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 Home  Forum Index Neverwinter Nights 2 NWN2: Tools and Plugin Developers Toolset for Mac?
NWN2: Tools and Plugin Developers
Cyberpawz
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Joined: 13 Sep 2003 |
 Posted: Friday, 30 October 2009 04:31PM |
Why must I waste more money and buy a PC version of the game for my Mac to get the Toolset?
How come Mac users can't design levels for NWN:2? It seems to me that they are taking for granted although a smaller group of players but no less imaginative group of people and refuse to produce a toolset for them...
Why even make the game if the toolset isn't going to be packaged into the game itself?
I have always felt that I could develop any level or set of levels to compare to whatever bioware could come out with, or even surpass them... so why do I have to force myself to bog my Mac down with a virturalization software package to be able to do the same thing PC users take for granted? | 
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ladydesire
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 NWN 2
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Mass Effect PC
Joined: 05 Sep 2007 |
Posted: Saturday, 31 October 2009 09:26PM |
I don't think that had any bearing on it; NWN didn't have a toolset for the Mac or Linux versions either.
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NWN DM
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From: Winnipeg Manitoba |
Posted: Sunday, 01 November 2009 12:50AM |
A little research before making your purchase would have not been out of place. 
FWIW, if you have BootCamp, you can run the PC version just fine on a Mac and use the Toolset as well I believe.
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Shallina
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 NWN 2
Mass Effect PC
Joined: 07 Nov 2007 |
Posted: Sunday, 01 November 2009 09:20AM |
If you choose MAC over PC, you know that you will have trouble with the application that are made for the PC.
That works both way, applicaton made for MAC gives PC users trouble.
They made the effort to do a port for the game, that al ready really good. | |
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Cyberpawz
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Joined: 13 Sep 2003 |
Posted: Monday, 02 November 2009 02:00PM |
Quote: Posted 11/01/09 00:50 (GMT) by NWN DM A little research before making your purchase would have not been out of place. FWIW, if you have BootCamp, you can run the PC version just fine on a Mac and use the Toolset as well I believe.
Again, what use it the Mac version if they choose not to have it with the same things the PC version does? Bootcamp doesn't fix the lack of Mac toolset... it just means instead of buying the Mac version, you buy Windows, and PC software (a $300+ investment) for the toolset?
Come on, that just means one simple thing, the people responding are PC users and can give two damns about the real issue.
Quote: Posted 11/01/09 09:20 (GMT) by Shallina
If you choose MAC over PC, you know that you will have trouble with the application that are made for the PC.
That works both way, applicaton made for MAC gives PC users trouble.
They made the effort to do a port for the game, that al ready really good.
No it's not... it crashes continuously, and over two years later it still has not been patched correctly.
The people who design Mac software, and PC software combined (Blizzard, etc) come out with patches almost at the same time for both platforms, there is no excuse for the lack of patches or software functionality...
The excuse of lack of toolset is pathetic really, the program is a lot smaller than the actual application, so there are less lines of code. The problem is simply put that the way it was ported over and developed. That is for another post though. | |
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ladydesire
Game Owner
NWN 2
NWN 2: MotB
NWN 2: SoZ
Mass Effect PC
Joined: 05 Sep 2007 |
Posted: Monday, 02 November 2009 10:34PM |
Quote: Posted 11/02/09 14:00 (GMT) by Cyberpawz Quote: Posted 11/01/09 00:50 (GMT) by NWN DM A little research before making your purchase would have not been out of place. FWIW, if you have BootCamp, you can run the PC version just fine on a Mac and use the Toolset as well I believe.
Again, what use it the Mac version if they choose not to have it with the same things the PC version does? Bootcamp doesn't fix the lack of Mac toolset... it just means instead of buying the Mac version, you buy Windows, and PC software (a $300+ investment) for the toolset? Come on, that just means one simple thing, the people responding are PC users and can give two damns about the real issue.
I'm sure there are plenty of Mac users that have been forced to use Boot Camp just to be able to use the toolset as well as have a reliable version of the game; I know that the administrator of at least one NWN2 persistent World has to do that. Owning the PC version of the game doesn't automatically mean that they own a PC.
Quote: Quote: Posted 11/01/09 09:20 (GMT) by Shallina
If you choose MAC over PC, you know that you will have trouble with the application that are made for the PC.
That works both way, applicaton made for MAC gives PC users trouble.
They made the effort to do a port for the game, that al ready really good.
No it's not... it crashes continuously, and over two years later it still has not been patched correctly. The people who design Mac software, and PC software combined (Blizzard, etc) come out with patches almost at the same time for both platforms, there is no excuse for the lack of patches or software functionality...
Exactly; Obsidian did not create the Mac Port, and even if they had, I don't know if there would have been a toolset for the Mac version, since Bioware did not provide one for NWN1. It's also not Obsidian's fault that the Mac version is so far out of date; if you want to complain to anyone about this, talk to either Atari or Aspyr, the developer of the Mac port.
Quote: The excuse of lack of toolset is pathetic really, the program is a lot smaller than the actual application, so there are less lines of code. The problem is simply put that the way it was ported over and developed. That is for another post though.
The toolset for NWN2 is written in C# rather than C++ like the game engine and to the best of my knowledge on the subject, C# (AKA .NET) is not well supported on any platform other than PC, if at all. Any developer that wanted to provide a working toolset for the Mac would pretty much have to write it from scratch, since much of the functionality doesn't exist on the Mac.
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Cyberpawz
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NWN
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Joined: 13 Sep 2003 |
Posted: Tuesday, 03 November 2009 03:05AM |
Quote: Posted 11/02/09 22:34 (GMT) by ladydesire Quote: Posted 11/02/09 14:00 (GMT) by Cyberpawz Quote: Posted 11/01/09 00:50 (GMT) by NWN DM A little research before making your purchase would have not been out of place. FWIW, if you have BootCamp, you can run the PC version just fine on a Mac and use the Toolset as well I believe.
Again, what use it the Mac version if they choose not to have it with the same things the PC version does? Bootcamp doesn't fix the lack of Mac toolset... it just means instead of buying the Mac version, you buy Windows, and PC software (a $300+ investment) for the toolset? Come on, that just means one simple thing, the people responding are PC users and can give two damns about the real issue.
I'm sure there are plenty of Mac users that have been forced to use Boot Camp just to be able to use the toolset as well as have a reliable version of the game; I know that the administrator of at least one NWN2 persistent World has to do that. Owning the PC version of the game doesn't automatically mean that they own a PC. Quote: Quote: Posted 11/01/09 09:20 (GMT) by Shallina
If you choose MAC over PC, you know that you will have trouble with the application that are made for the PC.
That works both way, applicaton made for MAC gives PC users trouble.
They made the effort to do a port for the game, that al ready really good.
No it's not... it crashes continuously, and over two years later it still has not been patched correctly. The people who design Mac software, and PC software combined (Blizzard, etc) come out with patches almost at the same time for both platforms, there is no excuse for the lack of patches or software functionality...
Exactly; Obsidian did not create the Mac Port, and even if they had, I don't know if there would have been a toolset for the Mac version, since Bioware did not provide one for NWN1. It's also not Obsidian's fault that the Mac version is so far out of date; if you want to complain to anyone about this, talk to either Atari or Aspyr, the developer of the Mac port. Quote: The excuse of lack of toolset is pathetic really, the program is a lot smaller than the actual application, so there are less lines of code. The problem is simply put that the way it was ported over and developed. That is for another post though.
The toolset for NWN2 is written in C# rather than C++ like the game engine and to the best of my knowledge on the subject, C# (AKA .NET) is not well supported on any platform other than PC, if at all. Any developer that wanted to provide a working toolset for the Mac would pretty much have to write it from scratch, since much of the functionality doesn't exist on the Mac.
Actually Bioware did start building the toolset for NWN, except that they got lazy and instead of fixing the problems they ran into, decided to forgo the toolset and tell the Mac community to pound sand...
Anyone who was a Mac user back then (including myself) was very pissed off at that...
As for C# not being Mac compatable, not my problem that someone decided to write a program that was not cross platform friendly... that actually to me seems to be very closed minded. | |
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FollowTheGourd
Game Owner
 NWN 2
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Joined: 22 Jun 2009 |
Posted: Tuesday, 03 November 2009 05:44AM |
Quote: Posted 11/03/09 03:05 (GMT) by Cyberpawz
As for C# not being Mac compatable, not my problem that someone decided to write a program that was not cross platform friendly... that actually to me seems to be very closed minded.
Fine, but it's still the norm for a lot of modern games with third-party (Aspyr) Mac ports that I can think of. If it weren't using .NET, it'd probably be using MFC or something similar.
If I had to guess, they chose C# so they could pound out their toolset faster and get on with creating the game itself. Deadlines probably trumped making it cross-platform. IMHO, the game's UI framework wouldn't be the easiest to work with to create the toolset interface. Maybe they could have tried making it Mono-compatible (argh), use Java (write once, debug everywhere still? Plus Apple likes/liked to lag behind in versions), use wxWidgets, fork out the cash for a commercial Qt license (before it went LGPL), or do something custom - but small chance.
Bottom line: it sucks for Mac users, but the platform is a second class citizen when it comes to most AAA games, despite Blizzard and a few others.
(I'm not the forum police, but this almost seems like it belongs in the toolset forum instead.)Edited By FollowTheGourd on 11/03/09 06:01 | |
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Cyberpawz
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Joined: 13 Sep 2003 |
Posted: Tuesday, 03 November 2009 01:26PM |
Quote: Posted 11/03/09 05:44 (GMT) by FollowTheGourd Quote: Posted 11/03/09 03:05 (GMT) by Cyberpawz
As for C# not being Mac compatable, not my problem that someone decided to write a program that was not cross platform friendly... that actually to me seems to be very closed minded.
Fine, but it's still the norm for a lot of modern games with third-party (Aspyr) Mac ports that I can think of. If it weren't using .NET, it'd probably be using MFC or something similar. If I had to guess, they chose C# so they could pound out their toolset faster and get on with creating the game itself. Deadlines probably trumped making it cross-platform. IMHO, the game's UI framework wouldn't be the easiest to work with to create the toolset interface. Maybe they could have tried making it Mono-compatible (argh), use Java (write once, debug everywhere still? Plus Apple likes/liked to lag behind in versions), use wxWidgets, fork out the cash for a commercial Qt license (before it went LGPL), or do something custom - but small chance. Bottom line: it sucks for Mac users, but the platform is a second class citizen when it comes to most AAA games, despite Blizzard and a few others. (I'm not the forum police, but this almost seems like it belongs in the toolset forum instead.)
Apple Developer Tools supports C#, actually as long as you have the library it can use it as far as I have heard, also it can create cross platform programs out of the box with perhaps some tweaking to make it work with multiple variances with other sound cards, etc...
I am not a pro, but I will say this... if given the code, and a dedicated programmer group, you probably could see a Mac prototype in less than a month.
Hell give me a year with the code and the budget that Aspyr has, I probably could also produce the patch, the program, and make it sound enough where people would want to buy games from Aspyr again.
I doubt I'd be given the chance, but I could almost bet anyone here with management skills could... | |
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Shallina
Game Owner
NWN 2
Mass Effect PC
Joined: 07 Nov 2007 |
Posted: Tuesday, 03 November 2009 05:20PM |
Well in order to have the software run smoth you have to use tools that are producing an EXE that run fast.
When you start to use cross plateforms tools, you got slower application beceause the cross plateforms tools have to compromise.
Take JAVA. A JAVA application can run on everything without a port, but it's really slow.
If you are interested in computer gaming, MAC isn't the good choice. Most game are made only for PC.
MAC can be the good choice for many things, but not for computer gaming. If you wish to game on a MAC you can always espect trouble.
To have something good that works with MAC and PC you need to use OPENGL standard function and not DIRECTX specific functions for exemple. That's for the 3D modeling. But most game engine are made with directX and not openGL. Beceause with OPENGL you are sure to have no problems with both platforms. Now it's possible to make directX functions run on MAC, but you can't be sure that they are all going to run fine.Edited By Shallina on 11/03/09 17:34 | |
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Cyberpawz
Game Owner
NWN
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Joined: 13 Sep 2003 |
Posted: Wednesday, 04 November 2009 06:52PM |
Quote: Posted 11/03/09 17:20 (GMT) by Shallina
Well in order to have the software run smoth you have to use tools that are producing an EXE that run fast.
When you start to use cross plateforms tools, you got slower application beceause the cross plateforms tools have to compromise.
Take JAVA. A JAVA application can run on everything without a port, but it's really slow.
If you are interested in computer gaming, MAC isn't the good choice. Most game are made only for PC.
MAC can be the good choice for many things, but not for computer gaming. If you wish to game on a MAC you can always espect trouble.
To have something good that works with MAC and PC you need to use OPENGL standard function and not DIRECTX specific functions for exemple. That's for the 3D modeling. But most game engine are made with directX and not openGL. Beceause with OPENGL you are sure to have no problems with both platforms. Now it's possible to make directX functions run on MAC, but you can't be sure that they are all going to run fine.
Then why has it been shown that Windows XP and Vista both run faster through VMWare than naively on a PC?
The answer is simple, lack of hardware required to make the software to run. Macs should be easier to program for since there is a limited hardware base that it uses...
The fact that the Mac is normally the last platform next to Linux in some cases to get software is a little off base... especially since the hardware to run such programs are so small in comparison. | |
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BrianMeyer
Game Owner
 NWN 2
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Joined: 17 Jun 2003 |
Posted: Wednesday, 04 November 2009 07:40PM |
Actually the mac is usually second, and if you are a Blizzard customer you are sometimes even first. ( Blizzard has for the most part always done dual release, both versions on a single CD, which allows them to have penetrating mac distribution, and yes i do look for mac games in the walmart and often it's only Blizzard who i can find--that also makes the mac users just increase sales while sharing the same packaging and marketing, and eliminates the bad feelings from waiting a year to get a PC game ported. )
Of course Blizzard was a mac focused company long before windows folks learned who they are. Quite a few games would not exist if not for macs, Myst and Halo both came from the mac for example. And quite a few big companies know that it is smart to sell things to the folks with the expensive computers.
A game running slow is entirely the fault of the programmer. If its a sloppy port, yes it is worse. But quite a few things were ported from mac or primarily done for mac, excel started on the mac, so did photoshop and a lot of the other graphic design apps.
And most mac games have real ports made, which are optimized for the platform, there are even dedicated iphone development divisions now. Linux is getting some support now, really the game developers should shun any technology that limits them or locks them in to a single platform. A lot of the technology being used was designed not to solve the problems of game developers, but rather to solve the problem of the developers being able to target any platform.
As for Java, if you hotspot compile it, it becomes a native exe that runs full speed on your native platform. If you code most of your code in C and the like, it will compile on any platform. You can use a library that is cross platform, and you can keep any platform specific code in specific areas, which can make the porting much cheaper. Of course if you hire the mac porting company to be involved up front ( ie, using library X might save you 30,000 in development on windows, but end up costing you 50,000 to port to mac, you might be better off using a slightly more expensive library which is cross platform )
Now then, if i hear that any NWN3's toolset uses .Net because the programmers were thinking you need to use that for Xbox, when Xbox is never developed but instead the mac is the only platform ported to. I think i'll be pretty angry that the same mistake is made 3 times in a row. I am pretty sure it's not that hard to get the folks at Aspyr to help in the initial planning of the game soas to make sure the game is designed from the start to work well on all platforms it's released on.
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Cyberpawz
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Joined: 13 Sep 2003 |
Posted: Thursday, 05 November 2009 06:51PM |
What gets my gourde is that I have a character (paper and pen) that I developed and have rebuilt or re-developed since version 2 rules, I have created a world based off of the DD word, and a have DM'ed since 1984... I have not only a world, maps, levels, and characters that would make the NWN series seem like a s2nd rate attempt at a dungeon creation, but I can't build it because I own a Mac...
You know how infuriating it is to know that because the creators deep sixed the developer application, that I have to buy the PC version, install windows on my Mac, and then run what Ive been told is a program that may work?
I don't know what frustrates me more, the fact that the Mac platform has been ignored, although Apple had its bigest quarter in history ever, and in a down economy... or that Atari is turning into MS lite... where their function is to push out a program and to possibly patch the bugs only if enough people are affected with the plight of interoperability. | |
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FollowTheGourd
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NWN 2
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NWN 2: SoZ
Joined: 22 Jun 2009 |
Posted: Friday, 06 November 2009 01:52AM |
There was a time when the Apple and Amiga versions of games were better than what you could obtain on the PC, but Apple hasn't exactly tried to be the leader on that front anymore in a long time.
This is old news, but here's the first link I could find to what I remember John Carmack having to say about Apple way back when: Click Here
I think they still plan to support the Mac, but if you want somebody to blame, blame Apple for being complacent about their gaming market.
Even fairly recently, I recall things like their OpenGL shaders having pretty severe bugs in them for a good long while (the OSS game Nexuiz couldn't run a Mac with them enabled last I checked - maybe it's better now).
I'm fairly O/S agnostic - I just want something that will let me use my hardware without getting in the way; it's a bonus if it's usable, but again that's just the not getting in the way part.
Anyway, it's easy to enough to claim to be able to do something better; it's a lot harder to follow through on it. | |
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Cyberpawz
Game Owner
NWN
NWN: SoU
NWN: HotU
NWN 2
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NWN 2: SoZ
Joined: 13 Sep 2003 |
Posted: Friday, 06 November 2009 04:29AM |
Quote: Posted 11/06/09 01:52 (GMT) by FollowTheGourd There was a time when the Apple and Amiga versions of games were better than what you could obtain on the PC, but Apple hasn't exactly tried to be the leader on that front anymore in a long time. This is old news, but here's the first link I could find to what I remember John Carmack having to say about Apple way back when: Click HereI think they still plan to support the Mac, but if you want somebody to blame, blame Apple for being complacent about their gaming market. Even fairly recently, I recall things like their OpenGL shaders having pretty severe bugs in them for a good long while (the OSS game Nexuiz couldn't run a Mac with them enabled last I checked - maybe it's better now). I'm fairly O/S agnostic - I just want something that will let me use my hardware without getting in the way; it's a bonus if it's usable, but again that's just the not getting in the way part. Anyway, it's easy to enough to claim to be able to do something better; it's a lot harder to follow through on it.
I can agree with the GL code being a little buggy, but that being said there is nothing in the Neverwinter Nights 2 game and series that is so specialized that it couldn't of been written in GL in the first place, like its original.
I have seen games such as Quake use OpenGL code and come out with effects more dramatic than this game has shown me so far.
That being said, Apple didn't stray away from the gaming community, it was the gaming community that strayed away from the Mac back in the 80s... due to the fact that Apple fired Steve Jobs back then and Apple went into a slump. The gaming community started to develop for the system that was more prominent out there. Apple only holds 10% of the market at best, but with that being said, people who own Macs are more likely to buy the games that come out of it than a PC owner buying every game that comes out for it.
Not to mention most Mac people tend to have a little extra money to burn... they are willing to put down $1300 for a computer and not worry about it. (that is my personal opinion by what I have seen out there through sales)
I myself have over 300 titles of Apple games, starting with the original Doom, all the way to the newest Quake games...
The new iMacs out there are very good machines, 16GB of ram it can use, 500GB HD it comes with, and a very decent video card... This could be the first level of a gaming machine for Apple without spending a fortune.
It may be time for the game developers to re-think their anti-mac development protocols. | |
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