Re: Fable 2's impact on fable 3
Well, first of all, the main impact of Fable 2 is the graphics engine. The graphics engine on Fable III is based on Fable II's Graphic engine, which is an updated version, of course. We could see from the various (little amount) of Lionhead's game-play videos during E3's demo and the screenshots. The model don't look bad as they did in Fable II, there are more polygons, more colors and a more vivid world.
Secondly, another great impact of Fable II in Fable III is the hero himself/herself. The new Hero of Fable III being the son or daughter of the Hero of Bowererstone, is a huge impact on the story and the game-play itself, you know that you are the son of a hero, people know your father's deeds and you have a noble cause on your hands: freedom of Albion, the defeat of Logan's tyranny over the kingdom.
Another, important impact from Fable II is the land itself: Albion. We know how the land was 50 years before, now we look at world that's based on what was there on the past, there will be a few spots that Fable II players could say "Oh, look at this hill! It looks like the one of the X quest! The place surely changed." that creates the effect that a player needs to see a living world a world that changes. (of course depending on your Fable II decisions there will be slight world changes in Fable III.*)
Let me add another important impact of Fable II towards Fable III are the hero's and the AI in general. The AI in Fable II was the start of what we will see in Fable III, where the AI system has been developed further, where villagers will interact in different ways, voices and characteristics than Fable II. For example, Jasper (your buttler, voiced by John Cleese from Monty Python) is a good example of taking advantage of the AI used in Fable II, where Peter Molyneux often mentions that Jasper's AI is like the Fable II dog.
Finally, the last notable impact is the combat. We can see that in Fable III a lot of the combat ideas and tactics comed from the basic things at Fable II. Now it seems that creating combos of our moves and the "one button combat" has been improved, for example we can use our sword on a person and in the same moment turn around and shoot the guy who's ready to shoot at us. (very cowboyish I should say) which lets the player to experience their own combat ability. One player may differ from someone else, because someone makes up their own combos with time (of course, I'm sure that many people will use the same combos over and over) however, hard-core players will enjoy this feature surely more than casual gamers (which boost strenght most of the time and just use the sword, at least based on what I see around youtube, these days)
* Peter Molyneux mentioned this in Develop Conference 2010. While showing the first few minutes (15 minutes) of game-play at the conference. He explained that the save-games from Fable II would be read JUST for some small zone changes, an example is the quest with the Troll causing the water to smell nasty, if you didn't do the quest therefore the economy of the zone will be low, because the inn that was there couldn't run on nasty water and of course it closed down. In my opinion, the changes will be small as Fable II's after the spire changes.
My apologies for the long post. Thanks for keeping up.
Those are the MAJOR 5 influences(?) that will come from Fable 2 into Fable 3. As for the choices you made in Fable 2 such as the spire, the temples, bowerstone old town, etc. etc. I can't say for sure, we'll find out for sure when Fable 3 come out.