Fable 3 - Mass Murder and Gay Marriage and Regicide, Oh My.

[AcidCat]

I'm doing some wandering around after the whole kingship/invasion ordeal and thinking that the sense of progression and flow of the game is just totally incoherent. After all that nonsense, there still seems to be a lot of quests and exploration available - but no real motivation to do so. There is no big bad to gear up to face .. money is already meaningless and I'm not even that rich. Albion is a nice atmospheric world to just tool around in, and I'm sure I will spend some time doing so ... but it's all just so incredibly anticlimactic.

[LK]

I've already forgotten about this game with all the other powerful releases surrounding it. If they do another one after this, I hope it isn't a similarly weak entry into the series.

[Bunk]

They have a patch and some DLC due to hit in a week or so, so I'm holding off finishing my first playthrough until then. It's not a "bad" game, it's just disappointing compared to Fable 2.

[Paelos]

They have a patch and some DLC due to hit in a week or so, so I'm holding off finishing my first playthrough until then. It's not a "bad" game, it's just disappointing compared to Fable 2.

I never played 2, but I put about 10 hours into Fable 1 recently. I didn't really care for it as it just didn't seem very sticky to me. How did 2 and 3 compare to 1 as a frame of reference?

[Bunk]

They have a patch and some DLC due to hit in a week or so, so I'm holding off finishing my first playthrough until then. It's not a "bad" game, it's just disappointing compared to Fable 2.

I never played 2, but I put about 10 hours into Fable 1 recently. I didn't really care for it as it just didn't seem very sticky to me. How did 2 and 3 compare to 1 as a frame of reference?

I never felt compelled to finish 1, Fable 2 I almost finished twice. I really felt Fable 2 did a great job of getting the player to connect with the story and some of the support cast, such as the dog. For me, 3 is a bit of a disappointment compared to 2 (I won't do a three page rant on why right now).

[Paelos]

I never felt compelled to finish 1, Fable 2 I almost finished twice. I really felt Fable 2 did a great job of getting the player to connect with the story and some of the support cast, such as the dog. For me, 3 is a bit of a disappointment compared to 2 (I won't do a three page rant on why right now).

Why not? Go for it.

[jth]

What disappointed me was that almost everything they changed from Fable 2, they changed for the worse. Several gameplay elements were dumbed down, and none of them needed it at all. It's like what happened with Mass Effect 2, only 100 times worse.

[Paelos]

What disappointed me was that almost everything they changed from Fable 2, they changed for the worse. Several gameplay elements were dumbed down, and none of them needed it at all. It's like what happened with Mass Effect 2, only 100 times worse.

Ah. That's a good analogy.

[Sir T]

I never felt compelled to finish 1, Fable 2 I almost finished twice. I really felt Fable 2 did a great job of getting the player to connect with the story and some of the support cast, such as the dog. For me, 3 is a bit of a disappointment compared to 2 (I won't do a three page rant on why right now).

Please do.

[Bunk]

Ok, so here is what I posted on the "Constructive Criticism" thread on Lionhead's forums. Note, I do actually like the game, and there are lots of good aspects to it, but here is what I didn't like:

May as well chip my two cents in to this thread.

I like the game - so long as you get lucky and avoid any of the really bad bugs - it's a fun game. Currently I've restarted and I'm enjoying an "evil" playthrough - though I will be putting it on hold before reaching the castle to wait for the patch, as I really don't want the game to eat my spouse again.

I'll ignore the bugs for now, and offer my criticism on design decisions that I think hurt the game:

Loot:

 - The game just doesn't offer the same level of excitment to finding treasure that Fable 2 did. What is there to find? Three types of potions. Tatoos that you can only see if you run around naked. Gifts that sit in the black hole of your inventory, because there is almost no point to them (this bugs me too - let me give away gifts). Weapons, sure - it's cool to find a new weapon, but lets be honest, once you are half way through and have maxed out the bonuses on one weapon, why would you switch? Fable 2 had far more variety in *how* the weapons worked - speed, reload, damage, augments, augment slots. You actually had a reason to change to a new weapon later in the game. Clothing? There are a few bits of clothing, makeup, and hair you can get from chests, but most of them also appear to be in stores. Just not enough intersting loot.

Touch System:

- arrgh! this was such a step backwards. My "evil" character decided to make a villager fear me. I walked up, clicked A. Then held down X while I farted on him until the controller buzzed. Then I threatened him, then laughed at him, then I farted on him again... I really thought the fart emote was stupid, but if I wanted to make him fear me, I had no choice but to keep doing it. After about seven emotes, he feared me. Yay! All the other villagers walking by watching me fart on him could not give a rats ass. I would now have to repeat the same procedure with each of them...

The whole removal of choice in which expressions we do reaaallly takes you out of the experience. At one point I talked to a villager while in a doorway. The camera angle meant I couldn't see what was happening. Didn't matter, I simply did seven X button emotes in a row, just letting go when the controller buzzed. Wow, that was emersive. The old emote system was repetative, but at least it affected multiple people at once, and different villagers reacted differently to some emotes. Which leads to...

Dumbed down villagers and Hero Personalities:

- so we gained the ability to dance with a shopkeeper, and lost: all the various likes and dislikes unique to each villager. We also traded having three distinct personality ratings with each villager, for one generic meter. In Fable 2 I disliked how similar all the villagers looked, but at least they had distinct personalities. Fable 3 even took that away.

- two unique people in the whole game that you can marry? Elise/Eli didn't even count for me on this playthrough, since they don't work for same sex marriages.

Guild Seals:

 - I don't care that you decided to put all the XP in to one pool, that's fine, it works - the issue is that you combined XP and Renown in to the same pool as well. It's quite obvious that that is the reason we can no longer affect multiple villagers with expressions - because you tied XP gain directly in to using expressions. Bad trade off! If you thought it was important to make using expressions "important" by tying them to XP - you got it wrong. The XP gain isn't enough to make someone who doesn't care about the expressions ever use them (it's way too repetetive) - and instead you've just penalized those of us that liked to use the expressions purely for the immersion factor in the game (which no longer exists).

Ruling the Kingdom:

 - great idea in theory. Would have been better if the decisions were a little less white/black and if the whole thing wasn't made pointless by just having 10 million gold, but it was still a good idea. My disappointment is that essentially your rule is ended as soon as you defeat the big baddie. Fable 2 was great for giving you reason to keep playing after the main plot. Would it have been that hard to throw some random court issues in after the main plot to at least remind you that you are still King?

Couple other nitpicks in point form:

- road to rule was annoying, took you out of the moment when the portals appeared, and took too long to load
- liked the shop system for displaying clothes - was just annoying for everything else.
- shops should get new inventory
- I missed the gambling games
- I despise the sanctuary map - no way to tell where you are, complete randomness as to where you appear, map barely resembles the actual zones
- the map also really makes the zones feel like "zones". Could have been more immersively designed.
- Cleese begging us to buy the retarted dog suit *every* time we go to the sanctuary is just bad. No, I'm not blowing points just make him shut up.
- more clothes please. Normal Clothes - not dog suits and robot suits and chicken suits.
- more weapon models please - The morphing idea is neat, but I really prefered the variety and difference in play of the weapons in 2.
- if you are going to let us choose to be good or evil, let that have *some* effect on the primary plot cutscenes. At least put a few Good/Evil selection options in to let us decide how we act in those scenes.

[Slayerik]

Necro: This is on Midweek madness sale for 75% off on Steam, anyone have any recent experience with patches/DLC?

[Kail]

I have the DLC, most of it's pointless.  I haven't been able to find how to get the new quests (haven't looked that hard honestly) so maybe they're awesome, I don't know.  The other stuff is all kind of mediocre, though, unless you really want a dog costume for some reason or something.

[Sky]

Why is this game still not under $10?

[HaemishM]

Why is this game still not under $10?

Only Molyneux. 

[Sky]

I'm ok with them not taking my money.