If you could take over Lionhead Studios...
- Thread starter canucmeh
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I would end the Fable series, time for something fresh I think. Not really sure what exactly but something outside the genres that Lionhead is known for. Something involving space exploration maybe?
I'd also tell Molyneux to shut the hell up and just get on with designing a game, rather than hyping it up to unbelievable heights.
I'd also tell Molyneux to shut the hell up and just get on with designing a game, rather than hyping it up to unbelievable heights.
Firstly, I would update the graphics. Fable 3 tried for cartoony, yet still realistic graphics, and they generally looked pretty bad.
Secondly, I would add a mana bar and a health bar, and make it so you can actually DIE. There is absolutely no consequence for getting downed in Fable 2 or 3, and I hate that.
Thirdly, I would change the combat quite a bit. If you have your sword, mace, hammer, axe, etc out, you are in melee mode. There is a button for dodging heavy attacks, a button for blocking light attacks, and a button for heavy attacks as well as one for light attacks. Guns now have ammo, take longer to reload, and switch your perspective to an over-the-shoulder camera, and ammo is more expensive, but guns generally do a lot of damage. Magic takes a longer time to be good at. Targetting a single enemy is more powerful and uses slightly less mana. Area of Effect spells hit every enemy in a certain radius, but cost more and do slightly less damage.
Fourth, I would make the story somewhat more dark, and remove most of the "humor." The game tries to be serious with its threat of a great evil coming, but at the same time tries to be whacky, and it just doesn't work.
Fifth, I would make it so weapons are available at stores, but they never get upgraded. You have to go out and find legendary weapons that can be upgraded in, say, dungeons and such. I would also bring armor back, because I hate that you can fight in your pyjamas with absolutely no difference than if you were wearing warrior armor.
Sixth, I would make the upgrade system actually MEAN something, and not be almost entirely random. For every set number of levels you get in one of the disciplines (melee, ranged, magic) you get to choose one upgrade. Say, for melee, you can choose between faster attacks that do less damage, or heavier attacks that are slower. You would also be able to pick what you want your weapon to look like at the same time.
Seventh, I would make the quest lines longer. Early in Fable 3, you are told that some mercenary warlord is causing problems for the Dwellers. You immediately sprint over there, not seeing a single mercenary on your way there, burst in, and fight the warlord. Who surrenders in about a minute of fighting. The game pretty much forces an NPC in your face and immediately expects you to care about him, or what he's doing. If there had been some build-up prior to me stabbing him in the face, maybe I would have actually felt like I was doing the right thing. Instead, it felt more like I had just burst into his house for no reason and started attacking him.
Eighth, get rid of the whole "king of albion" bit. There was nothing enjoyable about it, and nothing about it made it feel like you were actually the king.
Lastly, I would make the world A LOT bigger. After about an hour of walking around, you've pretty much seen the extent of the game. I want to be able to explore and constantly be finding new caves, dungeons, towns, etc.
Secondly, I would add a mana bar and a health bar, and make it so you can actually DIE. There is absolutely no consequence for getting downed in Fable 2 or 3, and I hate that.
Thirdly, I would change the combat quite a bit. If you have your sword, mace, hammer, axe, etc out, you are in melee mode. There is a button for dodging heavy attacks, a button for blocking light attacks, and a button for heavy attacks as well as one for light attacks. Guns now have ammo, take longer to reload, and switch your perspective to an over-the-shoulder camera, and ammo is more expensive, but guns generally do a lot of damage. Magic takes a longer time to be good at. Targetting a single enemy is more powerful and uses slightly less mana. Area of Effect spells hit every enemy in a certain radius, but cost more and do slightly less damage.
Fourth, I would make the story somewhat more dark, and remove most of the "humor." The game tries to be serious with its threat of a great evil coming, but at the same time tries to be whacky, and it just doesn't work.
Fifth, I would make it so weapons are available at stores, but they never get upgraded. You have to go out and find legendary weapons that can be upgraded in, say, dungeons and such. I would also bring armor back, because I hate that you can fight in your pyjamas with absolutely no difference than if you were wearing warrior armor.
Sixth, I would make the upgrade system actually MEAN something, and not be almost entirely random. For every set number of levels you get in one of the disciplines (melee, ranged, magic) you get to choose one upgrade. Say, for melee, you can choose between faster attacks that do less damage, or heavier attacks that are slower. You would also be able to pick what you want your weapon to look like at the same time.
Seventh, I would make the quest lines longer. Early in Fable 3, you are told that some mercenary warlord is causing problems for the Dwellers. You immediately sprint over there, not seeing a single mercenary on your way there, burst in, and fight the warlord. Who surrenders in about a minute of fighting. The game pretty much forces an NPC in your face and immediately expects you to care about him, or what he's doing. If there had been some build-up prior to me stabbing him in the face, maybe I would have actually felt like I was doing the right thing. Instead, it felt more like I had just burst into his house for no reason and started attacking him.
Eighth, get rid of the whole "king of albion" bit. There was nothing enjoyable about it, and nothing about it made it feel like you were actually the king.
Lastly, I would make the world A LOT bigger. After about an hour of walking around, you've pretty much seen the extent of the game. I want to be able to explore and constantly be finding new caves, dungeons, towns, etc.
Sadly, that wouldn't mean Bullfrog-quality games would start appearing. I wish it did though...THEJORRRG said:
I would make Black & White 3, using next-gen technology and scrapping every mistake made in B&W2.
change it's name LionHeart, LionTail, LionClaw, or something like that...
then i'll do a new Populous, Black & White 3, The Movies 2, And also starting something NEW instead of SEQUELS !
then i'll do a new Populous, Black & White 3, The Movies 2, And also starting something NEW instead of SEQUELS !
This here, this right here is important. The 'King of Albion' status also negated many of the games additional features. Why buy any house to live in when you don't need to sleep and it's obvious that the best property in the game is going to be provided for free halfway through. also, theres no point settling down anywhere before that as you have to jump between the dwellers and Brightwall then when you're getting a bit settled you get whisked across Albion to Bowerstone (with a missed opportunity because I wore my Princes outfit in Bowerstone and nobody realised I was the prince) then to Aurora and then you've got a castle. If you were the King mightn't you need an armed guard that waits to escort you around Albion?L3m0n_L1m3 said:
Making the world a lot bigger is a must. Theres a city that seems like a village, A village which is appropriate enough if there were more of them and some swamps. Is this all Albion has to give? What happenned to Bloodstone? Surely a prosperous port?
What about Oakfield? Brightwood? Westcliff? The Bandit Coast? Rookridge? Five areas that could easily be used and populated. These areas with quests would massively increase the play time.
Are we supposed to accept that in 50 years the Crucible and Westcliff (a region made highly prosperous by the old Hero) have fallen into disrepair and been abandoned? Knothole island could be included too.
Also, have rent paid in time with the passing of each day in game with extra measures for jumps forward in time. A day in Fable takes an alloted time to pass, award rent then and when there is a jump forward in time just use the appropriate days scale, therefore rewarding the player for early investment.
The player should not be a king or anyone of importance, they should have to live in an ordinary house. This means that heroes could be more commonplace. They could be seen in the markets buying and selling loot. This means that an evil player could potentially follow another hero and assasinate him to get the loot collected. They could request the heroes to join them on a quest.
Also, drop the co-op marriage, it's just weird listening to two friends discussing their wedding plans for their upcoming virtual nuptials. They're just doing it for an achievement but it's still disturbing to hear, lets call them Ted and Royston (not their real names obviously), saying 'Well I'm not going to go for a gay wedding and neither of us wants to be the bride if the other is the groom so lets meet in the middle with a lesbian marriage.' That should never happen.
I'd sew Peter's mouth shut. That would be my number one priority. Just keep him quiet during interviews about in-production titles.
Also, stop the current trend of there only being one hero. Fable 1 worked well with the Heroes guild cause you actually felt like you were part of something greater. Fable 2...okay, it's fallen into ruin, I can accept that. Surely when my Hero is king, he'll look for others with the 'hero gene' and start the Guild again...then Fable 3 rolls around and NOPE. They made a big deal of Heroes being needed, yet there's only been my dad...surely if all those Heroes existed in Fable 1, their family lines continued. Are we to believe that all of those families died out or something?
It makes no sense for you to always be the only Hero. In Fable 4, they should have it so your Fable 3 monarch re-established the Guild, finding and training more potential Heroes into a united force for good in the land. Then you can play as but one of these legion of Heroes, and it can give you a PROPER moral choice (as opposed to the 'good' and 'evil for the sake of being good' moral choices in 3) of if you want to assist the Hero's Guild in defending itself and Albion from a splinter group of people who have Hero powers but instead use them for evil and self-gain through harmful means, or if you want to JOIN these rebels and help them remove the pandering influence of the Guild from Albion again, while getting as much of a reward from it as possible.
I mean, it's easily possible. The Guild was presented as a force for good, but if you REALLY think about it, they could be shown negatively. I mean, they take care of EVERY problem Albion has. They're just babying the entire population by sorting everything out FOR them.
There's easily room there for good motivation for both sides of the possible conflict. Plus, they've already shown that the Guild can become full of lazy, self-important fucks. I mean, wasn't that why the Guild was rebelled against between 1 and 2 anyway?
I just feel that making you King was a boring, standard move. I like being a megalomaniac fuck as much as the next guy, but it never really gave you proper choices. All the 'evil' choices ended up with everyone liking you anyway because you kept them alive. We need deeper moral choices Peter! We don't care about morphing weapons or a Sanctuary. Yes, they're nice little features, but when the overall gameplay is as shallow as a puddle during dry season, no amount of fancy distractions will effectively sugarcoat that fact!
Also, stop the current trend of there only being one hero. Fable 1 worked well with the Heroes guild cause you actually felt like you were part of something greater. Fable 2...okay, it's fallen into ruin, I can accept that. Surely when my Hero is king, he'll look for others with the 'hero gene' and start the Guild again...then Fable 3 rolls around and NOPE. They made a big deal of Heroes being needed, yet there's only been my dad...surely if all those Heroes existed in Fable 1, their family lines continued. Are we to believe that all of those families died out or something?
It makes no sense for you to always be the only Hero. In Fable 4, they should have it so your Fable 3 monarch re-established the Guild, finding and training more potential Heroes into a united force for good in the land. Then you can play as but one of these legion of Heroes, and it can give you a PROPER moral choice (as opposed to the 'good' and 'evil for the sake of being good' moral choices in 3) of if you want to assist the Hero's Guild in defending itself and Albion from a splinter group of people who have Hero powers but instead use them for evil and self-gain through harmful means, or if you want to JOIN these rebels and help them remove the pandering influence of the Guild from Albion again, while getting as much of a reward from it as possible.
I mean, it's easily possible. The Guild was presented as a force for good, but if you REALLY think about it, they could be shown negatively. I mean, they take care of EVERY problem Albion has. They're just babying the entire population by sorting everything out FOR them.
There's easily room there for good motivation for both sides of the possible conflict. Plus, they've already shown that the Guild can become full of lazy, self-important fucks. I mean, wasn't that why the Guild was rebelled against between 1 and 2 anyway?
I just feel that making you King was a boring, standard move. I like being a megalomaniac fuck as much as the next guy, but it never really gave you proper choices. All the 'evil' choices ended up with everyone liking you anyway because you kept them alive. We need deeper moral choices Peter! We don't care about morphing weapons or a Sanctuary. Yes, they're nice little features, but when the overall gameplay is as shallow as a puddle during dry season, no amount of fancy distractions will effectively sugarcoat that fact!
First thing I would do is take Molyneux and make him an idea man, but remove him from his position as face of the company and ensure he wasn't considered actually in charge of anything. Molyneux's problem isn't that he can't come up with good or even great ideas, it's that he doesn't seem to have any ability to A.) keep his mouth shut about said ideas before he knows if they work or not and B.) be the one who takes ideas from concept to application in a full and compelling game.
As for the next title to be worked on.. I'd say leave Fable on the shelf for now (or at least give it the full planning and development time it needs/deserves.. and do so out of the spotlight until it's actually ready) and focus on a new Populous title.
As for the next title to be worked on.. I'd say leave Fable on the shelf for now (or at least give it the full planning and development time it needs/deserves.. and do so out of the spotlight until it's actually ready) and focus on a new Populous title.
I like these games. But one things for sure, I'd fire Peter and make sure he kept his mouth shut over EVERYTHING. Oblivion was somewhat of a good game so I would do something like that. Maybe fix the really creepy stares people give when you talk to them. I would stop the who cartoon crap and make sure the game might kick some a$$. The who plot would have to be different which would be fine with me. Maybe you could travel through time and change history with the other Fable games and the 500 yrs between Fable 1 and 2.
I'd rename it to Lionball, look around for a few seconds, then let the company run as it usually would.
