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:( World of Warcraft - Cataclysm won't support PowerPC Macs

Qq?

Whats the QQ about? Its pretty simple deductive reasoning. "I want to play WoW">>>"oh, I cant play on my old ass computer">>>"Oh, i must upgrade computer">>>"Oh i cant afford another computer"<<<That means you dont get to play with the kool kidz. "I'm not willing to upgrade my computer eventhough I have the money" <<<<that means you still cant play with the kool kids!

long story short:
Get a machine that can run the programs you want. If not, you're on the outside looking in. No amount of forum QQ will ressurect the PPC, yes they kicked azz in their day, but its time to let go. You will be okay, I promise.
 
It might come back to bite Blizzard

I think the fact that they really didn't do their best to warn PPC users of this is going to bite them. They could have, they know who all have PPC and could have sent them a notice. Most of use thought we had a little more time or didn't know at all about the change. It actually blindsided a lot of people. Some that I know that despite having the resources for a new machine, will not come back.

Was it necessary?
From a programing and administration aspect, sure.
Do the PPC have enough power to run it, maybe.
The real problem for Blizz is that many people ran extra accounts on those PPC's. That will now be gone. Losing only few million dollars a year for awhile may be worth it. I am sure they weighed their options carefully.

I believe they will be forced to learn some lessons from their mistakes in this.

I will always be thankful to Blizz for having the guts and spending the money to bring this to the Mac world. We have far to little games to play.
 
It might come back to bite Blizzard

I have heard estimates of only 30,000. But that was older data and who know how accurate.

It is just funny to me because I am one of those 30,000 and so are 4 or 5 of my friends that I play with.
 
up until this current patch I had been playing on a MDD 1.25 G4 with a Radeon 9000.

Vanilla WoW had never been a problem, even 40 man Molten Core or BlackWing Lair was decent

Burning Crusade dropped framerates a bit, but still no problems except when Shattrah was crowded

WotLK really showed the age of my machine. I had to turn down all settings to minimum just to move around in Dalaran and basically solo quested my way to 80 because of poor graphics performance. Even the 5 man dungeons proved to be difficult so I just avoided most of them.

knew the day was coming when my PPC would no longer handle WoW, still sad to see that day arive. 7+ years was a good ride with the old G4
 
I look at it this way.

If you cannot afford to buy an Intel Mac, either refurb, off of Craigslist, or even new, then you certainly cannot afford to be playing video games. As in, if you cannot save for that then whining about about a video game is the least of your problems.
 
Shivetya said:
I look at it this way.

If you cannot afford to buy an Intel Mac, either refurb, off of Craigslist, or even new, then you certainly cannot afford to be playing video games. As in, if you cannot save for that then whining about about a video game is the least of your problems.
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I'd amend the point to "...then you certainly cannot afford to be playing new video games."

I'm perfectly happy to play older stuff on my machines; then again, I could upgrade if I had the desire, but I'd rather save the money in case I actually have a need for it. A lousy economy isn't the greatest time for extra discretionary spending.
 
i think the main thing is that macs do last an incredibly long time compared to their windows counterpart. many people have to face up and buy a new computer everyday as they become outdated and not up to the tasks they once could perform effortlessly. its the same with everything else you buy from expensive cars to when your coffee mug cracks. you should have realised this day was coming and prepared for it! if not then stop playing wow till you can because your probably playing it entirely too much much like myself.
 
Got my brand new iMac on the Patch day.

i7 - 2,93
SSD

worth nearly 3000€ i can't put the slider to ultra.. as you can see even the brand new machines struggle with the new update wich is a joke...
 
Ravaroo said:
up until this current patch I had been playing on a MDD 1.25 G4 with a Radeon 9000.

Vanilla WoW had never been a problem, even 40 man Molten Core or BlackWing Lair was decent
Click to expand...

I started on that same machine. I remember upgrading to a Radeon 9800 and discovering all-new video effects (such as the white screen "death effect") that I didn't get on the old 9000.

It's a pity that PowerPC support is gone, but honestly, all of those machines are over 4 years old now and the few remaining users should get an overall benefit by upgrading to an Intel system.
 
I have to disagree with a lot of posts here about World of Warcraft. First off I own an Intel Mac as well as G5s and even a G4 still, but I did originally purchase WoW for PowerPC.

Someone said that an Intel Mac Mini would run WoW better than a G5.
That is simply FALSE. Since I don't have an Intel Mac Mini, I can't do this test, but I'm pretty certain a 6800 or an X800 would beat down Intel graphics hands down. And the original Mac Mini was/is still a slower machine than a 5 year old G5.

The original WoW requirements on the $50 game that is now disabled are 933Mhz G4/G5 PPC processor, 512mb RAM, Nvidia or ATI GPU w/ 64mb recommended. That is physically printed on the box.

Now here's another angle to this...
Ok, so PowerPC users paid full price for a game at like $50 that is now disabled by the manufacturer.
Isn't that like Ford selling you a car and then disabling the engine 5 years later?

And before anyone chimes in, my G5's still play h.264 720p video, even Blu-ray files, so this notion that this game had to be deliberately disabled for PowerPC due to technical reasons is bunk.
I'm trying to figure out how they can get away with this legally without a class action lawsuit. Intel & PPC buyers of World of Warcraft BOTH paid the SAME amount of money for the game.
If the game was given away for free and with a subscription and TOS, they would be on solid legal grounds. But selling an item that you then deliberately disable sounds like outright fraud to me. I'd like to see what the legal precedent for this is. I don't own any other PPC game that has done this.

Also shaky on legal grounds is the lack of warning. Basically the game demanded you do an update which deliberately disabled it without any warning. That's borderline sabotage and fraud. Now I know someone's going to chime in and say, "Hey you agreed to the TOS, move on with your life, etc." But just because a company that sells you something changes a TOS without warning does NOT necessarily make it legal especially since you've purchased a product that is deliberately disabled by the manufacturer with no ability for a refund.

I still say it would be fraud in many states. Now I can't wait for the PPC haters to chime in.

Btw, I do intend to get an Intel copy of WoW despite this, but my original copy cannot be installed on my INTEL Macs. This is another legal problem in my opinion. How can they legally make me repurchase this game after already taking my money repeatedly?
 
HyperZboy said:
Btw, I do intend to get an Intel copy of WoW despite this, but my original copy cannot be installed on my INTEL Macs. This is another legal problem in my opinion. How can they legally make me repurchase this game after already taking my money repeatedly?
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You have not done your reading. There is no "intel copy" of WoW. You can install WoW just fine using the discs you already own. Or you can just download the installer and download the entire thing for free. As long as you already have an account, there is no charge for doing this.
 
CubeHacker said:
You have not done your reading. There is no "intel copy" of WoW. You can install WoW just fine using the discs you already own. Or you can just download the installer and download the entire thing for free. As long as you already have an account, there is no charge for doing this.
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Apparently, you have not done your reading. That's not correct. My original boxed copy of WoW is POWER PC ONLY!

So I cannot even initially install it on my INTEL Mac, let alone get to the update stage.

And I didn't originally get the entire thing for free. I PAID FOR IT!

Now it's disabled on purpose on a machine completely capable of playing it.
 
HyperZboy said:
Apparently, you have not done your reading. That's not correct. My original boxed copy of WoW is POWER PC ONLY!

So I cannot even initially install it on my INTEL Mac, let alone get to the update stage.

And I didn't originally get the entire thing for free. I PAID FOR IT!

Now it's disabled on purpose on a machine completely capable of playing it.
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Just download it off Battle.net. You can install it on your intel Mac. You don't have any idea what you're talking about. You still own the bloody game. Your disc just doesn't have a compatible installer.

The download would be the same size as your boxed copy of WoW is extremely out of date anyway. Considering they re-did the whole world 'n' all anyway.

Also, any Mac as of 2009 will (would, now that PPC support is gone) run the game better than a G5. I had a G5 iMac 2.1ghz with 2gb of ram. The thing ran it about as well as a first gen MacBook Pro until Wrath came out. Then, it was about on par with a MacBook with an Intel X1300 (from what I could see in benchmarks). Wrath brought a lot of optimized coding for Intel processors.

Why you would buy a new copy is beyond me, after install there is no point in having the game disc anyway because access to the game is tied to an online account.
 
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PowerGamerX said:
Just download it off Battle.net. You can install it on your intel Mac. You don't have any idea what you're talking about. You still own the bloody game. Your disc just doesn't have a compatible installer.

The download would be the same size as your boxed copy of WoW is extremely out of date anyway. Considering they re-did the whole world 'n' all anyway.

Also, any Mac as of 2009 will (would, now that PPC support is gone) run the game better than a G5. I had a G5 iMac 2.1ghz with 2gb of ram. The thing ran it about as well as a first gen MacBook Pro until Wrath came out. Then, it was about on par with a MacBook with an Intel X1300 (from what I could see in benchmarks). Wrath brought a lot of optimized coding for Intel processors.

Why you would buy a new copy is beyond me, after install there is no point in having the game disc anyway because access to the game is tied to an online account.
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I understand that my original copy is completely out of date and I know I can get it another way for my Intel Mac.

My legal point is that I paid for it and it's now deliberately disabled even though the game is technically capable of running on the G5.

It does not surprise me that an Intel Macbook Pro would run the game better than most G5s. That's a no-brainer.

That an original Mac Mini with Intel graphics could possibly run faster than a G5 is BS.
No possible way. Yet the game is supported for the Mac Mini.

I guess what I'm getting at is if you buy something from a store, you expect it to work.
The slippery slope of requirements changes and TOS changes is sketchy legal ground.

I'm not certain, but I think my original Warcraft III still works, at least it did the last time I tried. I'm going to check it out and see.
 
HyperZboy said:
I understand that my original copy is completely out of date and I know I can get it another way for my Intel Mac.

My legal point is that I paid for it and it's now deliberately disabled even though the game is technically capable of running on the G5.

It does not surprise me that an Intel Macbook Pro would run the game better than most G5s. That's a no-brainer.

That an original Mac Mini with Intel graphics could possibly run faster than a G5 is BS.
No possible way. Yet the game is supported for the Mac Mini.

I guess what I'm getting at is if you buy something from a store, you expect it to work.
The slippery slope of requirements changes and TOS changes is sketchy legal ground.

I'm not certain, but I think my original Warcraft III still works, at least it did the last time I tried. I'm going to check it out and see.
Click to expand...

Apple basically dropped the PowerPC at the release of Snow Leopard, it's pointless for Blizzard to keep a product working, especially one that constantly changes like an MMORPG, for what is essentially a dead architecture that is no longer supported by its own company.

There's also the fact that almost no PowerPC based mac could run the last WoW (WOTLK) expansion at a playable framerate, and I seriously doubt any of them, even the G5s, could have run the Cataclysm expansion.

So they'd be wasting time and money on getting their product to run on systems that are too weak to do it anyway and on systems that probably less than 1% of their playerbase uses. It just doesn't make any sense for them to support PowerPC anymore.
 
HyperZboy said:
I understand that my original copy is completely out of date and I know I can get it another way for my Intel Mac.

My legal point is that I paid for it and it's now deliberately disabled even though the game is technically capable of running on the G5.

It does not surprise me that an Intel Macbook Pro would run the game better than most G5s. That's a no-brainer.

That an original Mac Mini with Intel graphics could possibly run faster than a G5 is BS.
No possible way. Yet the game is supported for the Mac Mini.

I guess what I'm getting at is if you buy something from a store, you expect it to work.
The slippery slope of requirements changes and TOS changes is sketchy legal ground.

I'm not certain, but I think my original Warcraft III still works, at least it did the last time I tried. I'm going to check it out and see.
Click to expand...

Yeah you payed for it. They haven't taken anything away from you! When you bought the game you were basically paying for access to it. They just include an installer disk for those with slower connections. They haven't taken anything away from you. You have no legal point. You agreed to the EULA the moment you first logged into your account.

Yeah, the Mac Mini couldn't run it better than a G5, but, at this point, neither of them would be able to run it with any sort of reasonable framerate. Hell, my iMac G5 could barely handle WOTLK at minimum settings.

You don't seem to understand though, the reason the Mac Mini is supported and the G5's aren't is because they are a completely different architecture. It doesn't matter, even if the G5 could run it, Apple has dropped nearly all support for it, and, it's been 6 years. Blizzard gave everybody plenty of time. They were generous, in fact. Many game developers just didn't even bother making their games UB when Apple switched to Intel.

Also as has been mentioned, less than 1% of Mac owners still use a PPC. From a business standpoint, in what way does it make sense to keep devoting lots of time and resources to 1% of your potential market?
 
When you buy World of Warcraft from retail, you basically buy a licence key which is still valid even if they dropped the support for PPC processors. If Blizzard were smart, they wouldn't include any discs in the package to save costs seeing as you can download the game from Blizzard's site and it'll always be the latest version, whereas if you used those 4 CD's (remember those? :D) it would install version 1.0 or something, which would require a lot more patching time than it would take to download the whole game online.
 
I think it's in the EULA or TOS that you agree to install the game client and update, and you accept the change of requirement to play. If you don't agree to that you call Blizzard within 30 days of your purchase and you get a refund... As any online game they can change the minimal requirement anytime...

More than that, they told us, the players, that they will not support PPC in the incoming update. Did you send letters, notice and e-mail to tell them you don't want they to do so ?

Anyway, nice way to ressurect an old tread...
 
Blizzard can be whack

I'm pretty surprised Blizzard wanted to write programming that wouldn't allow those comps to play anyways? Atleast allow alternate content even if it costs you an extra disk to write a re-write script for the older models. Idk sounds to me like they lost out on some money if this forum exists. Who's gonna get cut next??
 
Worldofwarben said:
I'm pretty surprised Blizzard wanted to write programming that wouldn't allow those comps to play anyways? Atleast allow alternate content even if it costs you an extra disk to write a re-write script for the older models. Idk sounds to me like they lost out on some money if this forum exists. Who's gonna get cut next??
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Nobody. WoW is still an extremely low requirement game. They probably wont do any graphical upgrades for at least 3 years now.

Also, they didn't write programming code to NOT allow PPC's to play the game, in fact the complete opposite.

The minority is always the loudest in issues. Fact is nearly nobody uses PPC Macs anymore, let alone for playing games. They didn't loose out on any money. The amount of resources they'd have to use to develop PPC code for Cataclysm wouldn't have been worth it. They would have never made their money back.
 
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