Interview RPG Codex Retrospective Interview: Tim Cain on Fallout, Troika and RPG Design

[MicoSelva]

Great interview, 'dex. Some real quality content. Keep it coming.

 

[thesheeep]

I soooo want a 'journey into the center of Arcanum'

Kickstarter. Indiegogo, etc.

This would definitely be a success. At least enough to fund such a game from such a person, I'd wager.

 

[SCO]

At last, the efforts of our staff to put together this Retrospective series have been recognised by the professional gaming press; no less a publication than PC Gamer has graciously given this in-depth interview its blessing. By which I mean it's copy-pasted all the bits of Tim's replies that mentioned Fallout 3 and posted them as a news story while ignoring everything else. Huzzah!

even running, naked, up and down a street in Tarrant, would be reflected in a newspaper the next day.

Wait...really? Do you have to run through a certain trigger somewhere?

I slid by the first part of this reply all unknowingly and read the 'running naked' part. It was only after intuiting something was wrong that i looked up.

I like to think it was what remains of faith in humanity protecting itself.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

I loved the Arcanum newspapers.
Made it so fucking worth while sometimes, to know my Character was actually doing things that affected others around me.
WE LOVE YOU TIMMAY!

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Yes, we had great plans for that engine. For the sequel to The Temple of Elemental Evil, Troika proposed using the super-module GDQ: Queen of the Spiders, which consists of seven modules from the popular Giants and Drow series, plus the special Q-series module that completed the adventure. In fact, we were going to let the players bring their characters over from ToEE directly into the QoS, so they could simply continue playing with the same group of characters. Alternatively, we had suggested using the engine to create the long-awaited Baldur's Gate 3, and Obsidian had also expressed interest in licensing the engine to make D&D licensed games. Unfortunately, Atari never followed up on any of these proposals.

 

[Lightknight]

there is no arguing that more people enjoy the modern versions of the franchise than the older ones.

*facepalm*
Yes, more people. For the same reason, very few people enjoyed eating burgers in the 1200's.
Even programmers have lapses of logic.

 

[Hormalakh]

The reason Tim Cain liked Fallout 3, in my professional opinion is that he stopped giving a **** after Fallout 1. It was no longer his baby then and he rage-quit because of it. At that point, why would he care what happens to FO3? He was an observer at that point and had already gotten most of his rage out during Fallout 2.

One of the few designers that I truly have respect for. He is not only a great designer, he is also a gentleman and a scholar.

 

[Jaesun]

He "liked" Fallout 3? Someone missed that one video with him commenting on Fallout 3.

 

[Hormalakh]

Which video are you talking about? The MattChat? I'd be interested in knowing. All I've ever heard him say was that he liked what Bethesda did with parts of the game and played it as a gamer not as a developer. That was the point I was trying to make. He stopped giving a **** about Fallout as his baby way before Fallout 3 even existed. Fallout 2 is when he actually cared as a developer and creator of that IP.

 

[St. Toxic]

Fallout 3 wasn't exactly a direct sequel to F2 anyways. Tactics and Bos would be enough to numb anyone to the pain. By the time the franchise was getting buried post pokémans spin-offs for the gameboy, he'd probably have to kill himself to continue caring.

 

[Roguey]

"I did enjoy both Fallout 3 and New Vegas. I know that surprised some of my fans, who wanted me to hate the games and rail against their design choices"
People still going to deny the truths.

 

[Kleptocratic debt serf]

People still going to deny the truths.

Yes, because pissing in the wind, burning bridges and/or shitting where you eat has been known to land developers/programmers future gigs...

 

[Roguey]

People still going to deny the truths.

Yes, because pissing in the wind, burning bridges and/or shitting where you eat has been known to land developers/programmers future gigs...

David Brevik did just fine. He could have chosen to remain silent or simply said "Not my thing." Instead he chose to praise it. Because he actually enjoyed it. People enjoy things you don't, get over it.

 

[Excidium]

He "liked" Fallout 3? Someone missed that one video with him commenting on Fallout 3.

He did, he stated it in various interviews. I remember one that was posted on NMA and everyone just went MAXIMUM DENIAL and assumed he was being ironic.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Which video are you talking about? The MattChat? I'd be interested in knowing. All I've ever heard him say was that he liked what Bethesda did with parts of the game and played it as a gamer not as a developer. That was the point I was trying to make. He stopped giving a **** about Fallout as his baby way before Fallout 3 even existed. Fallout 2 is when he actually cared as a developer and creator of that IP.

What happened to this guy?

 

[Hormalakh]

Which video are you talking about? The MattChat? I'd be interested in knowing. All I've ever heard him say was that he liked what Bethesda did with parts of the game and played it as a gamer not as a developer. That was the point I was trying to make. He stopped giving a **** about Fallout as his baby way before Fallout 3 even existed. Fallout 2 is when he actually cared as a developer and creator of that IP.

What happened to this guy?

Which guy? Matt from Mattchat? He's still doing interviews. Tim Cain? He's working at Obsidian now. Programming SP:SoT and also co-designer for Project Eternity. Me? I'm new here.

 

[Jaesun]

He "liked" Fallout 3? Someone missed that one video with him commenting on Fallout 3.

He did, he stated it in various interviews. I remember one that was posted on NMA and everyone just went MAXIMUM DENIAL and assumed he was being ironic.

He was just paying lip service, and saying "the right thing to another large developer". That one video (which I can't find) THAT video explicit showed how he felt about Fallout 3 without using a single word.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

In the video he said what exactly he liked about Fallout 3 and what he would have done differently.
In the end what he liked was exactly what people from my class who liked Fallout 3 said about it. I think he may be a kind of a person that tends to like games.

 

[tuluse]

I think he may be a kind of a person that tends to like games.

 

[Kz3r0]

Liking games?
No wonders he doesn't post here.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Which video are you talking about? The MattChat? I'd be interested in knowing. All I've ever heard him say was that he liked what Bethesda did with parts of the game and played it as a gamer not as a developer. That was the point I was trying to make. He stopped giving a **** about Fallout as his baby way before Fallout 3 even existed. Fallout 2 is when he actually cared as a developer and creator of that IP.

What happened to this guy?

Which guy? Matt from Mattchat? He's still doing interviews. Tim Cain? He's working at Obsidian now. Programming SP:SoT and also co-designer for Project Eternity. Me? I'm new here.

Meant you. You been here two days, only four posts?
Gotta go faster than that man.
This is the codex.

 

[Roguey]

He was just paying lip service, and saying "the right thing to another large developer". That one video (which I can't find) THAT video explicit showed how he felt about Fallout 3 without using a single word.

I have to hand it to the FO3 designers for developing VATS, a cool twist on called shots for a real-time game. I also loved the set decoration FO3. There was so much destruction, yet obviously everything had been meticulously hand-placed. So much story was told entirely through art. I ended up naming these little art vignettes and creating side stories in my head about what had happened. There was "The Suicide", a dead guy in a bathtub with a shotgun, and I figured he just couldn't handle life after the bombs. There was "Eternal Love", a couple of skeletons in a bed in a hotel room, forever embracing each other. There was "My Last Mistake", the corpse in the temporary one-man fallout shelter which obviously didn't do its job of keeping out the heat and radiation. My favorite was "Desperate Gamble", where I found a feral ghoul in an underground shelter filled with lab supplies and lots of drugs... except for Rad-X. I imagined that a scientist found himself irradiated and desperately tried to synthesize some Rad-X to cure himself before he succumbed, but he was too slow. I did notice that whatever was left of his mind sure did seem to enjoy toilet plungers.

If I had to pick something I didn't like about FO3, I would pick its ending. I hated the ending. There, I said it. I didn't like the sudden problem with the purifier, and I especially didn't like the lack of real, meaningful multiple endings beyond what I chose in the final few minutes (FEV or not, me or Lyons, and that was it?). But the worst thing about the ending was there was no mention of the fate of places I had visited. In my head I had already imagined slides for Megaton, the Citadel, Rivet City, Underworld, GNR, the Enclave or the mysterious Commonwealth. But I got... pretty much nothing.

Doesn't sound like lip service, more like a guy who liked something well enough to remember specific locations.

 

[tuluse]

Tim Cain is the video game version of John Waters.

There's no such thing as a bad video game, just look at the lamps!

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Likely a bit of both. I'm sure there's truth to it albeit with a slightly inflated bit of dev-to-dev arsesuckery.

tuluse you ninja piece of shit.

 

[Hormalakh]

Meant you. You been here two days, only four posts?
Gotta go faster than that man.
This is the codex.

Honestly? I'm scared of the codex and spend more time posting on OEI's forums and more lurking here. (Waiting to be called an Obsidrone now.) Don't want to make retardo posts all willy-nilly.