Cain on Games - Tim Cain's new YouTube channel

[Jaesun]

Just think. Whenever he's chatting away in one of his videos, there's a very good chance he has his husband's seed swimming around inside his asshole.

 

[Nano]

Just think. Whenever he's chatting away in one of his videos, there's a very good chance he has his husband's seed swimming around inside his asshole.

hot

Would be hotter if it was my seed.

 

[Roguey]

Tim laments the ability to make a character in an RPG that get brickwalled, but is this even applicable to any game made in the past decade?

 

[0sacred]

funny considering how easy it is for new players to build a shit character in Fallout or Arcanum

 

[Jaesun]

"If you are making your game and you want it to have consequences, at least let players who are paying attention understand what the consequences are for their actions."

 

[0sacred]

You don't always know what the consequences of your actions are going to be IRL.

And no I don't encourage savescumming

 

[0sacred]

a pet peeve of mine is fiddling with forgotten magic/tech in RPG's. Like, you should have no way of knowing if what you're doing is dangerous, but it always gets telegraphed in some way

 

[NecroLord]

a pet peeve of mine is fiddling with forgotten magic/tech in RPG's. Like, you should have no way of knowing if what you're doing is dangerous, but it always gets telegraphed in some way

Cursed items should be more prominent.
I am talking Stormbringer type of weapons...
Weapons that grant you strength and fortitude, but the price is they will fuck you over, bit by bit, the more you use them.

 

[Hagashager]

a pet peeve of mine is fiddling with forgotten magic/tech in RPG's. Like, you should have no way of knowing if what you're doing is dangerous, but it always gets telegraphed in some way

Context is easily recognizable. A person from rural Brazil with little to no contact with the outside world is still gonna understand that if the giant, cuboid building with billowing spires beside it starts making a *whirrrrr* noise and getting really hot he should get out of there and run as far away as possible.

 

[0sacred]

a pet peeve of mine is fiddling with forgotten magic/tech in RPG's. Like, you should have no way of knowing if what you're doing is dangerous, but it always gets telegraphed in some way

Context is easily recognizable. A person from rural Brazil with little to no contact with the outside world is still gonna understand that if the giant, cuboid building with billowing spires beside it starts making a *whirrrrr* noise and getting really hot he should get out of there and run as far away as possible.

>person who has never seen a car fucks around with car
>doesn't have a crash because context

 

[Butter]

Tim laments the ability to make a character in an RPG that get brickwalled, but is this even applicable to any game made in the past decade?

Underrail if you treat it like Fallout and assume skill points alone are going to carry you. Before that maybe Oblivion because a poorly made custom class would get steamrolled by the level scaling.

 

[Roguey]

Underrail if you treat it like Fallout and assume skill points alone are going to carry you.

Tim getting upset over a niche RPG meant for hardcore powergamers would be a bit petty.

Before that maybe Oblivion because a poorly made custom class would get steamrolled by the level scaling.

Oblivion was nearly 20 years ago, ancient history.

 

[StrongBelwas]

UX was once called UI (Still is?) and before that was simply not called anything.
Input layer/interface was just considered part of making the game in 80s, not a particular skillset.
In the 90s, became UI, was focused just on the interface and screens that the player uses when they interact with the game. Still no specific UI persons, Rags to Riches UI was made by the producer drawing on napkins/paper pads and giving them to Cain to implement.
No real thought given to how it would feel, just made as a functional thing that had to be implemented for the player to use. Was designed in consultation with the designer and grabbing whatever artist happened to be available and maaaaybe a producer.
Late 2000s, 2007/2008, Cain starts to hear the term UX, and when he starts working with dedicated UX team, wanted a Programmer, Artist and Designer on Carbine all together as a UX team that worked on the issue together. The MMO had a lot of screens that could be taking up real estate on the monitor at the same time and Cain considered it important to have them prepared.
This caused problems with Carbine, as the group gave the developers a lot of feedback that required changes, and Carbine had a culture of people sticking with their own kind (Artists with artists, programmers with programmers, etc.) , managed to get a concession on one room, not even the developers in question wanted to do it at first, but they liked it more as they worked together and found it easier to iterate on each other's feedback when they were right next to each other. Worked out well in the end, was fun to watch them work together.
UX is more then just interface, it was sounds effects, it was how long menus stayed up after being dismissed, it was the coloring of the menus, it was considering if the interface elements were easy to use/recognize and made sense.
Have to consider new players that experience the interface for the first time, when you are used to the interface after years of development.
Focus Groups for interfaces is one of the focus groups he really likes, can separate general game players from people with experience in RPGs and see who struggles with the interface.
People probably won't compliment a good interface, but will complain about a bad interface.
Made a point of giving a lot of feedback to the interface team on Outer Worlds because he knows they are generally underacknowledged .

 

[Roguey]

Cain as Villain stories


Story 1) Tim wasn't allowed to participate in Arcanum design meetings because everyone thought he dominated them and was not very diplomatic in telling people their ideas were stupid. As a result, he refused to implement the tech schematics they had come up with and someone else had to do them. Pretty petty move, sure.

Story 2) Tim told another employee that something was too complicated for Leonard to understand, and that employee tattled to Leonard. Tim refused to apologize for his honest assessment when confronted about it, so there was a tension between them for a while. Not seeing anything wrong here other than a lack of tact (recurring pattern with nerd guys).

Story 3) Sierra wanted to do a contest where fans would submit a character background that would get implemented into Arcanum. Tim had big and justifiable concerns about Quality Control and apparently this spiraled into a massive argument. They ultimately didn't do it, and I believe that was for the best. Tim did nothing wrong here.

 

[Wesp5]

Story 3) Sierra wanted to do a contest where fans would submit a character background that would get implemented into Arcanum. Tim had big and justifiable concerns about Quality Control and apparently this spiraled into a massive argument. They ultimately didn't do it, and I believe that was for the best. Tim did nothing wrong here.

I agree. And I see a huge problem here that he mentioned several times before: if any of the contest backgrounds would have looked similar to one that they created already, the contest author would probably felt ripped off.

 

[flyingjohn]

and that employee tattled to Leonard

Probably one of the few employees Tim fired "because he deserved it".

 

[scytheavatar]

Story 3) Sierra wanted to do a contest where fans would submit a character background that would get implemented into Arcanum. Tim had big and justifiable concerns about Quality Control and apparently this spiraled into a massive argument. They ultimately didn't do it, and I believe that was for the best. Tim did nothing wrong here.

I agree. And I see a huge problem here that he mentioned several times before: if any of the contest backgrounds would have looked similar to one that they created already, the contest author would probably felt ripped off.

Never forget Kyoani got petrol bomb'd because of some wacko claiming they plagiarized an idea he sent in for a contest.

 

[StrongBelwas]

Many of Cain's videos are based on things he wished more interviewers asked him.
Tim is rarely asked about the team or other people on the project.
Publishers often pick one developer to be the 'face' of the project, it's believed people respond better to games with that kind of personality.
People often ask him about characters and dialogues, and except for ToEE he was never really involved in that. Wished people more asked about the team so he could point out other's contributions.
Would like more questions about fun stories in production, often involving bugs and their fixing.
Would like to be asked more about how particular levels or features were created. Would like to be asked why they changed certain things from game to game (Tim just had a long discussion with one of his clients because they wanted to do something he only did once in a game and then did entirely different in two games and they wanted to know why.)
Prefers nitty gritty discussion to high level questions.
Tired of questions that are better suited for the publisher, such as what platform the game is coming out on and what language it supports. Just parrots stuff the publisher told him to say.
Sick of generic questions like what was the hardest part of development or what were the influences on your games. Not bad questions, but questions are so generic they can apply to any game. Some interviewers seem like they don't even want to be there and are just going off of a list.
Hard to care about an interview if the person doing the interviewing doesn't seem to care.
Very fond of the interview he did with Game Informer when Outer Worlds came out, still remembers it because of how interested the jounro in question seemed to be. Liked that the interviewer tried to bait them with the rapid fire questions video into talking about more then they were allowed to such as companions or aliens in the game, felt like he cared.
References the TK-Mantis interview very positively, thinks he may know the lore better then Cain does. Suspects some fans may have a better handle on the Fallout lore then he does because his memory can get mixed up with content they decided not to include. Liked that the questions were very specific and knowledgeable. Never spoken to him before, but they could talk like they were old friends. Cain hasn't been to downtown Seattle despite living in the suburbs for 3 years. Apparently Cain is taller then he appears to be (6'1''.)
Cain feels like he comes off as robotic when he rehearses questions, didn't want the questions ahead of time. What you see in that interview is his first reaction to them.
If you're gonna ask Cain a question for the channel, try to have it be something that requires a long form video specifically about the development.

 

[Jaesun]

Liked this video, interviewers that just do a shit job of not asking actual good questions has always just annoyed the shit out of me to (as well as Tim).

Also, for what ever reason, I didn't quite pick up that Tim lives in Seattle? Theoretically, I could one day bump into him one day.

I also just always assumed Tim was shot too... lol

 

[0sacred]

Also, for what ever reason, I didn't quite pick up that Tim lives in Seattle? Theoretically, I could one day bump into him one day.

you might even frequent the same bars

 

[mindx2]

Liked this video, interviewers that just do a shit job of not asking actual good questions has always just annoyed the shit out of me to (as well as Tim).

Also, for what ever reason, I didn't quite pick up that Tim lives in Seattle? Theoretically, I could one day bump into him one day.

I also just always assumed Tim was shot too... lol

But.. but he didn't mention my Pillars of Eternity interview at PAX East?!! I scooped that it was to have two expansions and that Tim owned the ToEE code!! So soon forgotten to time's past...

 

[talan]

Story 1) Tim wasn't allowed to participate in Arcanum design meetings because everyone thought he dominated them and was not very diplomatic in telling people their ideas were stupid. As a result, he refused to implement the tech schematics they had come up with and someone else had to do them. Pretty petty move, sure.

His refusal to do the coding is understandable.
They didn't want him involved in the tech schematics design, so he didn't get involved.
The design is done, it's just a lot of grunt work now, let them get a programmer do it.
And if the feature didn't go well, they could argue that he sabotaged it with his implementation.
On the team's side, it gives them independence and a nice challenge without a "Uncle Tim" safety net to rely on.
Being completely hands-off in this scenario is a good move.

 

[Roguey]

His refusal to do the coding is understandable.
They didn't want him involved in the tech schematics design, so he didn't get involved.
The design is done, it's just a lot of grunt work now, let them get a programmer do it.
And if the feature didn't go well, they could argue that he sabotaged it with his implementation.
On the team's side, it gives them independence and a nice challenge without a "Uncle Tim" safety net to rely on.
Being completely hands-off in this scenario is a good move.

It strikes me as very feminine behavior e.g. https://academic.oup.com/ej/article-abstract/130/627/716/5715606?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false

We study the effect of likeability on women’s and men’s team behaviour in a lab experiment. Extending a two-player public goods game and a minimum effort game by an additional pre-play stage that informs team members about their mutual likeability, we find that female teams lower their contribution to the public good in the event of low likeability, while male teams achieve high levels of co-operation irrespective of the level of mutual likeability. In mixed-sex teams, both women’s and men’s contributions depend on mutual likeability. Similar results are found in the minimum effort game. Our results offer a new perspective on gender differences in labour market outcomes: mutual dislikeability impedes team behaviour, except in all-male teams.

Fallout team worked well together because it was all guys, with Sharon Shellman off doing art in the corner. Arcanum made the mistake of going for that flat organization with no roles, so people resented it when Tim acted like a lead designer anyway, and Shellman having a greater role on the team with the additions of Sissie Chang, Tiffany Chu, and Cynthia Komm possibly contributed to this breakdown.

 

[StrongBelwas]

A loot table is a list of items that can be placed on a creature when it's spawned/kill (Cain prefers to do it when they spawn because his games involve pickpocketing, generally games have it so the loot just spawns when the creature dies)
Several ways to handle loot tables:
* List of items, pick a select amount of them at random, that's what appears on the creature.
* Every item has a probability assigned to it, roll for each item down the list, if they roll for it, they get it.
*Combination, select amount of items, each has probability.
Cain's personal favorite way is to have an intersection between player level and item type that has the list have the best gear for a given level be from that given source (i.e the best helmet for level 50 players is found on a quest, the best leggings at level 30 are found in crafting)
If the level ranges get too high, it could be a long time until the players find a loot source, if the ranges are too narrow, player keeps jumping through new sources.
More loot types then sources will cause either some types will always overlap sources or you can decide one source should never have the best equipment (i.e crafting)
Different sources for ideal gear can help you with a multiple class setup where different characters go for different ways to get loot.

 

[NecroLord]

A loot table is a list of items that can be placed on a creature when it's spawned/kill (Cain prefers to do it when they spawn because his games involve pickpocketing, generally games have it so the loot just spawns when the creature dies)
Several ways to handle loot tables:
* List of items, pick a select amount of them at random, that's what appears on the creature.
* Every item has a probability assigned to it, roll for each item down the list, if they roll for it, they get it.
*Combination, select amount of items, each has probability.
Cain's personal favorite way is to have an intersection between player level and item type that has the list have the best gear for a given level be from that given source (i.e the best helmet for level 50 players is found on a quest, the best leggings at level 30 are found in crafting)
If the level ranges get too high, it could be a long time until the players find a loot source, if the ranges are too narrow, player keeps jumping through new sources.
More loot types then sources will cause either some types will always overlap sources or you can decide one source should never have the best equipment (i.e crafting)
Different sources for ideal gear can help you with a multiple class setup where different characters go for different ways to get loot.

This explains why Power Armor, for example, is found only in a certain location in Fallout and it involves a quest. In Fallout 2, only one set of the godly Advanced Power Armor can be found in the game, and it is in Navarro. Several sets of the inferior T-51b Power Armor are found in Fallout 2, even for sale for enormous amounts of money in San Francisco.
Glad to see Tim is not into random loot...