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Fable 2 Pub Games glitch was intentional News

News by Robert Purchese

16 September, 2008

Peter Molyneux has claimed that the Fable 2 Pub Games glitch, which allowed bets to be increased ten-fold by some timely button pressing, was absolutely intentional.

And those who cheated, Molyneux told IGN, will have a surprise waiting for them in Fable 2. The crafty old blighter.

The Fable 2 Pub Games are rubbish, but allow players to accrue gold that can be transferred into Fable 2 when the game launches on 24th October.

The glitch revolved around the Fortune's Tower card game where, by pressing the left bumper as bets were placed, gamblers could increase their stake by ten times the amount for free.

We're fairly confident anyone who forked out the ludicrous 800 MS Points (GBP 6.80 / EUR 9.60) for the Pub Games would have resorted to this. Funds, otherwise, were rather hard to come by, in a selection of games based almost entirely on chance.

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Comments: 1-50 of 68 in total | next 50 »

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Doctor_What
16/09/08 @ 15:12
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And he's always a trustworthy source of info ;)
redlander
16/09/08 @ 15:13
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pifff he had to say summert.
Skooch
16/09/08 @ 15:15
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Ridiculous.
illusiondance
16/09/08 @ 15:17
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if this is true its a pretty smart idea, presumably these people will be tagged as cheating rogues and pernicious brigands - or somesuch...
asphaltcowboy
16/09/08 @ 15:18
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If that's true... that is amazing! :D
Triggerhappytel
16/09/08 @ 15:18
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Bullshit; more like they've gone back and changed it so you get penalised if the game recognises that you cheated.
Jimbob89
16/09/08 @ 15:19
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If there are 'consequences' i have a feeling that maybe a group of bandits will try and hunt you down because you cheated in the games. Or maybe you're threatend to cough up the money by a mob boss or something?
the_dudefather
16/09/08 @ 15:21
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If this is true imagine how cool that would have been for lionhead when people discovered the 'glitch'

he shouldn't have spoiled the surprise for people ho cheated though, could have been loltacular
peteb
16/09/08 @ 15:22
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but didnt they release an update fixing it?
onezeonx
16/09/08 @ 15:23
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they messed up......so they add stuff to cheaters so it looks like it was set up

nobbers
Wickerman
16/09/08 @ 15:24
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This has the potential to be interesting depending on the nature of the 'punishment' levied once in game. I'm sure it'll just be something 'small' like a temporary title ('The Cheater' perhaps) or something, but if its something applied to a character out of the users hands I'm pretty sure it won't go down at all well. And given Pete's track record with stating things he wanted to do to characters (like turning your character bald and fat if you earned too much in the Pub Games) I wouldn't put it past him/them.

Still, all speculation and such until we actually see any end result to this, given the reliability of the source and all (by which I mean Molyneux, not EG).
squarejawhero
16/09/08 @ 15:26
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I'm pretty sure Molyneux's development team, after planning this whilst wringing their hands and giggling like little girls, are finding it very hard not to throttle the man right now. He's his own worst enemy.
Der_tolle_Emil
16/09/08 @ 15:30
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First of all I think that claiming it was intentional is bullshit. Second of all I find it even worse if they now brand players who used this because their QA team was not good enough to catch that bug. Had I bought that game I'm sure I would at least try this once just to see how it was done. There are probably a lot of people that tried this and it would be unfair to punish them in any way.

I still think that it is one of the most lame excuses ever to say that this was intentional. It's just a bit hard to believe that a developer deliberately fucks up a game just to brand cheaters in another game.
skillian
16/09/08 @ 15:33
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I don't know whether to believe it or not. And I guess we'll never know unless one of the developers blows the whistle.

If it is true, I think it's pretty clever and applaud him for the original idea, though it would seem he's kinda spoiled the surprise.
the_dudefather
16/09/08 @ 15:35
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@Der_tolle_Emil

Its your choice to use the glitch to your advantage, and I doubt the punishment is anything serious, most likely a mildly annoying nickname as people mentioned before
kangarootoo
16/09/08 @ 15:38
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Intentional my arse.

Let me guess.

The punishment in the game is that your character gets robbed of their illgotten gains by the famous highwayman Patchy McBugFix.
nickthegun
16/09/08 @ 15:41
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Yes. Im sure at this stage in development they care enough about what dicks on the internet say to retroactively make this a feature rather than a bug...

Jesus christ...
kangarootoo
16/09/08 @ 15:42
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Could easily have been a debug option that they forgot to remove.
TheBoyChris
16/09/08 @ 15:42
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"Cheaters to face in-game consequences."

Welcome to Fable 2. You lose. Bitch.
kinky_mong
16/09/08 @ 15:42
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Yeah I agree with the majority of you that it was most likely stuck in after the cheat had been discovered because of the (different) developers fuck up. And even if it is a big punishment given to the cheaters it will only effect them if they decide to merge the pub games character with the Fable 2 game.

And I read on CVG that the punishment is giving the player black teeth or something equally as superficial.
Lutz [mod]
16/09/08 @ 15:44
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There's also the problem of what if someone completely un-intentionally, and didn't notice, that they hit this "glitch", and is branded a cheater?
Quint2020
16/09/08 @ 15:50
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If this is true, hilarious.
Kannan7
16/09/08 @ 15:52
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Wow... now I kinda wish I had bought the pub games knowing I would have cheated. Will be fun to see what the consequences will be. Someone mentioned thugs hunting you down, now that would be cool. They could probably take away a lot of the money so you couldn't buy the whole of Albion.

RedSparrows
16/09/08 @ 15:52
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I hope this is true, is far more interesting than a mere glitch.

Fable 2 actually sounds pretty great, from what Edge said and stuff. Yay.
Wickerman
16/09/08 @ 15:53
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@Tiste - yes, probably for testing purposes. Leaving the very real possibility that someone forgot to remove it.

Of course, it could have been the best set up ever to play on the whole 'morality' angle he is constantly harping on about, but when he never seems to shut up its not a surprise that many view his words somewhat dubiously...
jonsaan
16/09/08 @ 15:56
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Why would he tell people this upfront? Talk about ruining the surprise. Unless he's trying to get more people to buy pub games of course......
paulf
16/09/08 @ 16:02
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they will probably get labelled 'the cheat' whereas everyone else who bought it will be called 'the ripped off' ...
MrChuckles
16/09/08 @ 16:02
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I 'think' that there will be a consequence for gambling in the game, much like everything else. Everyone who has gambled up to massive amount of cash, well, they are gonna get the consequence more than everyone else, and sitting a gambling table all day isn't going to exactly make you look great?

And, intentional? Nah...i doubt it...
Dizzy
16/09/08 @ 16:05
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"Bullshit; more like they've gone back and changed it so you get penalised if the game recognises that you cheated. "

Maybe, maybe not. We will never know. The result is the same. All part of being good and/or bad.

"No malice here, butI really think Fable2 is going to tank badly"

Currently in the USA it has massive pre-orders. I will easily do 2 million+ IMHO.
Edited 2 times, most recently on 16/09/08 @ 17:07
patchbox360
16/09/08 @ 16:11
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'The punishment in the game is that your character gets robbed of their illgotten gains by the famous highwayman Patchy McBugFix.'


highwayman Patchy McBugFix = haha excellent
MrED209
16/09/08 @ 16:15
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WAAAAH WAAAAAAAH LIONHEAD ARE BULLSHITTERS!

WAAAAAAAAAH WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH PETER MOLYNEUX IS FULL OF SHIT!

WAAAAAH WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH WY ARE THEY PENALISING US FOR EXPLOITING A BUG?

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Oh fucking grow up. Who cares if he's making it up after the fact - it's pretty funny either way. It's only a fucking game, and this company are at least reacting to the real world and doing something interesting with the bug. I for one commend them.
BTBAM
16/09/08 @ 16:15
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Annoying.

When I start a new game after I've completed the first one I hope to God it still isn't telling me I cheated. Also if I'm branded a cheat straight away for the whole game then bang goes any incentive to play it any other way because no matter what I do I'm still the guy who exploited the bug in the shitty mini-games.

What a load of shit.
kangarootoo
16/09/08 @ 16:18
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MrED209 loves PM and wants to kiss him on the mouth.

;)
MisterFalseName
16/09/08 @ 16:24
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I don't see why so many of you think he's lying, and that it would have been hard to pull off. Working in marketing myself, I can readily believe they'd put the bug in the game, then upload the video of themselves exploiting the hack for others to copy, thus revealing the players to give the surprise to.

Sounds like just the kind of thing that the man (like him or hate him) loves to do with his games. I'm impressed.
patchbox360
16/09/08 @ 16:25
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the intentional glitch haha, now thats funny stuff, all developers should use that one
BartonFink
16/09/08 @ 16:39
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Soo funny if it's true.
Bremenacht
16/09/08 @ 16:43
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Not having tried it, I hope it's all true and that the cheating scum are punished severely.
Graafke
16/09/08 @ 16:46
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My guess is that the system will only recognize you as a cheater when you merge your character. So if you don´t want to feel the wrath of Lionhead, you better start off clean ;)
Flabio
16/09/08 @ 16:48
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Fable2 has an ESRB of 'M' and a BBFC of '15' according to the respective websites.
shinki
16/09/08 @ 16:48
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I very much doubt Molyneaux is bullshitting, it's not the kind of bug that appears randomly. The only possibility is that it's a feature implemented for testing and they forgot to take it out but that would be a very amateur error, with Lionhead being such an established studio I'm pretty sure it was intentional.

Those worried about this messing their game up: if the consequences for the cheating actually affected your game significantly Lionhead would be under fire from most of their preorder fans, they don't want that.

Would've been better if they had waited until launch to reveal this though.
Cronan
16/09/08 @ 17:41
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If you cheated in the pub games you get a very very small penis in-game. Or a very large vagina. If you cheated "a lot", you get both.
Edited 1 times, most recently on 16/09/08 @ 18:43
Agent_Llama
16/09/08 @ 17:56
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I remember being quite miffed at doing the stealing trick in Link's Awakening and subsequently being branded THIEF!! by everyone for the rest of the game.
IkariW
16/09/08 @ 18:07
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Moly Poo: "How can we put a positive spin on this debug mistake...Hmmm...I know! We'll say it was intentional, then say they'll be a 'Surprise' in Fable 2 for them...then they buy it! Its a Win! Win!"

Sheeessshh....

Personally, I hope anyone who buys into this gets bummed by their in game dog.......

I finally figured out why Moly Poo releases very few games, its because he is hoping that anyone that was pi$$ed with his last effort will have forgotten how pi$$ed they were when they bought into his bull$hit the first time!

Unfortunately, it works! :(

I have the upmost respect for the talented people at Lionhead.....its just a shame they have to put up with his lordship, I think they would be a better off as a team if they didn't have to 'Retro-fit' his bul$hit into every game they make, as they are making it!!

I can only imagine the pure hell they have to endure every morning when he walks in the office with another 'Brain wave'..... after all, they are the real talent behind Lionhead.

Although, no doubt, I expect others opinions will vary....

Ik













makeamazing
16/09/08 @ 18:28
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Someone said "If you cheated in Pub games perhaps you will get robbed in game of all your money"...

to be honest anyone who paid that much money for the pub games download has already been robbed once ;) - jk
IkariW
16/09/08 @ 18:42
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"to be honest anyone who paid that much money for the pub games download has already been robbed once ;)" - jk

Too right....

Ik
smelly
16/09/08 @ 19:11
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>so they add stuff to cheaters so it looks like it was set up

Doubtful

The game is out in the shops next month. Therefor the final game would've had to have been finished completely at the very latest the end of july/early august (as it has to be submitted to microsoft months, duplication time, etc etc)

Unless the game is getting a release day patch to put this "feature" in.. it would've had to have been in months ago..

Zumbug
16/09/08 @ 19:52
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It's blatent bullshit to make players stop exploiting pub games so that the fable 2 currency isn't devalued any more than it already is.
seasidebaz
16/09/08 @ 20:41
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I reckon it will be a case of they couldn't patch the pubgames. So they've probably put a patch into the main game that says "if startingmoney > largeamounts then break" kind of thing.

Which will affect legit players as well.

Either that, or it will just be like an earlier poster said, and the player's starting fatness and baldness is directly proportional to the amount of money made in the pubgames. Thus cheaters = fat + balding.
TheMoonRat
16/09/08 @ 21:37
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Seasidebaz: they can't do that, because it is possible to legitimately get a very high amount of money. The only way to punish using the "cheat" would be that it really does check to see if you do it, and if you do, it logs it. And if that is the case, then it HAS to have been planned. If the "cheat" being used was never logged, there would be no way of punishment in game
smelly
16/09/08 @ 21:38
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As i said.. if it turns out the player truely IS punished in the full game.. Then it was intentional - as there's NO WAY they could change the game code now.. (unless it gets put back to next year)

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