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 $.

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

[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.