Mac version

[Santosvella]

Hey everyone.I'm not particularly optimistic that the following info will be relevant to many people at this point in time (or maybe ever), but since to the best of my knowledge it hasn't been posted anywhere else I figured I might as well share it here.I've personally gotten a confirmation that:1) The Mac version is being independently developed from the ground up as an OpenGL/native Mac version, instead of an inferior port using a Wine/Cider shell.2) The current plans are for the Mac version to be released simultaneously with the PC version, as opposed to a later date.

[David]

That's interesting. Where did you get the confirmation?

[Santosvella]

I'm glad you found this interesting and I was able to give a little bit back to the site which gave me the beta footage and early skills listing :wub:I got the confirmation from the beta's customer tech support, here's the full email (and yes, I know, I'm shameless):

 

 

Hello,I'm a moderator for a Mac gaming community blogging/forum site and as many players there are highly excited at the prospect of TESO's release, I would greatly appreciate it if you could answer a couple simple questions for us, or be kind enough to pass them along to someone who could.1) Will the Mac version of the game be a port using a classic Wine/Cider shell, or is it being developed from the ground up in OpenGL?2) Are the current plans to release it at the same time as the PC version, or at a later date?Thanks in advance, have a nice day.Best regards,XXXXXXXXPS: If I promise I've been a very good boy this year, won't ask for anything else for Christmas and will personally cook Elseweyr Fondue for the entire support staff, can I get a beta invite? Bambieyes.jpg

 

 

*********************

 

 

Hello XXXXXXXX,

 

Thank you for contacting The Elder Scrolls Online Team and expressing your interest in The Elder Scrolls Online.

 

I'm happy to answer your questions as follows:

 

1) We are developing a native Mac client for The Elder Scrolls Online!

2) Our plan is to launch The Elder Scrolls Online for PC and Mac at the same time.

 

Unfortunately, we're unable to honor individual beta key requests. I'm very sorry about that! ;_;

 

Please do not hesitate to contact us again if you have any further questions.

 

Thank you for your continued interest and support!

 

Warm Regards,

Stiw

The Elder Scrolls Online Team

[David]

I'm surprised they were so forthcoming with information about ESO considering how strict they've been. I did chuckle at your beta invite request. I would have asked as well! What do you have to lose?

 

It's good to see there will be a native Mac version at any rate.

 

Mind if I ask what Mac site you were referring to? I'm just wondering if it's one that I frequent.

[Fergal]

Quite surprised if they will actually release a Mac version, I guess there is always the option of duel-booting Windows with boot-camp if someone were desperate.

 

Is the mac hardware powerful enough to run it efficiently? I'm not really well informed with Macs, but I know it will obviously work with OpenGL, so it seems possible.

 

(Lol'd at your beta request, shame they had to turn it down! )

[Santosvella]

@ David

 

- I was honestly quite surprised too, but I figured it was worth a shot seeing as this probably wasn't classified info and more likely that nobody from the official press coverage ever bothered to ask. - Now that you've mentioned it, I do recall frequently spotting a grayish long-haired creature there too! It's a small world, isn't it?

Damn, it seems that I haven't been such a good boy after all, I hope Santa won't be pissed... oh well, I guess I was already going to Hell anyways for frantically trying to put my hands on every available bit of leaked material.@ Fergal

 

- A few editors regularly release Mac versions of their titles (Blizzard probably being the most prominent of them).I guess the scarcity of AAA titles is enough to ensure decent sales, despite the relatively small size of that market.- It depends which Mac you have in mind. Obviously the lower-end 13" and Air with integrated Intel GPU won't get you anywhere as far as gaming goes, but for example last year's 15" MBP comes with an overclocked GT 650M (which actually performs slightly better than a stock GTX 660M), a 2.7ghz quadcore i7, up to 16gb of RAM and 512gb SSD, more than enough to play a wide selection of games under decent conditions, at least in 1440x900 (which gives you a perfect 4:1 pixel aspect ratio from the screen's max 2880x1800 res and actually looks way better than upscaling games on a typical 1920x1080 screen).Now to be fair this is mostly true for playing in Bootcamp since among the few major titles that are released on Mac, many are awfully badly optimized Wine/Cider ports and even the few that aren't are heavily hampered by Apple's stubborness in releasing (at snail pace) its own mediocre native graphical drivers instead of letting Nvidia/AMD do it like on PC (or Bootcamp, just to be clear, performance in Bootcamp is 100% the same as it would be on an equivalent PC configuration).I have high hopes that this could change soon though, I recently saw a job offer from Nvidia aimed at recruiting an entire team of Mac drivers developers for a new office.