Features// Fable Multiplayer Scrapped – Can and Can’t do FAQ Released
General Gameplay
What is the goal of this game?
The whole point of Fable is that you play the type of character you want to be, you are a real hero – you can become famous and as you do so, you morph into anything from a barbaric fighter to the most powerful mage. There are other heroes around, in fact, heroism plays a major part. You can choose to play through the story and find out more about yourself, or just experience the incredible Artificial Intelligence of the simulated world of Albion! Fable is an ingenious mixture between a RPG and an Action/Adventure game.
How do you mean simulated?
Most of the time, worlds in RPG’s are pre-defined, which means events and reactions are pre-scripted and you can’t disrupt people and their actions in any possible way. Fable is set in a simulated world, that is linked to non-linear gameplay, but there still has to be a central story-based core that is linear. The simulation is done by the AI team working at Lionhead Studios, who are famous (and awarded) for the work they’ve done in the past on AI and simulations of worlds.
Okay, I understand I will be part of a simulated world, but to what extent is the world simulated?
The towns, and the whole Fable world, have a complete lifecycle, a full daylight cycle, people go off to work, kids go to school. This breaks down to the point where in some places, a ship will come into port laden with certain goods, these are distributed around the neighbourhood, prices are affected - a whole supply and demand mechanic! You as a player can be part of this, and start trading yourself. A full commerce system manages all the trading and pricing of everything commercially available throughout the game world as supply and demand fluctuates.
What can you tell me about this story?
Nothing, as that would spoil the fun of experiencing the game when you start to play it! Let’s just say you are supposed to become the most powerful hero in the world. But there is plenty of opportunity to be Good, Evil and in-between.
How open ended will it be then?
Fable is going to be as open-ended as people want it to be. You can stop along the way, amass wealth, buy shops, interact with people in the town, go and visit schools if you want. You can do anything you like along the way and after you’ve completed the story, you can continue to live in the world of Albion as a hero…
Will there be loading times?
Well, there is only one big loading time in the beginning of the game, and because the locations and regions in the world are so detailed and dressed up, and enemies have to be generated, there are smaller transition times between those locations. You could compare it to Halo, for example – where between regions you had a short waiting time for the next region to load. Such a location could be bigger then the biggest city and we are trying to keep the transition times as small as possible.
What is the sandgoose?
No one knows what the sandgoose is! Will there be one in Fable; who knows? Peter Molyneux expressed the wish to have this – but we can’t know for sure.
How will multiplayer work in Fable?
Unfortunately, due to time constraints, we will not be including the Multiplayer feature in Fable. There simply isn’t enough time to polish it to the standard we feel would be required to match that of the rest of the game. Instead we have decided to focus our resources on fine-tuning the single-player experience to ensure it is of the highest possible quality.
The whole point of Fable is that you play the type of character you want to be, you are a real hero – you can become famous and as you do so, you morph into anything from a barbaric fighter to the most powerful mage. There are other heroes around, in fact, heroism plays a major part. You can choose to play through the story and find out more about yourself, or just experience the incredible Artificial Intelligence of the simulated world of Albion! Fable is an ingenious mixture between a RPG and an Action/Adventure game.
How do you mean simulated?
Most of the time, worlds in RPG’s are pre-defined, which means events and reactions are pre-scripted and you can’t disrupt people and their actions in any possible way. Fable is set in a simulated world, that is linked to non-linear gameplay, but there still has to be a central story-based core that is linear. The simulation is done by the AI team working at Lionhead Studios, who are famous (and awarded) for the work they’ve done in the past on AI and simulations of worlds.
Okay, I understand I will be part of a simulated world, but to what extent is the world simulated?
The towns, and the whole Fable world, have a complete lifecycle, a full daylight cycle, people go off to work, kids go to school. This breaks down to the point where in some places, a ship will come into port laden with certain goods, these are distributed around the neighbourhood, prices are affected - a whole supply and demand mechanic! You as a player can be part of this, and start trading yourself. A full commerce system manages all the trading and pricing of everything commercially available throughout the game world as supply and demand fluctuates.
What can you tell me about this story?
Nothing, as that would spoil the fun of experiencing the game when you start to play it! Let’s just say you are supposed to become the most powerful hero in the world. But there is plenty of opportunity to be Good, Evil and in-between.
How open ended will it be then?
Fable is going to be as open-ended as people want it to be. You can stop along the way, amass wealth, buy shops, interact with people in the town, go and visit schools if you want. You can do anything you like along the way and after you’ve completed the story, you can continue to live in the world of Albion as a hero…
Will there be loading times?
Well, there is only one big loading time in the beginning of the game, and because the locations and regions in the world are so detailed and dressed up, and enemies have to be generated, there are smaller transition times between those locations. You could compare it to Halo, for example – where between regions you had a short waiting time for the next region to load. Such a location could be bigger then the biggest city and we are trying to keep the transition times as small as possible.
What is the sandgoose?
No one knows what the sandgoose is! Will there be one in Fable; who knows? Peter Molyneux expressed the wish to have this – but we can’t know for sure.
How will multiplayer work in Fable?
Unfortunately, due to time constraints, we will not be including the Multiplayer feature in Fable. There simply isn’t enough time to polish it to the standard we feel would be required to match that of the rest of the game. Instead we have decided to focus our resources on fine-tuning the single-player experience to ensure it is of the highest possible quality.