I’ve been looking forward to this game for 3 years, and it’s finally hitting stores. I sleep days, and I am planning on getting it in the afternoon when I wake up, but if I can’t fall asleep by the time Best Buy opens I may end up not sleeping at all today.
BTW, it’s already available on a warez site (grrr) and I know some people who have downloaded and played it already.
It sounds freaking amazing, but I have WAY exceeded my video game budget for the next few months. 
Besides, I’m saving my pennies for Wizardry 8. Hehehe. Let us know what you think of it, though.
Believe it or not, I’m considering dropping $4K to buy a new laptop to play this game. When I’m rational, I think “Hey, my current laptop is just fine! I don’t need to spend that much to get a new one!”
Then I go look at the Black and White website and think “4K isn’t so much $$…”
The problem is that the #!#@ game requires a 350 Mhz processor. I have a 300 Mhz processor. 2 years ago this was a kick ass wonderful computer. Now it can’t run the newest games.
I think I’ll at least wait and see what the reviews say about it. Wouldn’t want to drop the bucks and find out the game sucks.
Slortar, have you tried Wizards and Warriors? Made by the same guy who made the original Wizardry games, it’s basically Wizardry with a different name. Pretty cool game, should be able to find it pretty cheap by now.
Athena, why must you have a laptop to play it? Be a LOT cheaper to buy just a regular tower, my system cost me $1600 10 months ago, is an 800Mhz PIII with 256MB RAM, GeForce256 3D card. It would probably be well under a grand today.
Well, I tried 5 different places looking for Black and White this afternoon, no luck. One place told me it ships today and they will have it tomorrow - thing is, usually a lot of stores receive copies on the actual ship date, sometimes earlier (I bought Kingpin the day before it’s official release). I’m going to call some more places and see if I can find a copy.
It ships today, most stores will have it Availible by Friday. I get my copy on Thursday. I preordered it with next day air. No sense in waiting any longer than possible.
I think Thursday night I will get a 24 hr flu bug.
I have a AMD K62 400, with 192MB ram, a Geoforce2 32mb, and X-gamer sound card with some kick ass speakers. Anyone else have an intelli-mouse? I love this thing. Smooth action, never having to clean it out. Well worth the $35.
Yup, I love that mouse. Of course I got it soon after it came out and ended up paying a bit more than $35 (close to $50, IIRC). 
Oh I forgot to add that you should go sign up for your name now if you ever want to play it multiplayer. I have mine already. It’s at http://www.BWGame.com
All goes well, it should be at my doorstep tomorrow afternoon (I do so love the net). By happy coincidence, that is the start of my “weekend” in my oddball graveyard shift schedule. I doubt I’ll be leaving the house much.
I don’t have to buy a laptop, but after switching over to one a couple years ago, I can’t imagine having anything else. In fact, my old office where I used to have a desk set up for a desktop has been totally remodeled, and I don’t even have a place to set up a tower. Laptops are great, but they’re pretty pricey. In the past I’d always just buy a new system when needed, or upgrade the motherboard if I could get away with just that. It’s WAY more fun to play games while lying on the couch with the computer on my belly!
Thought about getting W&W, but reviews seemed pretty noncommittal about it. I’d rather wait for the real deal, personally. Good Lord, Wizardy 8 is going to rock.
Laptops are great but I couldn’t see using one as my primary gaming machine. I’m not that wild about the screens and having to hunch up close to the keyboard to play isn’t really appealing.
On the other hand, being able to play Zangband on long trips would rock. 
I picked up that game today at Fry’s on a whim. I gotta tell ya, I’m not quite sure what all the hype was about. I was disappointed, people were talking it up like it was THE game, its okay but not that great. Try Operation Flashpoint, now there’s a game!
Does anyone else have an opinion? I am damn tempted to buy it, reviews are good but I would like dopers input.
Alright. Those of you with competent computers have had all weekend to play it. I want a full update. I just bought a computer online from Dell last week, and can’t wait for it to arrive so I can go out and get B&W. I need info, people! I live vicariously through you and your avatar!
I have it and have played it. Review: Mixed.
I bought it the day it came out and raced home to have at it. Plop the CD in and it installs fine.
Run the game…see somewhat disappointing splash screen and proceed into game except…it won’t ‘proceed’ at all. Game locks-up and won’t respond (grrrr!).
I spend the next three hours trying everyting I now to make it work (uninstall/re-install, driver updates, different driver combos, different PC settings…you name it). As network technician I may not know everything about PC’s but I know enough and I tried a LOT of things. Nothing worked…always locked-up in the same place. (Grrrrrr!!)
Next day I manage to get home early from work and call Electronic Arts tech support. The guy was nice and helpful once I got him past the bullshit tech help (i.e. Try rebooting your computer). Over an hour later and going down to registry hacks and no luck. They’ll call me back if they figure anything out. (GRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!)
I spend several more hours scouring message boards and the like for help. Be Warned! Black & White is buggy as hell! It works for some people but there are LOTS of problems yet. Even if it works reports of 5+ minute save times are common as are BSOD (blue screen of death) and some horrid video problems. Anyway, just as I was about to give up I find one forgotten little post buried in the pile and see a possible fix…
…So, I uninstall TCP/IP on my computer, re-install the game and voila! It works!! (YEAHHHH!) You see, Lionhead/EA have your computer automatically send data to them the instant B&W is fired up (scary huh?). They say it only lets others know you’re online and potentially available for play (like ICQ). Anyway, it seems to cause trouble for some people. Get rid of TCP/IP and the game has no way to communicate and it skips happily in to the game
After playing awhile I decide to get TCP/IP back on and hit the internet to let others know of my fortune. TCP/IP installs again without a hitch but no connection can be achieved (DSL line). WTF? Try again. No luck. Absolutely nothing will get me back online. Note: This part may just be unique to my PC and some quirk it has. The permanent internet destruction on my PC has not (to my knowledge) been replicated by others. Nevertheless it still sucks and I’m there because of B&W.
How’s the Game?
I have a hard time reviewing it at this point. Is it “the game” of the year? I dunno but I don’t think so.
The game looks nice. The control scheme can be somewhat difficult however. It’s not hard but it’s not easy either. You sometimes need to throw a rock (or fireball or something) but targeting and hitting what you want is difficult. Minor increases in mouse speed send whatever you’re throwing flying (although admittedly throwing peasants far into the ocean can be fun…sometimes they really annoy you). I’m sure there is a technique to this that can be learned but make no mistake that this is a steep learning curve.
In addition spells are cast by making gestures with the mouse. While some gestures are easy enough some never seem to quite work and by the time you’ve get it whatever you wanted the spell for might be done. Lionhead didn’t want a user interface ‘cluttering’ the screen and detracting from the experience but personally I’d love to have a simple icon to click on once in awhile.
Training your creature is rewarding and frustrating. This in itself would be a good thing but the frustration comes when you’re not paying attention to your creature. A message like: “Your creature will now eat more of that when he’s hungry” comes on. Ate what? Unless you are watching you have no idea what he ate and you cannot watch your creature constantly. Maybe he just ate a villager thus making them scared of you and your creature. By the time you figure out what is going on the damage is done and it is VERY hard to undo. (Of course you could be an evil God and want your creature to eat villagers which is certainly a viable approach to the game).
Unfortunately the game tries to hand-tie you into what you do. Saving games and restoring is not simple and I’ve been told ther are some fairly major bugs in the save system. In general once you commit to a course of action you’re stuck to it. If you’re creature does something good or bad it gets nudged that way in its growth and you have to ‘untrain’ the undesired behavior. While this is partly the point of the game it can be very frustrating sometimes…especially when you realize it will take you hours (literally) to do the work necessary.
Can I recommend it?
I love computer games and like most of them. Unfortunately the bugs are so bad in this game that I could not recommend it to anyone. It might work fine for you and it might not. I’d give no better than a 50/50 chance of any one person being able to play sans bugs.
Now that it works for me this game is enjoyable. It is subtle however and I’d be hard pressed to recommend it to anyone else without having a good idea of what it is they like to play. This game is certainly different and it will not be for everyone (ala Starcraft or Diablo).
Hope that all helps. Let me know if you want more info.
Jeff
Wow, I must be the only person in the world who hasn’t had a single problem with B&W.
I got it last Wednesday evening, and have played it religiously since. The install went smooth, it’s never locked up, saves take five to ten seconds at most. I absolutely love the icon-free interface - there are a lot of keyboard hotkeys, which are basically icons of their own. (Want an icon to go into your temple? Just press F4 instead. Etc, etc.)
The gesture-based spellcasting is, I think, one of the most creative things in the game. I’m tired of “Ooh, I’m level 5 now, I can cast a fireball by clicking the fireball icon.” It’s refreshing to see “I can cast the fireball, but if I rush through the casting of it, it might not work. If I’m careful, then I can pretty much guarantee that it works.” A few times I was rushing to put up spiritual and physical shields, and didn’t get the spells cast properly, which caused a bit of carnage. It’s a nice aspect of the game that gives you more of a feeling of control.
The creature-based AI hasn’t been a problem for me, either. It’d be nice if I could give it orders (i.e. “Hey, Moo-cow, stay here and just cast Food Miracle for the next hour. Good boy.”) but I also like the challenge of successfully training the creature. (Toilet-training was a hassle, I admit, but at least now he knows that he’s supposed to poop in the fields, not in the temple.)
If I had install difficulties, or if it locked up at random, I’d be understandably frustrated - but as it stands now, absolutely nothing has gone wrong for me. (Except for the damn fourth island - do those fireballs ever stop for good?)
LNO, can I ask what sort of system you have? My computer is a 700 hrtz Pentium III, with 128 RAM. I’ve got a 16 mb video card in there, which will do the trick. Think it’ll work?
I too have been waiting for the gamne for 2 years, and here is my quick review. It’s a good game, but not as good as I had hoped, and not the best game of all time that had been hyped.
It has been completely bug free for me, no problems in that area. The interface is strange., and my biggest problem. I know he wanted to do some non traditin things, But my attempt to be a good god keeps getting screwed up when the perspective is off and my attempt to set a guy down by the temple ends up dropping him several stories to his death. Also I keep accidently killing people when I try to pick up a rock only to have it break, and the pieces roll over people. Training the creature is fun, but also kind of wierd. My roommates, cow is the nicest, gentleinst cow you have ever seen. It heals people, gives the food, wood, and water, picks them up and pets them. It never kills or hurts anyone, but it keeps getting uglier, and the stats for it keep getting more evil. My own horsey is a behaviorists nightmare. He was sad and miserable, So I rewarded him, thinking I was going to cheer him up. Now he just sits around bored and depressed all day, cause he thinks I’ll reward him for it. It’s an interesting twist in very complex AI, but basically it means I have to start the game over, which is annoying.
My basic problems are that many things are non intuitive, and since the game is set up so that there is no way to reverse an action, or go back when you do something you didn’t mean to, it get frustrating.
All in all its a good, game, and I’m gald I bought it. And I would recomend it to someone else, just don’t expect it to be a perfect, flawless experience like som eof the hype suggests.
I recently (read: just last weekend) upgraded to a 933MHz Pentium III, 384MB RAM, and a GeForce 256 with 32MB. (Yes, I’m a geek.)
I’d hesitantly say that you shouldn’t have any problems, as the baseline specs they have are a 350MHz, 64MB, and 8MB video card. However, given that a lot of people are having difficulties, I can’t guarantee anything.
(One thing that may have counted in my favor is that B&W was one of the first games/applications installed after the system refresh. A virgin Win98 system is great for getting pesky games to work.)
Thanks, LNO. I just got the computer, and nearly nothing has been installed onto it. I sure hope it works.
I managed to convince myself last week that I, too, “needed” a new computer. Not just to play Black and White, of course, but to um, potentially work from home, and, well, that required me to get a fast internet connection from home to the tune of 90/month, and seeing as I was doing that I might as well go ahead and get the special "gamers" connection that assures low or no latency and, well, the outcome is that I spent a whole bunch of money on Friday. Now I'm waiting for everything to get here. Dell is taking it's own damn time getting the %!$ box together. Waiting on 1Gig chips, I hear.
Anyways, I hope it all works. Would be interested in continuing to hear people’s thoughts about the game.