This reminded me of college. We had a substitute one day and (likely matching pace with us) he was asking the class many questions. He quickly picked up on how incredibly unwilling we all were to voice our guesses about a new topic. He passionately opposed this sheepishness. He said a guess isn't about being right, it's about knowing what you're thinking. He then remarked "if you're going to be wrong, be wrong with conviction." Those words stick with me. To stand by what you say and yet be almost eager to be proven wrong, that is a sign of true love.
Working on a new game solo, but I started doing brainstorming sessions with my wife. She's not super into game design, but getting my ideas out in the open have been extremely helpful in analyzing them. I wish I could do more regular brainstorming sessions because its probably my favorite part of working on a game.
Ideas literally can't be realized until and unless they're shared, but a a shared vision is hard to come by for the very reasons Tim outlines here. I try not to "type" people because I certainly don't want to be "typed" myself regardless that it happens all the time, but human beings are more fluid and resilient than perhaps we realize at times, maybe because our institutions are so much slower to change and adapt than we are.
Yes. Often just hearing it out loud helps you actually hear where it's a helpful idea or something that needs work. My wife doesn't have anything to do with not but puzzle games and she's helped me a ton in actualizing ideas into functioning design. Whether that be engaging in the brainstorming or just a very generous sounding board.
I only recently in my life learned about what a productive conflict can be. It took marrying a wonderful person to learn this. Up until that moment, I really did treat all conflict as a win or lose scenario, and I suspect this is what you ran up against. I'm not sure how this skillset can really be passed on, as all my attempts to describe it always fail. The best I can do is, imagine a situation where 2 people are arguing, but the thing they fight is not each other, but the problem in front of them. It is, at all times, "us against this problem". The argument is about understanding each other, so you can move forward with the best possible solution that maximizes the outcome. But this is tough to teach or explain, as there is so much nuance in that interaction. It requires a lot of trust from everyone involved. Even as I describe it, this feels impossible to get in a game studio at any sort of scale, unless everyone in the room has a history of really strong collaborative relationships, and likely a personality type that allows them to exist in this type of conflict. Something like a sense of humility, a pride of end product, instead of their own contribution to it, etc. Again, this feels like a very tough combination to achieve, and I think you were very fortunate to experience it so early on in your career :)
Emphasis on "game design" and not "their own ideas", because man... those sessions where someone's just attached to their own bad idea are a choooooore.
I looove brainstorming. I gotta say people who speak too much are also a problem tho, I do agree to a certain extent that it's up to the person to deliver their idea but if you're more introverted it's a lot harder to get your idea when there's 1-2 people monopolizing the talk, which can happen a lot. I did a lot of brainstorming, and I actually love that part of the dev, I personally find the process of creating a miro board when everybody can drop their ideas at the same time, and then people reading them and voting on them, then reading the most upvotes work pretty well, because it makes sure to give everybody a chance to submit their idea. Basically, people might not agree but I think remote brainstorming actually works better than live brainstorm, because of the powerful tools it gives you, to vote, create timers, post its, drop pictures etc
Brainstorming is a structured activity. It has rules and the participants need to be trained. The chaos is caused by people who mixed up sharing of ideas and critique (not criticism) of ideas and judgement/decision of ideas. Those are all different activities. In proper brainstorming, no (zero, none) idea is rejected. It is purely a contributory activity. There’s a dedicated person that manages/controls the session. Rule violation is reprimanded and the violators are removed from the session.
Exactly. As you said, it requires structure and a dedicated facilitator. Otherwise, bad behavior is incentivized and only the bullish are allowed to give ideas. Thanks for voicing what I was thinking.
I think you and Leonard are coming from a very different place than perhaps most of the people at the other companies you worked on came from. You two started working on Fallout basically as amateurs that knew nothing of game design and just were so excited to be working on games for a living. You had a clear and simple objective of: "let's make the best, most fun game we can!" While in Obsidian and Carbine you had to interact with people that are had not the same excitement about making games and started a bit later in a more "developed" industry and had to climb a whole "corporate" hierarchy and play "company politics" to eventually get to the position where they get to make design decisions with some pompous title like "director". It's an inherently different view of the craft. You are thinking: "let's make a fun, awesome game!", they are thinking: "this is my grand vision that I worked years here to achieve and no one will challenge my authority!". I think the best time you guys had, Tim, was certainly developing Arcanum. By best I mean: "what I really want to do day to day with my life". The only problem is that you guys didn't get to own the IP!
Trouble with brainstorming sessions I've had is there's no moderation as to who talks when, so big personalities dominate the entire hour with some participants wanting to talk yet having no way of interjecting apart from interrupting (which some participants can get away with, and others can't). It takes a strong moderator to say "Johnny, you've been quiet. What are your thoughts?" or, as silly as it sounds, having adults raise their hands if they want to say something at the next opportunity.
I have made 1 person the 'recorder' and they write with a magic marker on a whiteboard. After 5 minutes, they hand off to whoever is talking the most. The recorder is not allowed to talk, only write down the ideas. It drives the big personalities nuts but everyone else loves it.
I think it comes down to school or early life, some people learn to be detached when talking about ideas and some are personally invested in there ideas to the point of taking offence.
- We love hearing you say that you have many more videos to go! - I'm naturally the type of people that really push an idea when I feel strongly about it. It's really hard for me to kill my darlings when I have a whole implementation in mind for them. But after getting called out by colleagues I've learned to reign that in.
It's the people, Tim. I told you before, the people is everything! Different companies have different cultures. We hear horror development stories of places like CD Projekt Red where is said it's pretty bad manager culture, where managers get all the bonuses and they overwork and treat the actual devs like s_it. In your experiences in CA you probably have dealt a lot with soy latte devs, these kids who were super spoiled by their parents and now that they grew up they can't take a NO for an answer. These people LOVE power and big companies attract them, so probably avoid those! Anyway, hope you can get together an awesome team for your next gamedev endeavors! You are a superb team player from what I hear in your vids!
Love this. The principals, lessons learned, and overall experiences and examples provided are great not just for brainstorming games, but brainstorming in any creative area. Really great stuff!! 🙌
I'm definitely one of those "always right" people, and I'm aware of it. That's why i try to encourage people to challenge and criticize things i say, so i can sort of keep myself in check. I work best with people who can stand up for themselves. Even at my 'normal' retail jobs, you get too many people who are afraid to say something or don't care, even if they spot a mistake or have a better way
Here are my experiences on brainstorming. Not everyone likes brainstorming. It's part of social skills. In a company, competition between colleagues is real. I've learned that designers are often complacent. I've learned that programmers often get bored while brainstorming. Why the hell should I share my best ideas with you when you are the one who will reap the rewards of the bonuses? And why the hell should I be heavily invested when there's no reward in sight, and by that I don't mean money but maybe more free time without cutting my income? In my first job I had people "steal" my ideas to see if they were good, and I was satisfied with the results, but it also showed me that people are willing to steal something from you :D!
life is sad. At first I was like "what's wrong with your mindset" and then I was like "yea humans can be shit I get you" collaborative creations can suffer a lot from individualism
@@coffeebreakhero3743 Yes, that's the point. I've also worked with people who were more into collaborative work. It was a pleasure to work like this, and the results reflected that.
I get what you are saying, everyone should have skin in the game and take some ownership . If everything is top down then it’s like you said, everyone takes credit for success or they scapegoat you for all the failure.
I really enjoy these videos, though I do have a small point of contention over "Being more passionate" about creation. There's no right or wrong way for creating things. Everyone is different. By this, I mean that not everyone is loud and animated when they do it. I'm very introverted, so my brainstorming is very internalized. I may not speak up much, but trust me, the creativity and discussions that go on in my head are very loud.
Introverts generally speak only when they have something truly worthwhile to say. So, I should think they would be indispensible in a brrainstroming session. If and when they do say something, others might want to perk up and pay really close attention to what they've had to say.
Tim, could you tell some stories from your time with Pillars of Eternity? I'm finally playing through it after numerous attempts to get into the RTWP combat, and now that I understand how the combat works it's been very rewarding ...plus the amazing world building and dialogue makes it one of my favorite RPGs I've played.
This video really, REALLY makes me wonder - what would you have done differently with Fallout. Not management or whatever else, but what would you change about the end product. Has this been answered already? I think I watched every video on Fallout thus far and didn't see that mentioned.
really insightful and honestly tracks for me when I think on any collaborative or collective project or creative endeavour or what have you that I've ever done, both the upsides and what it is like when everyone is invested with passion and humility as well as the times they've crashed and burned and WHY
I don't think it was that people never saw real passion for a thing, it is just in the modern society you are not supposed to ever be loud, you aren't supposed to be confrontational, and any conflict is by default bad conflict. Work is supposed to be a safe space, not a collaboration or a place where you might get told you are wrong about anything. And HR is happy to educate anyone who does not agree and gets even minor complaints levied against them.
There's a good article on that subject floating about titled 'Has Human Resources Become Out of Date?' Was it ever in-date? The very term indicates a worldview that sees everything, including human beings, merely as "resources" to be managed, if not exploited. Employees used to be called "personnel," a term that's not all that much better considering it was originally a military term, but -- way back when -- employees were still, at least, viewed and even occasionally treated as though they were persons. Corporations may be coming around or eventually come around to the fact that such a worldview is inherently harmful and, even, pretty obviously destructive.
I've found that when people say they didn't get a chance to talk it's usually a moderation problem. The person coordinating the meeting failed to cut the 2 or 3 people who went off for a long time on a specific point.
Passionated discussion may not be the same as having an argument, but it can feel that way, and for a lot of people who are sensitive, have had childhood trauma, or have emotional disregulation, it can be very helpful to reassure them, to reinforce at the beginning of the meeting that it's about ideas not people, and at the end of the meeting to have a bit of a cool down so noone keeps bad feelings with them.
I’ve been listening a few weeks while I work. While Tim and I have some difference in our perspectives on what games are and our approach to designing them, this is the first time I heard Tim say something that I disagreed with on a more objective, professional level. Brainstorming sessions are great ways for coming up with collaborative ideas and expounding upon independent ideas as a group, but that’s not their only function. When you work in a professional setting with a collection of people from different backgrounds, sociologically and academically, brainstorming sessions also serve as an epistemological observation deck from which you can get to know how your teammates think, how they arrive at ideas, and the general kind of ideas you can expect to see coming down the road. The problem with, “just wait until the ideas are revealed later,” is that it grants a small group of people power over when and how that type of understanding can be reached. It also removes the scope of the rejected ideas that also paint a picture of how and why your teammates arrive at ideas. Additionally, it provides direct insight into thought patterns and even disciplines with which you may have no direct personal experience, quantitatively or qualitatively. Being present, even while not participating, helps you develop an understanding for how all these different people and disciplines think, function, and even come together as a whole. Attend as many team brainstorming sessions as you physically can, even if you don’t end up directly contributing to the real-time discourse. That’s based on a decade’s worth of experience working in interactivity in a related field. Go to the sessions, even if someone is confused about why you’re there.
I get what you’re saying, and I agree that for some people, it’s important to be present even if they’re not going to speak. My only problem with this approach is that, psychologically, there’s a big difference between a meeting with 6-8 people discussing ideas and a meeting with 12-15 people, where 6-8 people talk and the rest sit there quietly. It’s dampening, I have no other expression for it. If those extra people came to the brainstorming sessions in pairs, that’s not bad. But collaborative meetings where half the people act like spectators is unsettling to me, and I’m sure to others as well.
@@CainOnGames Oh yeah, this is totally in the context of established teams, what I’m saying. Like I’m not advocating sitting in on sessions that aren’t directly related to whatever your responsibilities are. So like, I wouldn’t say, “show up at those mystery pizza parties where they’re taking about a theoretical project that has no team.” That wouldn’t really make sense. If someone’s part of an established team or department, though, and the ideas coming out of sessions, and the people creating those ideas, will directly impact them and their work, then I’d encourage them to go. Even if they don’t have ideas or anything to say. At the end of the day, they’re part of an active team and I just don’t feel like it’d make sense to make them feel they shouldn’t be showing up if they don’t have any ideas. It can’t hurt for everyone to have a decent view of how everyone operates in that way-it can even help with providing deeper context for requests they receive down the line. But yeah, don’t just crash random or conceptual sessions that aren’t directly related to whatever you’re doing or going to be doing. That’s not what I’m saying, if that’s how it came across.
@@lrinfi I think having people at a brainstorming session who are watching but not participating makes me feel like a performer, like they’ve come to watch a show. Sharing ideas involves a certain level of vulnerability, and silent observers feel a bit judgmental.
Man, I wish I'd gotten to work with you, I was at Carbine after your tenure there. I'm really open to this style of brainstorming and design. If you ever decide to unretire or try to cobble something together on an indie-level, I will be one of the first to apply.
@tim 3:30 just one thing, there is benefit from understanding how a decision how made, to understanding how it should be executed. Perhaps recording brainstorming sessions for engineers is good. (but yea some people view it as a social activity, and some just have fomo)
Tim, have you come across some of the insane fan mods for fallout 1 and 2 coming out of Russia? They're full games in their own right and incredibly designed
incredibly designed? they always feel like their designers want very few people to actually finish them: "did you love fo2? we will make it like fo2... but even bigger, harder, and more cryptic" not realising that fo2 is well optimized when it comes to difficulty. most of these mods are simply frustrating. i always start them and feel overwhelmed after first 5-10h.
Currently im in a small team so we havent really ran into extremely negative individuals. But i do have non game developer friends who are like this. People like that tend to just be like that with everything all the time. Its more of a character flaw than a developer flaw. Either or, our team understands to avoid people like this. They kill the mood and flow of the environment which hinders progress
my Brain is a clear summers day whenever it comes to putting my ideas on paper, but when I'm not directly thinking about the "Creative Process" my Brain immediately becomes a hurricane of thoughts.
The best question: How's that going to work and what role can I play? I invert the critique, for selfish reasons. What's my workload in this... awesome you just proposed? After that, judge by their answer. Technical critique is an easier realm for me. Brainstorming, "Fishbowling" as I called it, I had to direct a handful of times. Don't make fun difficult. Intense is fine. But don't destroy in the fishbowl. Don't be the piranha.
Thank you Tim! Great video as always! Have you ever been in a position where you had to yield to a "worse" idea in order to appease a subgroup of your team and improve morale? How do you handle the sometimes misguided passion for something that clearly seems suboptimal?
I remember a mod author of an incredibly popular mod for Fallout 3 being repeatedly told his idea had been stolen for use in the Far Harbor DLC. Fortunately, he was big enough to say, "Hey, if someone at Bethesda was inspired by my mod, then I'm honored. But I don't think my idea was stolen." Want to brainstorm with Tim? Hope you get to work with Tim at some point. The idea of "intellectual property" itself is a pretty weird idea when you stop to think about it.
When I was working on a game jam, we all submitted different ideas on what to do, most of my ideas weren't any good and I was mostly just making them to get ideas flowing but one of my ideas which most people really liked got shot down towards the end It makes me sad that we didn't do it but I'll try and make time to prototype it myself to see if it's actually got some bones or if the flaws really make it non viable
@@lrinfi thanks! it was concerns surrounding the primary gameplay loop, which I think is enough on its own (think typing of the dead) but it was thought of as not being engaging enough
I'm still shocked how cool this guy is , I thought he'd be kinda like Peter molineaux considering his legendary status in the industry... I'm still surprised how friendly he seems
While i love the content, i would love to hear the examples of what ideas were mentioned in those sessions(for various games and reasonings for accepting/denying ideas). I think when you talk about those 5 man taking the initiative in discussing ideas you could have just let everyone(!) have some time to do the talking at the start and after(you didnt explain how those meeting went?)
I guess that's the thing, since game creation is very often collaborative, one's individual ideas may not get through all the way unscathed, no matter how great they feel in one's own head. I'd rather have a brainstorming session that at least illustrated how fragile ideas can be at the beginning, and had people realize they had to work toward some sort of general understanding to get things done, rather than have situations where someone in authority asks your for ideas and then ignore or berate them and then reject them, without any organic process that might get others on the team excited or stimulate more ideas. What sort of mix of disciplines and backgrounds in brainstorming groups did you tend to see? Was it usually just design folks or broader? It sounds like it was an open invite a lot of the time?
5:28 hmm with the meeting thing, meetings waste time, valuable time that can be used to finish something, like if someone has the mentality of I need to get XY and Z done, that blocks productivity, and derails their schedule, plus if you throw out an idea that gets picked up, it adds onto their work load, like its a perfectly understandable mentality, and one of the reasons why modern companies in the US cant compete with the rest of the world, theirs too many meetings and too many cooks in the kitchen to actually get things done on time and fallout worked as it was a small team that meshed together well and worked well together because they were all on the same page, the bigger the project, the more people, the less that happens and the worse it gets case in point a game that people often say is the bestist ever, but the basic game mechanics are some of the worst in the series with one of the most basic attributes that should have been fixed day 1 Red dead redemption II, like on the xbox version you can tell the game testers must have had dead eye on 24/7 365 because the second you get into a fight with anyone your autoaim aims you at some guy in Tahiti instead of the dog about to chew your face off, or the guy that your even looking at, as I had one case where I was at the house in the swamp in Saint Denis, and the autoaim suddenly veered off to the right and was pointing me at a guy I didnt even know was there, behind a tent no less complete with the protagonist going what the hell at the same time I did given someone noticed me and shot his hat off lol like 10 out of 10, what game did you guys play lol and that game had well over a thousand people working on it, over the course of 5 years, with literally unlimited money coming in thanks to the success of gta online, and no one picked up on that at all. and that is one of Numerous problems I found with that game, and I didnt even make the god damn thing! as small meetings and brainstorming ideas with people in small groups works far better than big meetings and big brainstorming ideas, just given the sheer logisitics and how much that ties people up as 95% of a good game is good management of the development team, and if you were running into people who werent happy to be there, that was bad management in a nutshell because they shouldnt have been there to begin with
It's a shame taking some kind of conflict resolution seminar isn't required for the game dev industry. I don't get how people can even get into working in actual studios by refusing to cooperate with anyone on idea workshopping.
I think Leonard Boyarsky talked about that in their chat or it might have been a completely different chat/channel/video I'm remembering. It's great. It sounds like they needed this (a frightful predator, which became the deathclaw) or they needed that (a "villain" that turned out to be the Master) and whatever they needed just kind of showed up. I'll try to link the video if I can find it again.
Hi Tim, great video, i have question for you, what do you consider a good way of presenting an idea during these brainstorming sessions? Do i need to write a document or something? Do i need to make a test room in the game with that idea implemented?
Not at all! I feel that initial brainstorming sessions are a freeform verbal exchange of ideas. No docs, no prototypes, no concept art. Those can come later, after people have heard your idea, discussed it, and asked questions.
Hey, Tim. Not directly related to this video, but can you tell the story of why The Outer Worlds doesn't have fully functional keybinds? It's a game I've had on my wishlist for ages, and to my surprise it was part of this month's Humble Choice bundle. Unfortunately it somehow has hardcoded keybinds for the menus and some other in game features from what I've read. After an hour of research and fighting with the game's config files, I uninstalled it without even starting a new game because I couldn't rebind something as simple as the "Map" key. During my research I found out that this has been a problem that players have complained about for years - since the game's release, even, and has been ignored for all that time. I've thought about it, and I can't find a reasonable excuse for a PC game not having fully rebindable keys because the problem was provably solved as early as 1996 with Daggerfall in MS-DOS, and likely before that even. On top of that, it's a feature I've programmed myself around 2003 so I know how trivially easy it is from a technical perspective. To say that I'm disappointed to put the game on the shelf is an understatement, but it's the only reasonable thing to do - I shouldn't have to fight with text files or write inconvenient scripts to fix something so simple to get right. So what's the problem? I know Obsidian isn't the only company to do this - ironically Bethesda has become a serial offender on this front, but The Outer Worlds is my most recent experience with the problem, and it's immensely frustrating. Frustrating to the point where if Avowed or The Outer Worlds 2 ship without fully working keybinds, I'll absolutely skip them as well.
Us PC players are a tiny minority of gamers today. Studios have to work on making games that operate well on all the consoles first and foremost, then they might be able to think about the PC experience. PC ports are notoriously awful simply due to the fact that games are made for consoles today. The modding community, if modding is allowed and supported, are very good at designing interfaces and mods specifically for PC players, but it'd be nice if we little red-haired stepchildren received more love and attention from game development companies themselves. The acceleration of game development cycles alone must make it all but impossible to give PC ports the attention they deserve and could be getting..Maybe that will change in future. Maybe about the time the idea that "bigger is better" and "more is good" (quantity over quality as opposed to a good balance) itself is scrutinized, perchance? :)
@@perplexedmoth First off, it's an accessibility problem. Not every keyboard is QWERTY, and not everyone is comfortable with WASD. Moreover, not everyone is right handed. None of these issues affect me, but these players benefit from rebindable keys as much or more than I do, and by advocating for myself, I advocate for them as well. For example, a left handed player couldn't use IJKL for movement in The Outer Worlds without engaging in righteous battle with the game's config files, and even then it may not be fixable. What does affect me is the desire to play similar games (e.g. first person games / shooters) in more or less the same way. In my opinion WASD was a mistake and never should have existed, though I don't begrudge people who prefer it. My reasoning is that on a standard QWERTY keyboard, your fingers belong on ESDF. WASD robs you of access to more keys (A, Q, Z) with your pinky at the cost of the Shift, Caps Lock, and Tab keys being slightly further away. Simply put, ESDF gives me fast access to more keys, and it's usually enough to do every common function in any kind of game with just my left hand and mouse. In an online game it has the added benefit of me not having to move my hand to type a message in chat. In my specific example of the map, I always rebind it to G in because I'm constantly looking at it. Pressing M takes my fingers either off my mouse, or off all other useful keys - the M key obviously isn't meant to be hit with your left hand. As another example, I use the A key to interact - it's a commonly used feature in first person games, and my pinky rests on it naturally with ESDF. If I used WASD, I'd have to take my finger off a movement key to interact with objects or open a door, for example, because it's typically bound to E in that configuration, and there are no other available binds for your pinky other than Tab, Shift, or Caps Lock. That's not something I want to do 6000 times over the course of a 40+ hour playthrough. As far as the work load, trust me when I say that budget and time is not a reasonable excuse to not implement the feature, especially when you've already taken the time to implement it for 80% of the other functions in the game (as is the case for The Outer Worlds). Like I said, I've done it, and it's genuinely trivial. Working keybinds isn't a feature that's ever going to get you game of the year, but it's a core part of the foundation a PC game is built on. I could live with editing a config file if it was well documented, but playing "guess what the developers named this action" isn't in the cards.
@@perplexedmoth WASD for movement; space for jump; etc.; are pretty much industry standards. But what about "activate?" Depends what's most comfortable for the player or the type of keyboard they're using, etc. The one that frustrated the you-know-what out of me recently was a game that had jump bound to the 'F' key and map to the 'G' key, etc. Coming up with keybinds that made the game even remotely playable on PC was nearly impossible and the map key, along with most of the rest, weren't rebindable at all. There was no way to set hotkeys, the game requiring that we scroll (and scroll and scroll) through everything to get to what we needed, even in the middle of combat. Even the "pockets," of which there were six, only four were viewable and usable without opening the main menu. The configuration I came up with is still awkward and has gotten my avatar killed far more than once. I just seriously wanted to give that particular game a go or I wouldn't have bothered with it. It was nearly impossible to play with a mouse and keyboard. And people are like, "Well, just use a controller. That's what it was designed for. You'll have a much easier time." I don't have a controller; I don't want a controller; and I shouldn't be required to buy a controller just to play your particular game.
I have a few close friends that hate Outer Worlds with a passion. Friends i can call old school rpg nerds, to an extent. I havent played it myself yet, so im interested in hearing your stories about Outer Worlds development.
Here is a radical idea: Let's not hire designers anymore. Let everyone in the team have a specialization: programming, art, sound, music AND do some *actual* design work, like level design. In any open-world game you will always have more level design to be done than people to do it. I think it's great idea, everyone gets to own a little bit of the game.
have you played torment tides of numenera? a game can have potential to be great but suffer from cohesion problems from being too split between too many people
Love your work but you seem like you'd have been a nightmare to work with sometimes. How is it acceptable to ask a coworker why they showed up to a brainstorming meeting if they aren't going to "contribute"? Such a simplified understanding of what brainstorming is, and seriously underestimates the value of being plugged in, even passively, to the brainstorming process, the flow of ideas around problem solving, etc. Seems like unnecessary workplace aggression, unnecessary devaluation of team members who work and contribute differently. Can you honestly say that the people who never "contributed" didn't have specific, actionable ideas that came from being plugged into the brainstorming PROCESS, and not just the brainstorming RESULTS which you said they could get later? Can you really say that being plugged into that brainstorming process, even passively, didn't help their work later? Like... what? You're just telling the whole world you were an asshole?
![วันเกิดเธอ (TO YOU) - PHUWIN [ OFFICIAL MV ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/_ROx1Bj3T0Y/mqdefault.jpg)
I think that's the best shirt so far.
But a bit small) Porbably already very old one but still great.
@@yeoldenewbienothing wrong with a tight fitting shirt, even better really
Did you see the Arcanum one? Nice shirt but I really liked the one with Arcanum on the back and Troika on the front.
This reminded me of college. We had a substitute one day and (likely matching pace with us) he was asking the class many questions. He quickly picked up on how incredibly unwilling we all were to voice our guesses about a new topic. He passionately opposed this sheepishness. He said a guess isn't about being right, it's about knowing what you're thinking. He then remarked "if you're going to be wrong, be wrong with conviction."
Those words stick with me. To stand by what you say and yet be almost eager to be proven wrong, that is a sign of true love.
Working on a new game solo, but I started doing brainstorming sessions with my wife. She's not super into game design, but getting my ideas out in the open have been extremely helpful in analyzing them. I wish I could do more regular brainstorming sessions because its probably my favorite part of working on a game.
Ideas literally can't be realized until and unless they're shared, but a a shared vision is hard to come by for the very reasons Tim outlines here. I try not to "type" people because I certainly don't want to be "typed" myself regardless that it happens all the time, but human beings are more fluid and resilient than perhaps we realize at times, maybe because our institutions are so much slower to change and adapt than we are.
Yes. Often just hearing it out loud helps you actually hear where it's a helpful idea or something that needs work. My wife doesn't have anything to do with not but puzzle games and she's helped me a ton in actualizing ideas into functioning design. Whether that be engaging in the brainstorming or just a very generous sounding board.
The point of view of someone who's not into games could be very valuable. We've internalized a LOT of conventions that maybe she hasn't.
I only recently in my life learned about what a productive conflict can be. It took marrying a wonderful person to learn this. Up until that moment, I really did treat all conflict as a win or lose scenario, and I suspect this is what you ran up against. I'm not sure how this skillset can really be passed on, as all my attempts to describe it always fail. The best I can do is, imagine a situation where 2 people are arguing, but the thing they fight is not each other, but the problem in front of them. It is, at all times, "us against this problem". The argument is about understanding each other, so you can move forward with the best possible solution that maximizes the outcome.
But this is tough to teach or explain, as there is so much nuance in that interaction. It requires a lot of trust from everyone involved. Even as I describe it, this feels impossible to get in a game studio at any sort of scale, unless everyone in the room has a history of really strong collaborative relationships, and likely a personality type that allows them to exist in this type of conflict. Something like a sense of humility, a pride of end product, instead of their own contribution to it, etc. Again, this feels like a very tough combination to achieve, and I think you were very fortunate to experience it so early on in your career :)
It's PvE, not PvP.
@@lr0dy nice !
I'd love to be in an impassioned brainstorming session like the ones described. I have yet to work with people that excited about game design.
fruitful cutting debate should be part of school education!
Emphasis on "game design" and not "their own ideas", because man... those sessions where someone's just attached to their own bad idea are a choooooore.
I looove brainstorming. I gotta say people who speak too much are also a problem tho, I do agree to a certain extent that it's up to the person to deliver their idea but if you're more introverted it's a lot harder to get your idea when there's 1-2 people monopolizing the talk, which can happen a lot. I did a lot of brainstorming, and I actually love that part of the dev, I personally find the process of creating a miro board when everybody can drop their ideas at the same time, and then people reading them and voting on them, then reading the most upvotes work pretty well, because it makes sure to give everybody a chance to submit their idea. Basically, people might not agree but I think remote brainstorming actually works better than live brainstorm, because of the powerful tools it gives you, to vote, create timers, post its, drop pictures etc
Brainstorming is a structured activity. It has rules and the participants need to be trained. The chaos is caused by people who mixed up sharing of ideas and critique (not criticism) of ideas and judgement/decision of ideas. Those are all different activities. In proper brainstorming, no (zero, none) idea is rejected. It is purely a contributory activity. There’s a dedicated person that manages/controls the session. Rule violation is reprimanded and the violators are removed from the session.
Exactly. As you said, it requires structure and a dedicated facilitator. Otherwise, bad behavior is incentivized and only the bullish are allowed to give ideas. Thanks for voicing what I was thinking.
I think you and Leonard are coming from a very different place than perhaps most of the people at the other companies you worked on came from. You two started working on Fallout basically as amateurs that knew nothing of game design and just were so excited to be working on games for a living. You had a clear and simple objective of: "let's make the best, most fun game we can!" While in Obsidian and Carbine you had to interact with people that are had not the same excitement about making games and started a bit later in a more "developed" industry and had to climb a whole "corporate" hierarchy and play "company politics" to eventually get to the position where they get to make design decisions with some pompous title like "director". It's an inherently different view of the craft. You are thinking: "let's make a fun, awesome game!", they are thinking: "this is my grand vision that I worked years here to achieve and no one will challenge my authority!". I think the best time you guys had, Tim, was certainly developing Arcanum. By best I mean: "what I really want to do day to day with my life". The only problem is that you guys didn't get to own the IP!
Tim! You are the game design father I never had. Love the videos, keep them coming:)
So that makes Leonard the game design mom then?
@@gargamellenoir8460 Lmao that was good
Trouble with brainstorming sessions I've had is there's no moderation as to who talks when, so big personalities dominate the entire hour with some participants wanting to talk yet having no way of interjecting apart from interrupting (which some participants can get away with, and others can't). It takes a strong moderator to say "Johnny, you've been quiet. What are your thoughts?" or, as silly as it sounds, having adults raise their hands if they want to say something at the next opportunity.
I have made 1 person the 'recorder' and they write with a magic marker on a whiteboard. After 5 minutes, they hand off to whoever is talking the most. The recorder is not allowed to talk, only write down the ideas. It drives the big personalities nuts but everyone else loves it.
I think it comes down to school or early life, some people learn to be detached when talking about ideas and some are personally invested in there ideas to the point of taking offence.
- We love hearing you say that you have many more videos to go!
- I'm naturally the type of people that really push an idea when I feel strongly about it. It's really hard for me to kill my darlings when I have a whole implementation in mind for them. But after getting called out by colleagues I've learned to reign that in.
Its só amazing we have literally the creator of one of the greatest videogame universes of all times teaching us for free
I love you Tim, thank you for taking the time to create this channel. ❤
It's the people, Tim. I told you before, the people is everything! Different companies have different cultures. We hear horror development stories of places like CD Projekt Red where is said it's pretty bad manager culture, where managers get all the bonuses and they overwork and treat the actual devs like s_it. In your experiences in CA you probably have dealt a lot with soy latte devs, these kids who were super spoiled by their parents and now that they grew up they can't take a NO for an answer. These people LOVE power and big companies attract them, so probably avoid those! Anyway, hope you can get together an awesome team for your next gamedev endeavors! You are a superb team player from what I hear in your vids!
Love this. The principals, lessons learned, and overall experiences and examples provided are great not just for brainstorming games, but brainstorming in any creative area. Really great stuff!! 🙌
I'm definitely one of those "always right" people, and I'm aware of it. That's why i try to encourage people to challenge and criticize things i say, so i can sort of keep myself in check. I work best with people who can stand up for themselves.
Even at my 'normal' retail jobs, you get too many people who are afraid to say something or don't care, even if they spot a mistake or have a better way
Here are my experiences on brainstorming.
Not everyone likes brainstorming.
It's part of social skills.
In a company, competition between colleagues is real.
I've learned that designers are often complacent.
I've learned that programmers often get bored while brainstorming.
Why the hell should I share my best ideas with you when you are the one who will reap the rewards of the bonuses?
And why the hell should I be heavily invested when there's no reward in sight, and by that I don't mean money but maybe more free time without cutting my income?
In my first job I had people "steal" my ideas to see if they were good, and I was satisfied with the results, but it also showed me that people are willing to steal something from you :D!
life is sad. At first I was like "what's wrong with your mindset" and then I was like "yea humans can be shit I get you"
collaborative creations can suffer a lot from individualism
@@coffeebreakhero3743 Yes, that's the point. I've also worked with people who were more into collaborative work. It was a pleasure to work like this, and the results reflected that.
it's amazing how many people these days think they have it all figured out. you are right to fear those sorts.
I get what you are saying, everyone should have skin in the game and take some ownership . If everything is top down then it’s like you said, everyone takes credit for success or they scapegoat you for all the failure.
I really enjoy these videos, though I do have a small point of contention over "Being more passionate" about creation. There's no right or wrong way for creating things. Everyone is different. By this, I mean that not everyone is loud and animated when they do it. I'm very introverted, so my brainstorming is very internalized. I may not speak up much, but trust me, the creativity and discussions that go on in my head are very loud.
Introverts generally speak only when they have something truly worthwhile to say. So, I should think they would be indispensible in a brrainstroming session. If and when they do say something, others might want to perk up and pay really close attention to what they've had to say.
When you are working in a team, it's important to be able to scrutinize your ideas, and let others do the same. Leave your ego at the door.
My favorite video of yours yet.
Tim, could you tell some stories from your time with Pillars of Eternity? I'm finally playing through it after numerous attempts to get into the RTWP combat, and now that I understand how the combat works it's been very rewarding
...plus the amazing world building and dialogue makes it one of my favorite RPGs I've played.
Tim , yes please! ! ! ! !
These are the universal truths about brainstorming.
Great video Tim! keep it up. I will always watch your vids.
That's so cool. Reminds me of the brainstorming they do in writer's rooms for stuff like the Simpsons (early).
This video really, REALLY makes me wonder - what would you have done differently with Fallout. Not management or whatever else, but what would you change about the end product. Has this been answered already? I think I watched every video on Fallout thus far and didn't see that mentioned.
really insightful and honestly tracks for me when I think on any collaborative or collective project or creative endeavour or what have you that I've ever done, both the upsides and what it is like when everyone is invested with passion and humility as well as the times they've crashed and burned and WHY
I don't think it was that people never saw real passion for a thing, it is just in the modern society you are not supposed to ever be loud, you aren't supposed to be confrontational, and any conflict is by default bad conflict.
Work is supposed to be a safe space, not a collaboration or a place where you might get told you are wrong about anything.
And HR is happy to educate anyone who does not agree and gets even minor complaints levied against them.
There's a good article on that subject floating about titled 'Has Human Resources Become Out of Date?' Was it ever in-date? The very term indicates a worldview that sees everything, including human beings, merely as "resources" to be managed, if not exploited. Employees used to be called "personnel," a term that's not all that much better considering it was originally a military term, but -- way back when -- employees were still, at least, viewed and even occasionally treated as though they were persons.
Corporations may be coming around or eventually come around to the fact that such a worldview is inherently harmful and, even, pretty obviously destructive.
Thank you for videos, they're very enjoyable.
Yet another absolute banger of a video from the legendary Tim Cain
This is definitely your best shirt so far. I love it.
I've found that when people say they didn't get a chance to talk it's usually a moderation problem. The person coordinating the meeting failed to cut the 2 or 3 people who went off for a long time on a specific point.
One of the best shirts I have seen on the channel, loved the video too!
Passionated discussion may not be the same as having an argument, but it can feel that way, and for a lot of people who are sensitive, have had childhood trauma, or have emotional disregulation, it can be very helpful to reassure them, to reinforce at the beginning of the meeting that it's about ideas not people, and at the end of the meeting to have a bit of a cool down so noone keeps bad feelings with them.
coddling made them that way in the first place. Bringing people out of their comfort zone is how they learn.
@@eljefe4258 You can't teach people when you hurt them.
I’ve been listening a few weeks while I work. While Tim and I have some difference in our perspectives on what games are and our approach to designing them, this is the first time I heard Tim say something that I disagreed with on a more objective, professional level.
Brainstorming sessions are great ways for coming up with collaborative ideas and expounding upon independent ideas as a group, but that’s not their only function.
When you work in a professional setting with a collection of people from different backgrounds, sociologically and academically, brainstorming sessions also serve as an epistemological observation deck from which you can get to know how your teammates think, how they arrive at ideas, and the general kind of ideas you can expect to see coming down the road.
The problem with, “just wait until the ideas are revealed later,” is that it grants a small group of people power over when and how that type of understanding can be reached. It also removes the scope of the rejected ideas that also paint a picture of how and why your teammates arrive at ideas.
Additionally, it provides direct insight into thought patterns and even disciplines with which you may have no direct personal experience, quantitatively or qualitatively. Being present, even while not participating, helps you develop an understanding for how all these different people and disciplines think, function, and even come together as a whole.
Attend as many team brainstorming sessions as you physically can, even if you don’t end up directly contributing to the real-time discourse.
That’s based on a decade’s worth of experience working in interactivity in a related field. Go to the sessions, even if someone is confused about why you’re there.
I get what you’re saying, and I agree that for some people, it’s important to be present even if they’re not going to speak. My only problem with this approach is that, psychologically, there’s a big difference between a meeting with 6-8 people discussing ideas and a meeting with 12-15 people, where 6-8 people talk and the rest sit there quietly. It’s dampening, I have no other expression for it. If those extra people came to the brainstorming sessions in pairs, that’s not bad. But collaborative meetings where half the people act like spectators is unsettling to me, and I’m sure to others as well.
@@CainOnGames Oh yeah, this is totally in the context of established teams, what I’m saying. Like I’m not advocating sitting in on sessions that aren’t directly related to whatever your responsibilities are.
So like, I wouldn’t say, “show up at those mystery pizza parties where they’re taking about a theoretical project that has no team.” That wouldn’t really make sense.
If someone’s part of an established team or department, though, and the ideas coming out of sessions, and the people creating those ideas, will directly impact them and their work, then I’d encourage them to go. Even if they don’t have ideas or anything to say. At the end of the day, they’re part of an active team and I just don’t feel like it’d make sense to make them feel they shouldn’t be showing up if they don’t have any ideas.
It can’t hurt for everyone to have a decent view of how everyone operates in that way-it can even help with providing deeper context for requests they receive down the line.
But yeah, don’t just crash random or conceptual sessions that aren’t directly related to whatever you’re doing or going to be doing. That’s not what I’m saying, if that’s how it came across.
@@NorthmostStudios Ok, that makes sense. I welcome everyone to sit in on team design sessions. For active brainstorming, not so much.
@@CainOnGames What is it about it that makes you personally feel unsettled, if I may ask?
@@lrinfi I think having people at a brainstorming session who are watching but not participating makes me feel like a performer, like they’ve come to watch a show. Sharing ideas involves a certain level of vulnerability, and silent observers feel a bit judgmental.
Man, I wish I'd gotten to work with you, I was at Carbine after your tenure there. I'm really open to this style of brainstorming and design. If you ever decide to unretire or try to cobble something together on an indie-level, I will be one of the first to apply.
@tim 3:30 just one thing, there is benefit from understanding how a decision how made, to understanding how it should be executed. Perhaps recording brainstorming sessions for engineers is good.
(but yea some people view it as a social activity, and some just have fomo)
"Which one of us is Mom in this case?" LOL Tim! 😂
Tim, have you come across some of the insane fan mods for fallout 1 and 2 coming out of Russia? They're full games in their own right and incredibly designed
incredibly designed? they always feel like their designers want very few people to actually finish them: "did you love fo2? we will make it like fo2... but even bigger, harder, and more cryptic" not realising that fo2 is well optimized when it comes to difficulty. most of these mods are simply frustrating. i always start them and feel overwhelmed after first 5-10h.
Currently im in a small team so we havent really ran into extremely negative individuals. But i do have non game developer friends who are like this. People like that tend to just be like that with everything all the time. Its more of a character flaw than a developer flaw. Either or, our team understands to avoid people like this. They kill the mood and flow of the environment which hinders progress
my Brain is a clear summers day whenever it comes to putting my ideas on paper, but when I'm not directly thinking about the "Creative Process" my Brain immediately becomes a hurricane of thoughts.
I love your videos!
Thanks for that turbo plasma rifle though, Ferg 😂
The best question: How's that going to work and what role can I play? I invert the critique, for selfish reasons. What's my workload in this... awesome you just proposed?
After that, judge by their answer. Technical critique is an easier realm for me. Brainstorming, "Fishbowling" as I called it, I had to direct a handful of times. Don't make fun difficult. Intense is fine. But don't destroy in the fishbowl. Don't be the piranha.
Sidenote: Some people set out to be that... turd in the punchbowl. Even while under deadline. Can't remember my remedy for that. Annoying as F, yo.
I've become a fascist in my older days. Things get done faster. Done by committee, but for largely... ceremonial purposes.
Thank you Tim! Great video as always!
Have you ever been in a position where you had to yield to a "worse" idea in order to appease a subgroup of your team and improve morale? How do you handle the sometimes misguided passion for something that clearly seems suboptimal?
He has a video on that called The arcanum 1 one point fiasco thats basically that. But hearing more would be cool
You should brainstorm with your viewers. That would be fun!
I remember a mod author of an incredibly popular mod for Fallout 3 being repeatedly told his idea had been stolen for use in the Far Harbor DLC. Fortunately, he was big enough to say, "Hey, if someone at Bethesda was inspired by my mod, then I'm honored. But I don't think my idea was stolen."
Want to brainstorm with Tim? Hope you get to work with Tim at some point. The idea of "intellectual property" itself is a pretty weird idea when you stop to think about it.
When I was working on a game jam, we all submitted different ideas on what to do, most of my ideas weren't any good and I was mostly just making them to get ideas flowing but one of my ideas which most people really liked got shot down towards the end
It makes me sad that we didn't do it but I'll try and make time to prototype it myself to see if it's actually got some bones or if the flaws really make it non viable
That it got shot down doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't any good.
@@lrinfi thanks!
it was concerns surrounding the primary gameplay loop, which I think is enough on its own (think typing of the dead) but it was thought of as not being engaging enough
I'm still shocked how cool this guy is , I thought he'd be kinda like Peter molineaux considering his legendary status in the industry... I'm still surprised how friendly he seems
While i love the content, i would love to hear the examples of what ideas were mentioned in those sessions(for various games and reasonings for accepting/denying ideas). I think when you talk about those 5 man taking the initiative in discussing ideas you could have just let everyone(!) have some time to do the talking at the start and after(you didnt explain how those meeting went?)
Thanks!
I guess that's the thing, since game creation is very often collaborative, one's individual ideas may not get through all the way unscathed, no matter how great they feel in one's own head. I'd rather have a brainstorming session that at least illustrated how fragile ideas can be at the beginning, and had people realize they had to work toward some sort of general understanding to get things done, rather than have situations where someone in authority asks your for ideas and then ignore or berate them and then reject them, without any organic process that might get others on the team excited or stimulate more ideas.
What sort of mix of disciplines and backgrounds in brainstorming groups did you tend to see? Was it usually just design folks or broader? It sounds like it was an open invite a lot of the time?
w video, w channel
Morning Tim
Heard the same story from josh sawyer where feargus forced naval combat in poe2
5:28 hmm with the meeting thing, meetings waste time, valuable time that can be used to finish something, like if someone has the mentality of I need to get XY and Z done, that blocks productivity, and derails their schedule, plus if you throw out an idea that gets picked up, it adds onto their work load,
like its a perfectly understandable mentality, and one of the reasons why modern companies in the US cant compete with the rest of the world, theirs too many meetings and too many cooks in the kitchen to actually get things done on time
and fallout worked as it was a small team that meshed together well and worked well together because they were all on the same page, the bigger the project, the more people, the less that happens and the worse it gets
case in point a game that people often say is the bestist ever, but the basic game mechanics are some of the worst in the series with one of the most basic attributes that should have been fixed day 1
Red dead redemption II, like on the xbox version you can tell the game testers must have had dead eye on 24/7 365 because the second you get into a fight with anyone
your autoaim aims you at some guy in Tahiti instead of the dog about to chew your face off, or the guy that your even looking at, as I had one case where I was at the house in the swamp in Saint Denis, and the autoaim suddenly veered off to the right and was pointing me at a guy I didnt even know was there, behind a tent no less
complete with the protagonist going what the hell at the same time I did given someone noticed me and shot his hat off lol
like 10 out of 10, what game did you guys play lol
and that game had well over a thousand people working on it, over the course of 5 years, with literally unlimited money coming in thanks to the success of gta online, and no one picked up on that at all.
and that is one of Numerous problems I found with that game, and I didnt even make the god damn thing!
as small meetings and brainstorming ideas with people in small groups works far better than big meetings and big brainstorming ideas, just given the sheer logisitics and how much that ties people up
as 95% of a good game is good management of the development team, and if you were running into people who werent happy to be there, that was bad management in a nutshell because they shouldnt have been there to begin with
It's a shame taking some kind of conflict resolution seminar isn't required for the game dev industry. I don't get how people can even get into working in actual studios by refusing to cooperate with anyone on idea workshopping.
Was there an alternative way to propose ideas other than brainstorming?
That wrong rotating globe in background hurt my OCD.
I know Anthony Davis! I can 100% picture him saying this.
speaking of brainstorming, how did you come up with the idea for the Master in the original Fallout?
I think Leonard Boyarsky talked about that in their chat or it might have been a completely different chat/channel/video I'm remembering. It's great. It sounds like they needed this (a frightful predator, which became the deathclaw) or they needed that (a "villain" that turned out to be the Master) and whatever they needed just kind of showed up. I'll try to link the video if I can find it again.
Good evening, Tim
Hi Tim, great video, i have question for you, what do you consider a good way of presenting an idea during these brainstorming sessions? Do i need to write a document or something? Do i need to make a test room in the game with that idea implemented?
Not at all! I feel that initial brainstorming sessions are a freeform verbal exchange of ideas. No docs, no prototypes, no concept art. Those can come later, after people have heard your idea, discussed it, and asked questions.
@@CainOnGames Thanks!
ACELIPS is objectively the better name 😂😂😂
I'm sorry but Acelips is still goated.
Hey, Tim. Not directly related to this video, but can you tell the story of why The Outer Worlds doesn't have fully functional keybinds?
It's a game I've had on my wishlist for ages, and to my surprise it was part of this month's Humble Choice bundle. Unfortunately it somehow has hardcoded keybinds for the menus and some other in game features from what I've read. After an hour of research and fighting with the game's config files, I uninstalled it without even starting a new game because I couldn't rebind something as simple as the "Map" key.
During my research I found out that this has been a problem that players have complained about for years - since the game's release, even, and has been ignored for all that time. I've thought about it, and I can't find a reasonable excuse for a PC game not having fully rebindable keys because the problem was provably solved as early as 1996 with Daggerfall in MS-DOS, and likely before that even. On top of that, it's a feature I've programmed myself around 2003 so I know how trivially easy it is from a technical perspective. To say that I'm disappointed to put the game on the shelf is an understatement, but it's the only reasonable thing to do - I shouldn't have to fight with text files or write inconvenient scripts to fix something so simple to get right.
So what's the problem? I know Obsidian isn't the only company to do this - ironically Bethesda has become a serial offender on this front, but The Outer Worlds is my most recent experience with the problem, and it's immensely frustrating. Frustrating to the point where if Avowed or The Outer Worlds 2 ship without fully working keybinds, I'll absolutely skip them as well.
Us PC players are a tiny minority of gamers today. Studios have to work on making games that operate well on all the consoles first and foremost, then they might be able to think about the PC experience. PC ports are notoriously awful simply due to the fact that games are made for consoles today. The modding community, if modding is allowed and supported, are very good at designing interfaces and mods specifically for PC players, but it'd be nice if we little red-haired stepchildren received more love and attention from game development companies themselves.
The acceleration of game development cycles alone must make it all but impossible to give PC ports the attention they deserve and could be getting..Maybe that will change in future. Maybe about the time the idea that "bigger is better" and "more is good" (quantity over quality as opposed to a good balance) itself is scrutinized, perchance? :)
I wanted to remap sprint to a button on a PlayStation controller (on PC) but you can't. 😢
You can rebind it in keyboard controls to a keyboard key.
@@perplexedmoth First off, it's an accessibility problem. Not every keyboard is QWERTY, and not everyone is comfortable with WASD. Moreover, not everyone is right handed. None of these issues affect me, but these players benefit from rebindable keys as much or more than I do, and by advocating for myself, I advocate for them as well. For example, a left handed player couldn't use IJKL for movement in The Outer Worlds without engaging in righteous battle with the game's config files, and even then it may not be fixable.
What does affect me is the desire to play similar games (e.g. first person games / shooters) in more or less the same way. In my opinion WASD was a mistake and never should have existed, though I don't begrudge people who prefer it. My reasoning is that on a standard QWERTY keyboard, your fingers belong on ESDF. WASD robs you of access to more keys (A, Q, Z) with your pinky at the cost of the Shift, Caps Lock, and Tab keys being slightly further away. Simply put, ESDF gives me fast access to more keys, and it's usually enough to do every common function in any kind of game with just my left hand and mouse. In an online game it has the added benefit of me not having to move my hand to type a message in chat. In my specific example of the map, I always rebind it to G in because I'm constantly looking at it. Pressing M takes my fingers either off my mouse, or off all other useful keys - the M key obviously isn't meant to be hit with your left hand. As another example, I use the A key to interact - it's a commonly used feature in first person games, and my pinky rests on it naturally with ESDF. If I used WASD, I'd have to take my finger off a movement key to interact with objects or open a door, for example, because it's typically bound to E in that configuration, and there are no other available binds for your pinky other than Tab, Shift, or Caps Lock. That's not something I want to do 6000 times over the course of a 40+ hour playthrough.
As far as the work load, trust me when I say that budget and time is not a reasonable excuse to not implement the feature, especially when you've already taken the time to implement it for 80% of the other functions in the game (as is the case for The Outer Worlds). Like I said, I've done it, and it's genuinely trivial. Working keybinds isn't a feature that's ever going to get you game of the year, but it's a core part of the foundation a PC game is built on. I could live with editing a config file if it was well documented, but playing "guess what the developers named this action" isn't in the cards.
@@perplexedmoth WASD for movement; space for jump; etc.; are pretty much industry standards. But what about "activate?" Depends what's most comfortable for the player or the type of keyboard they're using, etc.
The one that frustrated the you-know-what out of me recently was a game that had jump bound to the 'F' key and map to the 'G' key, etc. Coming up with keybinds that made the game even remotely playable on PC was nearly impossible and the map key, along with most of the rest, weren't rebindable at all. There was no way to set hotkeys, the game requiring that we scroll (and scroll and scroll) through everything to get to what we needed, even in the middle of combat. Even the "pockets," of which there were six, only four were viewable and usable without opening the main menu.
The configuration I came up with is still awkward and has gotten my avatar killed far more than once. I just seriously wanted to give that particular game a go or I wouldn't have bothered with it. It was nearly impossible to play with a mouse and keyboard. And people are like, "Well, just use a controller. That's what it was designed for. You'll have a much easier time." I don't have a controller; I don't want a controller; and I shouldn't be required to buy a controller just to play your particular game.
I have a few close friends that hate Outer Worlds with a passion. Friends i can call old school rpg nerds, to an extent. I havent played it myself yet, so im interested in hearing your stories about Outer Worlds development.
It’s a small budget 25 hour game. People got it into their heads it would be another new vegas or fallout.
Oh. My. God. Is it annoying to hear people complain about things without bringing anything to the table.
Is the video slightly sped up (~15%) or is it just me? :)
So, how do you deicide which ideas to keep and which do not fit in?
OMG Tim, stop uploading so many videos, they're more addictive than jet.
So, which of you was the mom ?
We may never know…
I thought it was funny when you said 'I always tell the people to be positive' whilst you shake your head.
come on Timothy we know you were Mom and Leonard was Dad
we know you have a green screen. we know you are in a fallout bunker plotting the end of the world
Here is a radical idea: Let's not hire designers anymore. Let everyone in the team have a specialization: programming, art, sound, music AND do some *actual* design work, like level design. In any open-world game you will always have more level design to be done than people to do it. I think it's great idea, everyone gets to own a little bit of the game.
have you played torment tides of numenera?
a game can have potential to be great but suffer from cohesion problems from being too split between too many people
Love your work but you seem like you'd have been a nightmare to work with sometimes. How is it acceptable to ask a coworker why they showed up to a brainstorming meeting if they aren't going to "contribute"? Such a simplified understanding of what brainstorming is, and seriously underestimates the value of being plugged in, even passively, to the brainstorming process, the flow of ideas around problem solving, etc. Seems like unnecessary workplace aggression, unnecessary devaluation of team members who work and contribute differently. Can you honestly say that the people who never "contributed" didn't have specific, actionable ideas that came from being plugged into the brainstorming PROCESS, and not just the brainstorming RESULTS which you said they could get later? Can you really say that being plugged into that brainstorming process, even passively, didn't help their work later? Like... what? You're just telling the whole world you were an asshole?
You work for Vault-Tec company , you are biased.