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Fable II

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Fable II
Developer(s)Lionhead Studios
Publisher(s)Microsoft Game Studios
Designer(s)Peter Molyneux
EngineProprietary (graphics)[3]
Havok (physics)[3]
Kynapse (pathfinding)[3]
Platform(s)Xbox 360
Release


Genre(s)Action RPG
Mode(s)Single player, Cooperative gameplay

Fable II is an upcoming role playing video game exclusively for the Xbox 360, which is being developed by Lionhead Studios and will be published by Microsoft Game Studios. It is a sequel to Fable and Fable: The Lost Chapters.

Announced in 2006, the game will take place in Albion, 500 years after Fable's setting, in a colonial era resembling the time of highwaymen or the Enlightenment; guns are still primitive, and large castles and cities have developed in the place of towns.[4] Unlike the original, the player may choose to be either male or female.

Lead designer Peter Molyneux has played a major role in presenting this game to the public, as he did in the lead up to the release of the original Fable.

Gameplay

Combat

All melee combat takes place on the X button, ranged combat runs on the Y button and magic on the B button. Flourishes will be shown in a different perspective and time will slow down to show finishing moves. All combat is context specific: for example, if a player is on top of a tower, pressing 'X' may cause the player to throw an enemy off of the tower rather than attack with a weapon.

Additional features are included:

  • Positional advantage: if an enemy is above the player such as on stairs, they have a tactical advantage [1]
  • Skill increases: better combos and flourishes become unlocked as the character progresses
  • Weapon specific attacks: the character's combat style will change according to the kind of weapon they're using.
  • Ranged weapon targeting: while using a gun, the player can aim more accurately by using a crosshair.[5]

Weapons include: guns, axes, swords, hammers, staves and maces. Longbows will not be in Fable II due to the appearance of guns in Albion, however, crossbows will still be available.[6]

Dog

The player will encounter a pet dog that will stay with him or her for the rest of the game. Every dog will be unique in some way and will change appearance depending on a variety of factors, such as the player's alignment.

Obeying three main laws (do not irritate the player, unconditionally love the player and self-preservation), the dog features advanced AI. Behavior is context-specific; the dog will stay much closer in towns or when the player is hurt in battle, or if the player goes to a shop the dog will wait outside until the player leaves the shop. He is, to a degree, trainable using expressions.[7]

The dog will assist the player by performing a variety of tasks, for example:

  • The dog can alert the player to threats without alerting enemies of the player's presence; as such the dog has replaced the mini-map which was present in Fable.
  • The dog attacks whichever enemy the player is most vulnerable to. eg If there are two enemies ahead, one with a gun and one with a sword, a player wielding a sword would be vulnerable to the enemy with the gun, so the dog would attack the gunman.

Some of the interactions players can have with their dog include buying toys, playing fetch, rewarding or punishing their dogs for their actions, and hiding from it.[8]

Death

The initial design was that if the player's character died, then the character's children would take over as being playable (if they had any). This did not work, however, as play-testers harvested children as dozens of extra lives, prompting Lionhead developers to create another new "death" system.[citation needed]

The second design was that the player's character would not die at all; rather, he or she would fall unconscious instead. The enemies would then injure the character while they were unconscious by beating, kicking or stabbing them, leaving permanent and humiliating scars. Falling unconscious could be avoided with one of three sacrifices: gold, reputation or experience.

At the Game Developers Conference in 2008, Peter Molyneux indicated that the design for death had changed due to player feedback during play testing. It was found that players would rather turn off their console than subject their character to permanent disfigurement.[citation needed]

On the 24th of June 2008, Dene Carter, creative director of Fable II, revealed the new design. Upon losing all health, the hero falls and loses an unspecified amount of experience; this experience is exchanged for a 'burst' of energy, allowing one last 'heroic struggle' in which the player rises to their feet and knocks all enemies away, leaving the player momentarily safe from harm. [9]

File:Fable2 gdc08.jpg
Fable II, as seen at Microsoft's GDC '08 Keynote Address

Co-op

On July 14th 2008 at the GDC lead designer Peter Molyneux demonstrated 'Ambient orbs'[10]. These orbs show where other players are in their respective worlds and allow you to, at the press of a button, bring them into your world to co-op with. The actions of visiting players are permanent in the game, and players will be able to give items to visitors. The guest's dogs will not accompany them into another character's game.

The mode of co-op is somewhat similar to that of Lego Star Wars: The Video Game; in that players will be able to drop in and out of other player's games at will. The host player can set certain rules; eg. how loot gained is split between the players and if friendly fire is active or not.

Guest players will get an hourly rate of pay for helping the host out, and can keep all the gold and experience they earn to take back with them into their own game world.

Features

Family

The family aspect of the Fable series will be further built upon, it will be possible to get married, have sex, and have children.

The sex aspect, relatively unimportant in the first game, has also been built upon significantly. Players will be able to choose to have protected or unprotected sex, and by extension choose whether or not to have a child. Female player characters will become pregnant, and they will undergo the relevant physical changes.[11] Sex will, however, fade to black as in Fable.[12]

The player's child or children will look upon the player as an example and will also follow their alignment, looks, etc. A player's family can also be killed by a co-op player but only if friendly fire is made active by the host player.But if the players spouse is killed the players child will go to the orphanage.[13]

Same-sex marriages, as in the first game, will be possible.[12] Fable II will also have sexually transmitted diseases, and adultery will be "fully support[ed]".[14] Divorces will also be possible, as in the first game, but this time the former spouses will take half of what players have got in the game, and Molyneux confirmed that it would be cheaper if the players killed their spouses instead.[14]

Character morphing

Fable II enhances the system of morphing one's character based on their actions introduced in Fable. Character morphing revolves around two main alignments: Good and Evil. New aspects of the character alignment system include corruption, purity, kindness, and cruelty which will enhance or degrade a character's features. The player can be good but unpopular socially, or be evil yet charming, etc.[15]

Expressions

Like in Fable, there are a lot of expressions that can be used by the player in order to communicate to other people, these include dancing, laughing, taunting, etc. This feature has been improved as shown in E3 2008, the player can use a button to access the expression menu at any time, which is a circular set of buttons that each lead to a different category, new expressions are included like "Who Are You ?", that when asked showes some information about an NPC's personality, and his/her interests towards the player. For example, it may be shown that if the player can get a NPC to laugh, he will give him a reward, or if he can make her love him, she may marry him, and the way of making a NPC laugh or love is by using expressions. For instance Molyneux used a dancing expression to get a NPC to laugh. There is also a dance minigame.

Content

Albion is expected to be 10 times the size from the original game with 20 fully free-roaming regions and roughly 30 dungeons to explore. There are around 100 augmentable weapons, 70 augmentable clothes, and 20 different tattoos and haircuts. There are only eight basic spell types, but they are upgradeable to varying degrees, allowing for around 80 spells. There will be more than 160,000 lines of "AI-driven dialogue", over 150 unique quests and more than 6 minigames.[12] While Molyneux has stated that the player can complete the main story in 12 hours if they rush through it, it would take much longer to complete everything in the game.[16]

Cutscenes

There will be both interactive and a few non-interactive cutscenes in the game.

Similar to the feature in Gears of War or Assasin's Creed there will be 'points of interest' in some cutscenes that a character may focus on by the press of a button.[17] In the fully interactive cutscenes a player can use their expressions during the dialogue (such as laugh when a character reveals a sad story) or even run away from the scene, thus skipping it.

Dynamic world

The world in Fable II will be fully dynamic, interactive and free roaming with no set quest path to take.

Since the game will take place over a hero's lifetime, many things will change; Molyneux gave an example of a trade camp that the player could either help or destroy. Trading in such camps would increase their profit, resulting in a small town growing around them, while stealing from the camp or massacring the camp will result in the abandonment of the area.

Additionally, every accessible property (properties that can be entered by the player) in the world is ownable, and possessions often unlocks further quests. The houses will be furnishable with furniture etc available to buy. In addition titles will be awarded for buying property; if one were to buy every building and piece of land in a town they may become the mayor of that town, greater possessions leads to higher titles such as king, and eventually emperor of the entire land of Albion.[18]

The environment in Fable II will feature trees with branches and leaves that are individually animated according to their own physics, each tree having roughly 120,000 leaves. There are also around 15 million poppies in Albion. [19]


Fable II Pub Games

Main article: Fable II Pub Games

Fable II Pub Games is an Xbox Live Arcade game with three minigames included called Keystone, Spinnerbox and Fortune's Tower to be released in August, a few weeks before the release of Fable II.[20] They are unique in that they share functionality with Fable II and all three games will allow players to potentially become rich before even owning the main game.[21] The games are being developed by Carbonated Games and will also be featured in Fable II as pub games. [22]

Pre-release marketing

Online competitions

Just as Lionhead has done with The Movies, online competitions were made available through Lionhead's forums. One such competition was naming a title to be used in the game, similar to the first game wherein a character was addressed by various titles that the character purchased from a "Title Vendor" Lionhead has stated these titles will be bought but they have to be earned first. They are bought from a town crier in Fable II; the winning title was Lionheart. An "insult the hero" competition is also taking place and the winner is yet to be announced. [citation needed]On May 30th, Lionhead held a competition for artwork that would be used in the game.

Video diaries

On May 24, 2007, episode one of The Lionhead Diaries, examining the love and emotion aspect of Fable II.[9]

On July 30, 2007, episode two was released, highlighting the one-button combat system, and featured the Lionhead staff playing a game of football against fellow Microsoft satellite Rare (company) and winning.It also included a professional combat specialist instructing the animation staff.[9]

On October 8, 2007, episode three was released, going in depth about the Central Technology Group, and featured Lionhead's 10 year Anniversary.[9]

On January 11, 2008, episode four was released, focusing on how the graphics department made the world of Albion.[9]

On March 19, 2008, episode five was released, looking at magic, GDC 2008 and co-op.[9]

On June 24, 2008, episode six "Art and the Hero" was released.[9]

Technology

The graphics engine is written in-house, but middleware is integrated for several other parts of the game: Havok is used for a physics engine and Kynapse is used for some AI. AlienBrain 8 is used to track assets such as 3D Models, files, and art.[3]

Collector's Edition

File:FABLE2CE.jpg
Fable II Collector's Edition

A Collector's Edition will be released with the game on release date. The Collector's Edition features :

  • 1 amaray case with Game
  • 1 Bonus Xbox DVD: Videos, New Making-of Feature, Roaming Hobbe short, Concept art viewer
  • 1 approx 2” Hobbe figure w/ two accessories
  • 5 printed Fate Cards
  • 1 token card for in-game content (downloadable over Xbox LIVE)
  • 1 LIVE trial card – 48 hours

References

  1. ^ a b Molyneux: Three more Fables on the way
  2. ^ Game Australia
  3. ^ a b c d Technology – Loinhead - the No.1 Lionhead news source : Fable 2 Technology
  4. ^ IGN: Fable II Trailer, Videos and Movies
  5. ^ Fable II Feature List
  6. ^ Fable II Development
  7. ^ GDC07: Molyneux is Scared
  8. ^ Gameplay Demonstration Part 2 with Peter Molyneux
  9. ^ a b c d e f g Diaries redirect Cite error: The named reference "diaries" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  10. ^ "Fable 2 Preview". Retrieved 2008-07-06.
  11. ^ Senzee 5 - Fable II News (GDC08 Preview)
  12. ^ a b c IGN preview, February 22, 2008
  13. ^ Gametrailers.com GDC '08 Stage Demonstration, February 22, 2008
  14. ^ a b IGN preview, E3 2008: Fable 2 Down and Dirty, July 17, 2008
  15. ^ Video Diary 6
  16. ^ Fable II Feature List
  17. ^ Xbox.com | E3 2007 - Welcome to the Xbox.com E3 Blog
  18. ^ IGN: Fable II Preview
  19. ^ Fable II Feature List
  20. ^ Ross Miller (2008-07-07). "Fable 2 Pub & Games coming August to XBLA, free with pre-order". Joystiq.
  21. ^ Lionhead developer forum posting
  22. ^ "Lionhead Studios Press Release". 2008-07-07.People who pre-order a copy of the Xbox 360 exclusive, Fable II at participating retailers worldwide, will be given free access to download the Fable II Pub Games when they are released this August.
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