The Mac OS X Client's absymal performance is a joke.

[Jaysnuh]

I tried to submit a ticket through this channel and repeatedly get this message:

Contacting Square Enix Online Support
You must provide a valid Order ID or the email address you used for the purchase. Please retry here.

I've tried with both my order ID and with the email address I used to make the purchase. I can't believe SE thinks it's okay to treat (new!) customers this way....

Are you fully logged into the SE store when attempting to complete the form?

Sounds like quite a few people have received (inconsistent) responses to their requests for support / exchanges / refunds at this point. It's encouraging to see that a few players have been able to get a refund through official channels. I am trying again, linking to this forum thread and indicating that others are having their money refunded for this defective product. I am trying not to go the route of a credit card chargeback, although there is ample documentation that I've made a good faith effort to resolve the matter with the vendor (SE).

[Jaysnuh]

I have two other family members who are on the Mac and would love to play this, bootcamping for them is not an option. My iMac runs WoW on ultra at better than 60 fps. FFXIV runs on my bootcamp at 45 to 50 fps, very smooth, very playable. On this Wine port, no matter what the settings i get 19 to 24 fps. This is a 27 inch iMac and i have seen the problem where you go for the native 2560x1440 resolution of the screen and the client appears in only the top half. I was able to get around this by setting the configuration to Full Screen and that resolution. Applying it, force quitting it and on the relaunch it retained the higher res. YMMV.

The client is barely playable and tends to self corrupt over time. Its kind of heartbreaking how you get used to the lower fps, only to have it garble all the names in the Inn when you get there. So you restart the client and it works again for a little while, then glitches out when you teleport. Its kind of like it forgot how to render in mid teleport. I was shocked to read that people are getting better performance out of Parallels. I will try that I guess.

But really Shame on Square-Enix for not doing any of their own testing, its so crazy obvious that no one did... Can you imagine, maybe it was like the Emperors New clothes, no one at any checkpoint had the courage to say that this client is krap. They kept ok-ing it all the way up the line and this is what got released.

Does anyone think this can be fixed?

It is possible that the WINE wrapper can be tweaked to provide marginal improvements and fixes for the most glaring of bugs. However, as the wrapper technology was just reportedly sold to NVIDIA, the team is likely in the middle of a chaotic transition and there is likely to be an extended period of finger pointing over this mess. There's always a chance that SE will see the light and decide to make money off the millions of loyal, big-spending Mac users -- the honest way, by doing a native port that actually works and performs comparably to the Windows client on identical hardware.

If that particular ray of light were to break through the clouds and shine down on SE headquarters, we're looking at an extended period of time before any meaningful change occurs. Months to years at least.

I'm not a developer, so take this all worth a grain of salt - I've been a Mac gamer for years, though (red-headed stepchild) and have sort of seen how this works. Transgaming convinced SE that they could miraculously bring a world-class Mac client to FFXIV for chicken scratch. SE got what they paid for; us Mac peons, not so much.

[Delily]

It is possible that the WINE wrapper can be tweaked to provide marginal improvements and fixes for the most glaring of bugs. However, as the wrapper technology was just reportedly sold to NVIDIA, the team is likely in the middle of a chaotic transition and there is likely to be an extended period of finger pointing over this mess. There's always a chance that SE will see the light and decide to make money off the millions of loyal, big-spending Mac users -- the honest way, by doing a native port that actually works and performs comparably to the Windows client on identical hardware.

If that particular ray of light were to break through the clouds and shine down on SE headquarters, we're looking at an extended period of time before any meaningful change occurs. Months to years at least.

I'm not a developer, so take this all worth a grain of salt - I've been a Mac gamer for years, though (red-headed stepchild) and have sort of seen how this works. Transgaming convinced SE that they could miraculously bring a world-class Mac client to FFXIV for chicken scratch. SE got what they paid for; us Mac peons, not so much.

Sadly, I have to agree. Using Google Translate, I perused the other forums, and I saw only a few mentions of the Mac client, and nothing about performance issues. Given the size of OSX users, and the fact that many people seem to b refunding their purchases to buy the Windows expansion tells me this isn't important enough of an issue for Square to address at this moment.

[Pinw]

Sounds like quite a few people have received (inconsistent) responses to their requests for support / exchanges / refunds at this point. It's encouraging to see that a few players have been able to get a refund through official channels. I am trying again, linking to this forum thread and indicating that others are having their money refunded for this defective product. I am trying not to go the route of a credit card chargeback, although there is ample documentation that I've made a good faith effort to resolve the matter with the vendor (SE).

I'm in the same boat. The $60 Mac client they sold us is a complete disaster even on high end machines. Getting resolution through chat or email support has been a nightmare. And they've essentially told me that they can't fix my problem and there's nothing they can do.

The Mac troubleshooting tips they posted earlier today did nothing to improve my client performance. So it's either a refund/PC repurchase or nothing.

[Cyrin]

What version of OS X are most of you using? Is anyone using the latest El Capitan beta and does that help/hinder performance at all?

[Sramdi]

Just dropping in to thank the Mac port purchasers for the warning and to say I'm sorry you got shafted. I have a Macbook Pro and have been using Bootcamp when traveling. Thanks for saving me $60.

This is extremely disappointing. And here I thought the lesson of 1.0 was learned.

[AvathAlThor]

Sadly, I have to agree. Using Google Translate, I perused the other forums, and I saw only a few mentions of the Mac client, and nothing about performance issues. Given the size of OSX users, and the fact that many people seem to b refunding their purchases to buy the Windows expansion tells me this isn't important enough of an issue for Square to address at this moment.

I would be surprised if they scrapped the project. Some people now might be asking for a refund, but as Blizzard learnt there's a big potential market out there of Mac players, especially for a subscription based MMO. But we'll see....... *crosses fingers*

[ArkhamNative]

Anyone on this thread that can read the JP forums - is there an outcry there as well?

My limited understanding of the Japanese culture is that they aren't as quick to go full-on outrage or "pile on" like I see on this side. That said, yes, I have seen posts saying the Mac version's performance is awful, and even that they can't believe anyone would sell something that works so poorly. So yeah, the Mac software is just as bad for Japanese Mac users as the rest of the world.

One JP thread: Mac版クライアントはなぜこの状態で売ったのか？
(Rough Google translation: Why would they sell the Mac client in this state?)

[Aizei]

I tried to submit a ticket through this channel and repeatedly get this message:

Contacting Square Enix Online Support
You must provide a valid Order ID or the email address you used for the purchase. Please retry here.

I've tried with both my order ID and with the email address I used to make the purchase. I can't believe SE thinks it's okay to treat (new!) customers this way....

i got this from their store;

"Dear Arealmreborn,

Thank you for contacting the Square Enix Online Store Support.

I apologize for the inconvenience, but we unfortunately cannot help you with this issue. For further assistance on this regard please contact our Central Customer Support Team, through the support portal: http://support.na.square-enix.com/

They will be better qualified to help you with your request.

Best,

The Square Enix Online Store Team"

also, bear in mind that arealmreborn is the start of my email address, i put my actual name down as, you know, my name.... seems they can't get a lot right this week

[Aizei]

I'm hoping Yoshi-P will appear, wave his hands, make us have a "Mac Client Reborn", and maybe give us all fancy tattoos in the process. In the meantime, though, I kind of just want a refund so I can purchase the WORKING client.

lol i wouldn't want a tattoo that identified me as playing on the mac.

i replied to someone in /shout asking if any mac users were on and how the client was because they were thinking of buying it. I replied (in shout, my own fault i guess) and he thanked me for saving him cash - but then i got ragged on for 20 solid mins on how; 1)I'm a hipster 2)I wasted my money because a gaming laptop with windows would be so much better 3)macs aren't for gamers 4)I'm a piece of **** with too much money 5)I'm a non conformist and trying to hard to be 'alternative'