I kind of find it troubling in Black and White that one gameplay element is of abuse...its kinda sick imo. Reading some previews of ppl playing and the glee of slapping and beating there pets! sheesh...

I know its just a game, but playing a game where the rewards of abuse seem to outweigh the rewards of non-abuse (which seems to be evident from previews) doesnt seem right. So like if we're to succeed in B&W we have to teach our pets how to fight by nearly beating them to death. . . hell they could have made a game on the finer points of child abuse!

anyway...I'm a hypocrite since i kind of found it funny to smack the imps in Dungeon Keeper.

etc

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I kind of find it troubling in Black and White that one gameplay element is of abuse...its kinda sick imo. Reading some previews of ppl playing and the glee of slapping and beating there pets! sheesh...

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I just don't want B&W to be a virtual pet game. I'm not interested in raising an electronic pet. I want a game with a beginning, middle, and end. Something with goals and obstacles, etc.

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I just don't want B&W to be a virtual pet game. I'm not interested in raising an electronic pet. I want a game with a beginning, middle, and end. Something with goals and obstacles, etc.

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Black & White is a lot more then a virtual pet game. It's... well, it's a wee-bit difficult to describe. It does have some Tamagotcha elements, as proper training of your pet allows you to send it to neutral or enemy towns and wreak some havoc so you can quickly get them to worship you. So there's strategic value in training your creature properly.

I sent my mighty cow (!) into one village and he started drop kicking people that were worshipping him (I was using the "Leash of Aggression" and chaning him to various buildings in town). Then he started eating people and throwing rocks at things (which he picked up from me). That basically turned them my way, because they were scared to death (and I put an end to it, so they liked me... one way to really get people is to light all of their houses on fire with a fireball spell, then put 'em out with "miracle rain"). He also has this problem with eating his own poo (as the game lovingly calls it), which I need to train him away from (it makes him sick).

And yes, to get them to stop doing something you need to slap 'em around. Some of the young sadists probably do find that amusing, but it's hard to get too excited by it when they get all depressed and hang their heads after you do it. They also get all bruised and bloodied if you beat them enough. I find it hard to do.

As for the game, it's truly one of the only unique games. I've only been playing it for a couple of days now and I just keep laughing and finding new weird things. It's like the Sims in that regard. But it's entirely unlike the Sims in the sense of having more direction. You get a map, you have a village, you build up your village, you expand and take over other villages, you battle your opponent... it sounds like a standard RTS but mechanically it's unlike any RTS in existence. It's really hard to explain it properly.

All I know is this review is going to take forever, and since what I'm using now isn't a true "final" (it's probably a final, but it has some awful EA wrapper for copy protection), I can only hope to god my saved games will transfer over to the real final.

Sounds interesting, Steve. I'm certainly more interested in it now. How's the mouse-driven spellcasting system? Any frustrations with that?

I was under the impression that it was going to be Populous 3D meets Pokemon, but it sounds like it's a lot deeper than that. I'm anxious to start reading the reviews and probably pick it up to do some exploring of it myself.

Man, there are suddenly games to buy again for my own personal reviewing pleasure. I need to get Fallout Tactics this afternoon and also Build Your Own Barbie Dreamca..er, I mean, Kohan.

>>How's the mouse-driven spellcasting system? Any frustrations with that?

Initially some, but I hadn't really figured it out. But consider two things: one, you don't have to use it (you can hotkey back to your temple and grab the spell you need, then go back to wherever you were and use it). Two, it doesn't require absolute precision to replicate the shapes (which appear on-screen, with a little blip that traces the path you're supposed to mimic).

We also have Serious Sam on the way as well as Tribes 2 and Summoner. Lot's of interesting titles.

>>I was under the impression that it was going to be Populous 3D meets Pokemon, but it sounds like it's a lot deeper than that.

That's not entirely inaccurate a description, though it's not limited by a license for how you can evolve your creatures.

By the way, be VERY wary of early reviews, moreso than normal. I'm thinking this is a 3-4 week review game, not a 5-7 day one (or one day, in the case of Daily Radar). I have to play good, then evil, experiment a bit with different creatures... I have no idea how long the solo game is, and multiplayer... who knows? I can't sign up on EA's site yet to try multiplayer or to see how all that e-mail weirdness works, so anyone reviewing it before that stuff is live isn't utilizing a large number of the game's features.

"By the way, be VERY wary of early reviews, moreso than normal. I'm thinking this is a 3-4 week review game, not a 5-7 day one (or one day, in the case of Daily Radar)."

I've noticed that trend a lot recently. Sites are too fired up to be the "First" place to publish a review. Their reviews tend to turn out to be first looks or early impressions. For me, a huge part of the value of a game is replayability. The three games that have spent the longest time on my hardrive over the course of the last few years are Everquest, Chaos Overlords, and Sacrifice. The one thing they all have in common is that you can play them a dozen times all the way through and never have the same experience. Starcraft is in that same vein, but only because its multiplayer is so well balanced and there are so many valid strategies to use. But I digress... the point I was driving at is unless a reviewer plays a game for several weeks (or several times through for the shorter games) from several perspectives, they can't get the feel for the replayability. You leave that out of a review, and I feel like I'm missing a huge chunk of information.

I mean, hell, I wouldn't mind taking some journalism courses and trying to get a job writing for a site, a magazine, or maybe even freelancing. I really have no idea how you folks manage to do it though. Unless I quit my job to do it full time, I don't think I could do justice to a game as complex as Black & White without having at least a month to play it during the evenings. I have a new found respect for people that "play games" for a living. (that sounds strange, but it's true).

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Unless I quit my job to do it full time, I don't think I could do justice to a game as complex as Black & White without having at least a month to play it during the evenings. I have a new found respect for people that "play games" for a living. (that sounds strange, but it's true).

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Well, I realize people like Mark and Tom can make livings as writers due to the amount of freelance stuff that they manage to get published. From what I've been told, if you're going to try to be a journalist in the PC industry, print media is the area to pursue.

Something like this is a pipedream for me though. :) I can see learning some more about proper journalism techniques and turning it into a nice little sideline income (or even a hobby. I can see doing something like this just for fun), but I don't have the guts to quit my crappy programming job to pursue something that would be an enjoyable career.

Actually, most of the writers that I work with are not full-timers. Freelance writing in any field (journalism, fiction, whatever) is tough to make a living at. Many people do it as a side thing, in addition to a full-time job.

Tom and Mark are kind of anomalies. But we all knew that already... ;)

Well, I can't speak for Tom, but the Internet collapse has really bitten me in the ass. I'll need to expand into other kinds of freelance writing or start stealing car radios again.

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the Internet collapse has really bitten me in the ass

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Yeah, I started thinking about this about two years too late...If I had gotten on the ball sooner, maybe I could have made a (second, if not primary) job out of it. I used to write pretty well, when I did more of it. I'm kinda rusty here lately, as I learned when I went to review Konung. So, I start thinking about it right at the time when it becomes hardest to do. Figures.

With the "internet collapse" and all, it's probably just another of the many things I'll talk about but never do. I'd never quit my job for it, anyway. Even if I made enough to support a family, which I know is possible, I don't think I'd ever make as much as I hope to make someday by doing that.

"I know this is way off the topic of this thread, but I'd like to know what you guys (Mark, Tom) think about what's happened with the "Internet collapse" as Mark put it. I mean, did the people paying out money for banner ads just wake up one morning and realize that no one clicked them???"

It's a combination of the collapse of the dot coms and the ineffectiveness of banner ads, augmented by the general downturn in the economy we're seeing.

I just read that in February alone 52 dot coms went out of business, representing a loss of $1.5 billion in investment dollars. From what I can see, Internet ad prices were much higher than they should have been in large part because all these dot coms were buying ads. These companies all had VC and IPO money and burned through it, and many of them spent a lot on banner ads to try to drive traffic to their websites.

Once they started disappearing, the ad dollars dwindled. Advertisers also saw banner ad clickthrus plummet down to near-zero levels. So you have a situation where there's less demand for banner ads and the people who are still interested in buying them don't want to pay as much. So prices dropped from highs of as much as $50,000 for a million banner views down to well under $1000 for those same million banner views.

In many cases, the break even point for websites is quite a bit higher than that $1000, so they're hurting. And that price is for ads that are actually sold. You'll see many sites that can't sell out their ad inventory, so it's even worse.

It looks like there's the beginning of a push now for fee-based sites. I just went to Variety's site today to check for any game-related movie news, and you have to sign up for a 30 day trial subscription to view their site. They want $60 a year for access. Good luck to 'em. I won't sign up.

I see. Thanks for commenting on that Mark.

Yeah, I've been hearing about sites wanting to go to fee-based. One that I used to go to a lot, www.combatsim.com switched to a membership-fee access thing. I think you could preview most of the articles, but couldn't read all of any given one without paying. At least they only wanted 3 to 5 bux a month.

One interesting thing was that they made their switch overnight and didn't tell anyone it was coming. They wrote a couple pages explaining why they did it by surprise and why they went fee-based and still they got flamed by people. It was a good site for simulation games.

Does anyone know how Combatsim is doing?

The Wall Street Journal and (I think) the NY Times have been fee-based (online) for years. it's not new. The trick is having a brand name that is strong enough for anyone to actually care what you say.

That $1.5 billion in February that Mark mentions, big as it is, is just peanuts. I saw an estimate that the NADAQ composite (where most of the techs and virtually all of the dotcoms live) has cost @ $4.6 TRILLION in lost wealth since the beginning of the collapse last March.

If that money were in hundred dollar bills, you could use bundles of them for firewood, and probably not ever run out during your life.

I hate to say it, guys, but it had to happen. At some point venture capital demands a real return, or the investors get skittish. If anyone out there can tell me anything that could justify Yahoo stock holding a market value of more than Ford and GM combined (before the crash), I'd like to hear it. Don't even get me going on Amazon.

All I can say, is just watch what happens. There are many, many sites that looked like they were maintained by kindergarten kids, and even they were doing well. Now they are closing up shop. Advertisers are getting fussier about where they spend their (now not unlimited) dollars. I feel bad that Q23 started as late as it did, but it might be a good thing. If it had been moderately successful, and become the primary money generator for Mark and Tom, what would have happened when the rates crashed? At least now we have a good and growing site, that can generate enough interest to try new things and hopefully float. If these two imaginative guys can come up with a revenue model for the site, it might yet turn out to be that great earnings maker that we all dream of making.

Good luck, guys.

"If it had been moderately successful, and become the primary money generator for Mark and Tom, what would have happened when the rates crashed?"

Good point, and one that I've taken some small solace in.

I think most of us knew these companies were overvalued. I personally had no inkling that the advertising market would collapse, though. That seemed rooted in sounder business practices. I do remember thinking a long time ago about how I never noticed banner ads. I kind of wrote that off to my being cynical, and I figured that all advertising was just as ignorable, so I didn't really see it as being something that was vulnerable to market forces.

Oh, I don't think the Times is fee-based anymore. They just make you register to access it. They tried fees, but that didn't fly. I wouldn't be surprised if they go fee-based again, though.

I've noticed these days that the only ads I see now all involve some kind of sexy blonde. Castrol motor oil? Sure, lets take a blonde, put a red Castrol hat on her, and say "SHE wants you to use our oil". Internet advertising is falling into the same trap that PC gaming has; it's being targetted more and more towards men with exces hormones.

What's the solution? If I know that I'd be a billionaire

If you look at billboards, most don't try to convey much of a message. Instead they'll have a picture of Budweiser or a Big Mac. Banner ads should work like that. Remind me that a Snickers bar would taste good or that I can go to McDonald's for lunch. Don't try to get me to go to tour.com and sign up for some webring software thingy. That'll never happen, but you can plant a suggestion in my brain and remind me of your brand that I already know about.

I completely agree with you Mark. The problem with net advertising is that:

1. It rarely advertises anything the target audience really wants. I mean, we are all too smart to shock that damn monkey aren't we?

2. It should be short, quick and hit us where we live. For us that means Mountain Dew (or some other caffeine drink), a hot new geek movie, snickers (or similar snack), etc.,

Bruce Geryk once told me the reason he thought we don't see Coke ads, for example, on our sites is because of the Marketing principle that suggests you can devalue your product by advertising in "undesirable" locations. He has a point. Of course, he and I were both very drunk at the time so maybe I misunderstood him.

-Andrew