-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Fable might have been scaled down due to engine issues and lack of wrpg expertise. Could release later than expected.
Bernkastel
Ask me about my fanboy energy!
I am surprised. I remember people accusing Microsoft of "not using internal engines in their first party projects to take full advantage of their hardware" and now they are being accused of not using Unreal Engine.
Also are you suggesting Microsoft force Obsidian or InXile or Bethesda to make a Fable even though they have other projects they want to work on?
How did they put deal for Sea of Theives/Halo MCC/Gears 5/State of Decay 2 in Game Pass or how will they put upcoming games like Avowed/Everwild/Redfall/State of Decay 3 Day in Game Pass if Epic won't allow them?
Rockstar's RAGE is based of the engine of a racing game. Angel Studios became Rockstar San Diego and developed the Red Dead series. Studios use engines they are familiar with and build upon them. Bungie's Blam Engine for Halo was based off the engine from Myth(a Real Time Tactics game). Asobo uses the same engine for both Flight Simulator and Plague's Tale.
Nothing like that happened here, or maybe you can point out the similarities? It was Playground Games that pitched this because they wanted to move from making open world racing games to open world RPG. Or you want Microsoft to force them to only make racing games forver? This development happened before they were acquired by Microsoft.
Also are you suggesting Microsoft force Obsidian or InXile or Bethesda to make a Fable even though they have other projects they want to work on?
And yet Rare/Obsidian/InXile/Ninja Theory/Coalition/Undead Labs/Compulsion Games/Tango Gameworks/Arkane all use Unreal Engine. Halo MCC also uses Unreal Engine to render its Menus. Somehow you convinced yourself that Microsoft could not make a deal with Epic to use Unreal Engine for Day 1 Game Pass first party titles and yet most of their internal studios use Unreal Engine(or some like Arkane are even moving into it).
How did they put deal for Sea of Theives/Halo MCC/Gears 5/State of Decay 2 in Game Pass or how will they put upcoming games like Avowed/Everwild/Redfall/State of Decay 3 Day in Game Pass if Epic won't allow them?
Those hammer and chisels never built a bad game.
Last edited:
Fake
Member
Ezekiel_
Banned
Bernkastel
Ask me about my fanboy energy!
You are make a point about Microsoft having to negotiate a deal with Epic for their first party studios to use Unreal and hence forcing them to use in house engines. And yet most of them already use Unreal.
You are arguing a point I haven't made.
Last edited:
Thirty7ven
Banned
You don’t know anything about game development it seems. This studio barely had to work on key frame animation and now they are making a game where that’s a huge deal.
Transferable skills from open world racing to open world rpg, ahahah
This game’s development will take awhile.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Ezekiel_
Banned
Last edited:
Playground has long since modified the engine for open world gameplay. They’ve got lighting figured out. Extensive physics. They built an excellent tool for procedural generation of high quality vegetation, there’s excellent water tech, there’s snow, dynamic weather, Ray tracing…
If this was a developer with a poor track record, perhaps. But studios don’t come much more efficient than Playground. I don’t see them switching engines away from their comfort zone.
But let’s watch this space. Certainly you’d feel that MS has to show more of this game no later than E3 this year.
good thing they’ve hired a ton of people with additional experience they require, eh?
Yes? Didn't think that through, did you?
Raven77
Member
Missed my point entirely.
They're simply marketing things differently. Microsoft is focused on the Netflix model. Sony and Nintendo are like movie theaters. (Don't take that as me saying Sony and Nintendo are dying, just using it as the closest business model reference)
I think people are upset with MS because we just don't understand yet how they intend to operate going forward. Things have changed dramatically for them in the past 3-4 years.
Their new main focus for the past few years, now, and going forward, is Gamepass subscriptions.
Their previous focus was selling big AAA games like Halo and Forza in digital and retail formats.
I didn't miss your point. I thought it was laughable.
This must be news to Spencer, who's said they don't expect Gamepass to be the major revenue driver for them. They're selling their games on PC and at retail. Nothing has changed with respect to how they market games.
'Previous'? You think they aren't going to put up Forza Motorsport, Starfield and Redfall - their future slate - for retail sale?
Raven77
Member
I didn't miss your point. I thought it was laughable.
This must be news to Spencer, who's said they don't expect Gamepass to be the major revenue driver for them. They're selling their games on PC and at retail. Nothing has changed with respect to how they market games.
'Previous'? You think they aren't going to put up Forza Motorsport, Starfield and Redfall - their future slate - for retail sale?
Gamepass accounted for nearly 3 billion in revenue last year. Do some research on how many absolute blockbuster 1st party games they would need to release in 1 year to achieve that...
Hawking Radiation
Member
Its PlayGround bro and they're branching out into a whole new genre. It will take time, lots of resources and intense recruiting to see the light of day.
Of course I don't wish bad on any studio and I hope they're able to get this out on time. I certainly don't want to see a cancellation. That would be fucking tragic.
Not an apples to apples comparison since a huge portion of GP games are third party. Ideally you’d want to compare the bump in subscribers from each first party release vs retail sale.
Might as well compare total software revenue vs GP revenue.
CamHostage
Member
Again, it's NOT the same Playground Games. This is a new sister studio, in a new building, with mostly new staff. Most of the car guys are probably making the next car game (or building tech that supports both types of projects.) That's the reason St Alban's House was established, so that Playground Games could still make the great games that Playground Games makes while also supporting a new team making a different type of game.
Also, yes, there are countless transferrable skills from open world racing to open world RPG, and vice-versa. There's good reason why, in the PS2 era, a little Shiny Red Car engine by a somewhat unknown developer who had previously made some Dreamcast racing games and a hoverboard game that didn't even get picked up internationally by its original publisher, went on to become Criterion's Renderware, the most popular and versatile engine of its day. These guys knew what they were doing, and the work they were doing translated to a variety of project types. (Part of that team would later make one of the best-looking/playing FPSes of that generation on the same car game engine.) Same with Epic and its FPS engine taking gaming in all genres to the next level on PS3/360, PS4/XBO, and now PS5/XSX. (Frostbite as well, although that engine was over-committed without the backing resources to actually support the company's directions.) Unity Engine started with a little indie Super Monkey Ball clone called GooBall, and it quickly became one of the most versatile and adopted engines for all types of game projects. There are tons of examples of developers making great games outside of the genres that they're known for. Even "car game" developers, there's a number of good examples. Polyphony Digital made Omega Boost. Angel Studios was a car company making Midtown Madness and Midnight Club/Smuggler's run before RDR. The studio who made Wipeout also made Colony Wars. Yu Suzuki practically invented (and perfected) the car game concept with OutRun, Virtua Racing, and Ferrari F355 Challenge, but he's got a swath of credits outside racing games beyond that.
(Also, small note... "key frame animation", really? I'm not sure which ANI 101 class professor told you that model animation was the backbone of videogame design, but that's a stretch. I mean, we're talking about Fable here, a game where you ideally can create and evolve your own character; I would imagine masters in IK and procedural animation and machine-learned training will be way more in demand for this project than the guys good at adjusting bones out of a t-pose.
...But if they need any help, the other Playground Games walk on over and give them a hand, because, even though they make a car game, they have a ridiculously robust character creation tool for player avatars, which then get used in game. And yes, although it's limited in in-game characters in the Horizon Stories bits, they did make some keyframed animation...)
Last edited:
ChorizoPicozo
Member
How many times MS studios have disappointed with their First Party output?.
Yep.
MS has earned that skepticism.
Technology is a huge aspect for game development (especially for AAA)
You dont have the tech to do something especific? You need to build it first which in turn will slow dev in other departments.
So, this rumor is totally believable. Because we have several examples of this happening with other games as well.
Now, a side of technology, the other critical aspect is a clear vision/direction. If there are to many cooks in the kitchen. That's another red flag.
I am just going to say this: There is a lot of expectations for this (and the initiative's ), games to blow minds.....just use your brain and see this industry track record of a New Studio making ground-breaking AAA game (basically new IPs) and nail it in the first iteration.....yep, is not the norm.
This dosen't mean the games are going to be "trash" (70 MC). These two games will easily achieve 80+MC (if nothing catastrophic happens) is just that we could easily spot where the "scale down" things happened. Like the variety of enemies, environments, cast of characters etc.
Yep.
MS has earned that skepticism.
Technology is a huge aspect for game development (especially for AAA)
You dont have the tech to do something especific? You need to build it first which in turn will slow dev in other departments.
So, this rumor is totally believable. Because we have several examples of this happening with other games as well.
Now, a side of technology, the other critical aspect is a clear vision/direction. If there are to many cooks in the kitchen. That's another red flag.
I am just going to say this: There is a lot of expectations for this (and the initiative's ), games to blow minds.....just use your brain and see this industry track record of a New Studio making ground-breaking AAA game (basically new IPs) and nail it in the first iteration.....yep, is not the norm.
This dosen't mean the games are going to be "trash" (70 MC). These two games will easily achieve 80+MC (if nothing catastrophic happens) is just that we could easily spot where the "scale down" things happened. Like the variety of enemies, environments, cast of characters etc.
Unless you know someone on the inside of St. Albans who feed you tidbits, you know nothing.
This is a new studio. Whatever skills they needed, they hired. I'd imagike establishing company culture and production pipelines would take more time than getting thwir employees to understand animation.
Didn't know that was the point I was making.
How about you stop posting the same gif over and over and use your communication skills to at least make an attempt at clarifying what you meant? Yes?
Obviously you were unsuccessful in making yourself understood.
For such revenue: a lot.
For profit: 1
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Gold Member
You need more than that for a AAA open-world game these days, buddy. Nothing you mentioned there pertains to character models, character animations, body physics etc. Or the extensive experience to leverage that at a high level.
I'd argue Insomniac are more efficient if we're talking about release cadence, Guerrilla Games more efficient if we're talking about optimizations for a range of hardware. And yes HFW had some technical issues at launch but that efficiency also extends to fixing those problems in a relatively quick amount of time.
Meanwhile FH5 is still plagued with horrid LOD pop-in over a year later.
Yes, absolutely. Considering it was revealed in 2020, and only with a CG trailer, it shouldn't be much to ask for some gameplay three years after initial reveal. I don't get how games like Beyond Good & Evil 2 become memes for being revealed years ago and having no other showings since, but some of these MS games following a similar path are protected at all costs from similar takes.
The problem, then, is that MS are switching to a less efficient model, that will have a total market cap lower than the combined totals of traditional consoles and potentially generate less industry revenue than the traditional model does.
I think we can even see MS admit this when Phil Spencer said they don't expect GamePass to encompass any more than 10 - 15% of their total gaming revenue for the future, meaning they still anticipate the direct sales model's revenue to account for some majority of their gaming revenue. Now maybe that was with the assumption they get ABK and roll their revenue into Xbox division's, because in that case it realistically would sit somewhere around that 15% (ABK generates about half of the Xbox division's total revenue annually).
However I don't see why they would be out publicly making statements like that under an assumption of ownership that has not even gone through the full process of approvals yet, so I have to then assume he was referring to GamePass in general regardless of any additional merged revenue streams to the division. And if that's the case, then that doesn't sound like they're going as "all in" on the subscription model as you lot keep saying they are.
Personally I don't even think this ABK acquisition is primarily for GamePass; MS have said themselves it's really for King, but I also think it's for the additional revenue through the IPs ABK have, and having the largest 3P publisher in the industry utilizing Azure for their services backend to act as an example for enticing yet other 3P devs/pubs to adapt Azure for their services & network backends. Those are the REAL opportunities MS seem to want with this acquisition, because Xbox has never been important enough to the whole of the company to suddenly have people like Satya Nadella and Brad Smith come out to bat for it, but coincidentally once GamePass acts as the glue between Xbox and Azure, the division is a lot more important to the higher ups.
Which, hey, it's only natural that is what they want. Any company in their position would want that type of growth. I'm just bringing it up to hopefully illustrate that this push for GamePass in some belief they're counting on the bulk of revenue to come from end customer subscriptions is in fact NOT the main reason they want the ABK deal to go through. And here's the obligatory Fable namedrop to keep things on topic
Captain Toad
Banned
Maybe they shouldn't announce games 5 years before release? Some of these announcements for games we're waiting for were announced before the Series X was announced.
They've been doing this for a decade and those games always prove to have actually had been in trouble, such as Scalebound or Halo Infinite.
Last edited:
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
Really want this to be good more than almost any other game. Bring back the Terry Pratchet inspired humour and an fun whimsical game. I need it right now. Gaming is so serious and pretentious that I could imagine an absolutely stellar Fable game.
CamHostage
Member
I'm just not sure why everybody is so convinced that character animation is this impossibly rare talent which will be the undoing of Fable?
Don't have skilled in-house character animators?
Simple solution: hire animators.
(It is a new studio office, just put a req out, "Character Animators Wanted." Which, they did.)
Or find a studio in India or Slovakia who are good at this kind of thing and outsource to them.
Fable is going to be such a damned complicated project (if it at all follows the original concept of a living RPG where every player having their own story to discover... even Peter Molyneux never really accomplished what he planned to make,) that the studio will have way, way, way more to worry about than something as widely available as character modeling/animation work.
(And in animation, Fable will actually probably need some underdeveloped/new technology which will go beyond traditional character modeling/animation/physics, so it's in some ways better that they will need to reach out for new talent for the new office rather than using an in-house team to adapt their existing Forza Tech character systems for the robust demands of Fable.)
Last edited:
Fable was announced 2.5 years ago.
Scalebound was announced in 2014, showed gameplay in 2015 and 2016 and was finally canceled in Jan 2017. 3 years from reveal.
I don’t see what point you’re making with this
Last edited:
EverythingsOverrated
Member
While I do have reservations about Playground making this, (don't get me wrong, I love FH games), I don't think it's time to panic yet. If 2024 rolls around and we don't have anything, then ya, but I think MS just announced the game too early.
JerryinSoCal
Member
It's obviously going to be a challenge going from making only racing games to making a game with animated characters, AI, combat etc. None of those things had to be factored in before, their engine was built totally around racing games. An open world fantasy action RPG is going to be a lot more work than an aracdey racing game, it'll take longer to make obviously and if it's the first time they've done it that will only drag it out more. If the studio is truly being frugal about it that's not gong to help either. MS really made a big mistake announcing so many games that were years away from even being shown.
So ten quarters ago? Maybe some people shouldn't use silly hyperbole to make argument? No one asking for update every quarter.
Yoboman
Member
If true (grain of salt), I still don't get the logic in MS
1) Circa 2010 turn Lionhead into some bastardised shell of themselves making Kinect games
2) Get them on a multiplayer Fable
3) Cancel that game and shut down the studio in 2016
4) Buy nearly every available WRPG dev from 2018-2020
5) In 2020 Announce the return of Fable by the studio that makes car games, not by any of the WRPG devs purchased
6) Go into hiding for the following 2.5 years
I really don't get Xbox Studios sometimes
1) Circa 2010 turn Lionhead into some bastardised shell of themselves making Kinect games
2) Get them on a multiplayer Fable
3) Cancel that game and shut down the studio in 2016
4) Buy nearly every available WRPG dev from 2018-2020
5) In 2020 Announce the return of Fable by the studio that makes car games, not by any of the WRPG devs purchased
6) Go into hiding for the following 2.5 years
I really don't get Xbox Studios sometimes
Yoboman
Member
Just cause their tech works well in a fly by open world doesn't mean it's an easy transition to a third person game that also needs dialogue trees, big narrative structures, evolving characters and environments to keep consistent with other Fable gamesWatched the video. Massive pinch of salt.
No way is Playground of all devs having issues with Forzatech, and the bit about ‘expertise’ makes no sense since they’ve been hiring from the start to bring in that capability.
Looks more like it’s well known that rumors like this brings more clicks.
A source that apparently doesn’t leak the target release window, can’t leak any info on story or setting or any relevant info on the game…how’s that a source?
Rumor =/= News.
That he can’t count.
Did gorilla have a history of making rpgs? Nope. Did they make one anyway with their in-house game engine? Yep.
Yoboman
Member
They made an RPG lite. Pretty basic systems for levelling, dialogue trees etc. Even then there were issues and they had to recruit RPG expertise and reshape their engine around it. There is a whole noclip making of Horizon documentary that details it
And they were still able to leverage their talent in narratives, art, machine design, shooting etc that was built in the Killzone games. And they could do it in a new IP with no preconceived notions of what they need to deliver on
This is an even bigger change for a dev who has only dealt with cars, never done a narrative, never dealt with RPG systems, hasn't even dealt with level design outside of road systems. And is doing it on an IP where the fanbase expected really really deep RPG systems and a charming story with a very distinctive voice
Hopefully they can do it but it's a tall order
Lupin25
Member
GG definitely would’ve had a much easier transition to RPG’s than a dev known for arcade racing lol.
Silly comparison.
Last edited:
Salty Popsicle
Banned
The game was formally announced in July of 2020. Where is this 5-year announcement waiting period coming from?
Captain Toad
Banned
I wasn't talking about just Fable.
But, it is 2023 next month. And I haven't seen anything to believe Fable will be releasing in the next year or two.
Pelta88
Member
Fable Report Confirms Concerns of Xbox Fans
Xbox fans have been growing steadily concerned about the new Fable game for a variety of reasons, [...]
Where have we seen these issues for XB first party studios before?
Hmm
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Fable Report Confirms Concerns of Xbox Fans
Xbox fans have been growing steadily concerned about the new Fable game for a variety of reasons, [...]comicbook.com
Where have we seen these issues for XB first party studios before?
Hmm
Last page when the same "report" was posted already from the original source.
bentanchorbolt
Banned
I'll reserve judgement for when the game is released. Anything additional seems like a waste of time.
Silly to you. Plenty of developers have made multiple types of games.
Instead of criticizing a game you have never seen wait for a real trailer or some thing.
More fake concern. We all know it is. Come back when a trailer comes out and express your “concern” then.
“Guerilla were able to make a successful RPG because they recruited RPG expertise and made use of internal talent, but Playground’s game will likely be bad even though they employed pretty much the Same strategy”
Not sure how your position makes sense. current Fable team is composed of RPG veterans and experienced talent
https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/analysis-whos-working-on-fable-4/
And this is from 2020, when they still had a lot of positions to fill.
Last edited:
R3claimer117
Member
You do know the racing team
Has nothing to do with fable right ? Fable being done by their rpg team and eidos Montreal.
Yes, they should have turned down the pitch in 2017 and given it to Mojang instead, eh?
They should have invented time travel and given it to all the RPG studios they bought in 2018, eh?
Years of heckling MS for buying studios vs building from the ground up, and when MS builds up a second 200 dev strong studio at Playground, it’s ‘mismanagement’
The trolls are out in full force, it seems.
never too late, looks like it’s in development hell anyway
StealthGoblin
Banned
I’ve high hopes for this despite initial reservations. Fable is the only game that Microsoft, Bethesda and ABK have announced that I’m interested in so I have a lot riding on it in terms of what I want from Xbox.
I definitely think it was announced far too soon, and I have concerns about the humour, but I’m wishing the whole team well and want to will this into a strong existence
The news that Eidos Montreal is involved raises questions as to why Microsoft didn’t buy the western SE studios.
I definitely think it was announced far too soon, and I have concerns about the humour, but I’m wishing the whole team well and want to will this into a strong existence
The news that Eidos Montreal is involved raises questions as to why Microsoft didn’t buy the western SE studios.
Last edited: