Got A Mac? Play Guild Wars 2 Anyway!

These days, there are more Macs out there than ever. The explosion of the iPod, iPhone and iPad have brought many Windows users into the Mac fold through what has come to be known as the “halo effect.” Once you go Mac, you never go back (or so the saying goes.) However, there’s one flaw to this switching strategy — gaming.

The gaming situation on the Mac has improved greatly in recent years with increase in market share and the use of Intel-based processors. Many triple-A titles are now available for the Mac, in-particular MMOs. World of Warcraft was released on the same day, in the same box, on the same discs as the Windows version back in 2004. CCP offers a Mac client for their fantastic sandbox game EvE. Even Warhammer came up with a Mac client, albeit a little too late. Despite all of this, there are still some studios and publishers who miss the boat and for whatever reasons decide not to support the Mac natively.

While it’s possible to run Windows natively on Mac hardware with Apple’s Boot Camp or in a virtual machine with a program like Parallels, neither solution is ideal. Boot Camp, as the name suggests, requires you to reboot into Windows, which means you lose access to all of your Mac stuff while playing. Virtual machines such as Parallels let you stay booted in Mac OS X, however at loss of performance. And both solutions require you to purchase a full retail copy of Windows.

However, there is another. Enter Wine.

In a nutshell, Wine is a translation layer that interprets Windows instructions to run on a different platform. While it still renders a bit of a performance hit over running Windows natively, it beats paying for (and installing) Windows. But not all Windows software works in Wine without some “nudging” to help it along, which is exactly what this video is about.

YouTube user OnlineGamerDOTCom posted a great video giving Mac users step-by-step instructions for getting the Guild Wars 2 beta client up and running on their Mac. While not overly complex, you should be fairly comfortable with getting around on your Mac. But as long as you can follow instructions, this video should get you going:

Recently, ArenaNet admitted to “experimenting” with Guild Wars 2 on other platforms, which may or may not indicate future support for the Mac. While a native Mac client for Guild Wars 2 would be the best solution — and Mac users should continue to lobby ArenaNet for one (in a civil manner, of course!) — this is a great way to get up-and-running without having to purchase Windows or boot out of your Mac to play.

Let us know if you’re a Mac user and you use this — or any other method — to play on your Mac!

YOUTUBE