SWTOR: the excluded

By now, thousands have signed up for the SWTOR beta, but I thought it was worth mentioning those who won’t be able to take part in the beta phase. Specfically, any person on a Mac running VMWare Fusion or Boot Camp may not be able able to take part, after I emailed support stating the sign-up form wasn’t running correctly. I understand there’s a system scan prior to submitting the application, but I didn’t even get that far on Safari and Firefox – it’d just endlessly cycle between the terms and conditions and the tester details form.

The response from BioWare’s support:

Since the game is designed to run on PC only, It wouldn’t surprise me to find out that the scan is not set up to work properly on a Mac.  Since much of the criteria we are using to select testers is a function of system specs and OS, this phase may not be available to you.

Um, ok. If this is an indication of how OS issues are going to be managed, I have some concerns on the beta-testing experience for people, let alone the end product support. Yes, I’m pissed on the total lack of Mac support. BioWare have basically said ‘that’s what Boot Camp is for’. Yet, when trying to test SWTOR using said Mac, it’s a no-go, albeit not within the Boot Camp environment. I just get that overwhelming feeling of non-interest in the whole issue.

Over to you: am I whining too much over lack of Mac support or am I right in querying the level of responsiveness to people who are willing to virtualise their Mac for testing, but don’t want to do so for the sake of filling in a web form? Hit me with your thoughts and flames.

Update: BioWare have followed up with a response to the issue.