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sfroggy1 Interviews Ted Timmins from Lionhead
Hello all ! sfroggy1 here, your regular news updater for projectego forums and all around nice guy . Not too long back I got the opportunity to meet Ted Timmins from Lionhead, when I went to the Eurogamer Expo. This kind chap agreed to do a small interview with me for the forums and here it is for all you lovely members at projectego. I got to exchange a few questions and some were answered, and some not but hopefully they are all to your liking! I asked a few general questions that wouldn't spoil any of the gameplay but still shed some light on Lionheads next upcoming game that some of us will get to experience in less than a week !
Unfortunately I couldn't be too specific but I hope you guys like it anyway !
Again I hope you enjoy it and expect to see a thread in the next day or two where I outline what I got to experience at the Eurogamer Expo. Better late than never I suppose !
So here we go!
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sfroggy1: So while I played the demo of Fable III I noticed the dog hadn't really changed from how it was in Fable II. Is it simply a case of if it ain't broke don't fix it?
Ted: One of the most well received features of Fable II was the dog, so it wasn't
something that the design team felt needed a revolution - but instead more of an
evolution. To start with, the dog in Fable III is a different breed to that of the
Fable II dog and with a different personality. Also, if you pre-order the Limited
Collector's Edition you unlock an additional dog breed - the Boxer (and also my
personal favourite - he seems to be more... cheeky!). There have been background
changes that have gone into his AI, but one of the more visible changes that you'll
see is that he will help you more with some of our optional quests. A prime example
is when you need to find some lost Chickens for a farmer in one of our brand new
regions - "Brightwall". The dog will help lead you to them, which makes the task
more fun and really gives the dog a sense of purpose. Another change, is that we use
the dog a lot more in our animatic scenes to really try and get across it's
personality, but I won't go into these in detail for fear of spoilers! Of course you
can still re-name the dog to anything of your choosing, and we have brand new
animations for interacting with the dog too.
sfroggy1: How long will it roughly take players to complete Fable III depending on whether they speed run the core missions or try to complete and collect everything?
Ted: This is the question that we probably get asked more than any other question!
It always strikes me by surprise as to how important this question is seen by some,
as a few of my personal favourite games of all time ("Shadow of the Colossus", "Ico"
or even "Flower") are all relatively 'short' games - but their immersion and quality
is really superior, in my opinion, to something that is seemingly endless like
"Morrowind" (not to say that it's a bad game!). Going back to the original question,
it's tricky to answer as everyone plays Fable differently. I played Fable II at home
for over 45 hours, and as Fable III is without question the bigger and better game,
at a guess if you wanted to do everything I'd imagine you'd be looking at 55+ hours
to do everything (or at least, that's the amount of time that I'll be setting aside
). If doing a speed-run is your thing however, i.e. where when you play "Super
Mario World" all you care about is the time on the clock as you cross the level end
checkpoint, I'd guess you'd be looking at around 15 hours. And just to give some
clarity on that number in comparison to Fable II, with Fable II I'd guess that it
could be speed-run completed in around 10 hours. I'm much more of a collectables
person though, and we have more collectables (and secrets!) than in any Fable
before!
sfroggy1: How many core missions are there to complete in Fable III ?
Ted: I'd rather not put a number on this, as we don't number the quests in Fable III
to try and keep the player immersed - so I don't want to ruin that by players
counting them! What I will say though, is that the core story is bigger, better and
of a much higher quality than in any previous Fable. We still haven't (and won't!)
speak about the final 1/3 of the game, which is very exciting! I can't wait to hear
reviewers and gamers feedback on this portion of the game in particular!
sfroggy1: Will there be side quests like assassination contracts or bounty hunting returning in Fable III? Have they been tweaked at all and will we see any new additions?
Ted: Yes! More side-quests than ever before! We've changed the entire side quest
system, which has allowed us to make more than we've ever made before and it's
really helped us improve the quality of them. We have everything from Assassinations
all the way through to having to take someone on a date! I think people will be
really impressed with just how deep the optional quest system is in Fable III, and
it's pretty cool with the way that any villager in the world can give you a quest!
sfroggy1: You told me at the Expo that you helped design the Mourningwood Fort defense quest. What other missions have you helped design and which one is your favourite?
Ted: Just to clarify (and so that I don't get in trouble!), my role with the
"Mourningwood Fort Battle" quest was to work with the Josh Atkins (Lead Designer)
and Alex Skidmore (Lead Scripter) to take the quest from a paper document through to
a final quality quest. On the long journey this takes, I worked with every other
department in the Fable Team, so that's; Audio, Art, Animation, Code, Design,
Production and Test. My job is to work with all of these various departments, and to
gel everything together in all of the quests that I work on. I also have some
creative freedom in the quests, where I can add additional content (or even extra
features!) and then propose them to Josh and Alex where they can then give them the
thumbs up, request changes to be made, or sometimes they might not feel that what I
show them fits with the game (which fortunately didn't happen very often!). Each
quest is a culmination of many months of hard work from everyone across the entire
team, and I really couldn't choose a favourite (although having played "Mourningwood
Fort Battle" a million times, I still love blowing up Hollowmen! It never gets
boring, and it's even more fun over Xbox Live with a friend!). So there's lots of
things that I really enjoy to play in my own work, particularly when you're playing
the ********* quest, and then ********* happens. That's really going to make people
*********