Molyneux Apology Explained

Thanks to the BBC for a follow-up to an earlier story. Following Peter Molyneux's apology to the Fable community last week, the BBC spoke with the game designer about his decision. "[I] owed a duty to fans to explain why some features did not make it into the finished product."

Comments

The biggest news

[cephyn]

...in that article is that "B&W2 is completely playable and looking great."

Well, B&W was supposedly completely playable too. Maybe we have different definitions. B&W DID look great though. ;)

Platform apology

[Qrlx]

If there's anything to apologize for, it's that this game is only on XBox.

It's great for Microsoft, since Fable and Halo are pretty much the only reasons for a gamer to own an XBox. I don't understand what exactly Mr. Molyneux gets out of the deal, but I bet it starts with a $.

Re:Platform apology

[XsynackX]

He had to apologize because of all the thing he said about the game that weren't true.

I followed this game for about three years, all along the way excited after Mr. Molyneux would say things like "If you drop an acorn in the beginning of the game, by the end it will grow to a great oak tree." and tons of other over-hyped things like that. I was nearly the number one Fable fan out there on Big Blue Box's (the developer's) message board, but after getting the game, playng it for 8 hours, beating it, starting a new character, playing it 4 more hours, and finding it has little to no replay value, I feel downright screwed. And the first person I thought of to be pissed at about the game sucking was Molyneux. So that is why he had to apologize, and he should apologize a few more times too.

Re:Platform apology

[Babbster]

I know that PC gamers (of which I'm one) tend to think as you do, but the idea that a major game release can have tons of extra features on the PC because of being "less limited" in terms of specifications is something of a fallacy. In fact, PC game releases tend to be just as gameplay feature-limited as console games and just make more eye candy available to the people with the hotter systems.

For example, Sims 2 is probably going to go on to be yet another best seller for EA. Whilst requiring a T&L graphics card in order to play on lower order systems (such graphics cards being available for far less than $100), when that requirement is met the game is gameplay feature complete with a processor down to 800 MHz (for comparison, the Xbox CPU clocks in at 733 MHz). Even Doom 3, the current champ in terms of hardware demands, cites a minimum of 1.5 GHz which was top speed years ago (as evidenced by the fact that I'm currently on an AMD 1500 and I stay way behind the curve) and will be far lower than the CPU speed of the slowest of the next set of consoles. In short, PC games have to target systems far below the state of the art in order to make the big bucks.

I would also note that there are negatives to Fable (see my post above for a brief list) which were easily addressable in its console incarnation - Morrowind, for example, gives the illusion of a gigantic, nearly seamless world with complete freedom of movement. Even GBA Pokemon games have trees that are planted and grow over time!

I think the problem is less that Molyneaux and company COULDN'T do all the things they wanted to do with Fable, but rather that as development dragged on they reached a point where they were running out of time to implement all the features, probably because they got too preoccupied with prettifying the features they already had.

It's not about the limitations of the Xbox but the limitations of their development team.

Re:I still think it's cool that he apologized

[tc]

How different was it really? It's a very much "on rails" RPG (in terms of where you are allowed to walk within the maps), that has obnoxious loading times, tiny maps, and is generally too short. The quest structure, with the retries and 'boasts' also serves to always remind you that you're playing a game, not immersed in a world.

The only innovation was the level of customization and character development. But even that wasn't a revolutionary new idea, it was just dialing up an existing concept.

Granted, the production values were high, and the overall level of polish was good. It's a competent enough RPG, but let's not pretend that it was anything really special.

Frankly, there are several better RPGs out there, both on Xbox and other platforms. Judging by Gamerankings, others agree with me (Fable is currently around 86%, whereas other RPGs have scored far higher).

Respect

[Lord_Dweomer]

Peter apologizing to his fans and to people who had been waiting with baited breath to play Fable has done nothing but give me more respect for the man.

It is very understandable how the features didn't make it into the game, and in an industry where its standard practice to hype non-existent features and then give no explanation why they're missing, this makes him stand out as an individual who actually cares about the people who play his game unlike some...*cough*Carmack*cough*.

Re:I still think it's cool that he apologized

[Babbster]

"Tried" to do something different doesn't help the game consumer at all, nor should it be a good point on the resume of a guy who's become a legendary game developer (Populous? Dungeon Keeper? Awwww, yeah). I've liked what I've played of Fable so far, but the reality is that it isn't anything that fresh or that new. In fact, there are aspects of it (the linearity, the restricted movement within zones and the small size of the zones) which are actually steps BACKWARD for the genre.

If we're giving credit for an RPG trying to do something big, Morrowind still has to come out on top in that area. It had a very open map where you could go anywhere in the game that you could see, it was dense with subplots and nonlinear gameplay (you could go a hundred hours of play and barely touch the main storyline) and it was free of traditional load screens (yes, there were pauses but I found them quite tolerable compared to the usual RPG load times). Morrowind's main flaw was it's combat system which was, at various times, either cumbersome and annoying or just boring.

What I hoped for from Fable was a marriage of Morrowind's open-ended nature with more dynamic AI and more interesting interaction with NPCs. What I got instead was, in essence, a pretty standard RPG with time passage - annoyingly fast time passage, by the way, where you can age years just completing one mission if you stop to play with the environment even a little bit.

Dear Mr. Molyneux:

[Giant Ape Skeleton]

Apology accepted....

Now can I have my $50 back?

Re:I still think it's cool that he apologized

[Pxtl]

Honestly, I think Molyneux games are overrated. He starts out with good concepts, but then ruins it with creepingfeaturitis that's not even relevant to the gameplay (Black and White was terrible for this). Compare StarTopia, an obviously Molyneux-inspired game. Tons of variety, excellent gameplay, a wide variety of buildings. Comes out being a far better-feeling strategy than Molyneux games, even though it has the same premises (all your people are totally autonomous, and you are just an administrator).

Take the old "growing trees" example: that's a big PITA to implement, and yet he wanted this to be a major feature. And its nothing - its a minor, unimportant feature of the background.

Re:I still think it's cool that he apologized

[fatmonkeyboy]

What I got instead was, in essence, a pretty standard RPG with time passage - annoyingly fast time passage, by the way, where you can age years just completing one mission if you stop to play with the environment even a little bit.

Well, maybe he was just trying to be realistic.

It took me four years to complete the "Acquire Computer Science Degree" quest and I hadn't even stopped to play with the environment all that much!

I mean, I was 18 and fresh out of highschool and POOF! I was 22, trying to remember the names of the people I went to highschool with ;)

Some of my friends who stopped to play with "the environment" still haven't finished yet.

And, some who did, actually hit a bug in the system. They completed the "Acquire Computer Science Degree" quest, but no new quest paths opened up!

Missing features aren't the biggest problems

[CodeWanker]

Even when the features are there, they are still crippled by hype. Black and White was billed as a deeply philosophical exploration of choosing good and evil. And in the end, the high point of the game revolves around slapping around your ape... Spanking your monkey? Yeah.

Re:Missing features aren't the biggest problems

[scot4875]

slapping around your ape

Not only that, but teaching it where to crap. Oh, joy.

I can only imagine the meeting where that feature made it in... It must have sounded really funny for the first 10 seconds, and then they didn't consider it anymore -- otherwise, they'd have realized that it was just stupid and left it out.

Add to that the fact that your creature is unavailable/useless for a significant part of the game...

I have more respect for Romero ... At least his grandiose ideas suck because they're hard to implement, rather than Molyneux's completely incompetent implementations of do-able ideas.

--Jeremy

Re:Missing features aren't the biggest problems

[snuf23]

I believe the explanation for Black and White's suckage was that they were working on the creature control aspect for so long that they forgot they needed an actual game. So when deadline time reared its ugly head they just threw in some Populous 3 style gameplay. The twist being that now you had to take care of your villagers while your ape throws poop at them.
The creature was kind of neat but utterly out of place with the rather conventional game play. I mean he was mostly a detriment not a help. Hell, most of the time my ape would just be pissed because I was trying to help the stupid villagers fornicate. Damn those villagers were stupid.

Re:I still think it's cool that he apologized

[cephyn]

good luck on getting your money back for that one. Real Life(tm) comes as-is. And the EULA is brutal.