I could see a lot they could do. First off - it's time to advance the setting. We've gone from 14th Century Medieval Fantasy, to 16th/17th century Clockpunk for Fable II, to Victorian Steampunk in Fable III.
Fable IV, setting wise, needs to embrace this trend, and set it in an analogue to the early 20th century - Automobiles, Biplanes, more ships, larger prevalence of guns.
Fable III introduced a new continent - We should be able to explore in Fable IV.
The new theme of the game should be High Adventure - Two-fisted Tales/Pulp fiction style."
Since the Fable series is trying to intuitively move away from menu-surfing... here's my idea:
The sanctuary should be removed entirely - the new "Character hub" to replace the menus will be a personal Heromobile - You even get a chauffeur in the style of your butler from Fable III. The car's trunk is your inventory - You also get an "Adventurer's pack" to hold 4-8 hotkeyed items accessible through the d-pad. You also get an artifact early on to allow you to change around your spells. The first Fable had the best magic system, aside from the mana bar - Hopefully they can revert to something like that, while keeping spells balanced with Time-to-cast instead of an arbitrary spell-point meter.
Over the course of the game, the car gets upgrades to allow access to new areas - Eventually, it's a car-plane-boat-submarine hybrid thing that can go anywhere your chauffeur is willing to take you.
The opening tutorial, you're "The Archeologist" (No, not the one from the first game) - a dashing young adventurer who's stumbled across the ruins of the old Heroes' Guild. Excavating the ruins, you get a trip down memory lane from the first games - seeing the exploits of previous heroes - and then disturbing a band of either Hollow Men or stumbling across Hobbes - You dispatch them with your starting Pickaxe and Pistol. In the end, you get a guild seal, which unlocks the power of the Will within you - And from there, the game kicks off, as you start to learn of a plot involving another Hero - Reaver - who's decided to go all eugenicidal, and you team up with a new Hero, Captain America (Who comes pretty much out of nowhere), and defeat Reaver, the last few quests killing him off permanently.
Sidequests would involve dinosaurs and Cthulhu clones.
That Captain America stuff is strictly optional.
However, armor and weapon stats are better off gone - Clothing is all about character image. The game world is programmed to react to what you're wearing. Heroes have the strongest armor of all time: Plot Armor - not even common sense can penetrate it. John McClane wore a tank-top and jeans, not a kevlar vest.
Fable IV, setting wise, needs to embrace this trend, and set it in an analogue to the early 20th century - Automobiles, Biplanes, more ships, larger prevalence of guns.
Fable III introduced a new continent - We should be able to explore in Fable IV.
The new theme of the game should be High Adventure - Two-fisted Tales/Pulp fiction style."
Since the Fable series is trying to intuitively move away from menu-surfing... here's my idea:
The sanctuary should be removed entirely - the new "Character hub" to replace the menus will be a personal Heromobile - You even get a chauffeur in the style of your butler from Fable III. The car's trunk is your inventory - You also get an "Adventurer's pack" to hold 4-8 hotkeyed items accessible through the d-pad. You also get an artifact early on to allow you to change around your spells. The first Fable had the best magic system, aside from the mana bar - Hopefully they can revert to something like that, while keeping spells balanced with Time-to-cast instead of an arbitrary spell-point meter.
Over the course of the game, the car gets upgrades to allow access to new areas - Eventually, it's a car-plane-boat-submarine hybrid thing that can go anywhere your chauffeur is willing to take you.
The opening tutorial, you're "The Archeologist" (No, not the one from the first game) - a dashing young adventurer who's stumbled across the ruins of the old Heroes' Guild. Excavating the ruins, you get a trip down memory lane from the first games - seeing the exploits of previous heroes - and then disturbing a band of either Hollow Men or stumbling across Hobbes - You dispatch them with your starting Pickaxe and Pistol. In the end, you get a guild seal, which unlocks the power of the Will within you - And from there, the game kicks off, as you start to learn of a plot involving another Hero - Reaver - who's decided to go all eugenicidal, and you team up with a new Hero, Captain America (Who comes pretty much out of nowhere), and defeat Reaver, the last few quests killing him off permanently.
Sidequests would involve dinosaurs and Cthulhu clones.
That Captain America stuff is strictly optional.
I agree with the black-white thing: Moral Ambiguity doesn't belong in the Fable series. It just doesn't work. Either let us be a saint, a Cartoonishly over-the-top villain, or somewhere in between (Neutral being someone who inflicts as much good on the world as he does harm - not someone who just doesn't give a fuck about morality).Jove said:Next, the game also has to be more black and white with their good and evil choices, I know that sounds retarded to some but what made being evil or good fun in fable 1was some of the hilarious things you could do as an evil character or the great righteous things you could do as a good guy. It was very black and white true, but it was more fun this way, and it showed in fable 1. Also, the armor and weapon stats need to come back. They got rid of armor stats since fable 2 and while it seemed like a good idea concept wise, it was not really done well in the exucution. Seriously I wear kick ass halo armor in fable 2 or wear great heavy armor in fable 3 but it doesn't protect me more then a freaking robe or formal dress? Might as well have my guy go naked.
However, armor and weapon stats are better off gone - Clothing is all about character image. The game world is programmed to react to what you're wearing. Heroes have the strongest armor of all time: Plot Armor - not even common sense can penetrate it. John McClane wore a tank-top and jeans, not a kevlar vest.
If they do this, they ALSO need to bring back the compass and readable maps. Those two objects being icons of the era I hope they set the game in, that shouldn't be too hard. In Fable III, I couldn't find my way around ANYWHERE, because I had no clue what direction I was facing.ThunderCavalier said:1) More open-world areas. Think Fable 2's maps, only larger.