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Dave’s poll from last week asked what size of dice you prefer, the d20 came in at a huge 29% with the rare and exotic d12 in a surprising second with 27%. The entire spread is actually in descending order with the d10 at 18%, d8 at 12%, d6 at 5%, and d4 at 5% (with weird die types like d34 at 3%). I guess this means the d20 system is justified in its choice of flagship random number generator. We also took a few questions to ask the Wizards developers, and the results of the interviews should be up today or tomorrow. We have some rather interesting answers to what different devs think of Red Dragons and what they enjoy most about 4th Edition.
Now that we’ve been inundated with all things D&D, we’d like to get back to a bit more general rampant geekery. (someday spell-check will acknowledge words like ‘geekery’) Dave and I noticed quite a few macbooks at the D&D Experience, many of them owned by Wizards employees, which caused Dave to wonder why in the seminar it was mentioned that D&D Insider may not be available to mac users. This brought about an Inquisition poll that we’ve been meaning to ask for a while now:
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19 Responses to “Inq. of the Week: Systems Operational”
Posted: Mar 3rd, 2008 at 10:24 am
I’ve been proficient with Windows since childhood, but right now all I have is my wonderful macbook…
Only issue is, as stated above, incompatability with most awesome software…I miss my AoE…
Posted: Mar 3rd, 2008 at 10:44 am
“I’m Free-BSD, I’m not Linux!”
Posted: Mar 3rd, 2008 at 10:52 am
Have you guys looked at what OS those MAC were running. Our Bioinformatics groups all run on Macbooks but they have Win XP on them.
Posted: Mar 3rd, 2008 at 10:52 am
Ahhhh! I require Comment edits!
Posted: Mar 3rd, 2008 at 11:53 am
Windows here, both XP (laptop, fiancee’s computer, school) and Vista (personal desktop).
As for why they aren’t supporting Mac, well, it’s threefold.
First, Windows does still, obviously, have the highest market share. The Mac/Linux shares are higher in the geek community, but still. Development costs spent on Mac/Linux wouldn’t give the same return on investment.
Second, Mac and Linux have decent Windows emulators already, though not the other way around.
And third (and most importantly), they already had a 3d engine in-house. It was DirectX based, however. Thus, their 3d applications will be using it, instead of spending the time and money to get/develop/learn a new one.
Posted: Mar 3rd, 2008 at 11:56 am
(By the way, I also use linux occasionally, but it has too high of a learning curve for me to become anywhere near proficient with it. And yes, I know it’s easier with Ubuntu or whatever, I still don’t have the time to dedicate to it. And I can’t stand some of the idiosyncrasies of OSX, so I avoid that whenever possible.)
Posted: Mar 3rd, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Chatty- Nope, they wouldn’t let us see their laptops (with all the rules) no matter how many times I asked.
Scott Rouse specifically said he hadn’t tried D&DI using an emulator on his Mac, but he was planning on it.
As for comment editing here, we’re using a weird comment plugin that doesn’t play well with other comment plugins… maybe something to think about changing.
Posted: Mar 3rd, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Have been Windows at work and Mac at home for decades (back to Win 3.1 and Mac OS 6) so thank you for using checkboxes rather than radio buttons for the poll.
Posted: Mar 3rd, 2008 at 12:17 pm
The fact that D&DI will have a Windows-only client makes me wonder if they decided to use DirectX for the graphical portion of the client. Not that that would be the only reason to release a Windows-only client, but seems like that would be a big porting stumbling block.
Hm. Now I am curious.
Posted: Mar 3rd, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Sion- Pretty sure you nailed it. Interviews I’ve read before said that to an extent, they were stuck with a certain amount of code (from a previous project) for their graphical engine on the virtual tabletop which was built on Direct X.
Certain other pieces will be web-apps, though.
Posted: Mar 3rd, 2008 at 12:41 pm
I’ve become such a Mac whore. And I almost feel bad about it, until I look at my shiny shiny imac and its shiny shiny screen.
And then I remember antivirus software
Ahhhh 
Posted: Mar 3rd, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Count Crackula: I had to use check boxes just for myself, as I use a PC and my wife uses her Mac but we often switch back and forth on random whims.
Posted: Mar 3rd, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Sion - that’s exactly it, as I noted up in comment 5. They had an already-developed DirectX 3d engine in-house, and it wouldn’t be logical to develop or buy a brand new one for this, at this point.
Posted: Mar 3rd, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Man, I need some sleep… yes, Graham said it way before me
Posted: Mar 3rd, 2008 at 6:16 pm
yes, it would help to actually READ the other comments when posting a reply wouldn’t it? I shall remember to do that
Posted: Mar 3rd, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Wait, we…we have comments?
Posted: Mar 3rd, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Weee! First Post!…
Posted: Mar 4th, 2008 at 4:07 am
Well for me Windows is just easier. Though while eyeing some macs the other day I made the personal observation that I really should learn to use one…
But there are still a lot of games out there that arent mac friendly.. and lord knows i cant go without my constant video stimulation.. or dannys mom.. one or the other. ZING
Posted: Mar 4th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
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