Fable 2 finished, series far from over

A recent interview with creator Peter Molyneux reveals Fable 2 is complete, with only about 2,000 bugs to fix and a few final touches left to go. 2,000 may seem like a lot, but having gotten through 45,000, it's pretty miniscule! Molyneux seems pleased to be done with it, probably relieved too, being in development for three years and all.

Regarding co-op play, he says it's very much an "in and out" dynamic, online and off, as he himself hates having to set up again after someone leaves co-op. Good stuff. The especially innovative part of it is called "Ambient Orbs":

"Every person's single player game in the world that is connected to Live, we are tracking the coordinates of where their heroes are, and its uploaded to a server. And you see this little purple orb coming along the street and you know 'Oh, that's Peter', you can walk up to their orb, you can chat, the voice chat will work, you can use the keyboard and type, or you just press one button, wham, they come into your world. It's that simple, it's that immediate, and it really changes the way I think of co-op."

Sounds pretty pioneering, really, and I'm expecting more developers will lean towards this seamlessness as time goes on.

Also interesting is the "safety" system, which basically prevents other players from wreaking havoc on your world. It's advised to keep this on at all times unless you really trust another player; taking it off means they can come around, chop people up and just generally ruin everything in your world.

Molyneux says he's made much progress with Fable 2 over the original too, feeling he wasn't skillful enough as a designer to make the original better, but he's learned much, and he thanks gamers for prodding the team to make what they've made this time around, with all the improvements and changes. Especially with the overarching orchestral theme playing in the background of the interview, you really just want to give the guy a hug, and your money.

Towards the end of the interview, he notes there are plans for a Fable "3, 4 and 5", as well as another secret project they're very excited about. He describes it as the "result of an experiment" where they thought "this has got to be a game." He also notes his fondness for challenges in game design and how as a result he'd really like to do a sports game. Whether or not the hidden project is the sports game or not, who knows, but either way, looks like there's plenty of goodness and innovation in store from Lionhead.