world-of-warcraft posts

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Software, Odds and ends

Warhammer Online coming to the Mac

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Jul 31st, 2009

More good news for MMO players on the Mac: Warhammer Online has joined the ranks of EVE and of course World of Warcraft by announcing the release of a Mac-compatible client. Most of you already interested were probably playing with Boot Camp, but that hasn't stopped Mythic from working on a Mac client. It's in beta now (and free to current players, with a free trial available for those who haven't stepped inside the MMO yet), and they're aiming for a release in the Fall. And how nice is this: Mac players will get two titles of their own, as well as an exclusive in-game trophy.

Unfortunately, the client doesn't run truly natively -- Mythic is owned by EA, so, you guessed it, Transgaming's Cider is behind this port, too. Cider isn't always the best way to run games (native would be the way we'd like to see it), but many of the problems we've seen with the technology are a few years old now, so hopefully it's gotten better (and that's likely what this beta is all about) -- hopefully they can work out all the kinks before the official release in the Fall.

Warhammer Online is an excellent MMO, especially notable for its heavy PvP elements and its innovative Public Quests and Tome of Knowledge feature (kind of like achivements, but even more in-depth). It's a little late coming to our platform, but it's good to finally see another big game take on Mac support.

Tags: boot-camp, cider, ea, eve-online, mac, mmo, mythic, port, tome-of-knowledge, transgaming, warhammer-online, world-of-warcraft

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Hardware, Software, Apple, Security, Developer, iPhone, iPod touch

Blizzard releasing Mobile Authenticator for iPhone, iPod touch

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Mar 19th, 2009

Blizzard is one of the biggest software developers in the world -- they're behind some of the most popular games of all time, including the Diablo series, and of course their legendary MMO World of Warcraft (full disclosure: I'm a senior editor over on TUAW's sister site about that game, WoW Insider). And they've always been Apple friendly -- while other developers complained that it wasn't worth porting their software to the Mac, Blizzard has always released both Mac and PC versions of their games on the same disc, and made sure there was quality on both sides. But they've never dipped their toes in iPhone development -- until now.

WoW Insider has found a posting over on Blizzard's site that suggests they're planning to release an app called Mobile Authenticator. They've released a piece of hardware called the Authenticator before -- it pushes out a code according to an algorithm that keeps players' accounts secure when they sign into the online game. And this app will serve the same purpose, but it'll likely run on your iPhone or iPod touch.

Nothing's appeared on the App Store yet, and this app hasn't even been officially announced (so no word on price or release date -- the hardware authenticator runs $6.50, but obviously there are material costs involved there). But Blizzard has been looking for ways to make their games and players more secure, and it looks like they're turning to Apple's iPhone and other mobile devices to do it.

Tags: apple, blizzard, developer, gaming, iphone, ipod-touch, mac, mobile-authenticator, security, software, world-of-warcraft, wow-insider

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Software, Odds and ends, Internet, Developer

City of Heroes comes to the Mac

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Jan 9th, 2009

Along with EVE Online and World of Warcraft, Mac users have another popular MMO to play with. It took a while, but NCsoft has finally brought their superhero massively multiplayer online game, City of Heroes, to OS X. When we heard the game was ported over by TransGaming, we flinched a bit, but NCsoft has assured us that there is no funny DRM on the release, and our colleagues over at Massively have tried out the client early, and put to rest any major questions about the quality of the port, saying that it runs well, save for a few bumps when the action gets crowded on screen.

As promised, the Mac "Special Edition" is a digital release, and comes with both the City of Heroes and the City of Villians expansion, as well as a month of game time (after that there's a subscription fee to play along), and two exclusive items: a Mission Teleporter power, to get you directly into missions, and a special "Valkyrie" costume set. The game is available for $19.99 over on NCsoft's site right now, so if you've been waiting to get some superhero MMO action underway, now's your chance.

Tags: city-of-heroes, coh, eve-online, mac, massively, mmo, ncsoft, osx, port, transgaming, world-of-warcraft

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Hardware, Software

City of Heroes coming to Mac under Transgaming's Cider

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Oct 30th, 2008

Yet another MMO on the Mac -- EVE Online and World of Warcraft are already there, of course, and now NCSoft has announced that City of Heroes is coming to the Mac. Unfortunately, they're using Transgaming's Cider software to port the game, and as we've said before, the software isn't only unreliable, but ~~it's got the dreaded SecuROM DRM attached~~*, as well. Not to mention that even the MacBook can basically run any game through BootCamp now, making a separate Mac version unnecessary in many cases.

But there is one thing we really like about this release, and that's that NCSoft is actually releasing the game on the Mac as a "special edition": players who buy the Mac expansion (which apparently will be a digital-only release) will pick up a free ingame teleporter item, as well as a special "Valkyrie" costume set usable on their superhero character. So if you do go for Transgaming's software, at least you can pick up some free ingame stuff for it. We're not so much for the ~~DRM-laden~~ emulation, but the free stuff we do like.

There's no set release date yet (they say it'll launch with the game's upcoming "Issue 13" update), but they're taking applications right now for an open beta, so if you're interested, sign on up.

[via Massively]

Update: NCSoft has contacted us to say that the Mac Special Edition of City of Heroes will not contain the SecuROM DRM. It was our understanding that all Transgaming releases would use the technology, but NCSoft says that theirs won't, so there you go.

Tags: bootcamp, city-of-heroes, drm, emulation, eve-online, ncsoft, securom, transgaming, world-of-warcraft

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Software, Freeware

Wowhead Warcraft database releases OS X client

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Jun 3rd, 2008

Our friends at WoW Insider (disclaimer: I'm a lead blogger over there) have good news for Mac World of Warcraft players who want to support one of their favorite sites. Wowhead, which is one of the premium online databases of all the items, quests, and NPCs there are to find in the game, has released a Mac client for their info-gathering spiders. Basically, you start up their app while you play the game, and it automatically pulls info to populate the database.

To answer your question, no, you don't get anything from gathering information for them, save for the pleasure of knowing that you're helping to support and fill a popular database (that most WoW players have probably used for free before).

But if you're a Mac player who's used Wowhead in the past and wouldn't mind helping them out, here's your chance. The client is a quick free download from their site.

Tags: items, mac, npc, os-x, quests, world-of-warcraft, wow-insider, wowhead

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Retail, Software, Apple

CrossOver Games released, designed to play Windows games on Mac and Linux

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Mar 26th, 2008

Codeweavers has released CrossOver Games, a games-specific version of CrossOver, their Windows emulation software. Jeremy White has the story behind the release over on their blog -- apparently the application team wasn't working quite as quickly as they wanted, but the games team was chugging right along in terms of compatibility, so they decided to go ahead and ship what they'd done with games on its own.

The compatibility list isn't bad (most of the Steam stuff is on there, which is great, although it is a little weird that they brag about World of Warcraft and EVE Online, considering that those two run natively on Mac just fine; guess you Linux folks need your MMO fix, too) but nothing really jumps out here that might encourage you to use CrossOver rather than just, say, Boot Camp-ing the game up yourself. DirectX 10 is apparently causing problems, too, since neither Crysis, Gears of War, or Unreal Tournament III are on there.

Still, a valiant effort, and if you're desperate to get one of these games working and playable on your Mac (and don't have a spare copy of Windows sitting around to install with Boot Camp), CrossOver Games might be just what you need. TUAW is working on getting a copy of it, and as soon as we do, we'll run it through the grinder and see what we can get to come out the other side.

[Via DF]

Tags: crossover-games, eve-online, gears-of-war, unreal-tournament-3, windows, world-of-warcraft

Filed under: Gaming, Hardware, iMac, Leopard

10.5.2 makes your WoW go faster

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Feb 11th, 2008

Our good friends over at WoW Insider (disclaimer: I'm a lead over there) have unlocked one of the first secrets about 10.5.2 (which dropped today in Software Update): it'll make World of Warcraft play faster.

After hearing that the patch made reader Jason's Mac play faster, WoW Insider's Adam Holisky saw his FPS jump from 30 to 50 on his first-gen Intel iMac (he also has 2gb of RAM, and installed the graphics update with 10.5.2). The picture on the upper right was a test under 10.5.1, and on the lower right was after the update.

Pretty slick. I'd imagine that this would probably affect most 3D games (although who knows how EA's games will work on the Mac at any given moment). The only note that might document this in the update itself is just a "general stability" fix for "third-party applications,' but if you see your 3D go faster after 10.5.2 let us know. Azeroth has never looked so good.

Tags: 10.5.2, ea, graphics, imac, mac, system-update, testing, world-of-warcraft, wow-insider

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