Molyneux: All Your Europe Are Belong to Him

Dimrill · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2009 12:05

Eurogonks are reporting that everybody's favourite high falootin promising son of a gun Bullfrog man has been promoted inside the Microsoft heirarchy.

Gonks wrote:

Microsoft has promoted Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux to creative director of Microsoft Game Studios in Europe, GamesIndustry.biz reports.

Molyneux will oversee the creative output of all internal studios as well as Microsoft's third-party development partners, acting in a leadership role to help ideas come to fruition, as well as ensuring better communication and understanding within the group.

"The best way for us to make sure our platforms evolve in a way that enables the best creative experiences is to make sure our creative leaders are closely tied into the work that's going on with the platform team," said Phil Spencer, general manager of Microsoft Game Studios, speaking exclusively to GamesIndustry.biz.

"What we're asking Peter to do is a creative director role for us in Europe, overseeing all of the creative work that goes on at our studios in the UK and Europe, and the different projects that we have with external partners.

"His role there is to not only help the collaborations and to bring both the thinking from that region back to the platform and Microsoft Game Studios as different things are incubating and being worked on, but the reverse is also true, of taking global knowledge of our platform efforts and different efforts at MGS and help provide context and guidance to those teams."

Molyneux said the promotion isn't about leaving his own mark on other studio's titles, but rather helping internal and external talent realise their creative visions within the Microsoft development ecosystem.

"What you're not going to see is ten Peter Molyneux games. The value of this role is for someone like myself going in and making those little tiny lights of an idea shine as brightly as possible and ensuring everybody within the organisation clearly understands why we're making those titles, the purpose of those titles and their importance to Microsoft overall.

"All I'm going to be doing is making sure those lights are as bright as possible. People at Rare and other European studios are super, super bright and creative people and I'll learn as much about design from them as they would from me."

Molyneux said he hopes to help foster the passion of individuals, and in turn push Microsoft's talent to drop preconceived ideas about game design and strive for innovation.

"I'm definitely not going to go in and say 'this is a dumb idea' and 'this is a good idea'. I'm more about making sure they really are doing the experiences they're passionate about. Because passion is really central.

"That's probably going to involve innovation, I'm going to be pushing them more on the innovation side, especially with Project Natal, and saying, 'look, don't think you've got all of your design comforts here any more, let's think of a new way of doing all that.'"

He also made it clear that he will still remain studio boss of Lionhead, and continues to work on the two titles currently in development at the studio.

Grim... · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2009 12:06

I like Molyneux. Even if his games aren't that good (which they normally are, to be fair), he always tries to innovate, which is a great thing.
Yes.
I raise my glass to you, Mr Molyneux. Congrats.

Zardoz · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2009 12:08

Will he still have time for dance though now?

Dimrill · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2009 12:08

I can't see how this will equate to more than him popping around Dev studios to have a cup of tea, to be frank. But yes, I've liked every game he's been involved with so far. Excluding the Black & White two.

myp · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2009 12:10

Peter Molyneux wrote:

someone like myself

FFS.

Bobbyaro · **Joined:** 18th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 11868

myp wrote:

Peter Molyneux wrote:

someone like myself

FFS.

With you on that one, myp.

RuySan · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 3542

I liked every game he's done....until Dungeon Keeper (including, obviously).

Curiosity · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2009 13:29

Bobbyaro wrote:

myp wrote:

Peter Molyneux wrote:

someone like myself

FFS.

With you on that one, myp.

Myself too.

metalangel · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2009 14:14

Oh great.

Now he can promise ridiculously good sounding things and then completely fail to deliver - for all of the Xbox, not just his own games!

Molyneux, 50, admitted he hasn't made a decent game in the last decade but is currently riding high on the gravy train and would be foolish to stop it all now. He then distracted people by waving a cute dog at them, thus drawing their attention away from the actual problems because WOOK AT DE WIDDLE PUPPY DOG!

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32624

I'm with Grim... and opposed to Meaty. Molyneux's reach may exceed his grasp, but we have enough dull retreads in gaming. Plus, Fable 2 actually does what it says, for once.

Dimrill · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2009 14:21

I agree with the gooey haired dwarf.

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32624

Dimrill wrote:

I agree with the gooey haired dwarf.

myp · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2009 14:23

I agree with everyone, except Meathead. Anyway, it's just Microsoft Games Europe, not every game released for the Xbox in Europe.

metalangel · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2009 14:24

Innovation is good, yes. But not at the expense of the rest of the game. The UI for Fable 2 is absolutely horrific, for example.

Grim... · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2009 14:26

MetalAngel wrote:

Innovation is good, yes. But not at the expense of the rest of the game.

I'm rather surprised to find myself disagreeing with that. I think it's because stuff is so stale at the moment. Sure, that game may be lost, but the next game that uses the same idea might be a good one.

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32624

MetalAngel wrote:

Innovation is good, yes. But not at the expense of the rest of the game. The UI for Fable 2 is absolutely horrific, for example.

You think? Which bits? Some stuff bothers me (eg. go into potions and press B to go back and it scrolls back to the top of the main menu) but in the whole it didn't annoy me any more than Fallout 3, and considerably less than Forza 2.

kalmar · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2009 14:31

What happened to the Lionhead / Jeff Minter game, that's what I want to know.

metalangel · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2009 14:34

I bought Fable because I wanted to enjoy it! The whole idea appealed - developing your hero, having the variety of cool clockpunk weapons, a more lighthearted fantasy world, the 'morality' concept.

Dr Lave · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 5979

Grim... wrote:

MetalAngel wrote:

Innovation is good, yes. But not at the expense of the rest of the game.

I'm rather surprised to find myself disagreeing with that. I think it's because stuff is so stale at the moment. Sure, that game may be lost, but the next game that uses the same idea might be a good one.

I'm the Dorothy to The Wooden (Tin) Gay (Man), The Dimmers Lion and The Grim Scarecrow.

I would rather play a game thats a bit shakey and flawed but tries something new over a polished triple A retread of a game.

Moldymew is in the same boat as Deaf Minger people who make really interesting games that are well worth a look. But under no circumstances should I listen to them talk about their games as that way leads to madness.

Craig · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 1236

Can I do my 'wooden tit' anecdote now?

metalangel · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2009 15:31

Doctor Glyndwr wrote:

MetalAngel wrote:

Innovation is good, yes. But not at the expense of the rest of the game. The UI for Fable 2 is absolutely horrific, for example.

You think? Which bits? Some stuff bothers me (eg. go into potions and press B to go back and it scrolls back to the top of the main menu) but in the whole it didn't annoy me any more than Fallout 3, and considerably less than Forza 2.

The map is worthless - it's tiny, blurry and you can't actually zoom in or out to see where things are. Trying to find a specific shop or location in a town with the map is a waste of time.

Having to go into the pause menu for everything and scroll painfully slowly through the long lists... I forget how many steps there are just to get at some healing items.

Fast travelling is a pain too, you have to go through far too many steps (in the slugging pause menu) to scroll down to a destination, and then pick from a TEXT DESCRIPTION of where you're going. If you choose to start a quest from your list, it'll offer to fast travel you to a certain location, even if you're standing right there next to it.

For a game which makes a big fuss about customising your character, there's no real way of getting a good close look at your character nor previewing what new wardrobe items are going to look like when worn or purchased.

Pointless messages constantly pop up at the top of the screen... which means the few important one (such as the quest about saving the Temple of Light) are ignored or missed.

And everyone knows about accidentally casting 'DEATH BLAST' when they meant to back out of viewing an NPC's stats, or the weird contortions needed to aim a headshot with a gun (I think it's hold Y, hold one of the bumpers, tab the left stick up, release to fire)

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49238

The fact that using an item dumps you out of the menus is annoying as well - the amount of time it takes to drink 5 potions, for example, is awful. Didn't really spoil the game for me, mind.

myp · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2009 15:35

Craster wrote:

Didn't really spoil the game for me, mind.

Me either, which is a testament to how good it was.

I found the headshotting came naturally after a while.

metalangel · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2009 15:38

myp wrote:

Craster wrote:

Didn't really spoil the game for me, mind.

Me either, which is a testament to how good it was.

I found the headshotting came naturally after a while.

I'm not saying it ruined it for me either, but it certainly didn't help my enjoyment. In the heat of battle to pause - (jarring delay before menu comes up) back to the tinkly music, scroll to items, scroll to potions, click on potion...

myp · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2009 15:39

Installing it to the HDD vastly improved the menu loading time.

metalangel · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2009 15:50

Yup, your advice to do so greatly helped (despite the saga of actually getting said hard drive installed - yes, as I've said before, I was pushed over the edge to buy a bigger hard drive because it would make Fable 2 run better) as it thrashes the living fuck out of the disc drive.

Malabelm · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2009 16:27

MetalAngel wrote:

<snip>

I agree with every single point there. Still an excellent game, mind.

Curiosity · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2009 17:10

I agree wtih all Meaty's points re: Fable II. If anything he understated the problems. Having "Get child's attention" and "draw weapon" mapped to the same button is amusing.

But there are some dumb things in it, such as my wife somehow managing to divorce me and make me a widower without me noticing. She was 100% in love with me, so I went and did a quest, came back, said hello and something nice to her, went to do some hammering of swords, and somewhere during that got a pop-up message just as I was hitting the 'hammer' button. This caused me to skip whatever message it was trying to tell me, and somehow caused the divorce/death of my wife and the loss of a ton of reknown.

To this day I have no clue what it said.

Also, why does my dude's face appear to be leaking?

metalangel · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2009 17:24

Curiosity wrote:

somehow caused the divorce/death of my wife and the loss of a ton of reknown.

She was having an explosive period, and needed you to go and retrieve the Enchanted Jamrag of Always. Which, for a change of pace, was located in a cave filled with hobbeses and hollow men. And a few flit switches. Yes.

Quote:

Also, why does my dude's face appear to be leaking?

Leaking? You're not a heavy Will user suffering from glowing veins, are you?

Dudley · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 8679

Dr Lave wrote:

I would rather play a game thats a bit shakey and flawed but tries something new over a polished triple A retread of a game.

I think I agree with you. The two games of this generation that I've had the most joy from, the most time going "wow" or got the most "involved" in are Test Drive Unlimited and Mass Effect. They're both deeply, deeply flawed games but at the same time both are ambitious, tried things I'd never seen before, went for a sheer scope and it's made me forget all that. Especially TDU were I find new things that are crap with every time I play it and yet I adore it.

Dr Lave · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 5979

Dudley wrote:

Dr Lave wrote:

I would rather play a game thats a bit shakey and flawed but tries something new over a polished triple A retread of a game.

I think I agree with you. The two games of this generation that I've had the most joy from, the most time going "wow" or got the most "involved" in are Test Drive Unlimited and Mass Effect. They're both deeply, deeply flawed games but at the same time both are ambitious, tried things I'd never seen before, went for a sheer scope and it's made me forget all that. Especially TDU were I find new things that are crap with every time I play it and yet I adore it.

I should give TDU another go. I gave up on the demo as the map and stuff was unreadable on my tiny SDTV. But now I have a larger SDTV (LOOK AT ME!) so maybe it's ok now.

Mass Effect has the most chuffin awful combat I've played in a long time. The item management was like tearing your cock off. Upgrading weapons was like a managing an excell spreadsheet where you could only look at one cell at a time. It had so much wrong with it I could have thrown up on myself. But yet I loved Mass Effect. It managed to be a game that I wanted to play for the plot. I would 'put up with' the combat to get to the next bit where I could talk to randoms. It was like playing a DVD box set of a sci-fi series. But with better special effects.

So yeah totally.

Molyneux is a nut case who thinks his piss will cure blindness but the game industry needs more people like him.

metalangel · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2009 18:06

Dr Lave wrote:

Mass Effect has the most chuffin awful combat I've played in a long time. The item management was like tearing your cock off. Upgrading weapons was like a managing an excell spreadsheet where you could only look at one cell at a time.

I thought my problems were over when I started my second playthrough with my new character - after all, I got to keep my Spectre weapons and cool level 10 red armour and my super omnitools and stuff, right?

WRONG. Because now, all the stuff you collect because quest givers 'reward' you or because you've looked in a certain box piles up. And piles up. AND PILES UP. To the point where, when I went to change the grenades for a certain quest, I had to spend ten cunting minutes omni-gelling a billion worthless level 1 or 2 guns and upgrades and fucking Snowblind rounds... and to zero benefit to me, by the way, as I already had 999,999 buckazoids (the maximum) and 999 omni-gel, which would be enough to repair the fucking Citadel if you crashed it through a black hole three times, and still have enough left over to repair the Mako after a fucking Thresher Maw spawns directly underneath you.

Eventually I stopped bother changing my squad's weapons for what we were fighting (organics/artificial) and just gave everyone hammerhead rounds as EVERYTHING is better when it's knocked over.

Dudley · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 8679

Dr Lave wrote:

Mass Effect has the most chuffin awful combat I've played in a long time. The item management was like tearing your cock off. Upgrading weapons was like a managing an excell spreadsheet where you could only look at one cell at a time. It had so much wrong with it I could have thrown up on myself. But yet I loved Mass Effect. It managed to be a game that I wanted to play for the plot. I would 'put up with' the combat to get to the next bit where I could talk to randoms. It was like playing a DVD box set of a sci-fi series. But with better special effects.

Every. Single. Word. Of. :this:

I could write a similar eulogy very easily on TDU and so could Perkies I'm sure.

metalangel · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2009 18:49

Infurations of TDU, then:

-connecting to the same instance ('session' as TDU calls them as a mate). Nigh on impossible. I've clicked on a friend's name 20 times on the map and been sent to a different session 19 times. The TDU community (Atari Forums) found a way to avoid this was to go somewhere quiet when meeting up for a freeride cruise... the lighthouse at the northwest corner was the popular spot.
-assuming you could even click on his name. It seemed that unless the person's icon was going to be directly under your cursor when you went into the map, you'd never get it to actually select their icon (and, in turn, try and 'join' them)
-going into the map dumps you out of the session. So if you want to go and set yourself a waypoint so you can cruise to it in free ride mode, you'll be disconnected from that session. Note that I'm unsure if 'locking' to someone in the session prevents this.
-the idiocy of having to buy a dozen mansions you'll never use just to get their garage space aside, actually organising the cars between these garages is horrible. If you bring a new car into an already full garage, it gets randomly punted out to one of your other ones that has space. If you want to reorganise a garage, you therefore have to go to a different garage (as that one will be full, natch), get into a different car (as you can't 'reposition' one you're currently 'in') and then do all the shuffling via an unfriendly menu.
-in order to search online races for the course other than the one you're currently sitting in, you need to tick the 'all world challenges' box in the obscure options menu before you select what sort of race you want. This then lets you see ALL the races of that type taking place everywhere in the game, not just that one specific course. Except, this box UNTICKS ITSELF AFTER EACH FUCKING RACE.

MrD · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 2139

They've put Molyneux in a place where he thinks he'll have some influence, but he will have none. Maybe that's a good place for him...

ALSO, BLINX 3 PLEASE.

Dudley · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 8679

- Traffic is random, so runs at any race that includes them has horribly variable difficulty and times trials are often just luck.
- Hitchikers telling you to get there in 12 seconds then complaining every time you drop a wheel off the course while of course not caring when you scream through a red light at 210mph.
- Hitchikers and parcel deliveries demanding specific car types and even cars... if you want to restrict races like that find a "plot" that remotely works with it.
- If not installed to HDD (and remember you couldn't until it had been out 2 years) panning round the map zoomed in jerks like all hell which means...
- Searching for roads you haven't driven is hideous and there's no button to take me to roads I haven't driven.
- The GPS is iffy at best. No countdown just "Take the next right" and "Turn right" which never gives you enough notice. Worse it occaionally forgets to even do that.
- Offline the police will chase you if you fuck up but online it just counts offences and fines you for too many, done for tech reasons obviously but means if you're not online the game is massively more difficult.
- Related to this the police are fine with you diving past them on the hard shoulder at 210mph but will chase you if someone drives into you which is a problem because.
- The other cars don't pay attention to you and worse, to each other. So at non-light controlled junctions they'll quite merrily pull out in front of oncoming cars or turn left completely ignoring the oncoming car in the next lane.
- If you're in the oncoming lane, the cars will drive into you 90% of the time, but swerve off the road the other 10. Worse, they'll do this even if you're driving along on their hard shoulder or the grass where there's no chance you'll actually hit them. Even worse they always swerve off the road straight into you.
- All the characters are made up the same way as yours, from one of 5 or so templates with a few different hair colours and clothes. This means you'll spend some time buying cars and houses off what is clearly yourself.

And I don't care about any of these things.

metalangel · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2009 19:13

MrD wrote:

They've put Molyneux in a place where he thinks he'll have some influence, but he will have none. Maybe that's a good place for him...

ALSO, BLINX 3 PLEASE.

Blinx taking on board that Prince of Persia and Braid have shown how time manipulation should work, yes.

Curiosity · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2009 19:13

MetalAngel wrote:

Quote:

Also, why does my dude's face appear to be leaking?

Leaking? You're not a heavy Will user suffering from glowing veins, are you?

Probably. I use my gun the most, but the game is very much geared to you having an all-round character who can do a bit of everything.

Hmmm... shall I save up 105k glowing balls for the next melee upgrade, or 2k for the next shooty upgrade... I wonder...

metalangel · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2009 19:19

We were mostly on about UI problems as opposed to outright gameplay issues, but yes.

Dudley wrote:

- Hitchikers telling you to get there in 12 seconds then complaining every time you drop a wheel off the course while of course not caring when you scream through a red light at 210mph.

Yes, a thousand times yes. Rather like how they also complain 'slow down, I'm not in a hurry' and then storm off in a huff if you don't get there quick enough. At least the car delivery missions are spare the ludicrous nature of such missions in other games, where they demand the car be delivered undamaged BUT ALSO within three minutes. See also: Kudos.

Quote:

- The GPS is iffy at best. No countdown just "Take the next right" and "Turn right" which never gives you enough notice. Worse it occaionally forgets to even do that.

Realism shurely?

Quote:

- Offline the police will chase you if you fuck up but online it just counts offences and fines you for too many, done for tech reasons obviously but means if you're not online the game is massively more difficult.

Furthermore, the cops can't be shaken once you get the maximum wanted level, and you can't reduce your wanted level unless you're on the road (you'd think that driving into a stand of trees and hiding for a bit would work). Also, the rebellious cop shouts 'Come on, dispatch, they can't have gotten far!' far too often for it to raise a grin like it is clearly intended to.

Quote:

- All the characters are made up the same way as yours, from one of 5 or so templates with a few different hair colours and clothes. This means you'll spend some time buying cars and houses off what is clearly yourself.

All the guys who do the car delivery options are exactly the same model with different hair, and even do the same stupid animation (looking despondently at the ground and unfolding their arms) every time.

throughsilver · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 6197

kalmar wrote:

What happened to the Lionhead / Jeff Minter game, that's what I want to know.

It got kiyboshed years ago. Something about funding getting pulled, the Gamecube not existing any more, and stuff like that.

I really, really wanted it.

Be Excellent To Each Other

Molyneux: All Your Europe Are Belong to Him
.. creative head of europe MS

Who is online

Be Excellent To Each Other

Molyneux: All Your Europe Are Belong to Him .. creative head of europe MS

Who is online

Molyneux: All Your Europe Are Belong to Him
.. creative head of europe MS