Big Blue Box Developer Chat - Fable Information

[zer0-fault]

Towns & Town People
LionHead - Adam > Ok, on recognition of feats, every single villager in the world of Albion maintains a multidimensional opinion of the hero, which is continually being influenced by many many actions the player can take, and also feeds into a shared opinion of the hero maintained by each village. These opinions influence subsequent reactions of villagers to the player's behaviour

LionHead - Adam > On the subject of being a local hero, yes you can - the people of one village may hate you due to evil deeds perpetrated there, but you may have charmed people elsewhere into thinking you're a saint

LionHead - Adam > Towns throw festivals to celebrate the coming of a truly great hero. You may witness this in the early parts of the game, but ultimately when you achieve true greatness they will hold a festival for YOU when you choose to visit their little town!

BigBlueBox - Dene Carter > We had a great scene where someone had a troll near a village. Two of the villagers were exceedingly pissed off waiting for a hero to arrive, so they went up to him and beat the crap out of him. Pleased with their work, their 'Friendliness' went up, so they shook hands and marched off as if they were the greatest Troll fighting team in the world.

LionHead - Adam > yes yes YES! - there are a multitude of different villager personalities. Some get scared easy, others start offf finding you ugly but perhaps are easy to chat up, and so on and on. The most extreme example is the bandits, who have a very different moral interpretation of your hero deeds, and who require a very different set of behaviours if you wish to win favour with them

BigBlueBox - Simon Carter > Re people being scared - watching the little tykes running away from you crying as you stand in the middle of a town, eyes blazing and straggly beard blowing - it's fun. :-)


Weather / Time System
LionHead - Mike > Someone asked about whether world has a day and night system: the world has a day night system, with the villager behaviours reacting appropriately. Villages go to bed at night, wake up and go to work in the morning, go to the pub after work and get drunk, then stagger back to bed. Children go to school during the day, play tag and hopscotch out of school hours. Families get together for meals, everything mediated by time of day.

LionHead - Mike > Currently the day night cycle lasts about 20 minutes, but this may change during testing and the player can always go to sleep if they want to jump ahead in time, but its not advisable


PC Release
BigBlueBox - Simon Carter > We're concentrating only on Fable on the XBox at the moment. I don't have the mental capacity to think about anything else yet!


Eating & Sleeping
LionHead - Jamie > You won't be able to make your own food in Fable, but you will need to gain food for sustenance. You could always get your wife to cook for you.

LionHead - Charlton > Fatty foods like pies will increase your gut size. An apple a day keeps the healer away!

LionHead - Sam > Yes, sleeping in Fable is of use


Hired Hands & Heroes
BigBlueBox - Dene Carter > Being a hero is a an honour in Albion, and requires a lot of training. As a result, they guard their glory fairly jealously and don't tend to join others on quests. However, there are plenty of hired swords in the world who will join you if you have the cash, and they think you are 'like minded'

BigBlueBox - Dene Carter > We've a cast of 'main heroes' you'll come across again and again. Peter - how much can we tell them about story stuff? Will Cathy kill us?

LionHead - Mike > yes you definitely can group up with other heroes (and mercenaries) and, as some heroes are female you can go questing with a female hero at your side. It's a nice way to meet (virtual) girls


Character Traits
1.Voices
BigBlueBox - Dene Carter > Regarding voices in Fable...
BigBlueBox - Dene Carter > There's not a single unspoken line of dialogue in Fable.
BigBlueBox - Dene Carter > We use a mixture of 'characterful' and 'generic' voices depending on the importance of the character.

2.Appearance
LionHead - Mike > Yes, and moustache and have a hair cut and get tattoos and a vast array of clothes and armour and weaponry

BigBlueBox - Simon Carter > as you get damaged in Fable you do indeed get cuts, bruises and scars.

BigBlueBox - Dene Carter > We found that giving the character a voice really really detracted from the feeling of 'being' him. It was never going to be as you imagined YOUR hero. So, what we did was try and deal with all situations in a way that didn't need the hero to speak.

LionHead - Peter Molyneux > people have asked about the hero speeking: The hero mimics the words he has heard like "****e" in a french accent

BigBlueBox - Dene Carter > No, you can't be female. It doubled all the work we had to do on the hero, clothing and morphing. We were really unhappy about it.


Violence
BigBlueBox - Dene Carter > Regarding blood and gore. Since you can decapitate enemies, I doubt you'll find a Barney patch any time in the future.


Property
LionHead - Adam > We've been asked about the hero owning houses : you can indeed buy a house, you can rent it out and wait for tenants to move in, or you can live there yourself and if you manage to acquire a wife then she can live there and will expect you to visit her and keep her happy!


Combat System
BigBlueBox - Dene Carter > Okay - it's real time. That's the first thing. You can mix up magic, missile and melee combat at the same time.
BigBlueBox - Dene Carter > That was our major aim - we hated turn-based combat, and the lack of fluidity you usually see in RPGs.
BigBlueBox - Dene Carter > So, there are rewards for timing your hits well, tactical decisions you have to make based on your enemy's current actions. If you button bash you'll probably eventually succeed, but it's a bit like trying to tunnel to work with a spoon. Or something.

BigBlueBox - Dene Carter > Yes you can take a weapon in two hands.
LionHead - Charlton > The 2 handed weapons require strength to wield. So you need to bulk up to use those warhammers, great axes and the like...


Animals / Creatures
BigBlueBox - Simon Carter > there are non-aggressive creatures. Butterflies, birds, etc
LionHead - Charlton > yes you can fish, and you can keep the big catches as trophies to show off with.


Terrain
BigBlueBox - Simon Carter > The terrain in Fable is not randomly generated, it's all carefully and cunningly designed by people like Dene and Jules. We couldn't get the results we wanted from generation algorithms..

BigBlueBox - Dene Carter > Terrain in Fable.
BigBlueBox - Dene Carter > We have mountains, grassy fields, a... erm... slushy area (I can't think of a better description), twisted choked dead forest, fire-blasted scree...
BigBlueBox - Dene Carter > The size of the world is a really odd one. I honestly don't know!
BigBlueBox - Dene Carter > We started out with an Island about 8km square and reduced it down as we went, like whittling a chairleg.
BigBlueBox - Dene Carter > If we got bored wandering between A and B, we whittled.


Wives
LionHead - Adam > On wives : yes you can cheat on your wife, and if you're VERY clever you can have multiple wives - woebetide you if they find out about each other though! Plus, keep your flirting in the street away from your wife if she's about - she will not be at all pleased
LionHead - Adam > Wives will go off you and leave for someone else if you make them unhappy - mistreating your wife is actually a very difficult path if you want to keep her with you while being so nasty to her


Laws / Rules of The Land
LionHead - Mike > If you commit a crime and you're seen by a villager then that villager will try and alert the town guards. If they manage it or the town guards see you then you'll be declared a criminal. You can bribe guards and there's the option to apologise for crimes. Failing that you end up in jail. If you kill people before they tell the guards then you can get away with murder

BigBlueBox - Dene Carter > Yes, you can bring weapons into town.
BigBlueBox - Dene Carter > However, one of the heroes in the game set up a system disallowing the use of magic in the capital.
BigBlueBox - Dene Carter > Which doesn't stop you beating the NPCs to the floor with your fists.
LionHead - Peter Molyneux > People have asked about Weapons in towns: there are some towns and citys where you have to leave your weapons a the front gate. And there are places where you are allowed to take weapons in,, these places tend to be more lawless (great for using steath, steal, pickpocket)

BigBlueBox - Simon Carter > Re trespassing. You can go into people's houses, you can even break in at night, and if you're discovered, our crime systems kick in.
LionHead - Adam > On trespassing, like all other moral deeds, people react to this in a manner dependent on their opinion of you - if you as a scary powerful evil hero break into a good house at night then they ask in a very frightened voice why you are trespassing. If you're a little squirt with no renown then they properly express their anger ;-)
can you beat people up in a town with your fists? get in bar room brawls and such?: even in towns where you're not allowed to carry weapons you can still use your fists to beat people up, in bars or out of them

LionHead - Adam > Bar room brawls : god yes!
LionHead - Adam > You can always have a punch-up, but there are always consequences. If you're maintaining a saintly persona, this may be a problem ;-)


Reputation
BigBlueBox - Simon Carter > Reputations - yes it is indeed possible to become legendary in the world. We have a renown system, where you are competing with other heroes for fame. We also have a hero title system, which the BBB/LH communities have been invited to contribute to. Sam?


Magic
BigBlueBox - Dene Carter > Regarding the number of spells in fable:
BigBlueBox - Dene Carter > There are currently 20 spells - each of which has multiple levels.

LionHead - Jamie > Freddo, You can indeed cast magic to slow down time. The more will you have, the slower time becomes.


Coop Mode
BigBlueBox - Simon Carter > the coop mode is no a Live feature, and not split screen. You all play on the same screen - it's actually really good fun!
BigBlueBox - Simon Carter > Urk - yes, the coop mode means you can save your hero to your memory card, take it to your friends house, and play on his machine with him.


Death
BigBlueBox - Dene Carter > We found that death in most RPGs was a real turn-off: if you died, you just reloaded again and again. In Fable, the main punishment is a loss of renown when you screw up. You're usually dragged back to the Guild by someone and laughed at for a good long time. It's far more painful than death.


Full Chat Log @ www.zer0-fault.net/fablelog.txt

[Noxicity]

Thanks for the swad of information! Now I want the game more (as if I didn't want it enough already)

[Orta]

fable is still cool and stuff but not having a chick person playable suxors

[Mecha-Penguin]

As much as I hate being a stick-in-the-mud, and I really like fable, was a single one of those features implemented? Death is next to nonexistant, they dropped the mplayer and villiager reactions to a large degree...

Still it's an awesome game. A little short though (Only 5'3")

[Noxicity]

fable is still cool and stuff but not having a chick person playable suxors

True. The game would probably be a lot better if there was a customisable Create-Your-Player option (like in Star Wars: KOTOR)...

[Amutt]

If you see the transformation that happens to character (I have seen 8 characters and none look the same) you can understand how much more time consuming it would be to have a create a player option.

[Private_Ryan]

yeah thanks for the info, its great to read stuff like that, i really cant wait to get this game now.

[Noxicity]

If you see the transformation that happens to character (I have seen 8 characters and none look the same) you can understand how much more time consuming it would be to have a create a player option.

He's right there! The game is just too unique to have a Character creation option...

[Private_Ryan]

He's right there! The game is just too unique to have a Character creation option...

To be honest i wouldnt want it because the character changes all the way though depending on what you do yourself. So in theory you are sculpting your old character, but it would be good to have a woman in it too like his sister or something.

[Noxicity]

in theory you are sculpting your old character,

Well said, mate!

but it would be good to have a woman in it too like his sister or something.

You should be able to choose to be a male or a female... And that's it. That would make me happy...