I appreciate the realism they tried to bring in to the Fable games, like the pet dog, the hand-holding, some very grandiose ideas that other games that tout "realism" forego or overlook.
And then there's the realism that Fable tried to bring in that took it to a creepy level. Thanks, dog, for the 50th condom you found in our great adventure... Are you trying to tell me something? Do I sleep with too many townsfolk?
For people who don't recall what Project Knoxville was, it was really sort of Microsoft's attempt at getting a lot of fan engagement. Originally there were three prototype games (Knoxville, a Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts style open world builder, and a third one that I forget), and a selected group of fans got to vote on which concept got greenlit to move forward. Knoxville (sort of a cell-shaded survival multiplayer thing) got picked.
The next step was involving "The Inner Circle" in the development process itself.
I guess it didn't work/turned out to be more trouble than it was worth/couldn't be sufficiently monetized/was taking money from HoloLens.
I've never played Fable, but I've watched several friends play through the first and third. The series always had a special feel to it, which I've never seen reproduced in other, more critically successful RPGs. Strangely peaceful. Very British. I'm sorry that Lionhead won't be around to make another.
This seems like a very unpleasant time to be connected to Microsoft's gaming division.
It amused me that in a series all about your supposed choices Fable 2 gave you less control than 1, and 3 gave you less control than 2.
Fable 3 was a let down for a lot of reasons. Whether you liked having the entire cast using English accents or not you can't deny that it's sad when you screw up a game where you get John Cleese to play a wise cracking butler.
It amused me that in a series all about your supposed choices Fable 2 gave you less control than 1, and 3 gave you less control than 2.
Fable 3 was a let down for a lot of reasons. Whether you liked having the entire cast using English accents or not you can't deny that it's sad when you screw up a game where you get John Cleese to play a wise cracking butler.
The biggest shame for me with Fable 3, the thing that really marks where it lost the plot, was taking the magnificent character of Reaver from 2 and turning him into a flat devil-on-your-shoulder character who just tells you to be a dick for the sake of it. Hearing Stephen Fry read his diaries in 2 was genuinely brilliant, and it was such a huge waste to remove everything interesting about him so he could just be some bourgeois narcissist.
Fable 3 had that one side quest I thought was clever, where you were the pawn in a D&D-like game played by wizard nerds. I liked that sidequest. Generally speaking though, I was not a fan of the Fable games because of the repetitive and (personally-speaking) annoying English accents during the mini-games. There's only so many times I can hear "That's a fine pint you got there" in cockney before my mind can't take it.
Yeah, that vocal style was a misstep in my view. It's not just you, I lived in England for a good chunk of my life and found the OTT regional accents joke super wearing.
You! You!! You're the guy who picked on me for complaining about the cockney accents back in 2008!
I liked every Lionhead game I played until Fable 3.
I enjoyed most of them (though Fable felt a bit barren IMHO) as well, but would you argue that they feel like polished products?
Like, B&W 2 is just a mess. It can be a fun mess, but it was almost unplayable at release (and even now, with hardware capable of running it smoothly, it's just not as feature rich as B&W 1).
I'm surprised Fable went as long as it did. With a new game being in development to boot.
The tagline for the entire series may well have been "Ok this time the game will be good, we promise!"
I don't think that's very fair. Fable 2 was a legitimately great game; it would make a desert island list for me ahead of any vanilla BethSoft fantasy title.
It was the open world game that introduced the concept of giving the player an unkillable companion dog. Now that shit is in like 90% of open world games.
I'm surprised Fable went as long as it did. With a new game being in development to boot.
The tagline for the entire series may well have been "Ok this time the game will be good, we promise!"
I don't think that's very fair. Fable 2 was a legitimately great game; it would make a desert island list for me ahead of any vanilla BethSoft fantasy title.
It was the open world game that introduced the concept of giving the player an unkillable companion dog. Now that shit is in like 90% of open world games.
I wouldn't give it quite that much credit. It was the first open world game where the developer realized that letting the companion dog be killable was a terrible idea.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Microsoft have seen, with things like Tomb Raiders initially poor sales (November it failed to reach even 500k, requiring the December Holiday period to finally hit a million before rapidly appearing on PC) and Halo 5 only reaching a million units sold softly that they aren't going to throw money at exclusives anymore. I honestly haven't heard anyone say anything positive or interested in Fable Legends since they showed it off and I don't even know who this other studio is.
With Microsoft trying to turn Windows 10 into a walled garden (according to some developers) and their plans to make the Xbox One more like an upgradable PC, there is a part of me wondering if they're searching for an exit strategy at this point.
Fable was always one of those games that felt like it was reaching for greatness but always came up just a bit short, particularly when you realize after a second playthrough just how little most of your decisions actually matter.
Fable 3 (the last one I played) was a total mess; the game ditched a lot of mechanics in favor of a more actiony approach which would have been fine but they then combined that with the derpy post-war mechanics where if you hadn't saved a shit ton of money you had to cut deals with Reaver (why is this asshole still alive?) or let your townsfolk die to preserve your morality. But the point of "the price of morality" is completely lost if I just dither around for a few days IRL in order to let my tennants flood my pants with cash, so is the lesson just to slack off as much as possible before getting around to doing the important things.
Fable 3 had that one side quest I thought was clever, where you were the pawn in a D&D-like game played by wizard nerds. I liked that sidequest. Generally speaking though, I was not a fan of the Fable games because of the repetitive and (personally-speaking) annoying English accents during the mini-games. There's only so many times I can hear "That's a fine pint you got there" in cockney before my mind can't take it.
Yeah, that vocal style was a misstep in my view. It's not just you, I lived in England for a good chunk of my life and found the OTT regional accents joke super wearing.
You! You!! You're the guy who picked on me for complaining about the cockney accents back in 2008!
Nah probably was someone else. Nothing to see here.
My problem with Lionhead was that their PR department was amazing, but also oversold those games like crazy. You would have thought Fable 1 was like Elder Scrolls to the second power instead of a fairly linear Zelda-ish game.
Black & White was likewise hyped to high heaven (hyuk hyuk) and the campaign was more tedium than anything. I was ridiculously obsessed with that, but ultimately it was just an interesting game to dick around with in generic AI matches/sandbox. I remember leaving the game on all day while I was at school so my pet would grow.
Never played B&W2, although I did like the sound of some things.
My problem with Lionhead was that their PR department was amazing, but also oversold those games like crazy. You would have thought Fable 1 was like Elder Scrolls to the second power instead of a fairly linear Zelda-ish game.
Black & White was likewise hyped to high heaven (hyuk hyuk) and the campaign was more tedium than anything. I was ridiculously obsessed with that, but ultimately it was just an interesting game to dick around with in generic AI matches/sandbox. I remember leaving the game on all day while I was at school so my pet would grow.
Never played B&W2, although I did like the sound of some things.
Black and White deserves a place of honor in gaming history. I mean, yeah, the campaign itself sucked, the whole thing was about the toy of the creature. And the creature wasn't THAT advanced. But holy shit it was the most amazing thing at the time. It was one of those things that seems fairly simple in retrospect, but was such a huge step forward at the time.
What is this I don't even.
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HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
My problem with Lionhead was that their PR department was amazing, but also oversold those games like crazy. You would have thought Fable 1 was like Elder Scrolls to the second power instead of a fairly linear Zelda-ish game.
Black & White was likewise hyped to high heaven (hyuk hyuk) and the campaign was more tedium than anything. I was ridiculously obsessed with that, but ultimately it was just an interesting game to dick around with in generic AI matches/sandbox. I remember leaving the game on all day while I was at school so my pet would grow.
Never played B&W2, although I did like the sound of some things.
i mean it was B&W1.5 to be honest but it was still fun
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GatorAn alligator in ScotlandRegistered Userregular
The writing was on the wall for this one
and on the floor
and on the roof
and inside your closet
This should not come as a surprise, really; I felt the Fable series was fast becoming a punchline
This should not come as a surprise, really; I felt the Fable series was fast becoming a punchline
It's sad, and sucks for everyone who lost their jobs--but I can see why Microsoft didn't want to pour more money into something that really didn't sound like it was going to produce, well, anything.
True story: I had an interview at Lionhead once and for a week beforehand I switched off search so that they couldn't find out that I called Fable 3 a bag of horseshit stuffed into a dead dog's eye
I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who kind of thought this was overdue. Granted, I never managed to get into any of the Fable games, so Lionhead's appeal is probably lost on me, but it really felt like rapidly-evaporating vaporware for a while now. Too bad, of course.
Not sure what the connection is with Coalition (which is now the name of Black Tusk, I'm pretty sure), other than publishing exclusivity--we'v had (some) footage of GOW4, on what I thought was a normal, non-bizarro development schedule (and they put out a working game already in the form of the UE). Lionhead on the other hand...I don't blame anyone for not liking their work, but frankly there didn't seem to be very much of it any time recently. Unless they had some sort of sleeper hit that went completely under my radar? What was the last thing they released?
The Coalition didn't develop Gears UE, Splash Damage did (they're the Enemy Territory and Quake Wars devs). The Coalition have been around in some form since 2010 (first as Microsoft Vancouver, then Black Tusk and finally The Coalition) and they haven't released a single game yet.
If you look at their records, closing down Lionhead and Press Play weren't the most surprising moves but for a first party that doesn't exactly have that many first party studios in the first place, this is pretty shocking. Combine that with some of their other moves and the things they're saying and it sure seems like they're downscaling their involvement in the console industry. I do wonder if the next Xbox might just be a "Windows Box".
Microsoft have seen, with things like Tomb Raiders initially poor sales (November it failed to reach even 500k, requiring the December Holiday period to finally hit a million before rapidly appearing on PC) and Halo 5 only reaching a million units sold softly that they aren't going to throw money at exclusives anymore. I honestly haven't heard anyone say anything positive or interested in Fable Legends since they showed it off and I don't even know who this other studio is.
With Microsoft trying to turn Windows 10 into a walled garden (according to some developers) and their plans to make the Xbox One more like an upgradable PC, there is a part of me wondering if they're searching for an exit strategy at this point.
I hope that's not the case. If they're not pushing exclusives, they'll fold to Sony quickly this generation. The non-default console needs strong exclusives to turn around as the PS3 demonstrated.
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
True story: I had an interview at Lionhead once and for a week beforehand I switched off search so that they couldn't find out that is called Fable 3 a bag of horseshit stuffed into a dead dog's eye
Jesus, what are you going to do to the forums if you ever interview at IO Interactive or Eidos? (Hitman 2)
Microsoft have seen, with things like Tomb Raiders initially poor sales (November it failed to reach even 500k, requiring the December Holiday period to finally hit a million before rapidly appearing on PC) and Halo 5 only reaching a million units sold softly that they aren't going to throw money at exclusives anymore. I honestly haven't heard anyone say anything positive or interested in Fable Legends since they showed it off and I don't even know who this other studio is.
With Microsoft trying to turn Windows 10 into a walled garden (according to some developers) and their plans to make the Xbox One more like an upgradable PC, there is a part of me wondering if they're searching for an exit strategy at this point.
Yeah, there are rumblings of MS becoming less hardware focused due to this move, and them transitioning primarily towards games that are big sellers, rather than building a portfolio. More deets/speculation here.
Microsoft have seen, with things like Tomb Raiders initially poor sales (November it failed to reach even 500k, requiring the December Holiday period to finally hit a million before rapidly appearing on PC) and Halo 5 only reaching a million units sold softly that they aren't going to throw money at exclusives anymore. I honestly haven't heard anyone say anything positive or interested in Fable Legends since they showed it off and I don't even know who this other studio is.
With Microsoft trying to turn Windows 10 into a walled garden (according to some developers) and their plans to make the Xbox One more like an upgradable PC, there is a part of me wondering if they're searching for an exit strategy at this point.
Yeah, there are rumblings of MS becoming less hardware focused due to this move, and them transitioning primarily towards games that are big sellers, rather than building a portfolio. More deets/speculation here.
That was an insightful read, but I wasn't sure about some of the claims here:
I could also talk about the failure of their cloud gaming initiative by exploring how just about every Microsoft server-based game has been shut down. I could also talk about how Galactic Reign, released by Microsoft as a bold experiment in cloud-based rendering of cutscenes -- pay attention if you like Quantum Break -- shut down 6 months after release, leaving players unable to play the game. I could also talk about how all of Microsoft's major initiatives with the Xbox One: Smartglass, Cloud-based Rendering or Computing Features, and Dedicated Servers are all defunct.
"Cloud computing" being a meaningless buzzword that was doomed to do nothing was set from the start, but I am confused as to if the Dedicated Servers aspect is actually true. Don't Xbox One games use Azure to just create a dedicated server when they need to, or did they really go and actually just find developers implementing peer to peer software in their games again?
True story: I had an interview at Lionhead once and for a week beforehand I switched off search so that they couldn't find out that is called Fable 3 a bag of horseshit stuffed into a dead dog's eye
Jesus, what are you going to do to the forums if you ever interview at IO Interactive or Eidos? (Hitman 2)
Given that the guy from Lionhead clearly just wanted to see if the guy from Penny Arcade would have the balls to show up (we did some pretty rough comics on them), I'd imagine I wouldn't make it far into IO's screening process. I don't have any plans to work in the games industry proper anyway (and didn't then), but getting a call from Lionhead was something my fifteen year old self would never have forgiven me for not pursuing.
Microsoft have seen, with things like Tomb Raiders initially poor sales (November it failed to reach even 500k, requiring the December Holiday period to finally hit a million before rapidly appearing on PC) and Halo 5 only reaching a million units sold softly that they aren't going to throw money at exclusives anymore. I honestly haven't heard anyone say anything positive or interested in Fable Legends since they showed it off and I don't even know who this other studio is.
With Microsoft trying to turn Windows 10 into a walled garden (according to some developers) and their plans to make the Xbox One more like an upgradable PC, there is a part of me wondering if they're searching for an exit strategy at this point.
Yeah, there are rumblings of MS becoming less hardware focused due to this move, and them transitioning primarily towards games that are big sellers, rather than building a portfolio. More deets/speculation here.
That was an insightful read, but I wasn't sure about some of the claims here:
I could also talk about the failure of their cloud gaming initiative by exploring how just about every Microsoft server-based game has been shut down. I could also talk about how Galactic Reign, released by Microsoft as a bold experiment in cloud-based rendering of cutscenes -- pay attention if you like Quantum Break -- shut down 6 months after release, leaving players unable to play the game. I could also talk about how all of Microsoft's major initiatives with the Xbox One: Smartglass, Cloud-based Rendering or Computing Features, and Dedicated Servers are all defunct.
"Cloud computing" being a meaningless buzzword that was doomed to do nothing was set from the start, but I am confused as to if the Dedicated Servers aspect is actually true. Don't Xbox One games use Azure to just create a dedicated server when they need to, or did they really go and actually just find developers implementing peer to peer software in their games again?
No, tons of Azure server stuff still, not that I know what uses it since the entire point is "don't need to pay attention to hosting". They're free if a dev wants to use them AFAIK, imagine there's contractual bits along with though, and publishers REALLY like DIY, since "how hard can it be?" Crackdown is 100% using the cloud stuff to do the multiplayer destructible city stuff, as well. Smartglass is so defunct I use it to write/read all my message traffic...
Honestly, I'm not sure how this person could get wronger.
Microsoft have seen, with things like Tomb Raiders initially poor sales (November it failed to reach even 500k, requiring the December Holiday period to finally hit a million before rapidly appearing on PC) and Halo 5 only reaching a million units sold softly that they aren't going to throw money at exclusives anymore. I honestly haven't heard anyone say anything positive or interested in Fable Legends since they showed it off and I don't even know who this other studio is.
With Microsoft trying to turn Windows 10 into a walled garden (according to some developers) and their plans to make the Xbox One more like an upgradable PC, there is a part of me wondering if they're searching for an exit strategy at this point.
Yeah, there are rumblings of MS becoming less hardware focused due to this move, and them transitioning primarily towards games that are big sellers, rather than building a portfolio. More deets/speculation here.
That was an insightful read, but I wasn't sure about some of the claims here:
I could also talk about the failure of their cloud gaming initiative by exploring how just about every Microsoft server-based game has been shut down. I could also talk about how Galactic Reign, released by Microsoft as a bold experiment in cloud-based rendering of cutscenes -- pay attention if you like Quantum Break -- shut down 6 months after release, leaving players unable to play the game. I could also talk about how all of Microsoft's major initiatives with the Xbox One: Smartglass, Cloud-based Rendering or Computing Features, and Dedicated Servers are all defunct.
"Cloud computing" being a meaningless buzzword that was doomed to do nothing was set from the start, but I am confused as to if the Dedicated Servers aspect is actually true. Don't Xbox One games use Azure to just create a dedicated server when they need to, or did they really go and actually just find developers implementing peer to peer software in their games again?
No, tons of Azure server stuff still, not that I know what uses it since the entire point is "don't need to pay attention to hosting". They're free if a dev wants to use them AFAIK, imagine there's contractual bits along with though, and publishers REALLY like DIY, since "how hard can it be?" Crackdown is 100% using the cloud stuff to do the multiplayer destructible city stuff, as well. Smartglass is so defunct I use it to write/read all my message traffic...
Azure servers aren't free and never have been, Microsoft just made them available at a discounted fee. Barely any developers took them up on it.
I don't think his point was that they removed those features entirely, just that they've given up on them. Smartglass may still exist but are they adding new features or even promoting it? Or have they basically given up on it and left it as is?
Honestly, I'm not sure how this person could get wronger.
Uh, quite easily? You could try to argue against, you know, 99% of his post and not just the one sentence line where he mentioned a few things in passing.
For people who don't recall what Project Knoxville was, it was really sort of Microsoft's attempt at getting a lot of fan engagement. Originally there were three prototype games (Knoxville, a Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts style open world builder, and a third one that I forget), and a selected group of fans got to vote on which concept got greenlit to move forward. Knoxville (sort of a cell-shaded survival multiplayer thing) got picked.
The next step was involving "The Inner Circle" in the development process itself.
I guess it didn't work/turned out to be more trouble than it was worth/couldn't be sufficiently monetized/was taking money from HoloLens.
Yeah, I'm actually more curious about this than with Lionhead. Lionhead had been steadily decreasing in impact in recent years, especially with the loss of Molyneaux, so it's not a surprise it eventually got shuttered, though I'm surprised they did it BEFORE Legends was released. Press Play, on the other hand, seems a company that would be small enough to slip under the radar when it came time to axe stuff. I wonder if something more specific happened to make MS shutter the team.
I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who kind of thought this was overdue. Granted, I never managed to get into any of the Fable games, so Lionhead's appeal is probably lost on me, but it really felt like rapidly-evaporating vaporware for a while now. Too bad, of course.
Not sure what the connection is with Coalition (which is now the name of Black Tusk, I'm pretty sure), other than publishing exclusivity--we'v had (some) footage of GOW4, on what I thought was a normal, non-bizarro development schedule (and they put out a working game already in the form of the UE). Lionhead on the other hand...I don't blame anyone for not liking their work, but frankly there didn't seem to be very much of it any time recently. Unless they had some sort of sleeper hit that went completely under my radar? What was the last thing they released?
The Coalition didn't develop Gears UE, Splash Damage did (they're the Enemy Territory and Quake Wars devs). The Coalition have been around in some form since 2010 (first as Microsoft Vancouver, then Black Tusk and finally The Coalition) and they haven't released a single game yet.
Splash Damage did a bunch (most?) of the art, but TC did rest of the development as far as I know. They specifically farmed out the art to another studio so they could get the game out in a year without it impacting the development of Gears4. I don't think Microsoft cares who does what so long as it's within the budget (and the game sells well, of course)
I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who kind of thought this was overdue. Granted, I never managed to get into any of the Fable games, so Lionhead's appeal is probably lost on me, but it really felt like rapidly-evaporating vaporware for a while now. Too bad, of course.
Not sure what the connection is with Coalition (which is now the name of Black Tusk, I'm pretty sure), other than publishing exclusivity--we'v had (some) footage of GOW4, on what I thought was a normal, non-bizarro development schedule (and they put out a working game already in the form of the UE). Lionhead on the other hand...I don't blame anyone for not liking their work, but frankly there didn't seem to be very much of it any time recently. Unless they had some sort of sleeper hit that went completely under my radar? What was the last thing they released?
The Coalition didn't develop Gears UE, Splash Damage did (they're the Enemy Territory and Quake Wars devs). The Coalition have been around in some form since 2010 (first as Microsoft Vancouver, then Black Tusk and finally The Coalition) and they haven't released a single game yet.
If you look at their records, closing down Lionhead and Press Play weren't the most surprising moves but for a first party that doesn't exactly have that many first party studios in the first place, this is pretty shocking. Combine that with some of their other moves and the things they're saying and it sure seems like they're downscaling their involvement in the console industry. I do wonder if the next Xbox might just be a "Windows Box".
Huh, I was not aware of that. The (rather limited) wikipedia article literally has no mention of Splash Damage, though I think I had heard something vaguely similar (entirely because I was a big fan of Enemy Territory, the last TF1-style game I really got into). I knew that Black Tusk had gotten rebranded as the Coalition, but I had they had a part in developing UE. What happened to Lionhead honestly wasn't shocking to me, simply because I'd written them off for a while (which doesn't mean it doesn't suck, but it wasn't shocking--I pretty much thought Fable Legends was doomed from the get-go, in no small part to Molyneux's antics hanging over the whole thing after his departure and the FTP design).
EDIT: And weirdly, the Wikipedia article for the Coalition (company) doesn't clarify either. It simply says both Splash Damage and the Coalition worked on UE. So it's certain the Coalition/Black Tusk had no part in developing UE? I'd heard in multiple podcasts that they were one of multiple players in this area.
EDIT EDIT: Undead Scottsman pretty much sums up everything I'd heard (and more, as usual in GOW). I might be overly cynical, but it seems like if you're working with anything less than a massive studio of Bungie or Blizzard-esque proportions, you're guaranteed to do a LOT of outsourcing for a full-sized title (and GOW:UE absolutely counts, since the engine updated required remaking every art asset, rather than offering better textures and changing certain object meshes). I'm not sure how I feel about that personally, but I've assumed it's been the norm for a while now.
Microsoft have seen, with things like Tomb Raiders initially poor sales (November it failed to reach even 500k, requiring the December Holiday period to finally hit a million before rapidly appearing on PC) and Halo 5 only reaching a million units sold softly that they aren't going to throw money at exclusives anymore. I honestly haven't heard anyone say anything positive or interested in Fable Legends since they showed it off and I don't even know who this other studio is.
With Microsoft trying to turn Windows 10 into a walled garden (according to some developers) and their plans to make the Xbox One more like an upgradable PC, there is a part of me wondering if they're searching for an exit strategy at this point.
Yeah, there are rumblings of MS becoming less hardware focused due to this move, and them transitioning primarily towards games that are big sellers, rather than building a portfolio. More deets/speculation here.
That was an insightful read, but I wasn't sure about some of the claims here:
I could also talk about the failure of their cloud gaming initiative by exploring how just about every Microsoft server-based game has been shut down. I could also talk about how Galactic Reign, released by Microsoft as a bold experiment in cloud-based rendering of cutscenes -- pay attention if you like Quantum Break -- shut down 6 months after release, leaving players unable to play the game. I could also talk about how all of Microsoft's major initiatives with the Xbox One: Smartglass, Cloud-based Rendering or Computing Features, and Dedicated Servers are all defunct.
"Cloud computing" being a meaningless buzzword that was doomed to do nothing was set from the start, but I am confused as to if the Dedicated Servers aspect is actually true. Don't Xbox One games use Azure to just create a dedicated server when they need to, or did they really go and actually just find developers implementing peer to peer software in their games again?
No, tons of Azure server stuff still, not that I know what uses it since the entire point is "don't need to pay attention to hosting". They're free if a dev wants to use them AFAIK, imagine there's contractual bits along with though, and publishers REALLY like DIY, since "how hard can it be?" Crackdown is 100% using the cloud stuff to do the multiplayer destructible city stuff, as well. Smartglass is so defunct I use it to write/read all my message traffic...
Honestly, I'm not sure how this person could get wronger.
We all went through a similar song and dance in early January about speculation of Rise of the Tomb Raider's sales numbers--a few people were adamant it couldn't have been more than 200,000 to 300,000 within the first half of the exclusivity period prior to PC release (again, everyone had to be speculative in terms of numbers, but their meaning was clear). When Microsoft announced in early January it (along with another exclusive GOW:UE) had broken through 1 million in sales (not setting the world on fire, but still a success for a console exclusive at a very crowded sales period), many were adamant that either Microsoft was lying, or as a variation of that, the numbers could not possibly be sale through numbers (but instead where shipped numbers).
Then MS flat-out said on Twitter, "Yes, these were sale-through numbers." And all our back-and-forth sales speculation madness exploded, chainsaw'd-locust style.
Again, not setting the world on fire numbers, but a pretty hard departure from the 200,000 people were confidently speculating. It was a kind of weird area for everyone. What I mostly took from this was to be extremely wary of even my own speculation, much less everyone else's, when it came to direct sales trends. On the other hand, for all I know Halo 5 is "limping", even if it isn't entirely clear what it is to "limp".
Synthesis on
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
I guess I'll be the only one in the thread to say I really loved Fable 3. That's fine. I'll be on my throne with my chicken suit judging all of you.
Microsoft have seen, with things like Tomb Raiders initially poor sales (November it failed to reach even 500k, requiring the December Holiday period to finally hit a million before rapidly appearing on PC) and Halo 5 only reaching a million units sold softly that they aren't going to throw money at exclusives anymore. I honestly haven't heard anyone say anything positive or interested in Fable Legends since they showed it off and I don't even know who this other studio is.
With Microsoft trying to turn Windows 10 into a walled garden (according to some developers) and their plans to make the Xbox One more like an upgradable PC, there is a part of me wondering if they're searching for an exit strategy at this point.
Yeah, there are rumblings of MS becoming less hardware focused due to this move, and them transitioning primarily towards games that are big sellers, rather than building a portfolio. More deets/speculation here.
That was an insightful read, but I wasn't sure about some of the claims here:
I could also talk about the failure of their cloud gaming initiative by exploring how just about every Microsoft server-based game has been shut down. I could also talk about how Galactic Reign, released by Microsoft as a bold experiment in cloud-based rendering of cutscenes -- pay attention if you like Quantum Break -- shut down 6 months after release, leaving players unable to play the game. I could also talk about how all of Microsoft's major initiatives with the Xbox One: Smartglass, Cloud-based Rendering or Computing Features, and Dedicated Servers are all defunct.
"Cloud computing" being a meaningless buzzword that was doomed to do nothing was set from the start, but I am confused as to if the Dedicated Servers aspect is actually true. Don't Xbox One games use Azure to just create a dedicated server when they need to, or did they really go and actually just find developers implementing peer to peer software in their games again?
No, tons of Azure server stuff still, not that I know what uses it since the entire point is "don't need to pay attention to hosting". They're free if a dev wants to use them AFAIK, imagine there's contractual bits along with though, and publishers REALLY like DIY, since "how hard can it be?"
Looking at this more in depth, it's not correct. Azure is not free unless you're first party or Call of Duty (who gets a very substantial discount to use it). Otherwise many developers - it turns out - don't bother paying to have Azure dedicated servers on the Xbox One. Given that most multiplatform MP games sell substantially better on PS4, why would you? So he's technically right on this, because a big push from the original Xbox One marketing would be that every game would use dedicated servers. That was in a world where MS expected to utterly dominate the US and UK markets being the 'main' console, which didn't happen. So it does seem many developers are not bothering paying the extra for dedicated servers on the console that, I can't put this any other way, just didn't sell as well.
Crackdown is 100% using the cloud stuff to do the multiplayer destructible city stuff, as well.
We'll see.
Smartglass is so defunct I use it to write/read all my message traffic...
Just because you use it, doesn't mean it's something that microsoft is pushing or using anymore. In fact, until that post I had forgot the tech actually existed and was something they were trying to heavily emphasize just a while ago. It's been a long time since they actually mentioned it or any kind of integration, as it was supposed to be used for some different gameplay experiences. I honestly can't remember the last time they mentioned its use for games. It's kind of like the kinect, a bit of tech they invested in and promoted, fell flat and now they do their best to pretend it doesn't exist anymore.
My problem with Lionhead was that their PR department was amazing, but also oversold those games like crazy. You would have thought Fable 1 was like Elder Scrolls to the second power instead of a fairly linear Zelda-ish game.
Black & White was likewise hyped to high heaven (hyuk hyuk) and the campaign was more tedium than anything. I was ridiculously obsessed with that, but ultimately it was just an interesting game to dick around with in generic AI matches/sandbox. I remember leaving the game on all day while I was at school so my pet would grow.
Never played B&W2, although I did like the sound of some things.
Black and White deserves a place of honor in gaming history. I mean, yeah, the campaign itself sucked, the whole thing was about the toy of the creature. And the creature wasn't THAT advanced. But holy shit it was the most amazing thing at the time. It was one of those things that seems fairly simple in retrospect, but was such a huge step forward at the time.
Even by today's standards, the Creature is kind of amazing. I can't think of anything quite like it in terms of raw complexity & simplicity of interaction.
Shame the UI to give you feedback for it was such balls. I dunno who the Hell thought it would be a good idea to put crucial information about it's stats & habits inside the Goddamn temple.
I guess I'll be the only one in the thread to say I really loved Fable 3. That's fine. I'll be on my throne with my chicken suit judging all of you.
I didn't care much for the first game, Fable II was the best thing, and I thought Fable III was pretty good. Not as good as the second one, but I still thought it was a good time. You had to fuck everyone over at the end, and make people miserable by charging out the ass for taxes and shit so you had enough money to fight the monsters. I think that was kind of the point though.
Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
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And then there's the realism that Fable tried to bring in that took it to a creepy level. Thanks, dog, for the 50th condom you found in our great adventure... Are you trying to tell me something? Do I sleep with too many townsfolk?
Steam: TheArcadeBear
The next step was involving "The Inner Circle" in the development process itself.
I guess it didn't work/turned out to be more trouble than it was worth/couldn't be sufficiently monetized/was taking money from HoloLens.
As of right now though, all of the prototype info videos are still up on Press Play's Microsoft Studios page
Contributing writer at Marooner's Rock
Twitch broadcasting! Currently playing through Wing Commander: Privateer
Pinny Lanyard
This seems like a very unpleasant time to be connected to Microsoft's gaming division.
Fable 3 was a let down for a lot of reasons. Whether you liked having the entire cast using English accents or not you can't deny that it's sad when you screw up a game where you get John Cleese to play a wise cracking butler.
The biggest shame for me with Fable 3, the thing that really marks where it lost the plot, was taking the magnificent character of Reaver from 2 and turning him into a flat devil-on-your-shoulder character who just tells you to be a dick for the sake of it. Hearing Stephen Fry read his diaries in 2 was genuinely brilliant, and it was such a huge waste to remove everything interesting about him so he could just be some bourgeois narcissist.
You! You!! You're the guy who picked on me for complaining about the cockney accents back in 2008!
I enjoyed most of them (though Fable felt a bit barren IMHO) as well, but would you argue that they feel like polished products?
Like, B&W 2 is just a mess. It can be a fun mess, but it was almost unplayable at release (and even now, with hardware capable of running it smoothly, it's just not as feature rich as B&W 1).
I don't think that's very fair. Fable 2 was a legitimately great game; it would make a desert island list for me ahead of any vanilla BethSoft fantasy title.
It was the open world game that introduced the concept of giving the player an unkillable companion dog. Now that shit is in like 90% of open world games.
I wouldn't give it quite that much credit. It was the first open world game where the developer realized that letting the companion dog be killable was a terrible idea.
With Microsoft trying to turn Windows 10 into a walled garden (according to some developers) and their plans to make the Xbox One more like an upgradable PC, there is a part of me wondering if they're searching for an exit strategy at this point.
Fable 3 (the last one I played) was a total mess; the game ditched a lot of mechanics in favor of a more actiony approach which would have been fine but they then combined that with the derpy post-war mechanics where if you hadn't saved a shit ton of money you had to cut deals with Reaver (why is this asshole still alive?) or let your townsfolk die to preserve your morality. But the point of "the price of morality" is completely lost if I just dither around for a few days IRL in order to let my tennants flood my pants with cash, so is the lesson just to slack off as much as possible before getting around to doing the important things.
Nah probably was someone else. Nothing to see here.
Black & White was likewise hyped to high heaven (hyuk hyuk) and the campaign was more tedium than anything. I was ridiculously obsessed with that, but ultimately it was just an interesting game to dick around with in generic AI matches/sandbox. I remember leaving the game on all day while I was at school so my pet would grow.
Never played B&W2, although I did like the sound of some things.
Black and White deserves a place of honor in gaming history. I mean, yeah, the campaign itself sucked, the whole thing was about the toy of the creature. And the creature wasn't THAT advanced. But holy shit it was the most amazing thing at the time. It was one of those things that seems fairly simple in retrospect, but was such a huge step forward at the time.
i mean it was B&W1.5 to be honest but it was still fun
and on the floor
and on the roof
and inside your closet
This should not come as a surprise, really; I felt the Fable series was fast becoming a punchline
It's sad, and sucks for everyone who lost their jobs--but I can see why Microsoft didn't want to pour more money into something that really didn't sound like it was going to produce, well, anything.
x30.
I got really good at the blacksmithing mini-game.
Steam: TheArcadeBear
The Coalition didn't develop Gears UE, Splash Damage did (they're the Enemy Territory and Quake Wars devs). The Coalition have been around in some form since 2010 (first as Microsoft Vancouver, then Black Tusk and finally The Coalition) and they haven't released a single game yet.
If you look at their records, closing down Lionhead and Press Play weren't the most surprising moves but for a first party that doesn't exactly have that many first party studios in the first place, this is pretty shocking. Combine that with some of their other moves and the things they're saying and it sure seems like they're downscaling their involvement in the console industry. I do wonder if the next Xbox might just be a "Windows Box".
I hope that's not the case. If they're not pushing exclusives, they'll fold to Sony quickly this generation. The non-default console needs strong exclusives to turn around as the PS3 demonstrated.
I'm pretty sure Rare is a Ship of Theseus type deal right now.
Jesus, what are you going to do to the forums if you ever interview at IO Interactive or Eidos? (Hitman 2)
Yeah, there are rumblings of MS becoming less hardware focused due to this move, and them transitioning primarily towards games that are big sellers, rather than building a portfolio. More deets/speculation here.
Steam: pazython
That was an insightful read, but I wasn't sure about some of the claims here:
"Cloud computing" being a meaningless buzzword that was doomed to do nothing was set from the start, but I am confused as to if the Dedicated Servers aspect is actually true. Don't Xbox One games use Azure to just create a dedicated server when they need to, or did they really go and actually just find developers implementing peer to peer software in their games again?
Given that the guy from Lionhead clearly just wanted to see if the guy from Penny Arcade would have the balls to show up (we did some pretty rough comics on them), I'd imagine I wouldn't make it far into IO's screening process. I don't have any plans to work in the games industry proper anyway (and didn't then), but getting a call from Lionhead was something my fifteen year old self would never have forgiven me for not pursuing.
No, tons of Azure server stuff still, not that I know what uses it since the entire point is "don't need to pay attention to hosting". They're free if a dev wants to use them AFAIK, imagine there's contractual bits along with though, and publishers REALLY like DIY, since "how hard can it be?" Crackdown is 100% using the cloud stuff to do the multiplayer destructible city stuff, as well. Smartglass is so defunct I use it to write/read all my message traffic...
Honestly, I'm not sure how this person could get wronger.
Azure servers aren't free and never have been, Microsoft just made them available at a discounted fee. Barely any developers took them up on it.
I don't think his point was that they removed those features entirely, just that they've given up on them. Smartglass may still exist but are they adding new features or even promoting it? Or have they basically given up on it and left it as is?
Uh, quite easily? You could try to argue against, you know, 99% of his post and not just the one sentence line where he mentioned a few things in passing.
Yeah, I'm actually more curious about this than with Lionhead. Lionhead had been steadily decreasing in impact in recent years, especially with the loss of Molyneaux, so it's not a surprise it eventually got shuttered, though I'm surprised they did it BEFORE Legends was released. Press Play, on the other hand, seems a company that would be small enough to slip under the radar when it came time to axe stuff. I wonder if something more specific happened to make MS shutter the team.
Splash Damage did a bunch (most?) of the art, but TC did rest of the development as far as I know. They specifically farmed out the art to another studio so they could get the game out in a year without it impacting the development of Gears4. I don't think Microsoft cares who does what so long as it's within the budget (and the game sells well, of course)
Huh, I was not aware of that. The (rather limited) wikipedia article literally has no mention of Splash Damage, though I think I had heard something vaguely similar (entirely because I was a big fan of Enemy Territory, the last TF1-style game I really got into). I knew that Black Tusk had gotten rebranded as the Coalition, but I had they had a part in developing UE. What happened to Lionhead honestly wasn't shocking to me, simply because I'd written them off for a while (which doesn't mean it doesn't suck, but it wasn't shocking--I pretty much thought Fable Legends was doomed from the get-go, in no small part to Molyneux's antics hanging over the whole thing after his departure and the FTP design).
EDIT: And weirdly, the Wikipedia article for the Coalition (company) doesn't clarify either. It simply says both Splash Damage and the Coalition worked on UE. So it's certain the Coalition/Black Tusk had no part in developing UE? I'd heard in multiple podcasts that they were one of multiple players in this area.
EDIT EDIT: Undead Scottsman pretty much sums up everything I'd heard (and more, as usual in GOW). I might be overly cynical, but it seems like if you're working with anything less than a massive studio of Bungie or Blizzard-esque proportions, you're guaranteed to do a LOT of outsourcing for a full-sized title (and GOW:UE absolutely counts, since the engine updated required remaking every art asset, rather than offering better textures and changing certain object meshes). I'm not sure how I feel about that personally, but I've assumed it's been the norm for a while now.
We all went through a similar song and dance in early January about speculation of Rise of the Tomb Raider's sales numbers--a few people were adamant it couldn't have been more than 200,000 to 300,000 within the first half of the exclusivity period prior to PC release (again, everyone had to be speculative in terms of numbers, but their meaning was clear). When Microsoft announced in early January it (along with another exclusive GOW:UE) had broken through 1 million in sales (not setting the world on fire, but still a success for a console exclusive at a very crowded sales period), many were adamant that either Microsoft was lying, or as a variation of that, the numbers could not possibly be sale through numbers (but instead where shipped numbers).
Then MS flat-out said on Twitter, "Yes, these were sale-through numbers." And all our back-and-forth sales speculation madness exploded, chainsaw'd-locust style.
Again, not setting the world on fire numbers, but a pretty hard departure from the 200,000 people were confidently speculating. It was a kind of weird area for everyone. What I mostly took from this was to be extremely wary of even my own speculation, much less everyone else's, when it came to direct sales trends. On the other hand, for all I know Halo 5 is "limping", even if it isn't entirely clear what it is to "limp".
Seems like Fable in general is the divisive game series.
Looking at this more in depth, it's not correct. Azure is not free unless you're first party or Call of Duty (who gets a very substantial discount to use it). Otherwise many developers - it turns out - don't bother paying to have Azure dedicated servers on the Xbox One. Given that most multiplatform MP games sell substantially better on PS4, why would you? So he's technically right on this, because a big push from the original Xbox One marketing would be that every game would use dedicated servers. That was in a world where MS expected to utterly dominate the US and UK markets being the 'main' console, which didn't happen. So it does seem many developers are not bothering paying the extra for dedicated servers on the console that, I can't put this any other way, just didn't sell as well.
We'll see.
Just because you use it, doesn't mean it's something that microsoft is pushing or using anymore. In fact, until that post I had forgot the tech actually existed and was something they were trying to heavily emphasize just a while ago. It's been a long time since they actually mentioned it or any kind of integration, as it was supposed to be used for some different gameplay experiences. I honestly can't remember the last time they mentioned its use for games. It's kind of like the kinect, a bit of tech they invested in and promoted, fell flat and now they do their best to pretend it doesn't exist anymore.
Even by today's standards, the Creature is kind of amazing. I can't think of anything quite like it in terms of raw complexity & simplicity of interaction.
Shame the UI to give you feedback for it was such balls. I dunno who the Hell thought it would be a good idea to put crucial information about it's stats & habits inside the Goddamn temple.
It's okay, we'll be playing good games and judging you.
:snap:
I didn't care much for the first game, Fable II was the best thing, and I thought Fable III was pretty good. Not as good as the second one, but I still thought it was a good time. You had to fuck everyone over at the end, and make people miserable by charging out the ass for taxes and shit so you had enough money to fight the monsters. I think that was kind of the point though.