Thread 717841650

sometimes, looking at old video games feel like looking at the pyramids or some other lost technology

>>717841650 (OP)
>pyramids or some other lost technology
pyramids are neither lost nor technology

>>717841650 (OP)
deeeeaaaaath

>>717841790
SAAAAR!

>>717842039
>have somewhat common name
>game whispers it on occasion

>promotional material and the game tells you that your creature will eventually become HUGE
>unless you use exploits it will barely grow at all
yet honestly this is what gives the game its mystery and what makes it great

I tried running this yesterday
Anyone got any tips on running this on a 2k monitor? Through Proton?

>>717843781
i played it a few years back and had to install a bunch of mods to make it run properly, but assume you've already gotten those

EIDLE EIDLE EEE
EIDLE EIDLE EEE
WE SIMPLY CAN'T LEAVE IF WE HAVEN'T GOT WHEAT

>>717843781
2k as in 2 grand or 1440p

>>717844064
kek no, I just added the executable I pirated ages ago to Steam and launched it via Proton
it actually runs, but it's confined to the upper left quarter of my display
good shout though, I will go look for some community patches
>>717844348
unfortunately it's the latter sir

>>717844680
did you check pcgamingwiki?

>>717841650 (OP)
>Expanding military takes away male from your labor pool and you can fucked up your city by fielding too many soldiers and leaving not enough males to repopulate

You have no idea how much this shit annoys me when I was a kid and just trying to play a video game. It really is the golden age of video games, no? They dont make games like these anymore.

Hasn't it been decompiled recently? How long until running build?

>Hand lingers outside influence so you can still interact with shit for a little while
>Rocket zip across the entire continent in 0.1 seconds to grab onto enemy villagers
>Sacrifice them at my altar for miracle power
There were so many janky things you could do.

>>717841650 (OP)
whats with all the Black and White posting?
This is literally the 4th thread TODAY, after 25 years of silence. Not even a mention in a retro game thread.
is there a remake or revival or something? This feels like a coordinated thing.

>>717843323
thats just another peter lie, since he always just fucking lies.

>>717847167
>whats with all the Black and White posting?
i dont know why i decided to post about it honestly. maybe i saw something somewhere. link the other threads though

>>717847842
>>>717823374
>>>717823905
heres two, im sure there was a third
Tangentially there was a fucking perimeter thread
>>>717824984

I got my hopes up that there was some B+W news, aint no way after 25 years it suddenly popped up in 4 different peoples minds

What the fuck were you supposed to do in the raining hellfire constantly level? You were guaranteed to get fucked in the ass.

>>717843323
>>717847167
It wasn't a lie, it just took 20 fucking years (without mushrooms) and the game wasn't that replayable.

>>717849016
Water spells, build quick, spread out, cheese enemy base for mana (like >>717846919 mentions)
not that hard to manage, just keep the magic up to spam spells to recover from fire and speed run the enemy territory.

I played this when I was a kid. I remember it as being pretty difficult and I liked just to play around.

No idea how legit this is but I ran into it looking at B&W videos:
>B&W & B&W2 on modern systems guide
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VUmgNO001Q
>2 years ago

>>717844220
I've never heard them sing that version, I don't think I ever completed their first request for wood, but that whole initial song lives in my brain
>OOHH WE'RE NOT KEEN ON SINKIN SO WE'RE SITTIN HERE A' THINKIN WE SIMPLY CAN'T LEAVE TILL WE GET SOME MORE WOOD

>>717849538
the issue with that vid is the link for the fan patch is kill
I used this for B+W 1
https://www.bwgame.net/threads/running-black-white-on-windows-10.7916/

2 is easier to get working and the vid you posted works fine for that

you need the 1.4 patch for modern PCs, but, you NEED to install 1.1 first, then 1.2. Do NOT install 1.3.

just play music lmao

>>717841650 (OP)
cool way to look at it

>>717845407
There's no such thing as military in B&W1

I can still hear their song...

>>717847167
Marketers, B&W remastered soon

>>717841650 (OP)
In the sense that the Pyramids are a better construction than anything modern architecture shits out

Yes I agree

>>717848258
Isn't the franchise in rights hell currently?

>>717851782
EIDLE EIDLE EEE

>>717852662
which is why he's obviously talking about some other game

I wanted to play this again recently and couldn't find my game disc. It also isn't for sale anywhere. What the heck.

>>717852926
Yeah, B&W2 because he's a zoomer

>>717849796
They ask for like 3 different things before leaving.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0x4Kw_y4fg

>Leave PC for XBOX
>die after 3 games

>>717841650 (OP)
It's honestly retarded that nobody has made a god game similar to rimworld or something. There's tons of low budget city builders but only a couple shitty half finished god games.

>>717853410
you could easily fine tune and incorporate some local LLM that runs along side it. having way more advanced AI systems than black and white. but modern devs are retarded and would never

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASr88q0EdTE
ouch

>>717851782
I used a walkthrough for this shit when I was a kid. Cheats too because I wanted to maximize fucking with everything to the breaking point and strategically building shit and balancing food with population wasn't fun after a week.

>>717853016
That's the most legit piracy reason ever made.

>>717854958
it is:
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Black_%26_White

>>717855151
He's just very hungry

>>717853016
>>717854958
I still have and know exactly where my disk for it, creature isle, 2, and the expansion for 2 are and I just pirate them whenever I want to play them since the fixes for modern systems are usually packed in with the pirate versions anyway.

I swear the creature battles in 2 were decided on a coin flip at times. Sometimes one would just pounce the other and fuck him up instantly.

Just in case anyone is looking for it, Creature Isle, 2, and/or 2 Battle of The Gods. The comments on the site have actually okay setup instructions as well if you need help setting it up for modern PCs.
https://www.myabandonware.com/game/black-white-a33

>build a happy society
>nearest town all the villagers leave to join my town
>shut the town gates, send soldiers out to kill everyone trying to move into my town
>the game never considered this evil

>>717841650 (OP)
>we could make a 1:1 remake of Black & White if we wanted to but we don't
>we could also make 1:1 recreations of the pyramids but we don't

>>717853410
The new google game AI thing could legit reach some really cool places if it was tuned to B&W.
>Creatures are incredibly dynamic and intelligent (or at least reactive and creative)
>No need to create individual animations, if it gets an idea to dig up a large lake to flood a village it can
>Miracle system where you make them and the game turns its effects into reality no matter if it's a plague turning the trees and plants swollen rotten black or if the moon turns red and rains blood onto devastated villagers
>Random events like another triplet of sidequest NPCs join together in a song and dance for something specific, the ai can just make up the song on the fly
But that's just assuming various qualities it probably doesn't have.

Obviously it should be limited so you can't just wish for whatever whenever.

>>717855696
>>we could also make 1:1 recreations of the pyramids but we don't
>he doesn't know

>In Black & White, the growth time for creatures varies depending on the creature type. For example, a cow takes 1,305.00 in-game days to reach its full size, while a gorilla takes 1,131.00 days.

What the fuck? No wonder my creature never grew. What were they thinking?

>That lone witch or whatever you couldn't manipulate with your hand who rebelled against you
>Put on good-boi leash on creature
>Attach to witch
>It picks her up
>"Okay now go over there and-"
>*munch munch*
>*blank stare into my god camera*
>Goes over to fresh poop
>Picks it up
>Eats it
>Whines
Oh no..
He's retarded.

>>717856035
To a point you only have yourself to blame for your creature being a shit eating retard. You're supposed to teach him better, with beatings.

>>717855879
>1:1

>>717855879
>a literally hollow concrete imitation with steel reinforcements
>is equal to a tunneled out wonder made from stone block, carved out of cliffs hundreds of miles away and constructed by the manual labor of thousands of people over decades
This is why we don't make pyramids anymore. I think it's a valid argument for B&W since Molyneux was a hack even back then.

>>717856115
>with beatings
I just threw his poop at him, isn't that the closest equivalent of shoving a dogs nose in its poop if it does it indoors?

>>717856021
Also the final mission was bugged and your creature would get shrunken and nerfed for forever

>>717856228
You're literally God. If beatings are a good way to teach in your mind, who is anyone to argue with a literal God.

What is this game about?

>>717856594
Be a god. Ruin other god's days. Slap your monkey to make him not a poop eating retard.

>>717856594
It's a 3D city building game where you control a hand which can operate as a hand and pick up and slap things or use godly powers like fireball. You build a city using your followers while finishing sidequests, performing miracles and fighting off the influence of other gods and their followers.

>>717843323
He will get reasonably big if you take your time playing through the campaign (excepting land 3 obviously) plus play the skirmish mode during/after, making sure he that he always gets sleep at the temple.

>>717856594
>>717856739
Oh yeah, and you have a creature that functions as your indirectly controllable avatar. It does stuff autonomously depending if you reward it or punish it after it does/tries to do something specific like eating a villager.

>>717841650 (OP)
the guy who worked on the AI for this game won a nobel prize for chemistry in 2024

>>717856594
Watering trees.

>>717856869
last time i played it i really wanted a huge creature for once. i spent a lot of time teaching him to always sleep in the creature pen, i was even using the singing stones to make days pass faster. and even though i actively put down a ton of effor trying to make him grow, he was nowhere close to the size they were teasing at the start of the game.

>>717841650 (OP)
Old EA was really up to it's name

>>717856906
Dude's a genius

>>717857285
I presume that they expected for people looking to max out their creature keep playing in multiplayer. Besides that there's a bunch of pretty good custom lands these days, I played some of these over a year ago for instance and they are quite good.
https://www.bwgame.net/downloads/tribal-lands-skirmish-map-pack-by-vandalbluex.1454/

>>717858004
that's very interesting. how does it play without having any missions? i always enjoyed how intelligent the quests felt, and how many possibilities there were to solve them (even though it probably was mostly an illusion)

>>717843781
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Black_%26_White and https://chatgpt.com/share/689a54f2-626c-8010-8212-d5ae073da47c

>>717858142
I didn't play through all of them but the latter half (from what I saw) clearly get very stringent and demanding with the resources you're afforded plus opposition you're put up against respectively, so I doubt you can just thoughtlessly sleepwalk through them. For me it was mostly just nice to get to play around with different miracles and tribes you don't spend much time with in the base game, and in nice looking lands to boot.

If you're looking to replay the game I would recommend checking this out also.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2AKDWVa2Vc

>>717856869
Land 3 fucking broke me. By the time I finally got my monkey free he had been tortured into retardation,

>>717858950
>finally get your pet back from torture hell
>prep him back up
>gets cursed in the last mission
Bruh

>>717841650 (OP)
t. zoomer

>>717841650 (OP)
>pyramids or some other lost technology
They're literally a pile of rocks holy fuck American cope over the pyramids is the most bizarre shit.

>>717841650 (OP)
My boomer ass is still amazed at how throwing rock physics worked.

>>717841650 (OP)
>>717847167
>>717848258
>>717852743
>>717852743
for once in my life I hope it is shilling nigger marketers responsible for something on /v/, because the lowest a Black & White sequel/remake/remaster can plausibly go is to be another weird but interesting lemon hitting the original duologies' par. It's been a lot of years, the base gameplay has always been deceptively simple, the best/worst that could happen is they try to plug in modern AI LLM witchcraft to the creatures' brain or commandments for villagers with all the potential good and bad that could come from that.

I hope that of all things they decide to do they go for expanding on previous mechanics, not paring them down again to get to a farcical jeetcodeable phonegame nu-Sims 'muh essence' or some shit. There's a lot of times I've posted about a Black & White successor incorporating a bit of Age of Empires' technology level transitions, Populous' scale and world modification, something in the way of more customizable troops ala Ancient Wars: Sparta and smaller mythological units secondary to the Creature like Age of Mythology.

They could go really big if they just bring Molyneux on in an advisory creative/deputy lead role without any executive ability to overpromise and underdeliver while ensuring that his minders/full team leads have the resources to underpromise and overdeliver. I want faggot EA suits to be shown this post by their marketing research team, shut their fucking mouths, and give another crack at a fizzled magnum opus the time and budget it needs.

>>717862237
I think with the rights being split between multiple parties that's nearly impossible sadly

>>717862334
split the royalties, just split the fucking royalties

who gives a shit about rights hell just do some throwaway negotiation, settle the issue and SPLIT SOME ROYALTIES

>>717858950
I got to I think Land 4 but crashed out because the available shield miracles whether cast small or large were simply not cutting it to keep the constant offensive miracles at bay while I tried to shut them down

>>717841650 (OP)
Black & White remake with everything Molyneux promised
NOW!

>>717862479
who's gonna pay for the porting?

>>717841650 (OP)
The Creature Island expansion was fun enough, but I'll never forgive it for that retarded mini game where your creature has to destroy buildings. Had to replay that shit so many times that my beautiful colorful turtle became ugly.

>>717864280
>who's gonna-
SPLIT

just SPLIT any such costs per the agreement on whoever surrenders the overall rights to get the marginal amount of royalties for doing absolutely nothing other than letting the project go forward under the auspices of whichever company actually gives a shit about using the IP rather than sitting on their half of the limbo state out of spite

right down the middle, chop the baby in half

>>717863395
Did he even break any promises with B&W?

I tried playing it a few years ago but became immensely frustrated with training my creature because I was trying to teach him to shit in the wheat fields but would end up confusing him so much that he’d become terrified of doing anything at all.

Restarted the game like 20 times trying to do this lol. You can imagine that I burned myself out pretty severely.

>>717841650 (OP)
i love black and white
i have dreams about it getting updated sometimes
my dream game is a vr sequel with haptic feedback so i can feel beating the shit out of my creature

>>717865920
VR Black & White would be a killer app. Even just making a VR port of the original game would sell gangbusters.

>>717843781
i hear its a pain to get running on modern OS
maybe check these out

https://www.bwgame.net/downloads/black-white-ultimate.1460/

http://bawsite.com/installationguide.html

>>717845407
black and white 2 was incredibly imbalanced in favor of good

>>717865015
There’s a feature in the game called the “Future Room” that is literally defunct and was defunct from the get-go.

To be fair, I don’t think he would tell lies. He’d just get so excited about his insanely ambitious ideas that he’d be unable to dial back his own hype. That guy loved vidya too goddamn much and believed too firmly in accomplishing things that would make the devs want to tear their hair out.

>>717846919
remember that annoying guy with the jewish voice who complained about everything?
when you threw him he had a small, invisible ring of influence around him, so you could throw him across the map, quickly grab him again, and repeat.
i did this all the way to the enemy god's temple, then you could try to sacrifice him in the alter, but since he was an essential ncp he would just get stuck, but still maintained the ring of influence around him.
you could also interact with the totems of enemy villages on the way there and set them to 100% so every villager would go worship at the temple
then you could sacrifice every single enemy villager at the enemy's temple
or do this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9JiNJHVp2Q

>>717866231
it would've been the other way around in the multiplayer had it not gotten cut mere months before release

>>717866231
That’s kind of ironic considering how difficult it was to do a “good” playthrough in the original. The temptation to be an evil bastard in the first game was too great. The game’s mechanics lent themselves easily to sadistic revelry.

I've always wanted to play black and white, but I missed the boat
I'm a certified God Game Enjoyer

>>717843323
mine never grew an inch because i never fed it but i still managed to beat the game with it
just spam your special move in the last fight

>>717841650 (OP)
>sometimes, looking at old video games feel like looking at the pyramids or some other lost technology
from inside our consoomer boxes?

heres a couple of similar looking god games ive found but not tried

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2328710/Genesis_of_a_Small_God/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/749960/Townsmen_VR/

>>717866760
>I've always wanted to play black and white, but I missed the boat
Yeah, if you weren't around to read Shakespeare while it was new you'd better forget about that too.

>>717866760
>I've always wanted to play black and white, but I missed the boat
trendchasing faggots get the rope first

>>717865015
an enormous amount related to the creature AI just to begin with
terraforming
there was so much, as always with him

>>717841650 (OP)
That's funny, B&W was hyped as a leap in interactivity and detail in video games. I was a very messy and buggy launch but still interesting.
>>717848258
what the fuck you're right
>>717862237
they should bring Pete in as a hypeman

>>717866387
>>717871159
my recollection is that Lionhead always had the problem of juggling budget, hawking to investors with demands, and getting trapped under ambitious goals with heavy workload.

I fuzzily remember reading once in a behind the scenes article and on /v/ that the original Fable factually was or might've been completely lost not far from release because of a multi-point failure at the offices resulting in the total loss of their non-redundant backups of the gold or near-gold build, with what was released being an alpha/beta hackjob compiled from what late assets survived built on top of the old builds. If true that set the tone for the following games getting fucked the way they did in being increasingly pie-in-the-sky in what they wanted to do but ending up with finished products that boiled down the original formula to more and more streamlined, thinner fare. I think Black & White 2 for its part got screwed by investors demanding returns on time, vaguely remembering a similar behind the scenes article.

this is to say that I think Molyneux isn't lying when he (over)promises, it's that his management is not up to par or the circumstances surrounding Lionhead basically existed to fuck his projects into the ground or both and the highly critical press he received over this is what ultimately made him accept being an industry pariah before fucking off to make glorified phone games, including Godus that repeated the formula of biting off more than it could conceptually chew and his own Metaverse virtual property boondoggle scam that I don't remember the name of.

>>717873647
>I think Black & White 2 for its part got screwed by investors demanding returns on time, vaguely remembering a similar behind the scenes article.

It was both this and Molyneux leaving the team directionless despite it supposedly being his baby, he was far too busy juggling managerial business crap (and lying about Fable in interviews despite it not really being his game). The game that ended up releasing is effectively a butchered alpha build missing fundamental stuff like skirmish and multiplayer, both of which got cut only months before release.

>>717874347
you happen to remember where the article I/we read this from was posted? Same for the Fable gold build getting baleeted by a two, three, four way power failure bricking the backup drives without any externals. Last time I tried I couldn't dig up shit on nu-Google but I remember reading that shit vividly.

>>717842621
A simple trick, because a lot of people named their windows log in with their real name, it would read the log in name, search for it in a list and play the sound file.

>>717841650 (OP)
My favourite thing about Black & White was the Winamp plug in I had for it.
When you trained your creature with specific songs playing, it would associate that action with that song.
>Disco Inferno starts playing
>Creature throws a fireball at the Creche

>>717855529
>murdering economic migrants
>not evil
Objectively correct moral system

>>717841650 (OP)
I recently found out the Deepmind leader genius guy worked on that game, that's why the AI was so crazy lol.
He had an interview with that Russian AI glowie podcaster

>>717875079
>that's why the AI was so crazy lol.
it really is on a whole other level, even by todays standards.

>>717875138
He's basically one of those once in a generation genius child prodigies and worked on that game when he was like 17 or something.

>>717875079
>Go from making funny PC game with sophisticated AI to making actual daily use AI
nuts.

>>717874628
I don't know about Fable but I do have this.
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/lionhead-studios-receives-major-venture-capital-investment

One of the main culprits as to why the game had to then get rushed out within the following year, didn't help that they also had EA breathing down their neck.

>>717875079
>>717875138
>>717875358
Imagine what they could actually do with current technology
>Train the Creature to hack the game files so it can cheat

>>717875079
>>717875138
>>717875285
Was the AI really that good? Only played it once as a kid and I don't remember it being that impressive but again I was just a stupid kid.
I did black Black and White 2 a bunch of times as a teen though and that AI sucked

This game was complete garbage same as other games using AI as marketing back then like creatures. Shallower than a Nintendo game.

>>717875807
why do cat girls hate AI so much?

>>717841790
>he doesn't know

>>717875445
that's a major bit of substantialization yeah. It was a post-mortem that talked about what happened with Guildford in detail, but this is the exact scenario I remember.

>>717856161
>huge government makework project that benefits nobody
Ubisoft is basically the modern version.

>>717875956
this might've been the article I remembered, it certainly rhymes with my idea of what it was

https://www.eurogamer.net/lionhead-the-inside-story

>>717841650 (OP)
couldn't finish this game on my modern machine due to crashes
didn't finish it as a kid since i was a kid that didn't finish games
maybe some day... some way

>>717875489
That kinda came up, between Dennis and Carmack both of them are working on AI now but they could be making some really crazy games lol. Elon is a bit of a meme in comparison but he too is interested in AI and video games.

>>717875839
What people want from something like this is a pet that will learn and act on its own that can interact with others or the user.
In Black and White you pick up rocks and hurl them at the enemy while the creature wanders around doing fuck all.

>>717875641
yes

>>717841650 (OP)
I love this game but the later missions turn into such a "watering the forest" simulator, it's not even funny

>>717855151
Just sacrifice people, 90% of the time you have too many villagers.

>>717856035
You talking about the Pied Piper Jew?

>>717864471
I think you could cheat in that minigame.
Sort of like how you could block the bowling bowls with rocks.

>>717866387
>“Future Room” that is literally defunct and was defunct from the get-go.
I mean it was basically a pseudo live service thing where they would have posted news.

>>717856021
>each in-game day is 24 minutes
So they really expected people to be playing this game for 500 hours.

>>717878203
the worse minigame in creature isle was the marbles one
but the entire expansion was frustrating
my retarded creature raised an equally retarded chicken

>>717841650 (OP)
I got filtered by the god who goes batshit with the thunder as a kid. I really should replay it sometime and see if I can beat it

>>717875641
>Was the AI really that good?
Honestly, I have no idea. Between how daunting it was to actually train your creature and how long it would take to see actual results, there’s no telling if it’s as amazing as people made it seem back in the day.

>>717855529
>build a happy family in my house
>nearest neighbor all the people leave to live in my house
>lock the door, send men out to stop them from coming in and kill them when they force the issue
>my state has castle doctrine so this isn't illegal
Walls are like borders, fictional inventions by the state to keep us controlled. Rise up, fellow normal people.

How do you play this game in 2025?

>>717882979
There’s a patch for modern systems. Basically just use google and you’ll be fine.

>>717849796
the game bugged out on me in a playthrough and I just threw them into the ocean

>>717866784
the only thing i feed my creature is my fist
i'm a grow my influence across the entire map by building 1 sprawling metropolis chad

>>717885360
thats the way to do it bygod
the only time i pet my creature is when it says its miserable to encourage it to feel that way more often

>>717847167
>whats with all the Black and White posting?
how would you feel if you didn't eat breakfast this morning?

>>717848258
>I got my hopes up that there was some B+W news, aint no way after 25 years it suddenly popped up in 4 different peoples minds
hey retard are you aware that maybe people get influenced by each other? or that some content got algo pushed and was seen by more than a single 4channel guy? i know shocking! it's like everyone is connected... like.... oh man i don't like... like some big WEB! interconnected.... on the web.... man what a crazy word salad hahahahahahha

>>717843323
I got ly tiger to be reasonably large —close to the size of the guardian near the beginning— by just playing skirmishes repeatedly for months. I miss having LAN games with my friend and racing to get to the center town that had mega blast.

>>717844220
This song has popped into my head at random intervals for decades now. Pure fucking soul

>>717841650 (OP)
>Cod mw1 comes out
Bullet penetration is kino it's only going to advance from here
>Bf frostbyte engine comes out
Omg look at the destruction, this is just the beginning

If someone told that those two games would be the most dynamic then it's 20 years of static setpiece hell downward from there I would have probably just quit gaming.

>>717849319
>>717849016
Also you can slow down time (I think using Alt+1 or something like that) and then just grab the fireballs out of the sky and shake them to absorb the mana

>>717889009
This, kek

Bar shanties are the purest form of music.

What about https://store.steampowered.com/app/352720/The_Universim/

>>717889974
it had alot of promise but it just peters off far too quickly

>>717877981
Probably, vague memories.

YOU NOW REMEMBER THAT SONG

>>717889157
>and then just grab the fireballs out of the sky and shake them to absorb the mana
What the everliving fuck? Grabbing miracles and shaking to gain miracle points is an actual mechanic?

>>717856161
are you saying that we no longer have the ability to carve stone blocks out of cliffs and move them 100s of miles

>>717841650 (OP)
How many levels are there after you return to the tutorial island and its all fucked up? i could never beat that map, the fireballs kept destroying me

>>717896780
Only one

who owns this anyway? what are the odds of it ever getting cleaned up for a modern re-release?

>>717897092
That isn't too bad, i wont feel bad for 10 year old me

Ohhhhhh
Games are quite shit now
so we'll never get another hit out
We just have to live with stupid live service fees
Moleynux had visions
but made some really dumb decisions
can we all go back to 2000 and one please?
Eeeeidilidy NO
Eeeeidilidy NO
We will never get good games despite our pleas.

>>717895731
We do not. It would take some whitest dudes possible to even attempt something on that scale, and even then it would end up breaking down in the next couple of decades, or the end result being half the planned size due to cost savings, or painted with gang graffiti for inclusiveness, or the whole thing getting cancelled altogether because of internal disagreements, government intervention and bureaucracy. Like it or not, our current society is incapable of repeating the crazy feat of throwing together a bunch of stone hills in the desert.

>>717841650 (OP)
>EVERYTIME A PERSON PRAYS, A GOD IS BORN
fuck marbles, fuck sheep herding and fuck TYKE!

>tfw Molyneux bit off more than he could chew instead of pacing Lionheads' expansion and what game concepts they chose to prototype let alone really develop before releasing everything too early, buys the live service facephonebook game meme at exactly the wrong time in exactly the wrong ways
>tfw there's a timeline where he did those things and remains a massive industry icon and head of an independently contracting Lionhead to this day which gracefully carried on with its major franchises and some extra weird experimental one-offs, and who successfully founded a side hustle subsidiary that makes surprisingly good mobile games
>tfw Will Wright got raped by EA meddling and team mergers and actual proto DEI mutineering subversion that diluted the Spore vision hard enough that it became a glorified toy, forgotten but for a handful of 'tists that poorly mod it, leaves Maxis in both disgruntlement and shame
>tfw there's a timeline that didn't happen either and he got the time & budget he needed to match the hype of the original showcase and ridiculous five-six-seven separate game genre prototypes they had mocked up, it ends up with a numbered sequel or two and a big name like The Sims
>tfw no face screaming entrapped within the archontic void of a false reality
RELEASE ME

RELEASE

ME

When are we getting another Populous?

>just max melee fighters and cast arena fight spell

>>717897953
I too am also fuming&seething 20 years later

>>717841650 (OP)
This is genuinely one of the most retarded threads I have ever seen and chances are you are too young to be on this site.

God what I wouldn't give for a B&W3 with the SOVL of the 1st.
But inevitably, the monkey paw will curl, and it will be some Unreal engine shitslop with anti soul gas, and some kind of monetization scheme, and even stripping all that, it would still just be shitty at its core.

FUCK I HATE THIS MODERN INDUSTRY.
Maybe if a small team of 10-40 tried to make a spiritual successor, it would be good

>>717841650 (OP)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0x4Kw_y4fg

oh this thread is still going
good morning

>>717900493
Nothing good about it.

any cool repack?

>>717891492
>peters off

>>717897794
>kneesmaxin

Is B&W2 really that shit compared to 1?
Is it hard to get B&W1 to run on a modern machine?

>>717901934
Black and white 2 was just a different game. 2 was more like a city builder and the first game was an esoteric sandbox that was very fun to explore as a kid.

>>717901934
>Is B&W2 really that shit compared to 1?
I didn't like 2 because I would get lost in the sauce building my towns up and the stupid conversion mechanic would make you automatically win every level after a while because all the enemies would be impressed by your town and convert before you ever even did anything.

The only way to avoid that was to just rush or play shitty.

>>717901934
yeah
its just a mediocre citybuilder while the 1st game was something truly unique and still is

>>717858004
i remember skirmish having the problem that the AI would just steal all your wood from outside their territory and you'd have literally no wood if playing with 3 AI

>>717897675
it's is ""incapable"" of doing it because it is a useless thing that nobody wants.

if building identical pyramids meant that rich old dudes would became young again we would have ten in every city

>>717902107
>>717902187
Well hey I actually love city builders, so maybe that won't be too bad after all.

>>717841790
>pyramids are neither lost nor technology

>>717892715
You can cancel miracles to get the mana back, this includes miracles you get in your hand for other reasons like catching fireballs or miracles from dispensers. You can make a dispenser that lets you bubble your own miracles or you can also transfer mana between shrines if 2 different cultures share one by picking it up from one and dropping it on the other.

>>717898927
Fata Deum is supposedly a fan game in the same vein coming out soon
I have no idea if its good, and I highly suspect it will be janky as fuck

>>717903552
I played 2 demos that were previously available and it's kinda a different genre, also jank as fuck

>>717875641
>Was the AI really that good?
Yes, to the point that is still the more advanced AI in videogames

>>717875641
no, there's really nothing noteworthy about the AI in this game. Creatures have tendencies which go up or down if they do something and you praise or scold them right after.
Praising this game's AI is like retards praising the sims AI back in the day.

I recently replayed NOLF 2 and was in awe of how well some of the graphics hold up for 2002 game. Really put into perspective for me how far down the "diminishing returns" pipeline we are.

>>717901934
B&W2 is more like a comfy city builder with a pet, meanwhile B&W is Tamagochi

>>717904114
Bioshock looks better.

>>717904260
Yeah 2 is more a city builder with god theme, it's just not the same. Creature and miracles are lesser part of the game and even small things like you win over towns by the "splendour" of your city rather than faith makes it feel much less divine.

>>717900652
Why? What's going on, anon?

>>717904442
Its really only a city builder because that's the only good part of the game, and what really makes it shit the bed is it's ridiculously easy to win from placing two temples. I think it was in development for 5 years which is pretty long for back then, and it's clear they focused on aesthetics and the city builder to the detriment of everything else

>>717904516
>Good of Games

>>717904414
If you're going to compare it to a 2007 FPS you'd go for Crysis, right? Since then there hasn't really been a huge leap in fidelity. Most games have much less complex levels and environment interaction.
>1997 Quake 2
>2002 NOLF2
>2007 Bioshock
These games all still look good because of their cohesive art direction

its crazy how good B&W2 is graphicaly even today

>>717904907
>doesn't get it
You don't belong on Channel 4.

>>717905067
I'll give you another hint.

>>717857285
i had a huge creature as a kid, played a lot of skirmish maps though, i was obsessed with this game

>>717853063
>B&W2 is for zoomers
Huh?
I guess I'm young again!

>>717905162
how did you get past the AI stealing all your wood outside their territory?

I enjoyed the first level of Black and White because it allowed me to sandbox with the creature. Then after that, I had these dumb objectives and I quit.

>>717849016
the intended way: have nearly all if not all villagers praying, place two - three strategic magic shields (not a big one, this drains too much mana). this gives you time to solve your predicament. if you fuck up once and your villagers die youre fucked and have to restart the map

will peter make another good game

>>717905240
didnt happen to me. my AIs were pretty much braindead, honestly

>>717905138
I'll stick with the hag in NOLF, thank you.

>>717865205
i hope you started skirmish mode at least once. iif you did, you will get notifications about what your creature ist thinking about that moment, so you can reinforce and punish strategically. no clue why that isnt the default

>>717843323
>teach my tiger fireball 5 seconds into starting the game
>laugh when he fireballs story NPCs

>>717905353
>stuck making mobile slop
its never been more over

>>717905517
part of the charm of B&W is having your creatures thoughts opaque so you are compelled to interact with it more often
B&W2 fucked this up by letting you min-max its behavior within the first 5 minutes

>>717905403
>doesn't like loli feet

>>717904568
I have no games and I must play.

>>717841650 (OP)
It sucks how underappreciated this game is. I am not sure if its underrated but its better to say underappreciated since I don't think too many know it exists. Those who were around likely long forgot this games existence.

I never really played the sequel much but something seemed missing in comparison. If this game ever got a remaster or even console ports I'd buy in a heartbeat. Not sure how they would make it work without kbnm but I'd still buy it just to support the game. I think EA or whoever owns the rights really do not care since its a game best suited for PC and it likely wouldn't sell too much today as there are not enough that remember it.

Black & White might seriously be one of the GOAT games for me despite it being so long since I last played it. I also never actually did beat the game either. I played so much of it yet never was able to beat that final island.

>>717907225
>If this game ever got a remaster or even console ports I'd buy in a heartbeat
>people will keep falling for molyneux lies even decades after the fact

>>717852891
OOOH

>>717846275
there is a build but it's basically a glorified map viewer at this point

>>717907225
i return to black and white once every 4 years or so. you should finish it

>>717908671
It's been asked a few times in the thread but i'm not seeing a clear answer. How do you run it today?
I'd like to get a functioning portable copy. I could store somewhere.

Black and White is the only game I played so much that my CD physically broke down. It was so fucked where at some point the game would just freeze for extended periods of time because it couldn't be read anymore. Good times.
Fata Deum is releasing in a month or so and even even if it doesn't look like anything crazy, I'll probably give it a shot. Also following Masters of Albion, surely this time Pete will deliver.

>>717908869
id start here
wwwDOTmyabandonwareDOTcomSLASHgameSLASHblack-white-a33p

>>717841650 (OP)
the reversible dvd cover was a nice touch

>>717841790
But how do you stack rocks up?
How could you possibly arrange them in the simplest, most stable way possible?
It's just so impossible! Atlanteans! Aliens! Help me! I'm bad at Legoooooos AAAAAAAAAAA!

I really fucking hope GOG actually delivers

>>717909627
Make sure to tip them when you buy Worms: Revolution.

>>717909627
>buying a game whose developer no longer exists

>>717909627
Those GOG polls are pure cope marketing. The IP is cucked between Microsoft and EA. GOG isn't gonna do shit about that except make themselves look like le ebin preservation heroes.

why was Godus so shit

>>717908671
I actually still got my disc although no disc drive for my PC. How do you play this on modern OS? Is it easy to get working on windows 10 or 11?

>>717911728
i personally had no problems installing this on windows 11 like two years ago. no clue which website i used though. it wasnt hard to find, thats for sure. I remember installing several small patches. i think a fan patch or a graphics patch too or something. i posted this here, read the description:
>>717909230

>>717905138
ToT

>>717911728
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Black_%26_White
v1.42 Unofficial Fan Patch • Link
Removes SafeDisc DRM[Note 2], enabling the game to run on Windows Vista and later.
Fixes crashing on display resolutions greater than 1080p or high DPI displays.
Fixes various issues experienced on modern systems, including washed textures and massive draw distance reduction.[6]
Fixes addons like football and villager banter and unlocks all creatures, including the rhino.
Includes fixed setup dialog that allows resolution and windowed mode to be changed easily.

>>717876610
>People who worked on Black & White remember it fondly, despite the development consuming their lives. Lionhead was a boys club, Campos the only woman connected with its creation. And as a boys club made up largely of young men, Lionhead saw late nights filled with hard work and hard play. They would drink cans of coke and smoke cigarettes while sat at desks covered in cold, leftover pizza.

>"Everyone got on," Andy Robson, who ran Lionhead testing, recalls. "It was a great atmosphere. It was like a family."

The secret to making great video games, revealed!

>>717912646
+ some posters of Maid Marian on the walls

>>717912646
And here's how companies and positive work culture die:

>Most former Lionheads remember "fridge magnet-gate". According to three separate sources, it went like this:

>An artist used the fridge magnet letters to spell out a homophobic slur directed at his close friend. Another artist thought it was directed at him, however, and lodged an official complaint. Lionhead human resources, such as it was, went into meltdown. Fridge magnets were banned.

>"The guy who did it shit himself," John McCormack remembers. "He was like, I'm going to lose my job. And we were like, you fucking might. We'd been doing this shit for years. This is a place where you take the piss and you have a laugh, and nobody takes anything seriously. I'm not saying the fridge magnet thing was right, it just was in keeping with everything else. HR were not having it at all."

>"Fridge magnet-gate" signalled a transition. The Lionhead culture slowly but surely changed as Microsoft's culture seeped into Occam Court. The boys club had had its day. The punk rockers had grown up, had kids and ditched the cans of coke and cold pizza for cups of tea and hot food from the canteen downstairs. There were producers, processes and potential for career progression. There was some semblance of a work / life balance. Now was the time of human resources, 360 degree appraisals, and online training videos.

>>717905353
his new game looks pretty bad

>>717841790
Did you have to derail the thread right away? This is typical moron logic get hung up on the example instead of discussing the topic like the retard you are.

>>717841650 (OP)
I think I've seen one game on Steam trying to do anything even remotely like what Black & White 1/2 did.

Fata Deum is basically the closest I can think of, and it's still missing all manner of features from B&W1 let alone 2. So even though that's their clear inspiration, they aren't really coming close to trying to pull of what Lionhead 'tried' to pull off in B&W1/2.

>>717914298
>It was all part of growing up. Lionhead had entered the super serious world of corporate video game development, working under an overlord that respected its independence, but expected results. Canal jumping was dead in the water. The sellotape had to be peeled off the smoke alarms. The pranks were dulled. "Lioncrap," the email chain staff used to send each other links to all sorts of random, off-topic shenanigans, went underground.

>"We're in a much more politically correct world anyway," Timmins admits.

>"Regardless whether or not the buyout had happened, a lot of the changes would have happened. We were all a lot more aware of each other and opinions and feelings. A lot of that stuff would have just happened because of social media."

Imagine saying this in mid-2016, not knowing how much worse political correctness and social media would make the world.
And it's funny, because immediately after that the article goes into all the progressive stuff like gay characters they put in Fable 2. They didn't do that because their teams were full of women, and DEI investors and Sweet Baby blackmail demanded it. They didn't need SJWs to force them to be progressive, and the game was authentic and fun because of it. Same with the infamous "put a black woman on the cover of Fable 3".

>>717915536
Well I though it was interesting. I guess you killed the thread though.

>>717841650 (OP)
B&W was a disappointment.

>>717911393
>The IP is cucked between Microsoft and EA.

People said the same thing about multiple games which are on GOG, like Myst 3: Exile.

>>717917092
I saved the thread, it fell to page 10 while I was reading your article.

Serious though, is there, since B&W1/2 anything like those games? I can think of games that kind of try for a miniscule range of its systems, but not even close to the whole package. Which is weird. Dungeon Keeper had an entire slew of "dungeon keeper likes".

But you don't really find Black & White clones.

Hell, go play Populous: The beginning and tell me how many games even come close to that crazy shaman simulator where you're lifting land out of the sea to make bridges, sinking the enemy village beneath the waves in real time oh spherical planets, and creating earth walls to protect your village lines with towers full of fire throwers.

Hell people can't even properly replicate Populate the Beginning, let alone something that went much farther and harder like B&W1/2.

>>717918513
The technology is lost.

Peter Molyneux: "See, when you click and drag to move around the world, you are not moving your camera. As a GOD, you are moving the world while you stay still!
Everyone: Wooooooooaaaaah molyneux sama SUGOIII INCREDIBLE!
>you see other gods and no, you are indeed moving around while the world is static

>>717919075
Anon where's you're sense of whimsy and wonder?