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Fable 2: Follow the Golden Path
By Corvus | October 30, 2008
This is an unexpected post in the Fable 2 series. It was inspired by a post from Spencer that got me thinking. In it he cites the Golden Path that guides your hero to her next task as evidence of a conflict between the game’s linear and sandbox design attempts. He also cites the hero’s constant companion, the dog, as evidence that the two parts of the game simply aren’t working together.
I respectfully disagree on several counts.
Fable 2 is a traditional, even cliched, RPG plot. Bad man tries to exert his will upon the world to make it a “better” place. Said bad man hurts people along the way. One of those people is a hero fated to overthrow him. Confident that he’s killed her, the bad man turns a blind eye to her development into the tool of his destruction.
This plot is unfolded in a largish environment, or rather, many small-to-moderate sized environments stitched together with loading screens. The world is populated with side quests, hidden little areas to discover, and most importantly– hundreds of NPCs, each a little dot in a social network of impressive scale for this sort of video game. I contend that these NPCs make up the only truly sandbox element of the game.
The world of Albion is not a sandbox. Nothing unexpected really happens when you explore the physical environment. You can’t carry barrels to a hill and roll them down upon the enemy, fill a cart with exploding barrels, or climb to regions unintended by the level designer. Doors and gates, each of which are weaker than walls you break through at various points in the game, bar your progress until opened by the successful completion of a quest. The only remotely sandboxy thing about the central structure of Fable 2 is your ability to pick and choose from a myriad of secondary quests and jobs. Not only can you decide which tasks to take on, you can decide in what order to do them.
Not what I would call GTA-style play at all.
No, the actual sandbox that Peter Molyneux wants the player to explore is the social simulation aspect of the game. Traditionally this sort of sandbox exists, usually as the only game mechanic, in decidedly more forgiving games like The Sims. Here, however, it is used to encourage the player to explore the motivations, pressures, and rewards of being a hero in a society that long ago rejected heroes (it doesn’t quite get at that idea, but I plan on writing about the social element of the game in considerably more depth later). In other words–this forgiving sandbox exists as an overlay to the core gameplay of Fable 2. It is there to help the player better explore the relationship between the avatar and the civilization she’s meant to save, as well as her relationship with her past, and her own innate heroic nature. At this, it excels. Very well in many cases, as we will explore in subsequent posts on the topic.
In the meantime, Fable 2 is being touted as a core RPG for the novice player. Because most novice players feel lost in large environments without clear goals, the golden path was introduced. This allows the player to wander freely throughout the land and never worry about getting too lost. Ironically, core players that are used to puzzling out the intent of the designer, might end up seeing the golden path as a mandate–follow me and only me. This is why you can turn the path completely off in the options. Other game elements were also made more forgiving in an effort to not alienate the the novice and casual player. Death is barely punitive, gaining experience is both pretty and easy to understand. Leveling up is equally visual and conceptually clear.
Another effect this forgiving social sandbox has on the essentially static and linear core game is to provide the player with a sense that they are moving through a living, breathing world that is ripe for exploration. And it is within this approach that the dissonance between the social sandbox elements and traditional linear plot elements begins to show. The aforementioned impenetrable plot-gates, the loading screens between areas, the automatic arrival of gold in your pocket, the lack of truly appropriate consequence for anti-social behavior (seriously–I killed 27 citizens with my evil hero and my atonement after eluding the law for 10 years was to go out and kill three bandits)–all of these elements show the serious disconnect between the desire to include forgiving game elements, and a social sandbox, into a RPG experience that will appeal to the core player.
You’ll notice I haven’t addressed Spencer’s inclusion of the treasure seeking dog in this disconnect. That’s because I haven’t spent enough time experimenting with my canine companion to forge a strong impression of its impact on the game. This is partly because he’s so darn cute and partly because he requires no maintenance to remain faithful. I have a hard time being pointlessly cruel to a pet. Even my evil hero has been very nice to his dog. Once I start my endless replays, I’ll be much more experimental and see if you can negatively condition your dog to stop finding treasure. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out it was possible. I suspect there’s a lot more to the dog’s behavior than is immediately apparent.
Okay, before I finish up here, I want to address two other games Spencer brings up in his post. The first is Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. He praises the open exploration of Hyrule in that game and praises how it gives you no help at all. Yeah… I’ve never finished that game for precisely that reason. I’ve started it several times, but I always hit a point where my next goal wasn’t clear and wandered away to play something else. No, if you’re looking for a game that did an excellent job of integrating a traditional linear RPG plot into a massive sandbox world, look no further than Ultima 7: The Black Gate. Not only was the world far more populated with a variety of items and people, but they all behave in accordance with the underlying physics principles of the world–excepting Lord British and the game’s human antagonist, Batlin. And, of course, your next step along the linear path is made abundantly clear to you at each point along the path.
Secondly, Assassin’s Creed never actually punishes the player for exploring. It simply doesn’t reward them for it, after providing significant encouragement to do so in the first place. As I suggested in a post looong ago, good game design rewards desired behavior and discourages undesired behavior. While Assassin’s Creed never rewards the player, despite the design obviously encouraging the behavior, Fable 2 does reward the player, and rewards them amply. If you explore your relationships with the NPCs, surprising things often happen, which is delightful and often funny. If you explore the environment, the game rewards you by actively helping you find more treasure (there, there’s a bit about the dog for you).
So while I disagree with Spencer’s core premise, I really appreciate how much it made me analyze my own reactions to the golden path and Fable 2’s interesting blend of social sandbox, forgiving gameplay, and core appeal. Thanks, Spencer!
Tagged:casual-vs-hardcore, fable 2, sandbox games, storytelling, video games. | 14 Comments »
October 30th, 2008 at 10:17 am
I’ve been fumbling through my mind, trying to figure out how to respond, how to think about Fable 2. The game is so provocative on so many levels that it seems to cry out for my response as a player. It’s not just “what do you want to do,” but “what do you think about what you just did?”
So your notion of the game as a “social sandbox” unlocks something for me that helps me better come to grips with Fable 2. I want, fairly or unfairly, the game to be more granular than it is. After a major story arc reaches an apparent conclusion, I’m able to think about things and discover unexpected outcomes that truly intrigue me.
But on a person-to-person basis (exchanges the game encourages), it’s mostly a series of empty exchanges. Me making muscle-man poses or farting ingratiates all these people to me, and the impact of all this is huge. I’m not really doing anything meaningful, but I’m skewing the world and its inhabitants in my direction, basically by choosing a bunch of menu options emoticons. Is that what I’m supposed to be doing in a game that’s all about the development of my character via my choices and actions in the world?
I don’t dislike this game, honestly, and I’m delighted by the world of Albion itself – by far the most interesting character in the game – but what the game purports to deliver and what it actually delivers are two very different things, for me.
October 30th, 2008 at 10:36 am
While I agree that the direct emote-response interaction is quite shallow, I’m finding myself witnessing interesting secondary interactions between NPCs and my hero based upon my actions. Perhaps that’s what I’ll write about tomorrow.
Anyway, I see the silliness of the emotes as an indication that we’re not supposed to expect too much at this point. It’s a reflection of the casual goofiness that infuses the game–from Barnum’s lexicographical extravagance to Sam and Max’s experiments with the Normanomricon: The Book of the Extremely Dead.
October 30th, 2008 at 10:39 am
I have absolutely nothing to add on Fable II. I completely agree with pretty much everything Corvus said, and believe the connection between the forced narrative and the open world/social environment both helped me to finish the game and start my current second play through with a more… cynically minded Hero who does things for different motivations that the other one.
I do want to touch on Zelda: OoT however. I don’t really see how any game aside from the NES one (Which is understandable because… well, it was NES) doesn’t aid you on your quest. This is especially true for OoT though, which is a lot more linear and hand holds you through the dungeon process. This is as opposed to Link to the Past, where you could go to some dungeons out of order as long as you had the proper tools to complete them, which made it somewhat Metroid like.
OoT on the other hand, has you go to a dungeon, get a tool you need to access the next dungeon, repeat ad nauseum, which is one of the reasons OoT didn’t really do much for me. I’m more turned on by the excitement of discovering things for myself, where say in LttP I might go into a dungeon, realize I don’t have the tools necessary to complete it, leave, find that said tool, and then be able to go back and take it on. You use clues in the environment like that to really tell you “Ok, this is where I have to go now”, which I think is perfectly valid as long as I have SOME kind of distinction as to where I’m going. (Like say, a map that lists all the dungeons I need to complete before finishing the game)
October 30th, 2008 at 10:45 am
Not to derail from Fable 2, but I always seen to lose interest in OoT after the Zora’s. Getting to the temple always seems to elude me. Perhaps it’s been circumstantial, but I’ve read other people who have the same issue.
Perhaps it has something to do with having played (and loved) Wind Waker first.
October 30th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
It’s also interesting to look at the techniques used in other games to move the player along the “golden path of progress,” whether it takes the form of rail-shooters, navigational HUD markers, color-coded keycards, or strategically placed lights indicating where the player is meant to explore.
One of the tenets of traditional game design is that player should always have some goal to work towards. (You could argue that goal-less “games” are really just electronic toys.) Even sandbox-type games offer hints about what to do and where to go.
October 30th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
The trick is communicating those goals and where to find them clearly enough so the player doesn’t get confused. To respond to Corvus, A good example of how not to do it would be Zora’s temple from OoT.
To keep it on subject, I think it’s interesting how Fable II is generally praised for the optional trail, when Perfect Dark Zero was lauded for using the same technique. Is it because they’re different genres or because Fable II was a game with a higher profile than PDZ?
October 30th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Corvus thank you so much for this post. I think I am starting to really understand Fable II, whereas before I had no clue.
I’ve made no secret of the fact that I don’t particularly enjoy it, and I couldn’t pin it down before. After reading, I realise that I almost completely ignore NPC interactions – after all RPG’s are all about stats and leveling and completing quests, right? Right?
Apparently not Fable, and your comments about ‘interesting interactions’ between NPC’s reflecting your character is not something that I had paid any attention to before.
I’m not sure it makes me like the game more, but I understand it, and that is so much less frustrating.
Thanks Corvus!
October 30th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
I can’t add anything except to say that I completely agree about the sandbox elements of Fable. For a game with such a huge game-world, exploration is surprisingly the directed part of the experience. Yet, in a way, the game offers much more open interaction with NPCs than any other pseudo-RPG I’ve played.
I do think, though, that sometime I’m going to have to post up a ‘in defense of Fable II’ post. I really, honestly do not understand the generally lukewarm/nitpicking response it has received.
October 30th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
I really do need to post that glowing opinion soon, don’t I? Trust me, I love this game wholeheartedly. It’s just in my nature to critique. o.O
October 30th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
As usual, excellent discussion. I can’t add much to the Fable 2 discussion other than to say that people on various podcasts I’ve heard seem to be greatly pleased with the protagonist-dog interaction.
I’d love to get your point of view on the issue of player satisfaction in story arcs, though. The splinter in my mind is this:
– Most narrative games seem to be designed with a clear beginning and end; the middle may be more or less flexible to player choices. There might even be a few endings, but the timing of the endings (that is, the amount of development in the middle) is usually the same.
– Many games have hard-fail conditions, which state that a player cannot reach an ending because s/he did not perform well enough for a requirement on the path of (plot) advancement.
– Should games be designed thus, denying players the satisfaction of a full story arc in favor of fabula interrupta? Or can we hope to see games that allow players to fail “gracefully”, so that the end of a play session feels like a resolution even if it’s a fail state?
I believe that it’s a path less trodden but worth investigating. It seems possible, perhaps probable, that a game can be created which has branching arcs that affect not only content (combat specialty, good or evil path) but also length and pacing. Instead of the same “fail until you succeed” message that most games give off, this style of narrative design and gameplay integration could yield a more powerful way to express tragedy or otherwise emphasize the meaning of in-game failure (without such an abrupt end).
It could be a movement away from “_the_ golden path” and towards the open fields of Hyrule — except your time spent wandering might actively affect the structure of the narrative instead of being an empty zone (story- and gameplay-wise). Personally, I wonder if it wouldn’t be a beautiful game which gave players a choice between (1) achieving a minimal success in a shorter time, but doubting whether or not a better outcome were possible and (2) bringing the player to the verge of greater success only to have their hopes dashed and machinations undone. Kind of a “Is it better to have loved and lost than never loved at all?” scenario.
Clearly I’m not in the “games must be fun” camp.
October 30th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
* distinguishing “fun” from “satisfying”, naturally.
October 31st, 2008 at 1:39 am
Forgive the utter indulgence, nay, *narcissism*, of this comment, but can I say how nice it is to see the Golden Path mentioned? Although I took the term from the team that developed Turok 2, I am glad to have helped spread this term among the game writers.
(And, while I’m at it, the terms breadcrumbing and funneling were coined by me – it would have been nice for Susan O’Connor to credit me in her GDC talk where she purloined them).
Spreading ideas seems to be one of my singular pleasures.
Best wishes!
October 31st, 2008 at 5:08 am
@Cyranix Excellent thoughts. I’ll take my reply to a post next month.
@Chris And, of course, in Fable 2 the Golden Path is literally a sparkling chain of golden light that stretches between the hero and her goal!
November 3rd, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Briefly, I was glad that the game was often so forgiving. As much as I love the depth of the choice-consequence theme, I beat the game and still find myself hitting the wrong button and scaring half of Bowerstone. I immediately feel it necessary to go dance for the sheriff to atone for my mistake, since I’m trying to be Mr. Perfect McBoringson.
Also, it seems your link back to Spencer’s comment it broken.