A Moment With Peter Molyneux

The Lionhead, er, head discusses the details behind Fable.

Fable, as any hardcore Xbox user knows by now, is a console RPG of enormous scope and almost untenable ambitions. Big Blue Box Studios (a satellite developer of Lionhead Studios, makers of Black & White and many other odd PC games) has tirelessly worked away on their concept?a truly free RPG, where you're able to lead a virtuous life as a popular hero or a much more exciting one as a foul villain?for the past five years, even before there was such a thing as an Xbox. And look at it now, eh? It's among the most sought-after Xbox titles of 2003... or 2004, perhaps. (Its release date is as much of a nebulous mystery as the game's story, unfortunately.)

Earlier this month, the German edition of GamePro magazine got to sit down with Peter Molyneux, boss of Lionhead and Fable's most public designer, and ask him all about what's deliberately been kept unknown up to now. Read on and hopefully you'll get a touch of what to expect?nothing's quite been attempted like this before in console games.

GamePro: Tell us a little bit about the hero of Fable.
Peter Molyneux: When we first sat down and thought about Fable, we thought we wanted to make a role-playing game, and the point about a role-playing game is that you play a character. Now, normally you play a character that someone's designed for you, so instead we wanted to make things so that you played a character that evolved around the way you played the game. Why should I be good just because the designer wants me to be good? Or why should I be evil just because the designer wants me to be evil? Why should I undertake certain quests? Why should I be a magic user? ...So the core of what Fable is, is the idea that you get to play the character that you actually play in the world.

So, for example: if you walk into a town, and you see someone, and they talk to you... and if they don't respect you? Kill 'em! It's fun! Now, that's an evil thing to do, and your character is going to look more evil. If you feel like saving the princess, you can do it, and you'll be more noble; more good. And that's the point of the hero within Fable. He reflects what you're like as a character, rather than you making a choice at the start of the game.

GP: And how does your character evolve in the game?
PM: The character evolves by the way you play the game; by the quests you undertake, by the experience you get, by the type of weapons that you use, by the people you talk to, and by the other friends and heroes he has.

Another interesting mechanic in Fable is that you're not the only hero in the world. In a lot of role-playing games, it always really aggravated me that my character seems to be the only person in the whole world that realizes something terrible is going on. Why not have a role-playing game where the whole world realizes something's going on, and there are other heroes competing against you to complete the quest? They want to be more famous than you, and being famous in the hero world is cool. If you're famous and you walk into a town, people will cheer. They'll come out of their houses and they'll give you gifts. If you're in the Fable world and you're evil... well, you're still famous. People will be scared of you, but you know, you'll feel really like a hero. You'll walk into each town and everyone runs away, or the crowds part in front of you.

So I think the way the character develops is the way you play the game. What that unlocks in the world can be unique to a lot of people.

GP: How do you raise your skills, and what kind of skills can you evolve?
PM: There are three different attributes of skills. There's strength, which has anything to do with using weapons; swords and axes and hammers. The bigger your sword, or your weapon, and the more your muscles will develop. There's range and skill weapons; things like crossbows and longbows; a whole range of different ones of those. That's a different attribute. And then there's the thing called "will"?the ability to use magic. The more you use each of these three, the more they're enhanced.

Now, the interesting thing is?firstly, we've got this idea of experience and you deciding how your character's going to evolve by spending that experience. But also, there's the idea that the more you do use a weapon, the better you get at it. And that's one of the other cool things about role-playing games, is feeling like I am the true hero of the sword, or I'm the expert in will, or the expert of the crossbow. So the more you use something, the more you unlock different special abilities in that item.

GP: What do you think was the most difficult thing about making the game?

PM: The hardest thing in Fable to implement is the fact that we have this simulated world. The fact is that when we were designing it, we thought?this is an example?we thought, "Why don't we have it so that you can buy anything you like in the world?" Anything from a box of chocolates, to a sword or some armor, to even a whole house or shop. We thought this would be a really good idea. And how would this go on the market? Well, a house would go on the market if anyone you know either died or went away somehow.

It was only after we implemented this that I was watching someone play the game, and I noticed he was hiding in the bushes... and nothing was happening. He was hiding there for two minutes. I asked him "What are you doing?", and he said "I'm waiting here for the shop owner to come out and go home so I can kill him and buy his shop off him." That's the biggest problem, because we've got a simulated world where people can do anything?they can go and kidnap people; you can break into someone's house when they're in bed and steal all the stuff in the house; you can become a thief like that. It means that not only do we have all the quests in a role-playing game, but we have the real unique problems of people trying to experiment within the world.

GP: Have there been any ideas for Fable that were maybe too ambitious and you had to tone down a bit?
PM: There are a million and one ideas I've had to throw away. That's always the case with all the games I've worked on. I mean, originally?and this is a real sadness that this had to be thrown away?originally the game was set so that you started the game when you were fifteen years old, and by the end of the game you were 50 years old. So by the end of the game, 35 years have passed, and all the world's changed; all the trees have grown, the kid you used to play with had become an adult; you could walk into towns and gradually see people getting older. But the art that was necessary to support that was just enormous. You know, supporting everybody in the world getting old, all trees growing, every plant, every leaf, every bush in the simulation was just unrealistic.

So I had to get real and say that, instead of the whole world aging over many years... It still goes over many years and there are people who age, like your wife for example if you get married, but the aging is more focused around yourself. The more you use your magic ability, the older, or the faster you age in the game.

So, lots of things like that. Lots of different creatures... You know, the idea of having dragons working under the simulation was not realistic, as you had to do a whole dragon simulation. So we had to have a scripted dragon.

GP: Was there the idea at first to implement a female character as well as a male one, or was it like "Oh, no, that's too much"?
PM: Originally in Fable, the first and only choice you made at the start of the game was whether you played a boy or a girl. But, I think the current count is that there are something like 15,000 different animations?that's just animations?and probably hundreds of thousands of responses focused around the central character. And you just doubled that by adding a female character.

I would've loved to have one. Absolutely I would've loved to have one, but we would be developing the game for a lot longer. We've already got an enormous amount of people working on it, but we'd have to include a lot, lot more. It is a real sadness; it's one of those things that, if you had the time and you had the resources, you'd definitely do.

GP: Could you tell us something about the multiplayer modes?
PM: One of the surprises you try to keep up your sleeve as you develop a game is the idea of multiplayer play. I really like the idea that I can play with my friends, and we have the ability in Fable to play up to four people on one machine cooperatively. And what you do... if you're playing Fable at home, you can take your memory card over to your friend's, plug it in, and as soon as you've plugged it in, it realizes?you don't have to restart the game; I could just be sitting back and you walk in the room and say "Oh, I'll join in", plug right in and straight away. No configuration, nothing. What actually happens is, when you plug in, your character from your game gets imported into my world. We can trade items, we can do all the things you'd expect.

Because your character's imported into my world, he becomes what's called the "alter ego" of the main character. At any time, I can press the White button, and your character can become the main character, and I can become the alter ego. We can swap like that. Also, as an alter ego, you can fight monsters, you can pick up experience, you can heal the main character, and the more you do that, the more of this score you get. And the more score you have, the more likelihood there is that you can press the White button and take over the main place. So it's very cooperative, but also a little bit competitive. I think it's quite unique, and certainly the tests we've done so far have been quite interesting.

GP: Will you also be able to do that via Xbox Live?
PM: Well, Fable was started five years ago, really before there was any talk of Xbox Live or even the Xbox, to be honest with you. So we haven't currently got plans for it. Personally I'd love to do it, though. Being able to transfer your character via Xbox Live would be brilliant.

GP: Will Fable be Xbox-exclusive, or might there be a port later on?
PM: Currently, we are thinking of possibly one other format, and it's not a console. (smiles) That's all I can say; you should be able to figure out what that is. But for the moment it's Xbox exclusive.

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