Quote Originally Posted by Dubont View Post
That's the thing...Apple can afford charging an arm and a leg for it's sub-par hardware b/c it is the only company that sells them. Windows based PCs are made by millions of companies. Also, I said that you can build your own windows based PC for $800, not "go buy a windows PC at bestbuy for a 20% markup!" You can't, technically, build your own mac.
Of course you can easily build a windows based PC that can handle FFXIV for $800...but whoever said playing this game was the sole purpose of his computer. I know that in my household (2 people), we have 4 computers (laptops, desktop, server in a rack) and enough spare parts to build one or two more stashed in a bin under the bed. Each computer runs different software, some run different OS's, and they all have a unique purpose and situation in which they perform best. The Mac has always been our at school computer (through our various times in grad school) because come finals and thesis time it never crashed, it never froze, and it never lost docs - while there would be plenty of our friends cursing their pre-built laptops with hardware sourced from the cheapest provider negotiated that week dealing with mailing them back and all sorts of messes. The Mac and OS X does the things we use it for flawlessly (email, internet, office) and never had any issues.

However - that doesn't make it my computer of choice for gaming. That's my home built Intel Q9550 with a Radeon HD 6850 for graphics running Windows 7. But it doesn't mean that when I've got a half hour to kill in-between classes I wouldn't like to know that I can fire up FFXIV for a lil bit.

People own Macs - fact of life - it is completely rude to deride them for it in an online forum, just because they ask if it's hardware can handle playing the game. The appropriate response is to ask what hardware it has, and encourage them to install BootCamp/Windows if it's sufficient and get them into the game, because that's why we are all here - to play FFXIV.

However, if they say, "I'm building a computer exclusively for gaming" - go for it - encourage them to examine the dollar/performance trade offs that they get from different builds. But if someone says "I have a Mac" and you respond with "Go Build a PC" - don't you see how that advice may be of no use to that person....