Well it gets better and better. From PB&W :

"Beta Version of BW "Accidentally" Released

Thursday, March 29, 2001, 17:12 | Posted by Catachan

All I can say is: I'm not surprised EA.

Apparently, a huge number of beta versions of Black and White were shipped to stores around the world. EA, it seems, messed up some files and replaced some of the Gold-Version BW files with the betas. I've heard it rumoured that EA intentionally made beta copies in order to get BW out by the 27th. Whatever.

Well, when I heard this news I quickly called EA and emailed Lionhead simultaneously. EA told me that it was an honest mistake. Also, they gave me some interesting news that everyone should know. That bug with the Athlons and the Dial-Up Networking is actually a RESULT of this beta mix-up. How bout that? Anyway, EA plans to announce a recall (if you will) of all the beta copies out there. If you have a copy (and you know you do if you get the DUN error) EA would like you to call them. The promise to either refund or replace your game.

Sorry about all this confusion. At least we can still hope that the final version has no bugs, (heh).

Phone Number: 1-888-842-6388 This is the Account Services Department (the only phone number I could find). EA's not up there with the people friendly tech support.

Lionhead hasn't replied yet, but when they do I'm sure they will be able to shed some light on this serious matter."

Weird. Why would they rush to get the game out after all this time? Oh yeah, it's near the end of the quarter. Don't you love publicly held companies? Stock price first, quality second.

Well, this story is far from confirmed. Lionhead is denying it, and the only source so far is PlanetBlack&White's claim that they spoke to an EA spokesperson who confirmed it as an "honests mistake." I'm not doubting, necessarily, that an EA person did say that, but I know from experience that what spokespeople (especially anonymous spokespeople) say can sometimes be at variance with what is. Of course you could also say that Lionhead wouldn't know what EA actually put in the boxes, either.

I am vastly disappointed that you folks, of all people, would believe this even for a second.

How cynical and jaded we have all become.

Cynical and jaded eh? Well, considering how Ultima IX was handled by Electronic Arts, I'm not surprised by the reaction. In fact, given that this was reported by a web site and then denied by the developer (and not EA), it reads almost exactly like the situation with Ultima IX.

Think about it for a second, if EA DID have more than one duplication house for the game, and one of them got the wrong disc, they duplicate and ship the game to retailers right from that location. By the time someone realizes what happened, it's out there and you have no ability to get it back. So now I suspect you'll see a patch in the very near future that will magically repair the game. They don't even have to admit to any goof up. As long as no one spills the beans, you as a gamer would never know.

--Dave

Well, I didn't say the story was false, only that it was unconfirmed. It could be like U9. Or it could be like any number of other cases where rumors are pure bunk. We'll have to see.

From PlanetBlackandWhite:

In A Word ... Sorry

Friday, March 30, 2001, 15:11 | Posted by Scrozzy

Cripes. What you're about to see is someone swallow his stupid male pride. So whip out the popcorn and put your feet up, and try not to laugh.

It has been brought to my attention that certain items of news have been posted that really shouldn't have. They were unfounded, nonsense and a waste of bandwidth. While it wasn't myself that posted the suspect news (I was away at the time), I would like to take full responsibility on behalf of the staff that work at PBW.

As a site director I am given the responsibility by a network that has standards and a reputation to uphold. Lately, this hasn't been upheld, and you, the reader, hasn't been given what I would call 'the right stuff'. Therefore, the responsibility of the staff under my control is down to me. Rest assured, I'll be discussing with the staff in question what went wrong.

Just to rectify everything now, and in case you missed what happened, we stated that the copies of the discs people had were betas due to time constraints. This is bollocks. We've also been slightly critical of Electronic Arts. While it's fair to say our comments are a reflection of the community as a whole, they don't actually help. Constructive criticism is good, nitpicking and doing it just for the hell of it doesn't. Instead of ridiculing, we should have been trying to actively help.

From now on, we'll be having a little more quality control. While the quirkyness will still remain, there will probably be a few less posts every day. From now on we'll try to investigate news further before hastily splicing them in into the news system.

This is one very sorry scenario that even sparked off Lionhead to reply, and I'd rather be doing something else right now such as some cool stuff I've got planned for you guys. Now I've had to put them on hold as I feel obliged to sort this whole thing out. Right now I ask that you show a little forgiving and consider PBW's first weeks open as a sort of beta test. I think I've said all I've set out to say. If you have any comments or suggestions then please let me know. I take them all very seriously.

BobM said :

"I am vastly disappointed that you folks, of all people, would believe this even for a second. How cynical and jaded we have all become."

Well speaking for myself I am not jaded at all no matter what the outcome of this story is. I have already slapped my money down and pre-ordered Black & White and have no intention of cancelling my order.

Of course if the story was (or had been) true I would have patiently waited until a new master disk of B&W was released.

As it turns out the story posted on PBW was untrue. If by posting the story here in this forum (and this was the only place I posted that news) constitutes being "cynical and jaded" then that was not my intent.

As an enthusiastic supporter of B&W I was merely passing on news as I will continue to do so. Sorry for any misunderstanding.

Cheers,
Sean.

Oh, I don't know. We still have issues of the program trying to contact Lionhead all on it's own, which Mark said he heard elsewhere. Also, that "black screen" bug seems associated with people's dial-up, an interesting thing to have a problem with if you aren't trying to play an online game.

Mark also mentioned in a Gamespin that Molyneux had to return early from some conference, quite some time after the code had gone gold, for consultations with EA. If they'd already started production, then learned of bugs, they may have just shipped the buggy discs on the notion of fixing them down the road with a patch, rather than scrapping the production and scrubbing their timetable.

I'm playing the game now for a day. I haven't had any stability issues with it. My initial impression is that it is interesting but annoying. The villagers really do not seem all that smart, and the big red orangutan that I have doesn't seem all that quick on the uptake. Part of it is me, I'm sure, still figuring out the whole rewards thing. Still, it seems unlikely that even a real ape would try to impress villagers by throwing dung at them...

>>Mark also mentioned in a Gamespin that Molyneux had to return early from some conference, quite some time after the code had gone gold, for consultations with EA.

Rumor at Gamestock was that they had to remove some, erm, "sexual" content between creatures from the US version.

I hate to sound "jaded", but I notice that the story retraction by PB&W doesn't say "They didn't ship beta copies" it only said "They didn't ship beta copies due to time constraints". Makes me wonder if there was indeed a small mixup as was suggested earlier in this thread. If that happened, it would be very easy to verify. Just get two disks, one that is experiencing all these bugs and one that isn't. Switch the disk between the two computers and see if the bug moves with the disk. You can also check the files sizes on the CDs if you're feeling frisky.

Personally I would be happier to hear that there was a beta file on the CD then to hear that there is a show-stopped bug that needs to be patched a few weeks down the road.

>Well, considering how Ultima IX was handled by Electronic Arts

Yeah, U9 pissed me off. Underneath all the bugs and performance problems was a really great game, too.

Thing is, EA generally has really solid games. Say what you will about how fun they are, but they're generally among the more bug-free and patch-retardant titles out there. Occasional Safedisc bullshit notwithstanding. =) But with U9, it was "Ship it by Thanksgiving or else" and that game was NOT ready to go out the door. And they KNEW it. Grrr...

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Quote:

Yeah, U9 pissed me off. Underneath all the bugs and performance problems was a really great game, too.

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After all this time I still can not get Ultima 9 to run without crashing on my system - even with the damned final patch. What a shame.