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Fable not having Peter Molyneux at the helm is best for it

Peter Molyneux...this man has great concepts in his head but what's on his mind seldom translates as well to reality.

The original was a good concept but perhaps due to the hardware of the time, its full potential could not be realized.

Fable 2 instead streamlined everything and disrespected players' intelligence. Who can forget the infamous golden trail? The dogshit multiplayer that had the infuriating shared camera because Molyneux wanted it to be a "shared experience". Basically both players were stuck in one camera and could not move too far away from the other. No death either.

Then in Fable 3, he decided he had overestimated gamers' intelligence and simplified combat to its core. Fable 2 was already down to a button press but in Fable 3, he stripped down everything and gave like 3 spells to play with. We were left with a handful of weapons and the most annoying inventory system ever created where you had to enter the fucking player's own personal space(in the form of a castle dungeon or something) and WALK up to the item you needed instead of selecting the stuff in a screen as was standard. This made switching gear a needlessly long process. It honestly felt like the game was designed for 5-year old children.

Him not overseeing the upcoming game is fantastic. In my opinion, Fable always had a lot of unfulfilled potential I am hoping Playground will exploit.
 
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Freeman

Banned
You made it sound like a great series... it didn't star great, it only got worse and you are glad the creator is gone?
 
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Skifi28

Member
Having a frachise remain relevant despite disapponting sequels happens quite often. Having disappointing sequels on top of the original game being a huge disappointment and yet moving forward is quite unique. Back then, I played the first game a lot simply because there weren't that many RPGs/exclusives for the xbox. Right now I'm asking myself why bother with a new game. What's unique about the franchise that we want more of? What great lore is behind this series of baby's first RPG? We didn't even see any actual footage. I'm not sure that simply not having Molyneux is enough.
 
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I was so disappointed with Fable that I never bothered to play the sequels. It's funny (and somewhat infuriating) just how quickly you realized how limited it was even for gameplay of its era.

I also grew to dislike Molyneux and everything he was involved in. So...I agree with you. Everyone just looks at him as a snake oil salesman now and it would hurt the brand.
 

Mokus

Member
He was very good at hyping the series. Good or bad, people talked about the games because of him. It was entertaining in the ridiculous way.
 

Beer Baelly

Al Pachinko, Konami President
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Jigsaah

Gold Member
Peter Molyneux...this man has great concepts in his head but what's on his mind seldom translates as well to reality.

The original was a good concept but perhaps due to the hardware of the time, its full potential could not be realized.

Fable 2 instead streamlined everything and disrespected players' intelligence. Who can forget the infamous golden trail? The dogshit multiplayer that had the infuriating shared camera because Molyneux wanted it to be a "shared experience". Basically both players were stuck in one camera and could not move too far away from the other. No death either.

Then in Fable 3, he decided he had overestimated gamers' intelligence and simplified combat to its core. Fable 2 was already down to a button press but in Fable 3, he stripped down everything and gave like 3 spells to play with. We were left with a handful of weapons and the most annoying inventory system ever created where you had to enter the fucking player's own personal space(in the form of a castle dungeon or something) and WALK up to the item you needed instead of selecting the stuff in a screen as was standard. This made switching gear a needlessly long process. It honestly felt like the game was designed for 5-year old children.

Him not overseeing the upcoming game is fantastic. In my opinion, Fable always had a lot of unfulfilled potential I am hoping Playground will exploit.
Peter Molyneux was a con man. Thank God he's not a part of this.
 

Jigsaah

Gold Member
He did make mistakes in the past by overhyping stuff, but he is definitely not a con man. Years of years ago it was very fashionable to hate on Peter, but let's not forget: He made Syndicate, Theme Park and Dungeon Keeper (among other games).
https://kotaku.com/the-man-who-promised-too-much-1537352493

I could cherry pick statements that Molyneux has made, but I'd prefer you read the whole article to get an idea of why I feel that way.

To summarize, Molyneux, at times, would use personal life issues to convince potential backers to financially support his projects. It doesn't take away from his accomplishments. However, I won't ignore these things either.
 
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Fbh

Member
Hard to disagree.

Though honestly I still think it's weird they are going with Fable instead of just making it a new IP.
First game was disappointing, the 2 sequels were average and then there's that one Kinect game I think. All of them with ugly art direction too.
The intro to Fable III (with the chicken) is the only good thing to have come from this franchise.

Is there a big fanbase or something?

Don't take me wrong, I'm looking forward to it, but it's mostly because Playground games is a talented team and I want to see what they can make outside of the racing genre. Not because of the Fable name.
 
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Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Can anyone tell me what the core tenets of Fable?

All I really know about it is that it's an action RPG, with British humor, and Peter Moleynuex would come up with crazy ambitious ideas that never planned out.
 
I remember watching Molixnews talk about his new game where you build a shop in a village and potter about in it doing nothing.

This wasn't that long ago now. Even his staff were bored or something. Wonder what happened to that?
 

Camreezie

Member
Hes a very good speaker and pitcher , I feel like his time has passed now though and he wouldn't have as much to give to big games these days.
 
H

hariseldon

Unconfirmed Member
Back in the 90s he was a god. Power monger was fantastic, as were Theme Park and Theme Hospital. Black and White was fun but perhaps tried to do too much, The Movies was decent but didn’t move the Theme genre forward and since then he’s done nothing. That fucking cube game was shit, and that Godunov game was a disgrace (as was the shoddy trick of making Godus Wars and stopping development on Godus to reset review scores).
 

Kadayi

Banned
He did make mistakes in the past by overhyping stuff, but he is definitely not a con man. Years of years ago it was very fashionable to hate on Peter, but let's not forget: He made Syndicate, Theme Park and Dungeon Keeper (among other games).

Don't forget 'The Movies' . That was a pretty dope concept. I'd love to see a reimagining of it by someone.
 

Tschumi

Member
My first reaction to this announcement was "well, glad a nerdy British dude is back in the big time", but i see now he's not back.

Fable 1 was great fun. With hindsight we can poke holes in it, but at the time of it's release it was really fantastical and unique.

Never played another Fable, they all got such bad reviews~
 

Flintty

Member
Peter only ended up fronting the original game because MS demanded it or they'd kill the project.

People forget that it was the Carter bros pet project at Big Blue Box.

Yup, this is bang on. I remember reading early news about Fable (Project Ego at the time) from Lene and Dene at Big Blue Box, before it grew and Molyneux got involved. Early hype was real. This was the Carter Brothers’ vision, Molyneux just helped it along.

That said, I’ll always have a soft spot for Peter, despite his fuckery.
 
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Kokoloko85

Member
Sounds like half the people excited for Fable 4 didnt like any of the original trilogy....

Which makes me ask. What are you excited for?

I thought the originals were great, some better than others. I find it strange people are getting excited for something they didnt like before. And nothing has been shown.
Im looking forward to seeing 4 though if it keeps the same spirit and certain gameplay, looks like a interesting mixture of developers too
 
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ryan13ts

Member
At the very least the next fable game shouldn't have ridiculous features promised for it. I don't think Molyneux would have near the notorious reputation he has if he didn't feature hype, then not deliver, like he did with some of his games.
 

Flintty

Member
At the very least the next fable game shouldn't have ridiculous features promised for it. I don't think Molyneux would have near the notorious reputation he has if he didn't feature hype, then not deliver, like he did with some of his games.

Yeah, even by his own admission, he always got excited and talked too much about things he’d like to see in the game, only for it to not materialise. Let’s not forget though, the Carter brothers first talked about carving into a tree and being able to see it years later. That was also pie in the sky. Fable has always been overly ambitious, regardless who was the mouth piece.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Yup, this is bang on. I remember reading early news about Fable (Project Ego at the time) from Lene and Dene at Big Blue Box, before it grew and Molyneux got involved. Early hype was real. This was the Carter Brothers’ vision, Molyneux just helped it along.

That said, I’ll always have a soft spot for Peter, despite his fuckery.

Never had dealings with Peter personally, but I do know a lot of people who have and almost invariably when asked their opinion of him they simply told me "Peter is Peter" LOL

Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but only a certain producer (who was himself a dickhead in my estimation) really hated his guts.
 

Goro Majima

Kitty Genovese Member
I love the Fable series so yeah it would be kinda hypocritical for me to especially want him gone.

I'm sure he's a big idea guy but at the end of the day they have to actually ship a game.
 

Paulxo87

Member
This dude was the biggest fraud of the original game.. especially when it was first only known as project ego. I remember being a kid and reading my EGM preview of the project and he said that you could slice a kids face as a child with a sword and years later return to the town where said kid is now an adult with the scar on his face still. There are other tall tales too. Even the initial screenshots of project ego were out of this world insane and the final game had none of this. Mind you - this was before games news was big on the internet. We looked forward to our monthly magazine subs for news. You would wait sometimes months at at time for new game info. He played everyone on many occasions and not just this game
 

Dolomite

Member
Jeez this turned into a Peter hate thread. The man is the Don Trump of video game promises though, so understandable. The only unforgivable act he's done imo was the entire Milo fiasco
 
Jeez this turned into a Peter hate thread. The man is the Don Trump of video game promises though, so understandable. The only unforgivable act he's done imo was the entire Milo fiasco
Apparently this was misconstrued as a game. I read it was only meant as a tech demo to show off the Kinect.
 

sephiroth7x

Member
I liked the world but it wasn't anything particularly different or unique which is why I am surprised by them reviving it. The only thing I can think of is it has an established name which they are hoping will entice people back to it. It was a decent seller in the day, possibly easier than launching a whole new IP and building a new franchise.

I am watching and waiting but not expecting anything amazing.
 

jigglet

Banned
Peter feels like he should be a creative consultant, not the main guy in charge.

Similar to how I feel about Tim Burton, he's got such a distinctive visual style and great ideas, but I don't think he's actually great as a director (or at least, he hasn't been for 20 years).
 
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