Hi all,
I wanted to put XIV on my MacBook Pro for when I'm away, and I already have it installed on my PC gaming rig. With pretty much any MMO, you pay for one license and can use both Win and Mac clients. However, when I installed XIV on my Mac, it asked me for my registration code, despite accepting my login/pw. Do I have to pay for the Mac version and all the expansions? That seems silly since they game is probably just C++/C# and like I said, other games allow you to use either client.
Thanks
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10-26-2021, 03:10 AMstarmikeDo you need to pay for one desktop client (Mac/PC) if you have the other?
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10-26-2021, 03:19 AMEnkidoh
Yes, the Mac version is a seperate version to PC (Windows) so it requires a seperate license that needs to be purchased (same with the PS4 and PS5 versions if you also want to play on console).
You can use your characters and everything across platforms though when you've bought a license for each platform. -
10-26-2021, 03:20 AMstarmike
Well that's just ridiculous. Every other MMO that does cross-platform doesn't force you to pay for two clients. It's probably just an Obj C wrapper around the core C++ anyway.
Do you have to pay for each expansion also, or just the main client? -
10-26-2021, 03:27 AMValkyrie_LennethCan install windows on your mac to get around that if you want, otherwise, need to buy licenses for it, just like Playstation.Quote:
Originally Posted by starmike
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10-26-2021, 03:29 AM_Pigzig
yup
mac version isnt even a real version too, its just running in wine -
10-26-2021, 03:30 AMstarmike....is it? I have Wine. Hmm...Quote:
Originally Posted by _Pigzig
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10-26-2021, 04:47 AMPacketdancerI suspect part of the reason it's a separate license is because Codeweavers does a lot of the Mac version's maintenance for them, and they need to pay Codeweavers.Quote:
Originally Posted by _Pigzig
Because it's not the exact same Windows client as the normal Windows download; it is a variant compiled with optimizations for Codeweavers Crossover -- which, itself, is a WINE variant that has a lot of gaming-specific optimizations. For instance, stock WINE -- at least last I checked, though this may have changed -- does not support Metal on MacOS by default, so any DirectX emulation in WINE takes some performance hit; Crossover uses DXVK to translate DirectX into Vulkan 1.2, and then MoltenVK to translate Vulkan 1.2 into Metal, thus allowing the client to still use hardware graphics acceleration. So while as far as I know, FFXIV should run under WINE successfully, but I suspect the performance will not be quite as good as the Crossover variant is.
Which doesn't change the fact that it's annoying to buy what is functionally more or less just the Windows client (and a Crossover license) a second time. -
10-26-2021, 04:53 AMstarmike
What about my second question - do I have to pay for just the main Mac client, or each expansion?
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10-26-2021, 04:56 AMValkyrie_LennethYou have to buy the same things you buy for windows. So to play now, complete edition, to play endwalker, then you need to buy that too.Quote:
Originally Posted by starmike
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10-26-2021, 04:56 AMRandom0
The Wineskin XIV uses was heavily customized by Transgaming in order to 'port' it to macOS, then Nvidia bought up TG and has been doing seemingly the bare minimum of upkeep since then.
However it's still enough that SE treats it as a separate platform since they have to devote resources provide specific support like they do with the Playstation clients. You also need to buy the expansions for each client if you want to access areas of that expansion on that client (for example if you don't have Shadowbringers on Mac you can't go to the First). -
10-26-2021, 04:57 AMDrWho2010
you will need to pay for each expansion separately as well.
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10-26-2021, 05:53 AMDPZ2The expansion prices will have to be considered. Be aware that SE clients are the only true 'cross-platform' MMOs out there, where the term indicates players are not restricted to a particular set of realms.Quote:
Originally Posted by starmike
The clients for Mac, PC and PS4/5 are definitely more than C++ wrappers.
There is no extra cost to play from two different PCs, although you cannot play on both at the same time. -
10-26-2021, 08:31 AMPacketdancerIt's worth noting that the lack of maintenance/updates on Transgaming's WINEskin was enough to prompt Square-Enix to dump Transgaming and move to Codeweavers' Crossover before Shadowbringers came out, and swap the client wrappers when Shadowbringers landed. So it's not quite so dire; Codeweavers is still actively developing Crossover -- including having made a fair number number of FFXIV-targeted optimizations for the Shadowbringers release -- so it's in a lot better shape than the old wrapper was.Quote:
Originally Posted by Random0
(It still isn't a purely native MacOS-targeted client, of course. So there's that.) -
10-26-2021, 10:16 AMRongwayIn anticipation of a possible followup to this: "What happens if I only buy the base game for Mac?"Quote:
Originally Posted by starmike
If you buy the base game on Mac but not the current expansion, you can log into your character on Mac and play ARR and HW content, but only if you logged out of PC in an ARR or HW area. If you log out of PC in a ShB area, you will be locked out of the Mac client until you sign in on PC and move your character to an ARR or HW area.
If you purchase an expansion for Mac and then new expansions comes out, you will be able able to play up to the last expansion you purchased on Mac, and you'll be locked out of Mac if you log out of PC in one of the new expansion areas.