Cain on Games - Tim Cain's new YouTube channel

[Goral]

Tim Cain's comment under most recent video:

If you are asking if this particular channel will help my future games, then I don't think so, since I am not planning on having any future games. I am doing some design consulting as I slide slowly into retirement, but a pure "Tim Cain" is not on the radar.

Maybe that's a good thing.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Around 55 minute he talks about how Brian Fargo fired an expert IT guy for demonstrating how badly secured net they have at Interplay.

I want more of this MeToo stuff now. Fargo sounds like a hilarious asshole. I thought Cain's stolen bonus was a one time misstep, but it looks more like a tip of the iceberg now.

 

[I ASK INANE QUESTIONS]

Damn.
Tim is fucking cranking out videos like crazy.
Once he runs out of topics to discuss about, what will he do? Twitch streams?

Most likely whole lot of nothing. He mentions in his video about the notes that record-keeping has been an ingrained habit, those notes are a part of him at this point - that's how he remembers so much, they go back decades.
He's simply converting his notes into a publicly accessible format, so that they exist on the Internet in one form or another - no different than that time when he digitized all of his notebooks.

A bit macabre, to be honest, considering how important they're to him. Feels like watching somebody at the sunset of his career chiseling his own headstone. Very Churchill-like, if you will.

On the other hand he says everyone was also on the same page on The Outer Worlds.

Also, everything is couched in terms of the team rather than the designer's vision, yet FO1's team was mostly working independently, and their unity of vision was evidently a fluke.

I don't think there's an inherent contradiction here. There was a unity of vision, it just wasn't centralized, and nobody questioned it because it was the status quo.

If you listen to the video where he list his inspirations for Fallout's setting, he rattles them off one by one, going from the memory(and notes, of course) - there's Canticle for Leibowitz, he was watching Mad Max 2 on repeat with Boyarski, he was GM'ing GURPS for his friends at the time so on and so forth. And every item on his list of inspirations, be they incredibly specific things Tim grew up with, or the IPs with broader appeal he picked up in his early adulthood was also on every nerd's radar at the time. See, when he mentions Zelazny now, he's name dropping a classic, but Zelazny was still alive and very popular in early 90s - a household name for fantasy fans. Ditto for the other sources of inspiration he brings up.

So of course Tim knows every single brick that went into the foundation of Fallout is because it was informed by the media he grew up with, his zeitgeist, if you will - and at the time his team was staffed by people immersed in the same cultural context, people just like him. These people understood each other, understood what they were building, and they've had the common building blocks. All that remained was putting them together. And even when somebody strayed from the vision, he was course corrected using the same common language. There was a unity of vision - but it was also completely accidental, a byproduct of being a specific person at a specific time.

This also explains the Outer Worlds. Tim's approach typifies the designers of the era - a lot of notable figures from the 90s regurgitated at least as much as they designed, and for a while all was well - until, as the decades went by and the 2010s were in full swing, there was no more Good Old Content. As the media around them changed and they were slowly deprived of viable sources of inspiration, they were left with suboptimal material - uninspired, predictable. Secondary. They now had to make tertiary content based on secondary content. So what could they do with it? Outer Worlds. They made Outer Worlds.

This is a cautionary tale for designers and writers. If you want to make something interesting, you need to curate your references very carefully, you can't just rely on popular culture, you need education and familiarity with the subject. You create what you know. If the media you're immersed in is trash, you will only increase the garbage pile.

 

[Harthwain]

A bit macabre, to be honest, considering how important they're to them. Feels like watching somebody at the sunset of his career chiseling his own headstone. Very Churchill-like, if you will.

I would rather say he's leaving a legacy behind. He's going to die anyway - like anyone - so might as well share what he can with people who are interested in what he has to say about it.

 

[deama]

This is a cautionary tale for designers and writers. If you want to make something interesting, you need to curate your references very carefully, you can't just rely on popular culture, you need education and familiarity. You create what you know, and if the media you know is trash, you will only increase the garbage pile.

Not just that, but also finding the people that share -or are at least willing to share- the same/similar references to make the game out of.

 

[Roguey]

Everything Scott Campbell says shows he's one of those seagull designers who wouldn't have a clue how to actually implement all his crazy ideas. His stories about what a clown Fargo was are great though. Additionally it's personally amusing how he refers to the Burger Becky of the past as Bill. Unable/unwilling to retcon his memories.

As the media around them changed and they were slowly deprived of viable sources of inspiration, they were left with suboptimal material - uninspired, predictable, secondary. They now had to make tertiary content based on secondary content. So what could they do with it? Outer Worlds. They made Outer Worlds.

Attempts to curate taste were made https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...-a-corporate-space-colony.130421/post-7119849

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Attempts to curate taste were made https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...-a-corporate-space-colony.130421/post-7119849

Ah. Outer World's sources of inspiration:
- Wes Anderson: the pretty candy box aesthetic, decorative, nostalgic, striking compositions, gorgeous colors and formalism, all of it used to present death as a joke or gloat over small cruelties candy coated into casual nastiness - it's a power, but not used for good. I doubt 99% of the Obsidian staff could understand anything of Anderson. They could take the pink colors and mid century moustaches and put them into the game, which seems to have happened.
- Deadwood: moldy and clueless serial designed for doddering denizens of old folks' homes.
- Simpsons
- Firefly: cheese that caught up a cult following among god knows whom
- and True Grit: an American Gothic, post-modernist prank which will fly over Obsidian staff just like Wes Anderson. The only thing they'd likely take away from it is how to turn serious material into children's adventure tale.

With these references, some of which are empty of meaning entirely, others hiding the meaning so deep it would be lost on Obsidian staff, what did you expect to make?

With such an amorphous mix, the only thing you can make is Rick and Morty, which is exactly what happened. They took what was on the surface and ran with it. This is such a perfect explanation, it makes you go "how didn't I think of it before?"

 

[Zeriel]

His story reminds me of what Sawyer described as the wrong way to make an RPG (which I still agree with)

Basically I think that most designers are overly concerned with what's come before when they sit down to write CRPG mechanics. When looking at mechanics that typically go into CRPGs, it's pretty hard to reverse-engineer a plan of intent. The conclusion I'm usually left with is that they wanted the system to "look like an RPG" on a UI screen. They have classes and stats and skills and skill/talent trees and a ton of derived stats when probably not all of that is necessary.

I believe that game designers, whether working in the RPG genre or otherwise, should establish what they want the player to be doing within the world. That is, they must ask themselves what they want the core activities of the player to be. Within those activities, the designer can find ways to allow growth over time in a variety of ways. How they want that growth to occur and what sort of choices they want to force the player to make -- that's what should drive the design of the advancement/RPG system.

Instead it usually seems like most designers sit down and say, "Well what are the ability scores going to be?"

He also talks about how he still believes in the Shapes but admits he just wasn't good enough to make it work.

It's hard to take Sawyer's criticisms seriously because he's even worse (by a large margin) at making RPGs, so... it's like someone who always burns their instant noodles critiquing a successful chef. Well, okay, maybe you are better at critiquing than doing, but it's hard to say and I'm inclined to just think the guy is retarded and autistic instead.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

I don't watch Tim's videos (or any game developer's YT videos unless they're completely loose cannons then it becomes an entertainment thing rather than something informative) regularly but I did catch the one on his resignation offered to Brian Fargo at Interplay. Tim's dramatic pauses and long, stern, silent stares into the camera as he invites his audience to share his sense of outrage is a total hoot. Usually you see this thing in women but I wouldn't have Tim any way other than the gay way because it can make for funny, entertaining, and, yes, informative videos. Most game developers drone in their videos.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Microsoft will farm out the next Fallout game to a different studio if this happens.

Yes, it will be quite interesting to see the Fallout franchise return to its original creator, Brian Fargo.

 

[Goral]

Everything Scott Campbell says shows he's one of those seagull designers who wouldn't have a clue how to actually implement all his crazy ideas.

Same goes for Chris Avellone.

I tell the story of how, after leaving Interplay in early 1998, I was offered a job at Electronic Arts to make Wasteland 2.

Edit:
According to (((EA))) Interplay was ungrateful (lol) and they were stringing them along even though they've had no intention of lending them Wasteland license.

 

[Roguey]

Most of the core Fallout team never finished Wasteland. Looks like I'm more hardcore than they were (I did use Per's guide which didn't exist until 2003 though).

EA found Tim by having a secretary call every single Tim Cain in the phone book asking if they were the one who made Fallout.

Everything worked for the best. Cain got to make his three Troika games, Fargo finally got his Wasteland back.

 

[Butter]

Apparently everyone in the industry is a passive-aggressive little shit.

 

[Roguey]

Apparently everyone in the industry is a passive-aggressive little shit.

That is the SoCal way. EA's also been a hotbed of homosexuality for a long time.

 

[likash]

The part with the EA guy fucking around with Interplay for months comes as of no surprise for me. EA has always been a scummy company led by scumbags. They most likely wanted to hire Cain to do Wasteland 2 just to spite Fargo. Good thing Tim said no. He once again showed that he is a honorable dude.

Fargo seems to have been quite a cocky hot head in his youth compared to the his older version who seems ultra chill and much more fit to lead a company. Fring that guy for pointing out a serious problem sounds very idiotic. Like with Tim's bonus he stuff he just liked to lose valuable people just to satisfy his ego.

 

[NecroLord]

Apparently everyone in the industry is a passive-aggressive little shit.

And a pretentious cunt.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

Most of the core Fallout team never finished Wasteland. Looks like I'm more hardcore than they were (I did use Per's guide which didn't exist until 2003 though).

EA found Tim by having a secretary call every single Tim Cain in the phone book asking if they were the one who made Fallout.

Everything worked for the best. Cain got to make his three Troika games, Fargo finally got his Wasteland back.

Fallout's are casual games.

Apparently everyone in the industry is a passive-aggressive little shit.

And a pretentious cunt.

One word - gay.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

Edit 3:
Around 55 minute he talks about how Brian Fargo fired an expert IT guy for demonstrating how badly secured net they have at Interplay.

And not just any IT guy. It was none other than Burger Bill himself! Fascinating BTS stuff I never knew. Burger Becky is one of the few other classic game coders I can listen to for more than five minutes. Scott Campbell in the Tim chat had a LOT of nice things to say about Bill/Becky. Aside from sycophant interviewers, I'm not used to hearing that... at all. That Bill was the shit among his peers. All I remember is that chapter in Masters of Doom recounting how Bill came down to the Id offices for a visit one day and Romero, Carmack and the gang all basically scourged Bill's ass snapping a wet towel until he fled the office. Metaphorically speaking, of course (or maybe not so metaphorically speaking... you never know with these kinky coders).

 

[Goral]

I talk about how critical hits and misses work in Fallout.

Edit:
Tim Cain has turned off all criticals (successes and failures) during first play day / first location (caves outside Vault and in random encounters before visiting first city) because people in QA were pissed when they would start a game and get critical failure.

That's why in Colony Ship RPG we can choose either 1) true random - where rolling 1 a hundred times in a row is possible / 2) Lightly adjusted - the card deck method where numbers are drawn like cards from a deck, meaning you can't draw the same number twice until deck is reshuffled / 3) Heavily adjusted - where the number of consecutive misses in a row is based on THC (to hit chance) but it of course applies to enemies too.

 

[NecroLord]

I talk about how critical hits and misses work in Fallout.

Edit:
Tim Cain has turned off all criticals (successes and failures) during first play day / first location (caves outside Vault and in random encounters before visiting first city) because people in QA were pissed when they would start a game and get critical failure.

That's why in Colony Ship RPG we can choose either 1) true random - where rolling 1 a hundred times in a row is possible / 2) Lightly adjusted - the card deck method where numbers are drawn like cards from a deck, meaning you can't draw the same number twice until deck is reshuffled / 3) Heavily adjusted - where the number of consecutive misses in a row is based on THC (to hit chance) but it of course applies to enemies too.

I heard Fallout (including Fallout 2) is really wild when played with the "Jinxed" trait...
Never tried a Jinxed build myself.

 

[Roguey]

I recall now experimenting with a crit-maxer in Fallout and being surprised that it wasn't really working against those cave rats. Have to do an in-game day's worth of travel before experiencing the benefits of that build.

Tim should explain what they were thinking with the lousy stealth and stealing of Fallout and Arcanum.

 

[fuzz]

Power Fist or Super Sledge with Jinxed is really fun.
With Sledge you can hit others so hard that they start a zero-G flight. They'll float for half a screen or till they hit an obstacle.

 

[Modron]

Power Fist or Super Sledge with Jinxed is really fun.
With Sledge you can hit others so hard that they start a zero-G flight. They'll float for half a screen or till they hit an obstacle.

The novelty wears off pretty fast and makes you wish you picked Bloody Mess. The opposite of the Plasma Rifle I suppose.

 

[PapaPetro]

I talk about how critical hits and misses work in Fallout.

Edit:
Tim Cain has turned off all criticals (successes and failures) during first play day / first location (caves outside Vault and in random encounters before visiting first city) because people in QA were pissed when they would start a game and get critical failure.

That's why in Colony Ship RPG we can choose either 1) true random - where rolling 1 a hundred times in a row is possible / 2) Lightly adjusted - the card deck method where numbers are drawn like cards from a deck, meaning you can't draw the same number twice until deck is reshuffled / 3) Heavily adjusted - where the number of consecutive misses in a row is based on THC (to hit chance) but it of course applies to enemies too.

Why not just unlock criticals globally (or locally just against the players) later after the players have levelled up to the point where they won't get oneshotted while they are vulnerable/extra-squishy?

 

[CryptRat]

What I remember from choosing Jinxed is one of the first rats breaking its leg when attacking me.