...at least on the initial release of the game. Maybe this isn't news, but it was to me. Thought I'd pass the quote along
"As game designers we need tools to make the game. We decided early on that we wanted these tools to ship with the game. Notice the difference here -- the toolset is not the game (although it requires the game). Finally, don't write off Mac and Linux ports of the toolset yet but don't count on them either. I'd hate to see anyone preorder Neverwinter Nights *only* because they want to use the toolset in Linux. The great game should be reason enough to want to have Neverwinter Nights."
NWN is taking forever and an eternity to come out as it is... they're probably starting to feel the pressure, both from the publisher and from the fans. Hopefully we won't see much more of this "cutting corners". I know many of us have been drooling over this game for a few years now Don't want it to be less than what the ambitious project that they're claming it is...
Ah well, glad i got a pc and a mac :P
~Blackbeard [quote] ...at least on the initial release of the game. Maybe this isn't news, but it was to me. Thought I'd pass the quote along
"As game designers we need tools to make the game. We decided early on that we wanted these tools to ship with the game. Notice the difference here -- the toolset is not the game (although it requires the game). Finally, don't write off Mac and Linux ports of the toolset yet but don't count on them either. I'd hate to see anyone preorder Neverwinter Nights *only* because they want to use the toolset in Linux. The great game should be reason enough to want to have Neverwinter Nights."
I can't get the quote code to work, but here's what Rob Bartel of Bioware had to say:
"Hi all!
Wow, that should teach me for taking a coupla days off, huh? Yikes! Okay, here's the skinny:
As Trent explained, the nature of our development cycle has required us to build the toolset using Borland Builder, an environment that speeds up development time by providing programmers with a lot of pre-built components (scrollbars, text fields, radio buttons, and so forth - the standard Windows schtuff). Basically, it keeps you from having to constantly reinvent the wheel. Without a product such as Builder, the Neverwinter Toolset would probably take about 5 years to build (and that's just for a Windows version).
So the big question in everyone's minds seems to be "Why did you wait this long to tell us that the toolset is Windows-only?" That's a fair question and the honest answer is that we didn't know, we still don't know. As Brent mentioned, we haven't ruled out Mac and Linux versions of the toolset yet although they do seem unlikely at this point. The truth is that we want our toolset to be available on all platforms... Unfortunately, we don't always get what we want, either.
In his post, Trent explained that Borland did have plans for a Linux version of Builder and we had been pinning a lot of our hopes on that (and who knows, it still might happen). Sadly, their development seems to have stalled somewhere along the line whereas we need to keep moving forward. Likewise, we had been in discussions with Macintosh about getting a third-party developer to port the toolset as either a simultaneous or a subsequent release but that discussion seems to have dried up as well. Now all of these things may still happen but we have to look at the situation realistically. Neverwinter is really starting to solidify and take shape right now and, while that's a really good thing, it unfortunately means that some of these outstanding issues need to be put to rest, at least for the time being. We'd rather tell you now and have to retract it later (Yay! Toolsets for everybody!) than keep it under wraps any longer and give you this kind of a shock on the day your pre-order arrives.
So if you really feel that not having a native Linux or Mac toolset kills Neverwinter for you, then I apologize. We would have loved to have you as part of our community, we would have loved to have a toolset there for you, we'll definitely miss you and all of the creativity that you would have brought to bear. Ultimately, however, you've got some tough choices you have to make, just like we do. Welcome to game development...
Gee, maybe they should have used Metrowerks, which has the same type of rapid app library and is cross platform to Win/Mac/Linux + more. More lazy programmers... I swear... :P Maybe they'll knock $10 off the Mac/Linux price then? Hum? HAH!
Gee, maybe they should have used Metrowerks, which has the same
type of rapid app library and is cross platform to Win/Mac/Linux
+ more. More lazy programmers... I swear... :P Maybe they'll
knock $10 off the Mac/Linux price then? Hum? HAH!
Yeah, what is it about the "nature of [their] development cycle" that has *required* them to use Borland Builder?
Gee, maybe they should have used Metrowerks, which has the same
type of rapid app library and is cross platform to Win/Mac/Linux
+ more. More lazy programmers... I swear... :P Maybe they'll
knock $10 off the Mac/Linux price then? Hum? HAH!
Cynicly yours,
anyone who has ever used any of the borland rads for any amount of time will tell you that they are the easiest and fastest way to deveolop tools. Ask Lino - he uses builder for all his 'tools' (but not his 'real' coding, heh). Ask Marius, that guy can build *anything* with Delphi in an amazing time (how about nearly single handlidly rewriting a massive order entry system for a large company in about 6 months - when looking at non-in house options for this, the price tag was millions without the necessary customization) Hell - even I can and have written 'mission critical' items in Delphi (including a 'order processor' that was responsible for taking and processing thousand of web and call center orders daily - one time the program ran for over a month without so much as a hiccup)
Anyway, someone familiar with the borland builder (the c++ development tool) probably was able to convince someone they could make the tools in x time rather than 2x or 3x if they used some other tool. I have never used Metrowerks, so I can't say how easy it is to use - it may be as easy or easier to use.
to answer Carch - Developing in Java... I've almost never seen a large Java app run well - at least on a Mac. Sure yahoo card game run all right - but they run far better and far more stable on the PC. They are slow (at least 1/2 as fast on a comparable machine) and crash happy on Macs. That's not javas fault sure - but I don't think a large Java app on the mac (at least os 9) is really feasable.
Not saying they were 'right' in their decision, but development time probably played the biggest part in the equation. Someone on the team was familiar with borland builder and off they went. If Borland came out with builder (or delphi) for Mac, I'd buy it on that day, even if I never was going to use it for 'professional' projects.
Is the sinking suspicion that there wasn't all *that* much effort to get a 3rd party to port the toolset for the Mac. I'm not competent to judge a developer's decision to use one set of tools over another for coding. Common sense, however, leads me to think that there's likely two sides to the story that Bioware/BIS are putting out regarding the "falling through" of a deal with a 3rd party to port the tools to the Mac OS. I suppose the Mac-gamer market just isn't significant enough to drive a deal?
Anyone have any halfway decent figures on how the Mac-gaming market compares to the PC? Are we talking 10%? 15%? 5%?
Re: If the Mac gaming market scales with other things ...
There are more WebTV browsers using Y! Personals than there are
Mac browsers.
I don't know about the other stats you cited, but this doesn't really surprise or bother me. The WebTV demographic (consumer electronics purchasers) is a very different population from the Mac demographic (home/work computer purchasers), or at least the purposes for which they buy their respective machines are very different. It wouldn't surprise me if online personals were more aligned with WebTV users' purposes than Mac users' purposes.
Re: If the Mac gaming market scales with other things ...
It wouldn't surprise me if online personals were more
aligned with WebTV users' purposes than Mac users' purposes.
I guess, but browsing is browsing. I'm guessing that the breakdown of most browsers' usage is pretty similar across platforms. In the large, where people point their browsers is remarkably similar even across widely different demographics.
_/ C
p.s. I can't let this abomination against the English Language stand... I wrote:
There are more WebTV browsers using Y! Personals than there are
Mac browsers
That should read "There are more WebTV browsers than Mac browsers using Y! Personals." There are significantly more Mac browsers than there the number of WebTV browsers pointed at my little corner of the universe. ;-)
Comments
Woo's of disappointment.
Hmm, not super surprising, but it still blows
NWN is taking forever and an eternity to come out as it is... they're probably starting to feel the pressure, both from the publisher and from the fans. Hopefully we won't see much more of this "cutting corners". I know many of us have been drooling over this game for a few years now
Ah well, glad i got a pc and a mac :P
~Blackbeard
[quote]
...at least on the initial release of the game. Maybe this isn't
news, but it was to me. Thought I'd pass the quote along
"As game designers we need tools to make the game. We
decided early on that we wanted these tools to ship with the
game. Notice the difference here -- the toolset is not the game
(although it requires the game).
Finally, don't write off Mac and Linux ports of the toolset yet
but don't count on them either. I'd hate to see anyone preorder
Neverwinter Nights *only* because they want to use the toolset
in Linux. The great game should be reason enough to want to have
Neverwinter Nights."
Brent Knowles
Co-Lead Designer
Neverwinter Nights
July 18, 2001 11:48 AM
[/quote]
[quote]
http://feedback.blackisle.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=19&t=000488&p=2
Woo's of disappointment.
[/quote]
I can't get the quote code to work, but here's what Rob Bartel of Bioware had to say:
"Hi all!
Wow, that should teach me for taking a coupla days off, huh? Yikes! Okay, here's the skinny:
As Trent explained, the nature of our development cycle has required us to build the toolset using Borland Builder, an environment that speeds up development time by providing programmers with a lot of pre-built components (scrollbars, text fields, radio buttons, and so forth - the standard Windows schtuff). Basically, it keeps you from having to constantly reinvent the wheel. Without a product such as Builder, the Neverwinter Toolset would probably take about 5 years to build (and that's just for a Windows version).
So the big question in everyone's minds seems to be "Why did you wait this long to tell us that the toolset is Windows-only?" That's a fair question and the honest answer is that we didn't know, we still don't know. As Brent mentioned, we haven't ruled out Mac and Linux versions of the toolset yet although they do seem unlikely at this point. The truth is that we want our toolset to be available on all platforms... Unfortunately, we don't always get what we want, either.
In his post, Trent explained that Borland did have plans for a Linux version of Builder and we had been pinning a lot of our hopes on that (and who knows, it still might happen). Sadly, their development seems to have stalled somewhere along the line whereas we need to keep moving forward. Likewise, we had been in discussions with Macintosh about getting a third-party developer to port the toolset as either a simultaneous or a subsequent release but that discussion seems to have dried up as well. Now all of these things may still happen but we have to look at the situation realistically. Neverwinter is really starting to solidify and take shape right now and, while that's a really good thing, it unfortunately means that some of these outstanding issues need to be put to rest, at least for the time being. We'd rather tell you now and have to retract it later (Yay! Toolsets for everybody!) than keep it under wraps any longer and give you this kind of a shock on the day your pre-order arrives.
So if you really feel that not having a native Linux or Mac toolset kills Neverwinter for you, then I apologize. We would have loved to have you as part of our community, we would have loved to have a toolset there for you, we'll definitely miss you and all of the creativity that you would have brought to bear. Ultimately, however, you've got some tough choices you have to make, just like we do. Welcome to game development...
I wish you the best..."
So there you have it.
Woo, etc.
Gee, maybe they should have used Metrowerks, which has the same type of rapid app library and is cross platform to Win/Mac/Linux + more. More lazy programmers... I swear... :P Maybe they'll knock $10 off the Mac/Linux price then? Hum? HAH!
Cynicly yours,
Yeah, what is it about the "nature of [their] development cycle" that has *required* them to use Borland Builder?
I thought the whole point of this game was that you could build your own bits.
Damn.
anyone who has ever used any of the borland rads for any amount of time will tell you that they are the easiest and fastest way to deveolop tools. Ask Lino - he uses builder for all his 'tools' (but not his 'real' coding, heh). Ask Marius, that guy can build *anything* with Delphi in an amazing time (how about nearly single handlidly rewriting a massive order entry system for a large company in about 6 months - when looking at non-in house options for this, the price tag was millions without the necessary customization) Hell - even I can and have written 'mission critical' items in Delphi (including a 'order processor' that was responsible for taking and processing thousand of web and call center orders daily - one time the program ran for over a month without so much as a hiccup)
Anyway, someone familiar with the borland builder (the c++ development tool) probably was able to convince someone they could make the tools in x time rather than 2x or 3x if they used some other tool. I have never used Metrowerks, so I can't say how easy it is to use - it may be as easy or easier to use.
to answer Carch - Developing in Java... I've almost never seen a large Java app run well - at least on a Mac. Sure yahoo card game run all right - but they run far better and far more stable on the PC. They are slow (at least 1/2 as fast on a comparable machine) and crash happy on Macs. That's not javas fault sure - but I don't think a large Java app on the mac (at least os 9) is really feasable.
Not saying they were 'right' in their decision, but development time probably played the biggest part in the equation. Someone on the team was familiar with borland builder and off they went. If Borland came out with builder (or delphi) for Mac, I'd buy it on that day, even if I never was going to use it for 'professional' projects.
Conner
Is the sinking suspicion that there wasn't all *that* much effort to get a 3rd party to port the toolset for the Mac. I'm not competent to judge a developer's decision to use one set of tools over another for coding. Common sense, however, leads me to think that there's likely two sides to the story that Bioware/BIS are putting out regarding the "falling through" of a deal with a 3rd party to port the tools to the Mac OS. I suppose the Mac-gamer market just isn't significant enough to drive a deal?
Anyone have any halfway decent figures on how the Mac-gaming market compares to the PC? Are we talking 10%? 15%? 5%?
Woo?
Word is out on this guy! He SUX!
Darklord
Mac traffic on Yahoo! is less than 5%. By quite a bit.
Mac traffic in Y! entertainment properties is slightly above average.
There are more WebTV browsers using Y! Personals than there are Mac browsers.
It's pretty grim.
...ken
I don't know about the other stats you cited, but this doesn't really surprise or bother me. The WebTV demographic (consumer electronics purchasers) is a very different population from the Mac demographic (home/work computer purchasers), or at least the purposes for which they buy their respective machines are very different. It wouldn't surprise me if online personals were more aligned with WebTV users' purposes than Mac users' purposes.
I guess, but browsing is browsing. I'm guessing that the breakdown of most browsers' usage is pretty similar across platforms. In the large, where people point their browsers is remarkably similar even across widely different demographics.
_/ C
p.s. I can't let this abomination against the English Language stand... I wrote:
That should read "There are more WebTV browsers than Mac browsers using Y! Personals." There are significantly more Mac browsers than there the number of WebTV browsers pointed at my little corner of the universe. ;-)