Cain on Games - Tim Cain's new YouTube channel

[Zeriel]

There more that get known about development, the more I'm sure that the games we hold dear are just happy accidents.

Oftentimes it's the result of the culture at the time too. There's only so much you can trust someone's opinion 20-30 years after the fact. The person they were back then would probably stridently disagree with the person they are now.

 

[sosmoflux]

I found the 1-point dilemma particularly strange because, in real game development, designers are expected to take in information (in his case, the 16 other team members) and then build satisfying solutions that are well designed and appease most peoples' problems.

No doubt he's being reductive to make a fun point for a video or whatever- but it's kind of a self own that the design lead couldn't figure out a solution beyond one he likes and another everyone else likes. Just, like, design something better, man.

 

[Butter]

Have fewer level-ups. Give more points per level. Increase the cost of higher tier stuff. Holy shit that was a tough nut to crack.

 

[Goral]

Tim Cain talks about sperm:

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

He caved to the majority, directly in contradiction with better overall judgment (which is the role of the designer) and did so at the very end of development when such radical changes to something as essential as core game stats should be anathema (poor management.) If you told Tim to swap out the entire game engine less than 3 months before shipping, he'd tell you to pound sand. As a programmer, he knows that's not only stupid, it's suicidal. Why was his conviction on the design side lacking by comparison? Why did he go with the knee-jerk "solution" anyway? Why not propose (or implement by fiat, because the buck stops there) a compromise solution? Change the sliding scale of increasing point costs, make it cheaper overall, but preserve the exponential increase. Going from exponential to linear isn't a small thing. It would be far easier to iterate this as well, since the established pattern should have been set by previous testing at max "difficulty," giving an upper bound.

It' s because he managed to successfully switch the ruleset of Fallout few weeks before shipping. It gave him a confidence in making such rapid changes right before shipping.

 

[Butter]

Tim Cain talks about sperm:

Again demonstrating that 10x more thought went into Fallout 1 than into any of the Bethesda titles.

 

[Roguey]

It' s because he managed to successfully switch the ruleset of Fallout few weeks before shipping. It gave him a confidence in making such rapid changes right before shipping.

Fallout's system wasn't his. That was Chris Taylor's homebrew that he created in high school, Tim's only contribution was adding Luck.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

It' s because he managed to successfully switch the ruleset of Fallout few weeks before shipping. It gave him a confidence in making such rapid changes right before shipping.

Fallout's system wasn't his. That was Chris Taylor's homebrew that he created in high school, Tim's only contribution was adding Luck.

I know that and all problems mentioned concerning doing quick changes to fundamental game mechanics near release still aplpy.

 

[Warhawk47]

The fact that it wasn't his system is the lynchpin: From the sounds of it, I don't think he'd ever designed and built his own (complicated, multi-faceted) game from the bottom up, from the mechanics and interface to the graphics and marketing fluff. His code-engine "toys" didn't seem to fit this bill. Without that experience, he never ran into the first-hand problem of changing something fundamental and breaking the rest of it. It's as if he discounted mechanics as being "easy" to produce and incidental, focusing everything on fluff content (a balance pass wasn't a priority? That's crazy!) Contrast that to myself or any other current-day dev, indie or hobbyist especially, who almost has no choice but to learn these things. Explains a lot, especially if he took "decades" to learn from the aftermath. If you really want to wax philosophical, consider why it took him that long. But that's something better left to the man himself.

 

[PapaPetro]

Are Chris and Tim on good terms?

At least Chris has given a shout out to Tim's channel on different occasions, I think he even posted the Fallout 2 video on his Linkedin page. He must hold a lot of respect for him:

Simultaneous Turns!

 

[Late Bloomer]

Overweight trust fund recipient who barely plays videos games, stumbles through his words talking about game design and gaming.

 

[Goral]

I talk about the origin of Fallout's post apocalyptic setting, trying to get as close to the actual timeline as my notes allow.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

I found the beanie guy's talk and his stumbling over the word stultifying stultifying.

 

[Geomancer86]

He keeps posting daily and I'm wondering what will happen first, will he run of topics or cool unseen shirts first?

 

[Roguey]

Another video firmly establishing that all the RPGs you like are only as good as they are due to luck and circumstance and there was never any grand genius behind them. It's amazing that there are any good RPGs at all.

 

[flyingjohn]

Another video firmly establishing that all the RPGs you like are only as good as they are due to luck and circumstance and there was never any grand genius behind them. It's amazing that there are any good RPGs at all.

 

[Harthwain]

It's amazing that there are any good RPGs at all.

I disagree. Statistically speaking you are bound to get SOME good RPGs.

 

[PapaPetro]

Are Chris and Tim on good terms?

At least Chris has given a shout out to Tim's channel on different occasions, I think he even posted the Fallout 2 video on his Linkedin page. He must hold a lot of respect for him:

Simultaneous Turns!

https://youtu.be/3dajGzCKRYw?t=2140

 

[Warhawk47]

Still strange, big surprise. The game really started with the mechanical underpinnings, finding its way from swords and shields to Fallout, but Tim's assertion prior to that is "it all starts with a setting." At least he could admit it sounds slapdash, which it does.

Another thing he seems to miss, or not hash out while discussing, is the difference between art and product. Great art rarely makes for a great product, and vice versa. Fallout 1 ended up somewhere in between. It lacked the lone visionary whose art it would have been. Collaborative art tends to fall short of what an individual can do, even when it gets awfully close, which in this case it did. The tradeoff here is that to make a product that sells, you need a team to develop it quickly enough. Some guy in his basement could just as easily have designed Fallout, but in the time it would take him to actually build it (with tools of the time) he'd likely still be at it today.

If we were all paid to exist (and it didn't involve supreme mental and physical slavery) then we could have plenty of awesome RPGs, even if they did take 5-10 years to build. There are enough people to go around. But if you want it now, in the form of a product with a price tag, you literally get what you pay for.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

I like how the team decided on the post apocalyptic setting based on ideas and motives rather than cynical calculations.

 

[Konjad]

Another video firmly establishing that all the RPGs you like are only as good as they are due to luck and circumstance and there was never any grand genius behind them. It's amazing that there are any good RPGs at all.

Troika Games, Zero Sum... I'd say both of them weren't just hitting D20, they really were good (especially Troika). It was a team effort though, no single genius behind everything.

 

[Moink]

Slightly out of the loop but has Tim said anything about his time at Carbine/WildStar? I've heard some very bad things about his management during the early development, getting his side of the story would be interesting.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Slightly out of the loop but has Tim said anything about his time at Carbine/WildStar? I've heard some very bad things about his management during the early development, getting his side of the story would be interesting.

Maaaaan, now that was a shitstorm. Wildstar had some nice things going but buggy endgame, shitty updates and non existant account security quickly killed that game.
I was shocked to find my character completly naked one morning. Fuckers sold everything for gold and destroyed quest items, accound bound unsellable objects...

 

[Moink]

Slightly out of the loop but has Tim said anything about his time at Carbine/WildStar? I've heard some very bad things about his management during the early development, getting his side of the story would be interesting.

Maaaaan, now that was a shitstorm. Wildstar had some nice things going but buggy endgame, shitty updates and non existant account security quickly killed that game.
I was shocked to find my character completly naked one morning. Fuckers sold everything for gold and destroyed quest items, accound bound unsellable objects...

He's apparently innocent of a lot of these sins because he, allegedly, fucked up so much barely any of his ~5 years of work made it into the final product;

One of the most prevalent issues with the game that I noticed was bad direction from top down. People like Tim Cain specifically made way more problems than they were worth. Honestly the guy was a total dick. Awful to work with and almost nothing he "did" ended up in the game. His lack of leadership I would say was one of the reasons why the first 4-5 years of the game were almost completely thrown out. Literally...

 

[Goral]

Arcanum and VtMB talks are the best: