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[est]

So, Peter Molyneux has said that there are things "fundamentally wrong with all RPGs", with the heavy insinuation that something in Fable 3 will fix the situation.

Is anyone else as sick of his usual bullshit hype machine routine as I am?  Before every new game he talks all this crap, but while his games are generally decent they are nothing special.

[JD]

Black and White was pretty good. But yeah, he is talking a lotta shit lately.

[scarred]

I'm a hardcore Fable fan, but Molyneux's mouth is getting worse than Joe Biden's.

Speaking of Fable 3...

http://www.joystickdivision.com/2009/08/_xx.php#more

3RD VIDEO DOWN

OHHHHHHHH SHEEEEEIIIT

[Spluff]

Peter Molyneux still seems to think he is some kind of industry-leading visionary, but his games have been decidedly average since Black and White.

Look molyneux, make a new dungeon keeper and we'll call it even, okay?

[Boro_Bandito]

I'm still pissed that they cancelled that game about the tribe of cavemen they were developing.

[est]

I think that the kicker for me is that they could probably get myself or one of probably a handful of guys on this board to give ideas for a new RPG and they would be about twenty times fresher and more interesting (in my opinion, of course) than shit he comes up with.  It's frustrating!

[JD]

I would love to see a RPG made by James.

[snalin]

Look molyneux, make a new dungeon keeper

Best advice in this thread forum the internet.

[Cartilage Head]

 Man a dog following you around was a MAJOR INNOVATION IN VIDEOGAME HISTORY

[Reed]

I don't see the whole not dying thing as an innovation. When I played Fable 2 it just felt like there were no real stakes and as such lost a little of the excitement. I mean, I only lost all of my health once in the entire game and it was because I was distracted during a fight, so it's not even a difficult enough game for the mechanic. I thought the resurrection phials in Fable 1 worked a lot better.

[Peter Molyneux]

You guys are dicks.

[Reed]

Peter, I really want to like you, but you make it so god damn difficult.

Please stop.

[Dimmukane]

Man a dog following you around was a MAJOR INNOVATION IN VIDEOGAME HISTORY

He has basically admitted that all they did outside of triggered behaviors (enemy is around=growl, do this face=flip, etc.) was just have the dog run ahead of the player instead of behind, and somehow everyone thought that this was a huge improvement. 

[Blue Kitty]

So, I'm looking forward to Fable 3, but I loved the other two.  My two concerns are natal and the fact that he is saying it's going to come out next year.

But yeah, Peter's talk about revolutionizing video games is starting to get really annoying.

[Jace]

I would love to see a RPG made by James.

[Ozymandias]

Man, I was already fed up with his shit back when Fable was Project Ego.

He's annoying and makes enjoyably mediocre games that he hypes to absurd extremes.

[Ikrik]

You really have to admire this guy's superior complex.  By saying that the RPG design is fundamentally flawed he's also saying that EVERY RPG game is also flawed and that's the fault of it's creators.  He's saying "Hey Bioware, Bethesday, Square, everyone who makes RPG's....I'm better than you."  I think it's one thing to be able to sell yourself and your game but he's gone way past that point and I think gamers are really starting to resent him, more than they do already.

Watch the new additions to Fable 3 be like "Your Highness, we would like to build a church right over there."  and your response can be "Why yes, a church would be nice there, it shall be built at once."  or "Yes, a church would be nice there BUT IT SHALL BE THE SITE OF YOUR GRAVE!"  Also you probably won't have a dog.  You'll have like...a hawk, who attacks enemies and flies over and in front of you.  Revolutionary bird design.  

[Scandanavian War Machine]

i don't want every game i play to be revolutionary. i fucking loved Fable 2 (the first one was okay, at best).


that said, Peter Molywhatever is still a jackass.

[Alex C]

I don't see the whole not dying thing as an innovation. When I played Fable 2 it just felt like there were no real stakes and as such lost a little of the excitement. I mean, I only lost all of my health once in the entire game and it was because I was distracted during a fight, so it's not even a difficult enough game for the mechanic. I thought the resurrection phials in Fable 1 worked a lot better.

How did they work, anyway? Fable 1 was so easy that I never, ever even once died in it. That stupidly overpowered physical shield spell meant that my character was never even considered to be taking damage, which meant my experience multiplier was never lowered when I took a hit, resulting in massive experience boosts. My character was actually unscarred when I beat the game because of that oversight. I basically just facerolled between that and enflame while chugging mana items.

[Jimor]

Heck, I've been working on a technique that I think would add another dimension to games, I just need to finish testing it on some sample scripts to make sure it can what I think it can. It's basically a way to take a player decision, then make it specifically relevant to future events and interactions. It's different than either a generic good/evil score, or simple branching. I won't call it "revolutionary", it's just a piece in the larger puzzle that might make stuff a bit more fun in the future.  

[Blue Kitty]

I remember going as far as I could in the first one at the lowest level just to get scars, fighting Balverines and Pixies just for fun.  I loved looking at my character with all sorts of manly scars all over his body.  When I found out you only got scared when you died I was a little sad.

[Felrender]

I remember I once got an X-shaped scar on my face, and a set of 3-claw marks on my chest and back.

[Surgoshan]

I remember I once got an X-shaped scar on my face, and a set of 3-claw marks on my chest and back.

Now that's some kinky sex.

[KvP]

http://kotaku.com/5340557/first-details-about-fable-iii

"Imagine hearing the cries from a young child in a house," says Molyneux. "You as a hero, a ruler, you storm into that house to save that child." Dynamic Touch will add more to saving that child than simply pressing A to save them, letting you feel the interaction of picking them up, pulling them away, saving them from a burning house. "Being able to touch people as a ruler and see how they react, that's what we want."

I like to think of Lionhead as the Applebee's of game developers - thoroughly bland, but people like them because they're safe and they don't know any better. We all talk about how hard it is to die in the Fables as though it's a problem, but the average gamers' tolerance for frustration has been worn down steadily since the 90's, and game development is getting so expensive (about $30 million for your average RPG, all costs accounted for) that there's really no way to take a lot of risk without getting in real danger of jeopardizing the future of your development house. Hooray future!

Anyway, Molyneux's complaints are pretty shit. Fable's choices and consequences are almost entirely cosmetic and they have little or no impact on the PC. Choice and consequence in the vast majority of RPGs is all smoke when you really get down to it. Games like Oblivion and BG2 tend to be revered for advancing freedom and choice but the design of both games obscures the fact that there isn't really a choice beyond what order you deign to engage in linear quests, or whether you're going to be taking quests at all. Some games like Fallout 3 or Mass Effect include one or two Big Choices garnished with lots of linear questing. Gamers eat this shit up, and it's easy on the developers so good on them I suppose. Games that actually have choice and consequence tend to be rare, and they tend to be quite niche. Most recent one I can think of is The Witcher, which I hated but there are actual a lot of tough choices in the game.

Basically Molyneux talks like Pixar would talk if Pixar loved the smell of its own ass. But Molyneux doesn't make Wall-Es, he makes Shreks.

[Surgoshan]

Basically Molyneux talks like Pixar would talk if Pixar loved the smell of its own ass. But Molyneux doesn't make Wall-Es, he makes Shreks.

Nice.  Apt.  Apt and nice.  Nice and apt.  Napt?  Apce?

[KvP]

Come to think of it the sensibilities behind Shrek and Fable are so similar it depresses me to think about. But I guess Fable has less pop culture riffing.

[Scandanavian War Machine]

well, and also there is no Mike Myers which is a powerful asset in any endeavor.

[Blue Kitty]

I remember I once got an X-shaped scar on my face, and a set of 3-claw marks on my chest and back.

My friend told me he got a scar across his character's eyes that might have left the character blind.  He told me his eyes were all hazy and he wouldn't really look at anything.

[ackblom12]

I like to think of Lionhead as the Applebee's of game developers - thoroughly bland, but people like them because they're safe and they don't know any better.

Pardon?

[est]

I think that it speaks volumes about games like Oblivion that I don't overly care all that much about the main quest and find the side-quests and general adventuring to be more fun.

Come to think of it, there is enough to do in all of these sandbox-style games (not just sandbox RPGs, things like GTA, Saint's Row & Mafia too) to warrant a free-roam mode similar to/improved upon the one in Mafia.  Take out the story elements, leave in certain main missions that can be re-jigged to be available in a more open fashion, give you some kind of hub to use as a base of operations and if it isn't an Inn or a Bar or something then use one or more of those to gather information about areas & find missions or at least leads for missions, and maybe give the player a handful of objectives that they work towards.  Or even offer up a list of things that are end-game type achievements (eg: be reknown/reviled, own a castle, kill a dragon, become mayor of a town, found a guild or become a guild master, become an arena champion, lead an army to a glorious victory, become a master of X school of spells/ability/technique etc) and they get to pick which ones sound like things they want to to work toward.  This in turn effects certain missions in the game to advance your progress toward the objectives.

PS: who else is pumped about Mafia 2?  I am pretty pumped about Mafia 2.

[Surgoshan]

Okay, I haven't played Fable II yet.  Apparently there's a dog that follows you around and helps in fights.

Molynoox seems to claim this is awesome and new?


FUCKING FALLOUT.

[Felrender]

Ah yes, but you see, the dog goes IN FRONT of you and can fetch and hargbarggarg i am peter molyneux i cannot ever stop talking

[Peter Molyneux]

that said, Peter Molywhatever is still a jackass.

 

[Surgoshan]

that said, Peter Molywhatever is still a jackass.

 

Hey, Pete, it's okay.

Your mom likes it in the pooper.

[est]

She really does.

Not like, just around the rim or nothing either.  Bam, right up there.

[Finin]

My friend told me he got a scar across his character's eyes that might have left the character blind.  He told me his eyes were all hazy and he wouldn't really look at anything.

I got that one as well, it happened when I got killed by a spell, I also have a big star shaped burn looking mark on my chest I think from another spell death

[Felrender]

Being a melee fighter in Fable basically meant that, around Knothole Glade, you are a great big walking scar.

[scarred]

Being a melee fighter in Fable basically meant that, around Knothole Glade, you are a great big walking scar.

That's why you use Physical Shield, brah!

/not a scratch on me that entire game
//never used the bow ever.

[Jimor]

Come to think of it, there is enough to do in all of these sandbox-style games (not just sandbox RPGs, things like GTA, Saint's Row & Mafia too) to warrant a free-roam mode similar to/improved upon the one in Mafia.  Take out the story elements, leave in certain main missions that can be re-jigged to be available in a more open fashion, give you some kind of hub to use as a base of operations and if it isn't an Inn or a Bar or something then use one or more of those to gather information about areas & find missions or at least leads for missions, and maybe give the player a handful of objectives that they work towards.  Or even offer up a list of things that are end-game type achievements (eg: be reknown/reviled, own a castle, kill a dragon, become mayor of a town, found a guild or become a guild master, become an arena champion, lead an army to a glorious victory, become a master of X school of spells/ability/technique etc) and they get to pick which ones sound like things they want to to work toward.  This in turn effects certain missions in the game to advance your progress toward the objectives.

What I've been kinda hoping for for years is a good over-the-horizon RPG engine.

If you have a good world terrain building algorithm combined with a decent quest generator (that factors in all the various goals you mention above), then you can have that Civ-like exploration if you want to, or you could stick to home territory and build up around known places and people. You can make travel HARD so that the choice to go into the unknown means you probably won't make it back, or maybe travel is easier, but leaving an area means you tend to lose whatever you've built up there. Lots of options.

This also makes those rumors and job offers at the inn much more intriguing if it entails heading into the black part of the map. Heck, have quests go completely haywire because somebody either lied or got their information wrong. Put more risk/reward possibilities into the mix than just "dying". If you have to risk a major setback to your personal game goal (and maybe have to change it as a result), things get intense.

Anyway, my 2 cents into the mix.

[öde]

I feel like playing Fable 1 now.

Also I heard Fable 3 will actually just burn your pathetic limited vision away enabling you to see all of eternity.

[A Shoggoth on the Roof]

at least playing a videogame is a stress-free alternative to becoming a prescient half-worm half-man god emperor

[satsugaikaze]

Ah yes, but you see, the dog goes IN FRONT of you and can fetch and hargbarggarg i am peter molyneux i cannot ever stop talking

Yahtzee made a point of interest that the dog has to be around 30 years old by the end of the game and that no-one's ever really found this suspicious.

[a pack of wolves]

What I've been kinda hoping for for years is a good over-the-horizon RPG engine.

If you have a good world terrain building algorithm combined with a decent quest generator (that factors in all the various goals you mention above), then you can have that Civ-like exploration if you want to, or you could stick to home territory and build up around known places and people. You can make travel HARD so that the choice to go into the unknown means you probably won't make it back, or maybe travel is easier, but leaving an area means you tend to lose whatever you've built up there. Lots of options.

This also makes those rumors and job offers at the inn much more intriguing if it entails heading into the black part of the map. Heck, have quests go completely haywire because somebody either lied or got their information wrong. Put more risk/reward possibilities into the mix than just "dying". If you have to risk a major setback to your personal game goal (and maybe have to change it as a result), things get intense.

Anyway, my 2 cents into the mix.

I don't know, I think making going anywhere too difficult would mean a lot of players just not bothering after trying a few times and getting their ass kicked. I do like the idea of setbacks being something other than just dying, and rewards being different than just new gear and a higher rank with a group. What would be nice is an RPG with the same amount of factions and quests as something like Oblivion but without the ability to play through anywhere near all the content in one go. So for example you can only join one guild or run one town so right from the beginning who you choose to work for actually means something and on a second playthrough you'd see completely different content by deciding to work with the thieves instead of law enforcement. You could then have nice decisions like an offer to go off on a grand quest with a bunch of adventurers that means you have to give up trying to become mayor somewhere, or the gangs trying to persuade you to become a corrupt guard and join them instead of bringing them down.

[McTaggart]

So you only make going some places very difficult. You'd have to tune your algorithm (and hopefully leave some plaintext .ini file somewhere in the games directory so players can tune it themselves) to cater for the sort of environment you want.

Oh and alienating people who aren't your target audience should be a non-issue (oh hey there's the real way that modern rpgs are inherently flawed; they've all gotta sell and turn a profit.)

[a pack of wolves]

Fair enough, but I enjoy RPGs so I'd like to be in the target audience for a good one and I'm definitely one of the people who'd be put off.

The problem I've got with the idea of wandering out into the wilderness being very difficult isn't that I don't enjoy a challenge. Where an RPG like Oblivion falls down for me is that my success or failure can depend on decisions I made hours ago. It kind of needs to, because if the skills I choose to increase when levelling up, the equipment I take with me when heading out somewhere and the weapons I collect aren't tactically important then what's the point? I don't mind losing and I don't mind having to keep trying to get something right, but I do mind having to replay hours of content to fix my mistakes or simply abandon hours of gameplay and restart from an earlier point so I can just not attempt the damn thing. This is only a problem if failure means the brick wall of death. Instead I'd like it if failure presented me with new challenges instead and made things branch in a different direction.

[Jimor]

I meant travel = difficult more as it represents some kind of commitment towards moving on rather than as OMG you're going to get squashed like a bug. This would mostly be accomplished by not having "shortcuts" like WoW's gryphons and hearthstones or Oblivion's autotravel. Also, the farther you go from known towns, the harder it is to maintain built up reputation and/or wealth. But if you do the game right, the option of adventuring like that is worth it.

I think an interesting option for leveling in a RPG would be to get away from the exponential XP model. Instead, something like Oblivion's various skill levels, but each limited to a smaller linear range, perhaps a master level in a skill would be 5 times greater than a beginner. 0-5, 0 representing no skill in that area, 1 beginner, 2 basic proficiency, 3 well trained, 4 expert, 5 complete mastery. Each level is harder to obtain than the last, so that going from 4-5 represents a pretty decent commitment. Also, skills get rusty, but only to a point, so over time, without practice, a skill will fade at most 2 levels. So if you really spent the time, you could cap each skill in turn to guarantee that everything is at minimum 3s.

Fights or other challenges would then never be a matter of getting one-shotted, but would be more a matter of mustering the correct training or resources ("hmm, this creature is too tough, wonder if I can hire some extra muscle at the inn...")

One of the programming challenges is getting that good mix of random quests in new areas that range from the starters to earn skils and resources, to those epic quest lines that can lead to great rewards if the player wishes to make the effort.

[snalin]

I think an interesting option for leveling in a RPG would be to get away from the exponential XP model. Instead, something like Oblivion's various skill levels, but each limited to a smaller linear range, perhaps a master level in a skill would be 5 times greater than a beginner. 0-5, 0 representing no skill in that area, 1 beginner, 2 basic proficiency, 3 well trained, 4 expert, 5 complete mastery. Each level is harder to obtain than the last, so that going from 4-5 represents a pretty decent commitment.

Ever heard of Might and Magic? Those games had a system like this, and it worked wonderfully. The games were wonderful too, but that's another discussion.

A game that has a bit of the freedom you are talking about is Mount&Blade. It's rpg/stratergy, and you start up as a guy with a rusty sword and a horse, and can pretty much choose how to work, like a mercenary leader, like a trader, like a slaver, or like a noble or a king. It all takes working up, and the battles is like a combination of Oblivion and Total War. There's bugs, and the quests are a bit repetitive, although some are quite fun, and there's choices on what factions to choose and what nobles to befriend. it's pretty damn fun, and cheap. You can even play to level 7 for free, so check it out.

Well, that turned into an ad. But I would totally play a game like Oblivion, where there were more focus on choices, and the main questline was dropped completely. The sad part about randomization is that you loose some of the really good writing that you find in some rpgs. I guess it's a trade-off.

[Jimor]

Yeah, I doubt I'm coming up with any single mechanic that's "new", it's just that I haven't seen my dream package of them all yet.

One thing is to make it easy for mods to add a specific well written quest line into the game, or even better, go out and download a nice mixed package of them. You might know they're out there somewhere in your world, but finding them then becomes part of the adventure.

This would probably work best as an open source where there's just lots of options for setting up the exact experience you're looking for.

[Durin]

Ah yes, but you see, the dog goes IN FRONT of you and can fetch and hargbarggarg i am peter molyneux i cannot ever stop talking

Yahtzee made a point of interest that the dog has to be around 30 years old by the end of the game and that no-one's ever really found this suspicious.

Actually I did consider that.

That being said I enjoyed Fable 1 and Fable 2. I also liked Shrek...

[phooey]

Am I tracking this thread right?

Bethesda > Bioware > Lionhead > Squenix

Seems pretty much right to me.