I tried Altitude on the free weekend, deleted it after 10 minutes, I hope developers get the message that that basic sh*t is not what we want, it was like a Flash game.
I enjoyed playing half life 2 again I can't be bothered with episode 1 again and I bought episode 2 which I am playing through now, I never got round to it before.
Where is Counter Strike Source, Day of Defeat and other online titles?
Day of Defeat is great for quick games if you don't have much time.
Those are the one's I am waiting for.
I also bought Killing Floor based on the Unreal engine which is quite challenging, this shows that Red Orchestra should also become available.
I don't really care if The Ship becomes available, I've still got some invites to give away from years ago.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Robin Huber
I am really not a gamer per se. I used to go to arcades with my son when he was growing up, and I did enjoy some of those, and I particularly enjoyed a game called 1942 which I played on his game console (Nintendo?) at home. But as he grew up I ceased playing them. I went to Steam when it was first announced for the Mac. I thought, now that I am retired and have the time to play there must be some incredible new games that are light years ahead of the 80s. Right on the front page was one called Altitude, and the picture showed WWII fighter planes in good detail in 3D action. When I clicked on it, the demo looked like little toy kiddie game planes from the 70s! If this is what all the fuss is about with Steam, I'm glad I checked out years ago. You'd think with all the advances in computer technology that things like this would have disappeared.
I've seen the D&D kind of games like WOW and such, but I just don't have the patience for those all-consuming type of games where you practically have to live your life in front of a screen to enjoy them. Aren't there any good 3D historic war games that strike a balance between Byzantine complexity and realistic play?
And in 6 months when the newness is gone will Mac usage drop?
I don't see it dropping - Steam has to run for those purchased games to work. Steam isn't something that you play with for a while and not use anymore; its a content platform. Think of it as like iTunes but for games.
It's likely to grow as long as gaming companies continue to port their work - at the moment with Half Life 2 and Civ IV as the only "serious" games (although Sam and Max makes a great B list) I'm suprised it's that high; there's still a fair bit of Bootcamping going on here.
Is this a surprise? Many Mac OSX users dual boot just to get the PC games. With Steam there's less reason to boot into XP, Vista, or Windows 7. If you bought Steam for Windows then Steam for the Mac is free.
Give an update when the share goes up beyond 10%. That'll be a real story.
How is it different for Steam to install a game as opposed to downloading and doing it yourself? Why do you need Steam to uninstall it? Sorry, but this concept is not clear to me.
Steam can be described as an AppStore for PC (and now Mac) games.
You can still buy games on DVD and install them, but if you want to download a title like Half Life 2 then Steam is the only place it is available. It is not available for download elsewhere.
8% of machines are running a Mac OS. That's not the same as 8% of users as many folks, including myself, have both Mac and Windows machines and have now connected to Steam with both.
This is actually one of the really awesome things about Steam.
I have steam installed on OSX, inside parallels and in bootcamp windows.
That way ypu can play OSX stuff natively, classics run very well in parallels and for latest Windows stuff there is bootcamp.
If and when OSX versions of those currently Windows-only games appear, you get those for OSX without having to pay again.
Steam has really improved things a lot for people doing the native/VM/Bootcamp rotation.
Windows XP 64-bit was not very well accepted, so even combining it with a humble empty paper bag gets you an empty paper bag. One of the biggest issues my acquaintances had with it is the lack of XP 64-bit drivers. I think even in the Vista years there were a lot of issues of lacking a good x64 driver, 7 seems to be when enough makers got serious about drivers to the point there are more W7-x64 users than -x32 in a 2:1 ratio. With Vista, those charts show the opposite, one x64 user for every 2 x32 users.
As for my Macs, they might only be operating in 32 bit mode. I think my W7 laptop is 64 bit.
Steam can be described as an AppStore for PC (and now Mac) games.
You can still buy games on DVD and install them, but if you want to download a title like Half Life 2 then Steam is the only place it is available. It is not available for download elsewhere.
Sounds unimpressive. I thought it was something more than just a store.
I am really not a gamer per se. I used to go to arcades with my son when he was growing up, and I did enjoy some of those, and I particularly enjoyed a game called 1942 which I played on his game console (Nintendo?) at home. But as he grew up I ceased playing them. I went to Steam when it was first announced for the Mac. I thought, now that I am retired and have the time to play there must be some incredible new games that are light years ahead of the 80s. Right on the front page was one called Altitude, and the picture showed WWII fighter planes in good detail in 3D action. When I clicked on it, the demo looked like little toy kiddie game planes from the 70s! If this is what all the fuss is about with Steam, I'm glad I checked out years ago. You'd think with all the advances in computer technology that things like this would have disappeared.
I've seen the D&D kind of games like WOW and such, but I just don't have the patience for those all-consuming type of games where you practically have to live your life in front of a screen to enjoy them. Aren't there any good 3D historic war games that strike a balance between Byzantine complexity and realistic play?
That was a great game. I had it. There was also a mode where you culd go online and play snipers nest where you were trying to find your killer before he found you and the graphics were great then. It's weird but they never realy got any better on the PC or console. I would have thought by 2010 we would have games that look like real people.
Well as with all statistics - you really have to ask what it means.
Is this based on total number of logins? Sure when Steam was announced a huge number of Mac users tried it out so the numbers would spike. But how many stuck it out? What I'd prefer to see is something like total percent of time using Steam. Plus I think the real telling stat will be what are these numbers 6 months from now when the novelty wears off.
I tried steam on both my MBP and my iMac. It's okay but I'll not be using it much. I tried it twice on each system but found it pretty slow. Still that means that I alone counted for 4 logins to the system and I played a total of about 10 minutes.
Aren't there any good 3D historic war games that strike a balance between Byzantine complexity and realistic play?
Check out the Total War series. They are the best in strategy games that aren't the old school base building stuff like Starcraft. Their games use a mix of turn-based strategic map, 4x style, and a real-time tactical map to play out battles. I'd recommend Rome (which I think is available for Mac) and Napoleon, but AVOID EMPIRE LIKE THE PLAGUE. Oh, and Napoleon is quite heavy.
Other than that, I'd say Civilization. It's 100% 4x play, and the best one that exists.
The thing I don't understand is why this is news. About 8% of desktops are Macs. About 8% of Steam users use Macs.
Is that a surprise?
To windows people, yes, since they always get this nice preconception of us as dumb people who think Windows is too hard for us, so we are willing to pay triple the price (I know it isn't 3x) to have an "easy", weak OS.
I know plenty of people who would switch to Mac if Apple released a tower with video card slots that doesn't use overkill expensive server pieces like the Mac Pro, that is.
I think the question meant were these 8% new to Steam altogether, or does it include people who dropped using Windows for OS X, that were already using Steam?
Since it is obvious to you, perhaps you can shed some light on the 8% statistic by breaking it down as to what percentage was new to Steam, and who stopped using Windows Steam for Mac Steam? Also, who stopped using Windows on their Macs out of that group?
Until Apple provides tuned driver support for OSX, and provides better than years-behind GPU tech in their desktops, gamers will simply not be switching en masse to OSX. Besides the fact that without DirectX, the vast majority of titles will simply never get ported and those that do, will have to run OpenGL for worse picture quality and performance.
I disagree whole heartedly. The controlled and proven hardware of the Macs makes for a far greater gaming experience than some new fan dangled graphics card that has features no one supports yet and costs thousands of dollars and doesn't work without major tweaking.
PCs as a gaming platform are a joke. People just want to buy a game and play it and on the Mac they can because the developers know exactly what hardware they have to write for. On PCs they don't.
It's why consoles rule the gaming industry because the games just work. On PCs the games MAY work depending on the hardware you have. I'm truly amazed the PC gaming industry hasn't just up and died yet especially when Macs and consoles have a higher purchase rate than the PC industry which has a heavy piracy rate. Hell, half the guys are work who play PC games don't own those games and yet those same guys buy PS3 or XBox titles. Mac users are known to spend money on software. Smaller and more profitable platforms should really be seen as a target market not the seemingly lucrative PC market which is really nothing more than a Saharan mirage in terms of profitability.
Besides the fact that without DirectX, the vast majority of titles will simply never get ported and those that do, will have to run OpenGL for worse picture quality and performance.
DirectX sucks. It's a complete joke. The problem with many Mac titles is that there isn't actually a port to the Mac it's a wrapped DirectX game that has to translate on the fly to OpenGL hence the performance hit. Play a game specifically written for OpenGL and you notice a massive difference in favour of OpenGL.
Something tells me Apple is holding off OS X 10.7 purely to gauge gaming on 10.6 where full potential of 64bit can be seen then they will start using OpenGL 4. It makes sense and I think working with Valve is going to make that even more of a reality.
Comments
I enjoyed playing half life 2 again I can't be bothered with episode 1 again and I bought episode 2 which I am playing through now, I never got round to it before.
Where is Counter Strike Source, Day of Defeat and other online titles?
Day of Defeat is great for quick games if you don't have much time.
Those are the one's I am waiting for.
I also bought Killing Floor based on the Unreal engine which is quite challenging, this shows that Red Orchestra should also become available.
I don't really care if The Ship becomes available, I've still got some invites to give away from years ago.
I am really not a gamer per se. I used to go to arcades with my son when he was growing up, and I did enjoy some of those, and I particularly enjoyed a game called 1942 which I played on his game console (Nintendo?) at home. But as he grew up I ceased playing them. I went to Steam when it was first announced for the Mac. I thought, now that I am retired and have the time to play there must be some incredible new games that are light years ahead of the 80s. Right on the front page was one called Altitude, and the picture showed WWII fighter planes in good detail in 3D action. When I clicked on it, the demo looked like little toy kiddie game planes from the 70s! If this is what all the fuss is about with Steam, I'm glad I checked out years ago. You'd think with all the advances in computer technology that things like this would have disappeared.
I've seen the D&D kind of games like WOW and such, but I just don't have the patience for those all-consuming type of games where you practically have to live your life in front of a screen to enjoy them. Aren't there any good 3D historic war games that strike a balance between Byzantine complexity and realistic play?
And in 6 months when the newness is gone will Mac usage drop?
I don't see it dropping - Steam has to run for those purchased games to work. Steam isn't something that you play with for a while and not use anymore; its a content platform. Think of it as like iTunes but for games.
It's likely to grow as long as gaming companies continue to port their work - at the moment with Half Life 2 and Civ IV as the only "serious" games (although Sam and Max makes a great B list) I'm suprised it's that high; there's still a fair bit of Bootcamping going on here.
Give an update when the share goes up beyond 10%. That'll be a real story.
How is it different for Steam to install a game as opposed to downloading and doing it yourself? Why do you need Steam to uninstall it? Sorry, but this concept is not clear to me.
Steam can be described as an AppStore for PC (and now Mac) games.
You can still buy games on DVD and install them, but if you want to download a title like Half Life 2 then Steam is the only place it is available. It is not available for download elsewhere.
8% of machines are running a Mac OS. That's not the same as 8% of users as many folks, including myself, have both Mac and Windows machines and have now connected to Steam with both.
This is actually one of the really awesome things about Steam.
I have steam installed on OSX, inside parallels and in bootcamp windows.
That way ypu can play OSX stuff natively, classics run very well in parallels and for latest Windows stuff there is bootcamp.
If and when OSX versions of those currently Windows-only games appear, you get those for OSX without having to pay again.
Steam has really improved things a lot for people doing the native/VM/Bootcamp rotation.
As for my Macs, they might only be operating in 32 bit mode. I think my W7 laptop is 64 bit.
Steam can be described as an AppStore for PC (and now Mac) games.
You can still buy games on DVD and install them, but if you want to download a title like Half Life 2 then Steam is the only place it is available. It is not available for download elsewhere.
Sounds unimpressive. I thought it was something more than just a store.
I am really not a gamer per se. I used to go to arcades with my son when he was growing up, and I did enjoy some of those, and I particularly enjoyed a game called 1942 which I played on his game console (Nintendo?) at home. But as he grew up I ceased playing them. I went to Steam when it was first announced for the Mac. I thought, now that I am retired and have the time to play there must be some incredible new games that are light years ahead of the 80s. Right on the front page was one called Altitude, and the picture showed WWII fighter planes in good detail in 3D action. When I clicked on it, the demo looked like little toy kiddie game planes from the 70s! If this is what all the fuss is about with Steam, I'm glad I checked out years ago. You'd think with all the advances in computer technology that things like this would have disappeared.
I've seen the D&D kind of games like WOW and such, but I just don't have the patience for those all-consuming type of games where you practically have to live your life in front of a screen to enjoy them. Aren't there any good 3D historic war games that strike a balance between Byzantine complexity and realistic play?
That was a great game. I had it. There was also a mode where you culd go online and play snipers nest where you were trying to find your killer before he found you and the graphics were great then. It's weird but they never realy got any better on the PC or console. I would have thought by 2010 we would have games that look like real people.
I would have thought by 2010 we would have games that look like real people.
They are getting pretty close:
http://uk.gamespot.com/xbox360/actio.../video/6261018
I though the characters in Modern Warfare were fairly realistic in terms of appearance and movement.
Is this based on total number of logins? Sure when Steam was announced a huge number of Mac users tried it out so the numbers would spike. But how many stuck it out? What I'd prefer to see is something like total percent of time using Steam. Plus I think the real telling stat will be what are these numbers 6 months from now when the novelty wears off.
I tried steam on both my MBP and my iMac. It's okay but I'll not be using it much. I tried it twice on each system but found it pretty slow. Still that means that I alone counted for 4 logins to the system and I played a total of about 10 minutes.
Aren't there any good 3D historic war games that strike a balance between Byzantine complexity and realistic play?
Check out the Total War series. They are the best in strategy games that aren't the old school base building stuff like Starcraft. Their games use a mix of turn-based strategic map, 4x style, and a real-time tactical map to play out battles. I'd recommend Rome (which I think is available for Mac) and Napoleon, but AVOID EMPIRE LIKE THE PLAGUE. Oh, and Napoleon is quite heavy.
Other than that, I'd say Civilization. It's 100% 4x play, and the best one that exists.
Everyone knows what steam content delivery is, right?
The title says 8% of the steam users are sitting behind a mac. What's misleading about it? Am I missing something?
The thing I don't understand is why this is news. About 8% of desktops are Macs. About 8% of Steam users use Macs.
Is that a surprise?
Sounds unimpressive. I thought it was something more than just a store.
It IS. It's a multiplayer server hub.
The thing I don't understand is why this is news. About 8% of desktops are Macs. About 8% of Steam users use Macs.
Is that a surprise?
To windows people, yes, since they always get this nice preconception of us as dumb people who think Windows is too hard for us, so we are willing to pay triple the price (I know it isn't 3x) to have an "easy", weak OS.
It IS. It's a multiplayer server hub.
So is GameSpy. Sorry but I am still struggling to understand the significance of Steam, or why anyone cares about it at all.
The answer is obvious. No.
How is it obvious?
I think the question meant were these 8% new to Steam altogether, or does it include people who dropped using Windows for OS X, that were already using Steam?
Since it is obvious to you, perhaps you can shed some light on the 8% statistic by breaking it down as to what percentage was new to Steam, and who stopped using Windows Steam for Mac Steam? Also, who stopped using Windows on their Macs out of that group?
Until Apple provides tuned driver support for OSX, and provides better than years-behind GPU tech in their desktops, gamers will simply not be switching en masse to OSX. Besides the fact that without DirectX, the vast majority of titles will simply never get ported and those that do, will have to run OpenGL for worse picture quality and performance.
I disagree whole heartedly. The controlled and proven hardware of the Macs makes for a far greater gaming experience than some new fan dangled graphics card that has features no one supports yet and costs thousands of dollars and doesn't work without major tweaking.
PCs as a gaming platform are a joke. People just want to buy a game and play it and on the Mac they can because the developers know exactly what hardware they have to write for. On PCs they don't.
It's why consoles rule the gaming industry because the games just work. On PCs the games MAY work depending on the hardware you have. I'm truly amazed the PC gaming industry hasn't just up and died yet especially when Macs and consoles have a higher purchase rate than the PC industry which has a heavy piracy rate. Hell, half the guys are work who play PC games don't own those games and yet those same guys buy PS3 or XBox titles. Mac users are known to spend money on software. Smaller and more profitable platforms should really be seen as a target market not the seemingly lucrative PC market which is really nothing more than a Saharan mirage in terms of profitability.
Besides the fact that without DirectX, the vast majority of titles will simply never get ported and those that do, will have to run OpenGL for worse picture quality and performance.
DirectX sucks. It's a complete joke. The problem with many Mac titles is that there isn't actually a port to the Mac it's a wrapped DirectX game that has to translate on the fly to OpenGL hence the performance hit. Play a game specifically written for OpenGL and you notice a massive difference in favour of OpenGL.
Something tells me Apple is holding off OS X 10.7 purely to gauge gaming on 10.6 where full potential of 64bit can be seen then they will start using OpenGL 4. It makes sense and I think working with Valve is going to make that even more of a reality.
...the seemingly lucrative PC market which is really nothing more than a Saharan mirage in terms of profitability.
I love this forum!