RESCUE RANGERS!!!!!!....naked....*shudder*

So the tree will be a way to view how much time goes by in game?

@excel_excel:

Hahahahahaha

You know I bet if the game was on Blu-ray there would be room for two or three acorns. Maybe you could plant a Willow, pine, or oak tree. That is the power of the blu-ray.

Really, I am kidding. Don't think this is trolling.

Couldn't you plant things in Zelda OoT? Unless this tree grows in real time, it's no big deal. Sounds likke another hollow promise to me. Sorry Pete, you've let us down too many times to deserve any faith.

Prove me wrong.

I remember the drawing program Kid Pix had a tree-drawing brush. Why doesn't he just re-use that code? DUH.

Nice way to make fun of himself. I can't wait to play the game.

Question is: if you stand under the acorn long enough, will you be stuck in a tree?
Oh, i would like a magic skill that would allow you to grow large trees My Neighbour Totoro style.

Ah... well, at least he's telling us this BEFORE launch, right?

/unsurprised.

@excel_excel:
Chipmunks are typically naked. I remember a time when Chip and Dale were also always naked.

Oh shit, here we go again. I recall Peter M. talking about growing trees in Fable 1... "you can carve your initials into a tree as a boy and come back years later and see those same initials in a now giant oak"... rigghhttt we all know how that turned out.

But, if Molyneaux is to be believed, it will be a fantastic acorn.

@excel_excel:
except for Gadget, Rescue Rangers were pants-free...

@Mr.Waffleton: If the tree grows in real time, won't the game take years to beat? Especially now that the tree is part of the main story thread.

So you can't NOT plant an acorn?

I'll be damned...he's actually found a way to build hype around watching grass grow.

This man is a genius!

@ProfWho: You try programming that and let me know how it goes. I feel their pain.

@TRT-X: lmao - Molyneux is a legend. Next from Lionhead, a new Fable 2 game mechanic - watching paint dry - in realtime!

That is NUTS!

...Those are nuts?...

@excel_excel:

Even when they were dressed, I don't recall anything more than a Hawaiian shirt, leather jacket, and an Indiana Jones type hate. Their nether regions were still open and free.

Said the same thing about the first game, didn't he? Oh well, hype be damned, this man is a visionary.

This game is going to SUUUUUUUUUUUCK. I don't even think this guy knows he's making a game anymore; just something pretty to watch while you twiddle your thumbs. The best thing for Lionhead would be for them to give Molyneux the axe, and until then, gag him so he can't spout anymore crap to the gaming public.

@Obsolete Model: @icepick314: whoops, yeah do seem to remember there earlier cartoons being all nakey but still...its unsettling...
but what part will this mysterious tree play in the games storyline? perhaps it will grow into some sort of hype tree that can talk and constantly hypes the acorns that fall off

Well I've never played fable at all, am I missing something here about nuts?

@Cchrist: Oh snap, you're right! What if I hate trees? What if my character wants to burn all the trees in the world? Do I still have to plant that tree because it's a main plot element?

Where's my free choice now, Molyneux?!

Peter Molyneux is like that friend you have who has all these ideas for games, but none of them actually center around making the game fun.

He's like THE guy responsible for his games being so crappy. He just has all these random ideas that he tries to implement, but this just puts strain on the programmers, taking their focus off the important aspects of the game (gameplay) and turning it towards eye-candy... or something equally as stupid and wasteful, like (the 2-3) HILARIOUS NPCs reactions to the 2-3 things you can do around them to cause them to lauch, get scared or instantly fall in love with you (good or evil... or gay).

Man I wanted to grow an Oak :S

Fable 2 not catered to the Gardeners in the world ^ ^

This guy is so freaking ambitious! It seems like he fails a lot, but this is an industry that really needs more ambition.

@RemyDuvalle: i dunno, all those little "random ideas" are what i like about his games...

...that's what's fun to me

maybe i'm just a comp sci nerd who needs to get a life :-P

@THE Comatose Turtle:
I Was thinking more along the lines of eating the acorn or throwing it at someone but your idea is good too i guess.

@Torgen thinks AAA means "Costs $60":
Not necessarily, it depends on how fast is time going in the game. "Real time" in this case would be real time with respect to the game's time.

What acorny feature.

Fable was awesome, it only didn't live up to the hype. But if you had no expectations it was really charming in a fairy tale manner. Not many games beside Eternal Sonata had that type of feeling on MS's platforms. The gameplay was simple and everyone was lovable, even the villains. Fable 2 looks really nice, the only thing I really wanted in Fable was a large trophy room were you can hang you legendary weapons along with your trophies

@excel_excel:
Now, now, Chip and Dale both had careers with Disney animation before getting wrangled into the Rescue Rangers show. And given that none of the other characters are present, plus the obvious acornyness of the image, I'd say this is more a throwback to their days of pissing off Donald Duck by stealing his acorns.

@lordargent: Best...comment...today (let's not exaggerate things like Molyneux does).

It's been so long... I don't remember seeing plantable growing trees in-game since the Nali healing fruit in Unreal.

Good god Peter. Work on making the gameplay fun then worry about stupid details like a dog sidekick, and planting acorns. I seriously doubt this game is going to be much of an improvement over the first game. As far as I'm concerned peter needs to shut his hatch and let the games do the talking for him from here on out, because the more he opens his mouth about his games the more his foot needs to be firmly planted there.... Hopefully one day publishers will realize that Peter's games never lives up to the hype he builds for them, and they blackball him from the industry. He needs some kind of wakeup call to realize he needs to quit running his mouth so much.

Peter Molyneux: Over promising and under delivering since 1959.

@RemyDuvalle: I guess you never played populous, dungeon keeper, syndicate, magic carpet, or any of the other games that make up some of my all time fav games. Because yea.. they are all just eye candy and not fun at all.... Try doing some research next time.

Wow! A growing tree! What next, breathing Animals?!

Seriously, who gives a crap about this sort of addition, if it was something like realistic wounds then yeah, I'm interested. Trees? Nope.

@exo: considering that he hasn't put out a high quality game in over a decade I would say he is pretty much over the hill at this point. Yes his older games are true classics, but this man has has made promise upon promise about his newer games and they just never live up to the hype, its as simple as that.

Wow, you can grow a tree from an acorn?

Sounds like Desert Bus finally has some competition.

What will they think of next?

@usfslacker: Fable was good. shame it was unfinished and hardly lived up to everyone and Peter M's expectations.

@jamesesdad: Just because the games don't live up to the hype doesn't mean they aren't good games.

I hope no one tells Peter about Animal Crossing, poor guy.

You gotta love the dedication and fervor Peter Molyneux has for his games. He really treats them like works of art, and he seems to want to make the best game he can, not simply one that will sell. I'm definitely excited for Fable 2, acorns and all.

The dude talked about this since the original Fable. I don't trust Peter's rantings anymore.

Just give me my dog, male prostitutes, and the option to be a pregnant swashbuckling babe and I'll be happy as a lark.

this is one of the most stupid ideas ever... why does he bother? is this a ruse so that he can actually include some worthwhile content and we'll all be stunned when we finally read the review? i'd like to think so, but who am i trying to kid?
i imagine if you're going to work on a molyneux game you need a serious attention defecit disorder - just to keep up.

this is one of those things wehre you're drunk late at night and making stupid suggestions, and you all have a good laugh at how ridiculous an idea such as 'yeah, and you plant an acorn... and watch it grow' is. then you realise molyneux was in the bushes writing down your every thought.

@RemyDuvalle: You just reminded me of my game idea that wouldn't actually be any fun: A world so big you have to use trains to get around... in real time! (Luckily your train journey continues while the console is off.) Side quests would include helping someone develop faster trains!

@comedy:It is him poking fun at himself! It isn't meant to be expressed as a good gameplay idea. One of the orignal planned, or at least Molyneux shooting his mouth off about, features of Fable 1 was pretty much glorified landscaping. You can plant trees, and after a few hours of game time they would grow. It was something that was cut from the original, and one of the sore points of people who were following this since the Project Ego days.

So take a chill-pill, back the **** off, and learn that not everything is relevant to you.

@Purple Dave: Thank you. I was feeling incredibly old, all these folk only talking about Rescue Rangers. Don't they show that stupid short of Chip & Dale after the Disney Christmas Carol cartoon anymore?

I kinda hate all the Disney cartoon characters.

No, not even kinda. I do. I really do.

Oh my God! This is groundbreaking!

This is the most innovative thing since star wars did lego's

@MisterSleep: lol

I've seen this game demoed. It looks like fun. He is a smart guy who makes interesting games, and while there is some validity to the comments that argue he should just let his games talk for themselves I think maybe this audience has become too jaded? This is a developer who is excited about trying new things, and who wants to talk to the people who are supposedly excited about games (us, the press, other developers) about these new ideas of his.

And hell, at least he is not banging on about a "one console future".

@Torgen thinks AAA means "Costs $60": Actaully I think Auran actually made that game...

@exo: Haha... it's funny you bring up such old games, cos I was going to add "...in the past decade" in my post, but refrained.

Really, though... those games had to be fun back then because technology hadn't gotten to the point where you COULD make a game that was strictly supported by good visuals. He kinda had to make those games fun because the limitations he was working with were so... well, limiting.

Also, simply because the games are YOUR all-time-favorites, doesn't make them good... just like how my saying they suck don't necessarily make it so. (but really, I did like Populous and Dungeon Keeper....I just feel that Molyneux has moved on to more juvenile design as of late.)

I mean... you gotta admit that Black & White wasn't nearly as cool as it could have been... and Populous was a much better God-game than it.

@mAaron: I understand the fascination with the little details he has in his games... it's just that when the rest of the game is so mediocre, I'd rather have him focusing on making the standard gameplay mechanics fun and exciting... THEN have him come in and add those things (maybe not even until the sequel).

And with his dumbing down the already dumb battle system of Fable... I get the impression that he's just half-assing everything else again so that he can focus on trees that grow and dogs that make you feel genuinely loved.

So the entire story revolves around acorns and dogs now huh? I'm sold!

@usfslacker: You sir are a douchebag pessimist. The man is a legend and deserves some respect.

See, this exemplifies what's wrong with Molyneux. And yes, I understand that he's A Great Man of Gaming. But legends have flaws. And this flaw, in particular, is Molyeux's.

Acorn to Tree? Pretty cool. Heck, just having consistent and semi-intelligent plant life is cool. I mean, it'd be neat to see the leftover arrows stuck in trees, or the burn sections when that fireball duel gets muy caliente. Personally, I'm more likely to get distracted by the off-kilter time frame in acorn to tree. I always felt the Fable clock ran a little fast, and the agronomist in me isn't going to like unrealistic tree growth rates.

But we go from a Farming A.I., ambitious but probably with cool results, to "part of the main thread of the story." Part of the main story? Now running a nursery is an integral portion of the gameplay? So, instead of something that would be amazingly cool as a background element, it is now right in the fore. Right in the fore, with someone shouting "look! Look at the cool thing! See how amazing it is!"

As such, what should be a cool element (frankly, even cooler if no one talked about it, and let players discover it on the