Black & White 2 With Black & White 1 Graphics

Reonnen

New member
Joined
Dec 5, 2010
Messages
16
This is a video during the early development of Black & white two which began nearly right after the first due to its large community and from it just being a great game with online games, clans, skirmishes, and a good single player it was amazing. So Naturally Peter Molyneux wanted to get the sequel's development underway immediately, it was by around 2002 or so that Peter went to a place in Europe to test the engine they had come up with for Black & White 2 there are a bunch of screen shots of the early engine on Gamespots, and ign places like that but there is a video where you see a demonstration of the early engine and it had everything the city building the people, armies, multiple types of armies, different cultures such as Norse Greek Japanese all of which had different skins and everything. It was basically Black & White 2 with Black & White Graphics. But i find it amazing how different the actual game was in early development because you see Norsemen carrying axes you see huge armies clashing like over 500 men at least not to mention archers and what shooting into the fray and we can't all forget the giant creature crushing and throwing whoever gets in its way. But Peter Molyneux decided to have the engine remade with the new graphics that were available. So there was at one time a Black & White 2 that was more literally as good as the original but with a little icing on the top. But it was scraped because Peter molyneux wanted the graphics to be better, and yet again an amazing game and concept is destroyed for graphics. Perhaps their still is this Black & White 2 Alpha stage but I'm sure we'll never know.

Here is the Video of What Black & White 2 Should have been
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k4ii1JDFCU
 
I watched the video and wow, where did lionhead go wrong they had it all there all ready!!
Well, It's a shame but just hoping that someone thinks that bw3 can be made at Lionhead and they correct all there mistakes.
 
If memory serves, it wasn't just for the graphics that they scrapped that B&W1 graphics solution.  I think there were also performance problems as well.  

Given all the new stuff going on (large armies/cities), the game had to manage all that in a timely fashion.

As many of us can recall, when we tried to build large villages in B&W1, the game got very sluggish.  I imagine those demos were put on powerful machines until they could figure out what to do about the performance issues - eventually deciding to build a new game engine.  They were also probably very careful about what they displayed.

Then again, perhaps the performance issues were just a smoke screen and it was just all about graphics.  Guess we'll never know :(

[Edit] Removed the duplicate thread of this in the B&W & CI forum and merged with this one here[/Edit]
 
Wow, that's an interesting video.  Wish it was in English, though...  I really liked that Lava miracle.  really cool!

Did anyone else notice the lag when the battle started up?
 
Didn't watch the whole vid, but if there was a lag, that would kinda support my theory about performance.
 
Yea you can see a big lag in the people more than anything else just watch em closely :P One question i still got though is say you got a computer that can take Black & White 2 on Maximum easy, and magically i were to get this early version of B&W 2 would it still lag like mad just because of the engine cause i can't make Black & White 1 lag on my good computer and I've tried :P And to be honest they still had a lot of those things i mentioned above when the new engine was put into place for instance the catapults looked huge and the soldiers were differently skinned then they were when Black & white 2 was released, it even seems like there are videos they used with maps that aren't even on the game.. Like for instance they have really good screenies on game spot from way back so your gonna have to back some pages :P but its a picture of a HUGE monkey kicking ALOT of soldiers in the middle of a HUGE battle, and you can even see some of the warriors are using axes and other weapons. But before i keep ranting heres some of the pictures of the new engine with some of the things from the prototype before it.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/blackwhite2/images/0/91/?tag=thumbs_below%3Bthumb;91

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/blackwhite2/images/0/103/?tag=thumbs_below%3Bthumb;103

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/blackwhite2/images/0/110/?tag=thumbs_below%3Bthumb;110

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/blackwhite2/images/0/126/?tag=thumbs_below%3Bthumb;126

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/blackwhite2/images/0/128/?tag=thumbs_below%3Bthumb%3B4

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/blackwhite2/images/0/151/?tag=thumbs_below%3Bthumb;151

And finally my favorite the monkey KICKING!!!!

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/blackwhite2/images/0/160/?tag=thumbs_below%3Bthumb;160

I hope u guys enjoy these pictures as much as did :P cause i think the bonus map on BOTG is the closest i'll ever get to it :P Don't get me wrong i hate the actual map for the bonus map :P to much stuff getting in the way of my building :P i just like the huge wars although it does get a little chaotic once u get to wave 15 <:)
 
i feel like crying. watching the video anmd pictures, everything seems better; the skins, the flags, the way the soldiers moved, combat and the way you can increase tower height. there were so many awesome building models that they just threw away. i really would like to see what they were thinking.
 
That's progress.
To my  mind  B&W2 needed a new game engine just to support the higher  graphics resolution and detail that  we  all expected.
And with it came the cuts to keep within budget and then deeper cuts to split B&W2 into  game and expansion.
That was just milking the fans for as much as possible.
Again in  my opinion B&W incorporating BOTG would have made a better game for all and maybe even got  a bigger fan-base for this and other Lionhead games.
 
??? Hm. It does look a lot better...

Also, haha, people that can't understand German. Makes me feel a little better about myself.  :laugh2 Anyway, I have to say that I feel the BW2 graphics actually look worse, aside from greater detail on people/animals and grass/fur. I mean, overall, it just looks kind of... Well, plain. Cell-shaded, even. Like how people were raving about the marvelous graphics in LoZ: Windwaker, when the Ocarina of Time graphics simply looked better and came years before. But that's just me.
 
lol man thank god there's people out here who saw the potential in Black & White 2 considering how great the game play was. I mean tbh personally if they had put in multiplayer i probably would never be complaining or let alone reminiscing about screenshots but alas first they shut the servers down and rob many players of the good community of B&W 2 and then Rob them yet again probably cause they didn't want to pay for servers. Just wondering but has anyone gotten Black & White 1's multiplayer to work on LAN and if so would it be possible to play through Hamachi??? (Hamachi is a program to link computers locally through the internet )
 
Oh yeah.  We've got a decent number of people doing that.  Normally, if you open a thread asking for a game over Hamachi, someone gets in contact with you on what you need to do to set up.
 
funny how alot of games turn out like this - unfinished and inefficiently made, with lots of beta version which would have worked fine on their own.
the gaming industry is not an elected democracy. :p its the people at the top who decides what gets made most of the time.
some of the most well made and well balanced games come from mods - a large group of people choose to make them instead of a tiny contingent of businessmen.
 
Oh dear! I really do hope I won't get hated for this. But if Black and White 2 really did look like that then people would complain that it's too much like Black and White 1.

Let's be honest here people, if Black and White 2 did look like that, then I showed you a video of what Black and White 2 was supposed to look like. You'd go mad, you'd be thinking; 'Why didn't they bring those amazing graphics into the game instead of these again?!'. I've noticed there aren't many big fans of Black and White 2 here, it looks like you'd spit on it.  :laugh2

I personally think that on that video, the graphics of the tribute menu were horrendous. I do share the anger of no skirmish or multiplayer maps but I love black and white 2. I am personally glad that Black and White 2 does not look like that.
 
@Undead deity, if you get hated on i will take your side. :laugh2

i see what you mean about the graphics. but even from a monetary standpoint (which is the only standpoint EA ever seems to take), they could have dusted off that version of BW, released it, then made the new version of BW with the graphics we know and love. since they pretty much redid the whole game anyway, it wouldnt have taken much longer - maybe a year at the most - to release two separate games instead of one. thats what angers most people - lionhead could have given us back and white 2 and 3 is a matter of years, pleasing the masses and the hardcore BW fans in one swipe. but, godammit, they DIDNT! :angry
 
I'm kinda torn by that idea.

On the one hand, it would've been cool to have two B&W games in that short a space of time.  However I can see quite a number of drawbacks:

1. Lionhead games of that era (and even a little bit now) have been known to lack a good polish before release and could be somewhat buggy as opposed to other games (not but much, but it was noticeable and later patched) in order to get them out the door.  Should they try to release these two games in so close a space of time, that would've meant a division of resources which would affect the quality of both games further.
2. The second game (with the improved graphics) would have to be distinctly different from the first meaning a change on content/story/gameplay(maybe).  This would also require more effort and push out the release of the second game.
3.  Development on these two games by Lionhead would have meant the exclusion of developing any other games by the studio for quite some time (meaning the likes of Fable and The Movies would not have been released).

When it comes to software development (of any kind), things are rarely as they seem.
 
I'm sorry Undead and to you too Fenten but i must disagree for i believe that if i look at it the way you are describing to me what you are saying is that they have reason for doing this; that these polished graphics were a requirement for Black & White 2 to be able to compete with games but to be honest they had the working version of the beta though laggy, it was working and could have been surely polished and limited to compensate with the lag so that it could be played. Now what they should have done was gone through with the ideas they had originally for Black & White 2. And then focused on Fable and the Movies get them done and finally after all that they would be free to create the Black & white 3 with Polished Graphics the way it was meant to be, free of any other projects showing respect and loyalty to the former community of the Original Black & White which is held together by small strands of people on sites such as these. I would have gladly accepted a Black & White 2 with worse graphics if it actually had a story that coincided with the original's, ( which was one of the many reasons i loved the original it had depth and countless details ) and if it actually had creatures that took time to develop, or took you time to learn how to develop, creatures that grew big and could be taught dozens of miracles whatever was in my reach ;). To be honest i cannot consider Black & White 2 an actual sequel to the original because the only thing from its predecessor that it retained was your conscious story wise. Many of the greatest aspects of it were left out like the idea that there were hundreds and thousands of gods fighting and living among one another, i mean even the interaction with the creature is quite limited when compared to what you can do with your creature in the first simply because of the diversity of miracles, i mean yes they implemented a lot of new tools and aspects  to the game like soldiers and wars fought with men, but their was already battles and wars in the original between clans, and with creatures, between gods with fireballs falling from the sky, i mean you don't need an army your a god you can turn the whole land into brimstone and ash if that's what you want (although the idea of a black & white 2 without soldiers seems very bad 2 me ;) ) all I'm saying is that nothing in this game was really new in fact had they expanded off the first one I'm sure the game would have had a lot more. So i do not consider Black & White 2 to be a sequel to the original simply because it seems that it didn't have half of the content that was in its predecessor.
 
Ouch.. Reonnen.. please learn to use the Enter key!.. T_T

reposted under a spoiler, for readability - I will enter my own comment below it.. once I am able to read yours..
I'm sorry Undead and to you too Fenten but i must disagree, for i believe that if i look at it the way you are describing to me what you are saying is that they have reason for doing this;

that these polished graphics were a requirement for Black & White 2 to be able to compete with games but to be honest they had the working version of the beta though laggy,
it was working and could have been surely polished and limited to compensate with the lag so that it could be played.

Now what they should have done was gone through with the ideas they had originally for Black & White 2.
And then focused on Fable and the Movies get them done and finally after all that they would be free to create the Black & white 3 with Polished Graphics the way it was meant to be,
free of any other projects showing respect and loyalty to the former community of the Original Black & White which is held together by small strands of people on sites such as these.

I would have gladly accepted a Black & White 2 with worse graphics if it actually had a story that coincided with the original's, ( which was one of the many reasons i loved the original it had depth and countless details )
and if it actually had creatures that took time to develop, or took you time to learn how to develop, creatures that grew big and could be taught dozens of miracles whatever was in my reach ;).

To be honest i cannot consider Black & White 2 an actual sequel to the original because the only thing from its predecessor that it retained was your conscious story wise.
Many of the greatest aspects of it were left out like the idea that there were hundreds and thousands of gods fighting and living among one another, i mean even the interaction with the creature is quite limited when compared to what you can do with your creature in the first simply because of the diversity of miracles,

i mean yes they implemented a lot of new tools and aspects  to the game like soldiers and wars fought with men, but their was already battles and wars in the original between clans, and with creatures, between gods with fireballs falling from the sky,
i mean you don't need an army your a god you can turn the whole land into brimstone and ash if that's what you want (although the idea of a black & white 2 without soldiers seems very bad 2 me ;) )

all I'm saying is that nothing in this game was really new in fact had they expanded off the first one I'm sure the game would have had a lot more.

So i do not consider Black & White 2 to be a sequel to the original simply because it seems that it didn't have half of the content that was in its predecessor.

After reading it.. there isn't much to add.. other then the advice to use enter more often.. and less long sentances.

I can't disagree with you. But more so, because I think BW2 is a sucky game. sure! It looks nice.. and you get to build. But it turned more into an RTS with bonus then a god game. BW1 is still unique in that way.
 
Like Syclai, I can'treally disagree much with what you said Reonnen.

However, to expand on my point about how Lionhead decided they needed to rebuild the game engine to accommodate all the new features.

I truly believe that at the time they decided to abandon the B&W1 engine, they fully intended to expand upon ALL of B&W1's features, but (as is the case with many of their games) time and a lack of money got in the way of that vision and so we got the crumpled mess that is B&W2.

In short, my point is that B&W2 was bad for one single reason, but is instead a shadow of it's predecessor due to a few bad decisions and circumstances beyond their control.
 
Fenten how is it beyond their control, how can they not be held accountable for the lack of effort put into the game, to say it was because they

had other games they wanted to work on means that they figured they would make more money off of these new labels such as fable and the

movies, meaning they abandoned the community that had brought them fame from a truly great game. To say that they were justified simply

because they would make more money and then to spit in our faces with a game that didn't even come close to what it had been intended to

be seems highly unethical even cold, so I'm sorry i know when Peter Molyneaux talks to just put my fingers in ears. I'm sure they had the time

and I really don't know if they had the money but to best honest it really just seems like they simply did not put enough effort into this game,

had they put a multiplayer & skirmish mode i would never had even brought this up but they didn't and so i do.

(Thanks for the tip Sylcai ;) :P
 
Oh god, don't get me wrong.  I totally blame them for making a sucky game.  However, say what you will about Peter Molyneux, but he was pretty honest about the problems they faced in an interview afterwards.

Their intention was to develop the game a good bit more before release.  The problem was that in the background to B&W2's development, Lionhead had been going through some kinda corporate restructuring/public flotation that would give them the money to do it.  However, that fell through meaning all remaining development had to be paid for out of Lionhead's own rapidly shrinking pockets.  This meant that they literally ran out of money to pay their staff (it got to that stage).  Remember that they were a relatively small independent software developer back then with no support other than themselves.  They don't see a penny from EA until the game is out there making money, so they had to pay for development up front by themselves.

The fault is still theirs for making a poor game.  All I'm saying is that these things are never so Black & White (to use the perfect phrase) and there were problems which couldn't be overcome.



On another note - big improvement using the Enter key, however, you should only really us it after a full-stop (.) or a colon (:).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top