Depression to Celebration

[iloveRPGs]

Just wanted to share this story with you:

I have to admit that when I first read the ign review of Fable I was extremely depressed. A 9.3 was good but I was expecting it too at least tie KOTOR with a 9.5, but no, it didn't. I was pissed and depressed. NOW DON'T GET MAD AT ME AND SAY 9.3 IS GOOD, SO SHUT-UP. IT WAS THE IMMEDIATE DISSAPOINTMENT. So like always when I get a major disapointment in my gaming life, I went to my magazine's and read all the good things that were gonna be in the game. Normally it works, but not this time, it was horrible. I finaly got to my most recent issues and read this:

WHO YOU ARE IS NOT ALWAYS...

WHO YOU WILL BECOME.

FABLE
For every choice a consequence
What if the choices you made had everlasting repercussions? Your every action would immediately affect your appearance and change the way people percieve you. Would you wield a sword in the name of virtue, create a path of evil with spells and treachery, or become something in between? Before you create your destiny, know this no two Fables are the same. What will yours be?

I don't know it just inspired me, I immediately reloved, reobsessed, and redesperately wanted Fable. It was amazing, such an inspiring advertisement.

Please don't go posting things in this forum about how I was unfaithful and crap for getting depressed. I was just sharing a story of true love for a game with you. If ya'll have any similiar stories share 'em here. Rule is don't make fun of people for disapiontments.

[xbox genius]

dont worry i'm sure theres a fable 2... and with that they will have more time to work in the promising features they had taken out... i'm sure fable 2 will be a blast if there will be one...

[OC Noob]

dont worry i'm sure theres a fable 2... and with that they will have more time to work in the promising features they had taken out... i'm sure fable 2 will be a blast if there will be one...


I hope that is the case. I saw a video where a guy asked Peter Molynux (SP?) about Fable 2 and he said something like if they were to do a sequal it would have to be just as revolutionary as Fable is compaired to current games (he over stated Fable revolutionary-ness), but the point is if he was to do a sequal it would have to be as big of a project as the original and take forever to be released.

I, like everyone else, is hoping for Fable to as the same game with a lot more of the features we heard about. So I hope MS or someone puts preasure on him to have a sequal created like that. Even if a different Dev worked on it like KotOR II. So long as it didn't take long to make and added a ton of content and a bunch of the features BBB couldn't fit into Fable it would be a 9.5+/10 game easily.

A wide open free world would be nice, but I don't mind a KotOR kind of world so long as its full of quests and stuff. Hopefully, a sequal is made with Fable 1 at its core, a bunch of enhancements and 40+ hours of content.


Oh yeah, to the original poster. I think Fable will be different from any other RPG in the fact that you can really interact with the world and make of the game what you want. Th traditional elements don't seem to be stacking up against classic RPGs, but we've never seen an RPG with 5 sims running the aspects of the game. Its got, I think 50k lines of dialoge and endless combinations when it comes to interacting with NPCs.

Another thing in the "what you make of it" vein is the game is too easy, but there is no rule that you have to keep tons of health potions on you or pay to become evil when you are good. If people really want to have fun with it I think they won't take advantage of things like loading up on potions and will earn their way to that evil or good reputation.

Sure a person can bum rush to the end of the game in 15 hours, but with a game like this I think getting there will be better then the actual destination.

Not saying it will be the best RPG ever, but I do think it is rather different from anything we've seen and will be great no matter how you play it, but if you take advantage of the new RPG/sim system it will go from great to epic.

Of course, this all depends on the person, but if you like RPGs in the Role Playing Game sense (not the play a character in a movie sense like KotOR/FF) Fable should be pretty unique.


Some people need the great story and a well defined path, others like to define the path themselves, including a non-intrusive story that takes a back seat to playing the game.

[Shadow20002]

Well... no matter what happen.. Fable is what i want.....

[Soundscape]

FABLE
For every choice a consequence
What if the choices you made had everlasting repercussions? it would have to be just as revolutionary as Fable is compaired to current games i don't think fable is going to be revolutionary in any sense. the most revolutionary thing about it was that your actions had real time consequences on your surroundings and on the story as it unfolded. that your different choices sent you on different paths, just like in life, to some extent. unfortunately from what i've read this has been majorly over-stated, and you don't really see any real consequences for your actions. your appearance will change and the npc's may act differently towards you but that is it. and supposedly the npc's are real repetative in terms of appearance and what they say. it just doesn't sound as lifelike and interactive as they have hyped it up to be, which is too bad because that was the whole attraction of the game.

[themoosearmy]

WHO YOU ARE IS NOT ALWAYS...

WHO YOU WILL BECOME.

FABLE
For every choice a consequence
What if the choices you made had everlasting repercussions? Your every action would immediately affect your appearance and change the way people percieve you. Would you wield a sword in the name of virtue, create a path of evil with spells and treachery, or become something in between? Before you create your destiny, know this no two Fables are the same. What will yours be?

I don't know it just inspired me, I immediately reloved, reobsessed, and redesperately wanted Fable. It was amazing, such an inspiring advertisement.

Of course it did, because it's a thing called "marketing." You can make virtually ANYTHING sound good if you talk about it right. They promised something that they couldn't deliver. Will the game be good? Yes, of course it will be, a 9.3 is damn good. Did it deliver? No, it didn't and they are lucky that the reviews are this good. What we are looking at right now is a semi-linear game where the interaction stems not too far from changing your appearence because of your actions, changing your status in the community based on your actions, and allowing complete interactivity with your surroundings. These are not all that "innovative." Games like Harvest Moon, most MMOs, KoTOR, and morrowing already take advantage of these. Having these options takes little more design ability than simply allowing you to do it.

Classic RPGs like the Final Fantasy series, Chronotrigger, Earthbound, and the like were focused primarily on you living the story they created linearly. A few changes and tweaks here and there and you would have been able to do the same thing that Fable is suggesting. You couldn't attack the town because they wanted you to be a good guy. Now you want to be a bad guy, you say? Alright. Then games like KoTOR and Neverwinter Nights came out offering the ability to be good or evil. Stalk the town at night in terror or save the lonely shopkeeper on the edge of the dark forest. They also added another facet to the game: interactivity. Virtually everything in both of these worlds can be used (in NWN, in infinite ways at the will of the DM).

This leaves us with one more feature, the real-time change of your appearance based on your actions. This is the most promising of all of them, but if you look at in the scope of what you thought it was going to be, it's not that innovative. So it's if I'm a good guy: white cloak, fair appearence. Bad guy: black with spikes, ugly as sin. Why can't I look like a million bucks so everyone "thinks" I'm good, but I'm really a mass murdering treasure hunter? Scars and marks should reflect battle, but you should be able to tell people why you got them.

In closing, lets hope that the game's story fills in for some of the feature gaps, but I'm hoping I have plenty of time to turn myself into the philanthropic savior i plan to be. Only time will tell if the game lives up at least some of the things that were promised. Sales are guaranteed because of hype and marketing. I know I'm gonna take some hits for this, but I'm hoping i'm wrong too.

[BananaMan]

Scars and marks should reflect battle, but you should be able to tell people why you got them.

this is a GAME, i think the characters in this game wuold already know that you got them from battle. not that a GAME really cares how you got them. it's not like it would change the story any.

[OC Noob]

WHO YOU ARE IS NOT ALWAYS...

WHO YOU WILL BECOME.

FABLE
For every choice a consequence
What if the choices you made had everlasting repercussions? Your every action would immediately affect your appearance and change the way people percieve you. Would you wield a sword in the name of virtue, create a path of evil with spells and treachery, or become something in between? Before you create your destiny, know this no two Fables are the same. What will yours be?




Everyone likes to quote this recently and then complain that their choices have on effect on the story and thus their choices have no consequences.


That is just not true and was never promised by BBB/Lion Head. People think because of this statement or for some other unknown reason that this game was suposed to have some kind of multiple on top of multiple, on top of multiple banching story line, BUT that was never what BBB said or advertised it to be.

In fact, what is stated is true. Every choice does have a consequence and repercussions just like they have said since day one. They may not be huge consequences/repercusions like some people expected, but EVERYTHING is tracked in the sims built into the game and every NPC has its own personality and way of reacting to the information collected in the sim. It is the way Fable was built and advertised to work, not an ultra branched story.

I won't say its revolutionary in terms of its effect on gaming in the long run until I play it, that was what PM said about making a sequal. They system of sims may not have the huge impact BBB thought they would and it may underwhelm consumers, but a potentially revolutionary system is in place. Just like DS and its extra screen, the multiple sim system Fable uses may flop and stink (IMO the extra screen will be a failure).

I did read the review that said NPC were all the same and very repetative, but I did find it strange that none of the other reviews said that. Gamespot didn't complain about it and I figured if it was bad they would be complaining the loudest. In a few days I'll see for myself.


Anyway, you would think your actions would effect the story more then they do in Fable, but its not like it was promised that the story would hinge on your every action. What was promised was that the world and its reaction to you would hinge on your every action and that could easily be true. We will know for ourselves in a few days if the 5 or 6 sim systems in Fable are sucessful or not.


ps PM was always talking about features they wanted in Fable and were trying to work into it. He should have shut his mouth until he knew they would work or not, BUT most of the cut features were never promised like some people think. All those features PM talks about in videos and interviews weren't things BBB said were promised features of Fable, they were things they wanted to have in the game that PM got too excited about and talked too much about when he shouldn't have.



With so much hype I can understand people expecting the things PM got us all excited about, but the things people just assumed would be there with out any factual basis (like a revolutionary branching story system) shouldn't be cause for complaint.

Heck, one of the greatest story lines for an RPG was KotOR and it didn't really branch that much. It had the light and dark side branch which didn't make too much of an impact on the centeral story until the end anyway. They did a masterful job of scripted reactions to light and dark side choices/players, but that isn't what Fable is about. It is about very free, very unscripted interaction with NPCs ( may not work, but thats not the point). I will be interested to see how the characters central to the story (thus scripted) will react to good and bad characters. If they react the same way to good and evil players during scripted interactions I will be rather disapointed, but that has little to do with the core story. Visa vera, the core story being linear has little to do with how scripted interactions will be handled. The story can be linear and important NPCs can still dislike you, open up to you or present you with side quests just like in KotOR.

The linear story doesn't really bother me that much, nor does the lack of an epic story. What i am anxious to find out about is 1) do the sims enhance the game 2) do the NPC interactions live up to the hype 3) are the scripted NPC interactions close to as good as they were in KotOR.

Those along with the gfx, fighting system, etc.. are the points that will make or break Fable for me.