👋👋👋 Hi Tim. More technical content. Please and thank you! But seriously, I don't have anyone to ask these really nuanced, sort of "it depends" questions. I love learning from your experiences.
Watching your videos about Arcanum (a game I had never heard of before) made me go out and buy it the other day on GOG. Just started it last night and it's wonderful! Whoever wrote all those character backgrounds did an amazing job
To be fair, the greatest thing about the "gossipy videos" is a lot of people it's taking time to properly quote you and update wiki articles on the relevant subjects, both in official wikipedia and the individual wikis for games/etc. I don't know if other people is doing this kind of historical archiving but this is a huge part of history that wasn't previously recorded, and truly I wish someday we have apple tv or netflix shows depicting your stories.
There is no other channel that actually hears what people want and like and go the extra mile to actually provide it. Thank you Tim, all the dev/tech/code talks are extremely welcomed. PS: I hope you don't mind the Tim, it's just I feel like I know you personally, your daily videos mark the start of a great day since I discovered your channel.
I saw one of the comments on a previous video specifically asking for a video on Arcanum AI, and seeing this now was so cool because it was a direct response to that. So please, continue listening to your audience rather than the algorithm advice! ;)
Love this. I'm working on AI in a first person immersive sim game, so it's great to hear all these details of how the mechanics and programming worked. :D WONDERFUL! BRAVO!
These technical talks are gold! These and design videos are just the best! Thank you so much 😊 Would the dead NPC know who killed them even if they were killed from stealth? And how do the interested parties (e.g. guards) figure out who killed an NPC (what evidence would they use)? Just whether the player was around at the murder site within some time of the murder event? Presumably necromancers would have a very easy way of solving murder mysteries in arcanum.. oh how I loved the speak with the dead spell :)
Hey Tim! I just discovered your channel through Mortismal Gaming YT channel. Arcanum is one of my all-time favorite PC games. To answer your question, yes, I made use of moving corpses frequently in Arcanum. It was fun to take out an entire area of npcs and drag them all into one little closet :D
As a hobbyst gamedev, I really appreciate those technical videos. It's really inspiring to hear how you dealt with various elements in your games. Thank you for doing this.
this is so interesting! I love Arcanum and to this date it influences how I play RPGs and how I design homebrew Systems for the RPGs I play! I'd LOVE to see a playthrough of arcanum with an in depth commentary along the way! That's be so awesome!
I love these kinds of videos and the knowledge you're sharing. The algorithm pushes drama and gossip, I just want to listen to your stories and enjoy the knowledge you have to share. I appreciate all of your videos!
So far dude, I’ll watch anything you make. Your CAREER and WORK are pretty inspiring to me, but so are the videos themselves!!Thank you, Tim Cain, Papa RPG
As I modder myself I always wondered why creatures with Ranged/Caster AI behave so odd. Apparently there's a switcher between Fighting and Fleeing state for this type of AI, so only this tweak allowed casters/rangers to get distance from aggressive attacker. It rarely worked as intended, perhaps because of the Heartbeat system. Great video.
These technical videos are really interesting. As a software developer (not game developer) it gives me insight how these kind of development works. Also Arcanum is one of my favourite RPG, I'm proud that I own a physical, boxed copy of it :)
Thank you for sharing such insightful and interesting videos, Tim. Watching you everyday and it's always a pleasure. Screw the algorithm, it ruins everything.
I just watch all of your videos as they pop up, and they are a wonderful source of inspiration. You should ignore what YT says, because I feel like you're not in this for views.
I would have loved it if my companion got shot by a trap and then went over to smack it around. Great info as always. It's incredibly helpful to hear how these solutions work, and equally important to hear about how and why you made those decisions.
Yeah, after finishing Disco Elysium I was looking for another RPG to play. Not having that much time anymore due to real life issues, I have to pick carefully which ones are worth it. Being fallout one of the first I played back then, I now found another one. Thank you Tim, for your incredible work, and thanks for all the people involved in creating those masterpieces.
Tim, I love gossip! but when the technical stuff is explained by you it's pretty fun as well, you remind me of my old history teacher, he could make anything interesting.
The dragging of bodies remnds me of the stacking of boxes and also use of bodies in Baldur's Gate 3 currently. Many folk don't even realise you can pick up crates and use them for height advantage, or you can take a body or two and throw them at enemies or cover things up with them.
I think the dragging of the bodies is really cool. Ive almost never used it to hide a body but i often use it when looting or if im searching. But even though ive rarely used it i love stuff like this because just knowing it is there adds so much depth. It makes the things you choose to do feel like more of choice knowing you can do things differently (and when you do take the road less travelled with those rarer options it is a lot of fun)
I'd love to hear about the origins of the pillars of eternity story. Really loved that game and i hear you worked on it. Also wonder what you thought of deadfire and avowed going first person. Keep up the good work.
I had no idea that you could drag the bodies in Fallout. I just took it for granted that the only options available for actions were limited to those listed in the context menu: inspect, inventory, skills, etc.
I love anything you put out, since you're very good at telling stories in an entertaining way, but the technical ones are very informative coming from someone who has never really dealt with the game development side of computers.
I am not a game developer and I came here to listen to cool information about some of my favorite childhood games. So more technical videos, please. I've already installed Fallout (and doing a dumb run, already found a bug in that 😂, there are characters that don't obey the rules of dumb dialogue). Thinking about installing Arcanum next or maybe in winter. It's a good game for long winter evenings.
I recommend making the start of this into a short and uploading it separate it's likely that the algorithm will push that out and give you more exposure that way too.
I'm going back through this channel's archive, and while I'll likely eventually watch everything, for now I'm just clicking the first thing that grabs my attention. First thing happened to be this video. Looks like Tim Cain knows his audience better than the Al Gore Rhythm.
I like this, because I like being reminded that old games were often still really smart and into giving the player the ability to get away with things if they're observant and careful. Part of the reminrer, too, is often that newer games don't necessarily do bettercat this stuff, and in fact, in the mainstream, they often eliminate some really cool stuff. For example, as frustrating as, say, TES4 Oblivion can be, I could train up athletics, buff it, and br a vampire, and so I could run and jump around from roof to roof, staying out of sight, maybe even stalking victims. Then I got to Skyrim and, while better looking, there was no way to augment jump height. I mean, there was more missing as well, but that was the first thing I checked, followed by looking for roof climbing opportunities. The collision meshes didn't seem to allow for what seemed like it should be possible. So yeah, whem you talked about body hiding, I thought about how the last time I saw such was in one of the Hitman games. Sure, i could drag them in Oblivion and Skyrim, but it was way less immersive than in Thief, where you could actually see that you've got the body over your shoulder, and I don't think that in Skyrim playing around with a corpse is even a crime. What do you think, Tim? Did older games care more about roleplaying mechanics or otherwise deeper mechanics? Have publishers gotten too risk averse and just want to rehash older titles in simpler but prettier form?
like you said people ask about the technical ones, personally I like these ones more because it gives me more of an insight into some of my favorite games of all time
Tim, I am terribly sorry to tell you this, but I don't think that I was aware of the drag-the-body function in Arcanum until this very day. But MAN. What a cool roleplaying feature! Did it have checks for strength? Could you drag barrels, chests and other objects? Could you drag bodies with loot on them? So many questions! I think that I might need a yet another Arcanum playthrough and soon!
What was the logic behind NPCs equipping items/weapon that were in their inventory that they picked up? I'm curious if they made any decision beyond "Do I have a wep equipped?" -> no -> equip weapon. Was it based on proficiency? Attack power with the weapon? Were non companion NPCs even supposed to do this? Background: I played Arcanum for the first time ever this year and absolutely loved it. I remember getting stuck in the beginning of the game where the bandits are guarding a bridge. I didn't have good enough stealth to get past them (I think one of them held a key?), didn't have good enough persuasion to convince them to let me through, and was not strong enough to kill them. After several attempts I decided to look up what other people did and found an interesting work around in a forum. Apparently, if you leave railroad spikes in front of them, the bandits will not only pick them up from the floor, but they will also equip them! Turns out though they are not proficient with them at all so their chance to hit is severely reduced. This makes the fight almost trivial, and I was able to continue my playthrough. I found the whole thing hilarious, and I thought it was so cool that the AI made these types of decisions (or seemed to be making them).
Hey Tim! I've been enjoying every video you put out lately. I think as long as you follow your heart on content, your viewers will follow as well :) I'm not in the games industry, but in my current Project-Manager-adjacent role, I'm finding myself wildly dissatisfied. I miss being the one executing the vision vs. trying to create it. Have you ever had to take a step back, potentially stifling career growth in favor of work preference? I know the common wisdom seems to suggest that I go with what makes me happy, but it's hard when opportunity to climb that ladder (prestige of higher position, higher pay) keep opening themselves up to me.
It may not be what gets views but the computer science of these games and technicals with your fitst hand accounts is doing inportant work for ganing history and preservation.
The more I hear about Arcanum the more I wish there was a remaster/remake I could play. Which with the success of Baldur's Gate 3 proves that these games are still in demand.
It's still very playable and holds up well if you've enjoyed any of the enhanced infinity engine remasters. Apart from being a bit on the brown side it even looks pretty great, with lots of lovely details and nice sprites. Use the UAP all-in-one patch to fix it up and avoid the trap of making the resolution really high (the tiling and color palette don't do it any favours and the detailed background art is lost). Stick with turn-based combat except for trash fights, it just works better. Magic is king and tech/inventor builds are quite challenging due to a variety of nerfing effects (adjustable through optional UAP mods).
The negative or gossipy videos probably get non-subscribers to click more based on title I would imagine. Not sure those people are gonna stay for the long term. I love the technical stuff as much as I like your videos about your work/life experience.
Hi, Tim! Thanks for the video! I never knew you could move bodies in Arcanum. : O Also, related to hitting traps, when I used to play the game then at first I got stuck at various places because of locked doors or containers. Then I discovered I can use dynamite. The issue was that it was loud and scarce. Then a bit later I discovered that you can actually destroy doors and containers, and thus gain access, even without any equipment. So I removed either all, or the best weapons from my companions and order them to smash whatever was trying to hold me back. To be honest, I feel like this was a bit overpowered, as with little effort you were able to gain access to some pretty important locations/equipment. I would several more questions regarding AI. You were talking about how their heartbeats work. But at what point does the AI get unloaded? Are they tied to a certain sector or do you do a "visibility" test on the AI itself? I suppose they are not tied to a sector because you can technically have an AI follow you deep into the wilderness, chasing you down to kill you. So, do you unload NPCs, bodies and blood splatter based on distance from player? And when you do, do you save each individual AI on the disk every time they are unloaded? I suppose you have to because their equipment can change. And speaking of luring AI into the wilderness...what if you leave them there...do they get lost or somehow walk back to their home spot? Best!
I’ve been dabbling in tests in an FPS context to make AI who interact with each other. My tests so far are simple, but my notes and ideas are complex, beyond my current abilities. Things like an AI soldier in the radius of a AI soldier that is wounded moving closer to them and doubling rate of shooting at the player. Simulating the idea in inter-character interaction to make them seem more like a unit. With your focus on reactive worlds, have you ever put in features to make groups of enemies reactive with each other
Hi Tim, I've played Fallout and Fallout 2 for at least 3-4 times each -- and I never knew that you can drag bodies in the game. Not sure would I have used it either - I feel like the AI in terms of identifying the killer always breaks the immersion (and fun) for me. If an NPC is located far away (at the time of the murder) and is oblivious of the crime - suddenly when they see the corpse they immediately know it was me, even though I might be far away from the body etc etc. And this isn't a knock against the work you've done - nearly all the games I've played have this experience. The big exception is Red Dead Redemption 2 and it's Witness system - although even when it's not perfect, I love how it mixes the norm.
@@CainOnGames Thank you for the clarification. I was searching the web for instructions on how to drag bodies in FO1 and getting annoyed I wasn't finding anything.
i want more of the technical ones :) Also in Outer Worlds what did you guys do for facial animation? Was it the software Facefx or something else just wondering it looked so good.
Some day a game as a piece of art is going to have a tremendous rumination on prioritizing connection with people directly rather than counting numbers of people who "approve"
I'm the weird one, I want more technical videos! Like what kind of algorithms were used back then. Was Dijkstra a popular pathfinding algorithm? Was Minimax used for the AI? What kind of new algorithms you had to invent? How did you find algorithms to use, did you own many books about algorithms?
I played Arcanum a ton when i was a kid, and i honestly cannot remember dragging/moving bodies to hide them. I might have to reinstall it to try it out just to see if it feels familiar or not.
Arcanum is such a huge game. Playing right now for the umptenth time. Doing almost all quests on this playthrough. And even though ive played the game for 20 years i still miss things if i dont use a guide. Just did the murder mystery in Quintarra and botched it a tiny bit because i wasnt as friendly to the wife as i should have been so i could only complete the quest by naming the husband as the killer. I play no reloads. Gotta do it different next time. A mage next run maybe?
First recommendation I got was "Why I left Fallout 2", YT seems to love titles that appear emotional and negative. More viewer engagement I suppose. These technical videos are very interesting, even though I'm firmly of the opinion that these machines work through some sort of magic...
12:01 I don't remember in Fallout 1, but in the Bethesda Fallouts (3D) I never found a reason to drag a body. The game needs to give me as a player a reason to do so, I won't be dragging it for no reason, it is not necessarily fun by itself..
Hi Tim, hope everything's going well. I'm a junior dev on an indie team in Cordoba, Argentina. My team is going to Argentina's biggest gaming convention in 5 weeks and we're gonna be showcasing our current project. Thing is, we are in a polish state and we want to be as ready for the event as possible, but we keep adding new features. How do you think as a team (or as a team member) you can try to analyze and see if some aspects of a game (or its development) is suffering from feature creep? I ask because all of the features that keep being proposed are great and we are implementing them successfully and on time (or almost on time), but sometimes I get scared that some features or systems might become too overwhelming for players to learn, or worse in our current scenario, if a problem with a system came up and it was too complex we wouldn't be able to get it sorted out right before the upcoming showcase. Thanks for reading, hope we can get a video about feature creep or general comlexity of systems in the future. Have a good one!
I second other comments: the gossipy ones are interesting in their own right but I far prefer technical analysis, general developer stories, and talks about narrative and gameplay work; that's the good stuff.
Did the AI do any door/repositioning checks? I've noticed in my current playthrough that if you sit near a door, depending on the enemy's location, they don't do anything on their turn but you can still attack them. Bit cheesy but it let me kill the bandits in the Tarant sewers easily.
Can you tell me about Fallout 1's "automap" feature? Was it difficult to implement it? Who and why invented it? Does it live up to your expectations? What do you think about it today? I really love Fallout 1 and don't think it's too outdated, but the "automap" feature has always puzzled me, I have never been able to find a use for it and have never used it, and have never seen anyone else use the "automap" "
I know you already know this, but you should just make videos that you enjoy making. There's already enough people out there making videos with the intention to get as many eyeballs as humanly possible. It's the stuff like what you make that is sorely missing from the world, someone with decades of experience honestly explaining how things work or what things are like to the younger generation. It definitely just hits different when someone who has been successful in an industry for 30 years explains how to do something or how things are.
When Tim says, 'Hi everyone, it's me, Tim' it always makes me want to say, 'Hi Tim' back like it's a kid's show. Hi Tim!
I hope he leaves a long pause and responds next video
wow hi thanks
The actual quote is
"*click* Hi everyone, it's me, Tim"
This world does need a Mr. Rogers who codes, though, right?
There's a Bob Ross element, too, I hope this series evolves and gains an interactive "happy little trees" element.
👋👋👋 Hi Tim. More technical content. Please and thank you!
But seriously, I don't have anyone to ask these really nuanced, sort of "it depends" questions. I love learning from your experiences.
Watching your videos about Arcanum (a game I had never heard of before) made me go out and buy it the other day on GOG. Just started it last night and it's wonderful! Whoever wrote all those character backgrounds did an amazing job
To be fair, the greatest thing about the "gossipy videos" is a lot of people it's taking time to properly quote you and update wiki articles on the relevant subjects, both in official wikipedia and the individual wikis for games/etc.
I don't know if other people is doing this kind of historical archiving but this is a huge part of history that wasn't previously recorded, and truly I wish someday we have apple tv or netflix shows depicting your stories.
There is no other channel that actually hears what people want and like and go the extra mile to actually provide it.
Thank you Tim, all the dev/tech/code talks are extremely welcomed.
PS: I hope you don't mind the Tim, it's just I feel like I know you personally, your daily videos mark the start of a great day since I discovered your channel.
Love the AI talk! YT have no idea, what is a true value of the talk you give here, please continue...
I saw one of the comments on a previous video specifically asking for a video on Arcanum AI, and seeing this now was so cool because it was a direct response to that. So please, continue listening to your audience rather than the algorithm advice! ;)
Love this. I'm working on AI in a first person immersive sim game, so it's great to hear all these details of how the mechanics and programming worked. :D
WONDERFUL! BRAVO!
These technical talks are gold! These and design videos are just the best! Thank you so much 😊
Would the dead NPC know who killed them even if they were killed from stealth? And how do the interested parties (e.g. guards) figure out who killed an NPC (what evidence would they use)? Just whether the player was around at the murder site within some time of the murder event?
Presumably necromancers would have a very easy way of solving murder mysteries in arcanum.. oh how I loved the speak with the dead spell :)
Gossip stuff we can get from the internet ourselves, but the technical stuff is priceless experience sharing imo
I love all the varied stories. You might even be able to do a spinoff of fun D&D stories, as I loved the "I have Peter's Axe" story.
Your line about the testing guidelines being seen as "fun suggestions" made me chuckle and made me think of Captain Barbossa working in QA!
Hey Tim! I just discovered your channel through Mortismal Gaming YT channel. Arcanum is one of my all-time favorite PC games.
To answer your question, yes, I made use of moving corpses frequently in Arcanum. It was fun to take out an entire area of npcs and drag them all into one little closet :D
I love both kinds of videos but the technical ones are great to learn from as a game developer! Thank you for all the great lessons and stories!
As a hobbyst gamedev, I really appreciate those technical videos. It's really inspiring to hear how you dealt with various elements in your games. Thank you for doing this.
I like the technical vids. You are very good at making things understandable to a more analog type fella like myself.
I'm pleased with the abundance of discussion around Arcanum.
Mr. Cain, you are a treasure. Thank you for sharing your experience on TH-cam.
1:10 I'm so glad you're doing these for fun. It's refreshing to hear this. As a guy that's enjoyed all your videos so far
I enjoy the technical talks. I also enjoy the interpersonal nuances explained.
Just want to add to the tank here: love these videos that address specific aspects of design and programming.
this is so interesting! I love Arcanum and to this date it influences how I play RPGs and how I design homebrew Systems for the RPGs I play! I'd LOVE to see a playthrough of arcanum with an in depth commentary along the way! That's be so awesome!
I love these kinds of videos and the knowledge you're sharing. The algorithm pushes drama and gossip, I just want to listen to your stories and enjoy the knowledge you have to share. I appreciate all of your videos!
So far dude, I’ll watch anything you make. Your CAREER and WORK are pretty inspiring to me, but so are the videos themselves!!Thank you, Tim Cain, Papa RPG
As I modder myself I always wondered why creatures with Ranged/Caster AI behave so odd. Apparently there's a switcher between Fighting and Fleeing state for this type of AI, so only this tweak allowed casters/rangers to get distance from aggressive attacker. It rarely worked as intended, perhaps because of the Heartbeat system.
Great video.
These technical videos are really interesting. As a software developer (not game developer) it gives me insight how these kind of development works.
Also Arcanum is one of my favourite RPG, I'm proud that I own a physical, boxed copy of it :)
Thank you for sharing such insightful and interesting videos, Tim. Watching you everyday and it's always a pleasure. Screw the algorithm, it ruins everything.
😋I love the technical stuff!!! 🥰 I just finished Fallout 1 & 2 and moved on to Arcanum last week. I'm hooked!!!
I just watch all of your videos as they pop up, and they are a wonderful source of inspiration. You should ignore what YT says, because I feel like you're not in this for views.
I enjoy these technical videos. Please make more if it suits you. Thank you.
I would have loved it if my companion got shot by a trap and then went over to smack it around. Great info as always. It's incredibly helpful to hear how these solutions work, and equally important to hear about how and why you made those decisions.
Yeah, after finishing Disco Elysium I was looking for another RPG to play. Not having that much time anymore due to real life issues, I have to pick carefully which ones are worth it. Being fallout one of the first I played back then, I now found another one. Thank you Tim, for your incredible work, and thanks for all the people involved in creating those masterpieces.
Love your technical talks, please keep them coming!
Funny enough I found you thanks to the wildstar video but actually stayed for technical talks!
We don't want gossip tim we want the technical, so damm interesting. Thank you for these awesome videos.
Tim, I love gossip! but when the technical stuff is explained by you it's pretty fun as well, you remind me of my old history teacher, he could make anything interesting.
i've played fallout 1 and 2 for literally 200+ hours and I'm only now learning you can drag bodies in fallout
Bruh same!
The dragging of bodies remnds me of the stacking of boxes and also use of bodies in Baldur's Gate 3 currently. Many folk don't even realise you can pick up crates and use them for height advantage, or you can take a body or two and throw them at enemies or cover things up with them.
❤ always appreciate an arcanum video! great work
I think the dragging of the bodies is really cool. Ive almost never used it to hide a body but i often use it when looting or if im searching. But even though ive rarely used it i love stuff like this because just knowing it is there adds so much depth. It makes the things you choose to do feel like more of choice knowing you can do things differently (and when you do take the road less travelled with those rarer options it is a lot of fun)
That's why Baldurs's Gate 3 is so fun. Lots of choice on how to approach things.
@@cmdr.jabozerstorer3968 good to hear you like it. It is not for me but i loved bg 1 and bg 2.
Thanks for giving technical insights. It helps me a lot as game developer. We need more of these videos!
I'd love to hear about the origins of the pillars of eternity story. Really loved that game and i hear you worked on it. Also wonder what you thought of deadfire and avowed going first person. Keep up the good work.
I had no idea that you could drag the bodies in Fallout. I just took it for granted that the only options available for actions were limited to those listed in the context menu: inspect, inventory, skills, etc.
I love anything you put out, since you're very good at telling stories in an entertaining way, but the technical ones are very informative coming from someone who has never really dealt with the game development side of computers.
I am not a game developer and I came here to listen to cool information about some of my favorite childhood games.
So more technical videos, please.
I've already installed Fallout (and doing a dumb run, already found a bug in that 😂, there are characters that don't obey the rules of dumb dialogue). Thinking about installing Arcanum next or maybe in winter. It's a good game for long winter evenings.
Hi Tim, I dont really ever comment but I wanted to drop in a say; make videos about whatever you want! I will watch. Thanks!
I never knew you could drag bodies in Fallout, I learned something new.
I recommend making the start of this into a short and uploading it separate it's likely that the algorithm will push that out and give you more exposure that way too.
Thank you for this Tim. Stuff the YT algorithm. This is excellent content and a fascinating insight into game systems.
I'm going back through this channel's archive, and while I'll likely eventually watch everything, for now I'm just clicking the first thing that grabs my attention. First thing happened to be this video. Looks like Tim Cain knows his audience better than the Al Gore Rhythm.
I like this, because I like being reminded that old games were often still really smart and into giving the player the ability to get away with things if they're observant and careful. Part of the reminrer, too, is often that newer games don't necessarily do bettercat this stuff, and in fact, in the mainstream, they often eliminate some really cool stuff. For example, as frustrating as, say, TES4 Oblivion can be, I could train up athletics, buff it, and br a vampire, and so I could run and jump around from roof to roof, staying out of sight, maybe even stalking victims. Then I got to Skyrim and, while better looking, there was no way to augment jump height. I mean, there was more missing as well, but that was the first thing I checked, followed by looking for roof climbing opportunities. The collision meshes didn't seem to allow for what seemed like it should be possible.
So yeah, whem you talked about body hiding, I thought about how the last time I saw such was in one of the Hitman games. Sure, i could drag them in Oblivion and Skyrim, but it was way less immersive than in Thief, where you could actually see that you've got the body over your shoulder, and I don't think that in Skyrim playing around with a corpse is even a crime.
What do you think, Tim? Did older games care more about roleplaying mechanics or otherwise deeper mechanics? Have publishers gotten too risk averse and just want to rehash older titles in simpler but prettier form?
If you go even further back, to Morrowind, you could fly. I really missed that in later titles.
like you said people ask about the technical ones, personally I like these ones more because it gives me more of an insight into some of my favorite games of all time
This is pure gold! Especially loved you describing how things are loaded in the procedural generation of sectors. TH-cam's algorithm can GTFO!
Those technical videos are the best.
Tim, I am terribly sorry to tell you this, but I don't think that I was aware of the drag-the-body function in Arcanum until this very day.
But MAN. What a cool roleplaying feature!
Did it have checks for strength? Could you drag barrels, chests and other objects? Could you drag bodies with loot on them? So many questions!
I think that I might need a yet another Arcanum playthrough and soon!
Yes Tim thank you, you’re too cool to make videos like that. I’ve enjoyed everything so far
Thanks for your technical videos, Tim 😉
I did drag a few bodies around, mostly muggers in the docks at Tarant or in the boil. I'm not much for stealth though, so didn't get much use.
Watching you talk about Arcanum insprired me to pick it up lol
love it!
What was the logic behind NPCs equipping items/weapon that were in their inventory that they picked up? I'm curious if they made any decision beyond "Do I have a wep equipped?" -> no -> equip weapon. Was it based on proficiency? Attack power with the weapon? Were non companion NPCs even supposed to do this?
Background: I played Arcanum for the first time ever this year and absolutely loved it. I remember getting stuck in the beginning of the game where the bandits are guarding a bridge. I didn't have good enough stealth to get past them (I think one of them held a key?), didn't have good enough persuasion to convince them to let me through, and was not strong enough to kill them. After several attempts I decided to look up what other people did and found an interesting work around in a forum. Apparently, if you leave railroad spikes in front of them, the bandits will not only pick them up from the floor, but they will also equip them! Turns out though they are not proficient with them at all so their chance to hit is severely reduced. This makes the fight almost trivial, and I was able to continue my playthrough. I found the whole thing hilarious, and I thought it was so cool that the AI made these types of decisions (or seemed to be making them).
Just do what you want, i love every video!
I wish everyone would explain exactly how their games work like this ❤
I really appreciate your tech talks.
You hear that, TH-cam algorithm?
Hey Tim! I've been enjoying every video you put out lately. I think as long as you follow your heart on content, your viewers will follow as well :)
I'm not in the games industry, but in my current Project-Manager-adjacent role, I'm finding myself wildly dissatisfied. I miss being the one executing the vision vs. trying to create it. Have you ever had to take a step back, potentially stifling career growth in favor of work preference? I know the common wisdom seems to suggest that I go with what makes me happy, but it's hard when opportunity to climb that ladder (prestige of higher position, higher pay) keep opening themselves up to me.
Thank you for feeding my brain, Tim.
It may not be what gets views but the computer science of these games and technicals with your fitst hand accounts is doing inportant work for ganing history and preservation.
Keep these kind of videos coming!
The more I hear about Arcanum the more I wish there was a remaster/remake I could play. Which with the success of Baldur's Gate 3 proves that these games are still in demand.
It's still very playable and holds up well if you've enjoyed any of the enhanced infinity engine remasters. Apart from being a bit on the brown side it even looks pretty great, with lots of lovely details and nice sprites. Use the UAP all-in-one patch to fix it up and avoid the trap of making the resolution really high (the tiling and color palette don't do it any favours and the detailed background art is lost). Stick with turn-based combat except for trash fights, it just works better. Magic is king and tech/inventor builds are quite challenging due to a variety of nerfing effects (adjustable through optional UAP mods).
Of course more people will tune to "Why I ..." videos. Keep up the good work :)
The negative or gossipy videos probably get non-subscribers to click more based on title I would imagine. Not sure those people are gonna stay for the long term. I love the technical stuff as much as I like your videos about your work/life experience.
Hi, Tim! Thanks for the video!
I never knew you could move bodies in Arcanum. : O
Also, related to hitting traps, when I used to play the game then at first I got stuck at various places because of locked doors or containers. Then I discovered I can use dynamite. The issue was that it was loud and scarce. Then a bit later I discovered that you can actually destroy doors and containers, and thus gain access, even without any equipment. So I removed either all, or the best weapons from my companions and order them to smash whatever was trying to hold me back. To be honest, I feel like this was a bit overpowered, as with little effort you were able to gain access to some pretty important locations/equipment.
I would several more questions regarding AI.
You were talking about how their heartbeats work. But at what point does the AI get unloaded? Are they tied to a certain sector or do you do a "visibility" test on the AI itself? I suppose they are not tied to a sector because you can technically have an AI follow you deep into the wilderness, chasing you down to kill you. So, do you unload NPCs, bodies and blood splatter based on distance from player? And when you do, do you save each individual AI on the disk every time they are unloaded? I suppose you have to because their equipment can change.
And speaking of luring AI into the wilderness...what if you leave them there...do they get lost or somehow walk back to their home spot?
Best!
I’ve been dabbling in tests in an FPS context to make AI who interact with each other. My tests so far are simple, but my notes and ideas are complex, beyond my current abilities.
Things like an AI soldier in the radius of a AI soldier that is wounded moving closer to them and doubling rate of shooting at the player. Simulating the idea in inter-character interaction to make them seem more like a unit.
With your focus on reactive worlds, have you ever put in features to make groups of enemies reactive with each other
I do like the A.I btw very good at the time for a great RPG.
Hi Tim,
I've played Fallout and Fallout 2 for at least 3-4 times each -- and I never knew that you can drag bodies in the game. Not sure would I have used it either - I feel like the AI in terms of identifying the killer always breaks the immersion (and fun) for me. If an NPC is located far away (at the time of the murder) and is oblivious of the crime - suddenly when they see the corpse they immediately know it was me, even though I might be far away from the body etc etc.
And this isn't a knock against the work you've done - nearly all the games I've played have this experience. The big exception is Red Dead Redemption 2 and it's Witness system - although even when it's not perfect, I love how it mixes the norm.
I misspoke. I meant to say drag bodies in Arcanum. You couldn't drag them in Fallout, which is a feature I wished I had added.
@@CainOnGames Thank you for the clarification. I was searching the web for instructions on how to drag bodies in FO1 and getting annoyed I wasn't finding anything.
i want more of the technical ones :) Also in Outer Worlds what did you guys do for facial animation? Was it the software Facefx or something else just wondering it looked so good.
You could drag bodies in Fallout and Arcanum ?!? I've been playing these games for years and never knew that
Some day a game as a piece of art is going to have a tremendous rumination on prioritizing connection with people directly rather than counting numbers of people who "approve"
This is the content I’m most interested in but it didn’t show up in my for you section until 10 months after 😅
Loved the video! Definitely don't listen to the algorithm!
I normally say, praise be the algorithm but I, also, want to see more technical videos.
TH-cam is dumb, these videos are why I'm here.
I know you've talked about crunch, but have you ever dealt with burnout? Would love to hear your thoughts on it.
Amazing! Thank you Tim, are there any cases when you have embraced unexpected systemic reactions? (when has a 'bug' became a feature) Cheers!
I'm the weird one, I want more technical videos! Like what kind of algorithms were used back then. Was Dijkstra a popular pathfinding algorithm? Was Minimax used for the AI? What kind of new algorithms you had to invent? How did you find algorithms to use, did you own many books about algorithms?
Tim: Hi everyone, it's me Tim
All of us: Hi Tim!
I played Arcanum a ton when i was a kid, and i honestly cannot remember dragging/moving bodies to hide them. I might have to reinstall it to try it out just to see if it feels familiar or not.
You can drag bodies??? Don’t remember that mentioned in manual and I’m sure there was no tutorial about it 😮
Arcanum is such a huge game. Playing right now for the umptenth time. Doing almost all quests on this playthrough. And even though ive played the game for 20 years i still miss things if i dont use a guide. Just did the murder mystery in Quintarra and botched it a tiny bit because i wasnt as friendly to the wife as i should have been so i could only complete the quest by naming the husband as the killer. I play no reloads. Gotta do it different next time. A mage next run maybe?
Have you played as a half ogre/tech and mage? So much fun
@@NostalgicNate yep but it was a long time ago
First recommendation I got was "Why I left Fallout 2", YT seems to love titles that appear emotional and negative. More viewer engagement I suppose. These technical videos are very interesting, even though I'm firmly of the opinion that these machines work through some sort of magic...
12:01 I don't remember in Fallout 1, but in the Bethesda Fallouts (3D) I never found a reason to drag a body. The game needs to give me as a player a reason to do so, I won't be dragging it for no reason, it is not necessarily fun by itself..
I also want more technical videos.
Woah I did not know you could drag bodies in Fallout I will have to try that!!!
I misspoke. I meant to say drag bodies in Arcanum. You couldn't drag them in Fallout, which is a feature I wished I had added.
More technical ones please!
You can move bodies in Fallout/Arcanum? All these years(decades), I never knew. Evan as an obsessive manual reader.
Hi Tim, hope everything's going well. I'm a junior dev on an indie team in Cordoba, Argentina. My team is going to Argentina's biggest gaming convention in 5 weeks and we're gonna be showcasing our current project. Thing is, we are in a polish state and we want to be as ready for the event as possible, but we keep adding new features.
How do you think as a team (or as a team member) you can try to analyze and see if some aspects of a game (or its development) is suffering from feature creep? I ask because all of the features that keep being proposed are great and we are implementing them successfully and on time (or almost on time), but sometimes I get scared that some features or systems might become too overwhelming for players to learn, or worse in our current scenario, if a problem with a system came up and it was too complex we wouldn't be able to get it sorted out right before the upcoming showcase.
Thanks for reading, hope we can get a video about feature creep or general comlexity of systems in the future. Have a good one!
I second other comments: the gossipy ones are interesting in their own right but I far prefer technical analysis, general developer stories, and talks about narrative and gameplay work; that's the good stuff.
You're an intriguing guy I like you :)
Did the AI do any door/repositioning checks? I've noticed in my current playthrough that if you sit near a door, depending on the enemy's location, they don't do anything on their turn but you can still attack them. Bit cheesy but it let me kill the bandits in the Tarant sewers easily.
They had some code to prevent them from blocking doorways. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was an unintended side effect
Can you tell me about Fallout 1's "automap" feature? Was it difficult to implement it? Who and why invented it? Does it live up to your expectations? What do you think about it today?
I really love Fallout 1 and don't think it's too outdated, but the "automap" feature has always puzzled me, I have never been able to find a use for it and have never used it, and have never seen anyone else use the "automap" "
I know you already know this, but you should just make videos that you enjoy making. There's already enough people out there making videos with the intention to get as many eyeballs as humanly possible. It's the stuff like what you make that is sorely missing from the world, someone with decades of experience honestly explaining how things work or what things are like to the younger generation.
It definitely just hits different when someone who has been successful in an industry for 30 years explains how to do something or how things are.
True, but I think Tim might be the kind of person that compulsively optimizes, in all things.