Fable’s foibles

Earlier today I posted a story about Fable creator, Peter Moluneux and how bad he felt about the showing of his latest game, Fable: The Journey due to the poor reception it received. Turns out his feelings of woe don’t stop there as Gamasutra found out. Moluneux told them how ashamed he was at the ‘weak’ scores of Fable III and how it didn’t reach the five million units sales goal Lionhead Studios had predicted. And much like his reasons for Fable: The Journey, the third game suffer because of a short development cycle.

“The game came together very late. That is one of the things that we’re changing; that is just such an old school way of working. That being said, I still think it was a good game! I just don’t think it was a great game that took us to 5 million units. I know I probably should say it’s a great game just respective of whatever it was, but the Metacritic score was sort of low-’80s. I think I’m pretty ashamed of that, to be honest, and I take that on my own shoulders, not the team’s shoulders.”

It’s highly commendable for a veteran games designer like himself to take all the blame and plays into another discussion as to whether games should be accredited to an individual like movies do. Should the next full Fable game be called Peter Molyneux presents Fable IV? If he’s willing to burden the hate if it doesn’t live up to par, then maybe it should.

Back to the Gamasutra talk and Molyneux tried to add a little bit of positive spin saying “[Fable III] still sold millions and millions of units, and it’s probably going to net out, with the PC version, closer to the 5 million than perhaps you would think; but it’s not the dream. It didn’t end up being the game that I dreamed it would be, because I thought the mechanic of the ruling section were really good ideas. I thought they were good ideas, but we just didn’t have time to exploit those ideas fully.” It sadly didn’t end up being the game fans dreamt about either. I wanted to love Fable III, I really did and to begin with, I did. There are still some brilliant ideas and great moments but a few to many duff ones too. Like the latter half of the game where you’re the King or Queen which didn’t really do anything other than frustrate. Again, neat idea but awkward execution.

With a franchise like Fable and a company like Lionhead with it’s quirky style and humour, there’s certain expectations that come to mind when playing. Fart jokes for example. But Molyneux hates the idea gamers approach his games with preconceived ideas : “I hate the fact that people know what to expect from something like Lionhead,” he said. “‘We know what Fable‘s going to be; we know what’s coming next from Lionhead.’ I hate that idea. We should, again, double down on freshness and originality without sacrificing – because often originality can sacrifice quality – without sacrificing quality.”

I’m all for innovation but there is some value in keeping a certain formula. In the case of Fable, its stories, characters and utterly British sensibilities are what make it great and what I’ve come to expect from a studio like Lionhead and wouldn’t view this as a negative. Molyneux went on to reiterate how he and the team have learned a number of lessons from the criticisms of Fable III and that their working habits have changed accordingly. Hopefully not too much however. I wouldn’t want Fable IV being drastically different to III, just better.

Once again, Fable: The Journey isn’t on-rails dagnabbit!

I do feel sorry for Peter Molyneux. Being such a great speaker who calmly relays his aspirational thinking to anyone who will listen, he often talks at Microsoft press conference, regardless of venue. And with Fable being one of Microsoft’s big IPs, Molyneux usually discusses its future titles. But the reason I feel sorry for him is because I get the impression his thoughts aren’t quite at the stage where he should be in front of hundreds of people but still, there he is with a Fable product, dividing the audience on whether ‘it’ll work’.

The recent hotly discussed game was Fable: The Journey at E3, a game demoed on-stage looking a whole lot like it was on-rails. Earlier this month he cleared up any confusion saying for the record, Fable: The Journey ISN’T an on-rails experience and the navigational element was removed at the last minute. Why? According to OXM, Molyneux said “The reason it was on rails was because I told the team to take out navigation, because on stage I thought, right, I need to show off magic, how cool magic is.” Funny thing was, to me, this worked because I did indeed think the magic looked cool and how different hand movements cast different spells. Molyneux went on to say: “If Dimitri doing the demo had had to navigate from one position to another, one, it would have extended the demo to four minutes from two minutes, and two, it would be slightly confusing.”

Another reason for the arguably poor showing was how little time Lionhead Studios had to work on the demo: “This project really only started, well in earnest it started about seven months ago and we started coding about four months ago.” And not straightforward coding either, the team moved from the normal Fable tech to using the Unreal Engine. This generation really is becoming the age of Unreal isn’t it?

So for a lot of people, Fable: The Journey looked iffy at best but Molyneux promises that come Gamescom in August, Lionhead will be able to fulfil their ambition of making something we all want to play. And I can see sleepless nights ahead for the studio. By August, the game would have only had just over six months development time and no doubt there’s even more pressure to get it right after the Molyneux took the negative comments of E3 so personally. I think the press and gamers often forget just how young titles can be at big press shows. It’s rare that what you see in a game stays exactly the same when it’s finally released and being a supporter of in-game demos over flashy CG trailers, I’m glad Lionhead took the risk to show off Fable: The Journey at such a raw stage rather than a random piece of footage which leaves us with just as many questions.

Fable goes off the rails

The next game from the wilds of Albion was announced a week ago at Microsoft’s press conference when Peter Molyneux walked on stage with charm only he possess to show off Fable: The Journey for Kinect. In the days following, some media outlets weren’t all that impressed with what they saw, even though it very purposefully proved Kinect can track the motions of someone sitting, with poor Mr Molyneux slapping his own wrist in frustration.

The on-stage demo looked rather a lot like an on-rails experience with the camera guiding the player’s movements as he shot spells out of his hands. With the use of Kinect of course. I thought the idea was kind of cool and like the way different hand movements created different spells but a purely on-rails Fable game goes against the whole idea of what Lionhead have been creating with the series so far. Its about open worlds and exploration, not hand-holding.

So as you can imagine, Molyneux was quite annoyed with how Fable: The Journey was portrayed. Speaking with OXM (via MCV), he said “I made an horrendous mistake on the press demo on taking out the navigation allowing players to move. I’ll state on record now that Fable: The Journey is definitely not on rails.” In the past, the English gentleman has made a lot of promises that he nor Lionhead can keep but this one seems less like an unreachable goal and simply a neglect to mention 1:1 navigation. Does that make Fable: The Journey suddenly more interesting? To me, yeah, regardless of wavering quality, I’ve always enjoyed the Fable games. For everyone else though, I’d imagine they’d probably have to see a bit more about it first. After all, it’s one of the new breed of supposedly hardcore Kinect experiences and no one quite knows how they’ll be received.

Pre-owned vs piracy. Which is worse?

With the PC release of Fable III around the corner, developers Lionhead Studios’ Mark West told Eurogamer that to them, piracy is actually less damaging than the pre-owned market. Stealing games online is still an issue but he believes the honest players out there will go out and buy your game if they like it whereas pirates are decreasing the opportunity for future titles. “It’s just a depressing situation we’re in that people don’t think it’s worth spending money on computer games,” he said. “What they’re doing is making sure there are fewer games coming out in the future and more people out of work, which is a terrible thing. Unless you sit down and meet a pirate face to face and have a conversation about what it does, I don’t think anything will stop them.”

Lionhead views pirates as a bit of a lost cause because they’re unlikely to every buy their games but luckily, the studio has been able to cover the cost of development with the earlier Xbox 360 release. Everything after that is purely a bonus. “For us it’s probably a no-lose even with piracy as it is.” West claims. “But, as I say, second-hand sales cost us more in the long-run than piracy these days.” It’s an odd one to get your head around but when you think that someone who is willing to buy your product does so at a cheaper rate by purchasing a pre-owned game and therefore all profits go to the shop instead of developer, it’s no wonder studios are livid.

That being said and slightly ironic is West’s comments about future releases or the lack there of due to piracy and pressumably pre-owned games too. If there wasn’t such a high volume of games coming out, more people maybe inclined to buy a full price version instead of waiting for pre-owned copies because they’d actually have the cash to pay for it. When you have so many games coming out all the time, it’s really quite hard to justify every purchase. Publishers have tried to discourage second-hand sales with free online codes allowing access to freebies and content for early adopters, penalising anyone who re-buys a game by making them pay for said code. It’s not always popular but a move towards reclaiming the profits.

What’s harder to get across or even solve is how everything about games has increased tenfold except the price. They’ve always been around the £40 mark if not more even back in the days of the NES. However gamers have changed. The market has changed and what people expect for their money has dramatically changed. Never before has the debate over a direct relationship between a game’s length and cost been so pronounced and with 59p games being all the rage with pocket gamers, some people doubt the value in full-price titles. There’ll always be the avid fans who will buy a game brand new around its launch but even with all the pre-order incentives and online passes, the option to pay less for something almost as complete is just too good to ignore.

Is one second enough?

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After scooping a BAFTA for recognition of his contribution to video games, Peter Molyneux of Lionhead Studios released an ominous short and sweet teaser for the company’s next game. From the video, the game is called 1 Second Perfection (like an unfortunate nickname for a high schooler) or at least that’s its working title.

The video quotes famous Elite developer, David Braben who once said: “Why can we not make a game that will last days, not just hours?”. Now that we’re well and truly in that era of video games with some titles lasting numerous years, Peter Molyneux has asked a question of his own: “Can we create a game that lives forever but is only played for 1 second?”. I don’t know, can you? After both those quotes pop up, something that looks rather like a thrown-together robot with glowing green eyes turns to look at the viewer. “How would you play your 1 second” flashes on screen followed by the name and announcement of an open beta coming in Autumn this year.

In the past, Molyneux has been highly ambitious with his games, maybe too ambitious perhaps which resulted in his apology to the public for promising things in games that were never delivered upon. Is this just another one of his wild ideas, never quite working out the way he wants them too? I still believe the man’s a visionary and we’re lucky to have someone like him in the industry. The games – mainly his Fable series – may have over promised and under delivered but that didn’t stop them all being great games and didn’t stop our connection to their core ideas. How would I play my 1 second? I have no idea but am keen to find out what Lionhead are offering.

Milo was never a real boy

As the US today greets Microsoft’s attempt to lure over the casual audience, Kinect, Alex Kipman, who created the device, answers once and for all just what happened to Milo. Interestingly enough, Milo as a game or even a product never really existed in the first place. When Kinect was first revealed back in 2009, Lionhead’s Peter Molyneux debuted a piece of tech that had a virtual boy interact with a real human. Known as Milo, the tech was often dubbed as being a full game but according to Kipman, it was never something that Microsoft had ever suggested. Milo was nothing more than a sandbox and a tool for developers to hone their skills with the tech of Kinect. Kipman said: “[Milo] was never really a product, I will tell you that the technology developed in that sandbox, and by the way we continue to develop technologies in that sandbox, has migrated pretty closely to what you see in a game called Kinectimals.”

But confusion still lingers as too whether we’re getting the whole truth. Back in July, the developers behind Kinectimals, Frontier, denied the use of Milo in their virtual pet game saying: “Kinectimals has been in development since before we saw Milo. It is built using Frontier’s own technology shared with other Frontier games in development, and ideas evolved from earlier games like Dog’s Life. There has not been any involvement in the technology or design by Lionhead. Milo and Kate is a completely separate (and intriguing) development from Lionhead.”

See? Baffling isn’t it? The only thing that it is certain is that Milo as a game was never meant to be. Poor Milo.

{Thanks Videogamer}

Wiil you marry me in Fable III?

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Lionhead Studio’s regal adventure Fable III is now out in America and will shortly be arriving in Europe. As an act of kindness and celebratory goodness, two of the development team give a walkthrough on the features on co-op multiplayer such as how players can marry one another. Like a number of unprotected vagabonds, the two create life and now starts the bickering of who will look after the tyke while the other goes off slaying. It’ll all end in tears y’know. The video doesn’t show any bedroom gymnastics but is still as creepy as it is endearing. Is there anyone on your friends list that you’d like to rear a virtual baby with?

Fable III calls to action some free DLC

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With a mere week to wait for the release of Fable III, Lionhead Studios have a couple of treats for eager fans. First is the trailer above titled Call to Action showing some tantalising cut-scenes, spliced together with the developers telling you a little more about the evolving world of Ablion.

Then comes news of an online redeemable code sent with all new copies of the game to unlock three skins with a distinct Celtic flavour and two potions aiding your battles. Dress your hero in the Scot male or Scot female outfit, decorate your skin with the Highlander Tattoo Set and colour your furry friend in the Red Setter Dog Skin. The elixirs offer the ability to call upon the undead or slow down time which is always handy in a fight. Not bad eh? You can get inked and look dashing as soon as the Fable III come out on October 29th.

The combat of Fable III adds drama

Combat was one of the features of Fable II that I felt needed a bit of polishing despite Lionhead Studio’s championing of its accessibility. Senior design director Josh Atkins spoke with CVG about how they’re ramping up drama of fighting in Fable III: “We worked harder on staging our fights, our music and our overall combat experience to ensure the encounters all felt different and memorable – and in the end, more action-packed than before.” Bonus! Differing the experience would help rid any kind of monotony that this kind of action game is susceptible to.

Spell casting was another part of combat that has been rethought to allow for more dynamic play: “Much like every other section of the game, the spell casting system has had a complete overhaul,” he said. “From the moment the player receives their first spell, they are able to cast the maximum spell level, albeit very very slowly.” This time around, your level increases will effect the speed of your casting and not the strength of the spell. Adding to this is the new ability to merge spells together called Spellweaving: “For example, if the player chooses Vortex on one hand and Fireball on the other then they will cast a Fire Vortex which sucks people off the ground and sets them on fire, especially good against those annoying Hobbes!” Oh how I hated the Hobbes. Anything to end them quicker is a godsend.

And what of the morphing weapons announced back in February? They look to be the icing on a very violent combat cake: “Initially, all weapons look very standard, but as the hero powers up, the weapons morph to reflect the hero’s playing style,” Said Atkins. “Some weapons have predetermined paths and missions the player has to perform to give them amazing new abilities while others morph to reflect exactly what the hero has done in the game.” I’m very interested to see how weapons change from player to player and by how much too. Co-op play morphs the weapons even further with some only changing if you pass them on as gifts or do a good deed.

Fable III is only a couple of months away from release its on October 29th and Lionhead are definitely making sure it’s at the forefront of our minds with news like this. Maybe the predictions of five million units are an achievable goal after all.