Slashdot Mirror


Fable Forum Goers Fall For Huge Hoax

CheeseMonkey writes "If you've played Fable, you have probably seen the Bards in the game, and may have had them tell you to find a "better bard". That better bard was found on the Fable forums (reg. required). Or, so it seemed. He led on the gaming public for two solid days with a series of incredibly well crafted poems. Finally, he fessed up. I extensively blogged the whole ordeal, so you don't have to sift through all the rubbish."

38 comments

  1. What? by contagious_d · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why is this on slashdot? I dont even understand what the hoax is. He pretended to write poetry? Anyone get this? Please explain.

    --
    - /home is where the food is.
    1. Re:What? by clsc · · Score: 1

      /me runs off to remove games from /. display prefs

    2. Re:What? by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      apparently he claimed that the poetry came out of the game.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    3. Re:What? by HoneyBunchesOfGoats · · Score: 2, Informative

      Someone posted hundreds of messages to a forum for the recently-released Xbox game Fable. The messages were poetic (in the style of the "bards" within Fable), and were presented as riddles to unlock secrets within the game (a viral marketing ploy, like ilovebees.com is for Halo 2). Later, the person stopped writing poems and came out of character, claiming that he was a 50-year old with a PhD in English, and that he was supposed to stop after he received a certain number of posts flaming him. It turned out it was all an elaborate hoax, and nothing he wrote pertained to any real secrets within the game.

    4. Re:What? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hope he gets the death penalty for this...

    5. Re:What? by wheany · · Score: 1

      Yes, you should get the death penalty for trolling. In no way is that unreasonable.

  2. You really have to wonder by antifoidulus · · Score: 1

    what if Shakespeare played MMORPGs......

  3. Fable is whack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I just exchanged Colin Mcrae Rally 4, Harvest Monn:A Wonderful Life and Ninja Gaiden(I`ve finish the game 4 times) to get Fable who`s suppose to be a great game with a lot of stuffs to do. The game lenght s$cks and the graphic are very poor, look like an old PS2 games. The control are not too good and the difficulty is too low. I agree, the concept is great and a lot of twists makes the game better like the popularity the good/evil way of your character and the always changing character shape and age, but if you skip that(i`m not sayin`that is easy to skip) the game core is far to be great. The most flashing thing for me was the quality of the graphics, what is that? Not to bad, but for a game on development since 4 years that inscufficient and it's an insult to the real core of the gamers. I'm not sayin that i'm dissapointed 'bout this one, but i'm near of that, not worth the exchange i made it for. Maybe i will enjoy the game more after a couples of hours of play, but... will see.

    1. Re:Fable is whack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You traded a Harvest Moon game AND two other games for a short, unchallenging RPG from an overrated game designer?

      You have my serious sympathy. You were taken in by all the unwarranted hype and XXXtreme astroturfing, which is common in American Xbox-land.

  4. I fail to be amazed. by WhatAmIDoingHere · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "I extensively blogged the whole ordeal, so you don't have to sift through all the rubbish."

    Sounds to me like the whole entire thing was a bunch of rubbish.

    I don't really see why this is considered news.

    A guy tricked some people on a forum. And?

    --
    Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
    1. Re:I fail to be amazed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Yeah. Well crafted my fucking ass.

  5. Poor Title by Chris+Pimlott · · Score: 4, Funny

    I suggest "Fable Forum Fans Fall for Fantastic Fabrication" instead.

  6. Here's what happened.... by CaseM · · Score: 5, Informative

    Fable came out. Many were not pleased with the short main quest time after all the hype that had spewed forth from the mouth of Peter Molyneux (the lead game designer of Populous and Black & White, et al fame) over the past few years. Many wanted to believe there was more to do, and so some of us held out hope.

    Fast-forward to a week after release. A new xbox.com Fable forum poster (i.e. The Better Bard) started a new thread entitled "For the loyal - a week after release" or something akin to that in which he purported himself to be "contracted" (but, of course, under an NDA) to give out hints on the xbox.com Fable forum pertaining to extra lands and goodies you could get if you could solve his iambic pentameter riddles.

    Although there were doubters, many, many people had their interest piqued enough to dive in headfirst, so to speak, enthusiastically trying to figure out his riddles.

    His poetry, while not Shakespeare, was written just well enough to be taken seriously for several days, in which the thread he started grew to over 200+ pages in size.

    Flame wars ensued between the doubters and the believers, the likes of which haven't been seen since the hey-day of Derrick Smart. New web pages were born overnight with all of his posts listed...many were just hoping against hope that he was for real.

    Of course, since you're reading this, you know it was a hoax. He eventually fessed up, and some applauded his efforts while others promised to heap a thousand curses upon his head and that of his offspring for time immortal.

    There...now you have it.

    1. Re:Here's what happened.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I nominate all those people for the Greater Internet Biggest Nerd/Loser competition.

    2. Re:Here's what happened.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      So in the end, the bigger problem is that Fable really IS remarkably short and unchallenging. Save my money, thanks.

  7. Player player by spyrochaete · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This person fooled thousands of people into thinking he had really stumbled on to something! (S)he is a true roleplayer!

  8. meta-blogs by jeffehobbs · · Score: 4, Funny


    Somehow, blogs about blogs (meta-blogs?) usually wind up being more interesting than the blogs themselves; which makes me wonder if blogs about blogs about blogs would be even more geometrically interesting than that.

    Or what about a message board post about blogs about meta-blogs, such as this one you're reading right now? Possibly, following the previous logic, what you're reading now is the most interesting thing ever. We are through the looking glass, here, people.

    ~jeff

    1. Re:meta-blogs by KDR_11k · · Score: 2, Funny

      Possibly, following the previous logic, what you're reading now is the most interesting thing ever.

      Now that's a blatant attempt at Karma whoring...

      --
      Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
    2. Re:meta-blogs by johannesg · · Score: 1
      Possibly, following the previous logic, what you're reading now is the most interesting thing ever. We are through the looking glass, here, people.

      Allow me to come to your rescue, then. Although I originally held out hope that your post might bring me some unique insight or possibly contain a witty remark, I soon found it to be utterly uninteresting in every possible way. Thus it appears we are in no danger of civilisation collapsing under an endless recursion of meta-blogging.

      What annoys me is that under other circumstances your post would be moderated away rapidly, but now that I added my humorous appraisal chances are that moderators will preserve your rambling thoughts as a poignant counterpart... ;-)

    3. Re:meta-blogs by GreyWolf3000 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Nice post about a post about a forum about a meta-blog about a blog about a forum.

      --
      Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
  9. the most interesting thing ever by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sometimes, maybe.

    This story, no.

  10. This'll kill my karma, but... by FlyingOrca · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...why would this be considered "stuff that matters"? Not trolling, not baiting flames, just looking for an explanation, here. Maybe I just don't "get" the whole game thing, but I really don't see how they matter in the context of things with actual, you know, importance.

    --
    Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
    1. Re:This'll kill my karma, but... by NTT · · Score: 2

      You missed the target here. This is actually "News for Nerds". Who else would care about the silly game?

      "News for nerds." and "Stuff that matters." are mutually exclusive.

    2. Re:This'll kill my karma, but... by MagicDude · · Score: 0, Troll

      Meh, it's still more interesting than the "OMG!! This guy totally rules at Street Fighter 3. It's so sweet, I totally peed my pants" story that was posted a few weeks ago.

    3. Re:This'll kill my karma, but... by KDR_11k · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I have a feeling the "Stuff that matters" part is sarcasm.

      --
      Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
    4. Re:This'll kill my karma, but... by Grey+Ninja · · Score: 1

      I'm a nerd. I honestly don't care about this news, as I never cared about the game in the slightest, as I anticipated it to be a poorly made piece of garbage. Proving me right isn't really "news" to me.

  11. Somebody tries to trick others in a MMORPG by Hard_Code · · Score: 1

    OH THE DRAMA!

    I'm glad I didn't waste my time reading all those damn pages of awful poetry.

    --

    It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
    1. Re:Somebody tries to trick others in a MMORPG by Enucite · · Score: 2, Informative

      Worse than that, it's not even an MMO... it's just a single-player RPG.

  12. He'd have started a roleplaying guild. by bluemeep · · Score: 2, Funny

    Probably would have wrote some fanfiction and cosplayed at an EQ convetion, too.

  13. Time better spent PLAYING the game by Xoo · · Score: 2, Informative

    Reminds me of when Final Fantasy VII came out, and all the fanboys believed that there was a way to bring Aeris back... people came up with all sorts of button mashing combos, ridiculous quests to revive her, and the like....

    now THIS hoax... well someone with obviously massive amounts of time (that probably would have been better spent playing this awesome game) writes what appears to be like 20 pages of poetry to convince everyone there's some fucking hidden bard?!?

    please... get a life man!

    --
    Karma police, arrest this man, he talks in maths....
    1. Re:Time better spent PLAYING the game by shadowcabbit · · Score: 1

      Reminds me of when Final Fantasy VII came out, and all the fanboys believed that there was a way to bring Aeris back...

      WHAT?! You mean A4eris DIES?!!!!111one11!? Damn, she can't die, not when she and Cloud are going to have mad sexx0r in Kingdom Hearts 2!!!!

      OK, seriously, this isn't as bad as everyone thinks it is. A buddy of mine plays City of Heroes-- I thought it was OK but there was little in the way of a coherent story. Well, he's big into role-playing, so he decides to start his own story within the game... currently he's garnered quite a bit of following. You have a valid point, these people should be playing the game-- but if the content isn't there, players will have to find some way to amuse themselves once the world is saved lest they realize they wasted $50 on a ten-minute thrill.

      I think the bard thing was pretty clever, but that's just me. Clever, but ultimately stupid.

      --
      "Why Subscribe?" Good question...
  14. Priceless by Lisandro · · Score: 1

    Heh, MMORPG players are funny indeed.

    1. Re:Priceless by Zangief · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yeah, and the Fable players are also funny.

      (Fable is a single player game)

  15. Gah! by Databass · · Score: 5, Funny

    He lied to me through Poetry! I HATE when people do that!!

    1. Re:Gah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Better that than being blinded by science....

      I'll go now.

    2. Re:Gah! by darkmeridian · · Score: 1

      You must be a girl. You probably fell for:

      Roses are red/Violets are Blue/Sugar is sweet/and so are you.

      And now you're pissed cause you realized that he was just trying to get into your pants.

      Anyway, stop modding people funny. Mod them "Underrated" because "Funny" doesn't yield karma bonuses. Hit the guy above with some real mod points.

      --
      A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/