How to Fix Fable 2's Online Coop

I grabbed Fable 2 the other day in much anticipation. So far, it has been a great game, but I have a new personal policy about games without coop; DO NOT BUY. RPGs without coop have long since plagued my gaming experience.

Take Bethesda's Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, for example. That game was loads of fun, and my character was awesome... But in the end, who did I have to share that with? I couldn't show him off, I couldn't share the world with anyone, not even one single player. Sure, games have their limitations and I can understand why Oblivion wouldn't suddenly grant me coop when all the other games in the series were epic singleplayer adventures.

Now let's look at a game like Diablo 2. 8 players in a large world. By all means, there isn't nearly as much data going around as a large, interactive 3D world, but it's been more than 8 years since that game, and the third installment of the series will have coop as well. You'd think by now some developers could figure out how to make a decent coop experience.

So let me get the core of my complaint; Fable 2's online coop. I can understand local, 2 player coop. It makes sense to have each player share the screen, force player 2 to use a preset character, and be tethered together by an invisible leash with a ridiculously short length.

But what of Xbox LIVE Coop?

I can't bring my own character into my friend's game. I have to use some silly, preset, nameless "Henchman" who tags along. The only thing he can do is fight, in which all his money and EXP go to your character. So, in coop you get to progress your character, but you don't get to actually USE your character. I do not see what's stopping them from allowing us to bring our character into the host players world, fighting with his magic and weapons, and of course, being able to actual shop, sell, and customize things while in a friend's game. It would also be nice to see two dogs interact with each other. Was it just too much work and they wanted to focus on... The lonely singleplayer experience? There's all this speculation that it's to keep the world YOUR world. Look, if I'm worried about my friend coming in to my Good Guy world and killing all the town guards, I won't play with that person. Or better yet, why not just have the guards kill my friend? I won't get in their way. I don't see where our characters equal the same person.

We should be two seperate heros traveling in the same world.


Second ailment; we don't each have our own camera. We are forced to share one poorly designed, bipolar camera that seems to either: A) Not let you move it, or B) Not move until you move it manually. You can see where the confusion comes in. I spend more time in coop battling the camera than I do actual enemies. When on local, I understand, but on Xbox LIVE, why can't we have our own camera? When in singleplayer, the camera works beautifully!

If each person had the singleplayer camera to themselves, the coop experience would be vastly improved. This alone would make me at least somewhat enjoy playing as a nameless Henchman.


Third issue: The invisible tether. The two players can not be a certain distance apart from one another, which is fine. I understand that they're trying to keep the players together for various reasons, the prime two most likely being the fact that you don't want one player wandering off camera and they need to keep the data to a minimum. (That is to say, two players far apart are each seeing more, therefore more data has to pass across the network) The problem with the first prime reason is that this would hardly be a problem if the camera didn't fail so miserably! The second one makes sense. By all means, leash us together, but give us our own camera so when I'm running into an invisible wall I can make sense of what's going on...



Keep in mind, this is all coming from a guy who loves Coop in every single game. I generally avoid games that don't have a coop experience that is literally the Singleplayer + Friends. (Think: Halo/Gears of War Coop) Developers, stop dwarfing your Coop experience! Some of the best times had in games are the singleplayer, and some of those moments have been greatly enhanced when I can do it with a friend. Why can't I always share it with friends? And I am positive most people think the same. Games are just plain more fun when you can play it with friends. Fable 2 brings us a very dwarfed coop mode.

Lionhead was certainly on target, but they are using the wrong ammunition.

Core Gameplay: Rock, Paper, Scissors

I haven't been keeping up with Certain Affinity's work as of late, but in the past I had been keeping an eye on them due to their staff consisting of quite a few Bungie guys. Any company Max Hoberman (multiplayer designer from Halo 2) starts has got to be worth something. As I was saying, I hadn't been keeping up on the progress of their current game; Age of Booty. (Originally titled "Plunder", but apparently they and Capcom, their publisher, had trouble keeping a hold on that name)

To my surprise, I logged into Xbox LIVE to find it sitting on the XBL Marketplace. I'm not entirely sure how I missed the hype (was there any?) around this Xbox Live Arcade title before release, but I was looking forward to it. I grabbed a download immediately and liked what I saw. What did I see?

The best game of Rock, Paper, Scissors that I have played in a good amount of time. After playing the game for 3 hours straight, I've come to the conclusion that it is also a bit mind-numbing, as if I really was playing Rock, Paper, Scissors for that period of time... But Certain Affinity has certainly nailed some core gameplay. Most of you might never think of games this way. Every game you play has some combination of "THIS beats THAT" and "THAT beats THIS, but can be beat by THOSE". This is really what makes a great RTS, such as Age of Booty.

A very good example is Starcraft (or Warcraft 3, for those who aren't as familiar). THIS unit beats THAT, but THIS unit beats THAT unit. It's a massive game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, constantly playing out at your fingertips.

Certain Affinity has nailed some great elements here. Like many games, and some of the best, the game revolves around the number 3. Rock, Paper, Scissors. Three elements that make a beautiful contest of brains, strategy, and resource management. Speaking of resources, there are three resources; Gold, Lumber, and Rum. (What else would pirates use to fuel their crews?) With these resources, you acquire upgrades. Now you have three upgrades; Speed, Cannons, and Armor. Let me explain why.

Speed increases the pace at which your boat moves across the water, and in turn, gets to objectives (and resources) faster and dodge shots more easily.

Cannons increase the rate at which cannonballs launch from your ship. If you're looking to take down a foe or Port, this is the way to do it. Port towns are essentially the objective, controlling a certain number of towns yields victory for your team.

The last is armor. This increases the health of your ship. You can take more hits.

The beauty of this trio is that players may choose how to upgrade, how to conquer, and how to play. What else could you possibly want from a game? Some players will upgrade their boats evenly, ensuring they have no substantial weaknesses.

Some will go for speed and quickly run about the map. That is their strength. Weakness? Rock smashes scissors.

Others will go for cannons and quickly silence foes before they can even react. Amazing firepower make them a force to be reckoned with. Weakness? The paper wraps around the rock, suffocating it.

Now, of course I'm being figurative (Or should I just go make an FPS about the Rock Army invading Scissorville, while the Paperellions slowly engulf the world? It could be a hit.) but I believe you understand the idea. All games must have Rock, Paper, and Scissors.

Nothing must stand above the rest without weakness, this is the key to balance, variety, and a lot of fun. My congratulations to Certain Affinity on making a fantastic Arcade title. I am thoroughly impressed.

Things I don't seem to have time for... #1

- Writing a blog post
- Being intellectual
- Thought
- The amount of time required to enjoy most video games
- Completely finishing this blog po