Cain on Games - Tim Cain's new YouTube channel

[0sacred]

I think pacing is important but I don't necessarily agree with the idea that combat, exploration, and dialogue need to be featured in near-equal amounts at any given point. That kind of artificiality can detract from the experience.

it is a good thing within the first hour though, I agree with Tim there. You want to get a good idea of everything the game has to offer. Also, think of the journos

 

[Butter]

I wonder, is this about Thaos in Pillars of Eternity or Tyranny before they patched in the option to side with Kyros?

I assumed he was referring to Thaos.

 

[Lance Treiber]

Cain cares very little about a game's art quality compared to the other aspects, not just due to his color blindness.

I want to comment on that, hoping that Cain reads this thread, but I have to give a bit of context to convey my answer to him.

Sculpting seeks to represent the true shape of objects as they are in a different size & material, nothing special here.
Painting on the other hand seeks to transcribe 3-dimensional volumes into 2d shapes, which is not a direct transcription, but a magician's trick.
However, once the painters have learned this trick and started painting realistically, it became like a magician walking out on stage and showing the same trick over and over to the yawning audience.
Thankfully, painting doesn't only consist of shapes, but also of colors. The colors could be used in a myriad of new exciting ways, combinations that don't exist in our world, lighting that you'd never see in reality. This is the direction that painters then went to create art.
Then some people decided to do away with shapes and that ended with the idiocy like the black square, but that's another story.

Now back to video games. They convey the world, but after the introduction of the PBR shading, hasn't it become extremely boring to convey the world as it is? Visuals are a part of the whole medium, you can't ignore them.
Fallout had incredible visuals. Masterful shapes, but also happy comic book colors, combined with a grimdark worldbuilding. Contrast evokes emotion in humans, like the cheap overused orange/blue lighting. Fallout's contrast between the artstyle and the narrative made a mark on a lot of people, maybe even unconsciously. And he doesn't think visuals are important?

I think he doesn't understand what I'm talking about precisely because the only thing he can see is shapes, and as long as they're good, he's content. He's forgotten what colors can do.

 

[StrongBelwas]

Cain believes he is good at thinking about narrative design, just not implementing it.
Sources of game lore are the ones that the game drives, that the game forces on you, then there are the ones the player drives, the player wants to know more and starts digging.
Game driven is whenever the game provides lore that you didn't ask for. Biggest example is just the game world itself, you see things in the world that inform you how it is.
NPCs barks are another example, anything NPCs say without the player prompting them to. Guard worries about bandits, you know the world is dangerous and bandits are a concern.
How NPCs start conversations the player initiates can be another important source of lore. A merchant can hope he has what you have after bandits stole most of his inventory, player can either just move onto trading or can inquire about the bandits, at which point it becomes player driven. Maybe completing other quests or getting higher social skills can make the merchant more willing to talk.
Another player driven source is books/newspapers, player chooses to interact with, they give a lot of lore.
Player can also get lore just from exploring the game world and seeing how it is.
Once Arcanum players saw their actions in the newspapers, it was a big ego boost, and would prompt them to check out more newspapers. Don't underestimate the player's ego as a tool to get them to do stuff.
Can also make lore something the player can use to solve problems. Need to find a location, study the lore to find it or get a person who knows the location to tell them. If players realize lore leads to new locations, they'll explore it a lot more. Can also attach perk/skill bonuses to books.
If you attach crafting recipes to the lore books, that is another incentive for the player to dig into it. Maybe even require understanding of lore to allow the player to cast some spells. Cain gives the example of a summoning spell that by default gives you a generic demon, but if you study the lore, you can learn the name of a specific more powerful demon and summon them.
Lore adds functionality to other items. Artifacts in D&D are a good example of unlocking new abilities in items through exploration and discovering new things.
Can also just implement Lore granting XP. Can easily get players who otherwise wouldn't care about lore to dig into it.
Cain speculates about a Literacy skill for a very lore heavy game, in a game where lore did everything Cain mentions above, it could be extremely useful.

 

[0sacred]

I am now convinced that players should only get dumped with lore that pertains to you in some way. It's ok if an NPC tells you about a conflict that you're in the middle of, for example. Stories that give you a deeper understanding of the world you're in should be gathered by environmental storytelling and ingame books. Just like in real life, NPC's shouldn't care too much about affairs that don't affect them directly. Unless the NPC is literally a historian I guess, but even then they shouldn't assume you care about their stories, just like other NPC's wouldn't.

 

[Viata]

PoE taught me that every NPC is a historian.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Can also just implement Lore granting XP. Can easily get players who otherwise wouldn't care about lore to dig into it.

If you make something award XP, you're forcing a certain type of players (completionists) to do it. If they hate it, you make them do what they hate.
Imagine forcing people to read Sawyer's drivel and then test them on it. If they pass, they get XP. You think they'll thank you for it in their reviews?

How about you make lore an aside. If the player wants your lore, he'll dig in. I never needed XP incentives to read computer notes in Deus Ex, VTMB, Fallout. They were fun. In PoE, the books were almost physically painful to read.

 

[0sacred]

Can also just implement Lore granting XP. Can easily get players who otherwise wouldn't care about lore to dig into it.

If you make something award XP, you're forcing a certain type of players (completionists) to do it. If they hate it, you make them do what they hate.
Imagine forcing people to read Sawyer's drivel and then test them on it. If they pass, they get XP. You think they'll thank you for it in their reviews?

giving flat out XP for engaging in lore dumps is bad. What I think is ok is having to have an idea of the lore to succesfully navigate dialogue or even puzzles (maybe optional). It would make sense for the player to have to have some idea of the world they're in.

 

[Roguey]

Cain dismisses criticisms of lore dumping in dialogue because as far as he's concerned, it's the player's choice to click those options. Don't like it, don't ask.

In my observation, xp for reading lore entries just means that people will click on them but not actually read the words.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Cain dismisses criticisms of lore dumping in dialogue because as far as he's concerned, it's the player's choice to click those options. Don't like it, don't ask.

When dialogues are full of lore dumps, it becomes a game of sidestepping land mines. "Don't like, don't ask", he says. When you become afraid to click anything that diverges from the critical path, lest it blows up in your face, this is punitive design.

 

[Old Hans]

Tries to play normally for an hour, then stops to consider if his build feels good and is fun to play. Does it feel like how he envisioned it would play, and would the mechanics work how would they seemed like they would work, and most importantly do the mechanics make sense in the setting (For example, you make a dialogue character, and then the first hour has nobody to talk to.

sounds like tim played underrail

 

[Roguey]

sounds like tim played underrail

It's an exploration-and-combat oriented game but there are definitely people to talk to in Underrail's opening section.

 

[Infinitron]

I talk about game pitches to publishers, including what they should contain and what I used for game pitches in the past.

 

[StrongBelwas]

Cain's pitched products that got approval have always shipped, a relative rarity in the industry.
Fallout had no pitch doc, only well until the game's development was the vision document created.
First time he really had to convince a publisher was Troika with Arcanum, he and the founders made an 100+ page document. Showed it to pretty much every major publisher at the time, zero interest. Only Sierra really wanted to do it. They had 90 days to make a prototype to get approval. Prototype was a bit more developed then what Cain would describe in the past, it had people and buildings, time of day, dynamic shadows.
Approached by Atari and Activistion for ToEE and Bloodlines. All communication was verbal, no pitch or design document.
Next real pitch was WildStar, when the first design team was let go, Cain was given 90 days to come up with a new design, including classes( The original design being classless was apparently a major issue with the publisher.) Spellslinger class was an artist's ideas. Healer class was heavily changed, otherwise classes are as they ended up in the game. OG setting for Carbine was planet in the center of a multiverse with things from other dimensions bursting in. An executive pointed out that a game that could theoretically have anything doesn't really have a setting.
Sort of involved in Pillar's 'pitching', but it was unlike any other pitch they were doing. They blew past the first goal and then were making stretch goals up as they went along.
Involved in the Outer Worlds pitch, firefly meets fallout was already decided on, worked with Leonard on a pitch document involving mechanics and setting. The original plan was for Obsidian to self fund and publish, that idea didn't last 60 , possibly even 30 days. Pitch deck in powerpoint hastily constructed. No concept art so they had to just use other people's art in the same style they desired.
Showed it to 'everyone', Microsoft said no, Sony brought in a lot of people and asked really good questions, including a system designer and programmer who interrogated Cain over lunch. Sony seemed like they were going to go for it, then suddenly said no. Take Two's Private Division ended up coming in.
Pitches should have three different things if you don't have a design doc (You should have a design doc), starting with the elevator pitch.
Fallout's 1 elevator pitch would have been post apocalypse in the world the 50s would think would happen.
Should explain why the game is different and interesting, in a way that makes the publisher believe it (You already believe yourself.) You should be able to point out unusual settings and mechanics, things they have not seen before. If it's too different, they may get scared, so you have to do something like "Imagine X, but Y". Uses Arcanum as an example, heavy basis on LOTR, but introduces the industrial revolution.
Final clincher is why you should be the one to develop the game. If it's early on your career, bring up your technical expertise and how only you have what it takes to make it. If you're an old veteran, discuss your association with the game's genre and your previous game's successes.
Publishers really like powerpoint presentations. If you got to make a demo, make it pretty, publishers are not going to dig a greybox.

 

[0sacred]

Final clincher is why you should be the one to develop the game. If it's early on your career, bring up your technical expertise and how only you have what it takes to make it.

fake it till you make it

 

[Viata]

Just be a famous old dev and do a kickstarter. A lot of dumb people will give you money expecting a good game, despite it has been proved over and over that old devs are unable to make good games again.

 

[Roguey]

"Obsidian was going to self-fund it"

Yeah that was delusional.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Was just going to post that. The holiday gift game Tim proposed is amazing. Wanna play.

 

[Viata]

All those lessons, all those interesting videos, all those cool comments, yet the last game he did was a piece of shit, horrible, waste of time game. What a sad life.

 

[Gandalf]

All those lessons, all those interesting videos, all those cool comments, yet the last game he did was a piece of shit, horrible, waste of time game. What a sad life.

I think it's good that an old veteran like him is doing these talks. Have you seen any other gamedev-man being so generous? It may be inspiring for some aspiring developers. That's very cool in my book.

 

[Viata]

Have you seen any other gamedev-man being so generous

Yes, John Carmack released the code for his id games, for example. Among other old guys releasing source codes and whatnot. That is far more generous than shitposting on youtube.

 

[Gandalf]

Have you seen any other gamedev-man being so generous

Yes, John Carmack released the code for his id games, for example. Among other old guys releasing source codes and whatnot. That is far more generous than shitposting on youtube.

I'm happy to be proven wrong. It's very cool to hear that devs are sharing their codes and whatnot. I did not thought about it.

 

[Roguey]

Yes, John Carmack released the code for his id games, for example. Among other old guys releasing source codes and whatnot. That is far more generous than shitposting on youtube.

He has encouraged viewers to go bug MS/Activision and Hasbro to let him release the source codes.

 

[Viata]

MS/Activision and Hasbro

Good luck kek

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

"If playtesters find your feature useless or boring, you should throw it out".

Arcanum: