Loinhead

… would be a doom-mongering and inappropriate headline. From the blog:

You should see our servers a bit as the average pensioner; old, dusty, it’s going downhill and the inevitable will happen at some point. Because the TMO servers are running on their last legs we wanted to strongly recommend everyone – in case you haven’t got a local copy anymore – to back up their online movies. We don’t want you to lose any of your films in case the poop hits the fan.

Clearly there are some people inside Lionhead who are worried about the state of the servers. It’s reasonable to assume that everyone inside LH knows about this. By the tone of the post, it seems that nothing is being done from the top: servers patched up, things work again, but no money or manpower invested into fixing the real problem that puts the data at risk. Lionhead being as caring as they usually are, that could mean MS doesn’t want them to work on TMO when Fable 2 is imminent.

[Extra paranoid interpretation: plug on servers is about to be pulled, LH not allowed to disclose it, advises backups.]

Mortalitis_Infinitas has written an article about dimitri and if really still is in development or if the secret game that lionhead are working on is a whole new game that they haven’t talked about yet.

I think I’ve found something rather…intriguing, to say the least…

We’ve all heard about Dimitri, and we’ve all heard that Lionhead is currently working on two games right now. And yes, we’ve all crossed our fingers that this second title might be Dimitri. Well, by way of a hint in a video diary (check them all out here), I think I’ve found a rather substantial piece of the puzzle. It’s looking more and more like Lionhead is indeed working on Dimitri (Please keep in mind, however, this is mere speculation from a fan. As always, don’t believe it until Lionhead confirms it.)

But first, to get those who aren’t familiar with the project up to speed. Dimitri was first heard of in May, 2001 when Peter mentioned it at that year’s E3. But nothing too official has been mentioned since then.

Read the rest of this fine piece of information here.

Though the majority of readers of this page will no doubt already be aware, the Lionhead Forums have come down, earlier than the most recent anticipated down-time. According to Sam, this means that they will likely be up again by the end of this week.

We know little about the new forum system, except that they are supposed to be better, flashier, and sexier than ever. - Read on »

…because X07 has been cancelled. The X## conferences were hosted yearly by Microsoft for people to talk about stuff happening in the following year, and at X06 for example Molyneux talked about Fable 2 in some depth for the first time. We also know Molyneux isn’t planning to announce anything at Develop or GCDC, so what does that leave him to tell us stuff?

[Update] The UK is going to get its own pre-Christmas event instead, says Microsoft, to replace the European X## events. And who is more UK + Microsoft than Lionhead?

Another jobs update. They need programmers and artists for an unspecified project - that’s Core Technology Group or the Secret Game - while the Fable team needs more scripters and animators to finish off Albion.

- Read on »

An E3 floor manager supposedly had a chat with somebody, told them a whole bunch of stuff and it made its way onto the wii360 forums. Quite a lot of info there which, if true, means Lionhead will be at E3! (We totally posted that rumour a month ago.) This is all pretty much sourceless and unverifiable, hurray. Update ~ Xboxic say that a MS insider said it’s not true, but even he considers Lionhead showing off Fable 2 an obvious guess.

Xbox 360 and Microsoft Rumours for E3′07:

• Microsoft start first at 6.30pm GMT+0:00. (Fact)
• New Crimson Skies game to be announced.
• Bungie working on new title/series not related to anything in the Halo/Marathon Universe.
• Epic Games to show some gorm of Gears of War 2 Trailer.
• Microsoft have bought the Star Wars Battlefront 3 rights. Trailer/Demo to be shown.
• Rare to show off Banjo Kazooie 3 (Banjo-Theerie).
• Rare to announce 2 new games.
• Rare to announce Kameo 2.
• Lionhead Studios show more of Fable 2.
• Microsoft to fund a new game based on Jason Bourne. It’ll be based on the books and not the film with Matt Damon.
• Team Ninja to show off Ninja Gaiden 2. Labeled 360 Exclusive.
• Apparently there’s news of a MGS Game for the 360. May or may not be the 4th Installment.
• Dead Rising 2 to be shown. May not be ready.

From an E3 Floor Manager supposedly.

The Movies On Air’s Roger also got some interviews with Molyneux and Carter and aired them a few days back. (TMOA is organisation of The Movies-related internet radio shows.) There are some interesting things here; Carter and Molyneux have different opinions on whether or not the Fable engine was used as the basis for the Fable 2 engine (Carter: from scratch, Molyneux: every line altered), a lot of new creatures in Fable 2, how much polish will go into Fable 2 (lots) and how much attention they each pay to the forums. Download the show it was broadcast in here - Dene Carter is at the end of part 2, Molyneux near the beginning of part 3. Possibly most interesting is that recently Lionhead have been pushing The Movies community a lot more in their news updates.

- Read on »

So here’s the usual transcript of the developer’s diary and some nice screenshots. Note that there are still edges to polish - the very ugly mountains behind the beautiful cottage, for example.

- Read on »

Seems like Lionhead will be in attendance at E3 this year, sometime between the 11th and 13th of July.

No moles were harmed in the making of this story.

Chip firm AMD today officially launched its series of “true” quad-core processors under the name Phenom. As part of the inevitable press release that goes with that sort of thing there were a bunch of quotes from various people saying just how awesome it is, and this time there was one from Lionhead’s CTO Tim Rance.

“Lionhead is excited with the possibilities that multi-core will bring to gaming and believe that AMD’s quad-core technology is another step in delivering the power we are looking for,” said Tim Rance, CTO of Lionhead. “We are eager to push the detail in our simulations ever deeper, make our physics more fine grained, our AI more emotional and our lighting more dynamic. All of this will enable us to deliver the mass-market experiences that our customers are looking for.”

If Lionhead’s CTO is busy investigating quad-core processors then that has to mean something for future development there. Is MGS’ next Xbox going to use them, is the Secret Game planned for PC or are they already working on porting Fable 2?