In the last two weeks, I’ve played a lot of Fable III, both in single-player and multiplayer mode. I’ve become the Queen of Albion twice, made a lot of money, been insulted by gnomes, figured out the secret to dying my hair blond (use the cream color, not the yellow one), and discovered The Ice Maiden gun that rewards me for sleeping with 15 men and killing 200 of them (uh, no thanks).

I’ve also received more marriage proposals than The Bachelor.

Any guy (and it’s always a guy) who asks to join my game inevitably proposes within two minutes. Every time. This isn’t because my character is so fantastic — although she is — but because you get an achievement for marrying another player, and there are almost no women in Fable 3′s multiplayer world. Or more accurately, there are almost no women who will play with strangers (let alone marry them). In the dozens of Fable III games I’ve joined at random, I’ve only come across one other queen.

Of course, all these single guys roaming the countryside of Albion looking for a wife could just marry each other to get the achievement. But for some reason, they’re not pursuing that option.

Although I’ve turned down all the marriage proposals, I’ve become Fable-friends with many of these guys (and even ended up giving career advice to one of them). Turns out, the men who play Fable III are much nicer and better behaved than the guys I meet playing the FPS shooters online. I haven’t been insulted or verbally assaulted once in Fable III, or had to listen to any racist, sexist, or homophobic comments so far. (It really is a fairy tale kingdom!)

There are 50 Legendary Weapons in the game, but only some are available in your kingdom (through quests or shops). You have to buy the rest from shops in other people’s kingdoms, via multiplayer. The best way I’ve found to do that is to turn your orb visibility to “all,” stand in a weapons shop in Brightwall, Bowerstone Market, or Aurora, wait until a friendly-looking orb comes in, and then join their game and buy the weapons in their shop (assuming they’re different from the ones you already have). Just don’t forget to say hi to the player you’ve joined.

The day of Fable 3’s release, Microsoft accidentally published for a few hours some of the upcoming Fable III DLC content that wasn’t supposed to be released yet, including a new dye pack with the color black (finally!), new hair options, a potion for your dog that immediately levels it up in all categories, and a new futuristic set of armor that looks really out of place in Albion. (You can see photos of these items here.) It also offered the ”Understone Quest pack,” which also includes the “Mercenary Shooting Range” and ”Wheel of Misfortune” quests for free (those who’ve played through the first-half of the game will be able to guess what the last one is).

Fortunately, I happened to download several of these DLC packs during that short window (not knowing they were posted accidentally). I don’t want to spoil the quests too much, but I will say that I enjoyed them. “Understone” is a short but fun quest that opens up a cool new area, but there’s not much to do with the area after the quest. “The Wheel of Misfortune,” on the other hand, is combat-heavy, excellent for co-op/multiplayer, and a great way to upgrade enemy-specific weapons. Both the Wheel and the Shooting Range quests are endlessly re-playable, with prizes given based on performance.

As for the DLC that is still available, the free weapons are kinda lame unless you’re playing an evil character, and the dog outfit … well, I guess that depends on how much you like dressing up your dog.

Finally, following the advice I gave you in my Fable III review, I’ve earned so much money in my second playthrough that I can’t spend it all, even after I sold all the houses I’m not living in, adopted all the kids in the orphanage, and bought my wife and children many, many gifts. It’s still just piling up in my treasury. So I’ve taken to giving it away to random strangers, with some funny responses from the startled recipients — from thank-you notes, to women’s pajamas, to (you guessed it) marriage proposals.

I had to temporarily stop my Robin Hood activities a few days ago, however, when I downloaded the extra content that comes with the Limited Edition game and suddenly became unable to play with those who don’t have this content. Which is almost everyone. Apparently, this is true for everyone who purchased the LE version, which means you pretty much have to un-install the additional content if you want to enjoy the multiplayer feature of the game. I’m guessing this is a bug they didn’t get around to fixing yet, but one thing’s for sure: it’s a really effective way to encourage players to buy the (cheaper) standard version.

Now that I’ve removed the incompatible content, however, I’m back in the online fray. So if a blond woman suddenly teleports into your kingdom, gives you a million dollars, and then disappears, it’s probably me. Just please don’t give me an engagement ring in return.

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