-
Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
"Most RPGs are sh**" - Molyneux
- Thread starter js2af
- Start date
thetrin
Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
KyotoMecca said:
Except that:
1) Most RPGs do not have shit combat. They have shit stories, and recycled worlds.
2) Fable 1 had shit combat.
EDIT: Quick question - How many of you posers actually knew who Molyneux was before he left Bullfrog and made Lionhead? I mean, seriously. His output in the last 7 years or so is far below is stellar output when he was at Bullfrog.
This interview is a joke, sorry. I'm reading it and it sounds like Molyneux is calling them shit because they're too hard, too complicated, and just not casual enough. And then he lays out his vision of success as being casual enough that it'll sell really well.
Casual sales = quality. Okay.
Now, some of the stuff he describes does sound somewhat cool (though given his track record within the RPG field, I'd not be so quick to put down other games in the genre when I'm trying something very much untested), but the basis from which he's putting down RPGs as a whole is really pretty lame and nonsensical.
I wonder if he's even played some of the truly amazing RPGs this last generation with incredible combat systems?
Casual sales = quality. Okay.
Now, some of the stuff he describes does sound somewhat cool (though given his track record within the RPG field, I'd not be so quick to put down other games in the genre when I'm trying something very much untested), but the basis from which he's putting down RPGs as a whole is really pretty lame and nonsensical.
I wonder if he's even played some of the truly amazing RPGs this last generation with incredible combat systems?
BolognaOni
Member
Quazar said:
How is Oblivion not an RPG? I honestly don't know how some of these classifications are determined... most traditional "RPG" video games are more just inter-active storybooks. One of the things I do respect Molyneux for is that he wants to bring player choice into things more (although Fable really didn't live up to the hype in this arena...).
thetrin said:
Yep. Everything starting with B&W has pretty much been B+ in my book. Populous was an instant classic, and Syndicate, Dragon Keeper were both very good. Some of his other earlier stuff is apparently good as well.
I think he's doing himself a real disservice by hyping everything up. He really seems to be biting off more than he can chew a lot of the time, and everyone is ending up a bit disappointed.
He became famous by...GremlinInTheMachine said:
1. Being one of the dozen or so greatest people in gaming history, featuring a resume that includes being inducted into AIAS, receiving an Order of the British Empire, and being awarded the title of Chevalier de lÂ’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.
2. Being the only guy to punk EA by selling them Bullfrog for a fat wad of cash, then skating out the door the second his contract was up to start his own company, leaving EA with jack shit.
3. Actually striving for innovation and pioneering in game design, no matter how risky it might be or no matter how many people tell him it'd never work.
Fable wasn't actually made by Molyneux, Big Blue Box made it as a satellite of Lionhead. Molyneux was far more involved in The Movies, Black and White 2, and his still unrevealed pet project Dimitri. He wasn't even a principle designer on any of Lionhead's recent games. He just serves the role you'd expect the head of a major game developer to serve, as an overseer and representative of the studio.
I'm actually pretty happy Molyneux stopped designing games. After the first Black and White it was clear that his vision for what games could be, something completely outside the boundaries of genre that required thought and insight on one's own part, was too much for your average gamer to handle. His vision of gaming isn't well suited to today's cookie cutter tastes in gaming so I'd rather he tries to sprinkle some creativity into a wider array of projects. He'll likely play a larger role in the development of Fable 2, so lets see how that turns out before we judge him in this new role too harshly.
thetrin said:
i knew who he was, but for my post i did look up the wikipedia article as i wasn't sure if he wrote what was considered the first god game or not, and wasn't entirely sure of all the games he'd done.
i'd assume that his output has been more of a producer/overseer and less of a hands-on designer at Lionhead. this has been mentioned before, but id be willing to bet that he didn't do as much design work as people here are crediting him with.
thetrin
Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
BolognaOni said:
As far as I am concerned, he has every right to say that most RPGs are shit. On the other hand, I don`t think he has the credibility to avoid admitting that his own game fell into that same pile.
If he acknowledged it, and intended to FIX the problems in Fable, then fine. Fact of the matter, though, is that Fable was a fun game that failed to deliver on almost every single promise Molyneux threw at the press.
That said, are we sure that when he says RPGs, he`s talking about both JRPGs and WRPGs? I don`t see any mention of anything besides games like Oblivion (he does have a point...Oblivion was an excellent game, but its excellence was in spite of its utterly incompetent and oversimplistic battle system).
TemplaerDude
Member
m0dus said:
it's a damn "motherfucking" shame you didn't actually give me anything to respond to. i was hoping beyond hope you actually enjoyed some element of that shitty game but god damn apparently the only thing molyneux could accomplish is making it look nice.
well congratufuckinglations molyneux, you made a pretty game. that doesn't give you the right to make bullshit comments about other rpgs especially when your only dabble in the genre was a massive failure in every aspect of what makes a roleplaying game a ROLEPLAYING game.
did i swear for you enough in that? i can add a few fucks in there since you seem to enjoy swear words.
Pete, you really need to learn how to build a 100 hour game where you are chasing a court jester around contrived lifeless towns with three different npc variations before you can talk shit about rpg's. Include shitty save functionality, 20 year old mechanics that were burned out 10 years ago and you will get the love of GAF. Add a bit of Saturday morning cartoon humor and you have an elitist classic.
If I was full of shit on this one, nobody would know what I was talking about.
If I was full of shit on this one, nobody would know what I was talking about.
My Arms Your Hearse
Banned
This is true of every genre. Of course, Fable was one of the worst RPGs last gen, if we can even call it a "rpg" at 7 hour first playthrough.
Well, yeah i would kinda agree with that, at least when it comes to the japanese rpgs. Same thing over and over again, rinse and repeat, most are crap. Western games are at least evolving and expanding their ideas. FF 12 was one of the few eastern rpgs that seemed to try and progress.
~Kinggi~ said:
Bullshit. Have you played Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter? Valkyrie Profile 2? Riviera? Nocturne? Persona 3? Shadow Hearts Covenant? Yggdra Union? Grandia 3? Odin Sphere? There's been incredible diversity in RPG battle systems last gen... and there was plenty of diversity and original ideas and experimentation the generation before that, too.
thetrin said:
Right. "could've" is not "could of."
thetrin
Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
ethelred said:
Well, Molyneux has always been a rather inflammatory gent. Coming from someone else it would have been a far more hypocritical thing to say.
ethelred said:
Come on, ethel, you know no one on GAF actually plays games.
So, most of the combat in RPG's is shit... OK
So, you want this game to be compared with deep fighting games... OK
So, Oblivion combat was rubbish... OK
Aaaaaaand, now you're telling us that a f*cking button masher will change the genre forever...
And that button masher happens to be the sequel to the most over hyped, underwhelming game of last-gen.
F*ck off dude, what's next, I can make Halo but i don't want to? /rant
So, you want this game to be compared with deep fighting games... OK
So, Oblivion combat was rubbish... OK
Aaaaaaand, now you're telling us that a f*cking button masher will change the genre forever...
And that button masher happens to be the sequel to the most over hyped, underwhelming game of last-gen.
F*ck off dude, what's next, I can make Halo but i don't want to? /rant
Wait right here. Hold up. How is combat where you have two melee attacks, defense, rolls, ranged combat, and easy access to a number of spells and items shit? The ONLY problem with Fable's combat was you could hit allies accidently if they got into the mix, and that's true of Oblivion and most other action RPGs. Might was well call all action RPGs shit at this point.thetrin said:
And boy did the bile-spewing children come out in this thread. It's no wonder developers usually hide behind PR approved answers.
Night_Trekker
Member
Fable was not shit. But it was deeply disappointing and only because Molyneux can't keep his mouth shut.
I can't tell if he's finally learned his lesson or not. He's still talking shit and making promises, but at least he has playable proof of (most of) the features he brags about, even if they don't look that great. That's something, I guess.
I can't tell if he's finally learned his lesson or not. He's still talking shit and making promises, but at least he has playable proof of (most of) the features he brags about, even if they don't look that great. That's something, I guess.
Liabe Brave
Member
Peter Molyneux said said:
If there's anything Fable did not indicate, it was any sort of careful thinking behind it. It wasn't shit like some here say, but it was a mess. Sometimes a compelling mess--townspeople using your sobriquet--and sometimes just plain schizophrenic design thrusts. The pseudo-British world and its half-assed cartooning was probably the least intelligent thing about it, when it should've been the freshest.
Molyneux can say most games are shit and be perfectly right, but that doesn't make him endearing. Obvious truths can't redeem a history of windy promises and intermittent delivery. Hell, I respect (or at least enjoy) Tomonobu Itagaki's heedless arrogance more.
Plus, finally: the problem with games nowadays has nothing to do with them being too difficult.
TemplaerDude
Member
Night_Trekker said:
oh right, because 7 hour rpgs with little content beside the ability to grow horns and pork chicks and a story about as exciting as red riding hood is just AWESOME.
TransTrender
Gold Member
Obviously the Jedi Mind Trick worked on him and not you
TemplaerDude
Member
Bildi said:
i beat the game in 7 hours. i did everything the game had to offer in 7 hours. if i still had my xbox i'd pull up the save and show you.
and even then, 14 hours is just a god damn rip off of an rpg for any price that doesn't say "free".
*edit
actually on second thought 7 hours was my SECOND run through the game.
the first run was 9 hours.
That's OK, I don't have any reason to doubt you. For myself, I received it as a gift, played for a couple of hours and didn't like it. A year later I picked it up, got past the training stuff, and couldn't put it down - got over 25 hours of enjoyment out of it. I didn't listen to his stuff prior to launch so I didn't really have any expectations.TemplaerDude said:
I'm not saying it was the best thing ever or that Molyneux shouldn't have run his mouth off like a moron, but a lot of people found it an enjoyable adventure game nonetheless.
I do wish Molyneux would just shut the fuck up in general though - for example I thought the dog was a fine inclusion to Fable 2, but the way he droned on for ages about love and shit is too way much. Just do what you want, release the game and let people enjoy it without all the pretentious crap.
Jon_Danger
Member
screw other rpgs molyneux, you showed em!
British Monsoon
Member
Molyneux needs to take his head out of his ass and talk about his game, not anyone elses. The biggest disapointment for me in Fable wasn't the lack of features he'd mentioned previousley, like plant-life growing over time etc it was the fact that he first likened his game to Morrowind in terms of freedom, and then when onto say that Fable would blow the level of freedom in Morrowind out of the water. When I actually loaded the game up and was met with beautiful landscapes that couldn't be explored because of un-scaleable fences I knew Molyneux was a douche and I should never listen to anything he spouts ever again. In my humble opinion Fable was no better than another much derrided Xbox RPG - Sudeki.
Molyneux has believed his own hype too much since he started Lionhead. Before 97 or so, he was all gold though.
The secret to getting any potential enjoyment out of any of his more recent games is to, well, go into blackout mode from the moment it's announced, and wait for it to come out. I ignored like the last 2 years of Fable development and I ended up liking the game quite a bit (though it was clearly like, not really finished and too easy). Same thing with The Movies (which was pretty close to being great).
The secret to getting any potential enjoyment out of any of his more recent games is to, well, go into blackout mode from the moment it's announced, and wait for it to come out. I ignored like the last 2 years of Fable development and I ended up liking the game quite a bit (though it was clearly like, not really finished and too easy). Same thing with The Movies (which was pretty close to being great).
tahrikmili
Member
I think he's right. Most supposed RPGs are railroaded adventure games with tactical combat and character advancement thrown to the mix. Some are blatant action games. ROLEPLAYING games, by nature, are supposed to be about something else completely. RPGs have completely failed to evolve as video games IMO, unlike their tabletop counterparts.
GremlinInTheMachine
Banned
Ryudo said:
Intelligence, artistic talent, and game design talent aren't synonyms. Why did you conflate them? And why do you assume that a question asking why something occurs automatically means the person asking the question has no hypotheses or theories as to why it occurs?
If you're going to be pissy because I think Pete's a hack, at least be intellectually honest about it instead of hiding behind strawmen to try and make it look less petty than it is.
I agree - although I really liked both Sudeki and Fable. :lolBootaaay said:
I dunno, I was late to the party on both of these and that helped. I got Sudeki as a gift and thought "gee....uh.... thanks" remembering the average reviews, and then proceeded to really enjoy it. Both games were too short though - another 10-20 hours would have been nice.
Did I miss something ? Fable 2 Wii exclusive or something ?
And lol @ his button mashing "idea"
"If you button mash, ya know, you could do it, but still, it wouldn't be very rewarding. So i'm rewarding people that don't button mash !!1! I r genius !!"
Yeah, that's completely innovative :lol
Night_Trekker
Member
TemplaerDude said:
"not shit" = "AWESOME" ?
Sudeki was almost a good game. If they hadn't restricted the combat to enclosed areas, replaced the absolute shit voice acting, and pushed the plot to be a bit more original, it could have been at least a solid B game.
Are there other action RPGs that do this? Considering the reward will be items and exp, it's not fair to compare it to something like a pure fighting game.Raist said: