Cain on Games - Tim Cain's new YouTube channel

[Infinitron]

I talk about the process of taking a feature from an idea to a shipped implementation.

 

[Harthwain]

If your open world is procedurally (read: randomly) generated, it acts as a filler. Do you really need padding and fillers in your RPGs? Look at the Starfield.

You can use procedural generation in a smart way. For example: make locations swap places each time you start a new run (and have more than X, so you can always find fresh encounters, instead of making it one-playthrough deal). It is also possible to generate contents of bioms (or rooms), without changing the general layout of the map. So you are still encouraged to explore, just can't rely on memory to know exactly what you will find where.

 

[Tyranicon]

At some point devs are going to realize that AI will do procgen way better than they ever could. And five minutes later, their bosses will realize that they don't need human devs anymore.

 

[Grauken]

At some point devs are going to realize that AI will do procgen way better than they ever could. And five minutes later, their bosses will realize that they don't need human devs anymore.

Thankfully only a couple of years later Skynet will kill those bosses

 

[deama]

At some point devs are going to realize that AI will do procgen way better than they ever could. And five minutes later, their bosses will realize that they don't need human devs anymore.

We're almost there! I can't wait!

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

I don’t even know how this can be marked as decline.

Having an open world is better than not having it. Granted, exploring Arcanum/Fallout world via map is not the same as doing it in first-person, but still.

If your open world is procedurally (read: randomly) generated, it acts as a filler. Do you really need padding and fillers in your RPGs? Look at the Starfield.

And, just subjectively, I never really liked or used the interconnected Arcanum map, using the travel map just like in Fallout.

Focus > size.

Arcanum is exactly why being pissy about it is stupid. In Arcanum it’s there, but it can also be completely ignored and you can use the map to travel just like in Fallout. Tim wants to do a better version of the procedurally generated open world map from Arcanum. Being like “oh, decline” on something you’d never have to engage with if you don’t want to is just stupid. Even if it wasn’t something you ever wanted to fuck around with, it could still theoretically give you more varied locations for random encounters.

Personally, I don’t think it’s need. Although I do like the part about “Ruins” acting as dungeons that you can come across like random encounters. But it seems like something Tim Cain is interested in trying again, and wants to make better than the version in Arcanum. Kind of just seems win win to me. If he was able to make a Fallout remake, and he did it, and it turned out good; that could be interesting. If he did it and it just kind of turned out to be something you wanted to skip for whatever reason, you’d be able to just skip it like in Arcanum and travel like original Fallout always let you travel anyways.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

With open world maps, learning all the intricacies of the map and finding ways to exploit them is half the fun in repeated runs.

 

[Infinitron]

I talk about game development skills I failed to hone, even after many decades.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Yeah, didn't have the skills to make geometric shapes into skills.

 

[Nano]

His smile is so adorable. I hope Robert tells him that.

 

[Roguey]

Tim admits he's bad at scope control (at least until The Outer Worlds), balancing, writing dialogue, and contract negotiation, no surprises there. He also mentions things he's good at but hates doing: HR and accounting.

 

[0sacred]

Tim says he put any idea anybody had into Arcanum. It speaks to Troika's gathered talent that Arcanum still ended up as great as it did, apparently there weren't many stupid ideas put forth. Still would have been a better game without feature creep, of course.

 

[Bohrain]

Their designers were good enough that there weren't really any bad ideas. Now Obsidian has geniuses who want to get rid of weapon degradation and ammo. Should've just reduced the scope of Arcanum enough for a balancing and revision, tech playthrough is such a chore compared to magic one.

 

[__scribbles__]

I talk about my thoughts on how games can use both procedural and handmade content, based on how I have used it in my past games and how I have wanted to use it in those games.

 

[Roguey]

Tim Cain is Reading my Posts: the video. My dislike of procedural content has been frequently reinforced in this thread.

"I do not like the word bespoke." Nice.

He wanted benign encounters in Arcanum like they had in Fallout but couldn't get it to happen.

He wants procedural content in his games to enhance replayability. I find this kind of content hardly interesting the first time around.

He likes new kinds of creatures spawning in cleared out areas to simulate a living breathing world, but to me this feels gamey.

Finally, his ideal is that RPGs should be forever-playable. Radiant quests forever. Though he acknowledges that procedural content is not quite there yet in making this content truly compelling.

 

[Bohrain]

He seems strangely ignorant about games that actually rely mostly on procedurally generated content, like roguelikes. He just speculates that a Bethesda game would be infinitely replayable if it had procedurally generated NPC's, dungeons and factions. It's like he has never experienced how stale that kind of shit gets after you see a few permutations.

 

[Bulo]

Tim ought to play Kenshi

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

I prefer a shorter game with a handcrafted content rather than a game with a 1000s of bland and samely quests. Even some handmade games can be too long for their own good, there is no need to add some subquality content to the mix. The only way procgen can improve the gaming experience is when it enhances the simulationist aspects, like mentioned in the video factions wars.

 

[Infinitron]

Oh boy:

I talk about the development of Pillars of Eternity at Obsidian.

 

[Roguey]

Tim did the first pass on ciphers, monks, crafting, and strongholds.

The stronghold was originally less abstract and included procedurally generated dungeons (here we go again) your companions would run through to complete quests.

He also wanted to include player-generated companions you could level up through procedurally generated dungeons. Starting to get the idea that he's obsessed with putting procedurally generated content in RPGs.

He wanted to add a bunch of annoying Watcher-oriented animations to skills (like a ghost springing a ghost trap, a ghost opening a secret door instead of those things just popping up as colors when detected). Like Fallout but worse. Felt so strongly about this that he advocated for it once more after it was rejected the first time.

They moved him to Tyranny immediately after Pillars shipped. Lotta work to be done.

 

[Redshirt #42]

So in Pillars of Eternity, you really do cast "fist" huh.

 

[Late Bloomer]

Made me want to play Pillars again.

 

[0sacred]

More abilities for the Watcher would have been great, I was always hate when single character games make your character just like one of the companions. It was great in e.g. Fallout that your PC was way more capable than any companion.

 

[Bohrain]

They should've either ditched the cipher class or made the protagonist special with some other way than the watcher stuff.

 

[Infinitron]

I talk about the development of Tyranny at Obsidian.