Fable 3 patch prevents crashes, cures Jasper's laryngitis

@Jack Kevorkian
I'm pretty sure that dubious honor still goes to Obsidian

@Iamdude

The PC version of Fallout New Vegas is an unfinished beta of a game, but the 360 version apparently is less likely to have a gamebreaking bug than Fable 3.

Mainly because you can keep multiple saves in Fallout. If you could keep multiple saves in Fable, these bugs wouldn't be a problem as much.

That said, both companies have pathetic QA, and I'm not likely to ever purchase an Obsidian or Lionhead game again. New Vegas was fun at first because I thought it might be as good as Fallout 3 or better, but it turned out to be a lame inferior version of a game released 2 years ago. Kind of the same thing with Fable 3, almost.

@Invigilator I take it you are nowhere close to having any in experience in the software industry in general? It is EXTREMELY difficult to catch, reproduce and address bugs in an OPEN WORLD GAME. I am not saying developers do not have excuses nor that you do not have a right to complain as a consumer, but at least for the case of Fallout New Vegas you have to cut them a little bit of slack.

I am personally tired of seeing the same adage of "the QA team sucks", when games are reported to have a lot of bugs and problems. Not a lot of companies are willing to spend time and resources to go back and fix these problems so be glad that your favorite ones happen to care enough.

I wish I could find an in-depth article to share with you in the problems with QA in open-world games but all you have is my here-say. I have experience in the software industry as QA for almost 2 years and I am working towards a couple of QA internships for this summer. Again, not saying you do not have a right to complain but maybe you can do some digging up on the forums to read about developer issues (if you are interested) and help them catch bugs during beta phases and post releases. That's just my two cents though, hope you have a good holiday sir!

@Tuxy79
While I do enjoy me some Fable games, I think I'm going to follow your path as well. It's stupid to have this many bugs in a game. As one of my villagers once told me in Fable II, "These prices are just stupid".

@Tuxy79 Yep. But at least they detailed their errors and are actually patching. Whereas other companies stay tight-lipped, slowly work on a patch then silently release it without any detailed information on what was fixed.

@antv
What's hilarious (or sad?) is seeing people voting this tripe as a contender for Game of the Year! When there are spectacular examples of video game production like Mass Effect 2 and AC2: Brotherhood, there really is no excuse for this half-assery from a formerly reputable game-maker...

@WonderCaliban Funny I wish jasper would shutup. I don't care if new outfits are in the shop.

@WonderCaliban

Finished the game and about to start a second play through soon and never ran into any of these issues

@KingOfGods

Same, appart from the breadcrum becoming disorientated for a couple seconds if I ran off randomly to do something, I never had any problems with Fable 3 all the way to 100%ing it.

@Enosoma
Agreed. I don't know how many times I was trying to bake pies and the frame rate would suddenly drop like a rock, causing me too mess up. I finally just stopped making pies and got my money through real estate.

@Enosoma

Would have been nice if they fixed the "blur" effect that EVERY OBJECT has when the camera is moving.

God, it looks terrible.

Maybe its not so noticeable on a SDTV, I don't know.

@Morph156

Yeah, the first time I popped Fable 3 into my Xbox and started playing, I thought for a moment that my copy was broken or something, because the framerate was right around 10-15 FPS (an estimate).

There is no excuse for such a crappy framerate.

Worst of it is, even the villager animations have a dumbed down effect when they're at a distance. It's like 12 frames of animation for one motion when stuff is farther than like 15 feet away.

@Haywire

Then don't buy Fable 3.

@Haywire
I didn't run into any of these bugs during my two play throughs, except for the Jasper one. But his constant talking gets pretty annoying anyway. There was some graphical and frame rate bugs, but nothing too serious.. and overall the game isn't in as bad a state as New Vegas.

If he enjoyed Fable 2 he should enjoy 3. It's still not the great game series it could be, but if you want something to mess around with for a few hours, it's good fun.

@Haywire
If he's not a "hard core" gamer & liked Fable 2, he'll like F3. My daughter ranks F3 as her favorite of the three, while I find a lot of the "dumbing down" they did more frustrating than helpful & only play for short amounts of time or help on couch co-op. They definitely made this one easy to approach for those who may have missed a lot about F2 & That's a double edged sword - completionists & core gamers are disappointed by a lot, but casual players love it & can have a great time.

@Haywire
To be fair, Fable 3 isn't a shitty game. It's not a bad game either. If you enjoyed Fable 2 you'll probably enjoy Fable 3. It's just that Fable 3 is something of a disappointment. It's not as good as the first two games, but that doesn't mean it's a bad game.

@Morph156 it's more like a fable 2.5. i honestly think that 3 was lionhead's attempt to improve the multiplayer that they tried to implement in 2 late in it's development. 3 is very strange: some things were improved over 2 (multiplayer, character models) while others took a step backward (NPC interactions, a "stream-lined", straight forward game). i liked it and i can't for the life of me figure out why. to me, the cons outweigh the pros, but i still played the crap out of it.

@swooded
Just to clarify: I'm not trying to say I dislike the game at all, I was just more trying to give the impression from different types of players (depending on how your brother is). It's still a fun game, they just changed a handful of things that certain player wouldn't notice & others are shocked to not have. It's Fable & despite the disappointments (that are inherent in all LH games) , it's still a good story & game at it's heart.

@Morph156
No, what makes it a BAD game has nothing to do with framerate or graphics. It's the fact that you Cannot pause the game to customize your character (clothes, weapons) or change quests and still expect to resume your game where you left off. The only way to accomplish this (for me) was to save in the Sanctuary, quit to Dashboard, and reload my saved game. Pure Shoddy Garbage.

Thanks Joystiq Biomass, you have abetted my fears. He shall have a Fable for Christmas.

@JonahStein

JonahStein what the hell are you talking about?

You hit start to get to the Sanctuary change what you need to change then hit start to get back to exactly where you "Paused".

@BobbyRobby

Really!? Let me guess also in Co-Op the host uses his custom character, while the guest gets some random tea bag to tag along with?

@BobbyRobby
"Live: Online multiplayer: Fixed an issue with sliding host in the sanctuary"

read the article.

@PurpleFries

I read the article, thanks. I'm not sliding in the Sanctuary, I'm sliding everywhere else. Jackass.

@PurpleFries

Also, I wasn't host.

@Ryguy226 The last "patch" for BFBC2 was 1.6GB.

@Bubbameister33

Imagine paying $60 for it, only to find it EVERYWHERE for $40 two days later

@xXHexagonXx Yeah, I bought Fallout 3 for the same reason.

@devwild
the bugs you are mentioning are normal if you're playing an MMO or something, but a single player game rarely has "falling thru the world or stuck characters forever" bugs