Fable III Dev Lobs a Few Word Bombs at the Haters

[kromify]

i agree about expecting something it's not. fable is like twilight or scrubs; trashy and not very good, but easy and fun. thinking it should be like LOTR, in their example, will lead to a let down.
i've had this thought before so it's kinda nice to see a concordant opinion

 

[AndyFromMonday]

i agree about expecting something it's not. fable is like twilight or scrubs;

The first two seasons of scrubs weren't that bad. In fact I could go as far as saying they were excellent. For some reason though, maybe the stars aligned or maybe there was some sort of fucking space anomaly, the writers decided that from the 3rd season onwards the main character should be a sterotypical gay person who isn't gay and that any resemblance of realism the characters had should be stripped away in the name of cartoon comedy. Is it just me or are writers nowadays purposely sabotaging decent shows?

Bad move on Lionhead's part. They should be appealing to every person possible in order to garner as much sales possible. I don't believe insulting potential customers will do much good.

 

[Inkidu]

There's an old saying, "Those who cannot do but think they can *****."

You guys are bitching.
Now don't get me wrong, I thought Fable III was darn good. I liked the setting and the design. I thought the voice acting was superb and the music was fitting, only a few scores ever made me stop and say, "Wow, that's pretty good."

Now, onto yer bitchin':

Combat is kind of lackluster, but it always has been. Spells, swords, guns. Standard not good not bad, but not eyebrow raising.

Co-op: I'm in your your statement calling your bullshit. DnD, Diablo, GAUNTLET. All co-op RPGs. Next!

Okay story: Story was okay, but it's hampered more by your use of gameplay mechanics as reinforcement than anything writing wise. Crawler awesome, one year and no one could possibly believe you awesome. Asking me to care about the people of Albion, a people whose emotional depth is swayed by toilet humor, no. No long duel with perceived evil brother. Lame. That and you morality system is so black and or white. There's no ambiguity. It just makes the world seem flat. You can't ask me to care about a bunch of freshly lobotomized nothings. Hell there was no "Lady Grey" option for marriage. Dude, give us some fucking princesses or princes to marry. Some NPCs of greater importance. It really makes me look like a hero that they're all children, but when a hero wants to marry he don't want to marry no Gertrude the Flutist. He wants to marry Gwen Evil Sorceress, or Claire the Fallen Angel, or Chipolata Queen of the Sexy ladies (insert equally awesome male options here).

If you can do all this, expand your game time by about ten hours, and keep Peter M. tied up in a broom closet until the game is basically done and waiting for a Tuesday to be released on then Fable IV will be good.

 

[kromify]

yeaaahh... stories seem to keep getting worse in the series. but i support fable 3 because it has stephen fry and simon pegg. i don't need any other reason

 

[blackdwarf]

it was the worst game i played in 2010. nothing in the game had soul, but was was boring, repetitive, dull and easy. the idea of the game is great. have a story and you are making the decisions in that story. but not one of the fable games ever succeed in delivering that idea. its extremly 2-sided. gameplay extremly boring. and the story is just not that special. bioware succeed in making a game where you are the hero living the story and making the decisions. fable didn't.

 

[Tom Phoenix]

Yes, West. The customers must be wrong! There is no way you could produce a horrible game! It is all the customers fault for having "mistaken expectations!

...Seriously, it is beacuse of things like this that the modern gaming industry is in such a horrible state. Game developers live in denial and aren't willing to admit to themselves that they produced a terrible product.

To be fair, I can understand why; if you spent over 2 years of your life working on something, it is difficult to admit to yourself that you have failed. But alas, that is what one must do in order to find success. Besides, it's not like that is in any way unique to developing games.

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

People saying the story wasn't very good was unfair. It's an interesting situation of you gather people together and then defeating the main bad guy. It's a pretty good story and it's pretty fun.

He says this like it's a point in the game's favor. Gathering people to defeat the bad guy is the most obvious and simplistic way to write an RPG. You can introduce them in interesting ways, or you can just give the main character a contrived quest to gather them up and give your writers the day off.

Fable I was just ok. Fable II was unplayable by mortal man. This guy isn't convincing me to try Fable III.

 

[Mr Companion]

I find Lionhead a little embarrassing, not in a horrible way. Its just that they put so much effort and passion into their games that somehow always end up... just plain bad really.
Im sorry they are! I liked the first few games (black and white, Fable the lost chapters The Movies ect) but other than that Black and White 2 and Fable 2/3 were all arguably very poor games with plots significantly weaker than advertised which makes it even more baffling that each time the creators boast about how fantastic its gonna be. Fable 2 was mind blowingly overhyped when really the story was riddled with holes, the combat was flicky and unsatisfying and the levels lacked pacing or structure.

Lionhead complains that gamers don't like their games, which is reportedly because gamers are all stupid and have no taste. But if the majority of your target audience dislike your game then I think the mindset of "Its them who are all mad not me" fails to be practical.

*notices pattern*

Why don't they just make new IPs?

A very good idea.

 

[Andaxay]

Did you get to the Cthulhu wannabe? That's where it started to pick up. The story had potential and the characters were done pretty well. And it had great voice acting, that part is undeniable. But it just didn't execute. It was rushed at the end. Honestly you should have spent another 5-10 hours as King with more plot, but instead you got 15 minutes of rushed decisions. They just ran out of money and you could tell. They got to the most interesting part of the story where you have all these possibilities for plot twists and how you keep or break your promises, but they didn't do any of it. THAT was what made it an absolute disappointment. I'm renting the next one. If it's a single player RPG focused on story then I WANT MORE STORY. Period.

I didn't get that far, it was far too "go here, do this for villager A, lather, rinse, repeat" for my liking. I got bored quite quickly. I really enjoyed Fable II and really wanted to like III, but when I started spending my time helping out villagers with menial tasks, I stopped playing. Not my kind of game to invest so much time into.

 

[ReiverCorrupter]

Did you get to the Cthulhu wannabe? That's where it started to pick up. The story had potential and the characters were done pretty well. And it had great voice acting, that part is undeniable. But it just didn't execute. It was rushed at the end. Honestly you should have spent another 5-10 hours as King with more plot, but instead you got 15 minutes of rushed decisions. They just ran out of money and you could tell. They got to the most interesting part of the story where you have all these possibilities for plot twists and how you keep or break your promises, but they didn't do any of it. THAT was what made it an absolute disappointment. I'm renting the next one. If it's a single player RPG focused on story then I WANT MORE STORY. Period.

I didn't get that far, it was far too "go here, do this for villager A, lather, rinse, repeat" for my liking. I got bored quite quickly. I really enjoyed Fable II and really wanted to like III, but when I started spending my time helping out villagers with menial tasks, I stopped playing. Not my kind of game to invest so much time into.

I completely agree, that part was asinine. But you must have ADHD pretty bad because that's only the first two or three missions of the game, and after that it's optional. I completely agree though, Peter Molyneux is fucking nuts for thinking that people want to play fetch quests for faceless generic NPCs.

 

[GuitArchon]

"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."

This isn't entirely accurate, I'm afraid. Back in the Nintendo Gamecube days, there was a turn-based RPG called 'Lord of the Rings: The 3rd Age' that had 2-player capabilities. Now, I'll at least praise Fable's co-op for being much better, since it's Real-Time and The 3rd Age had Turn-Based co-op (seriously, what's the point?).
But even besides that, you're clearly disregarding games like Gauntlet, Sword of Mana, X-Men Legends/Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, and Baldur's Gate. It begs the question "Just how many video games has Mr. West played?"

However, that's the only praise I will dole out for Fable's co-op. The game was easy enough without someone else helping you in combat and that was pretty much the only meaningful thing that your partner could do while playing. In the story mode, all the main characters would ignore your partner, even as (s)he ran around, waiting for the cutscene to end. Mr. West, it's not enough to simply be the only one offering a co-op RPG experience; it should also be meaningful and involving.

A good example of meaningful co-op is Dead Rising 2. While, yes, the 2nd player would not be addressed during cinematics, (s)he at least had the excuse of being omitted from the cutscene, so they couldn't mess around in the background out of boredom.
Anyway, the reason why Dead Rising 2 is a comparison is that it actually felt meaningful to have a partner. You and your 2nd player could multitask. For example, you could concentrate on distracting zombies while your partner led a few survivors towards an exit.

Sorry, Mr. West, but I'm afraid that Fable 3 was a severe step in the wrong direction overall. I say this as a gamer who actually liked Fable 2 and enjoyed playing it. I can't say the same about Fable 3.

 

[GuitArchon]

Heh. A good summary.

 

[GuitArchon]

Heh. A good summary.

 

[GuitArchon]

anc[is]Summary: "Nuh uh! It is good! You're all poo poo heads!"

We're making a co-operative role-playing game

Oh ho ho that slaps me on the knee

and thus the internet once again takes the "i'm da shmart one! look at me being reashonable!" when in reality, you're little more than a troll.

reminds me of that song from Peter Pan... how'd it go?

Spoiler: We're following the leader! The leader! The Leader!

just so you know (everyone i quoted) i'm not flaming either of you, this is a criticism of the internet and its attitude when people say "my game IS good! you don't understand!"

Ok. I think you're being too kind here to the developer. You're not INcorrect in your assessment, but there are a few things that bug me.

and i know it feels good to pick on the big developer who seems to be whining like a baby, but think about it...
think about every school project you ever did that you got flunked on and you thought you put a LOT of effort into it.
think about all the creative things you spent weeks working on just for someone to say "that sucks"
every time you put effort into anything, just to have people throw it back in your face.

now multiply those people by a few million. now multiply the hatred by a number exponentially higher than that. and make sure you take into account the amount of hours that went into making it.]

Ok, why are you assuming that anyone who complains about this game is merely going with the popular opinion? I'll understand if this message was directed only at those who post with that mindset.
However, I have a HUGE problem with this argument: This wasn't Lionhead Studio's first Fable game. They've had 2 sequels to polish their product to be the shiniest gem it can be. You do this by conducting market research on those who played your video games in the past. You ask them what they did and did not like about their experience and what they would like to see in future installments. You then observe the most popular answers and take them into consideration when constructing the next game.

Continuing your analogy, it'd be like putting a lot of time and effort into a research paper only to receive a D+ or a C; passable, but not you would expect given your effort. Your next move should be to check the class syllabus and/or talk with the teacher to get a better understanding for what he/she is looking for in a research paper.
Instead, the comments that Mr. West is making sound like he turned in a paper that he expending a lot of work and passion into (which is great), but failed to take heed to the teacher's expectations for the paper. Once he gets his paper back, only to discover a C- or C+ on the front, he gets defensive about his paper by saying the teacher just didn't know what he/she wanted from the essay.

they obviously put a lot of effort into it, and lionhead the closest thing to "independent" the AAA industry has these days since Peter Molyneux has full creative control over his games.

Ok, THIS comment is very uninformed. Independent studios are getting all sorts of attention these days, now more than ever, in fact. It's thanks to things like the iPhone App Store, Steam, and X-box Live Arcade/PlayStation Network made by indie studios. Things like Angry Birds, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and Braid are experiencing much greater commercial praise and success than they could have even 5 years ago.

 

[William MacKay]

Yogscast are on their ep 5 of their playthrough on PC.
and are crippled by bugs. still, good game. sotry was a bit standard, and making friends requiring a fetch quest got a bit repetetive and boring.