No, not really. Molyneux put up a survey, but it’s chock full of softball categories. Expect Fable 4 to be an even dumber game than 3.
To begin with, I think it’d be great to know from our own little community what people rank as their favourite features. We have some great Fable champions on our forums and there is a lot of knowledge out there, so it would be great if you could take the time to rate. Sure we could try and digest 1,000,000 forum posts and come up with the data that way, but it would take way too long and so it isn’t very efficient. Secondly, it’s a call out to the wider gaming community to hear how you rank your Fable games’ features.
So I can rank the categories based on how important they are, but can’t point out how much Fable 3 failed at those categories? That’s double plus useless.
Oh, I understand the point. The point isn’t to actually improve anything based on gamer feedback. The point is to have players go through an arbitrary list of vague feature sets and rank them according to how much they value them. Thats not actionable feedback. It’s a pointless exercise since the survey doesn’t ask why you didn’t like or did like a particular feature, or whether or not you liked the way it was handled in Fable II versus III.
Case in point. I found the conversational systme in Fable III to be completely pointless. Every emote was a guaranteed success if you just held it down for long enough. What’s the point? To waste my time? Just have one button press result in the best possible good/bad outcome regardless.
A lot of people hated the way time sped up arbitrarily in the endgame portion screwing you if you planned on paying for kingdom improvements with rent money since you didn’t actually get paid rent based on the elapsed time. And don’t get me started on the annoying chore repairing owned property was!
None of these mechanical points are addressed in the survey. Instead we get lame categories like “dramatic stories are an important part of the Fable experience.”
I didn’t dislike Fable III because it didn’t have enough humor or drama or dog interaction. I disliked it because the gameplay itself was bad and things were simplified down to the point that they were just busywork.
Are you saying the gameplay in Fable II wasn’t already simplified to the point that it was just busywork? I’m referring to the “button mash to win” combat system in particular (allowing for a few inconsequential deaths in the course of the battle perhaps, which leaves scars but the game gave me no reason to care about that really). Fable I was fun for a while, until my character got too powerful. Fable II, I felt like the game didn’t really need me, it would progress as long as I randomly mashed buttons occasionally, so I never bothered with Fable III. Molyneux managed to put the gameplay on autopilot even more?
Accessibility: All Fable games can be understood and completed by players of any skill set.
Yes, I’m definitely putting that as the most important thing. Hopefully the ability to hold a controller will be optional in Fable 4, and the game will play itself to completion if you leave it turned on for long enough.
The Dog: All Fable games let me play together with a unique and faithful companion.
This goes second, and actually provides a mechanism for the game to auto-complete. If you’re struggling with quest objectives, the dog does everything for you.
Fable 3 felt like Lionhead lost all the gameplay in Fable 2 in a hard drive crash, and tried to recreate it from memory in half the time. They failed almost completely. The only thing in its favour was excellent world-building, and a few bright moments here and there like “The Game” quest. Fortunately I enjoyed the combat because at least it looked, felt and sounded like you were having a good time. I even died a few times! I admit I may have been pouring myself a coffee at the time, I can’t recall.
