I had onlye two problems \w this game, both are related.

1) the creature is totally useless. When I first downlo^h^h^h^h^h^h purchased the game and started playing, I spent lots of time just trying to train my creature to do something useful. After 2 days he still could not feed himself and he had developed a somewhat disturbing profeciency with lightning bolts (as in he lightning bolted *everything he came in contact with* ). So eventually I gave up on the creature and discovered

2) all you have to do to win the game is kill every other person on the map and replace them with your villages. I spent the first 2 days trying to follow the instructions given by the guides. I sent my creature to help out in other villages. I filled their bins with food and wood. I watered their field. I kissed their babies and gave their old women foot massages. And ya know what? It didn''t friggin work. It would take hours and hours to gain a territory and then the opponent would simply win it back again in two seconds. So screw that. I found out that if you just kill everyone in the other villages and then send in one of your villagers to take over, you can beat the entire game in about 4 hours. So that game is too easy and the creature is unnecessary.

Didn''t try the multiplayer.

quote: the story did give the impression the vortex was one way. maybe its just how interperet the fact that another diety much more powerful then the player controlled moved onto the players land. i guess it depends on how you interperate the danger considering the HUGE creature from land one used to belong to the diety AND was considered too weak, furthermore injured that creature gives the impression you wont be going back to that land

Okay, it''s possible to interpret it that way, particularly after being asked to chuck as many things as possible into the vortex, but it''s really not the only way to interpret it. It''s easy to imagine becoming powerful enough to save your village from the wrath of Nemesis, so that two-way travel through the vortex is not ruled out by the story. Besides, when you''re scrambling to save your village and you see a vortex through which both a villager ("there''s a whole other world in there!") and the good advisor make a round-trip you tend not to think in terms of one-way vortices.

By the way, I did activate and solve a bunch of silver scrolls. I did not intend to play through Land 1 quite so quickly, it just turned out that way. Again, I was under the impression that I would be taught about spells, not that my land would be destroyed.

The video I'm talking about is the intro to the game where you hear primitive music and see examples of good and evil gameplay.

Oh, and the sailors in the game are perverts!

Edited by - chronos on January 31, 2002 5:30:04 AM

For the most part, I find the game excellent, but there are occasions where the designers commit the cardinal sin of gaming, they break their own game world''s rules. This MUST NEVER BE DONE, FOR ANY REASON. This is because as soon as the game (ie the opposition) breaks the rules, the player is entitled to do so too in order for it to be fair. They do this by cheating (which, incidentally, cannot be done anyway in B&W).

The worst example is in land three, where if one captures a village, the enemy sends a pack of wolves to it to regain belief.

The problem is, it takes you ages to build up belief through repeated miracles, and it should take FAR more than a single pack for the enemy to reclaim it. However, the designers cheated by having the whole village INSTANTLY change alleigance if even a single wolf arrives, in blatant disregard for the rules of gameplay.

I covered this problem in depth in an older post about "integrating cheats, on purpose, into a game", which I believe has resurfaced in our forums suddenly.

In short, if you design a game world''s rules, you should stick to them, come hell or high water.

Anyone got any idea on why opinion is so divided on this game? I mean, it was very successful, and a lot of people liked it. But most of you disagree. So what do you think made it so popular, despite all these points?

[ MSVC Fixes | STL | SDL | Game AI | Sockets | C++ Faq Lite | Boost ]

Black and whites defining flaw was that it tried to do too many things at once. ITs effecitvely 3 or maybe 4 games in one, and the games arent fun for the same sorts of people really. Hence, very few people get what they want in B&W even though they might get a thing or two. I firmly believe you need a pretty focused core set of gameplay for a game to be understood and loved by a lot of people. The more latitude you take, the more you lose people.

It sold like crazy with graphics and spin. Its sustained sales were poor for a game with such strong early sales. It didnt deliver as good peer recommendations or replay value as is necessary for a megahit, but it was made a hit through lots and lots and lots of candy and lots and lots and lots of spin. Many movies are "highly successful" on that model too, even though they arent good movies. Such is life.

There may be lessons to learn in marketability, but it didnt sell nearly as well as say the sims, which was a decent product too in terms of replay value, and has extremely good sustained sales.
Zileas

Edited by - Zileas on January 31, 2002 6:22:14 PM

it seems to me reading through most of these posts that everyone of you who complains about the game hasn''t even played it through. no one even mentions getting past the 3rd land.

i understand some of these criticisms, and i myself have issues with the gameplay. The fact remains though that there is no other game out there remotely like this. It may not be perfect, but hey, even half life is flawed.

What really shocks me is that here, in a game development forum, game DESIGN forum yet, hardly anyone has mentioned any of the technical leaps and bounds this game makes. Yeah it looks pretty, but if thats all you notice i don''t wonder why you don''t like it. I believe the creature ai is absolutely outstanding for one thing. And the little subtleties, like the phases of the moon actually mirroring the real phases of the moon where you live, or the game''s weather mirroring the real weather where you live, or how the look of the game actually changes depending on how you play.

Black and White is a different kind of game. If you want something that looks shiny and you can rush through, get some quake or command and conquer. If you want a game with some depth with plenty to do, try finishing this one.

<(o)>

Part of the reason the game was so successful, I think, is that the concept is very interesting and the game''s imagery very powerful. Just looking at the game''s box, good and evil in opposition, brings forth images of awesome power, great deeds, dark rituals, fearful subjects and other such things. The game had very lofty goals, but it didn''t live up to them.

to the ap, the creature is not useless. i successful taught it to feed my villigers, and to help other villegers. also the reason the game is called black and white is because there are two ways to handle many of the situtaions presented. for instance, getting villages. you can detrsoy them, which is the easy way out. or help them and impess them via mircales and the creature which is more difficult. its up to you how to play the game.

i agree with aDasTRa when it comes how many ppl are portraying this game (especially chronos who said nothing good aobut the game yet). personally i place it up there with trespasser (for those who never played the game, definatly download the demo). like trespasser black and white raised the bar on design and required cpu speed. both fell short of the intended goals, and were plauged with bugs. yet they both were original games that really give a bright glimpse into games of the future assuming companies dont continue producing clones of games because ppl are willing to buy them. lets face it hl should be killed already and along with it cs. ppl need to stop playing those games and actually try something new.

trespasser, for those who have not played nor heard of it, was a first person adventure game. its difficult to describe the gameplay due to its fantastic use of physics (its sad not more companies today make a game like that considering how fast pcs are now). it was pretty free form (though i only played the demo) and allowed you to throw crates in the water (which woudl float) or even stack them to reach higher places. you could also use guns like bats to hit the dinos (but ussually that did not work to well). dinos could get broken legs and trip. animation was determined partially by the physics engine so logs coudl be used to roll at dinos. you were actually afraid of the dinos since they were pretty powerful and somewhat cunning (well maybe the ai was pretty bad, but the physics made up for that). in fact its one of the few jurassic park games that is actually quite decent. the min req for that game was a 200mhz (or may have been a 166) (3d card optional) which was quite high back then. it used agp textures if you had the video support for it. major downfall was the same as balck and white, too much horsepower required and a bit buggy. though a still great game. hopefully i will actually find the time to purchase the game. and yes the demo is 100% legal, it is not soem warez thing, its an actually demo. somethign many compaines dont bother with now a days.

In my opinion, Black and White was a great game. I remember playing it for a few days in a row before I had to do actual work again. I unfortunately haven''t picked it up since, although now that I found this post, I plan on reinstalling it (I have reformatted 3 times since).
Anyway, what are its flaws?
The save game feature, which was added late in the development of the game, is badly done. Who saves the game in the registry?
Also, when I start the game, it takes forever to load. This wouldn''t be so bad if I could choose which save game I want. Unfortunately I have to wait until I am in the game before I can change to another game I have saved, which wasn''t all that intuitive anyway. It wasn''t easy to find out where and how you could do it in the first place.
Also, if it could allow you to specify what exactly you are trying to teach the creature, that would be good. I had the same problem just trying to teach the creature how to feed himself, with only so-so results the two different times I had played it.
I thought the gestures system was actually a great implementation! While I didn''t have a problem with icons before, this game allowed much greater freedom.
I felt the controls were intuitive, until I accidentally moved too close to the edge of the screen and then instead of moving up or down, I was rotating.
As for the game itself, I have to say that the most annoying thing is for the game to teach me how to play it when I already know how. While the tutorial was very helpful the first time I started the game, I dread having to go through it all when I reinstall it again.
All in all, I think B&W was great. I haven''t played past the 2nd land, I think, so I don''t know about the 3rd level issues, but I will keep them in mind.
Also, why do some of you just want to beat a game as fast as possible? You complain that you could beat the game within 3 hours or so since it is too easy, but I have probably logged days playing it and I enjoyed it. It is a fun game to play, although I would have liked having the ability to move water...I am a god, right? Why can''t I do anything with the water? B-)


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(Gorgeous graphics)+(beautiful sound effects)+(symphonic music)+(no gameplay) != Good game