Having listened to the podcast I'm a little less peeved, it was from testers rather than the whinging of a handful of forum goers that caused them to see the fault. If we take what was said in the podcast as a true record of events it was that people couldn't handle it, that we've become so hardwired to the save/load/checkpoint systems that we can't deal with a game that offers something different.

I say *** that, you have to stay true to a vision, if people don't like something new then you should adapt to that, for example you could bring them in slowly with the childhood experience so they know how scar death works beforehand. From the podcast it sounds like it's not SD that's broken, it's us, and there's not much in us that you can't change with a little education.

A thing that amused me is when John (on the podcast) says the feature was cut the reaction all round was one of disappointment. Here it seems the total opposite.

Id have to say the scardeath would become a real burden after a while where your have to worry about compensating for death with money cos u didnt want to look ugly, why punish the gamer like that. See thats one side of the argument the other is basically it adds another layer of realism. It would have been nice to try out tho...

And about the dog... there was negative feedback? if anything it sounded like an immense idea and looks like it has been executed well,

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Meow

Only time I remember the dog being negatively viewed was some idea Lionhead had about the dog being your Co-Op partner...

And if I recall correctly, that was many moons ago and very few details had surfaced...But the fact that we wouldn't have been able to play with a fellow Hero, and instead your friend became a dog was very frowned upon and might I add, for reason...

As for ScarDeath being cut, it's news...Question is, will Lionhead try to reinvent the death system with a better mechanic or will it be save/reload and not expand past last gen mechanics??

We'll have to wait and see...

I disagree with their assessment of the gamer psyche. Most of the people I know love the thought of permanent consequences. I don't think that is the true or at least the one reason ScarDeath was removed. If it was then why would they keep all the other permanent consequences in the game like having your family killed?

As for sticking to a vision. Sometimes people vision is crap and should be changed. One of the things I love about PM is that when he realizes his ideas are bad he says so. Sticking to a vision when it is bad is just dumb case in point Lair.

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Thank you Ralph H. Baer

I sorta agree with those guys in the sense that we do have the way we die in games now ingrained into us. Although I don't agree with what they said about how we don't like consequences.

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"Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property...Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them." (Thomas Paine, Thoughts On Defensive War, 1775)

I love how the graphics have evolved after previous footage and I am confident that the game will rock.

Just one tip for improvements: Change that ugly "look at" trigger icon, which appears if the dog wants to tell you something. I know the game is still work in progress, but I like to mention that . It's not fitting to the fantasy world. Replace it with a dog had or a dog nose - whatever .

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Webmaster of Lionnose.de - The finest nose for Lionhead news

Rapture_Tourist:

I love how the graphics have evolved after previous footage and I am confident that the game will rock.

Just one tip for improvements: Change that ugly "look at" trigger icon, which appears if the dog wants to tell you something. I know the game is still work in progress, but I like to mention that . It's not fitting to the fantasy world. Replace it with a dog had or a dog nose - whatever .

I dont like that flashing thing either, even when you look at what the dog wants you to it still doesnt go away until you run away or go to it. But it may be fixed.

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the previous link i got from the xbox forums

as for the whole scar death 'death', that was probrably in no small part to MGS, which is now, to the best of my knowledge, the primary testers for fable 2, thus why the Work experience testing halted this year. For the sake of economics, is why the desicion to cut the feature is financially sound, especially if you want to stay in safe territory in terms of what people will purchase.  But if they kept it in, i think it truely would have changed the way people play games, that the world you are playing in has no restart button, that you are doomed, or blessed by your choices, and consquences are permanent.  MMO's do what Fable 2 was trying to do to an extent, but you always just resurect or do the quest over again.  I think the Scar death system was a true inovation, but often innovation is swept under the bootheel of the crocodile skin shoe of profit,

if it was infact cut...

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Whether you think you can or can't, you're right either way.

Well I've checked out all the links, veiwed all there is to veiw and so far I'm pretty impressed.  It is obvious that there is still work that needs to be done in tiding up the visual aspect of the game, that's fine.  Looking loads better then it did a few months back so I can only assume in a few more months it will be better still.  One of the questions on my mind, are we going to be able to cycle through magic spells.  We know it's one buton combat, so how are we going to switch from spell to spell?  What would really be cool is to be able to switch guns or go from saber to axe to sword with ease as well.  A feature we deffinately didn't have in the last game.  You had to go through the laborous process of going through your itinerary for anything not hotkeyed.  On x-box that equalled only about 4 items from memory.

Co-op sounds brillant and if they can incorporate on-line into that, that would be brillant.  I might actually be tempted to play on-line.  Don't hurt me I've hardly ever played multi-player online games and the few times I had, it didn't take me long to get lost, confused, killed and generally dis appointed.  I'm not a hard gamer, just a casual one and if something doesn't grab my interest I'm not going to continue play.  Heck, I still haven't bothered to finish assassins creed first time through. 

Muli-playing with people I know and consider friends on the other hand can be a lot of fun ( just add chocolate, pizza, alchol and an engineer, what is it with engineers anyway, does anybody know what I mean?)


Any way, there is still one thing that does concern me slightly, the dog.  Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of the dog, travelling by your side, helping you in battle, faithful companion.  Its just that the dag is suppose to growl when it finds something interesting.  It was with some releif that I saw in the demos that not only do you get the dog but also the flashing icon at the top oif the screen as an indicator.  It seem a little thing to some, a distracting annoyance to others but in four months I turn 27.  My dad had hearing aids at 28, my sister was 26, my brother got his at 29.  See where I'm going with this?  I don't need hearing aids yet but my hearing is impared, it's not just boderline, it's actaully just below boderline and if it goes any lower I will have no other chioce.

The lastest installment of elderscrolls drove me nuts with that nimroot quest.  I could turn down special effects sounds and the music but it still made finding those damn things more chance and pot luck for me and very frustarting.  Relying on a growling dog just sends shivers of dred down my spine and that is not , not when this game looks to be the only one on the new xbox so far thats even worth my time and money.  I loved the first fable and since I new nothing when I bought it, and had no preconcieved ideas, I was blown away but it's innovative RPG play.  For awhile there you couldn't get RPG's that weren't not also multi-player.  Not that I don't mind a bit of multi-player but I'm in it for me, myself and I and sometimes I don't want others getting in for something I tend to consider as personal time, and on-line so far just hasn't caught my interest enough to be bothered with.

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http://fable2listomania.blogspot.com/

It seems like a lot of people thought scar-death was revolutionary, scar-death as we knew it was not revolutionary.  It was half a revolutionary idea at best.  The consequences of the system didn't seem to exist.  You were scarred, which according to all the info we had, didn't seem to have a constant effect on NPCs and ended up being meaningless once your renown and alignment increased.  Other than that the system was insta-win, you never, ever, failed because you always got up to continue the fight.  None of this is revolutionary.

If Lionhead could made a death system with real consequences and remove the loading a saved game system that would be revolutionary.  Imagine you start a trader escort quest, but halfway through you get attacked by bandits and blackout.  Now instead of getting up your screen fades black (think CoD 4 style), you wake up hours later, the bandits are gone and there isn't an enemy in sight.  You stand up, turn and see the trader laying on the ground dead.  If those quests didn't reset, it would completely change the way you look at the game, it would make you realise that failure has a very real consequence.  Something like that would be revolutionary.

Its hard to say with so little info on the subject, but I wonder if the hardcore gamers really turned off their 360's because of the scarring.  Maybe they turned it off because they didn't think the game offered a real consequence for losing, maybe they didn't want to get back up to finish that fight when they already knew they had been defeated.  To me, consequences for failing seem like a great idea because it makes you think about what your doing, what I can't stand is the thought of a death system where you always win even if have already failed. 

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Are you an ODST (fanboy)?

@carew52

I definitely understand where you are coming from when it comes to how sound effects the gameplay as it effects me and my family. We had a discussion about about this a few months ago here. Hopefully the devs pay attention to these things and account for these kinds of situations.

fablier:

Its hard to say with so little info on the subject, but I wonder if the hardcore gamers really turned off their 360's because of the scarring.  Maybe they turned it off because they didn't think the game offered a real consequence for losing, maybe they didn't want to get back up to finish that fight when they already knew they had been defeated. 

Yeah, that doesn't make much sense that ScarDeath would be removed because gamers don't like permanent consequences as Lionhead is still keeping all the other permanent consequences in the game heck they even showed off a new one, the death of your family though co-op. There were so many problems with ScarDeath they had to have had a part in it's removal.

And as usual nice post

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Thank you Ralph H. Baer

tokie:

Having listened to the podcast I'm a little less peeved

Where is this pod cast that you speak of?

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Do Drugs

Death... so what is going to happen now, just revert back to the old system? I say bullpoo. There has to be something new. Going with the tried and true seems like a bad idea to me, especially considering the fact that Peter and probably the others as well don't seem care for the save+replay system and what was that thing the game stood for...  oh, that's right... innovation and landmark games.

And what's up with this "such and such a feature has been cut" being mentioned in some dark corner of the internet? It never seems to happen where it should happen.

Enough about death, how about scarring?

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TheRobotOfPop:

tokie:

Having listened to the podcast I'm a little less peeved

Where is this pod cast that you speak of?

http://www.1up.com/do/minisite?cId=3149993
It's the podcast for 2/22/08

Its starting to look like ''just another game'' that has pointless features like having a family or getting a job. Oh but i do hope im wrong. 

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monkeybone125:

Its starting to look like ''just another game'' that has pointless features like having a family or getting a job. Oh but i do hope im wrong. 

Those useless features are as integral to Fable as combat is to other RPGs.

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monkeybone125:

Its starting to look like ''just another game'' that has pointless features like having a family or getting a job. Oh but i do hope im wrong. 

What makes you say that those features are pointless? Without them Fable 2 is pretty much just another standard action rpg instead of what I thought it was supposed to be, a hero simulator.

monkeybone125:

Its starting to look like ''just another game'' that has pointless features like having a family or getting a job. Oh but i do hope im wrong. 

Well i've written - what you could call, an essay about some of the Fable 2 features but i dont know whethere or not i can link that post

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To be honest, I didn't really like the idea. I did like that it was trying to be different and I do think that it was actually a idea, but I just don't want to have to give up my experience or gold, because it appears to be difficult to get, and I would hate to be irreversibly scarred. If they want to get rid of the save/reload thing, I personally would much rather just lose a bit of expereince. Kinda like in the sonic games where if you were hit by an enemy you'd lose some rings. I'm not saying I want to see all these experience orbs floating around, and I don't think we should be able to collect them, but I think it does make more sense. Perhaps there could be a sort of mini game where you have to press a certain button code as quickly as possible to minimize the amount of experience you lose. I don't know. I perosonally think that that's better than the save/reload method and the Scar/death method, but that's just my opinion.

i think it was a idea (the scar/death system) it somehow show´s other ppl how many and how hard fights you fought a time ago...and every warrior has got scarves (even nowadays) so i still think its a idea

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Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7

they havent shown magic yet maybe thats one of them

they also havent shown bosses

and they havent shown growing up yet or the change from to

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'i want you to feel loved' - thank you peter, thank you.

Stiegler:

i think it was a idea (the scar/death system) it somehow show´s other ppl how many and how hard fights you fought a time ago...and every warrior has got scarves (even nowadays) so i still think its a idea

No, because you could pay to get rid of scars.  If I have been in 10 battles and payed when I blacked out, and my buddy has been in 10 battles and didn't pay when he blacked out, he will have a bunch of scars and I will have none yet we have been in the same amount of battles.

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Are you an ODST (fanboy)?

monkeybone125:

Its starting to look like ''just another game'' that has pointless features like having a family or getting a job. Oh but i do hope im wrong. 

In a sense I know what you are saying. Cut the things that make a game special and your left with just another game. Will they succede at making fable 2 a different game or will it be a sequel?

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Do Drugs

Look at all the great things about Fable 2 that Fable 1 didn't do...

Free-roaming in a bigger world?? That alone is a gigantic step for Albion which I feel is a very over-looked feature on the foruMs...Alot of people don't really talk about how expansive the world is and how big of a role that will play in Fable 2...

Combat?? Peter said it himself and I don't think anyone would really disagree, but combat in Fable 1 wasn't bad...It was actually pretty cool, a little limited on the amount of moves/spells but they didn't need to revamp the system, but chose to do so anyways...

Gender?? Man, this is definitely one of the most overlooked aspect of Fable 2...Every animation in the game has to be done for both male and female, that is a ton of work...Plus you have all the different morphs, clothes..etc..

These are just a few of the things that seperate Fable from Fable 2, and that's not including things like Co-Op, dynamic regions, simulated economies, more alignments, the dog, family...I don't see how Lionhead could even be questioned in creating a whole new experience...

Fable 2 is definitely not just a sequel with a tweak here and a tweak there...They really are trying for a totally new experience with a ton of new features...

sCM redruM:

Peter Molyneux From GDC:

He said, "I was really disappointed in you lot. I expected more of you to be . 70 percent were pure y ies, and only 5 percent managed to play all the way through the game as . So this time, I'm going to make it really, really tough being ."

Man, that is fcking bullsh*t...goD damn that fcking irritates me...

WTF do you expect when you give us Points for killing Baddies?? Are you expecting us not to kill the Baddies who attack us?? We should just have run away every time a Bandit shot his Crossbow at us, boy you guys are brilliant...

So, apparently it's OUR FAULT because you put a trash mechanic in the game...Hell, we practically became Saints by walking from Bowerstone to Oakvale because of the enemies on the roads...

Obviously it's our fault, it's not your fault, it's us...Because we told you to give us Points for gaining experience, that's it, you've pin pointed it...

Man, they had that same bullsh*t statistic like a year ago and I got mad back then, and this didn't help...You people at Lionhead do not understand that concept...

We had NO WAY of becoming without doing ridiculously stupid things...We had to go out of our way to be ...We had to fight guards for like 10 minutes to offset the Points we got while just traveling and fighting...

So you're blaming us for not fighting guards and killing villagers every other second?? Being means you have to be a moron and attack innocent NPCs?? That's your definition of ??

You might as well blame us for not being overweight in the game either...I guess it's our fault we didn't want to go out of our way to constantly eat and keep up with the fact that, you automatically start getting thinner within minutes after getting fat...

Yeah, I don't hear you people at Lionhead bringing up that little fact...I don't see you people at Lionhead doing background checks on "fat/skinny" Heroes, yet the same rules apply there...

You made it abundantly clear you wanted us to be ...Then you turn around and blame us for that, because you guys fcked up?? You people just don't get it, it's fcking ridiculous...My goD, no fcking way are we getting blamed for your mechanics, you messed up, then told us we did something wrong, that is utter bullsh*t...

 

wow....ouch...that seemed to release alot of anger....