Here's the entire post from Shadowbane Warcry (we'd excerpt just a portion of the post, but we've had difficulty reaching their web site):
I wanted to be clear in my original post to you. There has not been any Mac Beta signups, and nor do I expect any for Closed Beta, because we have quite a few Mac users in our beta database and they currently are, or will be soon, in Phase 3.Macs and PCs run simultaneously in Shadowbane, there isn't a separate Mac Shadowbane world. And in that context, there is no need to have a separate Mac Beta. And simply having a Mac, doesn't mean you get to skip the line or beta test sooner than anyone else.
- Are Macs testing Shadowbane at this very moment?
Yes.
- Why aren't their more Mac testers?
Probably because we don't need any additional Mac testers at this time, and that doesn't mean we are abandoning Mac (although I could see why a Mac user would always assume that first above all else), but maybe - just maybe, we don't need more testers because it runs extremely well right now.
-Will (some) Mac Users get an opportunity to test Shadowbane?
Yes, but whom and how many, when and where, are factors to be determined later on. I would say keep checking back with us for updates.
"Did a small army of Mac heads suddenly join the staff?"
Hehe, you could say that. Ubi Soft came on board. And we have a huge Q&A [sic] Staff that works for us. We have made and published Mac games before like Myst III: Exile and some others. So we have the capability to do extensive Mac based testing.
"Is it the nature of the software code that platform specific testers are not as important?"
*Dances Slightly* You could say that, to a degree. A think a majority of the bugs, exploits, and crashes have almost absolutely nothing to do with the client's operating system, or system specs. It's still about the game's design and implementation. There are differences, like a Windows 2000 and Windows 98 may experience slight variations on the same problem, but overall its the same problem.
The nature of the PC makes it much more difficult to test, because of several different operating systems, video cards, sound cards, hard drives, memory sizes, memory types, overall configurations, hard drives, CPUs, virus software, - you name it. All of these components don't work alike, and certain combinations produce a different set of results: A Compaq 1 GHz and a Dell 1 GHz with the same type of features will get two (possibly) different results. Maybe one has DDR RAM and the other doesn't. Maybe they both have DDR RAM, but one has 3DNow.
*Shrug*
You don't have the problem as much with an Apple user. A G4 is going to be pretty much a G4, an iMac the same as another iMac, well you get the picture. But please note that does not mean we won't need more external Mac testers, or that in future phases Mac users won't be called specifically. They probably will.
But as I said before, we don't need extra Mac testers today, and until we need more than we have in our testing facility, and those in our database, we won't have any signups for this Phase of Beta, although this could always change in 2 weeks or a month.
It's great to see some more attention being paid lately to the Mac version of Shadowbane. We'll be sure to keep you posted on any future developments.
