Ted Timmins leaving Lionhead

Ted has just announced via his Twitter page that he has decided to leave Lionhead. Anniversary will be the last title he is involved in. He went on to thanks Microsoft and Peter Molyneux for giving him a chance to live his dream.

What is going on over there!

I am starting to think that the franchise is cursed, truly. It's like Poltergeist.
It may also have something to do with the fact that those guys over there can't seem to do anything without screwing it up, even if just the presentation. I haven't seen any other company do this terribly and not suddenly disappear overnight.

Think about it. With each release, you have more and more people complaining to higher extents about the same things. Bugs, lack of updates, lack of service/support, DLC that probably shouldn't have been DLC or cost what it does. That's not even going into the complaints about the games being misrepresented and hyped at every turn, splintering the fanbase on what direction it's supposed to be going in and them trying to appease everyone in the worst and most counterproductive ways that Fable is left like a sexually confused child, then there's the lack of PC releases, lack of modding support, some Microsoft oversight stuff, that sham about Natal/Milo/Kate that was totally fake but no one will admit it. Lies and false truths and broken promises and etc. and so on. The forums over there are ablaze with people crying bloody murder. It screams scandalous. I'm not sure if they're a game studio or the White House administration.

Slightly overdramatic but the point remains. These guys can't do anything without being harshly criticized, and regardless of whether or not it's fair, I'm sure Timmins is looking forward to being able to wipe his bum without a million people telling him he's doing it wrong. I say good for him and godspeed.

Its a real shame as hes a passionate guy and he had taken a lot of time to rectify past mistakes that Lionhead had made and he will be a big loss to them.

xxNick said:

I am starting to think that the franchise is cursed, truly. It's like Poltergeist.
It may also have something to do with the fact that those guys over there can't seem to do anything without screwing it up, even if just the presentation. I haven't seen any other company do this terribly and not suddenly disappear overnight.

Think about it. With each release, you have more and more people complaining to higher extents about the same things. Bugs, lack of updates, lack of service/support, DLC that probably shouldn't have been DLC or cost what it does. That's not even going into the complaints about the games being misrepresented and hyped at every turn, splintering the fanbase on what direction it's supposed to be going in and them trying to appease everyone in the worst and most counterproductive ways that Fable is left like a sexually confused child, then there's the lack of PC releases, lack of modding support, some Microsoft oversight stuff, that sham about Natal/Milo/Kate that was totally fake but no one will admit it. Lies and false truths and broken promises and etc. and so on. The forums over there are ablaze with people crying bloody murder. It screams scandalous. I'm not sure if they're a game studio or the White House administration.

Slightly overdramatic but the point remains. These guys can't do anything without being harshly criticized, and regardless of whether or not it's fair, I'm sure Timmins is looking forward to being able to wipe his bum without a million people telling him he's doing it wrong. I say good for him and godspeed.

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They at least worked on Natal. The extent from what I saw in the Fable 2 scripts looked like you could use kinect to make your own statues.

As far as modding goes, the game was never made with the intention of being a platform. It's a cobbled together action adventure game. It's especially obvious on the first game because the quests are all hardcoded. From a technical standpoint, there are various file formats that are in different states of completion.

With Fable 2 the engine went through a pretty big overhaul. But they used a ton of licensed content. And it's so tied into what they wrote that they most likely could not legally release tools to edit it.

Finally,
I said as much on the modding forums, but at this point they should just rebrand the franchise because only the first game had any passable relation to fables of any kind. And that was mostly limited to the use of the Briar Rose and Jack of Blades names.

Keshire said:

Finally,
I said as much on the modding forums, but at this point they should just rebrand the franchise because only the first game had any passable relation to fables of any kind. And that was mostly limited to the use of the Briar Rose and Jack of Blades names.

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I think they'd do better. A lot better.

If they drop the Fable name, the Fable audience, the Fable stigma, curse, whatever it is that no matter what they do with it, a ton of people are disappointed and start calling people liars and cheats... A new franchise called Heroes focusing on guys who do stuff. Make them Lego man-shaped and market it to kids. Do whatever to the game and the story. They can just flip every single one of the levers and not one person will think it is a bad thing, simply because it wouldn't be connected to Fable. It'd be something new, not something they're piloting straight to ruin.

Think they should go back to their roots and go back to what they did well and work from there and stop trying to reinvent the wheel.

Dark Drakan said:

Think they should go back to their roots and go back to what they did well and work from there and stop trying to reinvent the wheel.

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If we're going back to roots, how about resurrecting the original intent. Project Ego, the sandbox hero simulator. XD

Here's some roots. It will be an open-world, free roaming experience* with complete freedom of choice to the player** where those choices have consequences***. There will be a talking desert duck and a hollering sword****.

*A linear, unidirectional, narrow experience.
**Choices will be made with the left or right mouse buttons during some cutscenes.
***Not really. I mean, an NPC might comment on it, but that's about it.
****Either a cruel joke or bold lie, take your pick.

I think the real bulk of the damage done isn't just limited to them - if I or anyone else wanted to make a game inspired by the original Fable with actual fables in it, people would look at it and think "oh, so it's like Fable?" and then use it to encase their chewed gum before throwing it in the trash.

Fable 1 was awesome but didn't live up to the original vision PM set out to achieve. Fable 2 was a great game that did the series well. They should go back to making games like those.

I really wish it had been a different outcome with the series because by now instead of making a dungeon crawler they'd have enough experience and backing to make Fable Old Kingdom.

One talent Lionhead has over anybody else in the industry is the female audience. Anytime I meet a female gamer I ask what games she plays and I always hear Fable 2. Lionhead should reach out more and capitalize on that audience.

Honestly it is quit weird to me, Lionhead never really delved into the Fable Universe, that is why I'm such a big fan, I'm starving for Fable and I'm getting breadcrumbs. If Fable had the success Bungie had with Halo, revolutionizing RPG's on the console platform by now I'd be all Fabled out.

I never played Journey and I don't even care, that is what is wrong here I should feel like I missed out on something special. RPG fans need a game like Fable, but more importantly we need Lionhead to deliver.

Economy 101 where there is a demand the supply will always be met. Lionhead doesn't understand this concept and I don't think they understand the concept of making money.

They should either quit and close up shop, or push forward full throttle and try to achieve something close to spectacular like the original Fable was. This pandering and mediocre, forgettable release of titles with a Fable sticker slapped on it needs to stop. I know it's wrong, but sometimes I think how great it would be if they sold their IP to a much more driven talent.

Zarkes said:

Fable 1 was awesome but didn't live up to the original vision PM set out to achieve. Fable 2 was a great game that did the series well. They should go back to making games like those.

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They could all be good games, if they had different names. Spiritual sequels as opposed to actual sequels. There's a lot of reasons why this is done and most of them are good. Imagine titles like Prince of Persia: Assassin's Creed. "It's too much Assassin's Creed and not enough Prince of Persia, guess we won't be making any more of those." Said the hypothetical guy, who lost his job shortly after.

I've asked Ted about PC version of Fable Anniversary.... aaaand I got nothing.

Yea. Wouldn't expect anything out of him. He can get in trouble, especially now that he's no longer LH, in making announcements on behalf of LH that they may or may not come through on. Even if they were developing a PC version while he was there, from the second he left they may have scrapped it. So really there's no way for him to know.

Besides, in regards to a PC port, have you seen all the problems they have with the version they already released? I'd prefer they wait until they get all those kinks sorted out. LH isn't particularly well known for fixing problems on the PC.

xxNick said:

Besides, in regards to a PC port, have you seen all the problems they have with the version they already released? I'd prefer they wait until they get all those kinks sorted out. LH isn't particularly well known for fixing problems on the PC.

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I haven't heard anything. Truth be told, I haven't read anything about Fable in about 2 months or more. What happened?

Hobbilis said:

I haven't heard anything. Truth be told, I haven't read anything about Fable in about 2 months or more. What happened?

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2 months is pretty good then because that's about when the last patch was released with no hint of another patch in sight. People are cluttering the LH forum with bug reports, complaints, and one guy demands to talk to management which was just hilarious. But yea, lots of people talking about refunds over there and language sometimes gets pretty heated.

I get the frustrations. The actual staff aren't saying anything about anything. The LH forum staff (not to be confused with LH staff) are promising that things are being worked on and fixed and somewhere, deep within the halls of Lionhead, in a room no one speaks of, a patch is being made.

But yea. Two months since the last patch is a long time. What most people have a hard time with is why there bugs at all. TLC didn't ship with these bugs. As a modder I can tell you that the additional items they put in the game aren't bug-causing (if properly set up). The need for testing the additional content is minimal at best. They tossed in Smartglass support. Which is the norm, it's not a Fable game if it doesn't show off new MS tech. I don't know how much testing that requires. New engine, I can see that causing a bug or two if done improperly. But the save system. They changed how saves were done. I don't know why. The old system was bad, right, prone to corruption and exploits. But this new system is too, and as a bonus is also highly prone to causing game-breaking problems. That's what most of the complaints are about over there.

I see. Thanks for the elaboration Nicks. I was out of the loop, this few months. But this... is not good.

Ted seemed to bridge the gap between Lionhead and its fans and he regularly answered my questions and any that 'we' as a forum sent to him if he had the answers. That is what was missing from Lionhead over the last few years, they had lost their connection with their fans and shame that after starting them back down the right path Ted has now left.

I have a feeling Lionhead will never get back to it's glory days. They've missed too much opportunities as well as making too much mistakes (mainly not communicating with fan base and listening to what they have to say).

Hobbilis said:

mainly not communicating with fan base and listening to what they have to say.

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I don't believe that is it at all. Lionhead, and fable specifically has a problem where they advertise to one demographic, but develop for another.

From my personal experience, most of the developers are stubborn and think most of their consumers "don't know what they want"

They actually underestimate their community a lot. But what do I care. For me it's clear and pretty much sealed as far as Lionhead goes. I really don't care about them or about their games.