Somebody explain this to me....

[CheerfullyInsane]

Disclaimer: I've only played Season One up to and including Mission 9.
Second, if you haven't played it yet, SPOILERS AHEAD!

Okay, I don't get it.
I really want to like this game, but there are just so many basic flaws in it that I simply can't understand the attraction.

First off, there's the puzzles themselves.
Most of them are so vaguely worded that you end up simply trying things at random to progress.
I could maybe live with that.

What I can't live with is the complete lack of logic in the narrative flow.
TBW is by it's very structure linear in design, going from one mission to the next, presumably ending up in a season finale.
But there's no logic in how you get from one chapter to the next, nor is there any logic in the puzzle-structures themselves.

I guess my question is, how do you guys play this game when there are so many glaring faults in it?
Even if you are able to live with the vagueness of the puzzle-questions, and the rather esoteric nature of the puzzles themselves, how do you ignore the gaping holes in the narrative flow, and the complete lack of logic going from one mission to the other?

A few examples:
Mission 3 (which is the first 'real' mission you get send on).
If you own an antique-shop, why would you post an item description on PasteBin in the first place?
If you did so, why would you encrypt the URL?
And if you did that, why would you use two different ciphers, one for the URL and one for the item-suffix?
Even better, the document only leads you to who owned it at some point in the past.
There's no real logic in assuming the Golden Dawn are the culprits, aside from the fact that they're the only ones that pop up in the Wiki.
It could just as well have been a simple robbery, there's nothing in the files that point to any ulterior motives.

Mission 6.
Find evidence that the Rosenberg Clinic has started human experimentation......
Okay. Except there isn't any.
The big clue is that one of the newly hired docs worked as an assistant 30 years ago at a prison where human experimentation took place.
30 years ago......
Explain the narrative logic that takes you from Holmesburg Prison to the Rosenberg Clinic, please.
Let's not forget that in those 30 years, he also worked at Oxford university, University of Kent and the Bethlem Royal Hospital.
Are you suggesting we should investigate those as well, since obviously they too are conducting human experiments?
They must be, they hired Dr. Nathaniel as well, so QED.


Mission 7:
Part 1.
One of your co-workers hand over a vital clue, but he decides to be 'funny' and encrypt it?
Really?
An all-powerful clandestine agency, and the agents decide to withhold vital information as a joke?
Exactly how long do you think it'll take for me to get hold of a supervisor, and get the agent in question fired and/or killed?
And don't even get me started on the vagueness of the clues in that particular puzzle.

Part 2.
We need to place bugs on three different floors in order to get a tap?
What, we don't know which office he uses?
Here's a tip; tap the f*cking phoneline instead of bugging the office.
That way you'd actually get both sides of the conversation as well.

And if the counter-argument is "Ah, but who says he's using the office-phone? It could be a cell-phone!"
Yes, it could. But in that case, why are we bugging the office in the first place?
Presumably he could be using his cell-phone outside the office as well.

And as for that conversation, and the clue it gives you......
Yep, we're back to trying things at random to progress.
The sound-file does give you the answer, unfortunately it also mentions 2 other possible answers, with no clue as to which is the correct one.

Part 3.
Ah yes, the E-mail.....
Let's leave aside for the moment that the encryption used is ridiculous.
There are far easier, and less time-consuming methods to encrypt something especially considering that he's presumably encrypting it at the office.
Not to mention that it seems something of an overkill to go to such great lengths to encrypt one word.
But even better, let's assume that you find it necessary to jump through all those hoops in order to keep secrecy.
Then it kinda defies the purpose to answer in plain text, doesn't it?
Especially since the answer has absolutely no connection to the original E-mail.

Mission 8.
Who-pee, more sports-clues. And more flaws.
Every sports-better I know play the odds. They figure out which game gives them the highest pay-out while still having a decent chance of winning.
Simple cost-benefit analysis.
NONE of the people I know would dream of betting on their favourite team, unless they stood to gain from it.
There's a hell of a difference between being a fan of a team, and trying to make money on bets.
And again, just because she bets on them there's no real reason to assume the Mavericks are her favourite team.
There's no logical deduction, it's just what you're left with after exhausting the possibilities.

Mission 9.
(And this is where I deleted the game for good)
Okay, mission 8 gave us a complete run-down on a highly classified human experiment.
And now all we have to go on is a browser-history?
We have access to the intra-net, and you're telling me that there are no more documents, no E-mails, nothing except that very incriminating document?
That doc has got to be the most specific litter-bug that I've ever seen.

But okay, I'll play along.
But we're back to the same problem, there's no narrative flow.
Punching in the list of companies in the browser-history does give you the next link in the chain.
But there's no logic to it.
There is absolutely no reason for the player to connect Superterram to the Rosenberg Clinic.
One does neurological research, the other is a body-farm.
One is in Montreal, the other in Texas.
The only thing that connects them is that Superterram is the only one that has a facebook page.
That's not deduction, that's just mechnical grinding, punching in company-names in Google to see what might be a clue.

And finally, you can't progress any further without a Facebook account.
I can't find the words to describe just how wrong that is.
Every game comes with a list of minimum requirements. CPU, HDD space, GPU, and so on.
If a Facebook account is a pre-requisite for playing the game, it should be so stated.
Un-equivocally, and with absolutely no possibility of misunderstanding.
Personally, I wouldn't have touched the game had I known this.
And just to head off some of the counter-arguments I've seen on the TBW forums:

"Half the world is on FB, it's a valid line of investigation"
Yeeeess......And a third of the world are Christians. Are you suggesting a future mission that you can only complete if you're baptized?

"Just make a FB account under a pseudonym"
That's a possibility. Except it's a waste of space and bandwidth, not to mention that mis-representing yourself on FB is a violation of their ToS, and technically illegal.
Surely you're not suggesting that I should break the law to play a game I paid for?

"Some of your fellow agents have FB accounts. Surely someone can investigate the site for you"
Really?
Tell you what, let's make a few episodes written entirely in Aramaic and Sanskrit.
Yes, I know you're not likely to be able to read those languages, and that there are no online translators for them.
Just get another agent to read them out to you, that's the ticket.

For once in my life I'm at a complete loss with regards to the design.
If you make a linear story-line, there has to be some logic behind the progression, otherwise it's just a bundle of puzzles with nothing connecting them.
And this one is just so ham-handed it defies description.

[ringod123]

I remember making a post like this on the Black Watchmen forums (using spoiler tags where necessary etc), although it was worded more like a review of the first 12 or so missions, only for one of the Devs to instantly delete it and claim they didnt want spoilers like that on their forums, even though i'd adhered to all the same rules that others had and still do.
Was then told in the same message from the dev to just go and get a refund and stop playing the game.

[dorohn]

I can read Sanskrit.

[Macka2626]

Lol. All that pretentious ranting and only 2 replies. It's made my trawl through the forum worth it.

[CheerfullyInsane]

So.....
You trawled through the forum to respond to a post you don't agree with, which is almost a year old?
Dude, you need a hobby.

[Cronkllr {CnX}]

Ok. I am a new officer here. I will give you a run down on all these issues you had (OP)
I know its a bit late now, but I want to clarify these questions and statements about the game so that new people can see answers.

I will update (edit ) my post here as soon as I have added all the information . thanks. its midnight exactly here . so going outside to celebrate for a bit .

[The A.W.G.]

Also not understanding why "Holmesburg Prison" is the corret answer for part 1 in mission 6. I honestly can't find the connection between that prison and human experiments. Dr. Nethaniel worked at the Holmesburg Prison - in Philadelphia - between 1971 and 1972.
In the previous case, we got a list of all places where human experiments were conducted. Philadelphia was not in there. Only place with human experiments in those years was USSR.
So... how was I supposed to link the experiments to the prison?
Thanks to anyone who will five me an answer.

[Zaelong]

the link between holmesburg prison and human experimenting is fairly obvious if you check the background of the holmesburg prison; the short version can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holmesburg_Prison

sometimes you have to delve deeper for new information, than documents youve been given earlier

[The A.W.G.]

Originally posted by Zaelong:

sometimes you have to delve deeper for new information, than documents youve been given earlier

Thanks for your reply . So I must treat every new case as a standalone puzzle, where everything that happened before don't matter anymore? I am a new player and was considering all the cases as one story.
Because yes, reading the wiki page for the prison, the link is now obvious.
But why wasn't the prison included in the list from the previous case then?

[LogThatData]

not every test on humans is a radiation test ;) which is what you got the list of,
and to answer your question, you'll always get all the files the game wants to give you for that mission during that mission. If the game doesn't give you a file from a previous mission, it's not relevant

[Zaelong]

its not that previous missions dont matter anymore, sometimes older missions come back to haunt you later.
and from an in-game perspective; you are assigned to a trouble shooting bureau where you get the most relevant details for a case.
this means that sometimes intel is left out because its deemed "non-relevant" by an officer.
and yes, the missions might appear separate from eachother, but if you read carefully between the lines, you might be able to find the underlying story thats being told.

its not as obvious in season 1, but in season 2 this story is more visible and i cant wait till the third season shows its colors

[LogThatData]

Zaelong summarized it pretty well

[The A.W.G.]

Ok guys thanks for the replies! Very useful! Have a good time

[CheerfullyInsane]

All of the above aside, it still doesn't explain the possible link between Holmesburg Prison and the Rosenberg Clinic.
How could the fact that a doctor at Rosenberg happened to work as an intern 30 years earlier at Holmesburg Prison possibly be seen as proof that the Rosenberg clinic is conducting human experimentation?
The wiki does point to Holmesbrug as a place where human experimentation took place, but you still need to link it to the Rosenberg Clinic.
Even assuming that the doc was actually a part of the experimentation at Holmesburg (of which there is no proof), it's still the only common denominator.
And if you accept that as being 'proof', that must logically also mean that everywhere else said doctor worked, was involved in human experimentation.

I'm all for the suspension of disbelief in story-telling, but that link is so thin as to be non-existant in the first place.
If you build a game on logical deduction, there should be some actual logic to the deduction.

[Buttcheek Dave]

The idea is that you're looking for a link between one of the doctors and human experimentation, in general. The agency already has cause to believe that this is happening at Rosenberg, but they're looking to figure out which doctor specifically has that link.

[Cronkllr {CnX}]

This is the logic.

You read the background reports on all the doctors.

You noticed that one of the doctors has a connection to an internship under Dr. Kligman Holmesburg Prison in the late 1960s.

This prison allowed Dow Chemical to test various things on inmates

.
So with this in mind there was logic behind it all.