No, that’s not some sort of optical illusion; that’s Windows XP installed on my iMac. I’ve since upgraded it to Windows 7, but that’s less important than the fact that I, avowed M$ hater, have installed an M$ operating system on my precious, always faithful, never crashing computer. I could easily turn this into a rant about Windows (even with as easy as Apple makes it to install, with Boot Camp, getting it all to work was a pain in the ass and a far cry from the ease of use I’ve grown accustomed to), but that’s not why I’m writing today. Today I’m writing about gaming.
A little over seven years ago, when I first made the switch from Windows to OS X, gaming was actually the last thing I worried about. At the time the bulk of my gaming was being done on the XBox, and the one game I was looking forward to playing on my desktop, World of Warcraft, was being released for Windows and OS X. Gaming wise I was covered. I believed then, and still do, that gaming on the desktop is mostly dead, with the exception of MMOs.
From time to time, since my long standing relationship with World of Warcraft began, I’ve been tempted to play other MMOs, but nearly without exception they are released exclusively for Windows operating systems. Since the release of OS X Leopard, that has become less of an issue; I can dual boot Windows using Boot Camp and check them out. This though, is not really a viable option for most users. Oh, it’s not that it’s hard to set up Boot Camp. It is that having to purchase a license for whichever flavor of Windows is crashing less at the time is cost prohibitive. Why M$ insists on having multiple versions of their OS and charging way more for it than it’s worth is beyond me. It says something when the student cost of an M$ operating system is still more than the retail cost of OS X.
It really hasn’t been much of an issue for me, though, since (and I know I’ll be offending some folks out there, but whatever) every MMO that’s come out since World of Warcraft has really just looked like a WoW clone to me. Sure, there’s been Star Trek Online, EVE Online, Stargate Worlds, Champions, blah, blah, blah; none of them have given me cause to want to leave WoW to play them. The ones with fantasy settings (Age of Conan, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer Online) even less so. I’m not saying these games are necessarily bad; there just hasn’t been enough in them to lure me away from WoW. I think their over all success (or lack there of) in the market, as well as the fact that the biggest feature many of them seem to be offering now are free limited, and in some cases endless, trials says more about their ability to dethrone WoW than I ever could. So, all that said, I have been perfectly content to not worry about the availability of MMOs for OS X … until recently.
Nine years ago Star Wars Galaxies went live. At the time I was pretty focused on the upcoming WoW release, and given all the negative things being said about it at the time I didn’t really give SWG a second look. The fact that it’s closing up shop at the end of this year seems to be a pretty strong argument that I made the right choice. I should point out that I am a HUGE Star Wars fan. The first movie I have very clear memories of seeing in the theater was Star Wars: A New Hope, way back in 1977. I’ve read a great many of the novels (thought not all of them … there’s a shit ton of them), and was a huge fan of Bioware’s Knights of the Old Republic games. All that said, SWG just didn’t have it. And clearly many people agreed, including Sony and LucasArts.
Bioware, though; those guys know RPGs. As I said above, I was a huge fan of their KotOR series, and have loved both Mass Effect games and both Dragon Age games (and I’m really looking forward to Mass Effect 3 later this year). Bioware understands that RPGs are story driven and that those stories need to be founded in rich cannon and and have epic arcs. I said, way back in the KotOR days, that if Bioware had taken the reigns on SWG, instead of Sony, the game would have been much more successful. Enter Star Wars: The Old Republic.
There’s very little I can say about it that isn’t covered by this panel discussion from SDCC this year.
They seem to have gotten it right. Given Bioware’s history with OS X, I’m flummoxed as to why they chose not to have a simultaneous Windows/OS X release at launch. Boot Camp, fellas, is only an answer for a dedicated few. If you want OS X users, you need to give them a native client. I’m putting in my support (and going through the hell of running Windows), though, and hoping that as the game gains in popularity, they will see the wisdom of not ignoring OS X users.
If you’d like to see some of the amazing trailers Bioware has been pumping out, check out this YouTube Playlist.
