33 replies to this topic

[bobbyz123]

I purchased the Witcher from Steam and have had nothing but grief trying to run it.

My experience has been akin to others on this forum: black screen, no cursor, watched the startup movie, was able to access the options, back to black screen.

There is a very interesting conversation on the forum about using wineskin to run the game, but c'mon this is supposed to be a Mac game! Remember the concept of just opening a game and playing it in your own OS?

[AussieMacGamer]

Yeah it sounds like a total joke, disappointing to see this sort of crap come out of CDproject

[Wumpus]

I've emailed them directly about all the issues and asked for help, wonder how they will respond.

Its clear they did little to no testing with the game, or the mac they had didn't give them trouble with it. Either way their inexperience with the Mac platform certainly shows. I'm glad they are trying, but its going to fail unless they follow up with some support.

Also, the game IS running in wineskin, that's what CDP used to put it on the Mac. The other discussions are just about tinkering with it to get things to run better.

[doh123]

Its working fine for a lot of people... its impossible to test every configuration out there, so every game, even if it was fully native, or even if it was a Windows game on Windows will have many people who cannot get it running right.

Some people have said the black screen is a focus issue where its asking about firewall access.  If your stuck on a black screen you can try pressing Cmd+Opt+A to toggle it out of fullscreen, and see if there is a message to answer.. then select the game again and press the same key combo to throw it back in full screen.

[Tacohead]

Working fine for me after about 10 hours of play at 1920x1080. I had an initial blackscreen and invisible cursor but I used the Wineskin app to put it in a virtual desktop and those issues vanished. But of coarse one shouldn't need to know how to do something like that to get a game they purchased on Steam to run.

Ironically I'm really loving this game and as long as it continues to run well and without issues for me it may end up being one of the best bargains I've ever gotten in a game.

-PN

[bobbyz123]

Well, I finally got the game to run up to the gameplay selection, but when the courtyard start to load, bang! I get a black screen and a dialog telling me to check the wineskin forum for tips.

I appreciate that there are many gamers who speak wineskin fluently but let me play the Devil's advocate:

Is it right for a company to sell a game as Mac-compatable when it actually needs another application to run, then not support it when it doesn't run?

I contacted support on Tuesday and still no joy.

I get a feeling that they were dumping a product in front of releasing the enhanced version coming up.

[doh123]

It's all built in.  Normally the user doesn't even have to know its Wineskin.  The error is a standard wine error so it's not that helpful. You should still go to the game maker for helP and not even worry about it being Wineskin

Now beyond what they'll do, others might be able to help more, but just like if it was Cider, you still need to get support from the makers of the actual game, not the software they used to make the port. That said, if they had told me they were doing this I could have probably given some input to help them out... I could do a good upgrade on this wrapper they are using to have less issues. Hopefully they'll get around to doing that eventually.

[tcrown]

This smacks of a very lazy port with little to no Q&A which boggles the mind since Cd project pride themselves on customer support. If they were giving this away on GOG then there would be much less problem but they are charging money for it $10 for a very shoddy build, wineskin or cider or native makes no difference. They are charging for a product that doesn't work as advertised.

You would not see a company like Blizzard or Feral release a shoddy port and leave it to the gamers to sort it out.

[bobbyz123]

Just a follow-up:

I finally got a reply from Steam:

"Right-click on the game in your Library list and go to Properties > Local Files > Verify Integrity of Game Cache.

After Steam verifies the game cache, try running the game again."

It did let me know that 4 files were corrupted.

Still waiting on what to do next.

D

[Wumpus]

Read on the Steam forums that users have tried the verify game cache things several times, and each time it finds corrupted files. Seems the Mac version is doing something weird to the game files.

[doh123]

Did it tell you what files are corrupted? There are a few files that are supposed to change with how Wineskin works, so it might be getting false positives.

[bobbyz123]

No, it just said four files.

If it is any help, the game locks up with a loop of dialog (maybe several syllables repeated).

[Hansi]

The normal Windows version often has the same issue with file integrity I don't think that's the issue here.

[bobbyz123]

Well, for what it is worth, I went over to the Steam/witcher forum and it seems like my problem is being experienced by many people.

It would appear to be a port that wasn't beta tested.

Be aware that Steam has a "no refund" policy for downloadable games.

So, before you buy consider all of the info out there.

[bobbob]

bobbyz123, on 17 April 2012 - 09:56 AM, said:

Be aware that Steam has a "no refund" policy for downloadable games

People have asked Valve and have gotten refunds before, so that's not quite accurate.

[bobbyz123]

"People have asked Valve and have gotten refunds before, so that's not quite accurate. "

Sorry, I could have sworn I read that.

[Janichsan]

bobbyz123, on 17 April 2012 - 09:01 PM, said:

"People have asked Valve and have gotten refunds before, so that's not quite accurate. "

Sorry, I could have sworn I read that.

You are correct that they have that policy, but they are apparently very lenient when it comes to apply it.

[Tibur]

Valve's "no refund" policy may be: "NO REFUNDS for downloadable games if the reason you're seeking a refund is because you: 1) finished the game and decided it has no replay value; or 2) you've played the game for a while, but now you find it boring and want to try something else, but need some money to buy that something else.  If the downloadable game you bought is a craptastic game (or port of a game) that is basically unplayable due to all the bugs that should have been squashed before release, we'll probably give you your money back because that's just good customer service."

I'm just guessing, of course, but that would be my "no refund" policy if I had a company that sold stuff.

[Wumpus]

$10 isn't the end of the world. Hopefully CDP will give the mac version some attention soon. I suspect the launch of the xbox version of TW2 and enhanced version on PC (both yesterday) has kept them quite busy.

[bobbyz123]

"$10 isn't the end of the world."

Too true.

As a long-time gamer on the Mac (1988) I have lamented the attention that the platform gets. Shoddy work kinda buys into the PCer's meme that the Mac isn't a good platform for games.

...back to Diablo III watch!