With EQ now structured under Darkpaw Games, and some uncertainty for future TLP servers (saturation), it may be a good time to think about resurrecting EQ's Mac code. I know you can use Boot Camp to run EQ but the ease/convenience (& memory saving) of a native app will be appealing to Mac users. I also know about TAKP but I distrust the invasive capabilities of e-m-us. Additionally, Al'Kabor server was permanently locked to Planes of Power.
Adding the DPG store, subscriptions, krono etc to the mac code would probably be a ton of work. Not to mention the whole maintaining a separate code base thing, which they are already not willing to do for the TLP's in general. And absent those things, there isn't really a financial incentive for them to do it.
I don't think they should worry about adding DPG store and Krono. I think the original AK server may have required a sub (not sure). The revived Al'Kabor server would stay in vanilla Mac code. It wouldn't use TLP mechanics or go beyond PoP. It would act like a stand-alone project. The only issue is that Mac/Apple expertise required and possible conflict with Apple's evolution away from the PowerPC code. It would be worth investigating.
Yeah, you are being completely unrealistic at this point. There is no way they are going to support a split code base, and even if they were to do so, there is no way they wouldn't monetize the hell out of it. I think sometimes people forget they actually want to make money as a company.
EQ for Mac (which was subscription based) is a spaghetti code mess that was barely kept alive for most of its existence. It's not coming back in any shape or form. There is a reason it was EoL. And this was before all the massive changes behind the scenes that have taken place in the past 10 years. There is no one around who understands the code. The last person working on it for Sony barely kept it alive. And this is before you get to all the possible issues since the last time the application ran vs what the current Mac OS is. Now, if you would like modern EQ to run natively on a Mac, sure … ask away. Gather support. But Al'Kabor is dead. Let it rest in peace.
That’s a pretty decent conflict given Apple switched from PowerPC 14 years ago. And given the fact it is heavily believed 2020 Macs will start running ARM processors instead of x86/64, it would be more beneficial for developers to attempt to get EQ to run on ARM than current Macs. At most you have 5% of the PC market on Mac, while you have Billions of ARM devices out in the world and a shrinking PC market. The Mac only player base was so small it couldn’t even make money when they did it, why would you attempt to do it again with your only reward being an even smaller market base? Mobile (Arm) version of EQ is the only logical choice if you were going to invest in attempting to get the game running on a different environment.
I think people are overstating the “maintain of two core bases” aspect of it. From around 2009 to 2014 when it shut down, there were a total of I believe 2 updates? Both back end updates that required no patching from our end. Both updates were mostly copying over some archived database data to replace our alpha elemental planes data. There were some minor code changes that fixed certain bugs in 2012 or so. Really the only maintenance that would be required is turning the server back on in the event of a crash. The server was previously set to reboot every other Wednesday morning around 2AM PST. Outside of that I can’t think of more than maybe once when the server went down and that was because every SOE server at the time went down. As for the no microtransactions yes, it would be a huge downside in their view as a company to not have these. I know many of the players drawn to such a server would prefer it this way but of course they are a company and not a charity. I’d love to see Al’Kabor revived. I’d love to see it require a special subscription outside of their all access type subscriptions. I just am not sure the desire is there for them to justify it. I’d probably fire up 3ish accounts on such a server even if they say the server will never see another update and even if they say no CSR assistance will be provided for lost items, deleted characters or broken quests. But they’d need thousands like me to consider it and I’m not sure they’re there.
People also assume you bothered keeping the code for an unsuccessful server you shut down 7 years ago, switched owners, and are now switching to another studio. The player created charity version of said server already exists though, people do have that as an option.
TAKP is the experience you want. Not sure what invasive capabilities you're talking about though. Maybe you're thinking the anti-cheat thing that P99 uses that triggers as malware? TAKP is its own clean client and doesn't use any of the ghetto stuff.
While resurrecting EQ for Mac may not be profitable, it could generate interest from Mac users to investigate PC EQ. While the hurdles are high, it may be a fairly cheap alternative to developing another game. It should be an item of discussion in a Darkpaw meeting moving forward. I believe TAKP admits to monitoring computer processes to prevent cheating. That is their prerogative. I simply don't trust unknown, private individuals with that kind of privilege.
Yeah, and even if they were there right now, I don't think they still would be six months from now when people remember how broken the code was in some places, and realize it will never be fixed. People scream about the lack of dev time, the lack of cs resources, on the current TLP's. I'm quite sure if people were putting down $15/month to play on a mac server, they'd soon start asking for dev time, updates, bug fixes, cs help, etc.
Also, I am not sure I am overstating this. 1) It was the biggest reason they cited for shutting down the server, a bunch of years ago when they had a bigger dev team than they have now. 2) As others have noted, the code base doesn't actually run on current mac hardware and would need probably a major overhaul just to get it up and running.
I am not saying this is a "done deal" or "plug in-and-play." I am fully aware of the limitations and criticisms. I am saying Darkpaw Games - as a new entity - should look into it. (EQ for Mac is far more feasible than resurrecting Vanguard or EQN).
3) As you noted, the devs have said they do not favor multiple code bases. 4) If JChan ain't doing it, it ain't getting done.
What Mac users? 2-5% of the home computing market share? People who play games....have a PC. It wasn’t profitable 20 years ago, it wouldn’t be profitable now, and it certainly isn’t going to get some mythical new blood of Mac owning players that refuse to use boot camp or own a PC. Ignoring the part that Mac is most likely moving away from x86 processors which would render doing so pointless for all new Mac in the near future. Making the entire prospect even less feasible. AND even if they did it (for current Macs)....you would port the current client that does run on x86, solve not having Direct X (probably with OpenGL) and players would play on the same servers as current servers in order to not maintain separate code bases. Which is literally not what your asking for, but would be the “easiest” way to make it play on Mac. Or just make a wrapper for the client that is running, most likely Wine like some Steam games do with DOSBOX. THAT would be getting EQ on Mac, not asking for a whole separate game to be made specially for a limited use platform. Your old server is dead, may it Rest In Peace.
I agree. I don't think it can be overstated. Maintaining two similar but still disparate code bases is a colossal pain in the .
Not to mention, EQClient is still 32bit and well, Apple recently removed support for 32bit apps. NOT to say that the EQClient doesn't really, really needs to move to 64bit; but at the moment, even if they rewrite the graphic bits to use OpenGL it still wouldn't run. I'm probably not overstating things to say its just as hard as writing a brand new mac only client. And I don't see any reason they'd do that over re-writing the PC one. Sorry, for gaming, MAC is a poor choice compared to PC.
They were happy to leave it alone for a while after the first threat of turning it off raised a response. IMO, EQ Mac's deathknell was because someone worked out how to connect to it from Windows with a modified client. It wasn't long after that they shut it down. But as mentioned these days, Catalina effectively put the nail in the coffin and we won't see a native macOS client.
