Fable III Dev Lobs a Few Word Bombs at the Haters

[CM156_v1legacy]

A shame a lot of people didn't like Fable III. I found it quite fun. It did have flaws, but they didn't take away much for me.

But going out, and in escense saying "You just don't get it" to your fans is not the way to go.

Still, the latest Fable 3 DLC looks to set the stage of Fable 4, which is a nice idea in my opinion.

 

[WorldCritic]

I'm sorry, was the story supposed to be great? Really all I noticed were quite a few similarities to Dragon Age Origins' story and then wondering at the end why people couldn't just deal with my "evil" decisions so that we would all survive.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

The difference in tone is also something West doesn't think people understood. "[Fable III is] a different type of game: it's more of a fun, comedic TV show than a serious Lord of the Rings film. I think a lot of people that play it think it's a Lord of the Rings - and it isn't.

This has always been the biggest problem with the franchise to my mind.

But that isn't the fault of the consumer, it's the fault of the devs and the marketing department. They continually refuse to address it in any real sense. None of the trailers, none of the art, none of the discussion for any Fable game ever suggests that it would be anything but a typical, totally serious RPG. Hell, the trailers and promotion for Fable 3 made it look like it would be more serious, gritty, and realistic than the previous games.

 

[ThatDaveDude1]

...he's joking, right?

This is some clever satire of arrogant developers...right?

...right?

He can't possibly be serious with this shit...

 

[KeyMaster45]

The best part of Fable 3 was when you first encounter the crawler. It actually got pretty badass and was a definite mood change to what I had been playing thus far. I got a bit excited thinking it was an actual plot twist; I was sadly wrong as the whole crawler stuff became nothing more than a footnote for me to go stomp out after I'd taken over the kingdom.

I think the game really improved on it's combat system from Fable 2, unfortunately it's story still suffers from lack of attention.

I have a question for the dev who said all that though, wtf do you mean co-op RPG? Are you saying I wasn't supposed to play it as a single player game and that any lack of enjoyment I experienced was because I didn't have a buddy playing it with me? Yeah sorry mate you sound like you're being a whiny d-bag saying it's our fault for not enjoying the game. Instead of taking the high and mighty "but we're so much better! You guys just don't understand us!" route I think it might be time to step back and actually take into consideration what people don't like about your game. I understand perfectly it's supposed to be a tongue in cheek commentary on the fantasy genre, it just needs to be better.

 

[XT inc]

Having played 2 and some of 3 on a friends xbox I can say if the combat gets any easier it will be a kinect game that registers that you are sitting in front of the screen and will play it's self so long as it knows you're watching.

No one wants simple controls every one wants easy to learn hard to master controls and gameplay, this isn't a fighter it isn't stepping into the timed half circle sweeps cancel into something else. I will say it again every casualized game is an insult to gamers intelligence, so give it up and stop basing things for people who will play the game for a little bit and then go back to farmville.

 

[Canadish]

A developer should never blame the customer for not enjoying their product.
If people came away unsatisfied, it is the developer/Publishers fault for making either a sub par game or misleading people about the games content.

And strangely, this is becoming a trend among stuck up developers. I remember the Dragon Age 2 team blamed RPG fans for not accepting their "genius" and the lead writer Gaider outright insulted people by calling them childish names.

Now, that said, I liked Fable 3. I went in with pretty low standards and only really had fun because my girlfriend absolutely loves the franchise, and so its one of the few games we can play together.
The story was garbage, though I don't know why anyone hopes for better with Lionhead anymore.
The gameplay was passable.
The world was small and linear, again.

But dammit, the game is charming. I do love the look and humor of Fable. It's very unique, and so I cant help but like Fable.

Still, importantly, this developer is out of order. Your game was poor overall. Get over it. Make better games in future.

 

[MasterChief892039]

Snip

Kind of. Those battles weren't that hard, especially Jack of Blades. In the first one (I never had untold chapters) that final fight was sad. I still enjoyed the hell out of the first game.

No, it wasn't that hard, but it was definitely an ending that left you with the satisfied feeling that the game was over and wrapped up - unlike Fable 2 where you kick the game's big baddie off a cliff with a single button push, or in Fable 3 where you dispatch the evil "darkness" (which was only introduced to you in the last five minutes of the game) by throwing a bunch of money at it. Plus Fable 1 had a bunch of interesting little mini bosses throughout the game like Twinblade, the White Balverine, the Arena (which included trolls, Whisper, and a giantass scorpion), Maze, and the Kraken. Maze was also the only character betrayal twist that ever took me by surprise in a video game, though that may be largely due to the fact that I was 12 years old at the time.

 

[Strixvaliano]

If I ever have to write a story I'll remember the mark of quality of a great story is nothing but, "gather people together and then defeat the main bad guy."

Gamers don't know what they are playing? Sorry but no matter how much you polish a turd its still going to stink.

As for them being the only company to make "co-op rpgs" sorry but there is Eternal Sonata, Dungeon Lords, Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, Icewind Dale 1 and 2, Dungeon Siege 1 and 2, Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2, Diablo 1 and 2, Sacred 1 and 2, Titan Quest, Borderlands (It's about as RPG-ish as Fable is), Secret of Mana. Those are all that I can think of right now, I'm sure there are more.

I don't think anyone really takes the Fable series as serious as LOTR since the only way to communicate with npcs is by farting, dancing, or some other stupid gesture the developers thought would get a cheap laugh the first 500 times doing it.

Without a PC demo Fable 3 is still on my do not buy list because usually when a demo for PC gets canned it screams crappy port.

 

[DazBurger]

You start of in the game with a dog, girlfriend and brother which the game expects you do care for, just like that!
And the game comes to a brutal end, with you sleeping for half a month after gathered enough money to raise an army (which you never see btw...) and killing some piss-easy boss.

And while the missing boss fight worked in Fable 2, there was nothing to compensate for it in the third game. No mysterious story, no emotions no anything!

Everything in between the beginning and the end also somehow seemed bland and boring... Enough to stop a friend and I from completing it Coop halfway through... And we have completed both Kaine and Lynch1+2 and Army of 2+ 40. day... So yeah... It was pretty damn bad!!

 

[Xanadu84]

Yeah, this is pretty whiny on his part. Ill give him credit however, in that he was the combat designer, and I have no complaints about the combat. And I may even give you one on having good audio...but hes still being whiny. The biggest problem with the story, for example, is that they were knocking on the door of something absolutely great...and then decided to fail miserably instead. My biggest problem with it was that it teased you with the possibility of a real, compelling moral choice system, and then crashed into the utterly generic, lifeless, and dull. Just man up, figure out what you could do better, and move on. Don't blame your fans for not likeing the game. Either they have a real issue that you shouldn't undermine, or they are trolls, which will only end poorly for you if you feed them.

 

[Jumwa]

I've only ever played the first Fable, but I have to say: he makes a lot of sense. I feel for them. The criticisms that are heaped on the game seem so unfair, and I think a big part of the problem is, as he says, the fact people are judging it based on parameters it doesn't set out for. More than that, they strive to be an open and accessible game, but games journalists are anything but casual gamers, and always review through a certain lens that makes them have particular expectations and demands that wont be what most people want in game.

For what it's worth I'll grab up Fable III BECAUSE, like he said, it's pretty much the only co-op RPG out there. But I'll be waiting until it goes on sale because, hey, it has Games for Windows Live and I'm not a saint.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Played it.
Beat it.
Didn't like it.

Then again my views are likely flawed since I've only ever played the Xbox version. Either way, it wasn't even the combat that broke it for me: it was how limited the NPC interaction had become added to the cumbersome new sanctuary menus. I need to find my old copy of the original Fable but until I can, all I'm really qualified to say is how Fable 3 was about one step to the left and a hop behind Fable 2.

...

I did like duel-casting magic though: that was great. Also, I don't feel like a good King knowing that after the final events of the game, my people are all knee-deep in children and alcohol (almost all of them drunk 24 hours a day)

 

[Laser Priest]

Oh my god. They're children! They're man children who can't accept that people didn't like their game!

It's a pretty good story and it's pretty fun

No! It's not! It's cliche-ridden shit!

We're making a co-operative role-playing game - there aren't any co-operative role-playing games out there, we're the only one.

With about as much cooperation and role-playing as a game of Halo.

"[Fable III is] a different type of game: it's more of a fun, comedic TV show than a serious Lord of the Rings film. I think a lot of people that play it think it's a Lord of the Rings - and it isn't.

People understand that just fine. That was one of the few things that I gave legitimate praise to.

I'm slightly disappointed we haven't won any audio awards to be honest, because our music's great, our vocal talent's great - and then you'll see a standard shooter get an audio award. I just think that's because they're more popular than us.

I'll let the arrogance of this slide just because the ignorance of reality here is so much easier to criticize. There was nothing special about the sound effects or the voice acting in this game.

If I bother with any more, I might just enter a blood frenzy.

 

[teebeeohh]

if you poke this guy with a needle, does he heat up the room with all the hot air stored in his head?

and again, releasing the same DAY as the witcher 2 is just stupid, not only do we PC gamers love our complex rpgs, we also love games without DRM

 

[Dired]

I just found the entire "moral choice" thing annoying, with manipulative, false choices presented by obnoxious, unreasonable people. I understood it was a game and thus a reason why there is no "right" answer all the time (or any time), but the choices just felt deliberately binary and unrealistic. And since that part felt like the "point" of the game, I found it tedious and annoying.

 

[Hungry Donner]

Let me say upfront that I've never played any of the Fable series - while I love RPGs these games just haven't caught my interest (and with no XBox or XBox 360 I wouldn't have many options even if I did want to play them).

I do think some games get a bad rap because people show up expecting X and get Y. In some cases this is despite the developers going to great length to tell people the game will be Y, and if there are people expecting a series fantasy epic with a Fable game I don't know where they are getting that impression. However having raised this point himself West has opened himself up to fair criticism: Molyneux and Lionhead are notorious for hyping up their games and not delivering.

His comments about people criticizing the story would be disheartening if I cared about the series. If there are enough of them to bring it up as an issue then you need to take this criticism seriously, not brush it off. Maybe you shouldn't be listening to their suggestions, perhaps they're expecting something you didn't plan to deliver, but then you have to ask why they expected that in the first place.

As for PC support, what he says sounds nice. However after just hearing how they couldn't be bothered to do a PC port of Fable II I'm quite skeptical about this wonderous Fable III port.

 

[Cousin_IT]

read that as "waaaah we made an awesome, unique, original & brilliant game but people expected a different awesome, unique, original game which isn't fair"

Co-op was pointless, & it's no good complaining people expected something unique from them, then claiming they made something unique with the next sentence. The "comedy TV show" world was awkwardly juxtaposed by the serious main storyline, which was let down by having been written with a 12 year old's grasp of drama & morality. Audio was nothing exceptional, & the two main celebrity actors were clearly only in there so they could say "look we got John Cleese & Steven Fry in our game" as opposed to giving them meaningful roles. Rabble rabble rabble cry more dev etc etc

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

The only thing I really hated about Fable III was the god awful grind for gold at the end. Even with renting out loads of houses and doing Blacksmithing loads it still took ages.