Black & White Flaws
Author
I played Black & White for the first time quite recently and encountered the following problems:
- Tutorial elements in Land 1: Land 1 in Black and White is part tutorial, part gameplay. In a game that''s supposed to be free-form the tutorial element seemed really intrusive. Walk-throughs and gameplay do not mix.
- The Totem''s behavior in Land 1: When I couldn''t raise the Totem in the Village Center I wondered what I was doing wrong. I found out by looking at the manual that the Totem pole on Land 1 cannot be raised. Good interfaces are consistent. Lack of consistency is confusing.
- That damn vortex: When the good spiritual advisor went through the vortex and back I thought I could do the same. Perhaps there was something at the other side of the vortex I could use to save the villagers. To my surprise, the vortex closed behind me. I had to wait for the temple to be completed to get back to Land 1 (using the load function). Advisors shouldn''t be able to do things that gods can''t do. Lack of consistency is confusing.
- The intro video: I skipped the intro video hoping to watch it again after playing a little. Who knew it would be a one-shot deal? I had to reinstall the game to view the whole thing. Things should not be skipped without the player''s okay.
I bought Black & White recently and quickly discovered some problems:
--It''s buggy.
--It''s not even that fun.
--(personal note) didn''t care for controls
I later disposed of my copy of Black & White.
Actually the game was pretty good, on some things, but it just annoyed me the rest of the time. And it was so slow, and ate up so much memory. I had to quit out of several programs to get it to run w/o crashing my computer.
Many people liked it, but I agree with you: It was half game/half tutorial.
--It''s buggy.
--It''s not even that fun.
--(personal note) didn''t care for controls
I later disposed of my copy of Black & White.
Actually the game was pretty good, on some things, but it just annoyed me the rest of the time. And it was so slow, and ate up so much memory. I had to quit out of several programs to get it to run w/o crashing my computer.
Many people liked it, but I agree with you: It was half game/half tutorial.
the tutorial was required to some degree (maybe they shoudl have seperated it from the rest of the game, though it was not that intrusive). anyhoo see patch for fix. the vortex is one way. maybe you should have paid more attention to the story (your land was being ravaged by a more powerfel diety). though they probally should have mentioned that it was a one way ticket, just incase ppl missed that subtly.
why were you messing with the totem on the first land? you were not told of them yet and you should not have known how they worked. reading ahead from outside sources would have that effect on disrupting the flow of the game like that.
the intro video, YOU made the choice to skip it. though of course you could have started a new game. this may have not occured to you. (if this dont work, then ignore my abhorent scarcasim in the previous sentence)
the game was not confusing at all (well maybe a little bit), but not enough to destroy the gameplay after you got used to it.
it was not half game half tutorial. granted there were some sections that you were given lessons on how to accomplish things, but they were part of the story. you may not have liked it due to reading strategy guides which made the small lessons useless. there was much gameplay that did not involve going through lessons, but many ppl used strategy guides to solve puzzles quickly and turn the entire game into a run through as fast as you can fest. if you played the game to just enjoy it and not try to beat it quickly, you probally would have enjoyed it much more. the game was quite system intensive but the min req should have gieven you a clue. you did turn the settings down to match yoru config right?
did you even bother to try the multiplayer game?
though this game is not for everyone. it probally was slightly ahead of its time (though not as far as trespasser was).
why were you messing with the totem on the first land? you were not told of them yet and you should not have known how they worked. reading ahead from outside sources would have that effect on disrupting the flow of the game like that.
the intro video, YOU made the choice to skip it. though of course you could have started a new game. this may have not occured to you. (if this dont work, then ignore my abhorent scarcasim in the previous sentence)
the game was not confusing at all (well maybe a little bit), but not enough to destroy the gameplay after you got used to it.
it was not half game half tutorial. granted there were some sections that you were given lessons on how to accomplish things, but they were part of the story. you may not have liked it due to reading strategy guides which made the small lessons useless. there was much gameplay that did not involve going through lessons, but many ppl used strategy guides to solve puzzles quickly and turn the entire game into a run through as fast as you can fest. if you played the game to just enjoy it and not try to beat it quickly, you probally would have enjoyed it much more. the game was quite system intensive but the min req should have gieven you a clue. you did turn the settings down to match yoru config right?
did you even bother to try the multiplayer game?
though this game is not for everyone. it probally was slightly ahead of its time (though not as far as trespasser was).
Author
a person: Perhaps if you paid closer attention to what I said in my post instead of interpreting my words in whatever way suits your arguments we might actually have an interesting discussion.
I never said the tutorial was unnecessary. I said that walkthroughs and gameplay do not mix. A standalone tutorial would be fine. As it is, the tutorial seems very intrusive to me. I don't like my playing interrupted by long-winded explanations of how to move along with mouse pointers labeled "Demo" in bright red letters. Not intrusive? Just now I tried zooming during the rotating portion of the tutorial and was told to continue rotating instead. If it were a standalone tutorial these things would be fine, but it's rather intrusive as part of the game.
The Totem: The creature cave contains a note indicating that your creature has not yet learned to move the Totem and suggests that you move it while he's watching. This is on Land 1, so you're wrong in assuming I consulted outside sources. In any case, there's a lack of consistency between the way it works on Land 1 and the way it works in other lands. It's confusing.
The vortex: I said that the spiritual advisor's ability to go through the vortex and back was confusing. Nothing about the story suggested the vortex was strictly one way.
The intro video: Yes I chose to skip it. I never said otherwise. Read what I said more carefully. You'll notice I was under the impression that I'd be able to view it again later. Starting a new game did not bring back the intro video. Rather than giving yourself an out by excusing yourself if you happen to be wrong about an assumption of yours, how about checking the facts before posting?
What irks me the most about your post is the way you assume these problems were all my fault. I hope this post clears up this invalid assumption of yours.
Edited by - chronos on January 30, 2002 5:50:22 AM
I never said the tutorial was unnecessary. I said that walkthroughs and gameplay do not mix. A standalone tutorial would be fine. As it is, the tutorial seems very intrusive to me. I don't like my playing interrupted by long-winded explanations of how to move along with mouse pointers labeled "Demo" in bright red letters. Not intrusive? Just now I tried zooming during the rotating portion of the tutorial and was told to continue rotating instead. If it were a standalone tutorial these things would be fine, but it's rather intrusive as part of the game.
The Totem: The creature cave contains a note indicating that your creature has not yet learned to move the Totem and suggests that you move it while he's watching. This is on Land 1, so you're wrong in assuming I consulted outside sources. In any case, there's a lack of consistency between the way it works on Land 1 and the way it works in other lands. It's confusing.
The vortex: I said that the spiritual advisor's ability to go through the vortex and back was confusing. Nothing about the story suggested the vortex was strictly one way.
The intro video: Yes I chose to skip it. I never said otherwise. Read what I said more carefully. You'll notice I was under the impression that I'd be able to view it again later. Starting a new game did not bring back the intro video. Rather than giving yourself an out by excusing yourself if you happen to be wrong about an assumption of yours, how about checking the facts before posting?
What irks me the most about your post is the way you assume these problems were all my fault. I hope this post clears up this invalid assumption of yours.
Edited by - chronos on January 30, 2002 5:50:22 AM
I played B&W for quite a while, then got frustrated because the game started cheating on me in the 3rd level. It let my opponent travel much too far out of his domain in order to steal trees from me. I also thought that after 16 game years my creature ought to have figured out how to eat when he was hungry but I kept having to save him from starving. I thought some of the controls were counter intuitive as well - i don''t recall exactly because it''s been a few months now, but I seem to recall having to pull out to zoom in and push in to zoom out - or something like that - the controls seemed reversed to me. On the other hand, the graphics were swell. I really enjoyed sacrificing the dead bodies of overworked villagers at the temple too and the lightning spell worked great for wreaking havoc on the neighbors. I agree with some of the other criticisms regarding interweaving the tutorials with the game. I have to say overall that it was a big step forward for games, but still had room for improvement.
‘But truth's a menace, science a public danger.’ Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
‘But truth's a menace, science a public danger.’ Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Author
It just occurred to me that while playing the game I was going through golden scrolls in relatively rapid succession, a side effect of having the tutorial as part of the game. I wanted the tutorial to be over with so I could get on with the game. Nemesis'' old creature was telling me about spells and had a final and important lesson for me. I was eager to learn some spells, so I activated it. It turned out to be the downfall of my village.
Black & White features beautiful graphics and an interesting concept, but the implementation is flawed. (Not only in terms of gameplay, but stability too... It often crashes my computer upon quitting the game, and the textures are often drawn incorrectly).
Black & White features beautiful graphics and an interesting concept, but the implementation is flawed. (Not only in terms of gameplay, but stability too... It often crashes my computer upon quitting the game, and the textures are often drawn incorrectly).
This was the first time that I heard of a game and was really anxious to buy it. The first day it was out I grabbed a copy. When I tried to play it my video card wasnt good enough, so I went back out the same day and bought a new one. So I basically spent $120 to play this video game. It looked that cool.
I was dissapointed and I was impressed. Some parts of it I thought were completly amazing, like the graphics, the sounds, it has this very atmospheric quality to it. But after playing it you soon realize that its pretty much just a real time strategy game with a whole bunch of new ideas. Really great ideas. But its hard to play because the controls to move around are so dumb. In my opinion, nothing that I have seen beats WASD and mouse for 3d game movement. This allows zooming, rotation, and moving around. The hand thing was a good idea, inteded to give you a presense where in most RTS games you have one, but it didnt really work as well as it should have. The creature idea was great though, i loved that
Can''t say anything about multiplayer havent tried that and probobly wont since i gave it away to a friend (and no i didnt pirate it i erased it from my computer and gave him everythign it came with).
I was dissapointed and I was impressed. Some parts of it I thought were completly amazing, like the graphics, the sounds, it has this very atmospheric quality to it. But after playing it you soon realize that its pretty much just a real time strategy game with a whole bunch of new ideas. Really great ideas. But its hard to play because the controls to move around are so dumb. In my opinion, nothing that I have seen beats WASD and mouse for 3d game movement. This allows zooming, rotation, and moving around. The hand thing was a good idea, inteded to give you a presense where in most RTS games you have one, but it didnt really work as well as it should have. The creature idea was great though, i loved that
Can''t say anything about multiplayer havent tried that and probobly wont since i gave it away to a friend (and no i didnt pirate it i erased it from my computer and gave him everythign it came with).
Although the graphics were great, this game just wasn''t fun. The gameplay was slow and repetitive, and this especially comes out in island 3, when you find out that you can''t derive any pleasure from the game whatsoever without your creature. As the game is about taking over villages by inspiring faith, all the miracles boil down to doing the same thing (just use a miracle, any miracle, on a town over and over to win, really doesn''t matter which you use, although alternating two helps). Most shocking of all is how pathetically small the single player game is. I read the review after I bought it unfortunately, and when I heard there were only 5 islands I was actually quite pissed off, as I had already gone through 2 of them in about an hour and a half. Once I got to island 3 and my creature was gone, I just shut the game off and never looked back.
Molyneux blundered big time on B&W. His older dungeon keeper and dungeon keeper 2 were both superior in about every way fathomable except gloss.
|)0Y: l337 5p34|< 4n0ny|\/|0u5
Molyneux blundered big time on B&W. His older dungeon keeper and dungeon keeper 2 were both superior in about every way fathomable except gloss.
|)0Y: l337 5p34|< 4n0ny|\/|0u5
I agree with antistuff about it seeming kinda like a fancy RTS. I was really excited about the idea of an open ended game where you simply rule however you want to, I thought all the objectives were kinda dumb, I mean, if you''re a god, why do you need to look for rocks? I don''t actually own the game, a friend of mine does, so I haven''t been able to play as much as a lot of people, but I was hoping for a game sort of like SimCity with strong AI and the ability to send a giant cow to eat your followers, but it almost seems like they were trying to satisfy as many people as possible, but failed to fully satisfy almost anyone. I still think its a really cool game and plan to buy it after I get a faster computer (500mhz k6-2 w/ voodoo banshee just wouldn''t cut it I''m afraid), but I do think it tried to be too many different games. (or something).
__________________________________________
We get signal.
There are bombs exploding all around us!!
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We get signal.
There are bombs exploding all around us!!
maybe i read too much into your statements (i ahve a bad habit of that). i undertsand you want the tutorial part seperated (which is why a partially agreed with a spiffy sentance in parens).
i was not trying to give myself an out, i was actually trying to be slightly comical. plus i dont want to chance erasing my game to check out whether it shows the intro again or not. black& white has a horrid player managemnt/save system which i dont trust to keep my save good and my creature''s memory intact. just out of curiosity which intro movie are you talking about? is it the particle makes a logo thing? the intro where you are brought into the world?
i did not realize that the creature cave gave that advice. that is a huge oversight by the developers.
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 (you do later in the game, hopefully that does not spoil the game for anyone, if so look at my pen...)
black and white is not a game you rush through. you shoudl try to do some silver scrolls in between the golden ones. enjoy the game and dont get wrapped up in the foul points which i admit can be bad at times. trust me when you get past the first land you will begin to enjoy the game more.
as for textures being messed up, you may want to lower video settings or upgrade yoru video drivers. i nor ppl i know have had problems with that. this ranged from a voodoo5 to a geforce3. the game never crashed, though the saving takes quite a long time (upto 1-2 minutes in some cases, they really should have put a progress meter on that) the game seems stable, but then again i have a stable machine. it may be you have bad drivers, not enough memory, or a rouge program running in the background that is not being nice (not a virus, but things like anti virus software ussually dont mix with games nor do some other things).
in some cases they are
but face it you had much higher expectations of the game then i did (i fansinated by the ai, though abit stupid still a worthy effort that almost puts it in the ahead of its time leauge like tressapser did for physics in a game). this may be the reason why i did not notice nor care about some of the faults you mention. i guess the solution is "Dont believe the hype".
but you seem not to have played the game too much. give it chance, the early land is a bit quirky, but after you get past that (consider land one your mandatory tutorial) it is much better gameplay. though some ppl wont like the game at all.
i was not trying to give myself an out, i was actually trying to be slightly comical. plus i dont want to chance erasing my game to check out whether it shows the intro again or not. black& white has a horrid player managemnt/save system which i dont trust to keep my save good and my creature''s memory intact. just out of curiosity which intro movie are you talking about? is it the particle makes a logo thing? the intro where you are brought into the world?
i did not realize that the creature cave gave that advice. that is a huge oversight by the developers.
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 (you do later in the game, hopefully that does not spoil the game for anyone, if so look at my pen...)
black and white is not a game you rush through. you shoudl try to do some silver scrolls in between the golden ones. enjoy the game and dont get wrapped up in the foul points which i admit can be bad at times. trust me when you get past the first land you will begin to enjoy the game more.
as for textures being messed up, you may want to lower video settings or upgrade yoru video drivers. i nor ppl i know have had problems with that. this ranged from a voodoo5 to a geforce3. the game never crashed, though the saving takes quite a long time (upto 1-2 minutes in some cases, they really should have put a progress meter on that) the game seems stable, but then again i have a stable machine. it may be you have bad drivers, not enough memory, or a rouge program running in the background that is not being nice (not a virus, but things like anti virus software ussually dont mix with games nor do some other things).
in some cases they are
but face it you had much higher expectations of the game then i did (i fansinated by the ai, though abit stupid still a worthy effort that almost puts it in the ahead of its time leauge like tressapser did for physics in a game). this may be the reason why i did not notice nor care about some of the faults you mention. i guess the solution is "Dont believe the hype".but you seem not to have played the game too much. give it chance, the early land is a bit quirky, but after you get past that (consider land one your mandatory tutorial) it is much better gameplay. though some ppl wont like the game at all.
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