Daemon300
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X10: In-Depth Fable 3 Hands Off Preview - Turns Out, You Can Touch This After All
“Dad, that’s the pub, you told mom you wouldn’t go there every day,” said a high pitched voice on the end of the main character’s arm in Lionhead’s Fable 3 presentation at this year’s X10. No, your character hasn’t spawned a talking arm; this is the main character’s daughter in a short sequence that the British developer was using to show the intricacies of their new “touch” mechanic. A mechanic that is meant to give you a more emotional connection with the world and its characters, something that according to the verbose and ever enthusiastic Molyneux – who was on hand to demo the game – was inspired by the sleeper hit, Ico.
We’ve spent the last week or so since X10 talking about what we won’t see in Fable 3 – no health bar, no expressions, no XP orbs which means no levelling – but today, we’re going to talk about what’s new and give you reasons why you should be excited about Lionhead’s latest offering in the franchise, because we certainly are.
The presentation kicked off in the quaint, idyllic town of Bowerstone... and by “the quaint, idyllic town” I mean, the huge, industrial, smoking metropolis. Okay, it’s not quite a metropolis, but compared to Fable 2’s Bowerstone, the two aren’t even in the same ball-park in terms of size. Whilst the original was a picturesque and jolly old town, Fable 3’s Bowerstone is a darker, more grand industrial environment with moving cranes occupying the shores of the docks and huge smoking chimneys polluting the skyline.
Like Mass Effect 2, Fable 3 is allowing you to import your Fable 2 save, although whilst the former boasted galaxy defining choices that shaped your galaxy, Fable 3’s import mechanic will only make minor changes. “If you haven’t played Fable before, that doesn’t matter,” added Molyneux.
“What we’re trying to do is making you feel powerful,” said Molyneux, “it’s all about the power.” One of the ways they’re trying to capture that vision is through the story. In other action games, the story is the “hero’s journey to defeat the bad guy.” In Fable 3, that’s only half the story and the first half of the game will be about gaining followers to revolt against the tyrannical king, Logan.. A king who’s sent 5 year olds to work. A king who lets the poor starve and roam the streets. His actions and decisions are there to inspire you to want to climb to the top and make a difference. When you become king, the rest of the game is about how you keep those promises that you made on your journey to become king; something that ties into what Molyneux was talking about in regards to Obama in our recent interview.
Another part of this aspect of “power” is the whole “touch” mechanic, which is mapped to the right trigger and spawns actions like hugging your wife, holding hands with your daughter, or more drastically, dragging a homeless guy off the streets of Bowerstone to sell to a local slaver. The interesting bit is that in order to perform the "touch" action, you will need to keep the trigger held down, so dragging that homeless guy is not one simple button click.
“The trigger is context sensitive to what the emotional state of the thing you are aiming at,” said Molyneux. As he says that he uses the mechanic to tell his daughter off and then moments later, comfort her with a fatherly hug.
It’s all about the connections according to Molyneux, and part of the way they are doing this is through the reactions of the person you are touching. So expect them to react to whatever you’re doing with them; for instance, like the opening line of this preview suggests, a daughter can use the words of her mother to guilt trip her father into not visiting the pub, or on the other end of the scale, the homeless guy that you can drag to the slaver will plead with you not to do it... it’s all about pulling on the heartstrings a little. Can you really drag a man to his death as he weeps and tries to argue with your logic? That’s a decision that you have to make again and again in Fable 3.
It’s a mechanic that applies to objects of the world as well and it even applies to combat, although Molyneux was keeping those details under wraps for now. Furthermore, expect a “special hug” touch as well to become available... sounds kinky!
The mechanic has far-reaching uses as well and will be frequently used throughout the game, whether you have to lift someone and carry them to safety or whether you have to drag someone to the cells because they refused to pay their taxes. Of course at the end of the day though, these choices are yours and if you want to give the beggar gold or feed him instead of selling him off as a slave, you’re more than welcome. “It’s not a gimmick, it’s a really big feature,” noted Molyneux. Incidentally, these aren’t just the words of Molyneux again as he gets carried away with the object of his affections, a lot of the references above we actually saw being demonstrated in a build of the game and so it’s a mechanic that really intrigues us.
Molyneux was keen to push the revamped combat as well and despite it being run on a similar system to Fable 2 – one button per weapon – there are a lot of subtle changes that will influence the morphing and growth of your character.
“Combat is an integral part of this game,” Molyneux stated, “it’s where all the drama is.” The first thing we noticed about the new setting for this look at the combat was the wide-open, much-larger-than-Fable-2, epic dungeons.
Morphing in Fable 3 is no longer based on where you assign your skill points (because there is none essentially); it’s based on what weapons you use. Apparently this was one of the biggest criticisms of Fable 2, although as Molyneux suggests this, I have to wonder where he gets his feedback from. “If you want a hero who’s big, with lots of muscles; use heavy weapons,” said Molyneux, “if you want a hero who’s tall, thin, slender and elegant looking; don’t use heavy weapons, use guns,” and so on.
The major morphing change though comes with the weapons and with the new system, you can effectively craft your own unique weapon. What’s better is that these weapons will then be tagged with your gamertag and your gamerscore, and they will be fully tradable online. Say if you kill 100 Hobbs with your scythe (well at least it looked like a scythe in the demo), not only will that have a unique blade on it, but it will also be your weapon with your gamerscore embedded on it; so “Webb’s Scintillating Scythe of Sexualism” will always be called that, no matter who owns it.
“Killing Hobbs makes it more spiky; killing Hollow Men makes it more blunt,” Molyneux added, “the more you use the weapon, the bigger it gets, the more grand it gets. The more skill you apply, the more flourishes you do, the more kills you get with the weapons, the more this texture changes. The more it glows.” Molyneux continued, “If you start killing innocents with the weapon, it will start dripping blood. If you start killing evil things, it will start glowing. In other words, your weapon is totally unique.”
Leading on from this, Molyneux stated that this unique weapon – and incidentally your dog and your character – will be with you even if you head into the world of online co-op – something Fable 2 should have done anyway, but you know what they say, better late than never. Molyneux also said they heard the complaints about the co-op camera issue as well, although he never specifically said they’d fixed it, just hinted at it.
So what else can we expect to see in the world of Fable? Well Molyneux showed off a few of the new finishing moves, the increased gore and blood for characters of evil origin and “extreme expressions” – which replace the expressions from Fable 2, are mapped to the d-pad and show the alignment of the character in a loud, outgoing, physical form; in this instance, we saw a huge set of devil wings sprout out of our hero’s back.
The end game of the second half of the game currently remains a mystery, aside from one word that Molyneux was keen to push, and that’s “judgements.” It basically falls in line with whether you deliver on your promises, how you deliver on them and how you set the laws of your own land. Molyneux was also quick to quieten talk on Natal and how it ties in with Fable 3, although he’s already confirmed it in a lecture last year. What we did see of Fable 3 though was impressive enough and with much larger environments, an interesting weapon morphing system and a very interesting touch mechanic, fans of the franchise should be rubbing their hands together in anticipation. We certainly are.
Fable 3 is coming out this festive period, only on Xbox 360.
Source
We’ve spent the last week or so since X10 talking about what we won’t see in Fable 3 – no health bar, no expressions, no XP orbs which means no levelling – but today, we’re going to talk about what’s new and give you reasons why you should be excited about Lionhead’s latest offering in the franchise, because we certainly are.
Like Mass Effect 2, Fable 3 is allowing you to import your Fable 2 save, although whilst the former boasted galaxy defining choices that shaped your galaxy, Fable 3’s import mechanic will only make minor changes. “If you haven’t played Fable before, that doesn’t matter,” added Molyneux.
“What we’re trying to do is making you feel powerful,” said Molyneux, “it’s all about the power.” One of the ways they’re trying to capture that vision is through the story. In other action games, the story is the “hero’s journey to defeat the bad guy.” In Fable 3, that’s only half the story and the first half of the game will be about gaining followers to revolt against the tyrannical king, Logan.. A king who’s sent 5 year olds to work. A king who lets the poor starve and roam the streets. His actions and decisions are there to inspire you to want to climb to the top and make a difference. When you become king, the rest of the game is about how you keep those promises that you made on your journey to become king; something that ties into what Molyneux was talking about in regards to Obama in our recent interview.
“The trigger is context sensitive to what the emotional state of the thing you are aiming at,” said Molyneux. As he says that he uses the mechanic to tell his daughter off and then moments later, comfort her with a fatherly hug.
It’s all about the connections according to Molyneux, and part of the way they are doing this is through the reactions of the person you are touching. So expect them to react to whatever you’re doing with them; for instance, like the opening line of this preview suggests, a daughter can use the words of her mother to guilt trip her father into not visiting the pub, or on the other end of the scale, the homeless guy that you can drag to the slaver will plead with you not to do it... it’s all about pulling on the heartstrings a little. Can you really drag a man to his death as he weeps and tries to argue with your logic? That’s a decision that you have to make again and again in Fable 3.
It’s a mechanic that applies to objects of the world as well and it even applies to combat, although Molyneux was keeping those details under wraps for now. Furthermore, expect a “special hug” touch as well to become available... sounds kinky!
The mechanic has far-reaching uses as well and will be frequently used throughout the game, whether you have to lift someone and carry them to safety or whether you have to drag someone to the cells because they refused to pay their taxes. Of course at the end of the day though, these choices are yours and if you want to give the beggar gold or feed him instead of selling him off as a slave, you’re more than welcome. “It’s not a gimmick, it’s a really big feature,” noted Molyneux. Incidentally, these aren’t just the words of Molyneux again as he gets carried away with the object of his affections, a lot of the references above we actually saw being demonstrated in a build of the game and so it’s a mechanic that really intrigues us.
“Combat is an integral part of this game,” Molyneux stated, “it’s where all the drama is.” The first thing we noticed about the new setting for this look at the combat was the wide-open, much-larger-than-Fable-2, epic dungeons.
Morphing in Fable 3 is no longer based on where you assign your skill points (because there is none essentially); it’s based on what weapons you use. Apparently this was one of the biggest criticisms of Fable 2, although as Molyneux suggests this, I have to wonder where he gets his feedback from. “If you want a hero who’s big, with lots of muscles; use heavy weapons,” said Molyneux, “if you want a hero who’s tall, thin, slender and elegant looking; don’t use heavy weapons, use guns,” and so on.
The major morphing change though comes with the weapons and with the new system, you can effectively craft your own unique weapon. What’s better is that these weapons will then be tagged with your gamertag and your gamerscore, and they will be fully tradable online. Say if you kill 100 Hobbs with your scythe (well at least it looked like a scythe in the demo), not only will that have a unique blade on it, but it will also be your weapon with your gamerscore embedded on it; so “Webb’s Scintillating Scythe of Sexualism” will always be called that, no matter who owns it.
“Killing Hobbs makes it more spiky; killing Hollow Men makes it more blunt,” Molyneux added, “the more you use the weapon, the bigger it gets, the more grand it gets. The more skill you apply, the more flourishes you do, the more kills you get with the weapons, the more this texture changes. The more it glows.” Molyneux continued, “If you start killing innocents with the weapon, it will start dripping blood. If you start killing evil things, it will start glowing. In other words, your weapon is totally unique.”
So what else can we expect to see in the world of Fable? Well Molyneux showed off a few of the new finishing moves, the increased gore and blood for characters of evil origin and “extreme expressions” – which replace the expressions from Fable 2, are mapped to the d-pad and show the alignment of the character in a loud, outgoing, physical form; in this instance, we saw a huge set of devil wings sprout out of our hero’s back.
The end game of the second half of the game currently remains a mystery, aside from one word that Molyneux was keen to push, and that’s “judgements.” It basically falls in line with whether you deliver on your promises, how you deliver on them and how you set the laws of your own land. Molyneux was also quick to quieten talk on Natal and how it ties in with Fable 3, although he’s already confirmed it in a lecture last year. What we did see of Fable 3 though was impressive enough and with much larger environments, an interesting weapon morphing system and a very interesting touch mechanic, fans of the franchise should be rubbing their hands together in anticipation. We certainly are.
Fable 3 is coming out this festive period, only on Xbox 360.
Source
