I'm not sure about this breadcrumb trail myself. I'm sure Fable 2 is very open ended, but by having this trail it'll seem somewhat or should I say will feel linear mainly because you'll be force to follow that path, no matter how many times you try to avoid it. I'm hoping they'll be an option to dim the visibility of the trail or better yet turn it off. Anyway, I really hope this mystery, dusty trail thing turns out to be magicly delicious. Hopefully there's more to this trail, than meets the eye, even though I can't think of it.
.

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I think its absurd that we are discussing this despitenever having seen it or being told what it is. I know PM and such have tried to give a brief idea how it will work without giving away any information, but as far as I'm aware we have no idea what it is going to be like.

This idea of "fairy dust" thats being tossed around, did one of the developers ever mention anything about fairy dust or is it one of those things where someone says it on the forum and several pages of discussion later it is accepted as fact?

I think it's been outlined in interviews and previews Johnny, essentially it looks like it's in there. Although I agree, until we see it - or any aspect of the game - we really can't judge. Over all though as I say, I trust Lionhead to do a job.

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Feel free to add me on Xbox Live: AngerOfTheNorth
I'm 27 and from the UK. GSOH and all my own teeth. WLTM mature person(s) for gaming, walks on the beach and maybe more...
Actually, er, no. Just gaming would be fine.

Hmm, I've seen all the videos and watched pretty much every interview. I've heard them talk about a "breadcrumb trail" and what it will do. But i have never heard them talk about how it will do its job or what it will appear as on the screen.

But anyway, i have been entirely happy with the previous fable products so im sure i'll be happy with fable 2 and its unique navigation system.

Legend_of_Johnny:

Hmm, I've seen all the videos and watched pretty much every interview. I've heard them talk about a "breadcrumb trail" and what it will do. But i have never heard them talk about how it will do its job or what it will appear as on the screen.

But anyway, i have been entirely happy with the previous fable products so im sure i'll be happy with fable 2 and its unique navigation system.

I think it derived from IGN describing the breadcrumb trail in one of their Fable 2 articles. Link is here

IGN:
The bread crumb trail is color-coded and dynamically changes based on the interests you show as a gamer. It looks pretty cheesy. Just imagine a line of fairy dust sparkling from your feet, along a path and into the horizon. You dog's job, apparently, is to lead you off the breadcrumb trail.

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I hope you'll forgive me for not trusting IGN. Who have probably seen about as much of the game as we have.

AngerOfTheNorth:

I think it's been outlined in interviews and previews Johnny, essentially it looks like it's in there. Although I agree, until we see it - or any aspect of the game - we really can't judge. Over all though as I say, I trust Lionhead to do a job.

 

No offence intended to you or Lionhead but that's very naive. The best game developers don't make a game they like, pat themselves on the back and sell it, why? Because what you like in a game is a matter of opinion.

What to one person is barely noticeable to another person may be a constant distraction form the corner of their eye, what is hard to see to one person ruins the atmosphere of the game for another.

OK we haven't seen the feature fully, but as I have said previously if we don't voice concerns now over what the outcome may be then it will be impossible to change it once we have seen the feature (at least impossible without delaying the game).

It's this simple we know there will be a sparkling light which is claimed to be barley noticeable, yet still noticeable enough so you can follow it. Sam added a poll option that lets you vote not to have it or to have it optional or to say its fine (or that you don't have an opinion). This to me shows that the system is something they are totally willing to change based upon what we say.

If we say "we'll trust you to do the right thing" and they think they are but we dislike the feature then not only will we suffer (because we'll think its a crap feature) but Lionhead will suffer too as Fable 2 wont get the rep it deserves. It sounds daft but smallish things such as directing players towards quests can knock games down from 9 or 10 out of 10 to 8. That effects sales. Sales allow Lionhead to take on more staff, buy new technology etc to produce more and better games.

The worst case scenario for saying "have the option for turning it off" is that they have the option to turn it off and everyone leaves it on.

In the long run I know which one I'd prefer

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Blackthorn Ltd. - "Meus intentio est verus. Meus intentio est aurum."

Great post Rich

Legend_of_Johnny:

I hope you'll forgive me for not trusting IGN. Who have probably seen about as much of the game as we have.

I doubt that they have not seen more then us. PM loves to show off and has reveled features such as magic off camera and given information off the record. You don't have to take IGNs word for it though, you can decide based on PMs own words link

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Thank you Ralph H. Baer

RichBlake:

AngerOfTheNorth:

I think it's been outlined in interviews and previews Johnny, essentially it looks like it's in there. Although I agree, until we see it - or any aspect of the game - we really can't judge. Over all though as I say, I trust Lionhead to do a job.

 

No offence intended to you or Lionhead but that's very naive. The best game developers don't make a game they like, pat themselves on the back and sell it, why? Because what you like in a game is a matter of opinion.

What to one person is barely noticeable to another person may be a constant distraction form the corner of their eye, what is hard to see to one person ruins the atmosphere of the game for another.

OK we haven't seen the feature fully, but as I have said previously if we don't voice concerns now over what the outcome may be then it will be impossible to change it once we have seen the feature (at least impossible without delaying the game).

It's this simple we know there will be a sparkling light which is claimed to be barley noticeable, yet still noticeable enough so you can follow it. Sam added a poll option that lets you vote not to have it or to have it optional or to say its fine (or that you don't have an opinion). This to me shows that the system is something they are totally willing to change based upon what we say.

If we say "we'll trust you to do the right thing" and they think they are but we dislike the feature then not only will we suffer (because we'll think its a crap feature) but Lionhead will suffer too as Fable 2 wont get the rep it deserves. It sounds daft but smallish things such as directing players towards quests can knock games down from 9 or 10 out of 10 to 8. That effects sales. Sales allow Lionhead to take on more staff, buy new technology etc to produce more and better games.

The worst case scenario for saying "have the option for turning it off" is that they have the option to turn it off and everyone leaves it on.

In the long run I know which one I'd prefer

I totally agree. For a second I thought I was alone on this. I would add something towards this, but you pretty much stole the words out of my mouth.

Edit: Thanks for the helpful link Port. Some of that info, I didn't know about.

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Peter Molyneux: " What I should have done during GDC is stood up and said, "What have been the biggest battles in Fable for a design idea to get past the team upstairs?"

One of those big ideas was the idea of saying, "Look, why do we have these mini-maps in the first place? They take up so much screen space or they're shrunk down to being insignificant, you have to get a magnifying glass to make out any detail on them. They're very old-school, and a lot of the time, especially with Fable 1, you could kinda play the whole game on the mini-map. It was just madness.

"Let's try and be brave--this is what you have to do when you design--and say we're not going to use mini-maps."

That was the first design thought, when we said that. That means we're going to architect our levels a certain way to be sympathetic with that, and that also means we needed something that gave players a strong idea of, when they want to go where they should be going, where they can go.

That's where we came up with the idea of a breadcrumb trail. This breadcrumb trail is dynamic, it's reactive to what you're doing. It can glow brightly or it can glow very, very dimly. It can almost be incredibly obscure, you can hardly see it at all--or it's the most important thing on the screen.

It's very dynamic; it's driven by AI. If you choose to jump down a hole and you choose to swim across a river, it will follow you and guide you and always be there for when you actually want to get back on track. It will glow more and be more excited the more important it is that you get to your destination and the closer you are to your destination.

That filled in a lot of the problems that a mini-map supplied to you. When you are trying to navigate from point A to point B, you don't actually need a mini-map. You actually need a guide, and that's what the breadcrumb trail is. That's the first thing.

The second thing was that when we were thinking about the design of our levels, we made sure that we designed them in such a way that it wasn't absolutely necessary to have a mini-map.

Now, we still have a map. We still very much have a map. There's a world map, and there's a level map, and you can bring it up and you can see, "Oh, there's a shop in this alleyway."

We've got maps like that, but the concept of a mini-map as the main way of navigating around the world has gone."



Thats what you linked me to. Would you care to pint out where Molyneaux says anything about fairy dust??

Next time try actually reading a link before you post it in a vain attempt to prove some sort of point.

Based on what PM had to say in that interview i think the breadcrumb trail is going to be a lot more subtle and well thought out than anyone is giving credit for. He says its dynamic, it can glow, get excited, react to what you do, become very obscure and even goes on to refer to it as a guide and says that it ties in with level design. I dunno how you can interpret that as "fairy dust".

The purpose of the link was so that you could decide based on PMs own words whether you thought the trail would be too obtrusive, not whether or not it looks like fairy dust.

You stated earlier that you have never seen anyone talk about the feature so I provided a link to PM discussing it for you. Quoting someone isn't always some kind of personal attack sometimes people are just trying to be helpful. 

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Thank you Ralph H. Baer

Legend_of_Johnny:

Thats what you linked me to. Would you care to pint out where Molyneaux says anything about fairy dust??

Next time try actually reading a link before you post it in a vain attempt to prove some sort of point.

Based on what PM had to say in that interview i think the breadcrumb trail is going to be a lot more subtle and well thought out than anyone is giving credit for. He says its dynamic, it can glow, get excited, react to what you do, become very obscure and even goes on to refer to it as a guide and says that it ties in with level design. I dunno how you can interpret that as "fairy dust".

 

Y'know, I don't usually like flaming people, or being seen to flame people on this forum because everyone is generally nice. However such an arrogant response requires an arrogant answer:

here

As you can see this interview clearly uses the term "fairy dust" and in fact I've seen it used in several others.

Even though it was a mistake, and a silly one at that, to link to the wrong article, the user who did so has clearly read more then one interview or article before gallivanting off and acting as though their opinion is somehow more important.

Yes PM is but I'm sure he'll be the first to admit he doesn't aways get it right. I'm sure he will also admit that it is all a matter of opinion, what you might find subtle and helpful I may find distracting and annoying.

So next time before you make a "vain attempt" to discredit people's opinions based upon the single article you have read, maybe do a little more reading and be a lot more polite about it. OK?

 

(PS don't criticise people for linking to the wrong thing then spell Peter "Molyneux" wrongly, it just seems hypocritical).

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Blackthorn Ltd. - "Meus intentio est verus. Meus intentio est aurum."

If you had bothered to read my previous posts. You would see that my only problem is with people referring to the breadcrumb trail as fairy dust.

You may also have noticed that i have been referred to IGN before, to which i responded:

"you'll have to forgive me if i dont trust IGN"

or something to that effect.

So why did you feel it was necessary to link me there again?


Also portarock i appreciate what your saying. I have read that interview before, it was one of the more informative ones but still offered no definitive answer as to what the breadcrumb feature would look like. But thanks anyway.

Legend_of_Johnny:

If you had bothered to read my previous posts. You would see that my only problem is with people referring to the breadcrumb trail as fairy dust.

You may also have noticed that i have been referred to IGN before, to which i responded:

"you'll have to forgive me if i dont trust IGN"

or something to that effect.

So why did you feel it was necessary to link me there again?

 

I did read your previous posts, and if you had read mine you'd see I said that it is in other interviews too. My additional point was I've read interviews on the same subjects from about 5 different companies and sites each, and I've seen it mentioned as "fair dust" A LOT. You can either believe me or you can not believe me I really don't care. Either way you are coming across as an arrogant jerk by posting like that. 

I linked you there because it is in fact the interview that is next to the relevant feature in the features list. I don't not care about man people enough to actually warrant me to search through seas of crap on the net to actually find several interviews (though taking you down a notch would be pretty sweet).

Long story short is you have clearly not read as much up on this subject as others have, yet you feel narked when people use a phrase that you personally haven't seen in the one or two articles you have read?

Give me a break.

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Blackthorn Ltd. - "Meus intentio est verus. Meus intentio est aurum."

Sam:

I've added a poll to the topic, for a month.

Cast your votes!

"No the breadcrumb trail is a little path of fairy dust or whatever that leads you to your quests, your dogs leads you away from that trail in an attempt to show you other stuff." source

Here it is Sam referres to it as Bredcrumb/fairy dust so both of you are some what right

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?
Final Fantasy 7
a wise man once said what

Iv read all the interview Molyneaux has given on the subject of fable 2 and as far as im aware neither he nor any other official employee of Lionhead has mentioned that the breadcrumb trail will appear as Fairy dust. Thats not to say that it wont, im just saying there hasnt been an official word on the matter yet.

And for people to criticize a feature that hasnt officially been revealed yet is ridiculous.

If a member of Lionhead has in fact said that the breadcrumb trail is fairy dust then i apologise. But no matter how many lame game sites you link me to, its still not going tobe fact.

*EDIT*

Thanks jjsmooth, Sams word is one i can trust.

Well now that the official word is in, i think il go vote on the poll.

Enough of the bickering please.

Sorry Bag.

this post is rather old so heres an update (i thought only your dog can see the breadcrum trail? if you cant see it look at the kids feet

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Yup.  Looks . 

Incase some people don't like it, you can turn if off.  As said here.

You can also turn it off in the pause menu

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Really nice picture. It's all sparkily .

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Personaly i think the trail is allittle anoying, id rather have it to be turned off or not have it at all. A golden sparkly trail is just aliitle strang to me.

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10. Chump 9. Chumpette 8. Yours 7. Up 6. Pimpmobile 5. Bite 4. My
3. Shiny
2. Daffodil
1. Ass

To the poor little hero alone in the woods, it's not. It guides him off to his adventures. I'm glad they have it now ,sparkily and all. Besides, it fades if you stay off the main quests, after awhile.

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Actually, now that I think about it and have actually seen it, it's a great idea. Being able to turn it off is a very call. Much better than a minimap in my opinion, radars are for army games.
And if what Moonfever said is true (it fades away if you continue on the path) then it wont be intrusive at all.

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The only thing worse than beating a dead horse is betting on one.

Actually I said it fades when you leave the main trail. At least that's what I read somewhere. I've read so much the last couple of days, I can't remember where.

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