Brevity
05-14-2003, 07:42 AM
Peter Molyneux Speaks on Fable (Xbox)
The mastermind spills the beans about Xbox's most anticipated RPG.
By christian "ferricide" nutt | 5/13/2003
Source Gamespy
Developer: Big Blue Box
Publisher: Microsoft
Release Date: March 2003
Genre: Sports
GameSpy: I have to say that I'm very interested in Fable.
Molyneux: Brilliant. Yes.
GameSpy: The reason is that I'm a huge RPG fan. But I come from the console school of RPGs. Things like Square's products -- Final Fantasy. My question is: are you hoping to appeal to that audience, or are you hoping to forge ahead?
Molyneux: My hope was to have everything you'd have in one of those games. I love those games. I love the Final Fantasy games. And I've loved PC games -- and, well, stuff like this always ends up sounding slightly rude -- I find that Baldur's Gate is a little bit too complex for me. But I still love the idea of them: this immersive world, loads and loads of different things to do.
And that comes down to what I wanted Fable to be -- and the challenge that we had to face with the combat system. You know, you can't just have a simple combat system. You have to have a combat system that's better than any combat system so far. It's got to be able to be instantly picked up, but not instantly masterable. And that's just an enormous challenge.
And that's on top of the immersive, incredible world you can do anything in. And on top of the main story that's there -- but that story can then be changed and modified by the way you play. And different towns. And all of that is still there. So we had to excel in every single way. I would say, the answer to your question is -- it's more like a console-based role playing game.
GameSpy: It definitely looks it, in terms of the presentation and the gameplay.
Molyneux: If you just picked up the joypad, you'd be able to fight immediately. But you'd notice, after you'd been fighting for ten or fifteen minutes, you'd developed a couple more skills -- and that's one thing. And the other thing is this ability to spot someone fighting and say "Hmm, I like that move, I'll have that move, and I'll use that move myself."
GameSpy: So the way your character develops -- I get the impression it's all sort of seamless. It's never just like "you've gained a level."
Molyneux: Leveling up -- there has to be leveling up. I mean, I have played RPGs and I have said "I'm not going to go to the toilet until I level up." Leveling up is a very important part. Leveling up, and weapons, and skills, and abilities, and aiming for something. So although the character morphs and changes visually, inside the interface there's also a bar. It's broken up into chunks -- level 1 is represented by the first line, level two the next, etc. You're slowly changing as you get to the next point, but when you get to that point you'll see your muscles pop if you're doing strength -- he'll actually go through a strength morph. So these are the high points of the morphs going on.
GameSpy: I see. So you'll know that something will happen if you get to that point.
Molyneux: When I first thought about the morphing, I thought it was really cool, because it means that everybody's character will be really different. But then after playing it for awhile, I really missed the idea that I was Level 1 or Level 2 and so on. And I think that's a powerful thing.
The question that I put to you is -- and this is the big question -- there are three main attributes to think about. There's Strength: how hard you hit somebody, and there are some flourishes in there. There's Skill: like using bows and arrows or ranged attacks. And there's the magic system, which we call Will. And the more you use each one, the faster its bar will go up. But -- here's the thing -- if you don't use the skill, should it start decaying? Like if you don't go down the gym, your muscles start go away. Should we have decaying attributes? This won't necessarily affect the design of the game, but...
GameSpy: It might be frustrating -- it's a difficult question. It might be frustrating to the player but it's more realistic.
Molyneux: That's always the payoff, isn't it? It's like night and day. There's never been a game with true night and day. Night and day is a big problem. So I want to pose that question. It would be interesting to see what people think.
GameSpy: I definitely don't think that it should decay as fast as the other ones grow.
Molyneux: Actually, the rate of decay is also like going down the gym -- the decay would be hardly anything at first, but it would slowly get faster. You could also think of the notches on the experience bar as reverse points on the decay curve. It may decay back down to a notch but not go any further.
GameSpy: Basically -- does this three ability system encompass the class system? Fable doesn't seem to have a traditional class system any more than it has a traditional level system. Depending on what you concentrate on, does it sort of encompass a class system?
Molyneux: I really thought hard about the class system. If someone was high in strength, and also high in will ability, he would be what you'd call a mage-warrior. Yeah, OK. But then I realized the problem with giving it a name is that it means that "I am this, and I am only this."
GameSpy: It imposes a limitiation.
Molyneux: Yes. Rather than do that, you can buy a title -- who you are in the world -- from a shop. So you can go into the world and say "I want to be called BloodAxe the Mage." And you buy that title for ten gold. And now whenever you talk to someone, he'll say "Hi, BloodAxe the mage!" And you can go into the shop and say "I want my title to be Twinkle Toes the Inferior." Any title that you'd like. So if you want to be called a mage in the world, you just buy the title "mage."
GameSpy: About the skills -- do they balance each other? If you're concentrating on strength, is it harder to gain will? That's the traditional thought.
Molyneux: The stronger you are in strength -- there's a huge payoff, the higher you are in a skill -- but there's also a another payoff if you match these bars. But the huge payoff is that these so-called alignment classes have a skill at the top.
GameSpy: Like an ultimate skill?
Molyneux: Right. As you get higher in strength, it's slightly harder to get skill, and much harder to get will. You don't think of magic users being very strong and brawny. They're more like Gandalf than they are like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
GameSpy: What I didn't see in the demo you just gave me was much of the story. There wasn't an explanation of how the narrative works. Is there a strong story element?
Molyneux: Absolutely. It starts with your family getting killed -- or you think they've been killed. And it ends with you challenging ... someone ... to be the ultimate hero of all time, and finding your family. And realizing that your mother was a hero herself, and you father was someone ... well, I won't spoil it.
GameSpy: As you start to follow different paths, do you start to diverge from the story? You know, that narrative sounds pretty morally uplifting.
Molyneux: Well, actually the story had to be defined in such a way that it wouldn't lead you down a particular alignment path. In other words, you can be the greatest hero of all time, but you can still be enormously evil. You know, America and the gunslinger culture proved that. Jesse James is one of the most famous heroes of all time in any culture -- and he's still ultimately one of the most evil. It doesn't make him any less famous.
And that's what the story plays on -- sure enough, you take revenge on the person who killed your father. It doesn't matter if you're good or evil. In some ways, if you're evil you can take even more revenge. But the fact is, the more evil you get within the game, when you kill someone you can do just unspeakable things to them.
You'll notice your character has what's called an alignment morph. It starts in the middle -- neutral, neither good nor evil. The more evil things you do, the more it moves up. Like the leveling meter, it has bars. As you cross them, your character will begin to behave more evilly. You'll start doing things like walking into a scene and saying "I am going to rip your heart out." And he does. And I think that payoff for your character is really cool.
GameSpy: So then does the narrative sort of put on pause when you take up these quests -- how do the quests and the narrative work together?
The mastermind spills the beans about Xbox's most anticipated RPG.
By christian "ferricide" nutt | 5/13/2003
Source Gamespy
Developer: Big Blue Box
Publisher: Microsoft
Release Date: March 2003
Genre: Sports
GameSpy: I have to say that I'm very interested in Fable.
Molyneux: Brilliant. Yes.
GameSpy: The reason is that I'm a huge RPG fan. But I come from the console school of RPGs. Things like Square's products -- Final Fantasy. My question is: are you hoping to appeal to that audience, or are you hoping to forge ahead?
Molyneux: My hope was to have everything you'd have in one of those games. I love those games. I love the Final Fantasy games. And I've loved PC games -- and, well, stuff like this always ends up sounding slightly rude -- I find that Baldur's Gate is a little bit too complex for me. But I still love the idea of them: this immersive world, loads and loads of different things to do.
And that comes down to what I wanted Fable to be -- and the challenge that we had to face with the combat system. You know, you can't just have a simple combat system. You have to have a combat system that's better than any combat system so far. It's got to be able to be instantly picked up, but not instantly masterable. And that's just an enormous challenge.
And that's on top of the immersive, incredible world you can do anything in. And on top of the main story that's there -- but that story can then be changed and modified by the way you play. And different towns. And all of that is still there. So we had to excel in every single way. I would say, the answer to your question is -- it's more like a console-based role playing game.
GameSpy: It definitely looks it, in terms of the presentation and the gameplay.
Molyneux: If you just picked up the joypad, you'd be able to fight immediately. But you'd notice, after you'd been fighting for ten or fifteen minutes, you'd developed a couple more skills -- and that's one thing. And the other thing is this ability to spot someone fighting and say "Hmm, I like that move, I'll have that move, and I'll use that move myself."
GameSpy: So the way your character develops -- I get the impression it's all sort of seamless. It's never just like "you've gained a level."
Molyneux: Leveling up -- there has to be leveling up. I mean, I have played RPGs and I have said "I'm not going to go to the toilet until I level up." Leveling up is a very important part. Leveling up, and weapons, and skills, and abilities, and aiming for something. So although the character morphs and changes visually, inside the interface there's also a bar. It's broken up into chunks -- level 1 is represented by the first line, level two the next, etc. You're slowly changing as you get to the next point, but when you get to that point you'll see your muscles pop if you're doing strength -- he'll actually go through a strength morph. So these are the high points of the morphs going on.
GameSpy: I see. So you'll know that something will happen if you get to that point.
Molyneux: When I first thought about the morphing, I thought it was really cool, because it means that everybody's character will be really different. But then after playing it for awhile, I really missed the idea that I was Level 1 or Level 2 and so on. And I think that's a powerful thing.
The question that I put to you is -- and this is the big question -- there are three main attributes to think about. There's Strength: how hard you hit somebody, and there are some flourishes in there. There's Skill: like using bows and arrows or ranged attacks. And there's the magic system, which we call Will. And the more you use each one, the faster its bar will go up. But -- here's the thing -- if you don't use the skill, should it start decaying? Like if you don't go down the gym, your muscles start go away. Should we have decaying attributes? This won't necessarily affect the design of the game, but...
GameSpy: It might be frustrating -- it's a difficult question. It might be frustrating to the player but it's more realistic.
Molyneux: That's always the payoff, isn't it? It's like night and day. There's never been a game with true night and day. Night and day is a big problem. So I want to pose that question. It would be interesting to see what people think.
GameSpy: I definitely don't think that it should decay as fast as the other ones grow.
Molyneux: Actually, the rate of decay is also like going down the gym -- the decay would be hardly anything at first, but it would slowly get faster. You could also think of the notches on the experience bar as reverse points on the decay curve. It may decay back down to a notch but not go any further.
GameSpy: Basically -- does this three ability system encompass the class system? Fable doesn't seem to have a traditional class system any more than it has a traditional level system. Depending on what you concentrate on, does it sort of encompass a class system?
Molyneux: I really thought hard about the class system. If someone was high in strength, and also high in will ability, he would be what you'd call a mage-warrior. Yeah, OK. But then I realized the problem with giving it a name is that it means that "I am this, and I am only this."
GameSpy: It imposes a limitiation.
Molyneux: Yes. Rather than do that, you can buy a title -- who you are in the world -- from a shop. So you can go into the world and say "I want to be called BloodAxe the Mage." And you buy that title for ten gold. And now whenever you talk to someone, he'll say "Hi, BloodAxe the mage!" And you can go into the shop and say "I want my title to be Twinkle Toes the Inferior." Any title that you'd like. So if you want to be called a mage in the world, you just buy the title "mage."
GameSpy: About the skills -- do they balance each other? If you're concentrating on strength, is it harder to gain will? That's the traditional thought.
Molyneux: The stronger you are in strength -- there's a huge payoff, the higher you are in a skill -- but there's also a another payoff if you match these bars. But the huge payoff is that these so-called alignment classes have a skill at the top.
GameSpy: Like an ultimate skill?
Molyneux: Right. As you get higher in strength, it's slightly harder to get skill, and much harder to get will. You don't think of magic users being very strong and brawny. They're more like Gandalf than they are like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
GameSpy: What I didn't see in the demo you just gave me was much of the story. There wasn't an explanation of how the narrative works. Is there a strong story element?
Molyneux: Absolutely. It starts with your family getting killed -- or you think they've been killed. And it ends with you challenging ... someone ... to be the ultimate hero of all time, and finding your family. And realizing that your mother was a hero herself, and you father was someone ... well, I won't spoil it.
GameSpy: As you start to follow different paths, do you start to diverge from the story? You know, that narrative sounds pretty morally uplifting.
Molyneux: Well, actually the story had to be defined in such a way that it wouldn't lead you down a particular alignment path. In other words, you can be the greatest hero of all time, but you can still be enormously evil. You know, America and the gunslinger culture proved that. Jesse James is one of the most famous heroes of all time in any culture -- and he's still ultimately one of the most evil. It doesn't make him any less famous.
And that's what the story plays on -- sure enough, you take revenge on the person who killed your father. It doesn't matter if you're good or evil. In some ways, if you're evil you can take even more revenge. But the fact is, the more evil you get within the game, when you kill someone you can do just unspeakable things to them.
You'll notice your character has what's called an alignment morph. It starts in the middle -- neutral, neither good nor evil. The more evil things you do, the more it moves up. Like the leveling meter, it has bars. As you cross them, your character will begin to behave more evilly. You'll start doing things like walking into a scene and saying "I am going to rip your heart out." And he does. And I think that payoff for your character is really cool.
GameSpy: So then does the narrative sort of put on pause when you take up these quests -- how do the quests and the narrative work together?