Cain on Games - Tim Cain's new YouTube channel

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

What about playing this game do you think he'd see something from and be able to say to others "try what they're trying here?" I haven't played it and genuinely want to know the answer.

Because the game has one of the best enemy encounters in crpg, if not the best.

Why do you word it like he's stuck up and would refuse to consider playing these games?

Because he literally prefer to name Half-Life 2, a game that is not even a rpg, instead of any other game that is not triple A.

Did you even watch the video? He does make note that Half-Life 2 is in fact not a RPG. It’s also not even technically part of the list, and he’s only bring it up in relation to something specific he wants to illustrate that the game does.

Some of you guys getting pissy about something you didn’t even see, and outside of the context it’s being presented in is just fucking weird. It’s like you woke up or were going to bed trying to be mad about something. Congratulation, you’ve fake outraged about something that didn’t happen. The video isn’t even putting forward that these are the five best RPGs or whatever. The video is about five game (actually more) he believes do some specific thing well, and that he thinks could be used as examples for other people trying to do the specific thing he’s talking about.

 

[Wesp5]

There's no need to speculate when he lists his reasons.

The second runner up was Half-Life 2. It's not an RPG, it's a shooter, but wow it's a shooter with everything else. It's got story, it's got characters, it's got puzzles, it had vehicles you can actually drive around and gameplay based on physics and it's just it is a super super fun game and sometimes I look back at it and go "Did that really come out like 20 years ago?"

Wouldn't this not all be true for e.g. Halo?

 

[Viata]

Did you even watch the video?

Yes, that is why I said he mentioned it at the end of the video which is true, if you watch the video. Doesn't matter if he says it's not an RPG, there is no reason to namedrop it in a "top five modern rpg masterclass" as you can easily find many other games from many other genres that also did something great, it is still not a RPG. But go on defending your hero.

 

[StrongBelwas]

I talk about how I structure my code, using inventory as an example, since it is a common component of most (if not all) roleplaying games.

Likes to keep system mechanics separate from UI no matter what he is doing.
Inventory has no idea how it's being displayed on a screen, if you make it care, you will make the code too complicated.
Inventory should have a list of items. You want add item, remove item, they have to always work. They shouldn't have error codes, they should have associated functions can remove/can't remove.
Wants inventory to know about equipment slots, and equip/unequip have equivalent have equip/can't unequip.
Keep mechanics as clean as possible, hence keeping UI out of it.
Individual items may contain UI data.
Inventory component, now that it is complete, can be added to containers. You do this separately from the container because some containers me be locked, which is not relevant to the inventory system itself. Creatures can also have the inventory component. You may want merchants to have a separate inventory component for their shop vs. what they are carrying.
Now you're on UI, another reason to keep them separate is because another person is probably handling UI programming.
UI has to focus on other can add conditions
UI knows about mechanics, mechanics don't know about UI. You don't want the system constantly calling on every inventory interaction to check for stuff like encumbrance limits. Cain prefers using events. Events also let you decide who sees it in what order without cluttering up the mechanics layer. Also makes it easier to bugfix odd scenarios like the player being given an item that would go over their limit during dialogue.

Wouldn't this not all be true for e.g. Halo?

Halo has the combat/narrative/vehicle sections, but I don't recall any puzzles at least in CE/2 and not close to the same level of physics interaction. But it wouldn't shock me if Cain hasn't played it or didn't play it until relatively recently.

 

[Viata]

I talk about how I structure my code, using inventory as an example, since it is a common component of most (if not all) roleplaying games.

Good video. Then again, maybe I'm part of the very few people that are more interested in this part, as he said those kind of videos hardly has people watching despite being quite asked for.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Likes to keep system mechanics separate from UI no matter what he is doing.

Things you learn in gamedev after 2 years. Or things you learn in mobile on your first day.

Inventory has no idea how it's being displayed on a screen, if you make it care, you will make the code too complicated.
Inventory should have a list of items. You want add item, remove item, they have to always work. They shouldn't have error codes, they should have associated functions can remove/can't remove.
Wants inventory to know about equipment slots, and equip/unequip have equivalent have equip/can't unequip.

There should be an abstract class Storage, of which Inventory, Equipment, Lootbag and whatever else is an implementation.
Storage has virtual methods, the implementations override these methods.
To move items between those, you can have a Broker class. It'll rely on these virtual methods alone.

Of course the UI watches for changes. The widgets don't need to know anything about the storage class itself.
Instead, the storages emit objects of class UpdateOperation, which the UI knows about, and which is also abstract of the Storage implementation.

This way, everything is decoupled.

Inventory component, now that it is complete, can be added to containers.

Except you don't always want containers to act like inventory. E.g. the inventory may be a map, an in-game container may be an array.
Same applies to merchants, creature inventory, etc.

Anyway,.. is there a more boring subject?

Who needs this? People who know how to code already know it. People who don't, don't need this.

Also, this is the tip of the iceberg. When you start making usable items in Unreal or create generic properties to hang onto items, like "equippable" with an exposed equip-slot parameter, that's where the good stuff begins.

 

[Roguey]

Wouldn't this not all be true for e.g. Halo?

Half-Life 2 does all those things he praised better.

But it wouldn't shock me if Cain hasn't played it or didn't play it until relatively recently.

Earlier Tim mentioned he was a huge Halo fan and disappointed with the tv series with its inferior lore/story.

 

[Viata]

Anyway,.. is there a more boring subject?

A top five rpg masterclass.

 

[luj1]

dp

 

[luj1]

TL;DR: Enemy progression is more engaging when done with numerous enemies with varied roles and abilites than when done by just increasing numbers.

Really? Encounter design is better than HP bloat / stat bloat? Give this man a Nobel prize, now!

 

[luj1]

"Skyrim is BEST RPG!"
- Tim Cain

They all became retarded I swear

 

[__scribbles__]

I talk about how we made endgame slides in many of my games.

 

[StrongBelwas]

Tim used to be so confused when people talked about 'C&C' in his games because he associated it with Command and Conquer, and the C+C Music factory.
Some decisions in his game have immediate consequences, some have long term consequences. Wanted to show long term results of choices, hence slides.
Had such a good time implemented slides in Fallout so they wanted to do even more in Arcanum.
Tracking variables are used for slides, recording decisions the player makes. Some are specific for slides, a surprising amount of variables that already exist can be used for it.
Variables meant to track achievements, quests finished/failed, faction relations, NPC's opinion state on the player, can all be used and you can make a lot of ending slides just based on this data.
Have to get narrative designers onboard with doing slides as they're the ones who know all the decisions player can make and anything that can't be tracked with quests or other variables will need specific variables used only by the slides. They'll be responsible for tracking those events and making sure they have slides for those events.
Have to be very careful about overlapping/interdependent events. If you're picking between two rulers and who you kill, you already have four different possible slides right there.
Many modders for Cain's games would discover logic for slides wasn't correct, they wouldn't appear at all or they would appear when they aren't meant to. Designers doing a lot of QA'ing of game at the end to see if the game was working appropriately (QA can notice when a game is buggy or weird, but only designers know all the ins and outs.) A QA worker can probably spot an inappropriate slide appearing in the endgame, but how can they know something is wrong if a slide doesn't appear at all? Narrative designers have to be very careful to track their slides and make sure they turn out correctly.
Slides are also dependent on the art side. But they usually aren't animated so you could just use in game screen shots (Take a picture of the village if the result is it's fine, take a picture of it being attacked by bandits if they are doomed.)
Cain's game have varied on their number of slides and how much is tracked, but he's always tried to do as many as possible. But slides need to be done at the end, because they need a lot of the game's content done before you can make them (If you make an end slide for an unfinished quest, and then cut the quest, then you just wasted a lot of time.)
Bug fixing and optimization always end up taking priority over end slides at the end. And while designers and artists may have the most free time at this stage, it's the programmers and QA you need to put them in properly that are super busy, and you just don't have the resources to implement more end slides.
If you were to use ending slides, every single choice point, ask yourself if it's something that will show consequence now or later in the game. If not, ask yourself it is has a major long term effect, write down those possible slides, and then move on. Later on, you can see how many of your theoretical slides can be implemented just from your established variables and where you need to go into the dialogue and implement unique variables.
They scrambled to do this at the end of Fallout, and then ToEE/BLoodlines/Arcanum they thought ahead of it, and on Outer Worlds they were prepared for it from the very beginning.

 

[NecroLord]

I like ending slides.
Multiple endings for different places and people, some of which are good, others might be bad.
It's not just one strictly Good or Bad ending.

 

[Roguey]

Tim's 90s dance music memory messed up, C+C Music Factory did Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now), Snap! did The Power.

Vampire didn't have any end slides. You had your anarch/independent/camarilla/LaCroix/Xiao/box-opening endings and that was it.

 

[Wesp5]

Vampire didn't have any end slides. You had your anarch/independent/camarilla/LaCroix/Xiao/box-opening endings and that was it.

He often said that this wasn't his game, he came only very late onto it to do some boss fights, the rest was Jason's and Leonard's doing.

 

[ds]

I like ending slides.
Multiple endings for different places and people, some of which are good, others might be bad.
It's not just one strictly Good or Bad ending.

They are better than not having your choices reflect the ending but can also feel a bit formulaic at times. Especially when it's just picture + text for every companion, then picture + text for every faction and so on. I wish developers would at least try to make them flow a bit more organically. Be creative rather than just writing a history book. Wasteland 3's ending song was a good start.

It can also be a bit annoying when the end slides decide on choices the player character makes after the game.

 

[__scribbles__]

I talk about the pros and cons of taking games too seriously.

 

[NecroLord]

I talk about the pros and cons of taking games too seriously.

Wait, that dude Raycevick asked Tim this question?
Dude only reviews goyslop, not actually good games...
Also got it in his head that he's some kind of big brain reviewer.

 

[StrongBelwas]

Anything can be taken too seriously
Loves when people deep dive into the lore/setting/mechanics of the game. Often something they think about when making the game.
Was talking to Leonard on a game (either Fallout or Arcanum) and wondered if people would get something subtle deep in the game and Leonard said the right people would get it.
Prefers to put lore dumps into books or computer terminals where people have to dig for them.
Plenty of games Cain doesn't take too seriously and doesn't get really into the lore, often IP's he's familiar with or games that just have mechanics he likes.
Indebted to people who make wikis on games that connect everything together, they will often be more detailed than anything they created in house within a few months.
Has a problem with taking games too seriously when people get nasty about it. Doesn't like people putting down others who don't know the lore and exclude them.
Enjoy things that you enjoy and enjoy them the way you want to.
Would rather people move on than making hate videos, says vote with your money.
Says arguments against vote with your money assume people are dumb and have no self control.
The opposite, not taking them seriously is also bad. Many people thought Cain was making a mistake when he went into game development, including his professor who would later ask him to teach a class.
Asked why he isn't doing something more 'valuable' (Including the comments on this channel apparently), his skillset isn't in medicine or agriculture , it's in programming and storytelling.
Read a book called How to Be Perfect by Micheal Schur (Cain is very fond of the Good Place) that he thinks points out the flaws in Greater Good above all kind of mindset.
Had a bunch of games in him he wanted to make, and now he has gotten them out.
Don't take it too seriously, but don't write it off as a frivolously activity.
Always happy when a game namedrops Fallout as one of it's references.

 

[NecroLord]

Loves when people deep dive into the lore/setting/mechanics of the game. Often something they think about when making the game.
Was talking to Leonard on a game (either Fallout or Arcanum) and wondered if people would get something subtle deep in the game and Leonard said the right people would get it.

Yes.
Tim was Based when he made the Half-Ogre Island quest.
He tried to warn us about Jewish Subversion.
How the Tarantian Monarchy conveniently got replaced by the Gnomish Merchants League with the "Tarantian Council".
Yeeeah...

 

[Ryzer]

Loves when people deep dive into the lore/setting/mechanics of the game. Often something they think about when making the game.
Was talking to Leonard on a game (either Fallout or Arcanum) and wondered if people would get something subtle deep in the game and Leonard said the right people would get it.

Yes.
Tim was Based when he made the Half-Ogre Island quest.
He tried to warn us about Jewish Subversion.
How the Tarantian Monarchy conveniently got replaced by the Gnomish Merchants League with the "Tarantian Council".
Yeeeah...

The gnomish quest was written by Leonard Boyarsky who is Jewish himself and not by Tim.

 

[scytheavatar]

I talk about how we made endgame slides in many of my games.

Real talk, endgame slides are yesterday's news. Endgame epilogue like in Baldur's Gate 3 is the new standard that all RPGs should be aiming for.

 

[Alienman]

Ending songs is the real™ new thing, like in Wasteland 3.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Every game at the end should have a codexian vote patch & comment that gets emailed to devs and sellers.