Fable 4? What could Molyneux do?

[laggyteabag]

The problem that i had with Fable II + III is the fact that you CANT DIE.
Whats the challenge? There isnt one! Every time you "Die", you get a scar, thats it. I dont know about you but i have NEVER seen a "scar", that and im always wearing clothes. If i do bad in this game i want to be punished; restart to checkpoint maybe, not just get up and carry on like nothing happened.

In Fable 3 they got rid of the menu in favour of this room that you teleported to and had to run around to get what you wanted, not only did this take forever, it also got very irritating.

Also in Fable 3 you couldnt interact with people however you wanted to, there was always preset choices instead of what I wanted to do. If I met a guy, i want to talk to him or maybe make a joke, not flex!

Sadly however Fable at the moment seems to be going in the direction of the Kinect and that makes me sad, its a cheap rail shooter (even though he denies it)

Fable also seems to be governed by what Molyneux wants, not what the community wants (e.g "Journey doesnt have swords because I dont like swords")

 

[Jasper Jeffs]

Fable's world always feels small to me due to the way it's represented. It's sectioned off by loading screens and the places you can travel are narrow or otherwise uninteresting to explore. I'd like to see them open the map up and implement a fucking jump button. I like the engine it runs on, it has charm like Banjo-Kazooie: N&B and Super Mario Galaxy but very rarely am I impressed by what's presented. Fable 2 and 3 just feel so lackluster in comparison to other RPGs, a fucking JRPG has more exploration.

Molyneux has a lot of ideas but they never work. He needs to settle the fuck down, stop with the overrated gimmicks and make a fucking RPG.

 

[Flailing Escapist]

One thing I never understood in 3 was how silly a lot of the actions were. 6 minutes into the game the hero wipes a document a townsfolk wants him to sign on his butt. That and many other things really felt like they were written or wrote for preteen humor. But it's rated M! I don't get it.

In 3 (and a little bit in 2) it feels like he's trying to make his games open to everyone. But that really hurts the game itself.

Like a lot of other people Fable 1 is my hands down favorite and one of the few games from the last generation that I go back to every now and then.

Ironically I thought the most interesting part of Fable 2 was the little they mentioned of common folk systematically wiping out the heroes, burning down the guild, etc. I would love for them to take the next Fable game back there.

 

[Spacewolf]

they really need dialog choices so they dont need fart jokes, then they need to make it more indepth so basically they need to turn it into a faster paced version of jade empire

 

[KageUsagi]

I loved the first two games. I don't know why the second one got so much hate, it was just different from the first one. But i hate the third one because it limits where you can pool your experience points. In the first two I could put my xp points into anything I wanted to at anytime. But they took that out in the third one and limited your character customization. He should REALLY bring that back.

 

[Xprimentyl]

I'd just say:

"Peter, keep your damn mouth shut pre-release; you suck as a hype man. You promise the world then deliver a 3rd world country everytime. Let your game speak for itself."

 

[Arkley]

I completely agree with all the posts about picking a direction and going with it. I'm not one of those people who believes that a game can be ONE THING and ONE THING only - I welcomed RAGE's moderate focus on vehicles in addition to shooting, though RAGE isn't the best title to proffer as evidence that multi-focused titles can work.

But Fable needs to decide whether it wants to be a deep and intricate albeit lighthearted and funny RPG, or Zelda with a handful of RPG elements. I'd honestly be fine with either direction. I'm usually quick to criticise the Fable series - and rightly so - but even I can't deny that there are flashes of genuine brilliance in them. If Molyneux could just pick a sodding direction and go with it, it could become something really rather special.

Oh, and fix those fucking controls. Fable has some of the fucking stupidest controls on the entire goddamn planet. In fact, I'm going to rant about the controls now even though it isn't related to the topic.

Fable's horrendous controls are one of the industry's best examples of a game's flaw being compensated for by another flaw. It's a kind of vicious circle.

- The controls are shit! You can't make anything even resembling a precision attack or movement, there's no way to enact any carefully laid plans or tactics! The whole thing is a clusterfuck!

- But that's okay! The enemies are dumb as shit and are so ridiculous that you don't need any kind of plans or tactics or precision!

- Wait, what? The enemies are dumb as shit and there's nothing tactical about fighting them?

- Yeah, but it's okay! The controls are so fucking warped that you couldn't if you wanted to!

And end rant.

 

[stoddapb]

Don't have DRM on the PC version (if there is one) that makes the game near unplayable. I was so close to finding a pirated version, OF A GAME I PAID FOR, luckily I got it to work after about an hour.

 

[Paragon Fury]

HD remake of Fable 1?

 

[Danceofmasks]

Err ... how about not making it so ridiculously casual you can mash attack to win?

 

[Something Amyss]

Dear Peter Molyneux:

- don't promise things you can't deliver
- DON'T promise things you can't deliver
- really now, DON'T PROMISE THINGS YOU CAN'T DELIVER!

It's pretty much become a running gag with the guy.

Specificaly, don't promise things you OBVIOUSLY can't deliver.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

Make it work properly without dying on me ALL THE TIME.

 

[Something Amyss]

Err ... how about not making it so ridiculously casual you can mash attack to win?

Psssh. Mashing attack to win is for amateurs. Why do that when you can merely let the controller sit there? >.>

 

[Phoenix Arrow]

When I was at college, one of my lecturers had worked with him on some game or other, I don't remember. But apparently, he was a nightmare to work for. He was the worst kind of visionary. Like he'd some in one day saying "I had a idea we should add this to the game" which meant they had to rewrite months worth of code.
Probably less of that.

To be honest, my opinion on Fable is... there are certain series that reach a point where the name is bigger selling point than the game itself. There's only two reasons that people I know bought Fable 3. Because it's a Fable game and because of the misleading epic advert. They should forget about the series and make a new game from scratch. Force him to think a bit more about the game he's making.

 

[ThunderCavalier]

I haven't played Fable 3, nor have I finished Fable 2, but from what I can glean from it, 3 was the absolute worst of the series. So...

Lesse...

1) More open-world areas. Think Fable 2's maps, only larger.

2) Fable 1's combat. It wasn't perfect, but it was a lot better than whatever Fable 2 was supposed to be.

3) Difficulty. Either you reduce the health potions, you reduce the food, you reduce the damage we deal, or you increase the health and damage enemies deal. I died in Fable 1 once in that Hobbe Killing Contest, and that's just because I was having a bad day with those mage Hobbes and the explosive barrels.

4) A better story, or at the very least, something up to Fable 1's level of coherency. At least in Fable 1, I knew what the fuck was going on.

5) Boss battles are supposed to be difficult. WHY AREN'T THEY DIFFICULT?

6) Expression wheel from Fable 2. Also, it's a bad sign when that was one of the most enjoyable parts of the game.

7) FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, MOLYNEUX. STOP DROWNING US IN MONEY.

 

[MintberryCrunch]

Just a HD remake of Fable: The Lost Chapters, as he clearly can't do anything new right.

So very, very much this. Or at least get the developers and writers to ignore EVERYTHING Molyneux says.

There was so much interesting stuff that could've happened with Fable 2. From the end of TLC, you have what happened with Jack Of Blades/You (assuming you took the mask), All the stuff with Archon, there was so many places they could have taken 2 but they chose to try to go for a wider market, made the game way too casual, set it too far forward in time, assumed that Theresa was still alive (who the hell kept her alive by the way?!) and as if this weren't enough to fuck things up, put a fucking dog in for no explanable reason other than 'hurr hurr dogs are cute people like dogs put dog in game people will buy game' and a useless trail system which made the game pathetically easy.
(If you haven't figured it out yet, I don't like Fable 2).
Fable 3 didn't really have much to go off after the ending of Fable 2... Wait a minute, what WAS the ending of Fable 2..? Really? But that's terrible! Oh fine. It's evident that they did what they could but it just wasn't enough, it was better than the steaming heap of monkey bollocks that was Fable 2 but wasn't anything near Fable: The Lost Chapters, which still ranks as one of my favourite games of all time.
I really, really hope that if Fable 4 does come out (I haven't read much on Journey but it doesn't seem too promising), it's a return to the old style of Fable that I loved. The amazing humour, the gameplay, the writing, the lack of dogs.. It can't be that hard.

 

[Scow2]

I could see a lot they could do. First off - it's time to advance the setting. We've gone from 14th Century Medieval Fantasy, to 16th/17th century Clockpunk for Fable II, to Victorian Steampunk in Fable III.

Fable IV, setting wise, needs to embrace this trend, and set it in an analogue to the early 20th century - Automobiles, Biplanes, more ships, larger prevalence of guns.

Fable III introduced a new continent - We should be able to explore in Fable IV.

The new theme of the game should be High Adventure - Two-fisted Tales/Pulp fiction style."

Since the Fable series is trying to intuitively move away from menu-surfing... here's my idea:

The sanctuary should be removed entirely - the new "Character hub" to replace the menus will be a personal Heromobile - You even get a chauffeur in the style of your butler from Fable III. The car's trunk is your inventory - You also get an "Adventurer's pack" to hold 4-8 hotkeyed items accessible through the d-pad. You also get an artifact early on to allow you to change around your spells. The first Fable had the best magic system, aside from the mana bar - Hopefully they can revert to something like that, while keeping spells balanced with Time-to-cast instead of an arbitrary spell-point meter.

Over the course of the game, the car gets upgrades to allow access to new areas - Eventually, it's a car-plane-boat-submarine hybrid thing that can go anywhere your chauffeur is willing to take you.

The opening tutorial, you're "The Archeologist" (No, not the one from the first game) - a dashing young adventurer who's stumbled across the ruins of the old Heroes' Guild. Excavating the ruins, you get a trip down memory lane from the first games - seeing the exploits of previous heroes - and then disturbing a band of either Hollow Men or stumbling across Hobbes - You dispatch them with your starting Pickaxe and Pistol. In the end, you get a guild seal, which unlocks the power of the Will within you - And from there, the game kicks off, as you start to learn of a plot involving another Hero - Reaver - who's decided to go all eugenicidal, and you team up with a new Hero, Captain America (Who comes pretty much out of nowhere), and defeat Reaver, the last few quests killing him off permanently.

Sidequests would involve dinosaurs and Cthulhu clones.

That Captain America stuff is strictly optional.

Next, the game also has to be more black and white with their good and evil choices, I know that sounds retarded to some but what made being evil or good fun in fable 1was some of the hilarious things you could do as an evil character or the great righteous things you could do as a good guy. It was very black and white true, but it was more fun this way, and it showed in fable 1. Also, the armor and weapon stats need to come back. They got rid of armor stats since fable 2 and while it seemed like a good idea concept wise, it was not really done well in the exucution. Seriously I wear kick ass halo armor in fable 2 or wear great heavy armor in fable 3 but it doesn't protect me more then a freaking robe or formal dress? Might as well have my guy go naked.

I agree with the black-white thing: Moral Ambiguity doesn't belong in the Fable series. It just doesn't work. Either let us be a saint, a Cartoonishly over-the-top villain, or somewhere in between (Neutral being someone who inflicts as much good on the world as he does harm - not someone who just doesn't give a fuck about morality).

However, armor and weapon stats are better off gone - Clothing is all about character image. The game world is programmed to react to what you're wearing. Heroes have the strongest armor of all time: Plot Armor - not even common sense can penetrate it. John McClane wore a tank-top and jeans, not a kevlar vest.

1) More open-world areas. Think Fable 2's maps, only larger.

If they do this, they ALSO need to bring back the compass and readable maps. Those two objects being icons of the era I hope they set the game in, that shouldn't be too hard. In Fable III, I couldn't find my way around ANYWHERE, because I had no clue what direction I was facing.

 

[ZombieMonkey7]

How about completely scrap fable 4 and come out with something new. Fable 2 and 3 were exactly the same game and I doubt they would actually change anything. The Fable francise is dead and the only thing that would change that is a new developer.

 

[TheCruxis]

Since Fable 2 kind of sucked I didn't have huge expectations on Fable 3 but it managed to get me dissapointed anyway. Still, it had more of Reaver than it's predecesor at least, Stephen Fry ftw(and it also had John Cleese, yay!)

 

[Palademon]

Well, he needs to reverse all his "refinements" and actually deliver on promises.

Basically avoid everything I yelled at him for in my review of Fable 3.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.242016-God-I-hope-Molyneux-reads-this