Fable 2 - Molyneux: most RPGs are crap

Dhruin

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OK, I paraphrased. The quote is actually "shit", according to this interview on Fable 2 at a site called Kikizo:
Molyneux had privately hinted to Kikizo recently that he thought all fighting games were flawed because hardly anyone knows how to play them, and told us he'd come up with something better. We wanted to know more. "Stupidly, the ambition on this thing is I want you to measure this against any fighting game," he told Kikizo in an exclusive chat. "It's amazing for a role playing game, because most role playing games are shit! Oblivion was a great game, but the combat was rubbish; we all talked about it being rubbish. So imagine you had a great role-playing game and really, really good combat system."
More information.
 
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"I am going to try and make it not suck"

Good luck Peter. I have my doubts...
 
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Sounds like yet another restatement of Sturgeon's law.
 
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Clearly some evil rpg-dev stole peter's lollipop when he was a kid.
 
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Molyneux appears to be quite the moron, having to bash other games to promote his own. Is his PR manager on vacation at the moment? Does he even have one? What a joke.

Current user input systems limit the interactivity of fights, with the Nintendo Wii Remote being a step in the right direction, and Molyneux one button fighting a big step backwards at least in the interactivity department. Did he learn nothing from Apple abandoning the one button mouse?

And regarding fighting in RPGs, the problem does not seem to lie in their difficulty, but rather in the possibility of winning fights by following boring and unchallenging schemes. When it comes to fighting games in general, contrary to Molyneux' supposition, arcade style fighting games, probably because one has to observe the opponent's moves carefully in order to win, where quite successful.
 
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Well, I agree with him most RPG's are shit these days, and he is right about the buttons too. It is not like you think coyote.. ONE button is used for close combat weapon, one button for ranged weapon and one button for magic! It sounds rather good! unlike for example NWN2 where you have to use every single key on the keyboard you have to pause the battle ever so often just to find the thing you want to use. I really think pause in the middle of heat of battle takes away from the immersion! I agree the fighting in Oblivion was crap too... but it was a great RPG???? in what aspect? the combat was BETTER than the RPG aspects.. maybe he meant it had great graphics? this guy is a nutcase with some good ideas :p
 
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Funny, I thought the fighting was pretty much OK in Oblivion. Of course, the character development and balancing issues made the whole thing pointless pretty soon, but the actual activity of hitting people (or critters) with things, or sniping at them with arrows, or even lobbing fireballs at them, felt pretty well done to me.
 
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The combat in Oblivion is by far the best thing about that game :) (other things are of course great, too, but the combat was,imo, the best thing in the game...) As for Peter's comments, I think he may be correct, but only in the sense that most RPGs from major developers, Bethesda and Bioware and such companies, more and more look&play like an mix between action/fps/rpg ----- hoping to catch a bigger market, I'd guess...
 
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I felt he was talking about console RPG's in his statements, where the controls are much more likely to get in your way than on the PC.
 
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@GothicGothicness: Complaining about having to use the pause button in NWN2's combat as compared to the typical action RPG combat is slightly unfair, since one has to manage a complete party there, on top of it being a table top conversion being bound in the somewhat archaic Dungeons & Dragons ruleset. Apart from the defunct companion AI and lack of formations, the tactical battles might not make one jump out of ones chair, but I found them to be quite enjoyable nonetheless at a higher difficulty setting. Comparing action RPG combat with NWN2 style combat is comparing apples and oranges.

For an action RPG, which is Fable's genre if I understand it correctly, Oblivion's combat was indeed quite popular. In my opinion, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic's combat was even better, although I would not call it an RPG.
 
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"[Fable 2 is] amazing for a role playing game, because most role playing games are shit!"...
Molyneux put his ultimate goal with Fable 2 another way: "When you go and do your hateful lists of the Top Ten Games of All Time, then just maybe, just maybe we've got a chance of getting in that list. Because that's what I really care about!"
Cheer up Molyneux, you can always look back on the top game lists from ten to fifteen years ago... around the last time you made a good game.
 
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The non shite rpg was

i liked the fallout 2 system
i was very cool , and had nice feature
it's allow many unexpected thinkg
like seting a bomb to explod after 2 minute
and using the steal skills to put the bomb inside some one
and many other nasty things

and i think
that a good role playing game myst have some turn based combat and not real time
but all new role playing game are not turn based
may be fallout 3 will not suck if we consider molineux definition :)
 
@GothicGothicness: Complaining about having to use the pause button in NWN2's combat as compared to the typical action RPG combat is slightly unfair

Well, since the combat is in "real-time" they are obviously trying to make it an action RPG, if they wanted a turn-based one in that case you take turns right? I love turn based combat... But one shouldn't try to mix apples and oranges ( turn based and action ). Especially not if the AI is as bad as in NWN2 :p
 
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Molynesux has always tried to claim everything else is subbar garbage and only he (and Lionhead) can develop games well when history has proven time and time again he's completely wrong. Nothing new here really.
Sorcha said:
He should have replaced the word 'most' with 'my' though
Hah, exactly.
coyote said:
Is his PR manager on vacation at the moment? Does he even have one? What a joke.
Molynesux is himself the biggest PR manager from the Lionhead company which both are Microsoft's puppets these days.
 
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Actually, NWN2 employs round based combat at the core, similar to Baldur's Gate or Planescape Torment. It is possible to make the game pause at the end of each round automatically, but since commands for the next round can be given during the animation time of the current one or when paused, this is usually not done. Basically, combat will play out in real time for simple encounters where pause is not used at all, but in more difficult ones it will become necessary to pause the game and combat tends to become turn based. Anyway, I liked it, but since - as was already pointed out - pause has to be used frequently, NWN2 hardly qualifies as an action game.

From what I heard, Fallout 3 will also use a mixed real time / turn based system. I certainly have higher hopes for this game than for Fable 2, although unfortunately, it is still a long way off.
 
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I suppose most RPGs are crap...I've tried hundreds of them over the years and I would say most of them have been crap. Most non-rpgs are crap too. You really have to sift through the dross to find the diamonds.

It's those few RPG gems that still reside on my hard drive and are in pride of place on my gaming shelves...for many more years to come.

It is rather rich for Molyneux to mention this amid his rather average releases of late...Fable included.
 
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thank you mama and papa for making for making me easily entertained and amused...
 
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