Peter Molyneux doesn't want you to replay Fable 2.
The game's main story will only take you about 12 hours or so to complete, but he wants you to keep playing long after you've completed your final heroic deed, and he's perfectly willing to rely on your natural tendency toward greed and guilt to get you to do it.
"Do you care about your family? Do you care about money? Because if you're going to rush through this game, then you're not going to be getting married, you're not going to have dependents that need you to earn money for them."
He sounds like my mother.
The demo we saw of Fable 2 was the same one that Molyneux presented during Microsoft's keynote earlier today, but given that we were in a hotel room instead of a ballroom, it was much easier to discuss some of the game's new features in detail.
As Molyneux pointed out in the keynote, you will be able to play as a female character, and you will be able to get married and have children. Don't expect the screen to fade to black and a "Nine Months Later" caption to pop up, though. Your character's belly will swell as the in-game months click by -- you can even take your unborn child into combat with you, if you'd like, though Children's Protective Services would probably prefer that you didn't.
Fable 2 won't have gold drops the way most RPGs (including its predessor) do. Instead, the only way to earn money is to get a job or to gamble. And by "jobs," Molyneux doesn't mean noble adventurer, he means working class stiff, like a blacksmith or a barman or a shop owner, though you can also earn some coin as an assassin or a henchman.
A collection of pub games will provide a less back-breaking, but riskier way to pad your wallet, but what's even more exciting is that they'll all be Xbox Live Arcade games as well. Any money you earn playing the XBLA game is transferred to your character's in-game fortune. At the moment, there are three games, but Molyneux says more may be coming via downloadable content, and might even come from the XNA community developers.
"I think it would be cool for people to write games that could import stuff into Fable," said Molyneux. He also alluded to another way that Fable "could communicate with the outside world," but we'll have to wait until his Fable 2 demonstration on Friday to find out exactly what he means by that.
Molyneux also demonstrated the dynamic co-op, which lets you invite one of your Fable-playing pals to visit your world and fight evil along with you. What's particularly cool about this is that if you hop into your buddy's game, you're actually working as a henchman and earning money as you hack, shoot, and zap.
If you've already hit those Xbox Live Arcade games hard and amassed a small fortune (the first game will be available about six weeks before Fable 2's release), the trip is still worth it, because any experience you earn while adventuring with your friend still counts for your character. Be careful who you invite to come visit, however, because they'll be able to mess with your world, even killing your family if they feel like it.
Your friends' homicidal urges aside, you'll enjoy having guests play with you not only because they'll provide valuable backup during combat, but also because it will give you the chance to show off your own unique version of the Fable world. Your environment will change based on how you play the game, with neighborhoods becoming slums or welcoming homes depending on the choices you make.
Although the combat is confined to a single button for each type of attack (sword, pistol, and magic), how you press that button can affect the amount of experience you earn. Button mashing is the simplest way to play, but you can also hold down the button for charged attacks, or hit it in rhythm for even fancier combat. The more stylish your combat style, explained Molyneux, the more experience you'll earn, thus rewarding players who are good at the game, but not punishing those who aren't with failure.
Molyneux was coy about Fable 2's expected release, though "we know the week" it's due to come out. Whatever it is, it's not soon enough.
