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Cain on Games - Tim Cain's new YouTube channel

Harthwain

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Something to keep in mind is that Leonard isn't even a commie and made the commies on the Outer Worlds team really mad when he answered an interviewer declaring himself to be a proud liberal (which made them like and retweet one dev who said that the project leader doesn't speak for everyone on the team).
People in general have very poor understanding of how diverse "liberal" can be in terms of its meaning. I would call myself a liberal, too, but in a classical sense, not in the modern one.
 

Roguey

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Is Chris Avellone a seagull designer? His experience on New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity would suggest so. :P

Tim Cain's ultimate goal in all his games is to entertain the player, not to kill them. :M

Design, like writing, is one of those things with a low barrier to entry (unlike high barrier roles like programming and art) so of course a lot of people are going to be convinced they can do it no problem.
 

Bad Sector

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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Journey to the Center of Arcanum was always going to be a source engine fps.

In the video, especially around this part as well as the part that follows about façades he refers to tiles in engine which really doesn't sound at all like source - or something that would work in an FPS - and more like the original Arcanum engine. So most likely this was for an "Arcanum 2" that was not what you refer to but one that was to iterate / build on Arcanum 1 with the same engine.

The Journey to the Center of Arcanum FPS might be something they came up with later.

Design, like writing, is one of those things with a low barrier to entry (unlike high barrier roles like programming and art) so of course a lot of people are going to be convinced they can do it no problem.

IMO it is also that people who enter in games tend to want to make games, so to me it makes sense that they'd want to have some say in how a game plays - otherwise they'd just work in another industry. The comment on the people who came with the initial idea claiming ownership also fits with that - they most likely want to feel some sort of authorship, something that especially in modern team sizes of hundreds of people is hard to do.

Though if nothing else, programmers at least have it a bit easier in that they can open an engine or IDE or whatever and throw ideas at the digital wall until something feels like sticking.
 
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Wesp5

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The Journey to the Center of Arcanum FPS might be something they came up with later.

Are there any sources for an Arcanum sequel having been supposed to be a Source FPS? Because I never heard that before. I only know about the Werewolf Source demo and the Fallout 3 Source demo and even that was isometric according to the videos.
 

Infinitron

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Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
The Journey to the Center of Arcanum FPS might be something they came up with later.

Are there any sources for an Arcanum sequel having been supposed to be a Source FPS? Because I never heard that before. I only know about the Werewolf Source demo and the Fallout 3 Source demo and even that was isometric according to the videos.
This is fairly well known, I'm surprised it's news to you: https://arcanum.fandom.com/wiki/Journey_to_the_Centre_of_Arcanum

Pitch document: https://rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=10136
 

v1c70r14

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3:17 well they should've listened to her mansplaining Fallout 1 art style to them rather than doubling down on what ended up being the art style of TOW :lol:

Having played the game recently and seen just how bad it is firsthand seeing this somehow made it even worse. Somewhere at Obsidian is an unsung heroine that tried to save the art direction of OW only to get shot down by art rabbi Boyarsky and Colorblind Timmy makes fun of her for it.

That's fucking depressing to be honest.

It's pretty bad but even if the art direction had been saved the writing would still have been awful enough to sour the rest, at least now the surface reflects the contents by being just as ugly. What's depressing is seeing Tim sit comfortably in front of shelves of plastic junk, reminiscing about old times and being well off while the guy that fixed up his dumpsterfire code is suffering from an autoimmune disorder and the scum over at paypal won't even let him take donations so he has resorted to e-begging for Turkish giftcards, hoping to get enough support that he can pay the bills while working on a combat overhaul for Arcanum. At least that was the case last time I checked.

Due to the war I can no longer accept PayPal donations, but you can buy me Turkish giftcards here:

[email info redacted, can be found here]

If enough people show support, I may get around to releasing the combat overhaul patch I'd been working on before my health started declining (I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder). And now with the war added to the mix, I'm in a pretty bad spot.

Thanks for your kindness and support in these trying times.

Nobody should be surprised that Americans that toe the party line gets rewarded while actual passion for these games isn't, but I still find it depressing. Especially with the mostly Polish war supporters here that don't care how people are affected by it and despite kneeling for a random black American drug addict overdosing will happily dehumanize Russians and whoever else they have been told to dislike at any given time.
 

Hace El Oso

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Something I first noticed in the video complaining about negativity towards his gay video was that when he is hostile towards someone he gets a particular sickly sweet tone of voice and false smile on his face. It gives me the creeps, I really would not want to be a subordinate of his.
 

Harthwain

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What's depressing is seeing Tim sit comfortably in front of shelves of plastic junk, reminiscing about old times and being well off [...] Nobody should be surprised that Americans that toe the party line gets rewarded while actual passion for these games isn't, but I still find it depressing.
What a load of bullshit. Tim "sits comfortably in front of shelves of plastic junk, reminiscing about old times and being well off" not because "Americans that toe the party line gets rewarded", but because he managed to make a name for himself (arguably not as much as Avellone). Whether that's justified or not is another matter, but your "analysis" is dumb from get-go so at least get your story stright before you jump off into the political shit.
 

NoMoneyNoFameNoDame

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Something I first noticed in the video complaining about negativity towards his gay video was that when he is hostile towards someone he gets a particular sickly sweet tone of voice and false smile on his face. It gives me the creeps, I really would not want to be a subordinate of his.
Self-aggrandizing sarcasm? It's the effeminate way of asserting dominance and being aggressive.
It's the left's version of a microaggression against their enemies, and they know you will sound like a bitch to complain about it.
So like it or not it will always be 100% effective.

The truth is about social revolutions:
You don't need win an actual mud slinging contest of any sort for change. Though it can help.
All you really need is to shit directly on another humans head using just words and/or tone of voice.
And actual superiority/inferiority matters very little.
If Free Speech ever mattered to leftism, it was in these ways.

Most importantly:
The SUSS life and the SASS life will always be complimentary.
Though one does not necessitate the other.

Now about his latest video:
I have strong opinions about idiots who think they can contribute to my project(s).
It is like Tim says seagull game designers. They shit on your desk and expect you to do the rest.
The worst is when they don't actually understand the game well enough and suggest a nonsensical change.
And in my opinion if you don't know certain things exist in the game that categorically related to your suggestion:
you've proven your seagullness. If you're a dumb fuck enough not to see there are already quests your opening suggestion
shouldn't be about how yours could be the first quest in the game. It is provably why you should never to allowed to make a quest for the game.

That said we all get excited sometimes and come up with an idea without double checking what the game already has.
Tim touched on this when he mentioned how hard it is to know when to say no to certain ideas for a game.
I think true gamedev spirit is working with as close of a clean slate as you can imagine and then coming up with stuff.
So make your own fucking game and don't bother designers who already have one. Especially if they have been on that project for a substantial time.

What's that word Tim keeps saying? Subtlety? Nuance? You can't be those things if you ignorantly come up with a change for the game
but don't fully grasp what the game already has.

I'll end by emphasizing you do need brainstorming sessions where the whole team is entitled to their BAD IDEAS.
We all misspeak or forget to take everything into consideration. But it's different doing that in a brainstorming session,
than if you actuallly had time to come up with a proposal before you brought it to the game designer.

Tim is a nicer guy than I am. This must be true because he's still outwardly nice in so many videos.
But can you imagine approaching him of all people with your ideaman birdshit brain solutions?

Never fuck around and find out if it's programmer who's also the game's lead designer.

One more thing. I think Tim is wrong about the artists and writers not being trolled by others thinking they know better.
There's no way they aren't competitive and insistent they know better than each other from time to time.
The difference is when you are the game designer you get to see how fucking ignorant your team is of the game
as a whole when they make a suggestion.

Keep making videos Tim!
 
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Infinitron

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Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth

I talk about my experiences as a game programmer, including some challenges game programmers may face and the one trait all programmers need to cultivate.
 

v1c70r14

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but because he managed to make a name for himself (arguably not as much as Avellone).
How do you think fortunes and names are made in times like these? I'm sure that great comrade Leviev deserves all those medals that threaten to rip his shirt with all their weight despite not participating in any wars and austere Father Krivtsevich surely must have earned the gulag, which doesn't exist by the way. There is an ongoing cultural revolution in America and when people fall out of favor like Avellone they are removed from public view and unpersoned, those that are friends and family to the regime, or are loyalist zealots are rewarded, the former more than the later.

I said I found it depressing that the guy who fixed up Troika's best game wasn't doing so well while the bad programmer that made that effort necessary in the first place get budgets and spotlight for new games by the corporations whose politics he promulgates. How naive one must be to think Josh Sawyer shouting at people during production of the last RPGs he made to make them more gay, or whatever it was, got nothing to do with his dream flash visual novel.

Enemies of the regime are punished, no matter how innocent, and those that back it live the good life. That's how it always works. I don't care so much for the apparatchiks as I find those unfortunates sad, predictably loyalists here don't want to talk about the guy who is worse off, preferring to white knight their fag queen and his corporate sermons.

I'm not even Rus but you can have a big bold Z from me. This forum is too gay for me, and I'm not talking about the furries, the weeaboos or ERP:ers but the bugmen trying to gaslight everyone else that there is nothing political about anything within video games and mindless supporters of a war intended to hurt both Europe and Russia.
 

Infinitron

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Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I said I found it depressing that the guy who fixed up Troika's best game wasn't doing so well while the bad programmer that made that effort necessary in the first place get budgets and spotlight for new games by the corporations whose politics he promulgates.

At least you got that bunny in Divinity: Original Sin.
 

Harthwain

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I said I found it depressing that the guy who fixed up Troika's best game wasn't doing so well [...]
Cool. Except:

1) It has jack shit to do with Tim Cain being an American and Drog being a Russian(?). You can have Americans ending up homeless or scrapping the barrel to get by, because that's how great the American Dream is (read: there is no American Dream anymore. Everything is shit).

2) Arcanum is not Troika's most successful game (even if we do agree, for the sake of an argument, that it's the best one) and Drog is a modder. You know, someone who does work in unofficial capacity? Don't expect for him to do well in any scenario when he is not working on something that is entirely his own project.

This forum is too gay for me [...]
Nobody is keeping you here. Don't let the door hit you on the way out, fake 2023 troll account user who's clearly trying to start a political flame war on a subject that's not really related to it. Want to talk about fucking politics for real? There is a special subforum for that. Wait until you grow up to get there or pay and earn the right to shitpost there right now. I have enough news and talk about the war and war-related politics in real life and plenty other online places to let it spill into a fucking VIDEO GAME FORUM where I frequent.
 

Lord_Potato

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but because he managed to make a name for himself (arguably not as much as Avellone).
How do you think fortunes and names are made in times like these? I'm sure that great comrade Leviev deserves all those medals that threaten to rip his shirt with all their weight despite not participating in any wars and austere Father Krivtsevich surely must have earned the gulag, which doesn't exist by the way. There is an ongoing cultural revolution in America and when people fall out of favor like Avellone they are removed from public view and unpersoned, those that are friends and family to the regime, or are loyalist zealots are rewarded, the former more than the later.

I said I found it depressing that the guy who fixed up Troika's best game wasn't doing so well while the bad programmer that made that effort necessary in the first place get budgets and spotlight for new games by the corporations whose politics he promulgates. How naive one must be to think Josh Sawyer shouting at people during production of the last RPGs he made to make them more gay, or whatever it was, got nothing to do with his dream flash visual novel.

Enemies of the regime are punished, no matter how innocent, and those that back it live the good life. That's how it always works. I don't care so much for the apparatchiks as I find those unfortunates sad, predictably loyalists here don't want to talk about the guy who is worse off, preferring to white knight their fag queen and his corporate sermons.

I'm not even Rus but you can have a big bold Z from me. This forum is too gay for me, and I'm not talking about the furries, the weeaboos or ERP:ers but the bugmen trying to gaslight everyone else that there is nothing political about anything within video games and mindless supporters of a war intended to hurt both Europe and Russia.
giphy.gif
 

turkishronin

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where the best is like the worst
but because he managed to make a name for himself (arguably not as much as Avellone).
How do you think fortunes and names are made in times like these? I'm sure that great comrade Leviev deserves all those medals that threaten to rip his shirt with all their weight despite not participating in any wars and austere Father Krivtsevich surely must have earned the gulag, which doesn't exist by the way. There is an ongoing cultural revolution in America and when people fall out of favor like Avellone they are removed from public view and unpersoned, those that are friends and family to the regime, or are loyalist zealots are rewarded, the former more than the later.

I said I found it depressing that the guy who fixed up Troika's best game wasn't doing so well while the bad programmer that made that effort necessary in the first place get budgets and spotlight for new games by the corporations whose politics he promulgates. How naive one must be to think Josh Sawyer shouting at people during production of the last RPGs he made to make them more gay, or whatever it was, got nothing to do with his dream flash visual novel.

Enemies of the regime are punished, no matter how innocent, and those that back it live the good life. That's how it always works. I don't care so much for the apparatchiks as I find those unfortunates sad, predictably loyalists here don't want to talk about the guy who is worse off, preferring to white knight their fag queen and his corporate sermons.

I'm not even Rus but you can have a big bold Z from me. This forum is too gay for me, and I'm not talking about the furries, the weeaboos or ERP:ers but the bugmen trying to gaslight everyone else that there is nothing political about anything within video games and mindless supporters of a war intended to hurt both Europe and Russia.

I used to like your CRPG blog... what happened to you...
 

Roguey

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Tim's seething that he gets the blame for things that aren't his fault, but the fact that Interplay only used the engine he created for one sequel before abandoning it is certainly partly his fault. :P

I said I found it depressing that the guy who fixed up Troika's best game wasn't doing so well while the bad programmer that made that effort necessary in the first place get budgets and spotlight for new games by the corporations whose politics he promulgates.

At least you got that bunny in Divinity: Original Sin.
People kept calling Victoria GGS but Drog pretending he's not Drog again makes sense, yeah.
 

Harthwain

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Guys, read the spoilered text in his previous post.
Explain to me what this has to do with "Tim Cain being well off after being rewarded for being an American that toes the party line"?

Is Dmitry Glukhovsky well off because he's a Russian that toes the party line? Or because he wrote books that became famous and sold well? While Tim Cain is not that famous (in my opinion), I'd say he is "well off" because he's fairly well known in the industry and worked on some important projects as an important enough figure. I am certain there are industry veterans in America who aren't as fortunate, too (or Russian developers who are more successful than Drog).

Drog is a modder who has who-knows-what job (does he even have a job?). Throw in a disease that requires money to deal with and it's no wonder Drog isn't doing as well. I imagine most people don't, even if they don't have a serious disease. Both in America AND Russia (not to mention other places in the world). No need to involve politics here or make up some conspiracy theories about Tim Cain "being well rewarded". Life can just suck. In some cases more than in the others.

Or... Do you want me to go into detail why I find "her" (you know, "VICTORIA"? With a FEMALE avatar? Yeah... Right...) posts full of shit DESPITE the spoilered text? It would require me explaining the principle of causation in order to point out exactly why "the guy that fixed up Tim Cain's dumpsterfire code [...] has resorted to e-begging for Turkish giftcards, hoping to get enough support that he can pay the bills [...]".

But I am warning you, ripping "Victoria's" arguments to shreds will involve talking about the war (as well as going heavily into politics). Do you want us talk about the war (and politics) in General RPG Discussion?
 

NoMoneyNoFameNoDame

Artist Formerly Known as Prosper
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I talk about my experiences as a game programmer, including some challenges game programmers may face and the one trait all programmers need to cultivate.


Tim brought up the Halting Problem..

So allow me to explain the Halting Problem.

Suppose you have a program named P1, then there could exist a program P2 which by its definition does the opposite of P1 for a particular case of program functionality.
Programs can also accept another program as an input. So suppose P1 is such a program, then in theory it could accept programs like P2.
But how does P1 decide the outcome of P2 if P2 is always doing the opposite of P1?
Specifically if P1's job included deciding what P2 does, but P2 does whatever is opposite P1 thinks P2 does, how could P1 CONSISTENTLY decide what P2 actually does? It cannot consistently.

The Halting Problem is just one scenario you could imagine of an undecidable loop between two programs.


Besides the Halting Problem being a mathematically proven result, of more interest is: no matter how much "smarter" you make P1, you will always be able to create a P2 to counter the improved version.

IMO this is all highly theoretical and in most cases you aren't actually leveraging your language/arithmetic/functions to such an extent to create an authentic paradox.
But the kicker is proving your code doesn't incidentally run into it is impossible to do consistently using just code checks.
Thus messages like "don't feed paradoxes to the program asshole" aren't so simple to cookup.
Also as a consequence you don't know immediately if you've run into a paradox of definition/design or it's just another boring bug someone created.

In Tim's story he explained how he wrote a scripting language of some kind, and so when his engine/whatever interprets/compiles scripters code there were still cases of scripters abusing the language.
Because of the halting problem Tim is suggesting the best he can do is tell them not to do certain things and/or atleast not blame him.

I think this is the right attitude. Though it's not completely hopeless to demand some help from the programmer / engine creator.
For example you can still make warning messages for undesirable effects, such as running low on memory. Or you can force scripts to stop that run too long.
Two things Tim talked about. Just don't run to poor Tim each time you see the messages thinking it's his fault.

I hope Tim makes a much longer video on programming challenges he had to overcome.

If your bullshit meter is going off the charts over mere definitions causing unsolvable realworld paradox, I understand.
Afterall implementation restrictions could make some definition not even viable. I suggest do your own research and figure out
if you think the problem is as general as academia believe.
 
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ItsChon

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
The Ukraine war is an American psy-op though, and while I don't think much of Arcanum, many people love to fellatiate it for being such an amazing game and much of that is due to Drogs work. Least you people can do is send him a few gift cards lmao.

Cool explanation above though. Tim should focus on programming talk.
 

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