Fable II Post-Mortem Comments by Christian Donlan

To be fair, if anyone can pull off the creation of a new genre, it's Peter Molyneux. Here's hoping!

I totally agree with JStar. And as well as the narrative infelicities, the seriously sub-par Python 'humour', the fact that villagers would schizophrenically switch from acclaiming me as a great hero to berating me as an evil killer in alternate sentences, the glitchy graphics, the fucking game crashed after several hours and, thanks to the single save slot, is now lost forever. But JStar's main point stands - the industry should be doing far better when it comes to creating story and narrative. I've played through an endless chain of fantastic looking worlds - from Oblivion to Resi 4 to Dead Space -and even the best of them are inhabited by characters who seem to be born out of the minds of particularly dull teenage boys.

@PlugMonkey

"No, I'm all ears. :D Give me half a chance."

I realised that after and deleted, but TOO SLOW :)

"OK, so it's not 'broken'. Can I get away with 'contrived and subsequently confusing'? ;)"

Yes :D

Its not really a choice though, you'd have to be crazy not to revive your dog. I'm yet to see a single comment from someone saying they're glad they didn't revive their dog. The vast majority are extremely pissed off that they didn't.

I enjoyed the game a lot while it lasted, but it took a weekend to do absolutely everything there was to do in the game. It wasn't a full game. And kreya (sorry theresa - anyone else played star wars kotor 2) is quite blatantly the last boss (pretty sure its even the same voice actor for both). C'mon they didn't even bother putting the last damn boss in the game. Then there's all the other heroes saying they'll see you later. How many of these DLC are they going to have and how much are we going to have to pay to finish the game.

Grayvern - no, I think he's right about the controller. Just look at what the Wii has achieved with the wiimote- people play games on the Wii who would never have played a game before, because all they need to do is move their arm and not press a button to do something.

Kaya08 - Nope, its not the same voice actress- not unless Kreya was voiced by Zoe Wannamaker, anyway, and Im pretty sure she was voiced by Sara Kestelman. IMDB agrees ;)

While I love the dog in Fable 2, one of Mr Molyneux's biggest goals in the game so he says, was to have the player feel loved. Unfortunately, for everything Fable 2 did right, it did one thing incredibly wrong: it made it far too easy for the people of Albion to fall in love with your character - and that cheapened the whole "being loved" experience to the numbing.basic mechanic of using emotes and gestures etc.and made the actual experience of being loved feel worthless.

It's a shame, because I really wanted to love the game, but it feels like a missed opportunity, and it didn't get a look in once Fallout 3 arrived.

@kaya08

"Its not really a choice though, you'd have to be crazy not to revive your dog. I'm yet to see a single comment from someone saying they're glad they didn't revive their dog. The vast majority are extremely pissed off that they didn't."

Hang on a minute. You seem to confusing lack of choice with lack of ability to make a decision.

If a legion gamers decide not to revive the dog and then later regret it, that doesn't make it any less of a choice. That just means a legion of gamers have problems dealing with the consequences of their actions.

I really honestly find this quite weird. Its like PM has created a giant social experiment, and the results are disturbing. Mass hysteria is somehow causing people to call foul play of a game that gave them a choice, because they themselves eagerly made the choice but later regretted their decision.

Are people actually trying to suggest that ANYONE in the entire world holds a greater responsibility for the choice they made than they themselves do?

I think this says more far more about the vast majority* than it does about Fable 2.



* of course, its not the "vast majority" as you put it, but the angry vocal minority, as always.

I liked Fable II, I think it did a lot right. Interestingly, it is the one game that has got attention from all my non-gaming housemates. Be it for bigamy or for shitting oneself, it has got a positive reception from people who normally don't care or who irritatingly consider games to be for degenerates.

What it got wrong, in my view, were the usual foibles of games, as mentioned in part by Pinkpanzer - the disparity of reaction (at TIMES), and JStar's narrative points. I don't think they're game breaking but it'd be even better with some more detail there. The other side of the coin is that I prefer a more open RPG exploration, and Fable II doesn't offer that kind of game for me. It doesn't make it bad, it skews my taste to its aims slightly, and so felt a little dischordant. But still, a cracking and *gorgeously realised* bit of fun.

Decent game. But one of the biggest disappointments I've ever encountered.

I was hoping for, even expecting, so much more. I can't even see any evidence of what Peter was trying to achieve - the story is weak, the character interactions are embarrassingly simple and ultimately tiresome and annoying, the combat was mediocre at best, and the whole thing presented no challenge whatsoever. And let's not even get into the multiplayer. I'm sure Peter's still proud of the end product, which is fair enough, but I do think that some of the things he "pushed for" (i.e. the breadcrumb trail) should have been left on the drawing board.

Yes, it was charming, and I did have fun early on. But I was just amazed at how quickly that fun turned into boredom and frustration. By the end it just felt like a chore, and I went and traded it in after a week. Come on Peter, let's get back to making good games. We still love you for Dungeon Keeper.

@ PlugMonkey.

It’s not broken, on one of my games I sacrificed the mutt, and I have been able to complete the archaeologist quest line. Merely have that as your active quest, read the note, decipher where it is you’re supposed to go, when you arrive in said location a breadcrumb trail appears leading you to a ringed area where you dig. Hey Presto.

The only thing you’re missing out on with the dog is other buried treasure, like a silver key in my game, but then that’s why they put in 51 in total…

Rubbish its not a choice. If I offered you 10p, £10 or £10,000 which would you take? They should just take the dog out of the equation. A Choice between 10,000 morons who offer nothing other than an obstacle to getting from poiint a to b. Your family (wife, children) or a million (incredibly easy to get). That would be a choice.

Surely the entire point of that Shadow Court thing was that it was a choice based on your attitude to people and life in general, as best represented by the choice you make regarding a complete stranger.

I hate how everything has to tie up in most movies/tv shows/books etc. Yes, foreshadowing can benice, and so can a good twist, but having "strangers" exist can also be a good thing.

Plus the ending was great. The "boss battle" was getting to that point, surely.

I saved my dog. Fuck everyone else. :)

For the record Pete, Lost and Dexter didn't "save" television (they are in fact a repackaged continuation of the TV narrative norms that preceded them). If you want to point the finger at what changed peoples' perception of television, look to HBO...

Actually Lost was a programmes that allowed the major US networks, and as such the world, to have a series that had an overlying story arc that demanded the viewer watch each episode, rather than serialised episodics. So it did change modern American television, Dexter less so.

Oh and Kaya08, where there is anything that gives you anything than more than one option, what you take is a choice.

Ok its a choice, just a completely pointless choice with one option that isn't going to ruin your continued enjoyment of the game.

@kaya08

"Rubbish its not a choice. If I offered you 10p, £10 or £10,000 which would you take?"

I can't believe I am reading this. Go right now to the nearest well stocked bookshelf, take out a dictionary and look up the word "choice". Do it.

Failing that, go here...
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/c...

It is exactly this kind of bonkers mentality that has resulted in however many people saying the game is broken/badly designed/whatever. The profound belief that "a choice I don't like" is the same as "not a choice".

@Dizzy. Wrong. This is all done with dialogue. It has nothing to do with game code. Fable 2 is set up so you can't even get to some areas until you have reached a certian stage in the story. Subverting one of the earlier quests in the manner I suggest has no bearing on game design. It is all in the writing. If I had access to the game code I could make this change. And it is no harder to swap out one model for another. You have to make the model and animate it in the frist place. Its actually LESS work to use a character you have already modelled.

Fable 2 isn't oblivion. They do not have to worry about quest order in the same way at all.

I've just stopped from a marathon Fable 2 session (over 6 hours) and for me it's definitely game of the year, much to my own surprise. I didn't really bother with Fable at all, I think after reading all the development diaries in Edge magazine at the time I became burnt out with the hype.

I usually find Molyneux unbearable to listen to, but that was a good interview (no sound after all), and I agree with a lot of what he says.

It only ruins the game if you actually cared about the dog, the rest of it is immaterial as you don’t actually need him for anything. If people feel like it ruined the game for them then all that means is that Lionhead succeeded in making people really care about the dog, perhaps a bit more than they realised!

@kaya08

Hehe, you beat me to the punch :)

Here is a question. I chose to save the many, left my dog RIP, and I am still enjoying the game. How do you explain that?


Regardless, I am sticking firmly to my guns on this one. If a player is presented with a clear choice, the full implications of which are precisely communicated (i.e. "your dog will stay dead", which was utterly clear to everybody with half a brain), and after making their choice they decide they are unhappy with their own decision, NOBODY is to blame but themselves.

Seems to me that Fable 2 has simply taught a few gamers an important message about life, a message that perhaps they were not emotionally mature enough to really cope with.

There is this tool we could have integrated, which would have collected thousands of stats on everybody. But it also generated thousands of bugs, and we had to drop it. What a great shame.

But they didn't remove all the other stuff that caused the game to be very buggy.

In fairness I think it's good that PM is showing a bit of regret that the game didn't live up to his ridiculous claims for it. However I was very disappointed with the game. I found the social aspects of the game very tedious and not worth the payoff (particularly getting married), the story was far too short and ended poorly with the abrupt choice.

Personally I couldn't care less about thousands of characters I'd never even met, and the money choice was equally as pointless considering I already made a small fortune on rent every few seconds. Saving the dog was clearly the only choice to make because he was pretty much the only good thing about the game.

@ kangarootoo

Whatever about broken, I don't see how a 'choice' of 3 options 2 of which ruin the game isn't badly designed.

"If people feel like it ruined the game for them then all that means is that Lionhead succeeded in making people really care about the dog, perhaps a bit more than they realised!"

+1

@kaya08

I don't consider the loss of the dog as something that ruins the game. If you do, perhaps Petulant_Radish's recent comment holds true.

And I say again, you knew in advance what losing the dog would mean. EVERYTHING that the dog gave you was quite clear at the point at which you chose to lose it. So HOW can you blame regretting the decision on anyone else?

@ kangarootoo
Yeah sorry slow internet connection. I kept my dog. Its just seems quite obvious that losing the dog ruined many peoples enjoyment of the game.

And as for people making the decision to lose the dog. My intital reaction was, 'that must be some mistake they can't seriously take the dog off you, unless you can get another one' - nearly ended up taking the money, my character was evil so that decision would've been more in character. It just seemed like a bizarre option to me

I understand that a lot of people were upset at the eventual result, but I also think people need to see that they can't blame anyone else, and that sometimes you just have to live with the consequences of your actions.

:)

Fair enough but the consequences of their actions are that they stopped playing the game or traded it in. I'd imagine its not exactly the kind of reaction you'd want to inspire.

Talk about missing the point. Losing the dog was the only good thing in the whole game. All the talk before it came out was that there would be lots of this.

It is frankly hilarious and more than a little depressing people are complaning that once given the choice it ruined things for them. That's the whole point. Make a choice. Live with it. You can't go back and reload.

The reason I was so disappointed with everything else is that it was so empty compared to this last decision. I could actually go on forever but there is no real point.

So PM, if you're reading. When you come to make Fable 3 use the obviously hugely talented game designers you have on your team to do what they do best. Then go to someone who knows all about story and narrative to do the rest. I bet this person would never ever assume that they could actually build a game, you should have the same self awareness. But together... now that would be good.

I chose the money, i regret it a bit but as kagarootoo has been saying all the options AND their consequences were made extremely clear.

You may feel like it was a no brainer but i bet many other people like me had nowhere near a million by the end of the game and chose the quick fix over the utility of the dog. The very fact that you're on here arguing it means it was a very big decision to you, so big that you've even stated you couldn't beleive they could be serious about removing it.

@Petulant_Radish

"Actually Lost was a programmes that allowed the major US networks, and as such the world, to have a series that had an overlying story arc that demanded the viewer watch each episode, rather than serialised episodics. So it did change modern American television, Dexter less so."

Let's not forget about Twin Peaks, The Wire, Band of Brothers and 24, among others. There's nothing *really* revolutionary about Lost but it sure is popular.

@kaya08

"Fair enough but the consequences of their actions are that they stopped playing the game or traded it in. I'd imagine its not exactly the kind of reaction you'd want to inspire."

This is true, so maybe I am torn on the matter. The businessman in me doesn't want my customer to be disappointed in my product in principle, but then the... errr... well, just me... doesn't want to just pander to every mental failing (harsh way to out it, but there you go) of every gamer out there.

Perhaps Lionhead could have presented it all a little better (massive letters saying "are you sure you won't regret this, in like a week, when you realise can't dig up treasure anymore, even though it was obvious?" perhaps ;) ), but the spirit of what they were doing was great in my opinion. I think the fact that some gamers got so upset about their OWN decision, so upset that they just felt they had to have someone else to blame, makes the game quite unique in its own way.

@shamblemonkee

Man, was it only 1mil? I thought it would be about 5 times that.

Here is a cash related trick that might cheer some people up.
Play the game and buy a decent amount of property, so you have a reasonable income totting up under normal play. Unplug your network cable so your 360 can't sign into Live (this stops it correcting its clock). Then enter system settings and set the date to 2009 leaving the day and month where they are. The fire up the game again and load your save, and wait about 30 seconds. The game thinks you have been away for a year and gives you a big sack of dosh (for me it is usually around 650k). Then plug your network cable back in and sign into Live (this will automatically correct the system clock for you). Then GO SHOPPING! :)

My main problem with it was neither of the other options was of comparable value to having a dog. Like if the evil option was to get a godly sword and the good option was to get a healing spell or something, sure that would be a worthwhile option.

Another game gone down the casual wiitard shitter as far as im concerned, the combat was pathetic.. the trail of breadcrumbs just had to be turned off... cannot stand that level od hand holding in a game.... no one wants real gamers money anymore! they are all after the wii tard waggle market who in turn only want waggle barbie party princess cooking babeez 6. Screw Molyneux He is an arse.

@Daymare

Firstly where did I say it revolutionised? I said change, and yes, revolution is change, but change is not revolution. And as I said, modern television, so TV from almost 18 years ago is not what I would consider modern, though Twin Peaks is indeed a good example of a series.

As for the Wire, critical success, never an actual success, especially over here. It was also on HBO, not a major US network. So the same stands for Band of Brothers.

As for 24, well now there you’ve got me! But I think what he was attempting to put across was that Lost was one of the main talking points so far this century, much bigger than 24.

@kaya08

That is a slightly different thing though. In your experience the decision was a clear cut one, which undermined the whole point of having to make a decision. But I let my dog stay dead and didn't really regret it that much (I missed the dog, but not enough to regret saving the people). And other people at the time agreed, and let their dog stay dead, but later regretted it immensely.

The fact that you, me and everyone else have such different opinions on the value of each choice is SURELY the entire point of it all. The examples you use about having a good sword and so on are fine options to have, but they are quite traditional and quite "gamey" choices. Right from the off PM said he wanted to make things a bit less expected and a bit more emotional, and I think he achieved that in this case.

Game of the year, imo. Also, I don't think there's a DLC date yet.

@sigmagoat

"Screw Molyneux He is an arse."

You cried when your dog died didn't you ;)

Much like I cried when I saw your disturbing lack of grammar, punctuation and spelling.




......unless this is a cunning "in character" post pretending to be a troll, in which case bravo.

@Kangarootoo

I actually did this by mistake, I always turn my console off at the wall when I am not using it, and normally have the internet up and running when I turn it on. So by this point I owned quite a lot of property, turned on the game without being logged into live so the clock had not updated from the factory default setting (2005), so when I logged into live it gave me about 5 million immediately. I was quite annoyed about that!

@Petulant_Radish

Is that you I saw selling Fable 2 money on eBay? ;)

A killer choice for me would have been if your sister was included in "the many". Not sure what I'd have picked then...







... I still think the dog :)

People actually do that? Mind you, nothing would surprise me as I’ve seen Halo Level 50 profiles for sale on eBay before, why the hell would you want to buy that?

I'm going to spoiler all of this actually, just in case. It concerns the origins of the Theresa character.

Was it just me that wondered whether Theresa was the sister character from Fable 1?

She was blinded at some point right? And had seer type powers? And didn't she at some point wear red and white?

I realise that she could optionally be killed at the end of Fable 1, but that sort of thing should never stop narrative in game sequels (just ask Deus Ex 2)

@Petulant_Radish

Yeah, I was looking for Fable 2 itself a few weeks back, and someone was selling 5mil Fable 2 gold, starting bid of 99p. Pity the nutters that buy it says I.

I didn't just wonder if that was her, I flat out assumed it from the get-go.

In fact, wasn't there a bit of "loading" text that basically confirmed it?

@ penhalion

I must work for LH because I was defending a game that I believe contracts a lot of unfair criticism? There are a million things to do in the game, yet 99% of the complaints are over one tiny and insignificant thing someone didn't like. It's ridiculous. And how exactly is the game "nothing like" what PM said it would be? A couple features may have been cut, but for the most part I don't think he said much that didn't make it into the game.

I'd also check your like to dislike ratio again because I think there are a fair amount who thoroughly enjoyed it. I've probably heard more "goty" noise about Fable II than any other game.

@ PlugMonkey

Sorry for jumping to conclusions, but your comment sounded a little whiney. The game's good enough to give it another run through, so do that and keep the dog! You won't regret it, I'm sure. :)

But I think what he was attempting to put across was that Lost was one of the main talking points so far this century, much bigger than 24.

If this is true then god help us all.

You have a good point there, not sure i agree with it though.
The money was worthless to me because the only thing I could get with it was property, and the only point to getting property is to make money, which i could only spend on property.But really I can't imagine anyone needing that much money the best weapons in the game cost 30,000 what would you do with the other 940,000.
I kind of despise the vast majority of the population of Albion just because of the constant high pitched screaming, or the constant stalking and blocking your way and the general lack of any character so the good option was again pretty unappealing.
It just didn't feel like the options we're ... equal. But thats just my opinion and i dont really know jack so who care, right =).
I actually voted for the game as GOTY (not first but it got in the list), so while i have no shortage of complaints about the game I enjoyed it. A lot. I have a bit of a love / hate feeling towards most of PM's games.