New Mac game, Dark Horizons-Lore
Jimbo
the traffic I've seen lately), but I wanted to share some news about a
new game that's out for the Mac called Dark Horizons - Lore. Here's
the game's official web site if you want to check it out:
I was lucky enough to be one of the beta testers for the game, I've
been playing it about 3 months now, and it's been a lot of fun. It's a
Mech style game, we haven't had one of these really since MechWarrior
II about 6 years ago or so.
It's an online, multiplayer game, so you're actually playing against
other players over the net, and the biggest thing is that it will
feature a persistent universe, two 'factions' battling for control of
various battlefields over periods of days and weeks.
The game has just begun shipping as of last week, and it's being put
out by GarageGames.com, a distributor for independent publishers. It's
cross platform (pretty cool that they thought enough of the Mac market
to do this at the same time the Windows version is launched), and
they've got a Linux version coming very soon.
There hasn't been much press on the game yet and what there has been
has been burried on the various game sites pretty quickly, so I wanted
to help get the word out to the Mac folks since you may not see it
published much elsewhere.
Thanks!
Doc O'Leary
wrote:
> The game has just begun shipping as of last week, and it's being put
> out by GarageGames.com, a distributor for independent publishers. It's
> cross platform (pretty cool that they thought enough of the Mac market
> to do this at the same time the Windows version is launched), and
> they've got a Linux version coming very soon.
Next time, wait until they actually put out a *Mac* version before you
push it. This one tries to grab Administrator access with an untrusted
installer. No properly written game needs that. So I wasted 75MB of
bandwidth on something I immediately trashed.
Jimbo
It's attempting to install the openAL library for the audio drivers.
The original posting didn't include this and was a drag install, but
some folks were having issues, so the decision was made to include it
with all installs.
I'll be sure to report your complaint. Sounds like you end up trashing
a lot of software, though, if that's how you treat any installer that
asks for your password to install itself.
Gregory Weston
wrote:
> > Next time, wait until they actually put out a *Mac* version before you
> > push it. This one tries to grab Administrator access with an untrusted
> > installer. No properly written game needs that. So I wasted 75MB of
> > bandwidth on something I immediately trashed.
>
> I'll be sure to report your complaint. Sounds like you end up trashing
> a lot of software, though, if that's how you treat any installer that
> asks for your password to install itself.
Note the word "untrusted" in Doc's post. Or for my part, I'd generally
prefer to know _why_ an installer needs my password.
G
--
Standard output is like your butt. Everyone has one. When using a bathroom,
they all default to going into a toilet. However, a person can redirect his
"standard output" to somewhere else, if he so chooses. - Jeremy Nixon
Doc O'Leary
> It's attempting to install the openAL library for the audio drivers.
That doesn't require an opaque installer. They should have at least
used a standard .pkg format so a person could check the files being
installed. If they really knew something about Mac development, they'd
have made an application framework (Black Shades is a fine example of
embedding SDL and OpenAL). So, like I said, this isn't Mac software.
At best, it's a quick and dirty port; such things never get a warm
reception from users, and yet publishers never seem to figure out why
their products don't sell.
> I'll be sure to report your complaint. Sounds like you end up trashing
> a lot of software, though, if that's how you treat any installer that
> asks for your password to install itself.
No software needs to ask for *my* password to install. I am not the
*Administrator*, though, and I shouldn't need to be to play a silly
game! That this problem made it past testing doesn't leave me with good
expectations about the game.
Jimbo
Gregory Weston <gwesto...@CAPSattbi.com> wrote:
> Note the word "untrusted" in Doc's post. Or for my part, I'd generally
> prefer to know _why_ an installer needs my password.
Perfectly understandable, and I've already forwarded this on to the
developers. They seemed very receptive to this suggestion, and should
be implemented the next time they revise the installer.
EC Smith
Mechwarrior II was unplayable. Not a good sign.