Support NeoGAF

[KyotoMecca]

Hey guys

A pal of mine is interviewing Peter Molyneux tomorrow and also some producers on Fable.

Wondered if anyone here had some burning questions about FABLE for them? As long as they're new good up-to-date questions etc they'll definitely get asked. The interview is for Kikizo and will be published around mid August.

Fire away...!

 

[Deku Tree]

I don't know if this is a good question,
but I want to know if Fable will have a rock solid 30 fps.

 

[Slo]

Ask him if he thinks his experiences with Fable might one day pay off and land him a job with Bethesda working on Elder Scrolls 4.

 

[IJoel]

1. With the game being so close to completion, does he still feel it will be the Best RPG Ever as he mentioned a while ago?

2. Is there one feature he really wishes would've made it into the game, from the ones that were cut (multiplayer, playing both genders, etc.)?

3. What does Fable do to advance the RPG genre, if anything?

4. What does he considers to be his best contribution to the game?

5. Has the experience of making this RPG been what he expected? What has he learned out of it?

... i could go on...

 

[SteveMeister]

Ask him if he thinks his experiences with Fable might one day pay off and land him a job with Bethesda working on Elder Scrolls 4.

LOL

 

[SteveMeister]

"Do you meet regularly with the Duke Nukem Forever team?"

 

[KyotoMecca]

... i could go on...

Hmm... as the poster of the most serious questions, please do! Thanks for the Qs so far.

They will be playing the latest build too, that'll tell the latest framerate. Though it's not out till later this year so there still some optimisation time I think.

 

[SteveMeister]

These are probably things he'd mostly say "wait & see" to, and some may be already answered elsewhere and I just missed them, but here goes anyway:

1. How much of a difference, in terms of story, quests, and gameplay, is there between playing a good, evil or neutral character?

2. I've heard that the player character's life is divided into segments or chapters, where the character is a specific age in each chapter -- a child, adolescent, young adult, etc. How much time is spent in each of these chapters? Does the player know when they are reaching the end? How is the transition handled?

3. The character's appearance changes over time, and as different choices are made on the path of good & evil. When and how do these changes take place?

4. How does the save system work? Can you save anywhere, at any time or are there save points?

 

[IJoel]

Hmm... as the poster of the most serious questions, please do! Thanks for the Qs so far.

They will be playing the latest build too, that'll tell the latest framerate. Though it's not out till later this year so there still some optimisation time I think.

Ok...

6. Is Fable the game he envisioned creating more than 3 years ago? What is different? Did he change his mind along the way?

7. For the sake of reference, what are his favorite RPGs?

8. Is there a sequel being planned?

9. How big, in terms of landscape, is Fable?

10. What's his favorite part or feature in the game?

 

[Mashing]

1. Why do you make such outrageous claims about your games, but underdeliver. No matter how good Fable is (and I'm confident it will be awesome) they are never as good as you make them out to be at intial announcement. Do you set your ambitions to high do you think?


A very blunt question, but I think we deserve an answer.

 

[Slo]

That's a good question, but poorly worded.

 

[GashPrex]

no, it's a stupid question

 

[Mashing]

Yeah, I wouldn't interview him with that question worded exactly like that.... you'd probably wouldn't get any more interviews with him. But is what I said far from the truth? He ALWAYS sets his ambitions for his titles too high and then something happens during development that always leads to features being cut.

Then again you can argue that that is a normal phase for any project.

I dunno, I was pissed with Black and White left such a sour taste in my mouth. I know he's not developing Fable personally, but he does oversee the project so he has to assume some resonsibility for it.

 

[gunstarhero]

I'd just like to know about the frame rate - that seems to be the only glaring "problem" from what I've read so far.

 

[Keio]

A major part of RPGs is interaction with other characters in the gameworld. That has also always been a major problem for game design. What sort of systems did you test for Fable and what did you implement in the end?

 

[Scalemail Ted]

Tell him to 'Please release an Artbook.'

 

[Ghost]

Tell him to 'Please release an Artbook.'

seconded

 

[Slo]

no, it's a stupid question

I disagree. If worded correctly it would get an interesting response. I'd love to hear how feels about his reputation as an overpromiser and an underdeliverererer. How does he react to fan backlash? Does he think it's justified? Does he intend to hype his next game to such proposterous levels when it is still very early in development?

 

[Mejilan]

Ask him why in its current incarnation, it looks worse than it did a year or two ago.

 

[seismologist]

find out if theres any truth to the rumors about a PC version

 

[demon]

Ask him why in the fuck he got me all psyched up for a fucking 2-player mode all for nothing.

 

[SteveMeister]

Ask him why in its current incarnation, it looks worse than it did a year or two ago.

That's easy. The Xbox only has 64MB of memory, shared between system & graphics.

 

[Mejilan]

It's not that easy. Most games, during their development, tend to look better and better towards release. At least, in my experience. I could name loads of games on the GCN, PS2, Xbox, even the PC that honestly looked cruddy at first and just got prettier as they approached going gold. For Fable, the opposite is true. I was pretty much blown away with the initial screens (not the concept ones) and it just doesn't look as good today. Standards haven't changed THAT much, despite the long development time.

The environments, especially, don't impress me as much as earlier screens did.

 

[dog$]

Q: When is Populous 4 coming?

 

[demon]

It's not that easy. Most games, during their development, tend to look better and better towards release. At least, in my experience. I could name loads of games on the GCN, PS2, Xbox, even the PC that honestly looked cruddy at first and just got prettier as they approached going gold. For Fable, the opposite is true. I was pretty much blown away with the initial screens (not the concept ones) and it just doesn't look as good today. Standards haven't changed THAT much, despite the long development time.

The environments, especially, don't impress me as much as earlier screens did.

The latest screenshots are more action-oriented than environment-oriented, that's one reason they don't show off the environments so well.

But, supposedly they've been trying to improve the framerate throughout all of the game's development, so they probably ended up having to tone down the polygon count and whatnot.

That said, they're just screenshots. Screenshots do not show off graphical features like lighting and character/clothing/object animation very well, and those are areas where the game has improved a lot over the past couple years.

 

[Deku Tree]

Tell him to 'Please release an Artbook.'

seconded, this making of DVD is of no interest to me.