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Footy · Feb 21, 2002, 05:53 PM

Hey All,

I just love Black & White so far. Anyone know of a Mac site for the game?

Not that it matters, would just be nice to hang and gather info at a Mac site rather than riding the "coat tails" at a PC site.

Thanks,

lloyd

roders · Feb 21, 2002, 07:20 PM

What system do you have and how does it play, and what resoloution do you/like to play the game at?

Footy · Feb 21, 2002, 07:49 PM

Originally posted by roders:
What system do you have and how does it play, and what resoloution do you/like to play the game at?

I have a G4 867, 640 RAM. My monitor is set at 1024X768 75Hz but I'm not sure that when I'm in Black & White it's set at that. Does look good though.

Seems to play as good as it should with no slow downs of any kind. Looks great. Every once and a while I see what would appear to be a lightening flash in the game but I really don't think it is. Did freeze up once where it kept playing the same movie in an endless loop but after doing a hard restart and going back to that part it went through fine.

Anyway, I love it so far. I'm a nice god, though I did accidently throw a fireball onto one of my villages once.

lloyd

[ 02-21-2002: Message edited by: Footy ]

Feb 21, 2002, 09:51 PM

Mac Black and White only runs at 800x600.

This is absurd.

By tweaking the values in the Preferences file, you can get it to run at a higher resolution, and it looks GREAT, BUT you can't move the cursor outside of the upper-left 800x600, making it unplayable. But you can see that it works and would be a simple fix to make it run at higher resolutions.

I emailed Feral and got the response: "Sorry but the resolution of the game is fixed at 800X600."

I urge everyone who agrees that this is a outrage to email Feral at bwsupport@feral.co.uk and let them know that you want to see a patch that lets B&W run at any resolution.

1600x1024 on my Cinema Display compared to the 800x600 that the game runs at is such a vast difference that I don't even want to play it until they fix this. It's like night and day. Black and white, if you will.

It also crashed and froze on me quite a bit, but that's another story.

Very unfinished.

Alex

Dair Grant · Feb 22, 2002, 03:58 AM

I urge everyone who agrees that this is a outrage to email Feral at bwsupport@feral.co.uk and let them know that you want to see a patch that lets B&W run at any resolution.

The original version of the source we picked up from Lionhead didn't support higher resolutions, although we have now received an update which fixes this - and will be included in the multiplayer patch.

It also crashed and froze on me quite a bit, but that's another story.

If you're running on Mac OS X, please turn on the Crash Reporter (open /Applications/Utilities/Console, and turn on both checkboxes in the Crashes tab of its prefs window). This will generate a log when you crash, and if you can send that and an Apple System Profiler report to bwsupport@feral.co.uk they'll forward it to us to take a look.

If you're running X and your machine locks up completely (forcing you to do a hard reset) with a couple of seconds of looping sound, this is a known bug in X. We've reported this to Apple, but haven't had a response yet.

Footy, if you're seeing the whole world flash blue/white for a frame then unfortunately this is a bug in nvidia's drivers. We've reported this to them, so hopefully it will be fixed in a driver update.

-dair
Zonic

[ 02-22-2002: Message edited by: Dair Grant ]

roders · Feb 22, 2002, 08:39 AM

Wow Dair Grant, I take it your one of the guys who did the port to mac, cool to have you around!
I must admit when I sore <ghjghjjghj> post I suddenly crossed B&W of my list of games to get.
I've been playing this game on my PC @ 1240X1024 and would'nt accept much less on my Mac.
Weird reason for the res being stuck at 800X600, was this early on in the development cycle of B&W when the coders didn't know if future hardware would be able to cope with the graphics (the game was in developement for quite a while)?
Happy to see a patch is being released, and if it solves the limited screen Res, then I'll buy it.
P.S any idea of when the patch is coming?
Any other Mac games your thinkiing of porting......?????
(driving games please please please!)

Feb 22, 2002, 10:45 AM

Wow Dair, thanks. I sent a couple crashlogs to Feral as you requested. Any target date for the multiplayer patch?

Alex

Feb 22, 2002, 02:52 PM

Hello all,
B&W is a great game, but I'm stuck in the first world. I can't save at all. I had this problem at first so I reinstalled the game, It was fine and I could save, once, then It crashes on auto save every time and I can't save or go to the next leve. This seems to be an issue on the PC and the fix it removing all the stuff and reinstalling direct X, bla bla bla.

I'm running it under 10.1.3, G4 PowerBook, 360something MB ram.
any ideas?

thanks!

Footy · Feb 22, 2002, 09:20 PM

Originally posted by <B&W crashes on save, Help>:
Hello all,
B&W is a great game, but I'm stuck in the first world. I can't save at all. I had this problem at first so I reinstalled the game, It was fine and I could save, once, then It crashes on auto save every time and I can't save or go to the next leve. This seems to be an issue on the PC and the fix it removing all the stuff and reinstalling direct X, bla bla bla.

I'm running it under 10.1.3, G4 PowerBook, 360something MB ram.
any ideas?

thanks!

I haven't had this issue. Just the one loop crash. Forgot to say that I'm running it on OSX 10.1.3

Dair Grant · Feb 23, 2002, 05:12 AM

Any other Mac games your thinkiing of porting......????? (driving games please please please!)

Feral (who published B&W) have another developer working on an F1 racing game - details at Feral's web site. We're not directly involved in this, but are working on some of the sound code (since it's similar to B&W).

Wow Dair, thanks. I sent a couple crashlogs to Feral as you requested. Any target date for the multiplayer patch?

At the moment, the plan is for it to be ready in March. Plans can change obviously, but that's what we're hoping for.

B&W is a great game, but I'm stuck in the first world. I can't save at all. I had this problem at first so I reinstalled the game, It was fine and I could save, once, then It crashes on auto save every time and I can't save or go to the next level. I'm running it under 10.1.3, G4 PowerBook

You shouldn't have any problems with 10.1.3 on a TiBook, so can you send in an ASP report and Crash Reporter log when it goes wrong? That's our best chance of identifying the problem. There are some notes on how to obtain these logs at http://www.zonic.co.uk/support/bugs.html and you can send them to bwsupport@feral.co.uk to enter them into our bug tracking system.

-dair
Zonic

ImpishLM · Feb 26, 2002, 06:44 PM

I'm running B&W on a G4 466 mghz, 640 Mg RAM, OS 10.1.3. No problems whatsoever....

...except for locating those damn sheep, and tying up the piper (he just killed 30 children cuz I couldn't attach the leash, or when I did, the perv just ran back into the mine, the door closes, and this severs the leash)!

Where are those sheep, anyway?!?!?

I'd also like to see a Mac site, altho' PlanetBlack&White is pretty good.

Big Mac · Mar 3, 2002, 02:08 AM

If you're running X and your machine locks up completely (forcing you to do a hard reset) with a couple of seconds of looping sound, this is a known bug in X. We've reported this to Apple, but haven't had a response yet.

Ain't memory protection a beautiful thing? When it works, that is. OS X should never go down. I would like to know what this bug is linked to. I hope I'm not overly optimistic in believing that we will eventually get enough driver maturity so that there will never be any hangs or panics of any kind.

[ 03-04-2002: Message edited by: Big Mac ]

dws · Mar 4, 2002, 01:25 AM

I love this game and have had no problems with it running on an iMac DV 400 with 320 Megs (set at its lowest settings, of course). The game has never crashed or shown any of the bugs reported by others!

For those just starting out, do help the sailors build their boat. They are greedy buggers, but the end of that scenario is really cute.

I also tried in vain to find all the sheep (!), but quickly forgot them when I left the first land and got into the real game!

I would recommend this game highly. My favorite right now is Age of Empires II, but Black & White is a close second.

G Barnett · Mar 4, 2002, 10:46 AM

Just picked it up on Saturday -- way fun game. Was mildy annoyed (and way amused) when my creature ate one of the drowning guys he was supposed to rescue. Ooops.

So far, only real bug I've seen is the nVidia blue flashes. No biggie there. Aside from that, everything seems to be working fine. One minor gameplay glitch has shown up -- on the island where I have to rescue my creature, one village has 'reconverted' to me, but my icon still wiggles above the totem and I can't actually do anything. I got the whole conversion fireworks animation and stuff, but it didn't really 'take.' I'm hoping that after restoring from my save on quit last night that the game puts it in its proper state.

As a side note, have any of you guys tried impressing towns with fireballs shooting over their heads, only to see the fireballs landing a little short of where you wanted them to go -- i.e., on top of the storage site?

Ooooooops....

G Barnett

goMac · Mar 4, 2002, 10:53 AM

I bought it yesterday and was playing it all day. Its so cool! The game gets much more interesting after you get past the tutorial on the first world. I think the tutorial world was crashy. Now that I'm in the second world, I've had no crashes.

11011001 · Mar 6, 2002, 09:36 PM

Gawd, took me forever to finish one of the maps.

Ummm, it is a really inventive and revolutinary idea. I think they did an amazing job

This is one huge step forward for a completely interactive game that makes itself around the player...

I agree about the 800x600 resolution thing. I got an 15 apple LCD which does a max of 1024x768. Anything below this res looks crappy, it just looks blurry, you can get away with this on a CRT, but not on an LCD. It is distracting in games at times, but I have grown used to it, but friends have gone and said "Ickk, that looks so ugly, why is it blurry?", they of course have not used the glory that is LCD!

pahroza · Mar 7, 2002, 03:25 PM

The 800x600 limitation has kept me from playing as much as I'd like to. Although I don't mind the occasional sacrifice to play a game, it's a big drawback from my usual 1600x1200 resolution. I eagerly anticipate the patch for the game that will remove this limitation. Dair, can you give us some sort of rough estimate as to when we will be seeing the patch?

Andreas

Dair Grant · Mar 7, 2002, 05:31 PM

Assuming no last minute snags, it should be out tomorrow.

-dair (famous last words no doubt, but that's the plan

)

Jeff Binder · Mar 7, 2002, 07:21 PM

Just got it yesterday. I've got a Blue and White G3, 350MHz, 512MB RAM, PCI Radeon and PCI Rage 128. It's kind of slow, but at least the detail settings don't affect performance much (I think the bottleneck's mostly the AI). It's worked perfectly so far.

And what a great game! The AI, the physics, the graphics, the detail, it's all incredible.

Elvin · Mar 8, 2002, 02:43 PM

This is an amazing game, and it's oodles of fun. If you haven't bought it yet, run out and get it. My only complaint was the packaging. The PC one had two sides (one for White and one for Black) with a cardboard cover for each side with lots of pictures and stuff. The Mac one is just simply a box and not even a jewel case. Oh well. I know this game will have me busy for ages to come and I can't wait for Creature Isle either!

GK · Mar 8, 2002, 03:31 PM

Anybody with a Ti G4 400 playing it ? How is the performance ? If it's good, I'm ordering it today .

thanks

Elvin · Mar 8, 2002, 04:17 PM

It's choppy on an iBook 366, so I imagine it will do well on a G4.

Elvin · Mar 8, 2002, 04:19 PM

Does anyone know if the MP3 patch made it to the Mac version?

dgs212 · Mar 8, 2002, 11:09 PM

God dammit, I love this game! I just got it 3 days ago and I've already racked up 10 hours of gametime. Sadly, the patch didn't come out today

Please Dair. I want me a horse!

Dair Grant · Mar 9, 2002, 04:09 AM

Unfortunately there was a last minute snag, which turned up half an hour after I posted..

We want to do some final testing over the weekend, and we're now aiming for early next week.

The MP3 patch for the PC isn't included in this version: it's on our list to look at though, but we need to think about how we'll make it work on the Mac (if it'll interact with iTunes, or have to be built-in, etc).

-dair

dgs212 · Mar 10, 2002, 12:45 AM

Originally posted by Dair Grant:
Unfortunately there was a last minute snag, which turned up half an hour after I posted..

We want to do some final testing over the weekend, and we're now aiming for early next week.

The MP3 patch for the PC isn't included in this version: it's on our list to look at though, but we need to think about how we'll make it work on the Mac (if it'll interact with iTunes, or have to be built-in, etc).

-dair

How does one import skirmish maps for the mac version of Black and White? This question is two-fold: How does one do it, and can mac users use skirmish maps created for the PC version?

Thanks in advance...

Dair Grant · Mar 10, 2002, 06:38 AM

Yes, the Mac version should be able to load PC skirmish maps: if you find one which doesn't, send some mail to bwsupport@feral.co.uk and we'll look into it.

In terms of installation, it's the same as on the PC - you drop them into the correct location, and they show up the next time you launch the game. I think the normal place is in the Data/Landscapes folder, although I can't connect to planetblackandwhite.com/etc just now to verify this.

-dair
Zonic

dgs212 · Mar 10, 2002, 01:14 PM

Originally posted by Dair Grant:
Yes, the Mac version should be able to load PC skirmish maps: if you find one which doesn't, send some mail to bwsupport@feral.co.uk and we'll look into it.

In terms of installation, it's the same as on the PC - you drop them into the correct location, and they show up the next time you launch the game. I think the normal place is in the Data/Landscapes folder, although I can't connect to planetblackandwhite.com/etc just now to verify this.

-dair
Zonic

Thanks so much.

Anxiously Awaiting A Horse,
David

goMac · Mar 11, 2002, 10:58 AM

Originally posted by Dair Grant:
Unfortunately there was a last minute snag, which turned up half an hour after I posted..

We want to do some final testing over the weekend, and we're now aiming for early next week.

The MP3 patch for the PC isn't included in this version: it's on our list to look at though, but we need to think about how we'll make it work on the Mac (if it'll interact with iTunes, or have to be built-in, etc).

-dair

Today? Today!?!?! :taps finger: Please........... I promise I won't ever play anyone elses games ever ever again....

Ashman · Mar 12, 2002, 02:54 AM

Here are some screenshots of my tiger showing off.

http://homepage.mac.com/abrimhall/PhotoAlbum8.html

Elvin · Mar 12, 2002, 03:03 PM

See, isn't every screen shot from Black & White beautiful?

What does the new "Village Banter" function do in the upcomming patch?

Osirisis · Mar 14, 2002, 12:34 PM

So where's the update. Still waiting

No rush. I'm waiting for the resolution change more than anything else. The game is going to waste at 800*600 on my Cinema Display

Dair Grant · Mar 14, 2002, 04:41 PM

The 1.1.3 patch is now available from Feral's web site, at http://www.feral.co.uk/. Changes in 1.1.3 are:

* Additional Creatures
* Support for additional screen resolutions
* Support for Custom Player symbols/tattoos
* Support for ATI's FSAA
* Creature home page now works with all browsers
* Cow creature can now be tattooed correctly
* Fixed crash if startup disk contained "/" in name
* Improved stability when saving games

Sorry about the delay since I originally posted - next time I'll wait until the final build is uploaded before saying anything. :-)

-dair
Zonic

[ 03-14-2002: Message edited by: Dair Grant ]

goMac · Mar 14, 2002, 05:00 PM

Thank you. You have just made my bad day good. I was about to request that custom tatoo too. Off to plant my company logo on my tiger...

Originally posted by Dair Grant:
The 1.1.3 patch is now available from Feral's web site, at http://www.feral.co.uk/. Changes in 1.1.3 are:

* Additional Creatures
* Support for additional screen resolutions
* Support for Custom Player symbols/tattoos
* Support for ATI's FSAA
* Creature home page now works with all browsers
* Cow creature can now be tattooed correctly
* Fixed crash if startup disk contained "/" in name
* Improved stability when saving games

Sorry about the delay since I originally posted - next time I'll wait until the final build is uploaded before saying anything. :-)

-dair
Zonic

[ 03-14-2002: Message edited by: Dair Grant ]

[/LIST]

Parvulesco · Mar 14, 2002, 06:57 PM

Originally posted by Dair Grant:
The 1.1.3 patch is now available from Feral's web site, at http://www.feral.co.uk/. Changes in 1.1.3 are:

* Additional Creatures
* Support for additional screen resolutions
* Support for Custom Player symbols/tattoos
* Support for ATI's FSAA
* Creature home page now works with all browsers
* Cow creature can now be tattooed correctly
* Fixed crash if startup disk contained "/" in name
* Improved stability when saving games

Sorry about the delay since I originally posted - next time I'll wait until the final build is uploaded before saying anything. :-)

-dair
Zonic

[ 03-14-2002: Message edited by: Dair Grant ]

Unfortunately I'm getting an error when installing the patch. After the first three (of eight total) items install without error, I get the following message from the updater app:

Error creating file.
1008:5,-5000 Access denied error.

Upon clicking OK, I get the following message:

You do not have enough access privileges for this installation.

Tried it on a fresh install with the same error.

Any suggestions?

Ian Bullock · Mar 15, 2002, 07:00 AM

Unfortunately I'm getting an error when installing the patch. After the first three (of eight total) items install without error, I get the following message from the updater app:

We have had one other mail to our support account reporting the same problem.

If you drop me a mail at bwsupport@zonic.co.uk we will try and get this resolved as quickly as possible.

Ian
--
Zonic

[ 03-15-2002: Message edited by: Ian Bullock ]

ImpishLM · Mar 15, 2002, 06:29 PM

I've installed 1.1.3, and now would like to know how to view the creature home pages.

I know the location of the files.... and there seem to be two different kinds. Some are blank icons with the extension .erc and tend to be titled with numbers only (or "Physique + numbers").

The others have the B&W icon on them, names like "CreatureProtectTowns" but no extension.

Are both valid file types?

And what do we do with them?

Thanks!

Ian Bullock · Mar 16, 2002, 07:15 AM

I've installed 1.1.3, and now would like to know how to view the creature home pages.

We have added a New FAQ to Feral's site which should explain this.

I know the location of the files.... .erc ... "CreatureProtectTowns" ...

these files contain information about the creatures in the game, and are not part of the home page. You should not need to touch these - unless you want to give your creature a lobotomy

Ian
--
Zonic

[ 03-16-2002: Message edited by: Ian Bullock ]

macaddled · Mar 19, 2002, 01:32 PM

Originally posted by Parvulesco:


Unfortunately I'm getting an error when installing the patch. After the first three (of eight total) items install without error, I get the following message from the updater app:

Error creating file.
1008:5,-5000 Access denied error.

Upon clicking OK, I get the following message:

You do not have enough access privileges for this installation.

Tried it on a fresh install with the same error.

Any suggestions?

You have a permissions problem. If you are installing to the Applications folder, open the terminal and type

cd /
sudo chmod 775 Applications/

and enter your password when prompted. Should work after that.

[ 03-19-2002: Message edited by: macaddled ]

[ 03-19-2002: Message edited by: macaddled ]

Ian Bullock · Mar 20, 2002, 08:19 AM

You have a permissions problem. If you are installing to the Applications folder, open the terminal and type

cd /
sudo chmod 775 Applications/

and enter your password when prompted. Should work after that.

macaddled,

Have you encountered the -5000 problem and fixed it in this way?

I am interested because we believe that the problem is associated with some intermediate files which Installer VISE saves during the install, not with the permissions of the final destination of the files.

If anyone else is still experiencing this problem, please do drop us a mail at bwsupport@zonic.co.uk .

Ian
--
Zonic