Fable 3

[toblix]

Watching the first dev diary on Shacknews, and I just had to get up from the floor. I have just fallen out of my chair, hearing Perer Molyneux describe a totally new feature he has never seen before. This is amazing people. This is the paradigm shift that will will do for books what the Gutenberg Bible did for the Lumière brothers:

Your weapon will change -- visually -- as you play the game. If you're good, it will glow with a good glow. But that's not even all! If you're evil:

1. The weapon will become evil-looking and glow with an evil light
   

In Mr. Molyneux' own words:

~-----~

"As you kill innocent

victims, so you will see the sword glow and drip with blood all the time

."

- Peter Molyneux, 2010

~-----~

edit: Just watched a bit more, and it's confirmed: Fable 3 will have a snappy storyline.

[SoulChicken]

Holy shit. No fucking way. Video games just evolved ladies and gentlemen.

edit: Oh wow, in a way this is more entertaining/depressing than when I first saw the Subject Zero trailer. It seems Peter's solution to his past problems is to talk about really mundane ideas but in the same over dramatic tone of voice.

Edited February 12, 2010 by SoulChicken

[Lu]

I believe you left out the most important, most revolutionary feature: You'll be able to touch your digital girlfriend.

Dynamic hand holding system is in, guys! Woohoo!

[JonCole]

I think the funniest thing about Peter Molyneux is that he tries to hype up every one of his games at their ultimate expense. I honestly think that both Fable and Fable 2 were totally entertaining and satisfying, but if I paid attention to Molyneux before the fact my hopes would have been crushed.

[syntheticgerbil]

I believe you left out the most important, most revolutionary feature: You'll be able to touch your digital girlfriend.

Dynamic hand holding system is in, guys! Woohoo!

Will her tits and ass get more luscious as you slay more innocents? Only bad dudes have good sex, what better way to show it than through some ham-fisted moral choices?

[Murdoc]

Agreed Jon.

Things I noticed;

I like their design sense they keep going with since fable 2

I like the new lighting design/system, looks really nice.

I hate the characters faces... I thought they were finally getting somewhere in fable 2.

Wings? Gay.

Weapon evolution? Wait a second... this is the same thing he said for Fable 1 only this time its a visual change, not just naming it and some stat bonuses.

[Shenanigans]

I start to get excited.. then i remember its molyneux.

I guess this abusive relationship will continue once again.

[ThunderPeel2001]

THIS IS IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!!!!!

Instead of creating a world with causality that would actually allow you to play however you pleased, he's turned the WHOLE GAMING WORLD ON ITS HEAD with GLOWING WEAPONS. It seems so obvious, but it took a genius like Molyneux to think of it. I know I'll be telling my grand kids about this moment... the moment I read about the second age of gaming.

The game itself will most likely cause thousands of people's heads to explode with sheer excitement (I hope Molyneux has got a good lawyer!).

Seriously folks. I do like Molyneux, and Fable, too, and I suspect that Fable III will actually be rather good, but this isn't evolving the game's strengths... also it sounds pretty silly.

[Murdoc]

Seriously folks. I do like Molyneux, and Fable, too, and I suspect that Fable III will actually be rather good, but this isn't evolving the game's strengths... also it sounds pretty silly.

Yeah, 100% with you on this. I mean its early information, they didn't really get into what the big draw is, which sounds like the a better end game to Fable 2, and thats just running the country. I really liked how the environment changed based on your decisions in the sequel, its just too bad they did it like three times.

So basically giving me a game that has nothing but that going on and expanding the family stuff would be fine by me. As silly as it sounds, I really liked the idea of this legendary hero having a kid and the relationships that could be there and problems that would cause.

[Roderick]

Didn't Molyneux announce his speech to be making a lot of people 'angry'? I was expecting Fable 3 to break through some established gaming paradigm. Now it's clear the anger is at how he suckered us all into believing something worthwhile was coming, again.

In a way, this is totally admirable.

[Lu]

Oh, this is what people were supposed to hate:

So, what about those things Molyneux had tweeted would "seriously piss off" fans? It involves "simplification," he says. Health bars, for example, are gone, replaced by a FPS-like desaturation of color. The biggest change, however, is the removal of experience orbs. Molyneux likened leveling up in Fable 2 to using Windows 7 (go corporate synergy!). In place of the orbs, Fable 3 will rely on "followers" -- do good and get more, do poorly they'll leave. They're what will determine the overall greatness of your character.

It's annoying. I like Fable and I like Molyneux, but that man's propensity for hyperbole... Jesus. He just oversells almost anything he talks about. Worst of all is that he can't seem to help himself.

[Murdoc]

Another video talking about "touch" how you can "reach out and touch people" so just a thought; can I molest people on the street?

In the same satisfaction I got from being a jerk in GTA4 by just plowing over people again and again. I'm wondering the situation of just groping people and what does this mean in a multiplayer context? Then there's the children, other people's and, OoOo, my own? Oh the possibilities...

Thank you Molyneux.

Also sort of reminds me of warcraft 2 when your units would plead to stop touching them.

[Nappi]

Another video talking about "touch" how you can "reach out and touch people" so just a thought; can I molest people on the street?

With Natal you can molest people in your living room.

[SoulChicken]

So Fable 3 is a babby game for babbies.

I'm no longer interested, as much as I enjoyed the art style and humor of Fable 2, the terribly short story really irked me. That said, I did enjoy getting married and then sacrificing my wife in the temple of shadows.

I bet I still play Fable 3 though. Shit.

[Murdoc]

I've got a baddddd feeling about this.

My favorite is "The RPG market is limited by core gamers" I guess? Bioware seems to be doing alright.

Like, ok, Fable is a pretty "casual" experience but I've still enjoyed them and I guess the direction will go further into the casual, but what's listed here is just spooky.

[toblix]

It seems to me they interpret that 60% of players didn't understand all the features to mean that players can't grasp many features, while the reality is that that many of the features in Fable 2 were not implemented very well. While I can't really name that many examples since I've forgotten most of the details (so I'm open to the idea that I may be wrong), I seem toremember that a simple thing like comparing shop items to current ones, equipping new stuff, etc. was implemented with the grace of an open source video converter preferences menu.

As for the RPG market being limited, I'm quite sure that's related to the console market, where I'm sure that's more right.

Also, depending on the interpretation, isn't the first bullet point contradicting the whole simplicity point? Or are they talking about making more, but simpler, games? Or more content but simpler systems?

[SoulChicken]

Depressing slide.

[Murdoc]

Also, depending on the interpretation, isn't the first bullet point contradicting the whole simplicity point? Or are they talking about making more, but simpler, games? Or more content but simpler systems?

I think the first bullet point is more about audiance? But maybe a bit about the game, like it can't stagnant, needs to keep things fresh to attract more people.

I agree about the features of fable 2, I can't recall specifics, but for a pretty simple game, I remember being frustrated by a lot of the implementation. I can imagine stuff like items, then ownership over things confused people... but this could have been do to the fact that it would punish you for opening up the menu, so most people may have just not wanted to do that so didn't bother trying to find the features.

Also, on the art side, I think they were really close to nailing something in fable 2, but Im seeing shots for fable 3 and we're going in a radically different direction with the characters and its heading into that generic poser 3d land rather then what they were doing before, which I thought was getting close to a really solid style.

[thl]

Having just finished Fable 2, I can attest to the frustrating nature of a lot of the systems they had in place there. Basically, doing anything more than once sucked ass. Entering redecorate mode for one house was kind of fun, but it's not even considerable to do it the dozen times you'd need to in order to dramatically effect the town's economy. Similarly, just raising or lowering your rent was a huge pain in having to go engage each property individually. And don't get me started on buying 5 potions at the store and wanting to drink them all right away. Why should that take me 3 minutes of repetitive menu navigation?

But on the flip side, there were a lot of systems that came off more tedious than entertaining. The jobs thing was kind of a neat idea but having it boil down to hitting the A button 800 times is not fun. The no-doubt complicated relationship system in place sounds neat until you realize all you need to do is buy a nice shirt and dance 3 times in front of a crowd and the whole world loves you.

It's an unbalanced mixture between oversimplification and way-too-much-effort. My guess is those >60% people were aware and semi-understood the features but chose not to bother with them because they weren't implemented or integrated particularly well.

In general, it was funny to me that Fable 2 was labeled as "open world." I guess every RPG ever is also open world then, right?

[elmuerte]

not much of a surprise, it's molineux after-all

[Garple]

So Fable 3 is a babby game for babbies.

My one-year-old son always seems intrigued by babby games, but so far, they've never made one for babies. I hope Fable III is a game over which we can male-bond.

Most babby games, in the past, have been too violent and complex. And I'm all "Microsoft, if you want Babby to be a mascot on the level of Super Mario, you have to make him more accessible to your entire user base.

[Roderick]

Oh yeah, I totally forgot about the ability to redecorate houses in Fable 2. I never did that, even once, because it seemed like the most massive chore ever. I agree with every above statement: interesting, complicated systems are very doable and manageable by everyone, provided they are intuitive and fun.

This slide reeks of a gross underestimation of the audience, which is a creative sin.

[Nachimir]

Depressing slide.

^ In just two words, a long term overview of the progression of many franchises.

When it comes to Molyneuxs output, I seem to have set an unconscious expectation of monumental shit sandwiches, meaning that whatever arrives is generally acceptable.

[Murdoc]

http://ve3d.ign.com/videos/play/68721/Xbox-360/Fable-III/Gameplay/GDC-2010-Demo-Part-1/Flash-Video

On the plus side the first thing he talks about is the shitty interface of Fable 2. Instead they go the other direction that I can see getting just as shitty.....

did he just say I can rub gold on my wang? god damn it molyneux...

World map: ok cool.

I just don't "get" Molyneux" the dude has some neat ideas, he does stuff no one else does, but then falls short going far enough or being really awesome because it seems like he has some of these good core ideas, half implements them and then goes off to put the rubbing gold on your wang feature in and some farting noises.

I really liked the half idea they stuck into Fable 2 about sacrfice to be a good hero and selfishness to be a bad hero, but then it was all over ridden by the other ridiculous features that negated it.

And again here we have a chance where you get to be king; which is kind of interesting because we have this superman kind of situation where your the hero, your obviously better then any of the drones in the world, so what do you do? Take that shit over and run it at your descretion. It's kind of that old saying of absolute power corrupts absolutely and it'd be nice if they explored those themes.

Instead we'll probably get animal sex and fart competitions.

[Wesley Thomas]

Has Peter M ever put himself in one of his own games? I'm thinking a future Fable with him as the protagonist would be great. You'd traverse the land attempting to convince people of your awesome power or something.