I know this is in General discussion but if need to be in hardware section or somewhere, just tell me politely.
I heard several versions of the why there is no "official" mac version. but it centered on the fact they (bethesda) don't like the mac even to this day even though I'am satisfied with the ps3 version and hope Skyrim look fantastic on there. I'll have a sure bet Skyrim won't be on the Mac.
it just I would like to try mods. but personally I don't care wether they do or not, it just they didn't have a clear answer of why.

another thing I heard Havok is not workable on a mac is part of the reason although the modders got around that somehow.

I am sure it is just that there is a much smaller market for mac games than PC and console. So they have much less money to make in porting the game to yet another OS.

If you have a newer mac, you should look into using Bootcamp. It will create a partition on your drive that you install Windows (and of course PC games) to. It is basically like having two computers in the same box.

yeah I know about that, the first thing I guess is upgrade my macbook pro though got it used refurbished from the factory and it is pretty good but that the first I'll do is the graphics card.

oh I do have it the ps3 so if I get on a mac Bootcamped it probably just for the mods and official dlc.

I'll tell you why!

Laziness
Greed
Zero Optimism
Relying on Microsoft and Bootcamp (Two of the worlds most horrible things)
And in general they are apart of the F Apple we can make profits in other markets. But then, and this gets me everytime, they are hypocrites and support the iPhone.... Like what the heck, what gold diggers.

Y'know, AFAIK, Bethesda Game Studios don't make iPhone games.
How have they got Zero Optimism?
As SubRosa said, they probably wouldn't make enough profit off of Macs.

The same reason why we have no Linux version. Ther mac market is simply not large enough to make the conversion economical viable. Maybe you find some emulation software?

As to why, I don't really know, but I wish it weren't true as I am a Mac user myself.

A side note though, instead of using Bootcamp I would recommend using Wine.

This. Why should they go through the trouble and expense developing a separate version for Mac and Linux, when there are emulators that can run in the game on those systems? With the amount of money they would make from those platforms, it would hardly be worth their while.

There would be some "issues" with a Mac version. It would be more difficult to distribute mods for Mac, since Mac (and Linux) directories don't "merge" the way Windows does. You can't just drag-drop nested directories with a Unix-based system; the new contents completely replace the old. There's also the issue of copy-protection; it's trivially simple to create virtual disk images on a Mac.

Uhh. Not on any file manager I have used.

Assuming of course the disk doesn't have copy protection.


Install SI using Wine using the standard method. yeah

(Oh. And I am not aware of any emulators that can run Oblivion. You are probably thinking of Wine, which isn't an emulator).

On Windows, if you copy a heirarchical directory structure like "data\files\fileX" into a location that has a directory named "data," Windows will attempt to merge the new directory into the old one, asking whether you want to overwrite files with the same name. This makes possible the method used to add mod data to games like Oblivion. The original directory structure is preserved, and only duplicate files are overwritten.

If you do the same thing in the Mac OS, or in any flavor of Unix/Linux, you'll only be given the option to completely overwrite the old "data" directory, removing any of the previous contents, including any subdirectories. There is no "directory merge" function in the Unix file system.

Because everyone hates Macs and Apple

That is not entirely true. Directories work fine and so would mods if they coded for mac... As for replacing files, you can choose yes or no....

O Apple continuously sells more macs each quarter BTW, the market is growing... And if blizzard is confident in mac development, along with id and valve, than why shouldn't bethesda start sooner than later, before macs own 30% of the market. They are only hurting them selves not their wallets for ignoring development for the Mac OS.

Wait until early June for the WWDC and Apples Keynote. The whole market is going to shift!

Well I'm not that familiar with Macs these days, and not at all with Linux, so I'm just presuming that they use some sort of emulator to allow PC games to work.

Sure. Using mv has no recursive option (<_<) but that doesn't mean that it isn't possible (It isn't like mv is magic, just part of the Unix tool chain). You just want to use something like cp or rsync from the command line or any modern file manager if in a gui. Or even better, find a wrapper for mv.

(This is Linux. I have no clue about Macs)



Sorry I was a bit... irked. Wine is a compatibility layer. Subtle difference from an emulator.

Very few companies create cross platform games, simply because the coding is too specialized. The games that do make it to the Mac are often ported by a third party. Havok physics is a large part of why you won't see Oblivion running native on OS X. Third party porting companies such as Aspyr and MacSoft refuse to pay the exorbitant licensing fees (they don't sell enough units to justify it). Blizzard cough up the necessary, because they can afford it, so their games are cross-platform.

I have 3 machines here; a PC with Ubuntu, a game machine running Windows, and the Mac Pro I'm writing this reply on.

I'm aware that recursive file moving is possible. My point was in answer to the Mac issue. The Mac Finder (the GUI file system) does not support that kind of recursive directory manipulation. A Mac user could not drag/drop mod data to an Oblivion directory, as a PC user can.

Dude yes a mac user can! You know nothing about macs... Just because everything seems nice and unsophisticated doesn't mean its lacking in ability... You can't be a mac noob and say stuff like that...

Because Macs are meant for normal people who only use them for Internet, writing, music, movies and pictures.

Surely when Macs get pursued with developers like Windows does, it means Linux will be relative to the Mac of today. Sufficed to say, there's no market right now for it, which is why developers tend to overlook Linux. Gotta keep your Windows emulation software handy, which isn't an issue for Mac.

It's not about ability. It's about the way the Finder handles directory moving/copying. I'm probably a "mac noob," though, since I've only had six of them since 1992.