Peter Molyneux has just announced Fable III is coming later in 2010. You'll play as the son or daughter of your Fable II hero and start a revolution to become the ruler of Albion.
# Molyneux teases: "I think there's something fundamentally wrong with role-playing games. Game like Fable ... it's been there since the early '80s." Won't say what he thinks it is yet. Will announce later.
# "The race for the crown has begun." Tagline spoken by Zoe Wanamaker/Narrator.
# Game takes place about 50 years after the first. You play as the child of the hero. Bowerstone has continued moving on and has become quite industrial. The game is not just about Albion this time.
# Half the game will be spent trying to ascend to power. The game will not turn into a micromanagement RTS after that point. Judgment and Touch system will be used to influence the world.
# Focus on story and drama in this iteration. Actors and writers have blocked entire scenes. Video shown of practice sessions.
# Asks what type of kingdom will you have: poverty/greed, tyranny/compassion, progress/tradition?
# On the way to the crown, players will make deals and promises to factions. The question is whether people will keep those promises once they're in power.
# Players are a hero ruler -- Molyneux used the example of Star Trek or Caesar, that players won't just be sitting around once they rule Albion. They will still have adventures.
# New gameplay mechanic: Judgment and Touch. Judgment allows the player to dictate the outcome of a situation. The example used was a girl who steals food is brought in front of the ruler. The player can judge her immediately or investigate. Touch will allow players to grab NPCs. Example used was running into a burning building to grab a child who wouldn't come otherwise. Now you can shake someone's hand or refuse to. Handshake leads to hug, to embrace, a "snog," and as for that last one, Molyneux "won't say where it'll lead." This will replace the expression system.
That guy annoys the shit out of me now. Not even because of Fable. I just find him really irritating. It was beginning to get that way a while ago, and then when he did that fucking video for E3 with the little virtual kid... I've just had this urge to attack him with a chainsaw.A Natal-based chainsaw?
IGN AU: It's taken three games so far in the Fable series to accomplish the ambitions, scope and vision you had for the first game.Good luck w/ that one, Peter. A lot of great RPG games you're gonna have to surpass, to try to top that...
Peter Molyneux: Wow, that's interesting you should say that.
IGN AU: Well, you tell me what your thoughts are on that. Is it a progressive, building-blocks process?
Peter Molyneux: That's very interesting. We're plagued by this idiotic—well, it's not an idiotic line, I still stand by it—this line that I said back in Fable 1 – 'we want to make the greatest role-playing game of all time'. And I mean that – and I mean that about anything we do. And quite often at Lionhead, I'll say 'look – why are we doing this shit, man? We're not doing this to make the fourth or fifth best role-playing game of all time – we need to make the first.
Peter Molyneux: In Fable III, the very story says 'right—why is it there's this formula in both film and games that you start here and you're a little nobody here, and you get more powerful and you hear about a bad guy here... and by the end of the game, you defeat the bad guy; credits roll.
IGN AU: So to extrapolate on that thought for a moment, during your presentation, you mentioned that you were breaking an 'insidious, fundamental RPG mechanic.' Are you eliminating endings? Is that what you were referring to?
Peter Molyneux: Good guess, good guess – but it's not the thing I'm referring to. The thing I'm talking about isn't structural as much as it's gameplay. You know, when you work on something and you sit down, it's an interesting process that you go through. I'll give you this example, because it's a good one – and if you extrapolate it and link it to gameplay, it gives you a clue.
'Dynamic Touch' will be an interesting new direction and evolution of Fable II's Expression system.
You know with the expression system – it was new and different with Fable 1, and a bit more polished in Fable II – but just adding 20 more expressions in Fable III, it's not enough. And you know, when you're king, just standing around and farting, it's funny for five minutes – but does this really add to it?
Then, inventing this 'touch' mechanic and touch-based expressions...
IGN AU: This is the perfect segue, actually – and I think this is a distinctly Lionhead thing. With 'Milo and Kate' (the Natal human interaction simulation), it's very much about 'touch' too – emotional and, with the camera-passing, physical too. When you looked at Fable III, knowing you wanted to extend the expression mechanic, did you look to your work on Milo and Kate for crossovers?
Peter Molyneux: Do you know, you're right – and the weird thing is, I've only just realised it talking to guys like you.
IGN AU: Well, it's an interesting parallel.
Peter Molyneux: It is. More and more – and these aren't questions I can really answer about Milo because I have some very strict rules about it – but more and more I can feel that it's about a game character meeting you. This is very interesting; it's about making that barrier between you so thin that, subconsciously, I wanted to get that across in Fable. And of course, I'm not announcing any Fable stuff for Natal at all, but the touch mechanic is very much like that.
IGN AU: I guess, related to ethics, few adventure games and RPGs have truly done politics well. I mean, there are strategy games that use elements of this, but it's difficult to convey realistically the nuances of political manoeuvring. Mostly it's just been cause and effect. In Fable III, it sounds like you're loosening the choker a bit; can characters challenge you for rule, create risings, revolutions and anarchy, for instance? Can the game push back at you, if you're pushing one way?
Peter Molyneux: Okay, so – yes, is the answer to all of those things. The beauty of this mechanic and the judgement mechanic is that it enables you as a player to get involved in whatever area you'd like to get involved in. So whether you're passing judgement on a small case about a loaf of bread or whether it be a big case about this community should go under military rule, you can decide 'no, I'm going to go out there as king and sort it all out'.
IGN AU: You're the 'active' king.
Peter Molyneux: Exactly. You can be an active or a passive ruler. Or you can say 'my judgement is...' –and I need to be very careful about how I say this, because of spoilers—'one of my advisors is going to go out there and sort it out for me.' And I would just say to you, 'be careful, man – power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.'
You know that element from Fable 1 and Fable II that we had called 'Renown'? That is super-important now! It's related entirely to what the people think of you and your rule. And if your renown goes too low, don't expect them to just sit there and take it, man!
IGN AU: So we can expect a framework of real historical events as your building blocks.
Peter Molyneux: Yeah, and if you look at the history of Amman in Jordan, the two brothers – it's well worth looking at that stuff as well. That's almost a spoiler. Look at Henry the VIII – not only did he have six wives, but he also threw all religion out of the country and reinvented it. And, he taxed people enormously heavily; that's where the 'window tax' came from – taxing peoples' windows in their houses – and he used five percent of that total tax income just on his wine cellar!
Fable 3 'almost at its final edit' stage, says Molyneux
by Ben Gilbert { Feb 5th 2010 at 5:30PM }
The head of MGS Europe assuredly has a few more things on his plate than the third game in a franchise he helped create, but in a recent feature on Peter Molyneux at Develop, the British creator calmly pronounced the game to be nearing its "final edit" stage of production. Whether he means "ready for submission to Microsoft" or "we haven't started polishing it yet" (or, heck, anywhere in between) remains unclear, though we'd certainly like to get our hands on the final product sooner rather than later.
Additionally, Molyneux triple dips on his love for Valve, proclaiming Half-Life 2 as his "favourite" game ever (you crazy Brits!) as well as the game he would most like to have worked on, and also notes the developer as the one he most admires (get a room, you two!). And hey, if you've been hankering to know his "favourite" album, it's Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon." (Yep, we were kind of disappointed too.)
Well, Fable III is going to be an action adventure game and not an RPG. That is stupid beyond words because I don't think Molyneux can make a game that is compelling purely because of the action it offers.
Fable 3 isn't an RPG, says Molyneux
Friday 12-Feb-2010 4:45 PM Lionhead boss labels title an 'action adventure'
Peter Molyneux has said he no longer considers Fable an RPG series - labelling Fable III as "more like an action adventure".
The news comes after the revelation that the third iteration in the RPG series doesn't feature a health bar or HUD.
If the hero's life is in danger, the screen will inform the character by changing colour - in a similar way to Modern Warfare.
Molyneux has also scrapped the previous Fable game's expression system for a 'touch' mechanic, which allows players to hug, shake, fondle, drag and more.
"I'm not sure I even call Fable an RPG anymore," he said at X10 last night. "Certainly not a 1990s RPG, for sure.
"In a way, you could look at it and say it's like an action adventure. There's a lot of drama, there a lot of story, there's a lot of emotion in there - but with levelling up. I love that levelling up.
"I'm not the sort of person that likes being given a pre-planned character and told "this is you no matter what".
Read our full preview of Fable III from X10 - featuring commentary from Molyneux.
PC Fable III?
[Mar 05, 2010, 2:19 pm ET] - 13 Comments
WorthPlaying points out a job posting for a Lionhead/Microsoft Game Studios Network Programmer that seemed to have indicated there are plans to bring Fable III to the PC and to provide cross-platform gameplay with the Xbox 360 edition of Lionhead's action/RPG sequel.
That's in the past tense because the listing no longer contains the clues they noticed, but apparently at one point the listing indicated the job: "involves converting and maintaining the network code of the Xbox 360 version of this game to the PC, and enabling the Xbox 360 version and the PC version to play together."
Big Download points to a post on Koku Gamer where they have a screenshot of the ad before alteration.
While the process of morphing the avatar to fit the user’s play would stay in Fable 3, Molyneux noted that players found the cause and effect confusing. “It was [a good feature], but it was very mystical and it was defined by the experience you spent. In Fable 3 we’ve got this: if you use a sword, your muscles get bigger. That simple. No more complex than that.”
Along the way, the character will also make “campaign promises” – for example, to close factories or end child labor. Players will make moral choices around these promises, and they’ll also run into practical problems as they struggle to meet all the promises they made on their way to power. “You will make a lot of promises. It will not be possible to meet all those promises.”
In addition, players will gain or lose followers who allow them to level up. Even personal choices will affect their number of followers: for example, marrying the daughter of a mayor will make the player more popular than marrying someone from the slums.
Lead designer Josh Atkins also spoke at the talk, describing the combat mechanic, where a player’s weapon morphs based on how often they use it and what they kill with it.
Molyneux showcased many other details. In addition to the horns and halos seen in past games, avatars in Fable 3 will also have angel’s or devil’s wings: Molyneux showed off the large red wings that had sprouted from a hero’s back during combat.
Two-player co-op will be come back, but players will have the option of marrying a co-op character – making this an interesting game for spouses.
Molyneux also discussed the story for the game. The goal of the Fable franchise is to make the player feel “powerful.” “We realized that we could sit down and do another Hero’s Journey. You’d start off the game pretty weak as a character, there would be some big baddie … [but] what if we made that Hero’s Journey the halfway point of our game?
What if we constructed a story where you started as a hero without any power at all, and what if there was this evil terrible king running Albion, and what if you went out as a rebel, took forces, and took on and overthrew that evil king – and then you became king yourself?”
Wait, what about Fable II PC?
Regarding the rumours, a game like Fable could work well in and benefit from cross-platform play!
PC Gamers and X360 gamers working together over Microsoft's Live services = sounds like a great idea to me.That really should have been a priority for Microsoft, especially considerig that most people who own a X360 would also likely own a PC.
"So we've got these things – these couple of simple things we've got in Fable 3 – which are really, really nice. The first is that some of the shops in the world of Albion are actually linked to the internet and are populated by the staff of Lionhead every so often. So they don't have to be fixed things, we can put new stuff in the world all the time. And you don't have to go out to some horrible Dashboard and download The Armageddon Pack version 5, or drive down to a retailer and wait for some big pack to come out.
"The sort of thing we're thinking of – I suppose I shouldn't tell you this but I'll tell you anyway – after you've been playing the game for awhile you'll see this ferry," Molyneux reveals. "This ferry keeps coming into Bowerstone and going away. It goes off to these islands that we've been talking about but there's no way you can buy a ticket. So one of the things that we enable online is this ticket to this ferry and actually in this ticket is the islands, so we make it feel like you've downloaded this ticket when, in matter-of-fact, you've downloaded the islands."
Two-player co-op will be come back, but players will have the option of marrying a co-op character – making this an interesting game for spouses.
Yeah, but who wants to marry their own wife again?
That's the same as not saying anything at all.It's more hopeful than the usual flat-out "NO" answer Microsoft gives us when we ask if a X360 game is coming eventually to the PC.
Good to hear. I might pick it up but I'm still undecided. It had better have gamepad controls this time around!
The KB+M controls were acceptable, actually they were pretty damn good considering how well they ported the game. t the end of the day it's a gamepad-peferred game; like Devil May Cry or Street Fighter. The aiming in Fable is minimal, even then it is assisted.
If I recall, you didn't have to use the lock-on for Fable TLC PC...Yeah, you could on the Xbox too. You zoom in with the bow/crossbow and a crosshair comes up for manual aim.
You could free-aim...
Yeah, you could on the Xbox too. You zoom in with the bow/crossbow and a crosshair comes up for manual aim.
Well that's good.
Yeah, kinda odd the original Fable TLC PC did NOT support X360 pad...
I think any game on PC and X360 should obviously support KB/mouse and gamepad - let the gamer pick. Especially if you want console gamers to pick-up a PC copy of the game - especially when the PC version gets cheaper and older. And if the designers have to use two different UI's depending on what controls you using dictates which UI opens (Pad style UI or KB/mouse), so freakin' be it...
The original Fable wasn't on the 360.Oh yeah....
Poorly, but yes. Unless they've updated it in the past year or so. Loading times took forever, and there were a lot of hiccups in the emulation.Well, that stinks that there's a handful of issues there...ugh...
The code provided in new copies of Fable 3 gives players:
* Raise Dead Potion, allowing players to call undead minions to your side
* Slow Time Potion, allowing players to extend battle time for attacks
* The Scot Male Hero Outfit or the Scot Female Hero Outfit
* Highlander Tattoo Set, for either a male or female character
* Red Setter Dog Skin, transforming your faithful pet to a new breed of pup
I'm just going to come right out and say it. As far as I'm concerned, Fable III is a step backwards from Fable II and a big disappointment. Both games have huge flaws, but unlike Fable II which was able to overcome its issues, leaving an experience where the whole was greater than the sum of its parts, I think Fable III is defined by its failings because the experience doesn't come together into a unified whole nearly as well. Let's break it down.
8.5
IGN SCORE
"Great"
There's seems to be decidedly little fanfare for this game.
The blog post also revealed that a new set of downloadable content will arrive for the Xbox 360 version of the RPG. "Traitor's Keep" launches on March 1 for 560MS Points ($7), and adds three new levels: Ravenscar Keep, Clockwork Island, and the Godwin Estate. The DLC includes new quests, characters, and 250 GamerScore points.
The minimum requirements are:
Operating System: XP 32 SP3, Vista 32/64 , Win 7 32/64
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2GHz or AMD Athlon X2 4000+
Memory: 2GB
Hard Drive Space: 12 GB of free space
Graphics Hardware: NVidia 7600GT or ATI HD 2600 Pro
DirectX: 9.0c onward
Network: Internet or LAN connection required for multiplayer
The recommended system requirements are:
Operating System: Win 7
CPU: Intel Pentium 2.9Ghz Core 2 Duo or higher
Memory: 4GB
Hard Drive Space: 12 GB of free space
Graphics Hardware: Nvidia 260GTX 896MB or ATI 5770 1GB or higher
DirectX: 9.0c onward
Network: Internet or LAN connection required for multiplayer
Damn, that's disappointing.Agreed.
On the bright side I have The Witcher 2 ;DI'm left-handed - I want more key remapping allowed for TW2. Then I"ll be happy.
I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would. My suggestion would be not to obsess too much over collect-a-thons. Stick to the meat of the game, and I think you will like it.The function keys are for quick room-jumping in PC version w/ KB/mouse.
The sanctuary (menu rooms) is interesting, but it gets old. John Cleese voicing your helper in there does make it more interesting. He's great. On the 360, I can use the D-pad to quick-select any of the rooms. I hope the PC version has something similar.