Hey, Tim. I was the lead writer of the Fallout 2 "Restoration Project" that people keep mentioning. The name is a bit of a misnomer as we didn't actually "restore" cut content (aside from the notable exception of Kaga) but instead we created the "cut" locations from scratch, based on what little we had to go off of in Chris Avellone's Fallout Bible (the only location that had a design doc availalbe for us to reference was the EPA). I'm sure our version of the Abbey falls quite short of your expectations and I so wish we had had access to your insights back when we made the RP. I adore these daily videos you've been putting out. Thank you for everything!
Hey Adam, did any person from the original Fallout 2 team actually help with Restoration Project, were they willing to at least review your plans or probive any comments?
@@MrZonYT Sadly, we weren't in contact with any of the original devs. We weren't bold enough to want to pester them. Hopefully, they aren't too disappointed by what we did
I've always wondered why the Abbey has so ridiculously low karma modifiers. Like, killing a not evil NPC is -10 karma, formatting the life's work of the entire abbey is like -3 or -7?
@@adamdravian thank you for responding, I fully understand. Thank you for all the work you and your colleagues have put in. Old Fallouts are simply amazing!
It may have been a bigger issue for melee characters but, as a sniper style character, I just didn't get between Ian and a target and it wasn't a big issue.
Thank you for letting us push companions, I remember getting stuck inside a room that was too small to "pull" Ian towards me and had to load an earlier save to escape. That change alone made Fallout 2 so much more enjoyable!
I remember playing FO1 and getting the Brotherhood of Steel to the military base. Then getting stuck in the elevator because the BoS paladin was blocking the exit and wouldn't move. This was how i learned to cycle through multiple save slots :-P.
Getting ripped to shreds by Ian's burst fire is a rite of passage for any Fallout 1 player. I absolutely get that as a developer that's not ideal, but at this point it's also part of the first game's charm. I'd say the clunky inventory management is far more egregious and impactful to the player.
It is part of the charm, the first time it happened I was outraged now I find it hilarious. Another fun example is Tycho blowing my head off with a shotgun instead of the deathclaw standing right next to us
And that's also what Marcus always does in Fallout II. Even funnier with the calibers he wields. I either make a Big Guns + Fast Shot character or sell all machine guns, RPGs, flamethrowers and the ammo for them as soon as i find them.
Part of me envies you because you can remember the first time you played the game. I can remember playing the demo, and buying a PC specifically because I wanted to play Fallout, but I don't actually remember the first time I fired up the completed game on my computer
@@Ms.Pronounced_Name I'd like to share my story of experiencing a Fallout game the way it was supposed to be. You see, I'm from Russia. Russians have some kind of aversion to distributing games in their original language (even if those are bootleg copies, which were the standard way of playing in the 90s / early 00s). And the big problem is that good translations are few and far between even in modern days of official releases, so what can you expect from bootlegs? This is where my good knowledge of English became a curse, as I could feel that so much was lost in these crude translations. In usual bootlegs of Fallout 2, many talking heads lacked voiceovers -- no Russian, no original either! And so it happens, Sarge Dornan was one of them. Anyway, I spent months in tireless search of an original copy. And finally I found one! The next day was the only one that I can ever remember being actually happy to wake up. I went on, absorbing the Fallout world the way it was supposed to be. But nothing could prepare me for meeting Sarge Dornan the way he was supposed to be. I met him. And he spoke to me. No, I don't think this is the correct term for describing this. The immeasurable sheer force of his voice tore down the very foundation of space and time around me, submerging me into a nirvana, an experience that even my knowledge of English has trouble expressing. No other work of art has ever touched the strings of my heart in such a sensual way. And I am beginning to doubt that anything ever will.
Really no need to regret. I've noticed getting old and getting back to old games is great. You're more intelligent and mature and understand different things a lot better than if you'd play them as a young teenager (atleast in the countries with no native english). I've had many games unfinished as a kid, like Ultima Underworld which I finished last year, and it's amazing game!
The Followers are actually from Fallout 1. But unlike the Abbey, they don't worship pre-war tech. They are more interested in helping modern communities, not gathering old world knowledge.
I legitimately loved it when my companion mowed me down, it made the world feel real and like I needed to legitimately duck for cover if I was in a bad position. My only complaint would be when I managed to run out of the shooting path, and they would move to get a "better" shot and put me back in the line of fire.
It's amazing what you're doing. I love getting this kind of insight into the process of game development, especially older games like the original Fallouts where a lot of details can be quite nebulous. Hopefully these sorts of things will become more transparent in the future, as seen with the recent Quake II remaster showing off all sorts of previously unseen development notes, sketches and assets.
I think one of my favorite parts of this channel is all the inadvertent book recs! It’s great to hear about the media that inspired some of my favorite games (Fallout, Outer Worlds, etc) and get to explore it myself!
GASP!!! I wasn’t expecting half of this video to be about Canticle. Thanks so much for making these videos Tim. I would love to see a longer video about how you might tweak Fallout in retrospect. As someone who grew up on Fallout 3 and loved it, your Fallout is now my favorite. I’m pretty sure you introduced Canticle for Leibowitz to me too.
Read it a couple times decades ago, was delighted to read that it inspired fallout. Currently listening to the audio book. I'm Catholic and have always enjoyed that aspect of the book too. Such a special story! I love reading other people's thoughts on it. Cheers to both of you!!
Ian going full auto at you is one of the things I remember about Fallout, not having played it since the 90's. I've always liked games where two teams of NPCs fight each other and you can pick a side. I prefer working around the CPU allies instead of micromanaging them. The Fallout companions would follow and try to help you, but they had a mind of their own. It's interesting that it came about by necessity.
Hey Tim, ever thought about what changes/updates you'd like to see in a Fallout Remake? Would you want a fully explorable map or base building added to the game? Are there areas you'd like to see completely reworked or just fleshed-out?
That’s a good question, Evan. I don’t want base building, but an explorable map would be great, with procedural generation like Arcanum (but better). I’d like to add creature respawning, increase or remove the level cap, and a few other things. This might need to be a video. 🙂
Hi Tim, knowing you read all the comments i just wanted to say as a game developer i really appreciate your videos. Ive seen all of them and they really help a lot (others on my team also feel the same). You're a man with many years experience under your belt and pretty much anything you say is gold dust to us younger developers. Keep it up, cheers!
I'd make the Abby nomadic. If they find out someone's about to attack them, they move to a different base they have further away. If you're friends with them, they'd tell you where all the spots are.
Thank you for the great video! It's good to know that you at least got to implement the companion AI you wanted in Arcanum. Pity about the abbey though; it sounds like a great context for storytelling and questing. I would love to watch a similar video for Arcanum.. Thanks again 😊
Thanks to the Fallout 2 Restoration mod, I got to enjoy the Abbey, and it was truly incredible. You helped give birth to my favorite game franchise, thank you Tim
The Abbey could have had defensive tech that would hide their location from the Brotherhood, or prevent them from getting in.. They would have been a neat addition.
Thanks for making videos, I'm really enjoying them! I have a question: What thing(s) do gamers THINK they want in a game, but are either not so fun or would change the game in some weird way? I dont know if this question really makes sense, but I always see people requesting features in games that dont really make sense. What are your thoughts?
I'm sure you've been told a hundred times but the Restoration mod for Fallout 2 has a version of the Abbey in the game. Obviously, as far as I know, no game design document for it survived, so it was largely based on Killap's interpretation, but I honestly quite enjoyed that location, outside of the terribly out of place music score chosen for it.
Hey, Tim! I was wondering what you think about the new Baldur's Gate game (if you've played it). What do you like about it? What do you think can be improved upon? And thanks for making great videos!
Ian shooting me in the butt has been a hallmark of one of my favorite RPGs of all time, and absolutely still worth coming back for. I do wish i'd had more story/conversation with the companions. like on the level of planescape:torment, or BG3. But given the time and resources you had, I'm glad we got what we did. I still like to imagine that the vault dweller and the chosen one retired to a chill ranch in the NCR, playing card games and telling stories with Goris or Katja for decades to come.
In the fallout 2 restoration patch the abbey is one of the most interesting places just due to the concept it's a shame that it was intended to have conflict with the brotherhood of steel which have little to no appearances in the game
Hey Tim! I love your videos. I'm glad to have slotted these into my daily routine. I know you weren't there when fallout 2 released, but I remember they had issues with saves when they released a patch. Every new patch we had to start over playing. I believe they promised at one of the patches they wouldn't have to do that again, but it broke the saves again. Do you have any insight to what caused these issues?
Hey Tim, not sure if you've gone over this yet, but what are your thoughts/approach to RPG sequels in terms of what endings and decisions are considered "canon"? Feels like a tricky thing to handle without alienating the player.
You talk about cuts and timelines, can you make a video about the relationship between a publisher and developers? How much control each has about timelines and budget? How much pushback can a developer do if they know/feel the budget or time is not enough? Who decides on adding cash shops and things like that? Thank you
Good thing that your games have a cult of followers who fanatically improve the games to this day. Both improved companion interaction in F1 and the Abbey in F2 were implemented in mods. And so much more.
Well Tim, the Abbey is in Restoration Project, it's depiction there is done pretty good overall. Doesn't have that many quests as you say, but it's still good and interesting location.
Damn im curious how combat worked before companions because i feel like a big part of Fallout and Fo2 was companions taking enemy attention away from the PC. Ty for the vid Tim!!
Hi Timothy, I love your video and would have the following question: in light of Baldur's Gate 3 immense success, don't you think a game like BG3 but in a Fallout-like universe would be a good idea? I actually felt a lot of Fallout 1/2 vibes while playing BG3. While Bethesda newest Fallout game in 3D FPS world are great, I always missed this OG game style of Fallout 1/2. It appears to me that BG3 has revived a game genre and I would love so much a game like that in the fallout universe again. I would love to hear your thoughts about that.
Canticle for Leibowitz was a classic. Most post-apocalyptic stories from that era were written as warnings against militarism so they took the bleak hopelessness to eleven. There will come Soft Rains by Bradbury being the classic example of that style. Stories where the war had been bad but people where picking themselves up and trying to rebuild were pretty rare. Final Blackout by L Ron Hubbard and Star Man's Son (also called Daybreak 2250 in some editions) by Andre Norton are probably the closest. You might make a case for Foundation I suppose but those always struck me as more of a "post-the economy got bad for a while" rather than post-apocalyptic stories.
Hey tim, could you give us (if you haven't already, of course) an insight on how ideas are implemented in a project, how do the steps that come from the original idea, expanding, and implementing usually go. And if you can, could you talk a bit about your own methods or storytelling? -Robert
A way to create a balance between a mlitaristic faction and a pacifistic faction is to create a dependency of knowledge like in Asimovs Foundation. As a player you can then work to keep this dependency intact or find a way for the Brotherhood to gain their own source of knowledge. Probably by firebombing or securing a hidden library so that the "good" guys have to do the symbolically bad thing and vice versa.
My personal idea was it's all fev, because it's made to modify specific genes and it's more or less hit and miss for other creatures than humans. Ghouls is radiation messing with the fev effects. And for some reason what I got from the talking Deathclaws quest in Fo2 is that they were pre fev genetic engineering project to create a controllable living killing machine.
Hey Tim! I have a question. You mentioned in your video about tropes that one problem with letting people romance whoever they wanted was problematic to you because it created a situation where you would end up with whoever you wanted. I totally agree with that. I am currently playing Baldurs Gate 3 and I'm struck with how bored I get by the fact that everyone wants to get with me regardless of my background. It is very progressive but also removes a lot of the "flavor" from the game. There's also the option to re-roll your characters into whatever class you want and you can change your stats accordingly (albeit for a cost). My question to you is: Do you think this is good or bad design? I feel that it creates the same situation as the dating. Anyone can be whatever, whenever. Barbarian lady with a heart of gold is now a rogue etc. Would you have liked to have this option in the classic Fallout games? Was this something you discussed? On one hand it can be nice to get back those 30-40 points you put into melee weapons early on once you get energy weapons when you but also I feel like stats and how you administer when its permanent is a huge strategic meta game. Should people be able to correct their builds or should they learn "the hard way", or is there other options for this? Thanks for great content like always!
Tim clearly isn't a gun guy. Fallout included the iconic 10mm submachinegun, which resembles an H&K MP5. The only Fallout game in which an Uzi appears is Fallout: Tactics.
Hi Tim, this video has a high pitched whine in the background of the recording that I specifically hear in my right ear with headphones, just thought you should know
Regarding the Abbey/BoS balance solution, I think this would work: since the Followers are non-violent but have access to hi-tech knowledge, why not make them rely on EMP grenades, stun-weapons and, say stationary telsa spires. EMP grenades disrupt Power armor (since it's a complex electronic device with a power source), slowing the wearer down to, say 5 action points and thus making heavy weapons (which require 6 points) unusable, so they would have to rely on sidearms, melee and their non-mechanized comrades - lesser trained and lightly armed initiates. Downside is, EMP grenades have small range so a Follower would have to basically "sacrifice his life for the greater good" in order to get close enough to disable the hulking BoS knight. + they can rely on traps, which again enforces their defensive, more intelligence-oriented nature. This would nerf the most valuable BoS assed - the heavy armored and equipped knights, and in a lore-friendly way, balance the two parties and provide an explanation why the BoS hasn't rolled them into the ground yet : it's just not that easy as it seems and a dumber supermutant with a minigun would, in fact, pose a smaller threat to a knight than a cunning Follower. We can even take that further - what if some Followers can disable a power armor suit if they get to point-blank range. Like in WW2 when a lone tank could be swarmed and taken out by infantry with explosives. This would also widen the use of EMP grenades and finally give the tesla-armor it's purpose (otherwise it's basically a glorified MK2 metal armor). Also it would make sense that an EMP would also disable an energy weapon, say, deplete it's power source making it necessary to reload.
Fallout video! Yeah Arcanums system for companions would have been nice in Fallout. As for Ian i like it that he fights like other NPCs. If you stand in the libe of fire you may get hit. That is on the player. Playing Arcanum now. Who did the thieves underground quests in Tarant? They are very well designed and a lot of fun.
it is funny that Fallout 2 was in a sense "rushed" because to me it felt perfect and it was actually Fallout 1 where I critically missed certain features such as companions leveling up, letting companions wait somewhere, option to ask NPCs to step aside and simply more content and locations in general.
I was so heartbroken when I had to give up and lwt dogmeat die to move on, its fantastic to know that a fix for that was in mind but never implemented!
Tim, I'm a big fan of Fallout (the original). I'm really interested to hear the story of hiring Ron Perlman to do the intro narration! It must have been unheard of to hire a big name actor to work on a game project at the time.
For Fallout 1, there is a great community mod pack (called "Fallout Fixt") which includes allowing to control your companions (instead of using the AI). Loved it.
Hey Tim, do you have any crunchy anecdotes about the localization process of Fallout? Might be a bit of a niche topic, I'm mostly asking since I'm translating video games, and that's a field not many people talk about/put interest into I believe
Hi Mr Cain, I wanted to ask have you ever considered making a mod for fallout or even your other games to fix the issues in the games like the companion ai you mentioned here. Personally I’d love to see a mod from you for fallout flushing out these mechanics.
Honestly, I think the possibility that your companions can hurt you added some depth to the combat. It would probably been better in that regard if you could control your companions tbh. But to me, strategising for the companion AI so I could keep everyone alive during Mariposa added a lot to the experience for me. Because otherwise you can just go in and click on everything until they die and maybe heal yourself and there's not much going on with the combat. Making sure that I'm in between mutants and companions so they don't get torn to shreds by a minigun or burnt to a crisp with a flamer. Making sure that I was the target of the enemies instead of my companions so they wouldn't just instantly die and I would have to reload. Planning so that my companions would be far away and unable to join in with the fighting until I've had a chance to kill a fair few of the enemies and aggro'd all of them towards me. Trying to surround weaker enemies so companions didn't hurt me and vice versa. Stuff like that.
Nowadays you can play Fallout 1 in 2's engine so fortunately most of your regrets there are fixed. About the abbey it sounds very cool. Maybe if you write it out more modders could implement it? The modding community on isometric fallout is still very alive. EDIT: The Fallout Restoration mod has an Abbey section, but it seems pretty barebone.
The Fallout Restoration Project resurrected your Abbey partially. It's present, but as far as I can tell it either doesn't work completely correctly or I'm not smart/patient enough to figure it out
You've mentioned you GURPS games a few times. As someone who has recently gotten into the TTRPG hobby I'd love to hear you opine on your favorite campaigns or game design tricks for pen and paper sometime
I'd love to see a similar video about any regrets you have about Arcanum. I bought Arcanum on release, and played it a lot, (I restarted a lot) but I never really got past meeting Gilbert Bates. I'm playing through it now, and definitely enjoying it, but it doesn't feel like it really got the polish it deserves. I also feel like, compared to Fallout, there are more situations where it feels like the only way forward is combat, and that it is very easy to not spec for combat.
I restarted Arcanum a lot too, were you having hard time committing to a character as well? I kept wanting to try a different type of character that I barely got anywhere 😅
@@wisdomcoffee I was actually relatively young when it came out, so it was more like: Read the manual, get excited about the setting and possibilities, create a character, play through the opening and shrouded hills, eventually ended up in Tarant, got stuck and frustrated that there was something I couldn't do, put the game down for a while, remember I had it installed, Read the manual, rinse and repeat. I think I even had a strategy guide at some point? But I still ended up getting stuck, or not wanting to do things the way the guide suggested, and so the cycle continued. Finally stuck with it this time and got to the end! There are definitely some parts I would have never have had the patience for when I was younger, but I'm glad I finally experienced this game! Now I need to make my way through Temple and Vampire, which I also bought back in the day and never finished.
I really liked the Abbey in the FO2 restoration mod. The idea of them having a conflict with the Brotherhood is super interesting. I definitely think the Brotherhood in general could have had more presence in 2. They’re kind of just gone but then they’re back in the later games like nothing happened. Were there ever plans to have a Brotherhood centric location like Lost Hills in FO1?
Apologies if I've asked this question before about companions. Games you've worked often omit deeper relationships and romance with companions and the player character (by design I assume). What is the thought process behind how you think companions should interact and feel about the player character as a person and how do you feel about games like Mass Effect, Disco Elysium and Baldur's Gate 3 that put a lot of depth into the relationship between the player character and their companions?
on companion lvl up: not sure on agreement when passing the ip over if remakes of fallout 1 and 2 is allowed. if allowed and if system mechanics base it on the fallout tabletop rpg that uses modiphius 2d20 system then way that design with shared ap could work with lvl up companions. if unfamiliar on 2d20: every roll you make you always roll well 2d20. the gm tells you difficulty so say 1 is the base difficulty. to beat it you combine one of your main stats + skill. so say intelligence 5+ medicine 4 so total 9. you must roll 9 or below to beat the difficulty. so if get one success then beat it since you only needed 1. but if gain two successes the excess success point converts into action points. action points is SHARED among the table group since they can allow additional actions, increase melee damage or rate of fire, boost max d20s rolled up to max of 5d20 to beat challenges and such. even in combat when need to hit an opponent if they have defense of 2 then you need to combine say str + melee skill to beat the defense difficulty to deal damage. so like regular rolls if get excess successes past enemy defense you get ap. rolls of 1 is crit success, rolls of 20 is crit fail. if tagged in a skill and beat target number then success gained count as 2 instead of 1. so if ever remaked using that system then how ap works is useful since you can calculate when to buff/apply more actions to your main character and companions in party. if interested to know more of it there is free quickstarts of it online or the starter is great too on getting ppl into the system and fallout wolrd.
Can you talk about Companion Design and expend on what worked in Arcanum? Include Outer Worlds too which has great companions. I’d love to know your thoughts on companions in New Vegas and even in WoW (and if Wildstar had them?)
An easy way to keep the brotherhood from attacking the pacifist tech collectors would be to have a dead man's switch idea. Basically you say we keep all of our tech in a vault wired up with enough explosives to create a new Grand canyon, and unless you kill all of us within one second it only takes one of us to hit the button we have hidden on our persons that would destroy all of it. Whether or not this would actually be true is something you could explore in the game but just the threat of losing that much tech would be enough to ward off the brotherhood.
Have you ever made mods to your own (or not your own) games? Like adding feature you really wanted but couldn't on normal process or for some other reason?
Just curious, did you ever play either of the Dark Sun PC games? I see them as predecessors to both BG games as well as FO 1+2. They were also the last turn based dnd crpgs until Toee was released. Of course Toee was the last turn based dnd crpg until the release of the indie Knights of the Chalice in 2009 which utilized a home brew version of the 3.0 OGL, also curious if you played that one but I doubt you did. There is a persistent rumor that you contributed to or assisted the development of the Co8 mod for Toee. I understand you may not want to comment on this for legal reasons but many fans would be interested to know one way or the other if you are at liberty to discuss it.
Hey, Tim. I was the lead writer of the Fallout 2 "Restoration Project" that people keep mentioning. The name is a bit of a misnomer as we didn't actually "restore" cut content (aside from the notable exception of Kaga) but instead we created the "cut" locations from scratch, based on what little we had to go off of in Chris Avellone's Fallout Bible (the only location that had a design doc availalbe for us to reference was the EPA). I'm sure our version of the Abbey falls quite short of your expectations and I so wish we had had access to your insights back when we made the RP. I adore these daily videos you've been putting out. Thank you for everything!
Thank you for keeping the old school Fallouts alive and active, Adam.
Hey Adam, did any person from the original Fallout 2 team actually help with Restoration Project, were they willing to at least review your plans or probive any comments?
@@MrZonYT Sadly, we weren't in contact with any of the original devs. We weren't bold enough to want to pester them. Hopefully, they aren't too disappointed by what we did
I've always wondered why the Abbey has so ridiculously low karma modifiers. Like, killing a not evil NPC is -10 karma, formatting the life's work of the entire abbey is like -3 or -7?
@@adamdravian thank you for responding, I fully understand. Thank you for all the work you and your colleagues have put in. Old Fallouts are simply amazing!
Ian's full auto with the player in the line of fire actually gave him a special quirk he's remembered for.
It may have been a bigger issue for melee characters but, as a sniper style character, I just didn't get between Ian and a target and it wasn't a big issue.
infamous for
@@silverjohn6037 same, ive had to reload a few saves cuz of dogmeat running in front though
I have gaming ptsd from that sob murdering half the quad with his weapons. Here Ian, take these throwing knives and be happy.
@@john_bluesI respect that
Thank you for letting us push companions, I remember getting stuck inside a room that was too small to "pull" Ian towards me and had to load an earlier save to escape. That change alone made Fallout 2 so much more enjoyable!
Playing FO2 for the first time ever and discovered this after playing the first one. It is so small but still a huge QOL-improvement.
I remember playing FO1 and getting the Brotherhood of Steel to the military base. Then getting stuck in the elevator because the BoS paladin was blocking the exit and wouldn't move.
This was how i learned to cycle through multiple save slots :-P.
Hey it that guy from that one channel on that one platform
Falliut Et Tu is amazing for bringing this to Fallout 1 by porting the game to the Fallout 2 engine.
Absolutely! Pushing companions saved my bacon multiple times.
Getting ripped to shreds by Ian's burst fire is a rite of passage for any Fallout 1 player. I absolutely get that as a developer that's not ideal, but at this point it's also part of the first game's charm. I'd say the clunky inventory management is far more egregious and impactful to the player.
It is part of the charm, the first time it happened I was outraged now I find it hilarious. Another fun example is Tycho blowing my head off with a shotgun instead of the deathclaw standing right next to us
To be honest, Tim.
It's pretty funny when Ian does it too haha
And that's also what Marcus always does in Fallout II. Even funnier with the calibers he wields.
I either make a Big Guns + Fast Shot character or sell all machine guns, RPGs, flamethrowers and the ammo for them as soon as i find them.
Oh haha I was just about to say the same thing
Ian behind me
+ SMG
Entering combat
*sweating
Effing Ian. E-ve-ry-time :D!
The glazing is unreal
I regret it took me 25 years to play Fallout 1 for the first time. Thank you, Tim.
Better late than never!
Part of me envies you because you can remember the first time you played the game. I can remember playing the demo, and buying a PC specifically because I wanted to play Fallout, but I don't actually remember the first time I fired up the completed game on my computer
@@Ms.Pronounced_Name I'd like to share my story of experiencing a Fallout game the way it was supposed to be. You see, I'm from Russia. Russians have some kind of aversion to distributing games in their original language (even if those are bootleg copies, which were the standard way of playing in the 90s / early 00s). And the big problem is that good translations are few and far between even in modern days of official releases, so what can you expect from bootlegs? This is where my good knowledge of English became a curse, as I could feel that so much was lost in these crude translations. In usual bootlegs of Fallout 2, many talking heads lacked voiceovers -- no Russian, no original either! And so it happens, Sarge Dornan was one of them. Anyway, I spent months in tireless search of an original copy. And finally I found one! The next day was the only one that I can ever remember being actually happy to wake up. I went on, absorbing the Fallout world the way it was supposed to be. But nothing could prepare me for meeting Sarge Dornan the way he was supposed to be. I met him. And he spoke to me. No, I don't think this is the correct term for describing this. The immeasurable sheer force of his voice tore down the very foundation of space and time around me, submerging me into a nirvana, an experience that even my knowledge of English has trouble expressing. No other work of art has ever touched the strings of my heart in such a sensual way. And I am beginning to doubt that anything ever will.
Really no need to regret. I've noticed getting old and getting back to old games is great. You're more intelligent and mature and understand different things a lot better than if you'd play them as a young teenager (atleast in the countries with no native english). I've had many games unfinished as a kid, like Ultima Underworld which I finished last year, and it's amazing game!
@@pheidian707exactly revisiting games as an older wiser more mature person is so cool because as a child you miss so much
I would like just to thank for creating Fallout, Mr Cain.
Amen.
When you described the abbey of lost knowledge, me and my wife both immediately thought of the followers of the apocalypse from new Vegas
The Followers are actually from Fallout 1. But unlike the Abbey, they don't worship pre-war tech. They are more interested in helping modern communities, not gathering old world knowledge.
Damn Brian Eno is a real fan
I legitimately loved it when my companion mowed me down, it made the world feel real and like I needed to legitimately duck for cover if I was in a bad position. My only complaint would be when I managed to run out of the shooting path, and they would move to get a "better" shot and put me back in the line of fire.
Thanks for all the information of the fallout/Arcanum games. It a shame that we never got a proper fallout 3 because some guy was chasing a dollar.
It's amazing what you're doing. I love getting this kind of insight into the process of game development, especially older games like the original Fallouts where a lot of details can be quite nebulous.
Hopefully these sorts of things will become more transparent in the future, as seen with the recent Quake II remaster showing off all sorts of previously unseen development notes, sketches and assets.
I think one of my favorite parts of this channel is all the inadvertent book recs! It’s great to hear about the media that inspired some of my favorite games (Fallout, Outer Worlds, etc) and get to explore it myself!
How can ''Starfield'' be one of your favorite games if it hasn't even come out yet?
@@18francesco18 thank you for catching that! I meant Outer Worlds, I’ve edited it since!
re: friendly fire crit failures, that stuff is actually hilarious and you shouldn't regret it
Tim, your videos have officially become an essential part of my day. Thank you for this channel.
GASP!!! I wasn’t expecting half of this video to be about Canticle. Thanks so much for making these videos Tim. I would love to see a longer video about how you might tweak Fallout in retrospect. As someone who grew up on Fallout 3 and loved it, your Fallout is now my favorite. I’m pretty sure you introduced Canticle for Leibowitz to me too.
It's probably one of the most important pieces of Atomic age literature if not the most important.
@@ZiddersRooFurry I very much so agree.
Read it a couple times decades ago, was delighted to read that it inspired fallout. Currently listening to the audio book. I'm Catholic and have always enjoyed that aspect of the book too. Such a special story! I love reading other people's thoughts on it. Cheers to both of you!!
Ian going full auto at you is one of the things I remember about Fallout, not having played it since the 90's. I've always liked games where two teams of NPCs fight each other and you can pick a side. I prefer working around the CPU allies instead of micromanaging them. The Fallout companions would follow and try to help you, but they had a mind of their own. It's interesting that it came about by necessity.
God I hope that somehow you get to work on another Fallout game. And that it was really Brian Eno that asked that question.
Hey Tim, ever thought about what changes/updates you'd like to see in a Fallout Remake? Would you want a fully explorable map or base building added to the game? Are there areas you'd like to see completely reworked or just fleshed-out?
That’s a good question, Evan. I don’t want base building, but an explorable map would be great, with procedural generation like Arcanum (but better). I’d like to add creature respawning, increase or remove the level cap, and a few other things. This might need to be a video. 🙂
Please never stop making these
Hi Tim, knowing you read all the comments i just wanted to say as a game developer i really appreciate your videos. Ive seen all of them and they really help a lot (others on my team also feel the same). You're a man with many years experience under your belt and pretty much anything you say is gold dust to us younger developers. Keep it up, cheers!
Actually I thought it was pretty funny when IAN would do as much damage to me as the bad guys. It kinda became a MEME. 😄
I always thought the Brotherhood was the Abbey From Canticle, only gamified for Fallout.
I'd make the Abby nomadic. If they find out someone's about to attack them, they move to a different base they have further away. If you're friends with them, they'd tell you where all the spots are.
I am watching Many A True Nerds Fallout playthrough. It looks so fun. I gotta try it out. I got it off GOG, gonna relive the 90s.
Love your video series, thank you so much!
Thank you for the great video! It's good to know that you at least got to implement the companion AI you wanted in Arcanum. Pity about the abbey though; it sounds like a great context for storytelling and questing.
I would love to watch a similar video for Arcanum..
Thanks again 😊
Thanks to the Fallout 2 Restoration mod, I got to enjoy the Abbey, and it was truly incredible. You helped give birth to my favorite game franchise, thank you Tim
The Abbey could have had defensive tech that would hide their location from the Brotherhood, or prevent them from getting in.. They would have been a neat addition.
So much cooler than some top fallout facts videos! Youre the man i love what you did for the game really set the tone in the largestway
Thanks for making videos, I'm really enjoying them! I have a question: What thing(s) do gamers THINK they want in a game, but are either not so fun or would change the game in some weird way? I dont know if this question really makes sense, but I always see people requesting features in games that dont really make sense. What are your thoughts?
Deathclaw snoring at the background.
It sounds like the Abbey of Lost Knowledge sounds pretty similar to the Followers of the Apocalypse.
I'm sure you've been told a hundred times but the Restoration mod for Fallout 2 has a version of the Abbey in the game. Obviously, as far as I know, no game design document for it survived, so it was largely based on Killap's interpretation, but I honestly quite enjoyed that location, outside of the terribly out of place music score chosen for it.
Thank for all of your work on thr gqmes, all your advise love ya man
Thanks Tim, this is absolutely fascinating stuff.
Hey, Tim! I was wondering what you think about the new Baldur's Gate game (if you've played it). What do you like about it? What do you think can be improved upon? And thanks for making great videos!
Loving the Trim there Tim
Ian shooting me in the butt has been a hallmark of one of my favorite RPGs of all time, and absolutely still worth coming back for.
I do wish i'd had more story/conversation with the companions. like on the level of planescape:torment, or BG3. But given the time and resources you had, I'm glad we got what we did. I still like to imagine that the vault dweller and the chosen one retired to a chill ranch in the NCR, playing card games and telling stories with Goris or Katja for decades to come.
In the fallout 2 restoration patch the abbey is one of the most interesting places just due to the concept it's a shame that it was intended to have conflict with the brotherhood of steel which have little to no appearances in the game
sounds like a dog is snoring in the background
Hey Tim! I love your videos. I'm glad to have slotted these into my daily routine. I know you weren't there when fallout 2 released, but I remember they had issues with saves when they released a patch. Every new patch we had to start over playing. I believe they promised at one of the patches they wouldn't have to do that again, but it broke the saves again. Do you have any insight to what caused these issues?
Hey Tim, not sure if you've gone over this yet, but what are your thoughts/approach to RPG sequels in terms of what endings and decisions are considered "canon"? Feels like a tricky thing to handle without alienating the player.
You talk about cuts and timelines, can you make a video about the relationship between a publisher and developers? How much control each has about timelines and budget? How much pushback can a developer do if they know/feel the budget or time is not enough? Who decides on adding cash shops and things like that?
Thank you
Good thing that your games have a cult of followers who fanatically improve the games to this day. Both improved companion interaction in F1 and the Abbey in F2 were implemented in mods. And so much more.
Well Tim, the Abbey is in Restoration Project, it's depiction there is done pretty good overall. Doesn't have that many quests as you say, but it's still good and interesting location.
I wish it would be possible to apply the FO2 innovations to FO1, and add the "wait here" function to both.
Love these videos
Another great video, thanks for the insight.
Damn im curious how combat worked before companions because i feel like a big part of Fallout and Fo2 was companions taking enemy attention away from the PC. Ty for the vid Tim!!
I love arcanum so much! I still replay it.
LOVE the sound of the snoring dog 🥺🥰
Hi Timothy, I love your video and would have the following question: in light of Baldur's Gate 3 immense success, don't you think a game like BG3 but in a Fallout-like universe would be a good idea? I actually felt a lot of Fallout 1/2 vibes while playing BG3. While Bethesda newest Fallout game in 3D FPS world are great, I always missed this OG game style of Fallout 1/2. It appears to me that BG3 has revived a game genre and I would love so much a game like that in the fallout universe again. I would love to hear your thoughts about that.
i respect Brian Eno even more now!
Canticle for Leibowitz was a classic. Most post-apocalyptic stories from that era were written as warnings against militarism so they took the bleak hopelessness to eleven. There will come Soft Rains by Bradbury being the classic example of that style.
Stories where the war had been bad but people where picking themselves up and trying to rebuild were pretty rare. Final Blackout by L Ron Hubbard and Star Man's Son (also called Daybreak 2250 in some editions) by Andre Norton are probably the closest. You might make a case for Foundation I suppose but those always struck me as more of a "post-the economy got bad for a while" rather than post-apocalyptic stories.
Hey tim, could you give us (if you haven't already, of course) an insight on how ideas are implemented in a project, how do the steps that come from the original idea, expanding, and implementing usually go. And if you can, could you talk a bit about your own methods or storytelling? -Robert
A way to create a balance between a mlitaristic faction and a pacifistic faction is to create a dependency of knowledge like in Asimovs Foundation.
As a player you can then work to keep this dependency intact or find a way for the Brotherhood to gain their own source of knowledge. Probably by firebombing or securing a hidden library so that the "good" guys have to do the symbolically bad thing and vice versa.
My personal idea was it's all fev, because it's made to modify specific genes and it's more or less hit and miss for other creatures than humans. Ghouls is radiation messing with the fev effects. And for some reason what I got from the talking Deathclaws quest in Fo2 is that they were pre fev genetic engineering project to create a controllable living killing machine.
Hey Tim! I have a question. You mentioned in your video about tropes that one problem with letting people romance whoever they wanted was problematic to you because it created a situation where you would end up with whoever you wanted. I totally agree with that. I am currently playing Baldurs Gate 3 and I'm struck with how bored I get by the fact that everyone wants to get with me regardless of my background. It is very progressive but also removes a lot of the "flavor" from the game.
There's also the option to re-roll your characters into whatever class you want and you can change your stats accordingly (albeit for a cost).
My question to you is: Do you think this is good or bad design? I feel that it creates the same situation as the dating. Anyone can be whatever, whenever. Barbarian lady with a heart of gold is now a rogue etc.
Would you have liked to have this option in the classic Fallout games? Was this something you discussed?
On one hand it can be nice to get back those 30-40 points you put into melee weapons early on once you get energy weapons when you but also I feel like stats and how you administer when its permanent is a huge strategic meta game.
Should people be able to correct their builds or should they learn "the hard way", or is there other options for this?
Thanks for great content like always!
Tim clearly isn't a gun guy. Fallout included the iconic 10mm submachinegun, which resembles an H&K MP5. The only Fallout game in which an Uzi appears is Fallout: Tactics.
We all know what he means dont be stupid
Hi Tim, this video has a high pitched whine in the background of the recording that I specifically hear in my right ear with headphones, just thought you should know
Regarding the Abbey/BoS balance solution, I think this would work: since the Followers are non-violent but have access to hi-tech knowledge, why not make them rely on EMP grenades, stun-weapons and, say stationary telsa spires.
EMP grenades disrupt Power armor (since it's a complex electronic device with a power source), slowing the wearer down to, say 5 action points and thus making heavy weapons (which require 6 points) unusable, so they would have to rely on sidearms, melee and their non-mechanized comrades - lesser trained and lightly armed initiates. Downside is, EMP grenades have small range so a Follower would have to basically "sacrifice his life for the greater good" in order to get close enough to disable the hulking BoS knight. + they can rely on traps, which again enforces their defensive, more intelligence-oriented nature.
This would nerf the most valuable BoS assed - the heavy armored and equipped knights, and in a lore-friendly way, balance the two parties and provide an explanation why the BoS hasn't rolled them into the ground yet : it's just not that easy as it seems and a dumber supermutant with a minigun would, in fact, pose a smaller threat to a knight than a cunning Follower. We can even take that further - what if some Followers can disable a power armor suit if they get to point-blank range.
Like in WW2 when a lone tank could be swarmed and taken out by infantry with explosives.
This would also widen the use of EMP grenades and finally give the tesla-armor it's purpose (otherwise it's basically a glorified MK2 metal armor). Also it would make sense that an EMP would also disable an energy weapon, say, deplete it's power source making it necessary to reload.
I'm playing Fallout 2 right now and it would have been cool to see the Abbey.
I would have loved the Abbey idea. I wish there was a low stakes way to get your fallout RPG ideas implemented. Maybe in Twine?
Fallout video! Yeah Arcanums system for companions would have been nice in Fallout.
As for Ian i like it that he fights like other NPCs. If you stand in the libe of fire you may get hit. That is on the player.
Playing Arcanum now. Who did the thieves underground quests in Tarant? They are very well designed and a lot of fun.
I actually liked that companions could pop you one. It made the battles more strategic
it is funny that Fallout 2 was in a sense "rushed" because to me it felt perfect and it was actually Fallout 1 where I critically missed certain features such as companions leveling up, letting companions wait somewhere, option to ask NPCs to step aside and simply more content and locations in general.
Even with all it's problems, Fallout is the best rpg ever. Baldur's Gate 2 and Arcanum are right behind it
I was so heartbroken when I had to give up and lwt dogmeat die to move on, its fantastic to know that a fix for that was in mind but never implemented!
Tim, I'm a big fan of Fallout (the original). I'm really interested to hear the story of hiring Ron Perlman to do the intro narration! It must have been unheard of to hire a big name actor to work on a game project at the time.
For Fallout 1, there is a great community mod pack (called "Fallout Fixt") which includes allowing to control your companions (instead of using the AI). Loved it.
The abbey of lost knowledge being cut seems very in the spirit of the name
Hey Tim, do you have any crunchy anecdotes about the localization process of Fallout? Might be a bit of a niche topic, I'm mostly asking since I'm translating video games, and that's a field not many people talk about/put interest into I believe
Timothy, when it came to the writing of certain factions, did you find yourself with a ‘favorite’?
My dog understands the need for the "move aside" mechanic. If I say to him "excuse me" he will move. 😊
Hi Mr Cain, I wanted to ask have you ever considered making a mod for fallout or even your other games to fix the issues in the games like the companion ai you mentioned here. Personally I’d love to see a mod from you for fallout flushing out these mechanics.
Honestly, I think the possibility that your companions can hurt you added some depth to the combat. It would probably been better in that regard if you could control your companions tbh. But to me, strategising for the companion AI so I could keep everyone alive during Mariposa added a lot to the experience for me. Because otherwise you can just go in and click on everything until they die and maybe heal yourself and there's not much going on with the combat. Making sure that I'm in between mutants and companions so they don't get torn to shreds by a minigun or burnt to a crisp with a flamer. Making sure that I was the target of the enemies instead of my companions so they wouldn't just instantly die and I would have to reload. Planning so that my companions would be far away and unable to join in with the fighting until I've had a chance to kill a fair few of the enemies and aggro'd all of them towards me. Trying to surround weaker enemies so companions didn't hurt me and vice versa. Stuff like that.
Dogmeat Mariposa bug❌
FO Hammer House of Horror reference✅
Nowadays you can play Fallout 1 in 2's engine so fortunately most of your regrets there are fixed.
About the abbey it sounds very cool. Maybe if you write it out more modders could implement it? The modding community on isometric fallout is still very alive.
EDIT: The Fallout Restoration mod has an Abbey section, but it seems pretty barebone.
instead we got the neutered brotherhood of steel in fallout 2.
oh well, at least there was Tactics.
The Fallout Restoration Project resurrected your Abbey partially. It's present, but as far as I can tell it either doesn't work completely correctly or I'm not smart/patient enough to figure it out
the restored abbey content s*cks
Wait here would have been a fantastic adder.
"Fallout Regrets" sounds like a cool title for a game, hah!
In Fallout 1 I had to replay the whole millatary base since the companion decided to stand in the doorway.
Hi I have a question Tim was the Lovecraft influence their from the beginning or is it something that was more of a Bethesda thing?
You've mentioned you GURPS games a few times. As someone who has recently gotten into the TTRPG hobby I'd love to hear you opine on your favorite campaigns or game design tricks for pen and paper sometime
I'd love to see a similar video about any regrets you have about Arcanum.
I bought Arcanum on release, and played it a lot, (I restarted a lot) but I never really got past meeting Gilbert Bates. I'm playing through it now, and definitely enjoying it, but it doesn't feel like it really got the polish it deserves.
I also feel like, compared to Fallout, there are more situations where it feels like the only way forward is combat, and that it is very easy to not spec for combat.
I restarted Arcanum a lot too, were you having hard time committing to a character as well? I kept wanting to try a different type of character that I barely got anywhere 😅
@@wisdomcoffee I was actually relatively young when it came out, so it was more like: Read the manual, get excited about the setting and possibilities, create a character, play through the opening and shrouded hills, eventually ended up in Tarant, got stuck and frustrated that there was something I couldn't do, put the game down for a while, remember I had it installed, Read the manual, rinse and repeat.
I think I even had a strategy guide at some point? But I still ended up getting stuck, or not wanting to do things the way the guide suggested, and so the cycle continued. Finally stuck with it this time and got to the end! There are definitely some parts I would have never have had the patience for when I was younger, but I'm glad I finally experienced this game! Now I need to make my way through Temple and Vampire, which I also bought back in the day and never finished.
Love A Canticle for Leibowitz 😊 absolutely incredible book, but part 2 of the book is boning, as parts 1&3 is jaw dropping 😮
Being able to trade with your companion (for free) rather than having to by and sell was my favorite FO2 innovation.
I really liked the Abbey in the FO2 restoration mod. The idea of them having a conflict with the Brotherhood is super interesting.
I definitely think the Brotherhood in general could have had more presence in 2. They’re kind of just gone but then they’re back in the later games like nothing happened. Were there ever plans to have a Brotherhood centric location like Lost Hills in FO1?
Apologies if I've asked this question before about companions. Games you've worked often omit deeper relationships and romance with companions and the player character (by design I assume). What is the thought process behind how you think companions should interact and feel about the player character as a person and how do you feel about games like Mass Effect, Disco Elysium and Baldur's Gate 3 that put a lot of depth into the relationship between the player character and their companions?
I explain it here about 8 minutes in: th-cam.com/video/BBaZHtlcHAU/w-d-xo.html
You're a legend.
on companion lvl up: not sure on agreement when passing the ip over if remakes of fallout 1 and 2 is allowed. if allowed and if system mechanics base it on the fallout tabletop rpg that uses modiphius 2d20 system then way that design with shared ap could work with lvl up companions.
if unfamiliar on 2d20: every roll you make you always roll well 2d20. the gm tells you difficulty so say 1 is the base difficulty. to beat it you combine one of your main stats + skill. so say intelligence 5+ medicine 4 so total 9. you must roll 9 or below to beat the difficulty. so if get one success then beat it since you only needed 1. but if gain two successes the excess success point converts into action points.
action points is SHARED among the table group since they can allow additional actions, increase melee damage or rate of fire, boost max d20s rolled up to max of 5d20 to beat challenges and such. even in combat when need to hit an opponent if they have defense of 2 then you need to combine say str + melee skill to beat the defense difficulty to deal damage. so like regular rolls if get excess successes past enemy defense you get ap. rolls of 1 is crit success, rolls of 20 is crit fail. if tagged in a skill and beat target number then success gained count as 2 instead of 1.
so if ever remaked using that system then how ap works is useful since you can calculate when to buff/apply more actions to your main character and companions in party. if interested to know more of it there is free quickstarts of it online or the starter is great too on getting ppl into the system and fallout wolrd.
Maybe I’ll add an Abbey to my Fallout 76 or Fallout 4 play through, in your honor.
Can you talk about Companion Design and expend on what worked in Arcanum? Include Outer Worlds too which has great companions. I’d love to know your thoughts on companions in New Vegas and even in WoW (and if Wildstar had them?)
Have you seen this video? Companions
th-cam.com/video/-qX1pJLDMEI/w-d-xo.html
I'm playing through Fallout for the first time and I can say without a doubt that Ian is the most dangerous thing in the wastes
Do not give Ian a flame thrower!
An easy way to keep the brotherhood from attacking the pacifist tech collectors would be to have a dead man's switch idea.
Basically you say we keep all of our tech in a vault wired up with enough explosives to create a new Grand canyon, and unless you kill all of us within one second it only takes one of us to hit the button we have hidden on our persons that would destroy all of it. Whether or not this would actually be true is something you could explore in the game but just the threat of losing that much tech would be enough to ward off the brotherhood.
Hi Tim, any plan on remastering Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura with coop option?
Have you ever made mods to your own (or not your own) games? Like adding feature you really wanted but couldn't on normal process or for some other reason?
Just curious, did you ever play either of the Dark Sun PC games? I see them as predecessors to both BG games as well as FO 1+2. They were also the last turn based dnd crpgs until Toee was released. Of course Toee was the last turn based dnd crpg until the release of the indie Knights of the Chalice in 2009 which utilized a home brew version of the 3.0 OGL, also curious if you played that one but I doubt you did. There is a persistent rumor that you contributed to or assisted the development of the Co8 mod for Toee. I understand you may not want to comment on this for legal reasons but many fans would be interested to know one way or the other if you are at liberty to discuss it.