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Lionhead Studios and Press Play closed. Fable legends cancelled.

P

Purest 78

Member
Ushay said:
Christ the doom and gloom some people are singing in this thread is downright embarrassing.

It's been the same old rhetoric for over 10 years now. Xbox is here to stay, much to the disappointment of many.
Click to expand...

Are you Basing Your opinion on that you like the Xbox brand? Or are you actually factoring in people's genuine concerns?
 
Papacheeks

Papacheeks

Banned
Leflus said:
Borderlands has you playing with or against other online players. That doesn't make it an MMO.

The devs themselves are classifying Sea of Thieves as a "shared world adventure".


What are you on about? How am I being naive? Go back and re-read my post. I said that there will probably be microtransactions in the game.

Right now the only thing we know about it is that it's not a F2P game. That's why I said "probably". They haven't come out and detailed the price model yet.
Click to expand...

Borderlands didnt have pvp. It was co-op story/missions. You may be thinking of battleborn.

I mean subs like destiny, division, but if it ends up being heavily content focused unless you are there day one, I bet they will have options for you to pay to get to first mate or captain status.

Fuck that. ANd that model won't really do well if that's how they play it. Hopefully this E3 we will get more info on the game. But if you go to their game page it heavily talks about pvp, and exploring a huge world ala mmo.
 
S

Sydle

Member
hydrophilic attack said:
Fair enough.

But there is a huge difference between what they said before this generation (1 billion console units sold) and what they said before last (reaching one billion people with the medium as they said in that video). The latter included hand-helds, people trying a free browser game, parents playing with their kids a couple of times before losing interest, pc gaming, Minesweeper, and so on.

I mean, with the rise of f2p smartphone games, Allard's prediction probably came through. Mehdi's prediction not so much.
Click to expand...

Eh, I just provided the source to what he was referencing.

Mehdi says lots of dumb stuff.

Carry on.
 
L

Leflus

Member
Papacheeks said:
Borderlands didnt have pvp. It was co-op story/missions. You may be thinking of battleborn.
Click to expand...
I wasn't. I was referring to the Borderlands series.

Doesn't matter if it has PVP or not. PVP doesn't turn doesn't turn a game into an MMO either.

Papacheeks said:
I mean subs like destiny, division, but if it ends up being heavily content focused unless you are there day one, I bet they will have options for you to pay to get to first mate or captain status.
Click to expand...
...but Destiny and The Division doesn't have subscriptions. It's a one time payment for the base game + extra for expansions.

Papacheeks said:
Fuck that. ANd that model won't really do well if that's how they play it. Hopefully this E3 we will get more info on the game. But if you go to their game page it heavily talks about pvp, and exploring a huge world ala mmo.
Click to expand...
If Rare was making an MMO, they would say that it was an MMO.

It's as simple as that, really. It's a multiplayer adventure game.
 
U

User 479360

Banned
Fata1moose said:
Microsoft doesn't really have another studio to make RPGs. They could contract a 3rd party studio to do so, but the only developer that historically does that is Obsidian and their games are shit so...

Doubt we get a Fable IV anytime soon, if ever.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's the disappointing thing.
 
Papacheeks

Papacheeks

Banned
Leflus said:
I wasn't. I was referring to the Borderlands series.

Doesn't matter if it has PVP or not. PVP doesn't turn doesn't turn a game into an MMO either.


...but Destiny and The Division doesn't have subscriptions. It's a one time payment for the base game + extra for expansions.

If Rare was making an MMO, they would say that it was an MMO.

It's as simple as that, really. It's a multiplayer adventure game.
Click to expand...

...um like an mmo?

Which is how MMO's work. But like you said earlier xbox live may be the sub. But even with that, fable legends was f2p and your paying for xblive, and on top of that microtransactions.
Sea of Thieves if it is more like an mmo and they opt to give updates weekly instead of by monthly you might see it be like a monthly sub only you buy it out right for the entire year similar to season pas.

It's possible and, we wont know till it comes out. But I can tell you their focus is pvp, and annual season passes for content. MS would never have green lite this project other wise.
MS loves online only based games, because of renewal revenue. Go look at what they made before Sea of thieves and go see how many sequels and projects MS canned on rare replay. You do the math.

MS wants nothing but quarterly profit. They don't give 2 shits about long term. If that were true they would own more IP's and studios. Ensemble should have been bought not Majong. Bioware should have not have gone away from them relationship wise. They should have kept their partnership with sega during OG xbox.
But now if your game is already established with a paymodel that works, or something they see being very lucrative, they will green light it. If they gave a shit about legacy they would not have trashed and tarnished the fable series with so many failed spin offs.

They would not have allowed it to become a f2p game.

I'll see you when sea of thieves get's popular on windows 10 and they start really whoring out the game via dlc packs, micro and full on yearly season pass subs.
 
I

IncognitoPanda

Member
Papacheeks said:
...um like an mmo?

Which is how MMO's work. But like you said earlier xbox live may be the sub. But even with that, fable legends was f2p and your paying for xblive, and on top of that microtransactions.
Sea of Thieves if it is more like an mmo and they opt to give updates weekly instead of by monthly you might see it be like a monthly sub only you buy it out right for the entire year similar to season pas.

It's possible and, we wont know till it comes out. But I can tell you their focus is pvp, and annual season passes for content. MS would never have green lite this project other wise.
MS loves online only based games, because of renewal revenue. Go look at what they made before Sea of thieves and go see how many sequels and projects MS canned on rare replay. You do the math.

MS wants nothing but quarterly profit. They don't give 2 shits about long term. If that were true they would own more IP's and studios. Ensemble should have been bought not Majong. Bioware should have not have gone away from them relationship wise. They should have kept their partnership with sega during OG xbox.
But now if your game is already established with a paymodel that works, or something they see being very lucrative, they will green light it. If they gave a shit about legacy they would not have trashed and tarnished the fable series with so many failed spin offs.

They would not have allowed it to become a f2p game.

I'll see you when sea of thieves get's popular on windows 10 and they start really whoring out the game via dlc packs, micro and full on yearly season pass subs.
Click to expand...

Didn't MS use to own Ensemble, but it got shut down because it didn't make enough of a profit or didn't pay off at all?

And they have stated Sea of Thieves is not an MMO. They use the term "shared online world", which surely sounds very similar, but I don't think you can label it as an MMO, unless you may call Destiny an MMO as well. On twitter, some guy wondered if it would be similar to Destiny, and they at least hinted they were on to something.
 
S

SOR5

Member
f4mSQNW.png


This ad just played on youtube, seems to have replaced the Fable Legends character with the Quantum Break character

can't find the full video, but it was definitely some sort of reworking of this
 
T

TheUnsunghero26

Member
SO5 said:
f4mSQNW.png


This ad just played on youtube, seems to have replaced the Fable Legends character with the Quantum Break character

can't find the full video, but it was definitely some sort of reworking of this
Click to expand...

Was it this ad?

Also, interesting that Fable wasn't in this ad either. It's from February and it's to show off the future games. Scalebound, Recore, Sea of Thieves, Crackdown 3, and even KI are all shown, but no Fable.
 
O

onQ123

Member
Your next Xbox will be a STB ,Tablet or Laptop they might even embed the SoC into TVs if they can get a deal with Samsung or someone.
 
L

LewieP

Member
Leflus said:
Right now the only thing we know about it is that it's not a F2P game.
Click to expand...
Is there a source on that?

I can't see MS putting out any multiplayer centric games with cross platform multiplayer on PC and Xbox unless they are F2P.

PC users won't pay for Xbox Live. Xbox users won't be happy about paying a subscription for access to the same multiplayer service PC users are getting for free. Making the game F2P sidesteps these issues, as an Xbox Live gold subscription is not required for F2P games on Xbox.

I've assumed that Sea of Pirates got greenlit for the same reasons Fable Legends did, even if there are no external signs of development stumbling like with FL.

I think the same probably applies to Halo Wars 2.

Do Killer Instinct and Gears of War UE support cross platform multiplayer?
 
Stiler

Stiler

Member
I'm sad that we never got the true Fable that was first teased.

The large open-world style they were going for before the xbox game was changed into it's linear "pathway" style of world.

I always thought that if they had made Fable 3 that kind of game that it would have done much much better, or even do it instead of Fable legends.

I wish they just had one more chance to make a new big single player fable.

Don't know why MS would let it go like this.
 
O

Occam

Member
As for the game, after reading how unbalanced Fable Legends was due to microsoftransactions, my impression is that nothing of value was lost. Please keep this shit out of our console games.
 
V

vcc

Member
LewieP said:
Is there a source on that?

I can't see MS putting out any multiplayer centric games with cross platform multiplayer on PC and Xbox unless they are F2P.

PC users won't pay for Xbox Live. Xbox users won't be happy about paying a subscription for access to the same multiplayer service PC users are getting for free. Making the game F2P sidesteps these issues, as an Xbox Live gold subscription is not required for F2P games on Xbox.

I've assumed that Sea of Pirates got greenlit for the same reasons Fable Legends did, even if there are no external signs of development stumbling like with FL.

I think the same probably applies to Halo Wars 2.

Do Killer Instinct and Gears of War UE support cross platform multiplayer?
Click to expand...

To be fair, PS4 and PC have this relationship and everyone seems okay with it. I think however anytime you have to rely on a MMO 'hitting' you're in trouble.
 
Iorv3th

Iorv3th

Member
IncognitoPanda said:
Didn't MS use to own Ensemble, but it got shut down because it didn't make enough of a profit or didn't pay off at all?
Click to expand...

MS closed Ensemble down, they actually fired most of the employees before Halo Wars was even completed. All of their games were huge sellers and they still closed them down.
 
S

Steverulez

Member
no1dead said:
Fable Card Game gonna assume that its nothing like hearthstone or everything like it, absolutely no clue what it was like in game I can try checking but as of right now a title screen is all I've got.
Click to expand...

Ohh. You had some KI leaks and Fable Fortune... got anything else tucked away over there? :) Thanks for the reply though!
 
B

Brad Grenz

Member
LewieP said:
Is there a source on that?

I can't see MS putting out any multiplayer centric games with cross platform multiplayer on PC and Xbox unless they are F2P.

PC users won't pay for Xbox Live. Xbox users won't be happy about paying a subscription for access to the same multiplayer service PC users are getting for free. Making the game F2P sidesteps these issues, as an Xbox Live gold subscription is not required for F2P games on Xbox.
Click to expand...

Gold IS required for multiplayer F2P games on Xbox. I don't know whether Sea of Thieves is actually F2P, but I'm pretty sure it's an online survival game in the vein of Rust, ARK or Day Z.

vcc said:
To be fair, PS4 and PC have this relationship and everyone seems okay with it. I think however anytime you have to rely on a MMO 'hitting' you're in trouble.
Click to expand...

PS4 doesn't require PS+ for F2P multiplayer or subscription-based MMO games.
 
G

Goodacre0081

Member
Brad Grenz said:
Gold IS required for multiplayer F2P games on Xbox. I don't know whether Sea of Thieves is actually F2P, but I'm pretty sure it's an online survival game in the vein of Rust, ARK or Day Z.



PS4 doesn't require PS+ for F2P multiplayer or subscription-based MMO games.
Click to expand...

Im not really surprised that this is still in place. up until a short while ago XBL Gold was required to use Netflix, Hulu and even the web browser on XB1
 
A

Achire

Member
Fata1moose said:
Microsoft doesn't really have another studio to make RPGs. They could contract a 3rd party studio to do so, but the only developer that historically does that is Obsidian and their games are shit so...

Doubt we get a Fable IV anytime soon, if ever.
Click to expand...

You, sir, have poor taste.

Microsoft actually did contract Obsidian to develop an exclusive RPG for the Xbone, but it got cancelled in 2012. Surprisingly, the project got revived and is back in development.
 
I

IncognitoPanda

Member
Iorv3th said:
MS closed Ensemble down, they actually fired most of the employees before Halo Wars was even completed. All of their games were huge sellers and they still closed them down.
Click to expand...

I think I remember that, but I believe I also remember someone stating it wasn't worth the cost. That might have been because they were making Halo Wars instead of another AoE, though...

Too bad. I'm a huge AoM fan, and I liked HW enough that I'm thinking of getting HW2 if it looks decent.
 
Bitch Pudding

Bitch Pudding

Member
Achire said:
You, sir, have poor taste.

Microsoft actually did contract Obsidian to develop an exclusive RPG for the Xbone, but it got cancelled in 2012. Surprisingly, the project got revived and is back in development.
Click to expand...

Cool.

While ‘North Carolina’ was (presumably) intended as an Xbox One exclusive, I’d say it’s a fair bet that the “re-purposed” version of the pitch will be for a broader set of platforms, which would include the PC. No guarantees of course, but Obsidian are no strangers to PC.
Click to expand...
 
O

ONI5

Neo Member
MS closes a studio and cancels some games? Who do they have their eyes on that they are putting this money aside for? Seems like a play to purchase someone.
 
W

Warxard

Banned
LewieP said:
Is there a source on that?

I can't see MS putting out any multiplayer centric games with cross platform multiplayer on PC and Xbox unless they are F2P.

PC users won't pay for Xbox Live. Xbox users won't be happy about paying a subscription for access to the same multiplayer service PC users are getting for free. Making the game F2P sidesteps these issues, as an Xbox Live gold subscription is not required for F2P games on Xbox.

I've assumed that Sea of Pirates got greenlit for the same reasons Fable Legends did, even if there are no external signs of development stumbling like with FL.

I think the same probably applies to Halo Wars 2.

Do Killer Instinct and Gears of War UE support cross platform multiplayer?
Click to expand...

Sea of Thieves isn't F2P, as confirmed by one of their official Twitter accounts and the fact that you can pre-order the game. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZPT59YS/?tag=neogaf0e-20 It's likely to be Xbox's own variant of Destiny / The Division

KI has cross-play, Gears UE doesn't because it's a shooter.
 
A

AnthonypUK

Member
BibiMaghoo said:
As officially, the company is not closed, but it's closure is under proposal, the staff effected have so many days to put together arguments against it's closure, to why it is a bad idea to do this. Staff can essentially argue their worth. I have been through this process, and it was literally just bullshit, as when these things are decided, they have already been through the arguments. The worst part is that the people putting it together and presenting it worked really hard for us all, as we put forward reps to do it for the office as a whole.

If MS remove the pictures, they are admitting the process redundant, and that does not stand. Their removal signified that it is already a forgone conclusion, even though that is exactly what it is, it cannot be represented.
Click to expand...

Yeah its really harsh, I've been in those meetings on the other side where staff argue their worth, and when your listening to it, as good an argument as they might make the decisions already made.
 
S

Simply Sami

Member
We asked how Fable Legends was going, and if we'd ever see another numbered Fable?

His answer didn't suggest a dead game walking: "I think we could do many things with Fable. I think the world of Albion and the hero-based nature of that game could show up in many different spaces," was his reply. Although, yes, that is an oddly deflective answer as he talks about 'showing up in different spaces' and dodges saying how it's actually going.

He continues to say, "it's been in beta for a while, and we're watching the engagement numbers. The thing around Legends that I'm committed to is I want to make sure its release matches the expectations in terms of quality that our customers deserve. So it's not about releasing something because it's on a poster, because there was a date posted somewhere." Or, as it turns out, releasing it all.

For the studio itself, Lionhead, Phil stated that "the team's really committed to what they're doing with Fable right now," and referenced a "healthy turnover at the studio" as a reason why they couldn't do "a big single player RPG-driven thing like the Fable of old," because "that studio isn't that same studio," adding, "they've really crafted themselves around Fable Legends."

The idea that the team were so tightly interwoven with its product might go some of the way to explain why both the studio and game seem to have been shut down together.
Click to expand...

http://www.gamesradar.com/heres-what-phil-spencer-had-say-about-fable-legends-lionhead-last-week/

Looks like Phil knew last week.
 
C

cilonen

Member
SlickShoesRUCrazy said:
Lionhead is listed again under studios and fable legends is listed again under projects.

https://microsoftstudios.com/
Click to expand...

As previously explained this is due to UK employment law. Legally Microsoft have made a proposal to close the studio, they now have a period of time to consult the employees - 30 days if it's a small number of people affected, 90 days if it's a larger number of people - during which the employees can make counter proposals.

These counter proposals are usually argued by appointed employee representatives on their behalf and whilst proposals to continue the business can be presented this is usually quickly discounted and the negotiations come down to securing the best severance package for employees - I've heard of companies agreeing to fully funded retraining programmes to help folks find new jobs for example.

The key points during this time are the company can't be seen to have already made the decision to make people redundant arbitrarily - like cutting their logo from webpages or suggesting the projects they were working on is dead - as the employees will be able to argue legally that the decision has already been made and there is nothing to be negotiated therefore the company is acting in bad faith.

This is why the press release announcing it was so carefully worded, including the phrasing about commitment to retraining and finding other internal opportunities. I've been through this, I recognise all the wording, in our case I was part of over 500 affected employees and the amount of internal roles we could be reconsidered for? - 4.

Edit: this is why you're also not getting colour commentary of any sort out of popular exec's Twitter feeds.
 
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