Cain on Games - Tim Cain's new YouTube channel

[Vyvian]

The wild success of Baldur's Gate 3 and Starfield show that most people don't care.

Disagree. Those games were too big to fail. But I also think people tolerate woke shit if a game is actually good. BG3 is an example of that. Love it or hate it, it's a well made game. Starfield on the other hand got dragged for its woke nonsense and that's because there wasn't anything good to focus on. People were very vocal about their dislike for pronouns, male strippers, frankenstein NPCs, etc.

What BG3 had that Starfield didn't was a more deft hand in handling its "woke" nonsense. It also had plenty of sex appeal and characters that are pleasing to the eye so it offset some of the more egregious examples of it in that game.
Larian also didn't beat you over the head with it like a cudgel. Most of it is in the background and barely noticeable.

Bethesda on the other hand just put it all out there not even trying to make it feel natural. People can ignore "wokeness" when it's handled with care, but when it's blatantly in your face at every turn it becomes insulting and off putting.

 

[0sacred]

Do you agree, Codex?

I talk about why this is such a great time to be a game player.

Tim: it's a great time to be a game player, nay-sayers lack self-reflection

 

[911 Jumper]

I'm not surprised a guy who loved Fallout 3 & 4 thinks it's a great time to be a gamer. In fact, most western devs seem to have terminal shit taste in gaming. It hits like a truck the realization that all the classics we had happened because of luck/limitations/lack of "codified" gaming design practices (in other words, experimentation). It's so over, man.

^ She's right you know (not simping)

 

[easychord]

I think he might have a point, that a lot of internet discussion these days isn't really discussion, but people trying to loudly talk over each other. I've always been sarcastic and snarky, however, because the world is just too annoying, and it is impossible to earnestly explain everything to people who just don't care. The secret about writing "bad" characters who have an attitude of superiority or "snark" isn't such a secret. They also just have to be more charismatic and charming than the regular characters, even though in real life, people who come on like this are normally just boring or depressing to deal with. The best actors get to play the villain.

 

[Silverfish]

Tim seems like an extremely nice guy. No surprise he's not cut out for message board culture.

 

[Pyrite Pachyderm]

Tim seems like an extremely nice guy. No surprise he's not cut out for message board culture.

Extremely passive-aggressive, considering the snippets he's told about newer hires talking back to him or Boyarsky.

 

[NecroLord]

The wild success of Baldur's Gate 3 and Starfield show that most people don't care.

Disagree. Those games were too big to fail. But I also think people tolerate woke shit if a game is actually good. BG3 is an example of that. Love it or hate it, it's a well made game. Starfield on the other hand got dragged for its woke nonsense and that's because there wasn't anything good to focus on. People were very vocal about their dislike for pronouns, male strippers, frankenstein NPCs, etc.

What BG3 had that Starfield didn't was a more deft hand in handling its "woke" nonsense. It also had plenty of sex appeal and characters that are pleasing to the eye so it offset some of the more egregious examples of it in that game.
Larian also didn't beat you over the head with it like a cudgel. Most of it is in the background and barely noticeable.

Bethesda on the other hand just put it all out there not even trying to make it feel natural. People can ignore "wokeness" when it's handled with care, but when it's blatantly in your face at every turn it becomes insulting and off putting.

There was woke shit, let's not beat around the bush.
However, it was more of a "lolrandom" type than the egregious Nigger Space Colonization in Starfield, among other degenerate shit.
Good thing you can kill Astarion and send his ass to the Lower Planes where he belongs.
Shadowheart is alright... holy shit, a relatively normal female in modern gaming? Sheeit.

 

[__scribbles__]

I talk about the stages I go through in writing code for a new game.

 

[Infinitron]

I talk about what board games I like playing, what features I like to see in my board games, and my list of Top 5 board games.

 

[Infinitron]

I talk about Arcanum's press event "Editors Day", held in April 2000 in Los Angeles.

 

[Roguey]

Tim has a mysterious Arcanum disc but he has no idea what's on it because he doesn't own an optical media drive anymore.

 

[0sacred]

I talk about what board games I like playing, what features I like to see in my board games, and my list of Top 5 board games.

Tim off-handedly burying our hopes for not-Arcanum not-2 ever deeper, saying he doesn't have the patience to create a game anymore

 

[NecroLord]

I talk about what board games I like playing, what features I like to see in my board games, and my list of Top 5 board games.

Tim off-handedly burying our hopes for not-Arcanum not-2 ever deeper, saying he doesn't have the patience to create a game anymore

Arcanum: World War 1 edition...

Imagine that:
Arcanum was Victorian Era Industrial Revolution.
Arcanum 2: World War with Technology and Magick going crazy, Caladonian mage getting cut down by Tarantian Machine gunner.
Eh, just some ideas...

 

[mindx2]

Tim has a mysterious Arcanum disc but he has no idea what's on it because he doesn't own an optical media drive anymore.

He can always send it to me (along with any other Arcanum goodies) and I'll let him know...

 

[Infinitron]

I talk about the experiences I had with tabletop RPGs that showed up later in my own computer RPGs, specifically in Fallout, Arcanum, and The Temple Of Elemental Evil.

 

[NecroLord]

Party Alignment in TOEE makes a lot of sense.
Having a LG goody two shoes Paladin and a CE murderhobo in the same party just doesn't make sense unless you try to RP the hell out of it.

 

[The Wall]

You see, people who like to call you bad names like to play Evil characters but wanna feel good and be called good. Good thing that Tim isn't at all infested with this brain virus. You can see it from his perfectly normal smile. 100% normal

He literally could sit down, in his spare time, write story and Engine for Not-Arcanum 2. In 1997 it took him year+. With modern tools, shouldn't take much longer. But he's oh so old, oh so tired and WOKE worm inside his brain demands regular propaganda feeding. No time for c0d1ng. He's being c0ded

 

[Sigourn]

this year was the first time i have ever been paid a performance bonus. it wasn't very big

Last year was the first time I had ever been paid a performance bonus. It was bigger than my salary. A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.

 

[Roguey]

Another video on making videos



"If I fired you myself, you deserved it"

 

[Infinitron]

I read through my lecture notes from a class I taught on game development at the University of California Irvine in 1999.

 

[NecroLord]

I read through my lecture notes from a class I taught on game development at the University of California Irvine in 1999.

That thumbnail...

 

[Roguey]

Tim says that back in the 90s the expected development time for a game was 18 months which I'm sure was true for many genres but not all. Fallout, Baldur's Gate, and Deus Ex all took around three years.

 

[Butter]

Tim says that back in the 90s the expected development time for a game was 18 months which I'm sure was true for many genres but not all. Fallout, Baldur's Gate, and Deus Ex all took around three years.

Which is still extremely fast by modern standards, and those games had smaller teams, and they were better games.

 

[NecroLord]

and they were better games.

Not just better games, but works of creativity made by devoted nerds.

 

[Bad Sector]

Fallout, Baldur's Gate, and Deus Ex all took around three years.

I'm pretty sure those were outliers (though by the time Deus Ex came out game development time was already increasing). Daggerfall and Diablo seem to have taken around two years and these were kinda hard hitters, System Shock seems to have taken somewhere between a year and 18 months and i'd expect smaller games to take less time (like Bethesda's own Battlespire which took 1 year). And another thing to keep in mind is that back in the 90s developers sometimes worked in multiple projects at the same time which slowed the progress of each individual title (e.g. Battlespire was made at the same time as Redguard and System Shock at the same time as Terra Nova).

I think up to mid-90s a year was about the maximum you'd expect for most games, which is why games that took longer kinda stood out (and not always in the best way, see Stonekeep which apparently started development in the late 80s).