand new ATI 5870 on mac this thing JUGS with the graphics turned up. This is even without V sync and anti-aliasing not being available. What in the WORLD is going on with this?

EDIT: So I turned off dynamic shadows and it seems to play ACCEPTABLY, barely though. The screen tears up a lot. Is there an update coming soon that includes better performance and V-sync?

 

[enjoyingtheagor]

problems with updating Rome: Total War Barbarian Invasion

Hi, I hope I'm posting this in the right place. I have an iMac 2.0GHz, and I purchased Rome Total War (Gold Edition) that includes Barbarian Invasion. Total War plays fine, but every time I try to install the Barbarian Invasion upgrade, it seems to transfer all of the data, but then it locks up and I get the following pop-up:

"Update Error!
Rome Total War – Barbarian Invasion does not have permission to write to the application’s directory! Are you running off a disk image? If not, ask your system administrator for help."

Any ideas what I am doing wrong?

Thanks!

 

[Apple-Guy]

Hi, I hope I'm posting this in the right place. I have an iMac 2.0GHz, and I purchased Rome Total War (Gold Edition) that includes Barbarian Invasion. Total War plays fine, but every time I try to install the Barbarian Invasion upgrade, it seems to transfer all of the data, but then it locks up and I get the following pop-up:

"Update Error!
Rome Total War – Barbarian Invasion does not have permission to write to the application’s directory! Are you running off a disk image? If not, ask your system administrator for help."

Any ideas what I am doing wrong?

Thanks!

You have to make sure the installer has write permissions into your applications directory, right click applications folder -> info -> all the way to the bottom, make sure the system has read and writer permissions

Greetz Apple-Guy