539 replies to this topic

[nagromme]

Great news! And here I was fearing it would come to iPhone first

[Janichsan]

edddeduck, on September 24th 2009, 04:50 PM, said:

...and 'Songbird' for 'LEGO Batman'.

Tsk tsk tsk. This clearly shows poor understanding of zoological fundamentals...

[edddeduck]

Janichsan, on September 24th 2009, 08:29 AM, said:

Tsk tsk tsk. This clearly shows poor understanding of zoological fundamentals...

As a Robin is a songbird I think you sir are the one with poor understanding of both zoological fundamentals and how code names should not be obvious at first glance.

[clocknova]

edddeduck, on September 24th 2009, 06:32 AM, said:

Just to keep everyone calm we will not be using Securom on the Mac version. We have our own in house system that after a simple DNA profile will allow you to play....

In all seriousness you will need to have the DVD in the drive but you will not have any activation limits. However with only one disk per box we think it limits how many people can play at once without requiring any rootkit's to be installed.

Edwin

DVD check?  Darn.  I guess I'll wait a few more years to buy this one, in case you eventually remove the DVD check.  No offense, but that's the main reason I don't play many Mac games anymore.  Any chance you might release a digital download version?

[Rob Chahin]

Now guys, all this talk of Bioshock is WILD speculation. We haven't even annou... Oh. Carry on.

And we've "revealed" the third game that people were asking about. And not in the same way that Edwin revealed it.

edddeduck, on September 24th 2009, 12:47 PM, said:

Will give you the internal codename "Project Ash"

[edddeduck]

clocknova, on September 24th 2009, 09:00 AM, said:

Any chance you might release a digital download version?

Not right now but is on the to do list.

Edwin

[nagromme]

Awesome! Disc-check is not a deal-breaker for me, but it IS a big issue. Plus I like low waste. A digital download (as long as transferrable when I get a new Mac) would be great.

And as an Air owner who plans to get more Airs (eventually with enough GPU to play games as low detail), a disc check WILL in future be a deal-breaker

[edddeduck]

nagromme, on September 24th 2009, 09:34 AM, said:

Awesome! Disc-check is not a deal-breaker for me, but it IS a big issue. Plus I like low waste. A digital download (as long as transferrable when I get a new Mac) would be great.

And as an Air owner who plans to get more Airs (eventually with enough GPU to play games as low detail), a disc check WILL in future be a deal-breaker

To quote someone in the Apple industry bad digital download or copy protection can be "a big bag of hurt". If it works well it is great else it sucks, when we do (and we will) get download options we will make sure they are good and also allow us to still offer the level of support with patches etc without effecting end users or making the process overly complex.

Edwin

p.s. The new air with the 9400 card can play Bioshock fine on medium settings. You just need to attach a DVD to start the game, once started you can eject the game and disconnect the DVD drive.

[nagromme]

Cool! And here's a request for the future (if not already?) disc check that supports Remote Disc I have never bought a DVD drive for my old Air, and probably won't for my next BioShock-ready Air, but I'll almost always have some computer nearby with a DVD drive. Even when visiting friends/family. I could can off their optical drive and still have the portability.

Edit: "future" meaning meanwhile before the download option

Thanks for the port, and for discussing it all with us!

[clocknova]

edddeduck, on September 24th 2009, 12:24 PM, said:

Not right now but is on the to do list.

Edwin

That's good news.  I hate to be a complainer, you know.  And I love the work you guys do and want to fully support you.  But I absolutely loathe having to keep a game discs around my desk just to play a game every now and then.  I picked up the PC version of Bioshock from a friend for $15, and I was able to easily "circumvent" the problem, but that's harder to do with Mac games (and I resent having to try, but I don't really blame you for that).  A digital download would make that problem go away and would be better for the environment.  If you can offer that within a year or so, I'll still buy the game from you.

The same goes for Rome:Total War.  I have the PC version, but I'll buy it again from you if you offer it as a digital download (or if another "solution" presents itself).  For the record, I bought Pirates! from you, and I loved the game, but the disc check just ticked me off, especially since I didn't have to deal with it on the PC version.

P.S.  I hope I have handled the forbidden issue deftly enough to avoid any disciplinary action.

[Miharu]

I am definitely looking forward to this. I actually have Bioshock Collector's Edition already for PC but it along with the few other PC games I bought, has been left completely unplayed due to my reluctance of booting into Windows all the time just to play a game. At least it came with a nice Big Daddy statue

If the price is right, I'll probably buy it to visit Rapture again.

But I am with you guys on the disc check issue. We live in a digital age and it's a bother to switch discs or even keep one in the drive as it makes noise and draws power. They should only be used for installing the game.

[The Liberator]

ltcommander.data, on September 24th 2009, 09:53 PM, said:

edddeduck, on September 24th 2009, 08:26 PM, said:

You can have your copy on the 7th of October.

I guess the great thing about not officially confirming products until they are ready is the pleasantly short delay between official announcement and release.

I can heartily agree here. A few weeks ago, I thought the game might not have been coming at all. A few days ago, I thought it might be coming a lot later than was speculated or intended, as there was no word. It really was a nice suprise to know that it will be available by October.

edddeduck, on September 24th 2009, 10:32 PM, said:

ltcommander.data, on September 24th 2009, 09:53 PM, said:

I don't suppose you could comment on whether any use was made of the DX10 codepath from the Windows version or dr.zeissler's concerns earlier in the thread about water and lighting quality being on par with the Windows version?

It matches the PC in every way, the DX10 effects are disabled but they are so subtle you need to stare at screenshots for a few hours to tell the difference. The water reflection is the same as the PC in fact you should not be able to tell between the PC and the Mac when watching gameplay footage. The only thing left out is the DX10 water trails feature which is not supported on the initial release but we might look at it for a patch if it looks easy to implement if we do it will likely be 10.6 only.

Well, that is great news to know.

By the way, I personally really don't mind about the disk check at all, I guess that is because I like something physical more, that something I purely digital and never really existing (except in code).

Thanks, Liberator.

[Sneaky Snake]

Feral you guys are the best   , I will be purchasing.

how long did development take on this game??

I guess we can now assume that the problems with UT3 and Gears are not engine based, but rather some issue with Epic

[The Liberator]

They might still be engine based, as Bioshock is programmed with UE2 and 2.5, not as UT3 was with UE3. Just remember that.

By the way, I am not ruling out the possibility of problems with epic though.

Liberator.

[UmarOMC1]

[ltcommander.data]

The Liberator, on September 25th 2009, 12:36 AM, said:

They might still be engine based, as Bioshock is programmed with UE2 and 2.5, not as UT3 was with UE3. Just remember that.

By the way, I am not ruling out the possibility of problems with epic though.

Liberator.

Maybe Edwin can comment and finally give an official position on whether Bioshock should be considered an UE2.5 game with modifications or a UE3 game with modifications since I've heard it referred to either way. Although, I believe Ken Levine and his team put quite a bit of their own work into it and mixed and matched other stuff so it is mostly a unique engine.

Oh and Edwin, not to make light of Feral's own efforts and critical contributions to Mac gaming, but next time you meet with 2K Games I'd appreciate it if you thank them for me and I'm sure other Mac users for their continued support of the Mac platform with their IP and games. EA Games seems to get a lot of media attention and support from Apple even though they are now resorting to Cider ports, just like Ubisoft, while Activision seems to be more narrowly focused in what titles they bring over to Mac now. 2K Games though seems to be quietly bringing their games over to Mac, with recent releases like Sid Meier's Pirates, Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword, and now Bioshock and Civilization IV: Colonization. What's more, they seem to be open to supporting multiple Mac porting houses like Aspyr and Feral, and of course allow their IPs to be given a full native port for the best user experience. Their approach is definitely the preferable one for Mac gaming. Admittedly, I'm also trying to butter them up hoping they will consider bringing their other associated series like Mafia, GTA or Oblivion over to Mac.

And of course thanks to Feral for your hard work and best of luck to Bioshock being a success.

[The Liberator]

Oblivion will never happen.

…Well not unless Bethesda suddenly has an epiphany  (or something).

Liberator.

[Smoke_Tetsu]

As far as I'm concerned it's UE2.5 with features equivalent to UE3 grafted on.

[Rob Chahin]

ltcommander.data, on September 25th 2009, 07:00 AM, said:

2K Games though seems to be quietly bringing their games over to Mac, with recent releases like Sid Meier's Pirates, <snip>, and now Bioshock

I wonder what we've been doing while they've been doing all that work  

[edddeduck]

ltcommander.data, on September 24th 2009, 11:00 PM, said:

Maybe Edwin can comment and finally give an official position on whether Bioshock should be considered an UE2.5 game with modifications or a UE3 game with modifications since I've heard it referred to either way. Although, I believe Ken Levine and his team put quite a bit of their own work into it and mixed and matched other stuff so it is mostly a unique engine.

It's pretty much as complex as 3 but it in fact started life as 2.5 and had a huge amount of extra work (mostly for the water) during dev of Bioshock UE3 came out so I think they poached a few small bits from the newer engine. When things have calmed down a bit I will see if I can answer this one in detail and make sure 2K don't mind. The short answer is based is 2.5 with a bunch of very heavy mods. It was not easy but we at Feral like a challenge.

I will pass on the general feedback to 2K that people are very happy that Bioshock and other 2K games make it to the Mac.

Edwin