I also refuse to buy anything from EA unless they start paying more attention to Mac users. Sure, they'll let us BUY stuff, but when it comes to quality content we're ignored.
definitely count me in! When the TS3 first came out I was disappointed that a) there weren't more neighborhoods to choose from and b) that those that we did have didn't have many lots and c) it didn't look like they would be adding anymore neighborhoods after the game installed one and the free one. So when I heard that there was a CAW tool I was super excited, but then only to have my hopes crushed when I saw the "* for PC only"
Signed, definitely. Back in August, I willingly changed from PC to Mac (Mac is a better system in many ways, and I needed a good, reliable computer for college). I was and still am appalled by EA's lack of service for Mac users. Is there anything else we can do to help this situation?
I am happy to tell you all that I decided that this topic could use some international attention!
As a mentioned earlier, I am Dutch. But besides Dutch and English I also speak Swedish and a little bit of German and French..
Therefore, I have posted an message in Dutch on the forum for Holland and Belgium, and a message in Swedish on the Swedish forum, asking everybody to help sign this petition and given them instructions how to do so!
I'm still working on posting my message in German, but am afraid that my French is too bad to write a decent message.
So now, we could be expecting people who sign this petition from THREE extra countries!
There must be someone here who can speak extra languages as well? Can they post on another website as well?
To everyone who continues to support this petition: thank you for helping us pass the 150 mark; now let's aim to pass the 200 mark. As far as views for this thread go; we're quickly catching up to "Snow Leopard Compatibility," which is the most viewed sticky thread in the Mac Forum; I really hope EA is taking a note of this.
ImaginePeace, please see page one of this thread; your signature is number 18; you were one of the first to sign. I'm trying to avoid any duplicate signatures, although additional comments are more than welcome. For other people who are unsure if they signed, please check "page one;" if your name isn't there, check the current list; you can use the Apple+F command in FireFox to bring up the "find" box and type in your alias; it should show if it's on the petition or not, although you may have to search multiple times in case the petition is below your signature, especially for more recent signatures. Or you could just skim the 150+ signatures that we have and are waiting for EA to take note of. Thank you again though for your support ImaginePeace.
So, for anyone who is going to buy Parallels, don't. It's not worth it. It may be my computer, but don't risk it. EA is known to be rubbish ever since the release of The Sims 3 to us Mac folk. I'm rather glad we didn't get Parallels for just Create-A-World BETA. It would have been such a waste. :?
DO NOT GET PARALLELS TO GET CREATE-A-WORLD BETA! YOU'LL BE WASTING YOUR MONEY!
JTGJustin, although I can't confirm it personally, I've heard that some people are having more success with VMWare Fusion than Parallels for CAW--BETA; you might want to consider giving it a try. Also, remember that this is a BETA release, and apparently some actual Windows users are having CAW--BETA "hang" on the loading screen as well, so it might not be Parallels at all, but rather, a program glitch that EA still has to fix. Remember, EA likely built CAW--BETA for whatever systems they were using themselves, and now they have to modify it for hardware that they didn't initially use. If someone else is running CAW--BETA through VMWare Fusion without a problem, a post in this thread would be appreciated.
Also, JTGJustin, unless you're on a Mac Pro with a Mac Pro RAID Card, (and if you don't know what I'm talking about, I can assure you that you're not using said system,) you should be able to use "Boot Camp" on your Mac. Unlike Parallels and other "Virtualization" software, "Boot Camp" runs Windows "proper" on your Mac rather than "virtualized" Windows; this may admittedly be a better option for you, and for others. If the loading screen still hangs, all I can suggest is to wait for EA to patch CAW--BETA; if they're not aware of this issue I'd be surprised considering Windows users have posted about it in the CAW forum.
Sure, they'll let us BUY stuff, but when it comes to quality content we're ignored.
Wisp, this is admittedly what's annoying me more than anything else. EA seems to think that Mac users are some sort of "bank lending branch" here to help sign their paychecks, and that's it. Whether or not our games work seems to be irrelevant to them, and that's what admittedly annoys me more than anything else about this debacle. EA is essentially taking our money and running with it; the World Adventures patch disaster and CAW are only further evidence of that. Adding insult to injury, EA constantly uses Macs in their promotional videos for new games, even if they're Macs running Windows. It's not like EA doesn't have access to Macs, for all we know they could've programmed parts of TS3 on the Windows partition of a Mac running bootcamp, so it's a little annoying to see them promote the Mac and then not follow through with support for it. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with EA "promoting" the Mac, it's the lack of support for Mac games that I take issue with. If EA wants to keep getting me to fork over my hard-earned cash to them, they need to improve their quality control and their public relations with consumers.
rainbowxrabbit--I felt almost exactly the way that you did. Sunset Valley is nice, but it's not a town I'd design. Riverview is nice, but it's also not a town I'd design. I had/have a town mapped out in my head--it was/is going to be land-locked, and I even have a story ready for it, but I'm not going to go into detail about it just yet. When I saw that "PC-Only" note, I wanted to scream; I spent a week waiting for my WA coaster to arrive, only to have a shiny WA coaster for a few days, and as soon as it was functional, I found out about CAW--Beta also being neglected on the Mac. The last thing EA should be doing is alienating customers, especially customers who have been loyal to them for years.
Mac users shouldn't be punished by EA for having the foresight to purchase a better computer! :!:
ToriLark, Mac users shouldn't be punished by EA for having the foresight to purchase the brand of computer that EA perpetually shows off when promoting their new software; that's the way I look at it. If you look at the videos EA releases, they're often running Macs, even if they're running Windows on a Mac. EA knows enough about Macs that they should be able to fully support them, they show them off when demoing their games, so I don't see why they can't program their games and add-on tools to run on the Mac's native OS as well. Again, this is just more irony from EA.
While this petition is certainly a good start, and should continue until it achieves its goal, we can and should do more to persuade EA to release CAW--Beta, or even just the completed CAW for the Mac.
First, if you haven't done so already, please consider contacting Mac/Technology blogs and websites; you can use Google to find them, but below is a short list of some of the more popular/reputable ones:
The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
Engadget
Macrumors
Cult of Mac
Gamespot
IGN
For the blogs, most have a "tip us" button, or something similar. The more people click that "tip us" button and report the same thing, the more likely it is to be published. If we can give the lack of CAW--Beta/CAW for the Mac some press attention, EA might be more responsive. Within hours of info of the first defective WA patches actually showing up on blogs, EA had readied and released their patches. The signatures on this petition are great and should continue, but we must expand our efforts to persuade EA to release CAW--Beta or otherwise on the Mac.
Second, one thing that would be a huge help to our cause would be to have a well-known newspaper such as The New York Times write an article about the lack of CAW for the Mac in their technology section. I'm using the NY Times example simply because they have a technology section, and they've published information pertaining to games before. If there are any freelance writers reading this who are up to the task, your help would be greatly appreciated.
Again, the petition still needs to be supported, and signatures shouldn't stop just because we're branching out, but if we really want to persuade EA, we need to not only continue this petition, but to expand upon how we're trying to contact them as well.
As stated in the above quote, the more press/publicity the lack of CAW--BETA or otherwise for the Mac gets, the better, and the more likely EA is to respond to our request. We need to continue the petition, but we need to expand as well. My thanks to everyone whose contributed ideas which I condensed into that quote/post, not all of them are admittedly mine, and if you skim the first few pages of the thread, you might be able to find the person or persons who originally suggested some of them. Again, all of your continued support is much needed, and much appreciated.
Sterredejong, thank you so much for giving this issue some international attention; it's much appreciated, and the more people we get to support us, the better. The three additional countries should be a huge help in the long run, so again, my thanks to you. I admittedly took two college-level Italian courses, as well as one course in High School, but my ability to speak the language is extremely limited, in part because I don't use it regularly, and in part because I admittedly struggled with certain aspects of the language, "tenses" being the most difficult. While I can read very basic Italian, I don't think I could post a message in Italian that would be easily understood. I'd admittedly like to learn Japanese one day; it would be nice to watch certain TV shows without subtitles, or without having to ask a friend who can speak the language to summarize an episode's plot for me before I watch it. (And yes, I've admittedly done this.) (Again, I've started to pick up on extremely rudimentary Japanese, but nothing that would allow me to converse or post a message in that language either.)
In any case, thank you for bringing the international community into this petition, I think if we can show EA that this is something that Mac users purchasing their products worldwide want, it would certainly work in our favor.
Finally, I'd like to thank everyone for their continued support on this topic, and I hope that EA will take note of this thread. Please, please, please consider my other suggestions as well; we need to expand beyond just this petition, and while the petition is important as I've stated, the more press this gets, the better. I will gladly let this topic die the day EA announces a CAW tool for the Mac, after a final "thank you" post. Until then though, I have no intention of just shutting up and waiting for a tool that we may never get in Beta or finished form at present. More than anything though, I want a definitive answer from EA--are we only being left out of the Beta, or are we being left out of the final tool as well? I find it odd that EA wouldn't hype up the final tool being cross-platform if they intended to make it a cross-platform item like WA and the upcoming SP. Again, it's the lack of communication that really bothers me, coupled with the lack of support for our platform, and I really hope EA is listening to us, especially considering that we're all spending money or at the very least, have spent money on their products.
I was really looking forward to creating my own town at least, which I used to do all the time with Sims 2. Now I find out I can't simply because I chose to switch to a Mac rather than have to put up with Windows any more.
Mac users have been getting the short end of the stick for years & I'm sick of it. I like my Mac and I like The Sims 3; if it comes down to a contest between the two, the Mac will win!
Don't you think they're going to come out with it? one has to come first before the other. its not like they're playing favorites. wether or not you make a petition isnt going to effect their production. I'm sure it was already started before you created this anyhow.
Don't you think they're going to come out with it? one has to come first before the other. its not like they're playing favorites. wether or not you make a petition isnt going to effect their production. I'm sure it was already started before you created this anyhow.
I find this kind of thinking to be kind of ridiculous. If the community were to sit there, quietly waiting for the assumed inevitable...well it'd be a long wait. Think back to when the game was first released and the speed/story progression issues. If we sat quietly and waited for those fixes back then, i think we'd still be here now, quietly waiting.
I'm incredibly frustrated with the amount of annoyance this game has caused me just because I use a Mac. I don't feel personally discriminated against but I do feel like there is more emphasis placed on Windows users, when I'm about 95% sure that there are as many Sims 3 players using Macs as there are using Windows. It seems that more Mac users have issues with patches, too, which also drives me up the wall. IMO the tool shouldn't have been released until it could have been released for Mac. I'm sure this isn't that hard of a fix to make, surely one that can be done. Why hasn't it been done yet?
I want to create worlds too, why should Windows users be able to and not us? Everyone knows Mac's better than Windows anyway - especially for graphicky things like CAW involves...
Comments
I also refuse to buy anything from EA unless they start paying more attention to Mac users. Sure, they'll let us BUY stuff, but when it comes to quality content we're ignored.
I want to make my own neighborhood too!
Mac users shouldn't be punished by EA for having the foresight to purchase a better computer! :!:
But if I did signed agained
As a mentioned earlier, I am Dutch. But besides Dutch and English I also speak Swedish and a little bit of German and French..
Therefore, I have posted an message in Dutch on the forum for Holland and Belgium, and a message in Swedish on the Swedish forum, asking everybody to help sign this petition and given them instructions how to do so!
I'm still working on posting my message in German, but am afraid that my French is too bad to write a decent message.
So now, we could be expecting people who sign this petition from THREE extra countries!
There must be someone here who can speak extra languages as well? Can they post on another website as well?
ImaginePeace, please see page one of this thread; your signature is number 18; you were one of the first to sign. I'm trying to avoid any duplicate signatures, although additional comments are more than welcome. For other people who are unsure if they signed, please check "page one;" if your name isn't there, check the current list; you can use the Apple+F command in FireFox to bring up the "find" box and type in your alias; it should show if it's on the petition or not, although you may have to search multiple times in case the petition is below your signature, especially for more recent signatures. Or you could just skim the 150+ signatures that we have and are waiting for EA to take note of.
JTGJustin, although I can't confirm it personally, I've heard that some people are having more success with VMWare Fusion than Parallels for CAW--BETA; you might want to consider giving it a try. Also, remember that this is a BETA release, and apparently some actual Windows users are having CAW--BETA "hang" on the loading screen as well, so it might not be Parallels at all, but rather, a program glitch that EA still has to fix. Remember, EA likely built CAW--BETA for whatever systems they were using themselves, and now they have to modify it for hardware that they didn't initially use. If someone else is running CAW--BETA through VMWare Fusion without a problem, a post in this thread would be appreciated.
Also, JTGJustin, unless you're on a Mac Pro with a Mac Pro RAID Card, (and if you don't know what I'm talking about, I can assure you that you're not using said system,) you should be able to use "Boot Camp" on your Mac. Unlike Parallels and other "Virtualization" software, "Boot Camp" runs Windows "proper" on your Mac rather than "virtualized" Windows; this may admittedly be a better option for you, and for others. If the loading screen still hangs, all I can suggest is to wait for EA to patch CAW--BETA; if they're not aware of this issue I'd be surprised considering Windows users have posted about it in the CAW forum.
Wisp, this is admittedly what's annoying me more than anything else. EA seems to think that Mac users are some sort of "bank lending branch" here to help sign their paychecks, and that's it. Whether or not our games work seems to be irrelevant to them, and that's what admittedly annoys me more than anything else about this debacle. EA is essentially taking our money and running with it; the World Adventures patch disaster and CAW are only further evidence of that. Adding insult to injury, EA constantly uses Macs in their promotional videos for new games, even if they're Macs running Windows. It's not like EA doesn't have access to Macs, for all we know they could've programmed parts of TS3 on the Windows partition of a Mac running bootcamp, so it's a little annoying to see them promote the Mac and then not follow through with support for it. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with EA "promoting" the Mac, it's the lack of support for Mac games that I take issue with. If EA wants to keep getting me to fork over my hard-earned cash to them, they need to improve their quality control and their public relations with consumers.
rainbowxrabbit--I felt almost exactly the way that you did. Sunset Valley is nice, but it's not a town I'd design. Riverview is nice, but it's also not a town I'd design. I had/have a town mapped out in my head--it was/is going to be land-locked, and I even have a story ready for it, but I'm not going to go into detail about it just yet. When I saw that "PC-Only" note, I wanted to scream; I spent a week waiting for my WA coaster to arrive, only to have a shiny WA coaster for a few days, and as soon as it was functional, I found out about CAW--Beta also being neglected on the Mac. The last thing EA should be doing is alienating customers, especially customers who have been loyal to them for years.
ToriLark, Mac users shouldn't be punished by EA for having the foresight to purchase the brand of computer that EA perpetually shows off when promoting their new software; that's the way I look at it. If you look at the videos EA releases, they're often running Macs, even if they're running Windows on a Mac. EA knows enough about Macs that they should be able to fully support them, they show them off when demoing their games, so I don't see why they can't program their games and add-on tools to run on the Mac's native OS as well. Again, this is just more irony from EA.
YES!
As stated in the above quote, the more press/publicity the lack of CAW--BETA or otherwise for the Mac gets, the better, and the more likely EA is to respond to our request. We need to continue the petition, but we need to expand as well. My thanks to everyone whose contributed ideas which I condensed into that quote/post, not all of them are admittedly mine, and if you skim the first few pages of the thread, you might be able to find the person or persons who originally suggested some of them. Again, all of your continued support is much needed, and much appreciated.
Sterredejong, thank you so much for giving this issue some international attention; it's much appreciated, and the more people we get to support us, the better. The three additional countries should be a huge help in the long run, so again, my thanks to you.
In any case, thank you for bringing the international community into this petition, I think if we can show EA that this is something that Mac users purchasing their products worldwide want, it would certainly work in our favor.
Finally, I'd like to thank everyone for their continued support on this topic, and I hope that EA will take note of this thread. Please, please, please consider my other suggestions as well; we need to expand beyond just this petition, and while the petition is important as I've stated, the more press this gets, the better. I will gladly let this topic die the day EA announces a CAW tool for the Mac, after a final "thank you" post. Until then though, I have no intention of just shutting up and waiting for a tool that we may never get in Beta or finished form at present. More than anything though, I want a definitive answer from EA--are we only being left out of the Beta, or are we being left out of the final tool as well? I find it odd that EA wouldn't hype up the final tool being cross-platform if they intended to make it a cross-platform item like WA and the upcoming SP. Again, it's the lack of communication that really bothers me, coupled with the lack of support for our platform, and I really hope EA is listening to us, especially considering that we're all spending money or at the very least, have spent money on their products.
I was really looking forward to creating my own town at least, which I used to do all the time with Sims 2. Now I find out I can't simply because I chose to switch to a Mac rather than have to put up with Windows any more.
Mac users have been getting the short end of the stick for years & I'm sick of it. I like my Mac and I like The Sims 3; if it comes down to a contest between the two, the Mac will win!
Don't you think they're going to come out with it? one has to come first before the other. its not like they're playing favorites. wether or not you make a petition isnt going to effect their production. I'm sure it was already started before you created this anyhow.
I find this kind of thinking to be kind of ridiculous. If the community were to sit there, quietly waiting for the assumed inevitable...well it'd be a long wait. Think back to when the game was first released and the speed/story progression issues. If we sat quietly and waited for those fixes back then, i think we'd still be here now, quietly waiting.
I can't understand why they didn't made a download for Mac-user, eventhough I am a PC-user I see your frustration! Many people worldwide use Mac!
I've been awaiting this tool since the game's release. If the game is available on both platforms, the tool should be also!
I'm incredibly frustrated with the amount of annoyance this game has caused me just because I use a Mac. I don't feel personally discriminated against but I do feel like there is more emphasis placed on Windows users, when I'm about 95% sure that there are as many Sims 3 players using Macs as there are using Windows. It seems that more Mac users have issues with patches, too, which also drives me up the wall. IMO the tool shouldn't have been released until it could have been released for Mac. I'm sure this isn't that hard of a fix to make, surely one that can be done. Why hasn't it been done yet?
I want to create worlds too, why should Windows users be able to and not us? Everyone knows Mac's better than Windows anyway