MacEdition Pro News : April 20, 2002: Almost famous, trooper profiles and a “MMORPG” is born

by MacEdition Staff (feedback)

Dr. Bott names Radeon bundles after us?

When this little missive from the folks at Dr. Bott plonked in our inbox, our jaws dropped for a split second. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep blurring our eyes, but upon the first read we were sure Dr. Bott was announcing a special Radeon graphics card bundle in our honour. Still baffled by what we had done to deserve such prestige, a quick rescan of the press release revealed our faux pas: It said “Radeon Mac Edition bundle,” not “Radeon MacEdition bundle.” Damn.

While MacEdition has been foiled from superstardom again, Dr. Bott is announcing a partnership between itself and ATI – which is good news for Mac users keen on high-performance pixel-pushing. Here’s the skinny:

Wilsonville, OR April 16, 2002

Dr. Bott certifies ATI Radeon 7000 and 8500 as the choice for running the coolest displays on the market. This combination was the choice seen around MacWorld SF and MacWorld Tokyo as the solution in ATI’s booth and the Apple gaming pavilion. Upgrade your older PCI based Macs or AGP based G4s with Apple’s 15", 17", and 22" ADC displays. This combo has seen amazing results including utilizing all the available resolutions and eliminates compatibility issues found in previous ATI cards. In honor of the great solution DVIator and the latest Radeon cards from ATI, Dr. Bott has teamed with ATI to offer the following bundles with DVIator and a video card from ATI.

DVIator & Radeon 7000 Mac Edition Bundle (Retail $299) http://www.drbott.com/prod/db.lasso?code=0817
DVIator & Radeon 8500 Mac Edition Bundle (Retail$339) http://www.drbott.com/prod/db.lasso?code=0819

We’ll attempt to read press releases more carefully before getting excited in the future. Although if the folks at Dr. Bott are reading, we’re happy to talk shop!

Lining the (shareware) troops up

In a previous ProNews segment we talked about the often unacknowledged “soldiers of shareware.” There’s a lot of them out there, and a lot of them make a lot of good stuff (and some not so good, but points for effort). We asked for responses and we got them, and we encourage any other shareware developers not to be bashful!

In the spirit of encouraging the little guy, we’ll attempt to cover at least one small-time shareware developer a week. This week’s pick is Pocket Software, a one-man company run by Nicholas Gustilo.

Pocket Software has three apps under active development for Mac OS X:

• PocketDock, a launcher app;
• PocketNotes, a cool notepad tool; and
• PocketBackup, a personal backup system.

All of these are 30-day free demos and can be registered at US$20 a pop. You can buy any two for US$30 or the lot for US$40.

Keep the ProNews announcements coming! Want even more exposure? A modest investment in our (shamelessly promoted) shareware initiative might be just the thing!

Lineage goes live

The folks at NCsoft Corporation dropped us a note to let us know that Lineage, self-described as a “massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG),” has gone live for Mac OS X. We first noted its appearance as a public beta in February and here’s what they’ve got to say about the final release:

NCsoft™ Corporation, the world’s largest independent online game company, today announced that Lineage(tm) for the Mac has recently launched after a successful beta testing period. Gamers wishing to play can download the full version of the game at http://www.lineage.com/macdownload/. For those who do not prefer to download the game, a free game CD may be requested from the Web site and NCsoft will ship the disc via U.S. mail.

The public beta was a hefty 400MB download, so if you’re still stuck on a 56k connection, you may want to consider ordering the CD. So what’s Lineage about?

Mac users and PC users are able to play alongside each other in Lineage. The game raises the concepts of community, social interaction, and combat to new levels with the introduction of Blood Pledges – strong alliances with friends and allies in the game world. Once a Pledge is formed, the players can develop a strategy for overtaking a castle. But winning the battle only means the game of politics and negotiation is just beginning. Keeping your castle is sometimes harder than capturing it.

Much more information is available at its site (and numerous fan sites). NCsoft claims Lineage currently boasts more than four million active subscriptions and 330,000 concurrent users worldwide. The game is also based upon a subscription model which (based on the company’s subscription figures) we’ve calculated earns NCsoft over a staggering US$40 million a month!

Lineage comes with a 30-day free trial. After the trial period, players are charged US$15 per month. Players can save money by purchasing four months at a rate of US$11.25 per month. The game is Mac OS X-only, and an Internet connection is of course required.

Looking for old ProNews segments? Check out our index at http://old.macedition.com/news/. Do you have news releases or tidbits of interest to the Macintosh professional? Send them to pronewsnotes@macedition.com.

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