Question: With big name releases headed torwards the Mac in the final quarter of 99, how important is it for the future of Mac gaming? Should folks go above and beyond when purchasing titles to try and convince developers that the Mac has a gaming audience? Should it be reiterated that people should buy and not pirate these titles when released? [Arturo Rodriguez] Answer: The mere fact that so many big PC Gaming companies are testing the Mac Gaming waters is testimony that not only have their eyebrows been raised, but that the number of estimated Macintosh gamers is large enough to warrant the attention. Let's look at LucasArts, for example. For years, LucasArts maintained that it would publish games for the Macintosh when it was fairly convinced that said games would make a certain amount of money. Here we sit today and LucasArts is preparing to re-enter the Macintosh gaming arena with Star Wars: Racer. In regards to how gamers should act towards the new surge in title releases, we went to MacGaming.com's Peter Cohen to see what he thought... It's always worth reiterating that people shouldn't use warez at all. Piracy is incredibly damaging to the software industry as a whole, let alone the relatively small and fragile Macintosh game market. Mac gamers shouldn't feel compelled to buy every major game out there just for the sake of supporting the market. Support the quality ones and the ones you want to play because you want to play them and they're good. The Mac game market has to live and die by the same economic principles that rule the rest of our economy. Question: I am excited about Blizzard's Warcraft 3 announcement, but at the same time, I am confused. Blizzard didn't announce Warcraft 3 for Mac yet... do they have any plans you know of? My other thought is that they don't want to chance a Mac version if this new genre goes foul. Blizzard isn't going to leave us now are they? Answer: This seems to be a question that resurfaces each time Blizzard announces a new title. We decided to make the proverbial trip to Blizzard's Brian Love and get Blizzard's official statement on the matter. Blizzard Entertainment has no plans to leave the Mac market. Blizzard Entertainment can neither confirm, nor deny, any products that have not been officially announced. Translation? Unless Apple goes under and takes the MacOS with it, Blizzard will continue to practice its method of bringing its titles to the Mac. In all likelihood, Blizzard will wait until the PC version is near completion to sign the Macintosh development contract as it has done with its other games. Question: Is it possible at all that future iMac's could possess a AGP slot while allowing users to purchase cards and install them? [Arturo Rodriguez] Answer: While the physical capability of including AGP slots in future iMacs seems very possible, we wouldn't plan on it. Apple has made it fairly clear that the iMac's expandibility is intentionally limited to create a minimal amount of confusion for first-time buyers (whom the iMac is partially targeted at). Peter Cohen agrees: It sure would be nice [to have AGP slots in the iMac]--Now that Apple Expo Paris' keynote is out of the way without any iMac news, it looks like we'll have to wait at least until Macworld Expo in San Francisco before we find out for sure. But bear in mind that the iBook- the first consumer Mac model to feature AGP- doesn't have any sort of video card expandability. Having a fairly closed architecture to this sort of expansion seems to be key to Apple's hardware strategy for the consumer market. In other words, I wouldn't hold my breath. Question: I have read elsewhere that Logicware developed patches so that Mac users can use the Quake 2 Mission Packs but were waiting for permission from Activision to distribute them. I bought the Mission Packs but can't use them and can't get any response from Logicware. Does anyone have any info on this problem? [Jack] Answer: Nate Trost, Logicware's lead porter of Quake II, recently updated his .plan which answered this question in full. While Activision cannot state that the PC expansion packs will work on the Mac version (for fear of a technical support nightmare), it has allowed Logicware to release the software necessary to allow the Mac version to use the expansion packs. Available for download (in as-is condition, no questions asked) from Logicware's FTP site (ftp://ftp.logicware.com) are the software libraries necessary to run the PC expansion packs. Installation instructions are included in the accompanying ReadMe file, so be sure to read it! Nate did let us know that there is one known bug that deals with playing saved games in the Expansion packs. He's working on a revision and will post it when it's ready. Question: What ever happened to Screaming Demons over Europe for the mac? Years ago, I bought a Techworks Voodoo 1 card with this game on the box touted as "soon to be available." I even sent in a coupon for 10.00 off of the game when released. What happened? {Ira Maine] Question: How pissed should I be at Parsoft for backing off the Mac version of Screaming Demons? [Arturo Rodriguez] Answer: Peter knows a whole lot more about the Parsoft Situation than I do, so I'll let him handle this... It sounds mercenary, but Parsoft has to survive, and the way they figured out to do that involved a publishing partnership with Activision. The Activision deal left Parsoft no room to maneuver on the Macintosh version of SDOE, a point that Michael Harrison has reiterated. Harrison has suggested that Parsoft is amenable to farming off the Mac version of FS: SDOE to a third party; perhaps that's this game's best chance for success on the Mac platform. And that wraps it up for this week! Remember, if you'd like to submit a question, head back to the main Q&A page! Check back next Wednesday for an all-new batch of Questions and Answers!