i remember an apology...

[hammerpony]

from Peter Molyneux after releasing Fable in a state that consumers and he himself deemed "incomplete".
classy...

none the less, its false advertising to say on a box that there are certain features in a game that are not there.

its wrong.

plain and simple.

the industry is taking the consumer for a ride here.
were getting screwed, and they are making money.

another great example of this is "D&D temple of elemental evil" (thanks atari) < scumbags
and it will never be fully patched or fixed.

i cant believe that there is a rating system for consumers to judge wether or not the age of a child and the type of product is appropriate, and there is no group that checks to see if a product that is being released is up to par and certain standards are being met for the consumer????

like the ESRB, FDA, etc.

this needs to be addressed.

[txa1265]

PM's 'apology' was not so really much of one ... he just stated that he has to keep his mouth shut better ;)

As for some watchdog group to determine 'sufficiency of completion', who would it be, to whom would they be accountable, and what powers would they have? Look - regardless of our various opinions on the game I think it is pretty well agreed that it wasn't ready for release. But whose fault is it that someone purchased it? This is entertainment - there are books, movies and games released all the time that could have done with some more work or even serious retooling. Typically word gets out quicker on movies for obvious reasons, and books are a slower moving industry anyway. The problem with games - especially long games like RPG's - is that they take a while to play, so we have to either (a) wait a while to read reviews or (b) take the risk.

Most people check out movie reviews before seeing a movie, so I'm surprised how many buy games blind. Some of us follow games before much publicity is out, but we are the exception.

Mike

[snowcrash]

It WAS an apology: (http://allboards.lionhead.com/showthread.php?t=83152)


There is something I have to say. And I have to say it because I love making games. When a game is in development, myself and the development teams I work with constantly encourage each other to think of the best features and the most ground-breaking design possible.

However, what happens is that we strive to include absolutely everything we've ever dreamt of and, in my enthusiasm, I talk about it to anyone who'll listen, mainly in press interviews. When I tell people about what we're planning, I'm telling the truth, and people, of course, expect to see all the features I've mentioned. And when some of the most ambitious ideas get altered, redesigned or even dropped, people rightly want to know what happened to them.

If I have mentioned any feature in the past which, for whatever reason, didn't make it as I described into Fable, I apologise. Every feature I have ever talked about WAS in development, but not all made it. Often the reason is that the feature did not make sense. For example, three years ago I talked about trees growing as time past. The team did code this but it took so much processor time (15%) that the feature was not worth leaving in. That 15 % was much better spent on effects and combat. So nothing I said was groundless hype, but people expecting specific features which couldn't be included were of course disappointed. If that's you, I apologise. All I can say is that Fable is the best game we could possibly make, and that people really seem to love it.

I have come to realise that I should not talk about features too early so I am considering not talking about games as early as I do. This will mean that the Lionhead games will not be known about as early as they are, but I think this is the more industry standard.

Our job as the Lionhead family of studios is to be as ambitious as we possibly can. But although we jump up and down in glee about the fabulous concepts and features we're working on, I will not mention them to the outside world until we've implemented and tested them, and they are a reality.

Thank you for reading.

Peter.
Bold tags added by me

[txa1265]

He apologized for the possibility that features not making it into the game as he might have indicated in interviews before release. That is different than apologizing for the game being incomplete.

That is why I put "apology" in quotes, as he was more sorry about running his mouth and being held to it - he wasn't apologizing for the game, just that some may have interpreted what he said in interviews as promised features for the game.

Mike

[Brainsic]

If the people around here had gotten that rather than a disappearing act for a few weeks people might be a bit nicer and have a better attitude about this. Just come out and say you messed up,and it shouldnt have happened the way it did.

But we get the "overwhelming response" quote...nice and politically correct for the company.

And it really is more than missing features.

Potholes of death in many areas...sloppy...something people would complain about in fan made maps and areas,nevertheless "professional" ones
Animation and sound keep going when you stop running...very sloppy...another thing that wouldnt even float in a MOD
The hills and valleys of water...very sloppy to the point of wtf...the physics is a joke,cant even make level water? Thats just rediculous
Collision meshes in the woods are horrible,get stuck on bushes and small rocks

And i only mention these since everyone knows the big ones,missing stuff,and broken stuff.

And we tried it one 4 different machines,from medium to ultra higfh end,and the same results on all of them.
performance...on high end machine 2-5 sec freeze ups...sometimes not even for spawns

All that,IS apology worthy.

[hammerpony]

i wont mind so much if they keep support for this game high and keep pumping out the patches till the game is at least "complete".

i think it will be enjoyable with some more stability and more options added.

we also have to look at the publisher here. we shant let them get away with anything. and most of the time its the publisher who puts the cap on the production budget of the game and forces a developer to do something out of their power.

but theres so much bureaucratic tape that we will never know EXACTLY what happened...