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Peter Molyneux Talks Next-Gen Combat and Wii
An anonymous reader writes "Speaking at the Games Convention Developer Conference in Leipzig, Peter Molyneux gave attendees a sense of what he believes the future of combat in games will be like, some of which he is trying to get his team to include in Fable 2. He also showed videos of some prototypes based on his concepts. Later in his presentation, he responded to a user's question about Nintendo's Wii, saying that he's not sold on motion-sensing controllers."
Let's not forget who owns his studio. Methinks he may not be speaking freely.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
I'm not gonna touch the obvious joke about pr0n here.
But if I've learned anything while playing videogames with friends over the decades, it's that people often look like idiots while playing, and it doesn't lessen their enjoyment.
And if I've learned anything about repetitive physical exercise, it's that the more often you do it, the less tiring it becomes... you know, cardiovascular and muscular conditioning?
Molyneaux works for MS. And while some of his past work has been great, I think he's a bit ff-key and I of course, as others have pointed out, have to question his motives.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
To demonstrate these ideas, Molyneux showed off two test sequences -- one on a staircase and one in a bar. Though these featured characters from Fable, Molyneux insists this was just done to save time and these are not tests for Fable 2.
Later,
Towards the end of Molyneux's talk, he made it clear that this panel was not a thinly veiled way of promoting the combat in one of his company's upcoming games, though these are naturally ideas he and his team are considering. "A lot of what I've talked about here will never make it into any game, but maybe some of it will," he said. We expect to see Fable 2 at Microsoft's X06 event next month, and we'll be on the lookout to see how much, if any, of the ideas in today's talk make it into that game.
It doesn't sound to me like he's saying anything about what is going into Fable 2. Rather, the author seems to be trying to mention Fable 2 as much as he can, despite the panel not having any information at all about the game. This was simply a talk from Molyneux about what would be cool to incorporate into a game, not what is feasible or what will go into any games he might be designing.
If I believed for a moment that the enviroment might be fully usable as shown, then this might at least make it to "interesting". But historically speaking, there will only be a set of motions that are "acceptable" and a whole series of other things the game won't understand, and setting up an environment won't be a matter of putting a table here and four chairs there, but fully specifying everything the player can do, which makes for a smaller environment because the developers have to do a lot of work per area.
I base this on history: The canonical example in my mind is the megazoom in Black and White from an apple with a worm in it out to the full island view. Cute, but in-game, there was nothing else with the level of detail of that worm, other than that apple. The video, hyped as a promise of things to come, was actually the complete set of cool actions you could take. Molyneux seems to keep giving us that.
Honestly, combat is the one thing that modern action-based video games do tolerably well at; it's the other aspects of the game I'd like to see improved first. (Note that I really do mean "tolerably well"; it's not perfect, but the fact that it has been the primary focus of gaming for nigh unto these many years shows, and the near-complete lack of attention paid to anything else but graphics also shows.)
"I realized, when I looked at myself in the mirror, I actually looked really stupid." - Peter Molyneux
Don't you just love quotes taken out of context?
The fighing especially was a horror. Every single weapon handled exactly the same making no difference except for the stats.
So talk all about how fighting in games is going to be in the future but when your own game is a throwback to the 1980 were the only difference between types of blades is their stats then don't expect me too be too impressed.
Yes better fighting would be much appreciated but don't talk about it, do it. He already talked enough about what Fable was going to be like. Why are we still listening to him doing it all over again with Fable 2?
It ain't the first time. Remember Dungeon Keeper? Remember Black & White. Both games wich in their first incarnation were more hype then delivery. Both times admitted by the guy and both times the press drooled all over it and then the sequel only barely admitting that their drooling over the original was a bit too much. I for one am not going to be fooled anymore.
The gaming press just can't be relied upon to be objective when it comes to this guy. With 3 games so far that completly failed to live up to the hype why is this guy still hailed as some kind of gamer god?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.