Microsoft's Peter Molyneux reckons that there's something very wrong with modern RPG design.
GamesCom 2009: In a series of comments made during the unveiling of
Fable 3, Microsoft’s Peter Molyneux suggested that game designers should seriously question the decisions that they make when they design role-playing games.
“
The are things fundamentally wrong with all RPGs,” said Molyneux when teasing a new (and not yet revealed) new feature for
Fable 3. “
It’s something that’s been wrong ever since the 1980s.”
Molyneux implied that whatever the perceived problem was it’s something that Lionhead has found a solution too, though the realisation might not have been easy judging by the way that Molyneux referred to
Fable 3 as “
a problem child”.
“
We made good steps in Fable 2 with the dog companion, the breadcrumb trail and the no-death feature...but we aren’t stopping there,” said Molyneux just before revealing that
Fable 3 will cast players as the new king or queen of Albion.
“
I can’t tell you what this new feature is just yet, but I can say that Fable 3 is all about power and consequences,” he added.
Is Molyneux off his rocker, or have RPGs really been broken all this time? Let us know your thoughts in
the forums.
30 Comments
Discuss in the forums Replymy arse it is!
Seriously, who can consider anything this man says as anything other than utter nonsense?
plus you could haggle in the store with the shopkeeper, talk with the bartender and buy drinks for people in the bar.. your armor and weapons could break and needed upkeep.. you didn't run around thinking I need this many bats to level up- you were just trying to survive.. this was all back in the 80's on a 64k, 8-bit rig
you were considered a bucktooth, there was no 400 lb saddle poppers to sell to.. how is taking away death going to be better? and pokemon yeah
you know what would have the mongloids watering at the mouth.. make a game and base it on gunbuster manga- you put a cloak over yourself and can repel the universe
i guess there was no rpg where you could moon to the big boss before killing him, and they fixed that.
'every boss is moonable in fable 3! now worship us because we are the absolute obama's of the RPG world'
or maybe not
I remember teaching my creature to put trees into the workshop and build houses himself, harvest the wheat, and run the whole show on his own! most people just taught it spells and thought that was it!
Everything Moly did after that was over hyped rubbish though...
I'll be interested to see what he does to "fix" RPG's.
edit: the molyverse!
This is the start of a lot of build up to a game that will be adequate at best - See his entire other collection of work and their associated pre-release talking from the man himself.
In short I'd like my RPG to be as unaccessable to the average gamer as possible, because after a decade or so of gaming I'm getting bitter and grumpy about dumbing games down.
i just cant see it happening tho
i cant see dragon age offering this either
although have you tried playing eve online?
We Will need to find out what is apparently wrong with my fave genre
Fully agree with you there, Black & White 1 was quite an amazing game, I still play it on LAN and stuff with friends and over Hamachi. Truly a wonderful and amazingly complex yet simple to use game. The mechanics behind the creature AI was absolutely wonderful. Black & White 2.. was a major let down IMO, sure, it was fun, but the creature was reduced to near-uselessness, which is a shame.
Fable 2 was cool, but the no dying thing was a bit lame & boring, there simply was no reason not to rush in like an idiot and die 50 times over except for scars. OOHH a scar, big deal.
Also..
:|
Totally with you, Fallout 3, Elder Scrolls IV, KoTOR2, NWN2, etc are all good examples of beefy RPGs I think. I still play NWN1 actually.
Sadly most people never got past the casting spells and killing people thing...
Having a creature run the show was the best.
Fully agree with The Witcher, the last proper RPG from the new ones. Can't help but Fallout 3 sux, shame i bought the best boxed version which was available just to play it for few days and then i got fed up, what they've done to fallout is just ridiculous, it shouldn't carry that name as it's got nothing in common with classic fallouts.
The problem is that old style Fallout wouldn't really work now, it needed to be snazzed up. I love Fallout 3 and I think Beth did a surprisingly good job on it, I was dreading it when it was announced but I can appreciate it for what it is.
Nope, you'd be surprised how many gamers still play old fallout 2 with the hi-res patch (i know at least 4 :)). fallout 3 is not a fallout game, period. what's the point to play a game if i'm a low level character with already maxed out some of the attributes. try to kill a super mutant in fallout 2 on level 6 - impossible, in fallout 3? no problem.
They borked perks system, it's simply oblivion system brought into a post catastrophic world but not fallout world. Dialogues are really bad and still remember that bitch from the first city with her annoying voice and dialogue options are really poor in f3. just not good enough and much worse than previous fallout games.
But each to their own! I am more curious than anything else what Mr. Molyneux thinks he may have fixed.
I never Rushed the main quest, i did pretty much everything you can in the game and spent hours trying everything including all side quests, buying everything, manipulating the economy, but, this is nit the Sim city. Fable 1 and 2 both are airly poor RPG's.
Bread crumb trail is a great feature? LOL, for one, its been done before, and 2, it takes away any fun in exploration, makes it too easy. More excuses for what is a game that is dumbed down for kids.
What? Bread crumb trail, a dog and no death is radical? lol. All have been done before, and all they do, with the exception of the dog, is make the game to easy. No death = no consequence for your actions.
It doesn't really work like that though, strength and size aren't exactly related to eachother.
Bruce Lee was immensely fast as well as extremely strong yet was really small.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Lee#Physical_feats
Personally though, whilst i do love his games, he does need to tone down the hype and exaggerations a fair bit :D
ah the good ol' days of BnW.
i relay heavily on my creature, in the end, all i need to do is building houses. because i didn't like his house placements.
i think RPG design is flawed, but not because of no death and needs a dog. it's the levelling system. but then, i prefer FPS and picking up biggest gun at start of the game.