This is from a reader who owns a MacBook and is looking for a "free" RPG that she could play on said MacBook whenever she was bored.

No, really, I am looking for an RPG that I can play on my Mac - preferably an online one. All of the ones I keep getting are either too big for my poor MacBook, or are only and ONLY for PCs.

Also: this is a thread for people to give shout outs for RPGs to be on Macs.

It's not that hard to make a .dmg file, is it?! COME ON! Not to mention that there are older games that you either had to get for a Mac - or just not play it at all. I have a dozen games like that, as I grew up on PCs, and since I'm technically now old enough to play them...they don't work on Macs. Not to mention NO ONE HAS THEM ANYMORE. I found this wicked cool game called "Nihilist" somewhere in my grandparents' house (don't ask), and I can only play it on a PC...that doesn't have Vista because Vista hates everything I give to it.

So please, everyone, regard this not as a complain thread, but as a note to video game designers: Macs are becoming more popular! Bring out the games!

Superfluous options edited out of your poll.

-moderator

Macs are only 4-6% of the market of course there going to left out.

You could get Myst or WoW though. Or just put windows on the Mac.

Blizzard games have MAC versions, go to their website and I think you can download some, not for free though. If you've got the free space for it you can put windows on a MAC too but I'm not sure if it takes vista only or not, and vista's a rip off at the price it is now (seriously this thing just refuses to go down in the OEM market), and I could go on and on about why XP is still the better choice since most of Vista's "upgrades" are purely cosmetic.

I think we should blame those at the MAC HQ though, they keep giving an "anti-gaming" image because they try so hard to be "cool" - someone should pull their heads out their ass.

Also, best free RPG ever = www.kingdomofloathing.com

ElArabDeMagnifico:
Blizzard games have MAC versions, go to their website and I think you can download some, not for free though. If you've got the free space for it you can put windows on a MAC too but I'm not sure if it takes vista only or not, and vista's a rip off at the price it is now (seriously this thing just refuses to go down in the OEM market), and I could go on and on about why XP is still the better choice since most of Vista's "upgrades" are purely cosmetic.

I think we should blame those at the MAC HQ though, they keep giving an "anti-gaming" image because they try so hard to be "cool" - someone should pull their heads out their ass.

Also, best free RPG ever = www.kingdomofloathing.com

Didn't know security was cosmetic. But no I won't get into that (like I know you can too), get XP though if you want to play games on your Mac, When you put windows on with bootcamp you can only read files with vista kinda ruining the point although the partition can only be up to 32GB on XP(above and it will crash).

Mac should really try harder getting a better gaming rep. I mean yeah you can use microsoft on a mac but shouldn't the point of making macs be to try and be BETTER than Microsoft? But as least they're not ripping some elses OS off...

Speaking of vista...

I know Microsoft stopped shipping xp to retailers but mom and pop computer stores can still install it right? Or I'm I going to have to buy it on Amazon or Ebay and install it myself? Fucking vista's a resource hog.

http://spidweb.com
http://ambrosiasw.com
http://freeverse.com

All Mac-first or Mac-only developers through and through. Can't believe you haven't heard of 'em.

shatnershaman:

Didn't know security was cosmetic. But no I won't get into that (like I know you can too), get XP though if you want to play games on your Mac, When you put windows on with bootcamp you can only read files with vista kinda ruining the point although the partition can only be up to 32GB on XP(above and it will crash).

I said "most of" - but me and you have a history of threadjacking so I'll stop there. Besides, the person's got a MAC, they don't need to worry about security.

ElArabDeMagnifico:
If you've got the free space for it you can put windows on a MAC too but I'm not sure if it takes vista only or not, and vista's a rip off at the price it is now (seriously this thing just refuses to go down in the OEM market), and I could go on and on about why XP is still the better choice since most of Vista's "upgrades" are purely cosmetic.

Enh, these days they're both equally sucky (for a while after release, Vista sucked more), so it's a wash. You really should make the choice based on which one will support the applications you like better -- both have some gaps in what they'll do or at least do well. Predictably, some of the shiniest new stuff really needs Vista and XP is good for some older software that's got some kind of quirk that makes it impossible to run on anything but XP..

For example, I bought Vista only for DirectX 10 and use XP on an older computer because I need it to work from home. That said, paying $80-120 just for an OEM version of Vista just to run games has me pretty annoyed because it definitely does feel like a massive ripoff, whereas XP at least gave me some value all those years I was sitting around waiting for Linux distros to really get their act together on the usability front.

I'm not sure I'd recommend either for a MacBook. Might be better off just putting that money into some non-free Mac-compatible games to play (e.g. WoW).

-- Alex

Okay, I do hear most of you, but since I'm female and I have only recently (i.e. in the past year and a half), I really don't want to compromise space using XP and I REALLY don't want to buy a subscription to something I don't think I'll play more than an hour a day, if that...

Really, I just want to thank you all for commenting, and posting your personal ideas. Thank god for the internet.

A note to lori Branford: thanks! I had no idea those sites even existed, to tell you the truth. I am SO bad with looking for those things.

Again: this thread is for people to complain and explain. Thanks again!

Some commercial MMOGs don't use a subscription model these days (they try to get your money with stuff like micropayment content or expansion packs instead). Would you play one of those if it appealed to you? Basically just pay for it like a regular game and then later on you can buy add-ons if you feel like it?

It's a little long, but try looking through this list. A quick glance reveals the following MMOGs:
Puzzle Pirates - my Mac-using friends all loved this when it came out; you can play for free if you don't mind micropayments for premium swag, or get a subscription if you don't like that.
Shadowbane - an MMOG that was created a few years after EQ, heavy on the PVP aspects; it was horribly buggy back then but supposedly they've fixed it up a lot; these days it's ad-supported freeware; closest thing to a full-on WoW- or EQ- style MMOG that you're going to find for free.
Crossfire - some kind of old-school-ish isometric thing, totally free and open-source.
Toontown - somewhat kid-oriented, free but they charge a subscription for premium content.

-- Alex

As Mac presence gets stronger support for it will as well.
But yeah, I wish there were more games for Macs. I love my Mac so much for my work and also because it doesn't really go wrong ever, unlike PCs. I miss PC gaming but I don't miss the grief that comes with owning a PC.
Currently enjoying Mac Tiberium Sun. Lots of fun!

Right, my problem is: the downloading for mmoRPGS. Not just MMOs. MMOs I've played a lot and yes, they're fun, they're just...well, they get boring after a while. And so do RPGs, but those take a bit longer. And more specifically I'm looking for a games that I can actually use on my Mac, along with these RPGs. I understand that there are .RAR expanders (I have and use one myself), but it doesn't take the ENTIRE .exe file and convert it. It even says so on the website and the program. But if I wanted to play something FOR a Mac, such as KotoR, or a LEGO game, I could. My problem is (sorry, I'm using Star Wars because I'm a geek and I happen to love the gameplay for these games) that I REALLY want to play Pod Racing. It's only for PC.

Well I have a number of Macs and PCs, and play quite a few games on the Mac (though a vast majority of my games are Windows only).
If you have the PC version of a Blzzard game (Diablo 2, WarCraft III, Warcraft II Battle Net Edition) you most likely also have the Mac version (they're on the same disk). Blizzard actually just released a patch for Diablo 2 that makes it work on Intel-based Macs (not native, but through PPC emulation), so you'd need to download the 1.12a patch and the Mac OSX installer (the installer on the CD is for Mac OS9, which if you don't know what it is, you probably are better off not knowing, it's ancient history now). The Latest Warcraft III patch is Intel native, but I don't know how well it'd run on a MacBook (probably OK).
I'd recommend against loading Windows (XP or Vista) on a MacBook for games, simply because the MacBook uses intel integrated graphics. iMacs and MacBook Pros have dedicated graphics cards by ATI or nVidia (varies depending on specific model) and are much better for Windows gaming.
In addition to the sites listed by lori Branford above, you might also want to check out:
http://macgamefiles.com/
as well as the Apple website game section.
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/games/

-Cheers

tenkerasu,

Can you please be more specific about what you want? You said "RPG... - preferably online" before but now said that you prefer single-player games.

What exactly do you want? Action-y stuff like Diablo? Games that focus on exploration/collection? Games with Bioware-style "story"? Games with JRPG-style "story"? Casual games? Something repetitive? Cute games? Non-cute games? "Old school" play in the style of gold-box games and Nethack?

-- Alex

Ha, as a reply to ceejf65, I do know what MacOS9 is. And it gives me the shivers. (Were we really THAT lame? I think I remember earlier versions as well! And how much they crashed! Ah, the good old elementary school Macs...)

As another reply to Alex_P...well, it's sort of a mix of both, I apologise if I've been too confusing in that regard; what I honestly meant was almost any and ALL games that are for PCs, and then more specifically the RPGs. I'm just looking for anything that you can play on a PC...that they have for Macs. Did you not read my first post?

tenkerasu:
I'm just looking for anything that you can play on a PC...that they have for Macs.

Check out the Wikipedia list I linked. Lots of Mac games of different genres there.

-- Alex

I did. Thanks.

tenkerasu:
games that are for PCs

If your OSX version is 10.5 (Leopard) or later and you can get Windows XP Service Pack 2 or later, you should be able to use Boot Camp. http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/bootcamp.html

If not, use Wine. http://www.kronenberg.org/darwine/

If you can't be bothered...um...Neverwinter Nights has a Mac port. http://nwn.bioware.com/about/macversion.html

The following FREE games also have Mac versions.
http://wesnoth.org/
http://crawl-ref.sourceforge.net/

NO. Getting a PC for a Mac is not the point of getting a Mac. Getting an XP is not what I'm looking for, and I'm sure a bunch of other people would agree with me. I know a lot of people have said it, "Go get Boot Camp" - but that's just defining the problem here! This means that people can't play games on their Macs for this reason!

tenkerasu:
NO. Getting a PC for a Mac is not the point of getting a Mac. Getting an XP is not what I'm looking for, and I'm sure a bunch of other people would agree with me. I know a lot of people have said it, "Go get Boot Camp" - but that's just defining the problem here! This means that people can't play games on their Macs for this reason!

Macs are not for gaming what did you expect?

What makes me laugh were those "I'm a PC/And I'm a Mac" ads we had. Apple banged on and on about "fun stuff", which is pretty much an out and out lie, unless your description of fun is digital solitaire.

yeah apple isn't very good for games, they got the blizzard ones and that's about it

this video accurately describes it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo4BpgfWiBE

tho with osx there are some open source rpg's out there that have osx ports.

Go to Apple.com and try to find which game you can play. If I remember there's a list with some good titles.

You could go with the Penny Arcade game. It's pure win.

I would prefer not to pay for it. Note to shatnershaman: My point here is, why have fantastic graphics and amazing processing power...and not have games? I got the Mac because I was so fed up with my other laptop (which got stolen, I might add, but who in their RIGHT MIND would steal a TANGENT. Ugh, honestly, guys, go look those up, they are miserable. And of course I got one.) and because my roommate had one and wouldn't stop raving about it. I was, of course, skeptical, but I got one, and here I am, wondering why they didn't make games for it. Thanks to Random argument man. I will check that out ASAP.

I used Boot Camp to install Vista on my Mac laptop. Basically just did it for Steam. It's a bit of a pain to have to restart my computer every time I want to play a game, but it probably does wonders for my productivity :P

Why don't they make more Mac games?

Pretty simple: DirectX.

Microsoft's DirectX has a lot of warts but it's a powerful graphics-and-the-kitchen-sink API for game development. The only thing comparable on non-Windows PCs is... OpenGL. Which is pretty decent but a bit hard to work with and really hasn't evolved nearly as much as it should've over the past ten years. There's a bunch of cool open-source libraries for game development out there but they're not widely used and most can't really keep up with the cutting edge.

Most big fancy commercial games are developed for DirectX. If you want to play games on your computer, you've gotta pay the ransom for DirectX; that means buying a copy of Windows. Or you can get a free (Wine) or non-free (Cedega) knock-off and hope it's compatible enough for what you need.

If Apple wants more big fancy commercial-grade games on their platform they've gotta sink a lot more money into building in the infrastructure to support them.

-- Alex

Alex_P:
Why don't they make more Mac games?

Pretty simple: DirectX.

And that's not all.

http://www.macobserver.com/columns/hiddendimensions/2006/20060605.shtml:
What I'm going to express next is just my opinion, but an opinion derived from experience: Apple has no real corporate interest in the gaming community and does not see computer games as a path to success or a better image for Apple. That's not to say that some parts of Apple don't enjoy games and their promotion....But the reality is that Apple has struggled for a long time to avoid the perception that Macs are toys, and so their principle emphasis is on science, small business, education, and the creative arts. All very grownup stuff.
...
It doesn't take long to find a litany of negative comments on the Internet about how Apple's most affordable consumer systems are just not up to serious gaming. Rather than complain, this should be taken as an outward sign of Apple's most serious branding intentions:

Yes, games are fun, and we love many of them, but this is not the most significant message we want to deliver as a company.
...
[And] amongst many more senior managers, including Steve himself, I suspect there is some lingering concern about the essence of the game market. Computer games, as we've come to know them, are mostly (not always) about aggressive behavior, conflict, battle, wars of power, domination, and sometimes, in the worst cases, some very unwelcome social behavior. To put it bluntly, death and destruction.
...
Games are a part of life, learning, and growing. Some computer games have terrific redeeming value, and many do not. Action movies and games permeate our culture, and in some ways, they just can't be ignored in our day-to-day lives. But that doesn't mean that Apple's management believes that considerable emphasis needs to be placed on this market when there are so many other more important things for people to do with their lives and their computers.

The problem I have with this thing is that it's written by a person who was born and raised LONG before video games came about, and therefore he (and I'm sure many other people from that era and from before the sixties) don't honestly know the good and bad about video games - and they're not all about destruction! Personally, I like Painkiller for the XBOX - but only because it's a time waster, and not because it's bloody and gory. As a matter of fact, that game is horrible graphics-wise and otherwise, and there is a reason why there's a note on it saying MATURE.

Apple is getting itself into a really bad situation here by saying that Macs "don't have time or money" to make them into gaming computers. The reality is, it's losing a good chunk of it's consumers by doing this - and I don't care what people say about getting the Boot Camp for it: THAT'S NOT THE POINT OF GETTING A MAC. It just annoys me that half of you are either strictly for me on this one or strictly against me. The latter group bashes people that have Macs because you are so proud of your PCs.

tenkerasu:
The problem I have with this thing is that it's written by a person who was born and raised LONG before video games came about, and therefore he (and I'm sure many other people from that era and from before the sixties) don't honestly know the good and bad about video games

yeah cause last time i checked Nolan Bushnell, Will Wright, Trip Hawkins, Sid Meier, Shigeru Miyamoto all have no clue about games and how good they are, btw they were all born before the 60s :)

the point of getting a mac is NOT to play games, they are well known to be non-game friendly, so using boot camp is a way to play games, that is basically your only choice

tenkerasu:
Apple is getting itself into a really bad situation here by saying that Macs "don't have time or money" to make them into gaming computers. The reality is, it's losing a good chunk of it's consumers by doing this - and I don't care what people say about getting the Boot Camp for it: THAT'S NOT THE POINT OF GETTING A MAC. It just annoys me that half of you are either strictly for me on this one or strictly against me. The latter group bashes people that have Macs because you are so proud of your PCs.

That's the realistic answer. I'm sorry you don't like it.

I don't like the idea of shelling out $100 just for the privilege of dual-booting to the absolute piece of crap that is Vista, either, but it really is the only way to seriously play the newest and hottest computer games (Wine is a passable solution if you're somewhat technically proficient and know that the particular game you like can run on it).

Although, really, given how buggy and DRM-ridden modern video games have become, I'd be trying to isolate them from everything else on my computer anyway.

-- Alex

Nihilist is a DOS game, right? You can run that in DOSBox (which you can get on your Mac). It needs a bit of wizardry to get it running on that, though.

tenkerasu:

Apple is getting itself into a really bad situation here by saying that Macs "don't have time or money" to make them into gaming computers. The reality is, it's losing a good chunk of it's consumers by doing this - and I don't care what people say about getting the Boot Camp for it: THAT'S NOT THE POINT OF GETTING A MAC. It just annoys me that half of you are either strictly for me on this one or strictly against me. The latter group bashes people that have Macs because you are so proud of your PCs.

One might argue that the point of getting a Mac is not to play games on it. ;)

You'd first have to convince developers that there's a big market in Mac game development. For example, is your roommate a gamer? Does your roommate pine for PC games on the Mac? Most people I know who game AND have Macs rarely are interested in Windows games in my experience. They have their Wiis, 360s and PS3s for that. Considering that a lot of game devs have been moving OUT of the PC gaming pool, I'm not really seeing shops doing more Mac games soon. Even after that we'd have a myriad of issues like tools.

And frankly, I'm not really seeing how "Apple is getting itself into a really bad situation" here at all. Their marketshare is getting larget and larger. Once it's large enough, the developers will follow. That's how it goes.

For the record, I haven't seen the last point being made at all. Merely the point that if you want to play games Windows games, the best option is to use Windows for it. And since installing Windows is possible on a MacBook through Boot Camp, it's your best option. With some obscure titles, your only option.

EDIT: Woah, the above posts hit before I managed to finish my post. They basically say the same thing much better than I did.

Big thanks to everyone on this, believe me. And my roommate LOVES her Mac - and she desperately wants PC games for it. We'd go to this place by our college that had games and DVDs and stuff uber cheap, and she'd get a bunch of PC games and try to play them on her Mac. Some worked, some didn't. I will see if I can get MacDOS or whatever that is...so long as it's under a hundred bucks.