Molyneux's Unfocused Innovation Pages PREV 1 2 3 4 NEXT | |
Also his game The Movies (he made that with his company didn't he?) was pretty good but the tutorial for that game sucks lol, it doesn't explain to you that you need to make your stars practice genres before making a movie of a genre so in my first playthrough I ended up 5th for a few award ceremonies. | |
Pitching the Fable games to a creative directer in twenty-five words or less? It'd probably start out something like this... "So, basically, I'm trying to create the greatest role playing game of all time... Basically." | |
This is the sentiment of all the gamers lucky enough to play games during the "golden age" (roughly 1988-2003). It's why those gamers are so bitchy about the loss of expansion packs, dedicated servers, more original IP, the soul of Lucas Arts, and small free-bee items between expansions while bristling at the idea of paying for DLC. The kids willingly shell out the cash for it today. | |
I think what people are most pissed about was the combat going from the various, scaled and interesting boss battles from Fable TLC to "not another fucking goon and/or golem" in Fable 2 which had less deep fluff instead of fun variation in core gameplay. The end lacked power and/or reward because the rest of the game: is a constant breeze, was padded with fluff, lacked bosses that only YOU could conquer (for whatever reason) and the story's tone of only you have the power/haste was contradicted by the previous flaws. If Fable 2's intended tone of serious epic shit needs to be done actually had the serious epic shit needed to be done like in Fable TLC for just everything until the end: getting to the regular guy would have felt like an accomplishment, the tone of only you can do it would have been felt, there would not be a epic boss fight lost feeling, the story would have been relevant and what you see as "fresh and different" would have been appreciated for working. - Personally it also didn't help that in my first play-through in Fable 2 I was unfortunate enough to do the fun old absolute evil route. When I finished the game it was done by accidentally shooting the main villain once, I thought my experimenting with the interactivity was fine because I should be able to do what he was doing for shits, giggles and evil, instead of just back stabbing him after I watch all my friends die. BUT NOOOOOOO, apparently I was now pals with everyone ever and everything I did before was cool because I accidentally killed the bad guy thus according to the universe I could not kill the idiotic 3 myself and am a real great guy. Apparently the epitome of all that is good can be the ultimate evil restricted by the universe's arbitrary laws. THAT is what ruined the entire game as well as the ending for me. | |
I'm not sure what PM does (now) counts as innovation. At least not examples like maps. A good UI doesn't break immersion, but he's not the first nor the last person to try and strip the UI down or remove it. Centralised hubs, similarly, are not new. The biggest difference here is that F3's seems to suck more than the average. I mean, I like a streamlined UI. Some parts of the HUD are really useless or only need to be there sometimes. And some people try and remove the whole damn thing and annoy me in the process. It's not really innovative or creative and hasn't been for years. Molyneux talks a big game, promises the moon, and falls short. It's like he talks innovation, then gives us "The map room" (Whatever that hub is called). He frequently doesn't seem to "get" where his ideas fall short, like the whole "clothes change" thing. | |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NRS_social_grade He's talking about social classes... I think. | |
Nintendo may consistently reuse their properties, but their sequels always feel fresh and creative. Out of Mario's 4 3d console titles, only 2 were remotely similar if you repaint all the characters. Everybody knows Ocarina of Time. Majora's used a 3 day clock coupled with collectible magical masks. Windwaker had a unique aesthetic and the game took place on a vast ocean which you had to sail across with the help of a magical instrument and a talking sailboat. Twilight Princess had Link turning into a wolf and clearing the realm of a shadowy mist. Just recently we've seen a controversial 2d-3d,FPS hybrid narrative-driven Metroid game, Kirby without his inhale ability and turned into yarn, and DK....well....there's coop....and blowing. I won't even mention the first console use of a touch screen, camera, or motion controls. Not to mention the balance board or the fricken vitality sensor. | |
not sure why but I tried out the beginning of Fable 2 and I don't think it's for me :/ | |
Less Fable, more Dungeon Keeper Mr. Molyneux! | |
Fable would be fine if they wouldn't try to reinvent warm water every time, keep good ideas and improve upon those. Also don't shove elements like sex and relationships down peoples throats, keep that shit optional, those who want it can pursue it and the rest of us wont be annoyed on every turn. And how the hell did anyone think those Fable 2 job minigames are a good idea, you put an actual tedious job into a game?! | |
It's true the days of "names" seemed to have disappeared but I guarantee they'll come back soon. Games aren't movies but their production is pretty similar, so I imagine their history will be as well. Movies started out as more technical displays, entertaining but only on the most basic level, they didn't even have sound. Games had a similar start with Pong and BASIC games. Both were largely produced by enthusiasts who had the time, patience and income to do it. Not because they were brilliant talents but because they were keen. Then you start get an "industry" small studios making small productions. Which leads to break-out stars. Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, in games Sid Meier's, Peter Molyneux. Not only are they making something new they making in more entertaining than others who have jumped on the band wagon. It's not long before people aren't impressed by this stuff anymore. It's not really improving, and the same stuff keeps coming out. The crash. It happened with the movies (mostly because of the depression they say), and games in the 80s. But then there's an innovation in technology. Sound for films, and consoles for games. Suddenly this new entertainment is more affordable and much better. Technology gets bbetter and companies start bragging about it. Technicolour, Panaramascope, xbox and PS2. But this costs money, and enthusiasts can't afford these innovations. Now there are some big companies forming. The rise of the studios like MGM start for movies. Games have Sony and Sega, Nintendo, Microsoft buys in. That's when you get the age of the blockbuster, the golden age of Hollywood. All the big movies are super expensive productions. There are "names" but they are more commodities of the studio than individuals. Games starts going down the same route of CoD, Halo, Mario. Big franchises, made with big bucks to make even bigger bucks. But then something happens. They become "formula". People are still interested and they still make money. But then some guy makes a film for a pittance and it gets as much money at the box office as the big film. Then he does it again? People see his work as "art". The studios see an oppurtunity to get the same money for less cost and risk. You start to get "named" talent. Not just the actors but the directors. The person with creative control whose job it is to over see everything. Lots of people can manage but this guy somehow does more than that. In movies this gave rise to films from 50-70s. In wasn't how much was spent it was who is the star and who is the director. I think we're at that point in games. Tim Schafer is a good example. He's not always been successful but he is one of these people making low-budget entertainment that pulls in big revenue. The team that mad angry birds, and the guys that made Limbo. We already have known development studios but I think we'll get more and more "names". Cliffy B, Randy Pitchford, you could include Peter Molyneux but he's gone a bit Orson Wells. There will still be the blockbusters big and small just as there are in movies, your transformers and Saws, or your CoDs and Halos. But I think more and more we'll get specific concept games by specific developers. It won't matter to us what genre the game is, it'll be who the creative head was. That's my theory anyway... | |
whats wrong with taking my imps and brutally tortured and converted fairies on a dinner date? i need to get to know them before i asked them to die in my name. anyway i like peter as much as yahtzee and i did love fable more than COD or medal of honor im not kidding when i say that i completed both single player campains in two hours, and yea i know its all about the multiplayer and socialising but heres the thing i play games to avoid socialising if i want to socialise i'll go to my local pub or to a nightclub or to skate parks, or comic/scifi cons not sit on my arse with a mic in my ear with god nows how many morons screaming in my ear like they think they're suddenly the stars in saving private ryan. | |
That sucks... I'd love a new Dungeon Keeper game ._. Also according to Wikipedia, EA have Starbreeze Studios working on a new Syndicate game. | |
I think the word that best describes Molyneux is "Floudering", ever since Fable (or agruably ever since Black and White 2) he has just been throwing ideas against the wall when really he should be focusing on crafting something. | |
I was not a fan of Black & White...despite, or perhaps because of, over a year of biting my nails waiting for it. Ultimately, I think it did in fact try to do too much - I felt like I couldn't connect or communicate with my Creature, and I had trouble bringing myself to try because there were always people begging clearly for my assistance. That as it may be, when Petey there was Bullfrog, it put out some truly amazing things. To this very day, I'd balk at being asked to write a terrain system that looked as good, and was as mutable, as Magic Carpet..and that ran on my 486. Meanwhile, while I missed out on Fable 1 on account of a foolish high-school-kid anti-Microsoft bias, and haven't gotten around to Fable 3 yet, but I found Fable 2 to be scarcely worth playing in any regard. Anyways, back on topic: I'm not sure that the world is as bereft of creativity as Yahtzee makes it out to be. We still have our true originality - our Minecrafts, Dwarf Fortresses, Limbos, Braids, Portals, Bioshocks, Osmoses (Osmosees? Osmos's?), Assassin's Creeds, Left 4 Deads, Heavy Rains, and our Mount & Blades. We still have fresh takes or new combinations of existing ideas, like Borderlands (much as I hated it), Mass Effect, Arkham Asylum, The Witcher, Castle Crashers, inFamous. I'm not convinced that there are fewer quality and creative games out there, but I do agree that there are more games of poor quality every day, making the average go down. This is what we have game reviewers for, right Yahtzee! :-D | |
Eye Toy did motion control and a camera last generation. I don't really care about the control systems though, particular the balance board and the vitality sensor can go fuck itself really. We're talking about innovative games. Because a new way to play shovelware is still playing shovelware. I'm not saying Nintendo are bad, just no better that the rest. Yeah, the Wii and the DS do have some interesting titles, so do the 360 and the PS3, PSP is bullshit though. Hopefully the PSP2 will actually have a games catlogue worth buying a console for. | |
Nah. I know someone who works for him and apparently he'd come in some days and go "I just had a great idea for the game" and usually this great idea would mean recoding weeks worth of work. That's not really a bad thing I suppose, unless you work for him. Having a visionary design a game is certainly better than having whoever designed Medal of Honour games do it, but he needs switching off and on again. The best thing he could do right now is forget about the Fable name, forget about the games altogether and work on a completely new title. Freshen things up a bit. But of course, he'll never do that. | |
Man... I parsed it as "Cursed 2 Die Early." | |
I disagree with the idea that his ideas don't work just because they aren't new. The biggest problem is that when you actually have a moment to inspect these features, they're all incredibly shallow. Marry an NPC? Sounds great until you do it and realize you're marrying someone who can say about a dozen sentences and looks a lot like approximately half the female population. Buying property would be awesome if only the whole thing wasn't so simplistic and one-dimensional, not to mention the fact that working the real-estate market is an awfully boring alternative to dragon-slaying. It's not that these things aren't good ideas, they just fall short when you realize how little work was put into them. It would be incredible if you could marry an NPC and then actually be able to interact with them the way real couples do, if not a bit creepy. What I'm saying is that non of Pete's good-on-paper idea's fail because they're novelties, they fail because they are either implemented in the most shallow way possible (marriage) or because they don't belong in an action/adventure title in the first place (real-estate) | |
Haha! Maybe both? But yeah that totally makes sense, thanks! Those lowbrow scum! (jk) | |
I played the first Fable, but found it so unbalanced and boring that I never bothered with the next two. Part of the problem with the game was the options. Buying property didn't really benefit you at all and marrying someone was pointless. Also, the spells were ridiculously over-powered. Perhaps these game mechanics were improved upon in the sequels, but from his review and this follow up it doesn't seem like it. I have a friend who loves the Fable games though, so to each their own. | |
J'accuse! What was the "Era of Names", and how is it weaker or stronger than it used to be? Here's a start to the listing of Big-Name Game Designers. To be a Big Name, when someone heard they were working on the game, lots of people bought it. This list also includes their tenure of game design. While many worked on games early in their careers, this list attempts to start from when their name became endorsement worthy. (For example, Schafer becomes a big name starting with Grim Fandago.) Douglas Adams (1984-1998) Omitted from this list are endorsements: Tiger Woods, Tom Clancy, John Madden, Tony Hawk, Shaun White, etc. are all big names that help sell games, but they aren't in a primary, creative decision role. Also omitted are studios, so no "Two Guys from Andromeda". (Honorable mention to Steve Meretzky, but Infocom's studio name was demonstrably a bigger selling point than his name.) Also, only the period where the name is a selling point is considered. (Sorry, Romero, but after 2000, your name was no longer bankable.) There's probably more names to add to this list, but this is a start. Observations: In conclusion, there's still a lot of big names making the kinds of games they want to make. (Whether you want to play them is another story.) Maybe if Tarn Adams or Markuss Persson lend their names to a second project, we'll see more big name endorsements. You really can't ask, "Where have all the big names gone?" You can ask, "Why can't they make competitive games?" And many of these games are exactly what the creators want. Kojima loves Metal Gear's big long cut scenes. Molyneaux, you've already criticized at length -- and Schafer's Brutal Legend got the same treatment. Sometimes, technical barriers got in the way. For example, Jordan Mechner commented there was a lot more he wanted to include in Sands of Time but had to be cut for budget reasons. Some of this nostalgia is rose-colored glasses. Romero's magnum opus, Daikatana, could probably mix with today's linear, nonsensical, escort-quest games with just a little polish. Miyamoto is on record that from day one, he wanted "Video Game Man" to be a franchise in dozens of games ... and Nintendo has carried the Mario torch through many franchises, so his plans are still on course. And Populous cheats, dammit. The main thesis is the problem: a big-name game designer might have the freedom to make whatever they want, but that's not necessarily what you want to play. A real auteur would accuse you of not "appreciating" their brilliant game. (It was Roberta Williams who famously blamed her lack of success in the 2000s because too many "average" people thought they should be allowed to own computers.) Yes, there's lots of soulless committes out there, but the roster of rock-stars is still pretty big. <!-- Edited 26-Jan-2011 8 pm Carmack listed twice --> | |
I'd fell in love with one of my imps once... You did revive old feelings. | |
Syndicate had management in it. Not as much as, say, X-Com: UFO Defence /UFO: Enemy Unknown, but it did have enough. Syndicate did have at least two management elements: taxes, regions with enormous taxes would rebel, and research to make better equipment. So I would say that's not a very good example of a pure-gameplay game. | |
I do somewhat agree here. Fable never really did seem to do anything but provide a wide world of disassembled menial tasks to keep people entertained. I always wanted a more specific control over the world; once I've bought every building, yes I've got a billion tons of cash, but nothing to do with that cash. If I could field soldiers, improve the lives of the people, whatever, it may be more fun. | |
Aw, hell. Why'd you have to go and mention Dungeon Keeper? I think what Molyneux really need -and have needed since Black & White went crunch time- is someone with the authority and cojones to put the foot down and say "no, maybe next time" when he's about to go prancing off into "wouldn't it be cool if..."-land. | |
Whine, whine, whine. This week's extra punctuation read more like a petulant teenager finding fault with everything than any true dislike, but that could well be a side-effect of me having such a polar opposite view of the game. I think this is the first time I have so strongly disagreed with you and it's pretty refreshing! Regarding no map: It can be frustrating, but if you like exploration it can also be pretty awesome. The only negative in this scenario is that the world itself is so darn linear that you don't really need a map and exploration is essentially just connect-the-dots. If the Fable world had been as large as Oblivion's - and had as many or more secret little villages and quests hidden away - I'd have loved trekking through with no map and only the golden trail to be switched on after getting thoroughly lost. That's exploration. And to your comments about the kiddy look, having the main character teleport to the sanctuary, the humor often having an unapologetic dirty edge without being too adult... Seriously? What exactly do you want, Yahtzee? You don't want a game-by-committee with a checklist of expected and obligatory components but you also don't want someone trying something different unless it's exactly what you want? You'll only grudgingly take this over the clones being churned out? I'd rather the fingers-in-multiple-pies approach than any strict genre restrictions, myself. (Just action-adventure or just management are a dime a dozen, after all.) Fable 2 & 3 weren't perfect by a long shot (especially Fable 3, which was way over-hyped), but they were fun. | |
That was my major complaint as well. I quite enjoyed all the tasks you could do, they broke up the monotony of constant questing. But I wanted more. Especially of the world-building stuff. If I'm Queen, let me enjoy it! I want a city made of ivory over here, all those bloody graves dug up and chucked into a lava pit (toss in those ugly, whiny guys too), more clothing and villager types, better looking men (and women, to be fair), the ability to move your people to different locations, whether they like it or not, closer character ties and more ability to choose how those ties develop... Hmm, maybe this is what Yahtzee meant by the Fable games no longer containing new and exciting things? | |
That was well-thought out, decently written and pretty intelligent, you should definitely post more, we need more people like you who actually put thought into their posts and don't just post for the hell of it or go trolling. Good job. OT: I haven't really played a Fable game since The Lost Chapters, but I agree with your article in principle, the industry needs more innovation and should move away from Call of Halo 6: God of War 4: The Prequel. I hope that if/when I make it into the industry that maybe I can add a little ingenuity to whatever company I join and have it be successful to the point where other companies take notice and get a bit more creative. | |
I'd completely forgot he was Bullfrog, those games rocked. Fable is a good game, no doubt; I spent a crapload more time playing Syndicate and Theme Park though. | |
How hard would it have been for the Fable team to add a 'random ruling decision' system? Something where every once in a while after winning the main campaign, you still get a sense that the world hasn't hit the pause button. Towns have riots, raids, etc on which you can spend the 13 billion gold you have after playing the game for a few hours after buying all the properties in the entire country. Yet again, despite Peters assurances, the game simply stops when the action does. I have never told someone I haven't finished a game because I haven't fully upgrading one of my weapons by farting in the face of 20 people on-line. There seems to be heavy reliance on the on-line/sharing aspect of this game, which means if you don't use Xbox Live because of all the prepubescent twats running around on there, you don't have access to part of the game you bought and paid for. That's a good idea, punish people who don't go on-line for either my reasons or even because they can't afford an internet connection. Way to encourage them to buy your next title. They should at least start releasing DLC compilations on disc so if you don't want to waste your internet cap downloading something you've just paid for, you can walk to the shops, pay for it there, walk home and still be able to use the net this month. Yes, New Zealand has rubbish caps and ridiculous data charges. All said and done, the Darkness has to be one of the coolest antagonists I've seen in years! Pity he got shoved into the mess that is Fable 3. | |
This...was kind of depressing...about the industry I mean. Yahtzee knows his stuff. I know I'll be a game designer and I'm going to do my damnedest to make games the way they should be. | |
One of the scariest words a huge corporation can hear is 'open-ended'. The idea that the consumer won't tire of the game after a few weeks--thus not buy another of their titles--just doesn't sit well with them. This, I believe, creates the environment in which we are seeing so many RPGs but so few that could claim legendary status. I have a copy of LORD 2, a BBS game from back in the day. It has been on my PCs since 1998. Why? Because it allows you to create 'total conversions' once you've done the game to death, make a new one. Just like another game I still play, Doom 2. This is the only reason I still like PC games over console, even if the game wasn't supposed to be edited, give it a few weeks after its release and there are half a dozen map/mission editors out there. Ah, but gone are the good old days. Now, a lot of publishers simply see us as wallets with short attention spans. Sure, that's true of my nephews and other youngins, but there are more and more of us oldies out there that aren't so easily impressed. If it wasn't for indie games and the occasional gem, I'd have thought the industry dead long ago. | |
Yes, I think so too! Disagreement does not have to entail in aggressiveness and passive-aggressive adolescent sarcasm, something which happens quite a lot around here. But it is for posts like this that I still can't back, adide of course for artciles and videos by Yahtzee and a few others. Keep it up! | |
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Dungeons is coming out soon...
:D This'll be a proper RTS/Management Dungeon Keeper-like, if the promo videos are anything to go by. Effectively DKIII! None of this Overlord E-RPG nonsense.