Cain on Games - Tim Cain's new YouTube channel

[StrongBelwas]

Does like customizable difficulty settings, anything that lets the player turn the game into something they like more, he is not against. Has frequently had arguments with people who think that every time you put an option in a game, it's because you couldn't make a a decision. Cain sees where they are coming from, there are times he couldn't decide and just put in an option. Also sees the argument that it's hard to make your game good when you're at the balancing fun stage because you have to consider all of these options that the player set. Also considers it an accessibility issue, repeats the story of a level designer friend who puts games on easy so he can just explore the levels and not get stuck on floors, Cain thinks that is valid way to play the game. Difficulty settings are something people want to adjust to their personal level of comfort.
Whole bunch of ways to make the game more difficult. One thing you can do to make a game harder is whatever your algorithm is for enemy progression, push it up a little. When a combat encounter, pass in the player's level +5, or maybe -3 of it's Easy. If you wanted to do something really hard, multiply the player's level by two, which would make things slightly harder at the start and very hard as it goes on.
Numerical changes are the easiest. Player has less health, less regeneration (or none.) Can also say every skill check on hard mode is a little harder. Can use Cain's idea of tables for skill checks that everyone connects to, you can increase what a Medium Check is on normal mode vs. easy/hard mode with no code changes.
Also many non numerical things you can do, you can add food/drink/sleep requirements, as they did in Outer Worlds. Can get rid of fast travel, they restricted it to just the ship on Outer World's Supernova difficulty. Some people say this just adds friction, but almost any difficulty you can imagine is friction to some people and difficulty to others. If that's your argument against it, Cain doesn't really have a defense, but it applies to everything.
Many RPGs, including Cain, only have difficulty modes for combat despite there being other ways to play the game. Could make those other ways harder by just increasing skill check difficulty like Cain suggests. For Stealth, you could make it easier to be detected by enemies, or the detection bar fills out faster.
For Dialogue, whatever you need to have a successful dialogue statement (i.e presenting evidence in Fallout) is harder to reach. You can mark that item, maybe it moves to a more difficult area. If it's in a locker, maybe the locker is harder to open. If you need to talk to someone, that someone moves to a harder area, or you need to speak to someone else in a harder area.
Finally, you can do some things that are neither numerical or non numerical, Cain considers them to be less handholding. Basically reverting to how games used to be, when they were harder. Some people hate these, say games stopped doing them for a reason, other people miss them. Stuff like no quest marker, no automap, maybe even no quest log if you wanted to go hardcore. Some people say this makes it more immersive, trivial to implement. For all of these, Cain recommends making these options because they go too far for some people and create too much friction. Some people separate difficulty and annoyance.
Best way to do this? It depends. What game are you making, what options you do and don't want to open up to the player, what you want to code, etc. Have to decide for yourself.
Should RPGs get easier or harder as you play? Cain answers trick question with trick answer; Should be both. RPGs should have you feel more powerful as you go through it, why Cain doesn't like level scaling, should be able to stomp encounters that gave you trouble in the past, while encountering new dangers in new areas. Game just steadily getting easier isn't much fun. They should get easier in some places, harder in others.

 

[Roguey]

I have a friend who likes to play games because he's a level designer and he always sets the game's difficulty to easy because what he wants to do is see the game not necessarily get stuck on a particularly difficult combat encounter and I agree with that, that's a perfectly valid way of playing the game.

Going to cause some seething that there's a professional level designer who plays like that and that Tim approves.

 

[Alienman]

Do people still care though?

 

[NecroLord]

Does like customizable difficulty settings, anything that lets the player turn the game into something they like more, he is not against. Has frequently had arguments with people who think that every time you put an option in a game, it's because you couldn't make a a decision. Cain sees where they are coming from, there are times he couldn't decide and just put in an option. Also sees the argument that it's hard to make your game good when you're at the balancing fun stage because you have to consider all of these options that the player set. Also considers it an accessibility issue, repeats the story of a level designer friend who puts games on easy so he can just explore the levels and not get stuck on floors, Cain thinks that is valid way to play the game. Difficulty settings are something people want to adjust to their personal level of comfort.
Whole bunch of ways to make the game more difficult. One thing you can do to make a game harder is whatever your algorithm is for enemy progression, push it up a little. When a combat encounter, pass in the player's level +5, or maybe -3 of it's Easy. If you wanted to do something really hard, multiply the player's level by two, which would make things slightly harder at the start and very hard as it goes on.
Numerical changes are the easiest. Player has less health, less regeneration (or none.) Can also say every skill check on hard mode is a little harder. Can use Cain's idea of tables for skill checks that everyone connects to, you can increase what a Medium Check is on normal mode vs. easy/hard mode with no code changes.
Also many non numerical things you can do, you can add food/drink/sleep requirements, as they did in Outer Worlds. Can get rid of fast travel, they restricted it to just the ship on Outer World's Supernova difficulty. Some people say this just adds friction, but almost any difficulty you can imagine is friction to some people and difficulty to others. If that's your argument against it, Cain doesn't really have a defense, but it applies to everything.
Many RPGs, including Cain, only have difficulty modes for combat despite there being other ways to play the game. Could make those other ways harder by just increasing skill check difficulty like Cain suggests. For Stealth, you could make it easier to be detected by enemies, or the detection bar fills out faster.
For Dialogue, whatever you need to have a successful dialogue statement (i.e presenting evidence in Fallout) is harder to reach. You can mark that item, maybe it moves to a more difficult area. If it's in a locker, maybe the locker is harder to open. If you need to talk to someone, that someone moves to a harder area, or you need to speak to someone else in a harder area.
Finally, you can do some things that are neither numerical or non numerical, Cain considers them to be less handholding. Basically reverting to how games used to be, when they were harder. Some people hate these, say games stopped doing them for a reason, other people miss them. Stuff like no quest marker, no automap, maybe even no quest log if you wanted to go hardcore. Some people say this makes it more immersive, trivial to implement. For all of these, Cain recommends making these options because they go too far for some people and create too much friction. Some people separate difficulty and annoyance.
Best way to do this? It depends. What game are you making, what options you do and don't want to open up to the player, what you want to code, etc. Have to decide for yourself.
Should RPGs get easier or harder as you play? Cain answers trick question with trick answer; Should be both. RPGs should have you feel more powerful as you go through it, why Cain doesn't like level scaling, should be able to stomp encounters that gave you trouble in the past, while encountering new dangers in new areas. Game just steadily getting easier isn't much fun. They should get easier in some places, harder in others.

One thing that bothered me about difficulty in Arcanum was that on Hard you get less than normal XP AND your skills are harder to use.
I don't understand. If I seriously invest in a skill, I want to be able to use it effectively at least.
Game was meant to be played on Normal.
TOEE had no need for a Difficulty Setting.
Neither did Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines.

What should difficulty truly alter in an RPG?
The AI of your foes?
Them using their spells and abilities more effectively?

 

[Bulo]

What should difficulty truly alter in an RPG?

RPGs shouldn't have a difficulty setting. The difficulty should be in Choice and Consequence

 

[Sloul]

Gothic 1&2 didn't have any difficulty settings and were great for that.
Dealing with X and Y situation, was common tongue to everyone.
We all shared the very same experience.

 

[Infinitron]

I talk about the research that goes into making a video game, using examples from Fallout and Arcanum.

 

[Gandalf]

That might be interesting what's his taken on it, because modern devs seem to not be well-versed in the literature of old, right?

 

[StrongBelwas]

Is going to assume you at least have a setting picked, otherwise you aren't really doing research, you are searching for the basic ideas of your game.
Cain does traditional research such as going to the library and looking for information online, but also looks into books/board games/ other videogames that share your setting, using what you like and don't like as inspiration.
In a Boy and his Dog, they liked the setting and some of the story decisions, not big on some of the dialogue and the overall story. Road Warrior was a huge influence on Fallout's look, like the fashionable characters. Don't necessarily do research for justifiable things, you look for elements of the setting you love. Sometimes, you find things you like that don't seem to fit quite right. Sometimes that juxtaposition works out well, such as 1950s and Road Warrior.
Some of Cain's games, like Outer Worlds and Fallout, diverged from our actual history. Arcanum was a bit different because they took a LOTR world and put it through an industrial revolution. Tried to define that, so Cain found a document he wrote called Victorian Times. Started writing it in 1998, looks like it's last edit was September 2001. Defines the Victorian Era, the ideals it followed and prevalent morals. Arcanum would explore many of those stereotypes, goes on for 6/8 pages. Cain wrote those down so when they did quests and character dialogue, as well as coming up with new locations, people could go to that document for reference. Document goes into coal, pollution, chimney sweepers (And their scrotal cancer), mad hatters, etc. Cain had a very specific one on air pollution, which was a real issue for the time period. An entire section on corsets, and their use, and another section on railroad magnets. A section on missionary work, on exploration on unknown parts of the world to Victorian, foxhunting, ballooning, etc. Boxing and it's revival in London. Ordering from catalogues had become a thing and was possible because of steam boats and railroads. They actually found an old Sears catalogue , people could order homes from them back then. Science was changed by the discovery of fossils, opera houses, photo plays, also looked into how schooling worked. They researched all the common ailments of the time and Cain wrote about them. Infant morality being surprisingly low , child labor, women's suffrage, labor movements, all wrote about so they could be put into the game.
Arcanum did a lot of social commentary, some people called this racist/sexist, Cain says they were addressing those issues through the lens of a fantasy game. Lots of research is done before starting the game.
Looked up information on radiation for Fallout, reread Lord of the Rings for Arcanum. Tarant is obviously modeled after London.
They also did a lot of research during the game as they realized they didn't know enough about certain things, the research they did at the start was too shallow. Someone is writing a quest and realizes they don't quite understanding something. Cain did a deep dive into micro biology research for Fallout because FEV dealt with Virions. A book called Elise a Terrifying Tale of Immortality also influenced FEV, it was about a woman born with a quadruple helix instead of a double helix which made her immortal, Cain took that idea and speculated that FEV duplicated your helix, would make you radiation resistant. They disagreed on if ghouls were radiation and Cain wishes he had wrote something down.
A German microbiologist wrote to them after Fallout and praised their description of FEV.
As Leonard put it, most people won't get it, but the right people will get it.

 

[Gandalf]

reread Lord of the Rings for Arcanum

So that might be one of the reason why they wanted to do Lotr game in Arcanum engine next?

 

[NecroLord]

reread Lord of the Rings for Arcanum

So that might be one of the reason why they wanted to do Lotr game in Arcanum engine next?

Not sure about.
Didn't Tim say something about journeying to the center of Arcanum in the sequel instead?

 

[Gandalf]

reread Lord of the Rings for Arcanum

So that might be one of the reason why they wanted to do Lotr game in Arcanum engine next?

Not sure about.
Didn't Tim say something about journeying to the center of Arcanum in the sequel instead?

I don't remember exactly the order, but they wanted to do Arcanum sequel and Lotr cRP game at some point too.

I think he talks about it in this video. Can't watch it at the moment.

 

[StrongBelwas]

Goes back to his Reboot conference talk and references the mistake of forced linearity in some games, references saving Tandi in Fallout 1 and all the solutions.
Very early on, around mid 90s, hard to explain the idea of a pure open ended game to other people at Interplay. These were game industry folk with a a lot more experience than Cain, but what they were trying to do was a bit different than the rest of Interplay. As Cain mentioned before, Stonekeep had a preset character and stats. Cain had to explain to some people you made your own character, the only commonality is the character comes from the Vault, everything else can be changed.

Explaining this to some of the designers on the team was a bit difficult. Some of them had played GURPS with Cain, they got it, but others would say stuff like "What if the player does this, and then I make them do this?" Cain has to tell them to never make the player do anything.
People outside the project really had a rough time, QA asked for walkthroughs at the start, had to tell them it depends on your character. Repeats the story of the guy making the strategy guide having great difficulty with the fact there was no right way to do everything.
Cain has heard, and please inform him if this is true, that some players in some countries did not like Fallout and Cain's later games because there was no right way to play them, they frequently wanted to know what they were supposed to do and how they were supposed to rescue Tandi. Cain does not elaborate on the specific countries. There was no right way to rescue Tandi, if you even wanted to save her, apparently that angered some people.

Cain didn't quite got this, because he never played Tabletop like this, but there are computer RPGs that expect you to play a certain way. Pick the good options, bad options lead to early termination. They don't let you change many things about your character because they are inserting you into a predefined story. Even near the end of Fallout's development, when people took the game home to play it, Cain would get calls from people stuck at certain points not knowing what to do. When Cain tried to ask them about their previous decisions and their character build, they would get annoyed and tell him to just tell them what to do. Cain would explain that depending on your build what is available could change.

Another source of confusion was the game's morality. Cain would explain that the game did not require you to be good, people would interpret this as 'I should be bad'. Cain would explain you would be punishing for being bad, people interpreted this as 'I should be good'. Cain would have to explain that you should play how you want to play, the game will react, and you have to accept the consequences of your actions. Act like a jerk, people won't like you. Some people got it, some people just got in a loop wanting to be told what to do.

Cain feels this depended on people's experience. If you played TTRPG with a good DM that didn't railroad you, you generally understood what Cain was getting at. if your experience was certain cRPGs that told you what to do, you would be confused.
Has it gotten easier to explain nonlinearity ? Yes, a lot. There are a lot more open ended reaction based games, but even in modern times, Cain has had discussion on his most recent games with people who don't seem to get the concept. Worked with a narrative designer in the last few years who got very angry that their very linear idea could not be forced on the player. Leading to discussions where the narrative designer suggested locking the player in a room where the door can't be picked, you can't jump out the window, and not letting them out until they do a thing. If they don't do that thing, he suggests they are stuck in the room forever. Cain had conversations like this several times. Not just with people on the team, someone above Cain in the development production line was very upset that there was work being done that some or most players would never see. Cain had to explain this was just the natural consequence of nonlinear games, a pacifist player is not going to see death animations on most characters, so why have death animations? If people never attack animals/robots, or never interact with some people, that content won't be seen. One producer liked to just shoot everyone he came across, dialogue would be irrelevant to him.

This spilled over into companions on the Outer Worlds. At first, Cain wanted them to chain them into choice and consequence, some companions would only join you with a minimum level of Leadership, and Leadership would determine how many companions you could recruit. Might have also limited it with an associated perk. Really wanted to do it, was talked out of it because of all the work they did on companions that wouldn't be experienced. To this day, feels having big consequences is good. Things are overall a lot better, because a lot of games do it, but sometimes trying to add a feature nobody else does is still hard. Whenever he tries to introduce an idea, first pushback he get is 'What other game does that?" If he can't think of something, that person doesn't want to put it in the game. Cain asked this person how the game was supposed to have a unique hook if he couldn't introduce features never seen before (This person had apparently bugged Cain about the game's hooks) and they could not give him an answer. Another person said that if no other game did something like that, there was probably a good reason for it and it was a bad idea. Has had to reach out to other genres and mediums, such as pointing out a movie that does something.
Doesn't have to justify non linearity in his games anymore, but introducing new ideas is still an uphill battle. There is an assumption that if it isn't done before, it is a bad idea.

 

[Diggfinger]

Goes back to his Reboot conference talk and references the mistake of forced linearity in some games, references saving Tandi in Fallout 1 and all the solutions.
Very early on, around mid 90s, hard to explain the idea of a pure open ended game to other people at Interplay. These were game industry folk with a a lot more experience than Cain, but what they were trying to do was a bit different than the rest of Interplay. As Cain mentioned before, Stonekeep had a preset character and stats. Cain had to explain to some people you made your own character, the only commonality is the character comes from the Vault, everything else can be changed.

Explaining this to some of the designers on the team was a bit difficult. Some of them had played GURPS with Fallout, they got it, but others would say stuff like "What if the player does this, and then I make them do this?" Cain has to tell them to never make the player do anything.
People outside the project really had a rough time, QA asked for walkthroughs at the start, had to tell them it depends on your character. Repeats the story of the guy making the strategy guide having great difficulty with the fact there was no right way to do everything.
Cain has heard, and please inform him if this is true, that some players in some countries did not like Fallout and Cain's later games because there was no right way to play them, they frequently wanted to know what they were supposed to do and how they were supposed to rescue Tandi. Cain does not elaborate on the specific countries. There was no right way to rescue Tandi, if you even wanted to save her, apparently that angered some way.

Cain didn't quite got this, because he never played Tabletop like this, but there are computer RPGs that expect you to play a certain way. Pick the good options, bad options lead to early termination. They don't let you change many things about your character because they are inserting you into a predefined story. Even near the end of Fallout's development, when people took the game home to play it, Cain would get calls from people stuck at certain points not knowing what to do. When Cain tried to ask them about their previous decisions and their character build, they would get annoyed and tell him to just tell them what to do. Cain would explain that depending on your build what is available to change.

Another source of confusion was the game's morality. Cain would explain that the game did not require you to be good, people would interpret this as 'I should be bad'. Cain would explain you would be punishing for being bad, people interpreted this as 'I should be good'. Cain would have to explain that you should play how you want to play, the game will react, and you have to accept the consequences of your actions. Act like a jerk, people won't like you. Some people got it, some people just got in a loop wanting to be told what to do.

Cain feels this depended on people's experience. If you played TTRPG with a good DM that didn't railroad you, you generally understood what Cain was getting at. if your experience was certain cRPGs that told you what to do, you would be confused.
Has it gotten easier to explain nonlinearity ? Yes, a lot. There are a lot more open ended reaction based games, but even in modern times, Cain has had discussion on his most recent games with people who don't seem to get the concept. Worked with a narrative designer in the last few years who got very angry that their very linear idea could not be forced on the player. Leading to discussions where the narrative designer suggested locking the player in a room where the door can't be picked, you can't jump out the window, and not letting them out until they do a thing. If they don't do that thing, he suggests they are stuck in the room forever. Cain had conversations like this several times. Not just with people on the team, someone above Cain in the development production line was very upset that there was work being done that some or most players would never see. Cain had to explain this was just the natural consequence of nonlinear games, a pacifist player is not going to see death animations on most characters, so why have death animations? If people never attack animals/robots, or never interact with some people, that content won't be seen. One producer liked to just shoot everyone he came across, dialogue would be irrelevant to him.

This spilled over into companions on the Outer Worlds. At first, Cain wanted them to chain them into choice and consequence, some companions would only join you with a minimum level of Leadership, and Leadership would determine how many companions you could recruit. Might have also limited it with an associated perk. Really wanted to do it, was talked out of it because of all the work they did on companions that wouldn't be experienced. To this day, feels having big consequences are good. Things are overall a lot better, because a lot of games do it, but sometimes trying to add a feature nobody else does is still hard. Whenever he tries to introduce an idea, first pushback he get is 'What other game does that?" If he can't think of something, that person doesn't want to put it in the game. Cain asked this person how the game was supposed to have a unique hook if he couldn't introduce features never seen before (This person had apparently bugged Cain about the game's hooks) and they could not give him an answer. Another person said that if no other game did something like that, there was probably a good reason for it and it was a bad idea. Has had to reach out to other genres and mediums, such as pointing out a movie that does something.
Doesn't have to justify non linearity in his games anymore, but introducing new ideas is still an uphill battle. There is an assumption that if it isn't done before, it is a bad idea.

Question posted by...moi-meme

 

[processdaemon]

This spilled over into companions on the Outer Worlds. At first, Cain wanted them to chain them into choice and consequence, some companions would only join you with a minimum level of Leadership, and Leadership would determine how many companions you could recruit. Might have also limited it with an associated perk. Really wanted to do it, was talked out of it because of all the work they did on companions that wouldn't be experienced.

The mentality of the people who argued against Tim is such a limitation when trying to make games that emphasize choice and consequence. There's no way that feeling like you're being cheated if every gamer doesn't see as much of your content as possible isn't going to drive you to make more linear games.

 

[Roguey]

Limiting companions makes sense in games like Fallout 2 and Arcanum where most of them barely have personalities outside of their introductions and it's more about their particular strengths. When you're giving them a bunch of text throughout and personal quests, it's a bit daft to put up that kind of limitation. You're putting a lot of work into something most people aren't going to bother to see. Most people don't even finish RPGs once, let alone multiple times.

 

[NecroLord]

Arcanum has pretty cool companions though:
Magnus, Franklin Payne, Torian Kel, etc.
You also get Dogmeat 2.0 THE BEAST and loyal doggie...

 

[__scribbles__]

I talk about burnout, and how I think I managed to avoid it during my career. I expect pushback on this video, but I will emphasize that this is my experience. Your own experience might be quite different.

 

[Gandalf]

Burnout is an interesting topic. What did he said about it? I have experienced something like this lately and listening to newer Darkthrone helped a lot!

 

[StrongBelwas]

Spent a long time thinking about how to respond to this type of question, wasn't sure what his answer should be. He has experienced downtimes, where he didn't want to lead a project or be in a lead role, but never burnt out in the sense he doesn't want to do game development anymore. Retired, but still working on his Unity toys. Has an answer, but doesn't want it to sound trite.
Avoided burnout because he always had fun . Knows it sounds trite and simplistic, but that is his answer. Fun was more important than the money, the authority, or the title he had. It even came before delivering particular things that fans wanted. Cain always focused on enjoying what he did and putting things in the game he wanted. Especially in the early part of his career, there was little thought what demographic the game was for, he and most of the team put in things because they liked them.
Thinks this is important because it isn't all about fun anymore for some people, this is their career/ what they studied for. Those are the people he sees burnout. There are a lot of times he got tired of stuff, such as why he left Fallout 2, and walked away because it was no longer fun. Walked away from Carbine/Wildstar (And a lot of money), it was no longer fun, just a lot of arguing and politics. One day he just realized he wasn't having fun and mentioned it to the producer. The producer said if you're not having fun, it's not good for you, and it's not good for the game, and Cain agreed.
Cain has avoided bigger companies, offers with lots of money because he wasn't sure he would have fun there. Ducked lead roles multiple times, offered a Directorship at Interplay before Fallout shipped, said no. Should have ducked the design director position at Carbine, told Obsidian he wouldn't do lead roles and stuck to his guns for five years. Just had fun doing code.
Doesn't think you should just kick back though, likes challenges. New IPs, new features, part of his reason for disliking sequels is he feels they are less challenging. Didn't work on a console until he was 46 years old, 30 years after he started in the industry. South Park Stick of Truth was his first console game, and it was part of the reason he was interested in the job. Had another job lined up when he was thinking of going to Obsidian. Would later realize there are some rather unfun things about programming for PlayStation, but it was an interesting experience and it was fun to dive into it.
When things stop becoming fun, or it's hard to have fun, Cain steps away from projects and companies. Yes, Cain is semi-retired because the industry as a whole is less fun. Part of it is the overall caution, part of it is that he is older and the games he wants to make aren't the games people are making, and his big ideas have already been implemented. Has fun with his toys and working as a contractor. Accepts contracting projects because he thinks they are interesting, otherwise he passes. Nicest thing he can tell people he contracts for is that he is there because he thinks there is something interesting about their project.
Cain can guarantee one way you will burn out (It isn't crunching); hating other people's joy. People hating other people's fun in games, going to message boards for the game or going to reddit to complain about people enjoying something. At some point you are making yourself bitterly unhappy. Worst thing is when people direct it inwards and hate their own joy. They like a game, hit a feature they don't like, now they dislike all of the game. References someone disliking all of his games after they realized he was gay. Hating other people's joy is the fastest way to burn out.
Find your fun, and then figure out how to get paid for it. Find something you are good at, you like doing, and someone will pay you to do it, you've won. Caveats, commit to the thing you find fun, don't put one foot in, go all in. Hears people talk about wanting to create something but never really going to do it. Still goes back to the comment's section of his Stop Making Excuses video and sees people saying he is saying it is easy (he isn't), and that he has had it easy (he hasn't.) Don't have to be perfect, but try to be better than you were yesterday. Want to learn something, do it.

 

[NecroLord]

Moral of the story is:
Avoid Big Triple A companies.
They are creative dead ends.

 

[The Wall]

I talk about burnout, and how I think I managed to avoid it during my career. I expect pushback on this video, but I will emphasize that this is my experience. Your own experience might be quite different.

Avoided creative and productive burnout by making ZERO Fallout/Arcanum/VtM like games in over 20 years. Also having ZERO ambition of making new ones. For 20 years working for big corpos and producing ZERO new material to your legacy as programmer, designer and writer. All these DECADES you had ZERO obstacles from going indie. But Big Corpo cock tasted too good for Uncle Timmy

Burnout: SUCCESSFULLY AVOIDED!


HOLY FUCK, he gives a lot of incredibly valuable advice to future Devs, but let's call out elephant sized BS

 

[The Wall]

Young Tim, Josh and Avellone would shit and piss all over old, conformist, mind cucked 2024 themselves. What great RPG were you Lead on in last 20 years?!? You made Fallout, Arcanum and VtM in span of 5 years. For last 20 years you were living in the shadow of former Tim Cain

Respect where it's due. TRUTH above fake respect. Nothing worth of respect has Cain done since closure of Troika. Nothing. Zero

 

[__scribbles__]

I talk about some hidden things in my games that either people don’t know about or that have some special meaning to me.

p.s. my original Wildstar monk class was called the Stalker, and Wildstar shipped with the Stalker class, but it was very different than the one I designed.

 

[StrongBelwas]

Will talk about Easter Eggs that are in games he worked on that have something to do with him or that he talked about before but he doesn't see them being widespread. People have talked about the easter egg, but not much about it. Finds people online love to talk about games as if the people involved with them are all gone and they just guess at their motivations. Watched a video about 10 big mysteries of early games(Read- late 80s/90s), the video creator was wrong about most of them. They weren't games Cain worked on, but he knew about them. So there are Easter Eggs Cain wants to give more information about.

First one he wants to talk about is the easter egg in Fallout with the dog behind the Cathedral. This dog was a homage to Vince Denardo's dog Sasha as Cain as previously mentioned. Was a very nice dog. Chris Taylor probably put Sasha in. Thought it was cool the dog made it in, also re references someone calling out for Sasha in Fallout 2.
A few things about Arcanum, people identify some of the portraits with the development team, they got Chad as the half ogre, Leonard as Virgil, but they always miss out on his portrait (2:28 and in the thumbnail.) Can't even remember which character he is, remembers you can select it as a player portrait.

Another thing is the Isle of Despair, someone put in a line calling it the Black Isle when you ask how to get there and says you don't want to go there. Yes, that was a reference to Black Isle Studios. He talked to the writer who did it, who admitted the intention, and apologized for it in 2016 to some of the people at Obsidian who were from Black Isle. Not the first time Cain has apologized on behalf of someone else. Has done it on the channel and seen people interpret it as him apologizing for something he personally did (Will do it again this video.) It is part of his responsibility as a lead, and Cain has seen people in game development who want the power but not the responsibility.

Onwards to Temple of Elemental Evil. There was a character based on the character Cain's brother played, a bard called Zaxis Montalban, the last name being a reference to Ricardo Montalban who was used as his portrait on the character sheet. The picture is from a newspaper article about Circus of the Stars, Montalban was doing high wire acts. Zaxis is a random encounter in ToEE, you find him on the world map and he is looking for his sister.

Cain didn't work that much on Bloodlines as he has said. Years after Bloodline came out, he discovered the microphone base with BIS SUCKS taped on it (7:06.) A lot of people, including people at Black Isle , thought this was another dig at them, it wasn't, but he apologized to those that did. He tracked down the source, an artist at Troika who never worked at Black Isle , Troika was his first job. He put it in because a lot of the Temple Element Evil crew were listening to BIS, the scottish indie band, and their album Plastique Nouveau, and he got sick of it. Hated it and inserted that sticker, the artist had no idea about the Black Isle context. Some people here might be familiar with this one.

In Pillars of Eternity, the monk class was based on a monk class he made for WildStar that was cut without his knowledge (8:37), created nine classes within the first few months he was there, and they were there for the three years he was there. One of the artist requirements at Carbine was that every class have a unique silhouette. You could tell from their armor, stance, and weapon what class they were at a glance. Cain decided to make a class that uses no weapon as a reaction to that. Pillar's mechanic where monks spend pain was built on Cain's concept for that class.

Cain only worked on Deadfire for a few weeks, but his portrait (10:00) made it into the game. He is Jacob Harker, the bartender.

Last one he wants to talk about is in Outer Worlds. Cain has made it clear he does not like white chocolate. When he was away on a trip somewhere, someone who was never discovered hid 17 bars of white chocolate (Nestle white chocolate crunch) in his office and left a ransom note made out of cut out letters from other notes. Some of them were very cleverly hidden, he found about a dozen the first day. Some of them, he didn't find for weeks. One of them was hidden on the rubber feet of a big landline phone. In the end, he only ever found 16 of them, never found the 17th bar before he left Obsidian. That is why there is a bar in the Outer Worlds called the 17th bar and why Tim Cain's white chocolate yummies appears as an item in the game. Cain played whack a mole with that item, he would find it in one playthrough, tell them to cut it out, they would move it to the loot table of something else.