Guild Wars 2

So is there any timeline on when the Mac client might be able to get out of beta? Or get an update? Or…..really anything at all? lol. Seriously though, the last update you gave us on the forums was last October, 9 months ago. It would be nice to see some love from the dev team, even if it was just a written update on the progress. Thanks!

I noticed this thread was in the main forum and they moved it here…. without even a word. They probably just saw “Mac” in the title and moved it. I’m giving up asking for even a message saying they know Mac customers even exist. I doubt anything is going to come from it from my experience here.

Actually Ashley has given us a couple of small updates within the last few weeks, but yes prior to that the support was all from last year. I wouldn’t expect much from an out of beta client, there aren’t likely to be a lot of alterations since the client actually works really well for the most part. Issues of FPS are restrictions forced on the client by the Cider wrapper so there is little Anet can do about that beyond the optimisation they’ve already done (which has helped immensely). And beyond that most of the issues are confined to a select few users who are generally able to fix the problem by purging the Application Support folder.

Unless they were to actually take on a dedicated mac team I wouldn’t expect massive changed. They’re unlikely to do that because we represent a tiny portion of the user base, it doesn’t make economic sense for them to provide extensive support to what is probably less than 10% (that’s optimistic) of their user base.

In my opinion they probably should not have created and advertised a Mac client to start with. Since we are such a tiny customer base that they don’t have the resources to support they should have just not produced the product. This would have resulted in 0 frustrated Mac customers that are waiting for at least some information aside from a generic, “No news at this time.”

Even if they came here and said something like, “Sorry no work on the Mac client is being conducted due to such as small customer base. We have no plans to provide support at this time”, some of us would be happy with that just knowing.

Obviously they saw something in such a small customer base or they would not have developed the client in the first place. And yes, I still find it humorous how fast they recognized, communicated and solved the gem store bug for such a small, insignificant customer base that contributes next to nothing to their profits.

JustTrogdor.7892:

In my opinion they probably should not have created and advertised a Mac client to start with. Since we are such a tiny customer base that they don’t have the resources to support they should have just not produced the product. This would have resulted in 0 frustrated Mac customers that are waiting for at least some information aside from a generic, “No news at this time.”

Even if they came here and said something like, “Sorry no work on the Mac client is being conducted due to such as small customer base. We have no plans to provide support at this time”, some of us would be happy with that just knowing.

Obviously they saw something in such a small customer base or they would not have developed the client in the first place. And yes, I still find it humorous how fast they recognized, communicated and solved the gem store bug for such a small, insignificant customer base that contributes next to nothing to their profits.

People who wanted to play GW2 and had Mac’s were using Crossover or Wine (which is effectively what Cider is built on so it was almost the exact same thing), so it was beneficial for them to have a client operating and prevent players from having to purchase Crossover. I have a crossover license, but I had purchased it to play GW1 on my mac a long time ago, so I was able to play GW2 using Crossover – I think to my knowledge Crossover still doesn’t fully support GW2, partly because it was hard for them to fix all the issues (NVIDIA cards experienced a ton of graphical issues, ATI on the other hand worked a treat mostly), and partly because most people switched over to the official client. The people who post on the forums with issues are only part of the OSX GW2 userbase, there are most probably quite a lot of people who play without a hitch and never have any reason to look at the forums or post here.

I for one am extremely glad they decided to have a client made. If you had played using Crossover or Wine then you would understand why, textures ended up half and half and there were mouse problems, texture stretching problems etc etc. The OSX client works well for those who have higher end macs, it’s only when you have people trying to run it on older macs or 13" MBP’s and Air’s (computers that are not designed in any capacity for gaming and would have issues even in windows) that performance issues start to crop up. Aside from the issue with the gem store there aren’t actually any major issues. There is the occasional crashing but I experience in windows anyway so it’s not so much of an issue.

JustTrogdor.7892:

In my opinion they probably should not have created and advertised a Mac client to start with. Since we are such a tiny customer base that they don’t have the resources to support they should have just not produced the product. This would have resulted in 0 frustrated Mac customers that are waiting for at least some information aside from a generic, “No news at this time.”

Even if they came here and said something like, “Sorry no work on the Mac client is being conducted due to such as small customer base. We have no plans to provide support at this time”, some of us would be happy with that just knowing.

Obviously they saw something in such a small customer base or they would not have developed the client in the first place. And yes, I still find it humorous how fast they recognized, communicated and solved the gem store bug for such a small, insignificant customer base that contributes next to nothing to their profits.

This. My friend paid 60 bucks for this game, to play on her mac. It was completely unplayable. No trading post! Among other issues. It absolutely blew me away that they charged her 60 bucks for that garbage. That was in november, nothings changed.

Ive been telling people to stay away from this game since that. A company that would allow that sort of thing to happen isnt one I recommend to friends.

Kain.9127:

JustTrogdor.7892:

In my opinion they probably should not have created and advertised a Mac client to start with. Since we are such a tiny customer base that they don’t have the resources to support they should have just not produced the product. This would have resulted in 0 frustrated Mac customers that are waiting for at least some information aside from a generic, “No news at this time.”

Even if they came here and said something like, “Sorry no work on the Mac client is being conducted due to such as small customer base. We have no plans to provide support at this time”, some of us would be happy with that just knowing.

Obviously they saw something in such a small customer base or they would not have developed the client in the first place. And yes, I still find it humorous how fast they recognized, communicated and solved the gem store bug for such a small, insignificant customer base that contributes next to nothing to their profits.

This. My friend paid 60 bucks for this game, to play on her mac. It was completely unplayable. No trading post! Among other issues. It absolutely blew me away that they charged her 60 bucks for that garbage. That was in november, nothings changed.

Ive been telling people to stay away from this game since that. A company that would allow that sort of thing to happen isnt one I recommend to friends.

Actually the client has improved a lot since November. If your friend had filed a ticket explaining that they had purchased the game to play on OSX but had found that it really wasn’t operating as expected and wanted a refund they would have gotten one – to my knowledge they were very understanding on issues regarding playability and refunds.

As someone who played using the OSX client since it was released and has never had any major complaints I honestly have to disagree. The trading post experienced a lot of issues at launch, but that was on both windows and OSX, when they got it up and running, and they were undoubtedly working very kitten doing that at the time, it worked just fine and continues to work just fine for most of us.

FF you seem to be looking at it from the point of view of an existing customer that had to use a more clunky method until the Beta came out. I don’t think you are looking at it from the point of view of customers that bought the game only because Anet advertised and talked about how excited they were about the product. How they like to mention how their employees love Macs and how their president is never caught without his MB. Then things like this:

Bringing Guild Wars 2 to the Mac is huge for us, because it introduces the game to an entire group of players who are often ignored by game developers.

And this where they imply they are working on a final product:

Review the beta hardware specification, and understand that your overall experience will be better when we release the final version.

I don’t think most people are demanding things get fixed. I think most, like myself, just want them to say something, anything aside from we fixed things so you can spend money again.

I’m glad I bought it and can play it. I’m glad it works for the most part. I don’t feel lucky though because I didn’t get it from a Dragon Coffer. :P

So yes if they are going to simply ignore customers all together aside from making sure they can buy gems they should not have sold the product. Maybe they should have only made it available to existing GW2 customers so they could break free of methods like you discussed or so existing Windows users that owned MBs as well could play on both.

If they released a mac client that could only be played by people who had purchased the windows version then you would have a lot of people kicking up a stink at it not being available to them – people would rather have something that works ok than nothing at all. My perspective isn’t altered. If I had purchased the game and only played with the OSX client I would still be really happy about it. It works really well. As someone who switches between the OSX client and the Windows client I can honestly say that there isn’t a lot of difference. (I switch depending on what mouse I have access to, but that’s not important xD). The only real issues with the OSX client is that the fans run louder, which isn’t avoidable, and that there are laser hawks – which you can kill. I run it with max settings in both windows and OSX without a problem, I lower the settings if I’m doing something like a JP or dungeon where the extra few FPS make a difference but for the most part there isn’t anything wrong with it.

I bring up my previous experiences with Crossover to show that what we have has actually had a lot of work done on it and works really well. You also have to note that plans change. For all we know everyone who had previously been working on the OSX client has since moved on to another company. When they say that Mike O’Brien (I think it was him anyway) always uses his Macbook that isn’t saying if he was running OSX or Windows on it. What they acknowledged with the comment was the popularity of the hardware and the market that would be opened up. They’ve gone beyond a lot of developers. There are very few MMO’s available on OSX, especially AAA MMO’s so them simply making it available is huge regardless. But yes obviously the lack of communication is problematic.

It’s also worth pointing out that the predominant problem with the OSX client is the launcher not starting up correctly, it’s not a problem I have ever experienced myself and I wouldn’t be surprised if it comes down to something done on the user end, for example incorrect permissions, not running an admin user account, switching between accounts, not exiting the game properly, not shutting down correctly etc. The trading post/gem store issue was fixed promptly and all other issues have been isolated to either one or a select few users.

In all seriousness go look at the PC tech support forum and look for posts with the red dev stamp on them (not the stickied posts). There aren’t all that many, the ones that have had dev responses typically have 5 or to pages, suggesting that they are widespread issues. The dev responses predominantly suggest either performing a client diagnostic, repairing the client, emptying the cache, checking permissions, checking port/firewall permissions and running as admin, none of which are overly technical and are pretty standard tech responses. In OSX the answer to most issues is deleting the Application Support folder, checking permissions, checking ports, running as admin and repairing the client. Short of having a dev post the exact same instructions over and over again I’m not sure what you expect from them?

(Please note none of this is said in an attacking, angry, accusatory or any other sort of negative tone. I know my writing comes across like this because people constantly take it that way, but I’m honestly typing this in a conversational tone and it is intended as open discussion not an attack)

I don’t think many Mac only people that are new to GW2 would be complaining because they would just move on when they saw the client wasn’t available. Plus according to you we are such a tiny, minuscule part of their customer base it shouldn’t matter. Here let me explain how I ended up playing GW2 and I’m willing to bet I’m not alone in this.

Thanks to many years of hard work I now have a lot more free time. I decided to see hat was going on with the new MMOs. So I started looking at reviews. I saw GW2 was getting good reviews so I googled GW2 for Mac. I got the page I referenced and thought cool, I’ll give it a shot.

If Anet had not advertised, promoted and sold a Mac client I would have just moved on. I wouldn’t be upset at all. Most Mac customers are used to games that don’t have a Mac client. However, Anet making one by no means makes the customer lucky, it makes them just that a customer.

I really don’t understand why you seem to think we are all so blessed and lucky. In your example you were using a less than desirable method to play GW2. They created the beta client. You were already a customer, so in your case you probably thought it was great. Maybe you are so into the Anet products that you did feel lucky. I doubt that applies to everyone.

You keep dancing around the issue most of us are unhappy about. The issue that there is almost no news from Anet about the client. The fact that the only time, at least since I have been here, that we got acknowledgment they were working on a problem was the very problem that wouldn’t allow Mac customers to spend more money. You like to point out what a small portion of paying customers we are but if you don’t see that as a bit odd then I don’t know what to tell you.

You like to point out how lucky we are that it work for the most part and how lucky we should feel it exists. I don’t feel lucky, I feel like a customer who purchased a product. Most of us are not complaining about the bugs themselves, well maybe the first time we posted here about a bug. Most of us are simply unhappy that they advertise a product, create and advertise a support forum and then ignore us all together. I can say honestly if a staff member posted a thread that said, “Kitten you! We have your money now and we are not doing kitten.” I’d stop posting my displeasure because at least then they answered my question.

It isn’t about how good or bad the product works. It is about being ignored and left in the dark which is just bad, rude, and insulting. Instead of taking a few minutes to say something it seems really shady that they won’t say anything at all. Something is wrong there and it probably makes many here wonder what they are trying to hide.

vvvv insert tinfoil hat comment here vvv

I had typed out another long response but I decided not to post it.
I’m just going to chalk this up to a lack of understanding/difference of opinion between us.

All mac users are using a product with a Beta tag. As in, a product that isn’t guaranteed release but is rather a test of viability. I do agree that there is a deficit of communication and that an acknowledgement of where they stand in relation to the continued support and development of the OSX client is necessary at some point. But at the end of the day the product works and works well so it isn’t something I feel is worth getting all hot and bothered over.

Their lack of communication isn’t a slight to mac users, I think it’s important to remember that a company is not a person, it is a collective of people, all of whom have their own jobs and responsibilities. It’s entirely possible that this issue stems from higher up from people who have nothing but the profit margins in mind and the result is that the people who do care aren’t able to offer the support they would like because they don’t have access to the financial means or support that they would ned to do so. Obviously it’s sad, but it’s because of that possibility that I don’t feel like bashing them on the issue. Take Ashley for example, she has obviously attempted to assist recently with situations, but for all we know she did that of her own accord and without pay (I say for all we know, not that she did or that it’s likely because I’m sure it isn’t I’m just using it as an example). The answers you want are quite possibly beyond her reach and there is unfortunately no way I know of contacting those who would have a direct impact on the situation. It’s out of my desire to respect that Anet is a company made up of individuals all of whom have to act in certain ways that I hold the viewpoint I do.
(The Tl;dr of that is basically that I understand you feel like you’ve been slighted or kept in the dark, but it’s entirely possible that their employees feel the same)

All in all we honestly have the same views Trog so I don’t want to argue with you. It’s just that I don’t want to be mad at someone without knowing exactly who to be mad at, and I don’t want to be mad at someone for something beyond their control. People are people.

(as to the initial comment, I’m someone who has, like a lot of people, been following GW2 since it’s announcement in 2007 after having been playing GW1 since it’s release in 2005. That is 9 years of investment in a company, so yeah I would have felt like it was a massive kick in the face if they had an OSX client that was only available to people who had purchased and played using Windows. I realise that for people who are new to the game it would be really easy to just see that there was no OSX client and walk way, but for those of us who have really invested a lot emotionally into the world of Tyria there is obviously going to be a different sentiment on the issue.) R.I.P Darrius of Ascalon, the greatest Rit that ever lived <3

Yeah, I got a PM saying that this was not allowed in the General thread section and that it was being moved here. I sent them an email asking why since this thread is more of a discussion than it is a technical support issue. Will be very interested to hear what they say though it will probably end up being something like, “All Mac stuff goes here.” lol

Foxx, I totally hear what you are saying but I’m more with Trog on this one. The primary issue is that they came out and said that they were so excited about getting this beta out and brought in a new customer base who have no access to a PC and/or Bootcamp that have now been left in the dark for 9 months. I think we should all understand how frustrating that is.

Aigisthos.3059:

Yeah, I got a PM saying that this was not allowed in the General thread section and that it was being moved here. I sent them an email asking why since this thread is more of a discussion than it is a technical support issue. Will be very interested to hear what they say though it will probably end up being something like, “All Mac stuff goes here.” lol

That is exactly the answer you’re going to get. It makes sense in a way, the predominant user base is Windows users who won’t have anything to say on the matter so it makes sense having it in this forum where mac users will see it. But I understand what you mean because it isn’t really a technical issue. In a perfect world where everyone uses OSX we wouldn’t have that problem xD.

Also you’re still missing what I’m saying. I completely agree that the lack of communication isn’t good. I just think there are ways to be reasonable about it.

(Side note, don’t double post. There is an edit button which you should use if you want to add on to what you’ve said, double posting gets messy)

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Also you’re still missing what I’m saying. I completely agree that the lack of communication isn’t good. I just think there are ways to be reasonable about it.

Ok, what ideas do you have that might be more considerate of the forum team that would still be effective enough to catch their attention? Honest question.

Anything that doesn’t go against the Forum code of conduct:
“Do not engage in staff call-outs. Using the words “ArenaNet” or any staff member’s name will not expedite the answer to your query.”
“Do not post petitions, “I demand an answer” threads, conspiracy threads, or comments about circumventing the rules.”

I think there is a difference between asking for a response, which has already been done, and creating multiple topics and posts asking over and over again. We have already asked and we have had responses that indicate they are aware of Mac users desire for updates. Continuing to complain about it doesn’t help the situation. Acknowledge that there is a problem and move on.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Anything that doesn’t go against the Forum code of conduct:
“Do not engage in staff call-outs. Using the words “ArenaNet” or any staff member’s name will not expedite the answer to your query.”
“Do not post petitions, “I demand an answer” threads, conspiracy threads, or comments about circumventing the rules.”

I think there is a difference between asking for a response, which has already been done, and creating multiple topics and posts asking over and over again. We have already asked and we have had responses that indicate they are aware of Mac users desire for updates. Continuing to complain about it doesn’t help the situation. Acknowledge that there is a problem and move on.

Interesting perspective. Do you really think that silence will fix the problem though? The real issue on my mind is a lack of communication. If we stop asking for communication and the problem persists what would you then recommend? Would you feel that this is more of a “what they says goes” no matter what situation or do we, as consumers, have any say in the matter? Again, just trying to have an honest discussion. Not trying to start an argument.

Wow guys, I take a break for half a day to play and I come back to this! ;p

(and yes, it will be long, as usual)

But honestly, I understand both sides of this debate, that is partially why I made it an odd/personal goal to try and get some attention back to our little corner of the forum.

I’m in my own column of “gw2 patron.” I played gw1 on a windows bootcamp partition after my windows machine kicked it; I then wanted to upgrade my old 13 mb (not even pro) just so I could upgrade to gw2. I did and even purchased my first copy of windows in AGES just so I could kitten (lol past tense of the brown word) all over my beautiful MBP with it using bootcamp. Then I saw OMG… COLLECTOR’s EDITION!!!! Yep, I sent money to the US, paying an annoying amount of currency fees, just to beg a family member to pre-buy it for me at the midnight pre-buy launch… Lame, I know! I was overseas and really wanted it ;p to finish the long story… OMG Mac client! It’s beta, but with plans for a final release! I can get my Mac friends from wow to play with me now and I won’t have to omit the functionality of my Mac by the inconvenience of having to use windows.

I convinced about 8 people to buy gw2 after that. Luckily, they haven’t had but minor issues.

I came here due to an issue I had and couldn’t get help at all. Some nice player helped me thankfully and helped me figure out what was wrong. But during that time, I noticed… There has been no official post in months and someone posted a response from Anet support stating that the Mac forums are no longer being supported, but after 5 months, there were peeps who needed help and no one even caring. And this response posted wasn’t even official, it was another player who opened a ticket and got it, he was just thoughtful enough to post it for others.

So yeah, communication would have been nice. And honestly, I think that’s all anyone really wants at this point. Most of our issues can be fixed with reasonably easy solutions, unless it gets broke during an update lol, and the client itself works reasonably well too.

I’m with Trog on this, any response… Even a simple “sorry guys, this is really all you’re going to get” would suffice. Disappointing, but better than sitting here twiddling our thumbs guessing.

I’m really am grateful for Ashley’s taking the time to check in on us. I really feel like she has taken sympathy with our plight. She even followed up with me on the tech support forum for an issue I posted over a month ago that has finally been fixed (at least I haven’t broken it yet again lol). No one else posted on that thread, just me and a single pc user who said they couldn’t trigger the crash, but she brought it to the attention of the right people and it has been fixed. Thank you again Ashley

Only a squeaky wheel gets greased. So, Aigisthos, if you’re going to squeak, make sure it’s only one wheel lol. Let’s keep our “we want attention” to one or two threads so we don’t annoy the only support staff willing to give us the time of (any) day.

As for them moving it… I don’t know, that’s really not cool. It should have been left. Meh.

Okay… Done. O.o

All the other threads are locked as it seems Anet doesn’t want to hear what we are complaining about…and that’s the reality that this game needs to be made in Mac OS and the cider wrap needs to be taken into an alley and shot in the head.

I’m tired of all the crashes, I’m tired of having a super fast mac and this game runs like garbage. On WoW or any other native Mac OS MMO I have played I can set the dials to ULTRA and not a shudder in Frame Rate…but GW2 that I love so much is crapping on my brain.

Please do the right thing, or else I’m heading to The Elder Scrolls when it comes out and WILL be Native to Mac.

It will probably come out of beta around 4/4/2014 or somewhere thereabouts. (note: irony)

Listen, as far I am concerned Trog is right. Calling the client that mac user play a “beta” is basically a slap in the face. It’s a WINDOWS client forced through a port. Fact is, if they would not have advertised this game for mac in the first place I would have saved my time and money for ESO. I WISH they would just tell us, flate out “we have your money, we aren’t doing anything about a REAL native client.” then we would at least know where we stand. We were falsely sold a product we are not getting.

I’ve been pretty happy with the performance (until latest patch crashes)
fwiw

Ledavi.1803:

I’ve been pretty happy with the performance (until latest patch crashes)
fwiw

What’s your setup and what graphics settings do you use? On my MBP i7 2.2GHz, 8GB, Radeon 6750M 1GB, I have to set all my graphics settings to the lowest or none to get playable performance, especially in WvW or larger group events.

I have a 2ghz MBP i7 with 4GB 1333 Ram (as my backup machine) and it runs PVE just fine with no noticeable quality or frame rate issues.

That being said, I’ve not tried it with PvP, WvW or any huge content.

My main machine is a 2 × 3ghz Quad Core Xeonwith 8GB 800 Ram (early 2008) and an upgraded v-card (ATI Radeon HD 5770 / 1024mb) running a 30" cinema display.

Old but reliable.

With the big machine in some high volume cases (1st Day in LA Invasion or Massive WvW) I’ve reduced the graphics from “Best Visuals” to “Detect Best Settings” and run with that. The main thing this seems to do is reduce reflections and other settings that have a minimal impact, especially in the head of a zerg.

Ledavi.1803:

I’ve been pretty happy with the performance (until latest patch crashes)
fwiw

Same, I was willing to put up with the client having issues here and there for all of 2012-2013. Ever since the goofed up client patcher in 10.9 they’ve only been rolling out patches that completely break the game. They’re reaching the limit of a lot of people’s good will, here. Honestly, we need an official statement from Anet on their main website, not buried in here. There are mac users in map chat that are complaining of crashes and I do my best to let them know that the patch is bugged and that Anet is working on a fix (in whisper because the instant you say mac people start the personal attacks). Not everyone comes to these forums. Imagine if you were a mac user trying to play this game for the last couple months and you didn’t come here to see Anet talking. You’d probably up and leave for another game. Actions speak louder than words and in this case we don’t even have that many words to go by.

Still waiting on a non-garbage Mac OS Native Client. You guys need to get on this, or lose a lot of players.