Oswald Rant: Think Different: Urban Terror

I had the opportunity to read one of the latest issues of PC Gamer. As usual I hit one of the featured articles I truly enjoy reading, The Killing Box by Colin Williamson. Okay, so maybe I am trying to get his attention, so he would recognize Urban Terror in his editorial. This month’s focus is on the Macintosh gaming community. Now before you bitch and complain about how the Mac is not a gaming platform, just shut the f*ck up and hear me out.

When it comes to gaming, does the OS and platform really make a difference when you are playing online? I don’t think so. I remember when Silicon Ice Development was at QuakeCon 2000, last year and saw all the iMacs that were sitting, going unused and that go me thinking. “Why do many mods not cater to the Macintosh?” This is an untapped resource that mod development teams should look at exploiting.

This year was a bit different in terms of gaming for Macintosh at QuakeCon. Instead of the multi-colored iMacs gracing the Apple booth, they brought the latest Macintosh G4, featuring the new GeForce 3 video cards. In order to drum up more support and activity at the booth, they even ran a few Team Arena tournaments. Also gone from last year the round, clear disk of a mouse, replaced by the latest Logitech mouse.

Why do I say this? Based on figures I have seen for Urban Terror Beta 2, downloads have exceeded 18,000! What does that tell you? That was a red flag to our development team, saying, “Hey, the Macintosh Community is dying for quality mods to accompany Quake III.” Does anyone really give a shit what platform the player they are chasing down is running? Personally, I don’t think it is an issue.

“…we need more Mac gamers joining in our online games,” says Colin when it comes to the untapped source of Macintosh. From Beta 1 to Beta 2, we have seen an increase in the number of supporters for Urban Terror who enjoy their experience on an Apple. Since we are using QVMs, we can continue to develop Urban Terror and fine tune the Macintosh side to give those running OS9 or OSX the opportunity to enjoy Urban Terror. When it comes to the support, the Macintosh Community has been top notch in their support, ideas and criticism.

VersionTracker.com has been a vital source in providing our mod an outlet, in terms of getting Urban Terror recognized. Our development started with QVMs and we will continue to work with these, so we can continue to turn up the overall quality of mods for the Macintosh Community.