Questions I Can't (Or Won't) Answer
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- Опубліковано 9 січ 2024
- I talk about the questions I am skipping in my channel's comment section, either because I cannot answer them or because I simply do not want to.
I referenced my career summary video: • Career Summary 1981-2023 - Ігри
Wish I could, but I can't. Well, can, but won't. Should, maybe, but shorn't.
Shartn't
😂😂😂
Tim is getting ready to go into politics.
@@foca7550Cain 2024
"Which part of shorn't don't you understand, Kevin?"
One thing I really appreciate about this channel is how clear your answers are. Including being able to say "no". I think it helps a lot with your goals of making the channel useful and timeless.
Agreed. It shows empathy and caring for the viewers, as well as some struggling with the "one to many" dilemma, i.e. this video is very clear, but many of the question askers won't watch this video or don't understand or care what it means for them to ask or not. Hehe. I can't imagine having to deal with 100s of comments for the daily videos I (don't) make.
You may not make indie games, but throughout our games development I've watched almost all of your videos. We're releasing soon, and your guidance directly affected how it plays. Thank you
How did it go?
What's the title?
I'm interested!
Personally, I would like to hear more stories about interacting with your coworkers, bosses, and people who have worked for you. I'd also like to hear about your leadership philosophy if you have one.
probably a bad idea, this is how drama starts and he probably want to get away from drama lol Leadership question may be good tho
Tbh there's like a ton of videos where he talks about that, my favourite one was his conflict with the wildstar art guy
oh really, my bad then@@VieneLea
There are some videos about that on this channel already (just scroll and see what interests you) or just follow the lovely YT algorithm on the homepage. That's how YT has been working for me for the last 16 years.
7:47 I can definitely say that there's a huge benefit in this. I still see some of your videos from months ago and it never feels like I missed something, or I'm missing any context. It's just pure game design content, and that's great. This channel is a resource.
I always love seeing SCRUM master job postings because without context it sounds like some kind of goblin wizard job instead of like a team organizer
Honestly, I would enjoy seeing you review games. Not necessarily by comparing them to your own games, but simply hearing your perspective on some of the more modern RPGs that have come out. While there are plenty of experienced reviewers out there, very few of them have the intimate knowledge of game dev/design that you do.
If it counts for anything, I'm seconding this idea
I would also love to hear his opinion about that. But I understand why he doesn’t want to do it. When you think about it it’s kind of similar to the position that Tolkien took when he read dune and he didn’t like it. He kept his mouth shut because he thought it would be unfair to the other authors Maybe Tim Kaine doesn’t talk about other peoples games out of respect to them as artists which I can understand.
reviewers weren't known by that name in the past, it was critic, and everyone hates a critic@@smokedbeefandcheese4144
@@smokedbeefandcheese4144 I'm starting to get deeper into Tolkien's work. For a long time, I'd only read the LotR books and seen the extended editions of the Jackson films. I've found a nice channel here that spends a lot of time discussing his correspondence and other supplementary writings. It's been frankly exhilarating to hear Tolkien's own thoughts and responses examined by someone so deeply versed in the work. As such, this comment is perfectly timed for me to see it. Thanks 🤓
@@smokedbeefandcheese4144 That really is an apt analogy though my friend. Although I bet Tim would be too humble to say so! But really, we are so lucky that someone so instrumental to a 10/10 series like early Fallout is able and willing to address us directly like this.
I feel kinda bad when Tim is forced to discuss VTMB because besides Fallout it's his most beloved game, but he didn't get to design much of it.
Is it really his second most beloved game?
@@BuzzKirill3D What else could it be? It's def not the Outer Worlds lol.
@@heavyartillery-qm5hu Arcanum
Arcanum is the best game ever heretic
@@srottfaen maybe it’s in third place
Not going to lie, just knowing that you're working on a new game that you cant talk about makes me really happy.
I found an item in The Outer Worlds called "White Chocolate Yummies", and I was wondering why it's a junk item and why it isn't actually chocolate, or white, or yummy
Another Tim Cain vid, hell yeah. I’ve been binging all of these the last couple of days. Finding out the creator of my favourite franchise makes videos about its creation and his own career was like having a 2nd Christmas last year. Hope you’re having a wonderful new year so far Tim!
Check out fallout nuka break.
It's on UA-cam
The algorithm is realising and picking him up slowly
@@ajax3310i kinda like its not massive when i discovered, makes it special 😂
I wish i could describe how maturing this content is to watch. I say maturing bc i have radically changed my outlook of games.
Ive stopped thinking like a consumer and more like how a student taking a test tries to view the questions from the perspective of the test maker.
Thanks Tim. You’ve helped shaped my childhood with your earlier work, but my adulthood with your channel.
Can't wait for the "things my lawyers have asked me not to discuss" video
I love this video. Thanks for setting expectations and helping the audience know how to successfully interact with you and this channel. And your cheerful delivery makes it that much better.
Love how professional and smart you are in setting these boundaries. Much appreciated as a good life lesson.
Just discovered you through gamelinked. This is actually a really good primer on your channel. Love to see the humbleness you show and boundaries you set.
4 months after this video, I can confirm nobody talks about the Unity stuff or the bear thing in BG3. Heck I had even forgotten the Unity thing happened.
Hey Tim, as someone who has written RPG engines and also used multiple third-party ones to make them, it would be cool to hear your insight on what makes an engine great for making RPGs. What runtime systems do you always find yourself either reaching for or implementing? What tooling is a necessity? What were third-party engines lacking that you always ended up implementing / changing?
A Couple of minutes into the video, you mentioned you did boss AI in Vampire. I'm a junior game dev and I've just started to study in more deep AI for games, I'm really curious about your approach to that: how do you prefer to design and program Ai behaviors? FSM, Behavior trees, GOAP, a mix of the above? Do you like to use a visual editor with flow charts or do you go full code? A video about this topic made by a pro like you would be very interesting
This sounds like something he's definitely not going to answer or do lol 😆
@@lupercalrising2208 For sure he can't go in depth with the programming, the target of his videos are not only programmers and devs, but he could take the topic in a more generic way and talk about AI, NPC, how he design them and make them interact with the player in an interesting way, maybe telling some fun anecdote (like the developers of alien, making the alien have 2 different "brains", one that knows the player position all the time that gives the other brain advice on the player location; or enemy AI in Bioshok that were programmed to always miss the first shot, so the player doesn't feel too overwhelmed)
Hi Tim, I'm glad you've covered this in some detail because I've been sitting on a few questions that I was unsure if I could respectfully ask or not. I'll start with one to keep this comment short.
I know you don't review games, but as a consumer, do you have a top 10 indie games made in the past ~10 years? Preferably made by smaller teams. And of course in no particular order.
For context I'm a solo dev, working on a turn based tactical roguelite. And I'm interested in your unique perspective, as I imagine that your list will lean more towards mechanic/system heavy games than a generic top 10 list would.
I totally understand if this still isn't something you'd like to answer. Thanks for the great content :)
The timelessness of much of your content is an aspect I enjoy, so thank you for it.
Hi Tim! One of my favorite aspects of Fallout was the Master, and his army. I really loved the lore behind the creation of FEV and the Unity, I think it's very interesting and cool. Could you talk about how the Master and his super mutants came to be the antagonists of Fallout? Thanks :)
I forget which film it is, but concepts like The Master have appeared in other works. There are even a couple of monsters in Doctor Who that have Master-like elements. But I second this question because I would love to hear where Tim and his team got the idea for The Master.
ua-cam.com/video/oyAC8sVWjiM/v-deo.html this has stuff about the master if i remember correctly
Very fair, thank you for sharing what you can. It's really interesting getting a peek into a realm I'm not in. Happy new year! 🎉
What a pro! Outlining scope of understanding and sticking to a focus of education and content. Love the show Tim, almost as much as I loved Fallout 1 and 2.
Thanks for doing these videos. I find myself returning to them again and again, whenever I have ten minutes here or there to take a breath and wander over to UA-cam.
I would love to hear more about the relationship between Fallout and the GURPS tabletop system. It's my understanding that Interplay originally licensed the system from Steve Jackson Games, but there was a disagreement -- I've heard because Steve Jackson Games thought the level of violence was excessive? -- that resulted in the license being pulled. Then came SPECIAL, and the rest, as they say, is history. But I'd love to hear what really happened here, to whatever extent you're able and willing to talk about it. Thanks!
Man I know you hear this a lot but damn, thank you for your work! They really helped me to learn English and experience things in a way I wouldn't otherwise. Love you!
No question, just want to say that as someone who teaches game dev to college students, your channel has been a great resource to point them at. Many thanks for all of your hard work here
Hi Tim!
I absolutely love the channel. Thank you for being timeless
Hey Tim! Not a question, just wanted to say I love your vids, thanks for doing them!
So the reason I watch your channel is to get a view of what it's like on the inside. I'm not yet a game dev, but I have a game idea that I'm am passionate passionate about. I don't want to be typical idea guy, so I wrote out a GDD, bought some courses on Udemy on C++ and Unreal, and hopefully can pitch my game with a demo. A lot of the advice I got was from this channel. So thank you.
I really appreciate your integrity. Integrity isn't dead, but it seems to be rarer today than anytime in my life.
Hey Tim, you've quickly become one of my favourite youtube channels, thanks for your great videos and sharing your knowledge and experience!
I was wondering if you could speak on your opinions or possible experience with modding games and supporting (or not supporting) mods from a development side. I personally find, as the budget/scale of games get so large, that it's quite heartening to see groups of all sizes working on a passion project together, e.g. Fallout London.
I understand mod support is a huge task, however it seems like the majority of mod support is either uncommon or somewhat accidental, is this purely down to complexity or time and resources vs direct profit or something else?
I'm working on a content framework for games that is modder friendly in my spare time and any advice would be hugely appreciated :) Hope your 2024 has started off well!
World, take note that it's possible to be a legend and still say "I don't know" / not have an opinion on stuff you have no information about rather than make stuff up. Tim's just flat-out showing how it's done.
Id love to hear your perspective and furthermore best practices of how design interacts with writers / story. Do you lead with story or design? What stage do you take these things to before waiting for other stuff to catch up. How much have the games you worked on changed either in story or design due to the other hitting some kinda roadblock. Does design always win out? Or have you worked on quests where you just had to keep the story it was just that good. Love to hear your persective!
I'm just thankful for your videos Tim!!
Still hopeful you can get a conversation with Jason Anderson on here some day. I know the folks who work on the Bloodlines Unofficial Patch would be all over it for any additional design intentions or cut content in Bloodlines.
Thank you UA-cam algorithm gods for providing this boon. Love the idea of your channel, thank you for making these!
I really like your honesty and straightforwardness, must be nice to be working with you
Love your channel. Thank you for doing this. "Combat Coding" was amazing.
This is really good context. Ive watched many of the videos, and I can see how you are exploring things of interest, but I did not understand the theme - its almost like you are building a new visual legacy. This is helpful. This answered all my questions.
Tim, Just keep being your badass self, your an inspiration and that's what matters.
Great video! Interacting in social media can be quite distressing and this kind of guidance is very welcome. Stablishing such boundaries will certainly allow more fruitful interactions.
But we need that parasocial relationship
@@wesss9353 Well remembered, this parasocial nature of social media interactions is the very core of distress
@@wesss9353 if you said that unironically, it's definitely a cry for help
Regarding "not proud of" old code: this would probably be the most instructive for the people asking. Pick a system you coded that you're not super proud of (pathfinding, AI). Show it. Describe what you were trying to do, the pitfalls you now see with it (what you aren't so proud of) and how you would do it today. *That* would be educational. Watching a person paint the moni lisa is less instructive for people who want to learn painting (although I'm sure quite inspirational) than seeing real-world examples of how something was made, hearing why it was made that way, and how it could be done better.
Happy to know you’ll be working on Outer Worlds 2 as well! I’m really enjoying playing through the first right now.
Thanks for the questions advice Tim, it makes a lot more sense now the way you've been going through them.
09:00 you mention not wanting to review games which makes sense you're not making a review channel here. But would you consider perhaps having a video that collects a bunch of unique Ideas or Mechanics you've found in games both AAA or Indie that have surprised you or inspired you to contemplate possible applications for either games you have made or games you would have made if not retired. (Aka like you mentioned doing a Vampire Survivors game as a spaceship) I have found that I am more curious about what your thoughts on games and the way they use unique mechanics or waste potential unique mechanics than I would be about you giving games scores or recommendations, which like you say figuratively "throw a stone into UA-cam and you'll hit 2 dozen review channels before it touches the ground".
I think he's also trying to avoid seeming biased toward or against certain games.
Hi Tim, your videos have inspired me to get back to focusing on the game I've been working on for fun in my free time. I've got a decent grasp on the coding and design work (with some help from the channel), but art has been a huge challenge. You mention here that you don't have any experience with the indie scene, but what do you use for art assets for your side projects you've talked about in other videos? Stock assets, or have the projects not gotten to a point that you needed detailed art? Have you looked at or have thoughts on AI art (especially for solo projects)? You've also mentioned in other videos that coders that have some understanding of art generally work better with artists, how did you go about understanding the art side of games? What lessons are there to learn about art, for coders?
When it comes to old code, if it shipped and performed as needed, it did its job. As a programmer myself, I would be interested to see how you solved/worked around specific problems that programmers of today don't have to (e.g. you've mentioned previously about different video cards, and differing chipsets even within the same card model). This is meant as feedback if you had any ideas yourself, not as a request for anything specific.
P.S. Thank you for documenting all that you do, it's very helpful.
Hi Tim. I do appreciate your videos and wanted to say that this channel has been incredibly insightful and entertaining. And just wanted to say thank you.
On another note, there are two things that have been bothering me lately and I wonder what do you think. First is magic system. I have to say I come mostly from action (rpg) game background, instead of CRPGs. But there is an issue that has been bothering me for a long time. A lot of games just make 50 shades of fireball, often ignoring more interesting spells. Which makes me wonder why, since it seems like the best magic has high level of interaction (surface effects, such as igniting oil on the ground, environmental destruction, AI manipulation, etc etc). And that a lot of magic systems still use slow cast, methodical approach. Feels like this is a hold over from the era when turn based combat was more of a technical limitation, rather than deliberate design. What do you think about that and what magic system would you consider ideal/ what features it must have/ what rules adhere to?
And second question is about accessibility and tutorials. I did notice a trend a while back where developers instead of adding proper tutorials instead choose to streamline features, cut variety, simplify mechanics for sequels. And sometimes that works in favour of the game, but more often than not it just feels like regression. A lot of people also praise certain games that have basically no tutorials and let player figure out for himself, but I feel like that also often leads to people not understanding the design for a long time, such as with games that have complex combat systems. What do you think is important for tutorials and accessibility features? And how much "hand holding" is enough? Where is the line between player agency and obscuring game mechanics?
Those Obsidian shirts are just the coolest
Hi Tim
I’m trying to recreate the history of Interplay from all sorts of interviews, game postmortems etc. I even found a collection of old Interplay documents from Brian Fargo at the “The Strong” museum. And your videos are a great help too. But there are two large black holes in my research.
The first one is Stonekeep. It seems like a huge project of Interplay’s history. But it seemed to have failed spectacularly so that no one ever talked about its development. You mentioned briefly you worked on a small part of it. Are there any more stories you can share?
The second one is the Castles games. I know those weren’t your games. But do you happen to know how I could get information on the development of those games?
I will put together some stories about what I remember of those games. For Castles, Scott Bennie has passed away, but you should try to find Vince DeNardo, designer on the first one and producer on the sequel. For Stonekeep, you should contact Michael Quarles the producer or Rob Nesler the dungeon and rendering artist. I am not sure where Michael is, but Rob is at Obsidian.
@@CainOnGames Wow, that was quick! I didn't know Scott Bennie had died. That explains a lot. Thank you for all the references. I'll try to contact them.
Hey Tim, I like your channel and stories of your experience in game development. I wish I had the opportunity to watch your videos when I was first entering college because I was always curious about game development but I never pursued a degree in it because I had people tell me not to do it. I ended up graduating college with a degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering. I'm still trying to get my foot in the door in that industry. I think I'm going to try to make programming as a hobby and learn video game programming on my free time when I get job in the industry I'm trying to pursue. I hope your information and knowledge in game development reaches out to younger people in high school and entering college.
Great video! I would love a video on how you stuck to the grind, even when stressed out and under a lot of pressure.
Hey Tim! I loved your video on game design documents and I'd love to see a video of you going through and showing us a GDD for a game you have the rights to show us. I'm not sure if such a thing exists, but I think that would be really cool.
Always good to set the boundaries and expectations of what you're comfortable with discussing. I mean... not sure all those people will respect or even make themselves aware of those boundaries, but it's still a healthy thing to do.
Your video about Lord of Light prompted me to order a copy, and it made me wonder if there are other books that you would love to see adapted into games (by yourself or others). I recall reading Perdido Street Station while simultaneously playing Fallout for the first time, and it was a strange and satisfying experience inhabiting both those brutal and fantastic worlds.
Tim: in your experience as a designer, have you done any theory-crafting around the concept of player surprise and "amazement"? Those key moments in certain games where the player's perspective on what they're even capable of doing shifts radically. If you do, I think it would be great to hear your organized thoughts on the matter filtered through your experience in design, because it's something that -- from my perspective -- seems like it could be INCREDIBLY delicate to manage. I.e. the difference between shifting a player's perspective and completely demolishing the structure of the way the game demands it be thought about.
[& yes, I may or may not have searched your video archive and checked transcripts to see if you'd touched on it before. ;) ]
I don’t have a question - just wanted to say that I love your work and look forward to every new project of yours, keep up the great work! So excited for TOW2
What does a producer actually do?
They're not a game designer.. they're not a programmer... They're not a manager.. what do they do?
They're pretty much the middle man, the guys who go back and forth between upper management and the director.
Love your games, love your vids. Always something to learn from you. Looking forward to Outer Worlds 2.
I really appreciate folks who do videos on UA-cam without considerations for view numbers, monetization, trend chasing, etc.
It reminds me of the better university professors I've had, who were in the end or towards the end of their career path and wanted to help the next generation. They weren't teaching for the money nor the fame but to help guide future accountants.
I'm getting into the accounting industry, Tim since you ran a company any tips on accounting practices? I'm kidding!
Hi, Tim! I am sure something like this was asked at some point but if you were given a solid budget to remake Arcanum (redrawn, content added, rebalanced - modernized in every way) or to make a sequel - which one would you prefer and why?
First, love your videos. I was watching them as they released but got about a week behind because I have been playing Pokémon fire red on my phone.
Anyway, I've asked this same or similar question a few times now. Do you have any thoughts on level design. I'm not sure if you have a lot of experience as a lead designer but that's one of my questions. In your view, how does level design fit in the larger picture of game design? In smaller companies, where people wear multiple hats, would artists or programmers be more likely to handle level design? What makes a good level in you opinion?
Hi Tim, thanks for these videos. I was wondering when you're trying to find an answer to a game design problem in a team where members of the team hold wildly different positions on what a concrete solution to a certain problem should be, what are the ways to keep discussions like that productive? What are possible common pitfalls in your experience to avoid in such a situations? For example trying to find the correct answer by just implementing each proposed solution might not be feasible for a lack of resources.
well I hope this one doesnt get skipped if it is seen 😂 but I was wondering, if you had to redo some of your past games like arcanum and make them first person like the outer worlds, how would the current systems be changed? I know combat would probably be completely different, but would magic or town layouts be different so they were more appealing from a first person perspective? would the UI/UX (on screen menus and game information) look drastically different as well?
Have you ever given thought to designing and releasing table top systems?
In all of your years of tabletop RPGs what sorts of house rules did you add and why?
What design considerations are there between tabletop and video game systems, especially when porting from tabletop?
City of Heroes Has thrived and continues on with a good set of folks willing to maintain and continue the game. Even after 5 years, there is real effort to get Wildstar back in action. But what will it take to allow Carbine Studios to allow it? Heck even Jeff Kurtenacker is excited about it.
Hey Tim, I’ve watched most of your videos at this point and have a short question that you’ve only maybe touched tangentially before: do you find that your reputation in the industry has helped you or hindered you more in working on the projects that you want to work on? I assume if you’re known for working on game type A and you decide to change that up or step far enough away from the accepted that might cause issues, also I could see situations where newer people in the industry especially now having grown up playing the games you’re best known for might be intimidated by you being on the same project as them and while some will bring their “A game” others might shy away and not offer enough of their own opinions and ideas in Leu of yours. Any thoughts? Love the channel and long time fan of your work!
Hey Tim, huge fan, thank you so much for making this channel.
How did you or your team choose a software structure for an engine? Model View Controller always?
Do you also code yourselves into a corner?
I think Arcanum was one of the earliest games to have a crafting system as evolved rivalling most rpgs today that demand it as a staple.
What are some of the things you want to put in the games but u haven't ? They can be some small things that make u happy or some things that you think would benefit the games .
Also can you say how do you work when you are under the stress ? And lastly do you have some rituals that you do at ur work (for focusing, relaxation or just for fun ) ?
Keep doing the great videos :D
Hey! Loved your videos it’s a whole new world for me and really enjoying learning about it! What’s your thoughts on someone wanting to direct or pitch a game with a less conventional background? (Non programmer) I worked in the animation industry previously and have been a concept artist for a few years, but my real passion is in world building and story telling, and wanting to infuse that with game design :) thank you !
Question: What Creates Immersion?
One of the things that stuck with me ever since I played the original Fallout Demo, is how the components - the interface, graphics, sound effects, droning soundtrack - all seem to "merge" together to create a very specific _mood_ .
When replaying old games, above all else, its this _mood_ I'm looking to recreate, and I find newer games more often than not fail to create one.
Have you experienced this? Is it something you're concious of and aim to create? How valuable is it?
I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
I know you've done a vid on game docs before but I feel like organization is starting to be a big problem for my tiny two person team. The first game we're making was sort of setup as a passion project so the dev has had pretty much free reign, but that's left me as the director awkwardly out of the loop. We'll be finishing this game in a month or two so I want to start out strong with the new project. I had them fill out a game doc for the current project but it was easy to see that's not something that they were taught in college. Can you talk more about training team members on docs, getting organized, must-have info in a doc, and what's sort of the correct amount of time to set aside for planning a game before it should actually be started? I'm thinking about giving a week for the next game (we're making pretty small things in really tight turnarounds for practice as a new team) but I want to be sure that time is used as effectively as possible.
Tim, first of all thank you. For this video and every other. Second of all, I'm sure people do want you to tell about VTMB's AI that you *did* work on, and I'm one of those people. If it can amount to a separate video, you'd make us very happy. (I'm afraid I can't make it a very "rich" sounding request, but maybe seeing this comment will combine with other people asking about it).
Hi Tim, appreciate the video. I had asked before about your experience as a producer and any advice for producers that want to begin well and continue to improve!
Hopeful for a video at some point about this, as I’d love to hear how you navigated your time as one, and hopefully this is a better framed question, as you had mentioned in a previous video this was a position that was almost thrust upon you.
Hey Tim! I'm new to making games, and it's been a long learning process. I feel like I've gotten much better at design and music, but scripting has been much harder to me to pick up. Do you have any thoughts on how to learn something that doesn't come easily, or programming specifically? (not teaching how to code, just in terms of the methodology behind learning it, or more generally how to learn something that's more logic oriented instead of artistically oriented)
the Flaws system in the outer worlds had me excited, but in practice it left me disappointed with how shallow it was. An RPG with actual flaws you have no control over has so much potential for Role Playing. Games like Project Zomboid get close to it but the problem there is that the flaws are something you choose at the beginning rather than something you discover about your character as you develop them.
Hey Tim, I have a question that hopefully hasn't already be answered. But could you talk more about saving systems? Do you always use the same or have you changed up your approach over the years? And do you write saving systems that use reflection and store actual running code or would you just write out specific values?
Comment and question: I had never played Caravan in Fallout New Vegas until my most recent playthrough ...and surprise, I enjoy it a lot, not to mention it's a relatively straight forward way to make a lot of caps. Who originated the idea of Caravan and how did it get into Fallout New Vegas? Was it your own love of card games?
Hey Tim I had a question you have worked on games both in the first person perspective like outer worlds and the third person perspective like fallout. I was wondering if there are any specific design challenges that you might face because your in a certain perspective? For example I would imagine doing a first person game with turn based combat would be significantly harder to design for then third person. Was just curious as a game designer how do you know what features will work with which perspective if that makes sense?
The influence of DND on the gaming industry is so huge and you have created many great games that you combined you DM knowledge and programmer skills to design different approaches to combine the best of both trpgs and videogames. The real skill tho is how you had gurps an idea and a blank page…and brought it together, even after dropping gurps.. thats the question I would love answered.. is what was the process that you took to the problem… You may not be able to answer ‘well this was the secret sauce recipe’ but your problem solving ideals and process you took would be greatly appreciated as I think you succeeded multiple times.
Do you think it's bad design when a game has a skill that solves nearly every problem, or drastically expands the game's content/quest solutions to the point that it becomes mandatory? Is it a bad idea to have skill checks that require maxing out a skill vs getting it near max (example: 100 Lockpick vs 90)?
Do you prefer when a game forces you to make a party of specialists, or would you rather have more generalist characters that can cover a few things?
What makes cool design to you? Is it impressive/memorable moments, or is it something like various levels of interactivity?
He's right about the code stuff; Here's an example: How the code is to tell the computer to render the mesh which is drawn on screen to draw a game world and render in all the assets of said game world on screen is written very differently today to how it was written 20 years ago; In fact the way stuff is written now seems really counterintuitive to what you think it should be written and it looks unoptimized but in fact it is far more optimised than the methods used 20 years ago. These days you refer to individual dependencies and provided tools as opposed to attempting to write it yourself.
Could you talk about how you approach game balance with regards to character stats, abilities, mechanics and items? Thank you for making Fallout, its a masterpiece in both story and gameplay!
I don't want you to review games but I'd LOVE to hear you talk about systems from other games, how you would do them, do them differently, what you like about them from a development perspective. Why you think they work/don't.
An extreme example and only example because I'm struggling to think of something better would be. Voxel worlds. Why you think they work, what you think is restricting about them. If you were to develop a infinite voxel world what you would do to make it run efficiently.
But again just an example of what I mean by specific systems. It could be anything from inventory systems, to travel systems, to party systems e.t.c e.t.c
Since an Arcanum remaster doesn't seem like much of a possibility I'd been hoping to hear if and how you'd rebalance the firearms in Arcanum. For example certain guns would be a lot stronger if the bullet usage wasn't as high. There's also in my experience more than a few guns that seem useless, like the regular long rifle and the shotgun. Also in general in my experience even as a gunslinger the player will often find himself unable to stay away from melee range which makes DEX and dodging a necessity, thus limiting using level points on other tech stuff.
to add on to this, i wonder if Tim ever answered the question on the quirky "flaws" of Arcanum's combat system. For example i'm a melee build currently working my way up to ranged technology, and my goal is to use as little magic as possible (though sometimes i have to use disarm to make an encounter easier, hahah)
Most of my hits with multiple types of melee weapons either don't land or are critical misses, not only that but i damage myself and my armor in the process, sometimes even knocking myself flat on my back.
I've taken another look at my stats and these things don't happen as often on daggers, but the bigger a weapon gets, the worse i am with it. It's an interesting system that makes for some funny and creative results, but i wonder how the system was designed. Is the player hurting themselves something the team thought would add to immersion? Like if you're poorly trained in combat related skills, you end up seeing a poor scallywag flail a sword around XD
@@scenariiecranizatecu Well, one thing he did touch on is that many design decisions were made around their forced inclusion of multiplayer-- being allowed to gut the realtime combat for fully turn based combat would have been one of his first changes and it would have a cascading impact on the rest of the combat design system. There's a bit of talk on this in his video on what he'd want to see in an Arcanum remake, though obviously there's always room for more insight.
@@anchorlightforge i love the game, i've played it vanilla since the hi res patch i installed would just CTD my game. i hope Tim knows that to a CRPG newbie like me, all these interesting design choices only make the game more unique. I've found very few games with a soul, that i really like and love to play, but can't explain why, and neither do i want to. Arcane is a wonderful and charming game. Here's to a sequel, remake or even just a simple official patch one day!
Q: In one of previous videos you said there was a period of time that you didn't watch a movie, a tv show, met with friends etc. becouse of the crunch. Tell us about that moment when you finally had a day off. What did you do? Do you regret watching or expirincing something at later date? And was it wierd to comeback to normality... You know... Like waking up in the middle of the night with a feeling "Did I forget about something?" Basicly is there such thing as Post Crunch Stress Disorder?
Hey Tim, big fan of your work. Im an amateur dev with a question. How do you go about selecting which game to make when you have so many game ideas?
Hi, Tim. Ive asked you something similar before, but i guess ill rephrase it... What are some of your favorite pieces of memorabilia that you own from your time in the gaming industry? Would you be willing to show some things off and talk about them? Id really love to see some of your treasures from the distant/near past, if you have any to share. 😊
Timothy Cain, I have a question you Can, Can't or Won't answer that came to me after watching your "True Purpose of The Vaults"video.. What you proposed, your original ideas for the vaults trying to make make a community of humans to go into space and kinda have a do-over... That's literally Starfield. And Starfield also has Fallout references, but that's just fun within gaming (even though I hope they eventually connect the universes and make it canon that Starfield is Fallouts future) but anyway----finally to my question!! Do you feel Todd Howard and Bethesda was influenced by your ideas of the Fallout Vaults eventually evolving into launching off to space, and maybe used that in creating Starfield?
Hey Tim,
I'd like to hear more about how you lead the development for WildStar's engine at Carbine. Game engines are very complicated with many interconnected subsystems like graphics, physics, animation, networking, audio, etc. It seems difficult to organize a larger team when you are starting development from scratch. My impression is that most game engines started with very small teams (idTech and Unreal for example) and the teams grew over time. It seems easier to add more people to an engine team when the basics for each subsystem are already in place.
How did you divide the work between each team member? Did you assign people to work on different subsystems, or was a single programmer working on multiple subsystems? How did you make sure different subsystems integrate together properly if different people were working on them? Were you able to design most of the engine architecture up front, or was it more of an iterative process? Would you do something differently if you had to lead an engine team today?
When trying to replicate a more "direct" environment on a modern platform, I have gotten even more fascinated about vast and often strange the 80s-90s computer hardware was back then. (Trying to do sub 16ms timing to playback Amiga Modules real-time on a virtual sample-based sound card taught me a lot about OS thread time quantums.) You were in thick of the drastically changing landscape of not just core computer hardware but all the accessories. What bits of hardware that you had to code for still stick out to you to this day and why?
Hi Tim. Can you describe your experiences combining RPG gameplay with Action / Stealth Gameplay in the Outer Worlds? What were the design considerations that went into combining those gameplay styles? I'm particularly interested in the challenges of scaling damage and detection to be satisfying while allowing for skill progression.
Hey Tim! I completely understand if you can’t answer/don’t know, but I’m in the process of doing research for a creative project. Do you have any info on the creation of the in-game map of Fallout/Fallout 2? The intended scale, distances, placement of landmarks?
Love your videos as always, a true masterclass in the gaming industry 🙂
Hi Tim!
You've mentioned more than once accessibility problems when you were talking about UI design but I don't think that there is a video dedicated to accessibility features in games.
In older games there were zero to none accessibility features but recently tides seem to be changing.
Have you ever worked on one?
On what stage of game development are they usually added: are games designed with accessibility in mind from the very beginning or does it usually gets added as an afterthought?
Is there ever a concern for game designer that vocal minority will complain that with accessibility options turned on game will become easier and regular players will keep it on to gain unfair advantage (especially in games with multiplayer)?
Badass shirt, Tim!!!
they love one methodology and hate the other one, and they hate the other one because it's always implemented badly, unlike theirs...
How has your philosophy with regards to game design changed over the course of your career? How have technological advancements changed how games are designed? There's a wealth of information on how it's impacted how games are developed, but comparatively little for the design process.
Whats your favorite part about your career?
Anything that you regret about your career?
When you retire will you ever code as a hobby, or would you stop entirely and pick up something else?
Happy new year :)
i just wanna know where to get that tshirt