Also hard to respond to feedback or iterate on failures with such long dev times, problems get half-addressed in DLC if you're lucky. Feel bad for Cyberpunk's level designers who realized after launch the problems they had, or Fallout 4's writers who spent 5 years writing 4 identical variations on every line of dialogue.
One of the greatest things about your videos is that, even when it's a subject that I'm not super interested about, or (in this case) a subject that I already have an opinion that I think is set in stone, you always give me food for thought and make me look at things in a new light. Thank you.
I think what you said about "too relaxed up to the deadline" is a problem of how people focus etc. Towards the end of the deadline they are more inclined to save their skin and work. But also not really willing to make "imperfect cuts" to something and work like "well I do my best, it has to be enough", which is a stress avoiding strategy. Also in my case I tend to wander off into many tangents, detours, start to develop some random thing and end up in something parallel. If I try to enforce staying on a certain path my mind goes blank and I run into road block really fast. The closing deadline is basically the only thing that lets me kill off deadends, replace something I run into blocks with with something that is "a good enough replacement" etc. Probably a devastating part of it is "laziness" and wanting a "chill time". But certainly not all of it. There are also cognitive and methodical reasons to it. You spend 80% of the time to discover and gather creative thoughts and the last 20% are picked to choose and implement the best in a way that is bearable and manageable. Of course this strategy has a massive potential to fire back.
This is why Agile/Scrum is so popular these day. People are bad at thinking long term, so short sprints fixes that. However, it's also irresponsible to say "just use Agile/Scrum," because so many "scrum-master" are full of crap, and led their team to ruin. Majority of Agile/Scrum teams are doing it wrong. Ex: Daily-stand-up that last 1 hour, using post-it board that get out-of-date instead of digital kanban. There is no silver bullet. No replacement for intelligence and experience.
Something else you didn't mention about long development cycles is burnout. If folk have been working on the same game for a long amount of time, they may just lose interest. I've seen a few games with weak endgames, or final chapters and I suspect a loss of focus is a part of that.
We love to think in black & white simple truths: "It's done when it's done." "Should've just have bigger budget." The reality is much more nuanced and complicated. That's why experience is so valuable and why the shortage of knowledge transfer meant the industry kept repeating the same mistakes. More veterans sharing their wisdom is the way. Everyone can learn from previous generations' success/failures to avoid failing themselves. School lecturers can have more material to construct better lessons.
The last part about games being dated by the time they come out is something I've already noticed happen with fashion and certain aesthetic trends! Because the trend cycle of fashion has become increasingly fast like never before in history, especially in the last decade, but especially the last few years, and game developers aren't all exactly fashion buffs, some games look incredibly dated in terms of these things, it's almost impossible to keep up with it. But the thing that happens is that, let's say a game took 5-4 years to make and the concepts they used are from that time span of the first two years of development, and the devs at that time weren't exactly up to speed with trends either, when the game comes out, that trend ends up being *just* exactly over, which is the most awkward time for any fashion trend. This is why a lot of gen z'ers look at a some recent games and cringe at them for being way too millenial, while out of the loop millenials tend to falsely atribute the aesthethic to "cringy gen z" because the characters are young, all the while the people working on it are probably on the gen x side. It's a funny thing I've noticed, this happened with Redfall and the newest Saints Row game for example.
@@scoutthespirit1133 neither, you do what makes you happy. participating in trends can be fun. but the world changes regardless, and people will react accordingly.
The last part about decade long release cycles of certain IPs is interesting. That's why I think they should be willing to sell the IP to other companies faster. And not keep them as cash cows. The issues of course is a creative one. Are they going to be faithful to the vision or on point to possibly future directions.
Hey Tim! So far I've been loving your channel but there's one question that I always wonder how you would answer. On numerous occasions, you talk about romance systems, and how most RPGs do it wrong. I was wondering if you were to dedicate time to a romance system, how would you go about it? And do you have any examples of games that nailed their romance system (pun unintended)?
Hate the "romance systems," even in Mass Effect. How could you not love Garrus, despite his people's pretty obvious "domineering" effect on the galaxy. Even he goes into that every once in a while with his "calculus of war" bullshit. Very well done.
Thank you, you touched on one of my questions but can you get more into the publisher and developer relationship? Who has what control or say? Who sets certain milestones and/or content? What are the ramifications of not meeting some or any of those? Sorry also can you say what exactly publishers bring to the table? Just funding or marketing or support or all of them? Thanks.
If someone wanted a talking raccoon in fallout, I would have made him put a human brain in it as an experiment or something. You can always change it to fit the theme if they are willing to comprise.
I see myself as the one who has to do something and doesn't get anything done for a long time and then does many all nighters just before the deadline. I just wish I knew how to fix this. I'm studying software engineering at college, majoring in game development. Asked for something to study during summer, all I got was "Make a game, keep track how long you've worked and let's get back to this at autumn". All I got done was a GDD, 5x 3d models and an empty map in Unity where you can walk in 3rd person. If anyone knows how to fix this, please tell me.
Honestly, the phenomenon just sounds to me like good, old-fashioned procrastination, which I've been just as guilty of as anyone else in my lifetime especially when I was being asked to do something that didn't spark or hold my interest or that I couldn't find a way to enjoy for whatever reason. I'd focus on the very human tendency toward procrastination to get to the bottom of it.
Hello Tim, I just wanted to thank you for how much your games shaped my childhood. Fallout and VTMBs were games I played over and over again. Vampire's facial animations still look fantastic.
What is your take on modding tools and game modding by the players? Some companies like Betsheda provide total modding freedom including the option to change their own quests/story lines and much more. Others provide tools for map design/ scenario building. If fallout had something like aurora toolset from the good old BioWare…
I wish more studios were as open and allowed as much freedom as BGS does. I started getting into game development as a hobby because of modding on Skyrim. I was in for a ride awakening when I tried to mod other games, there is much much less support and tools for other games in the same genre
Hi Tim! What was your experience working with Valve's Source Engine at Troika for Bloodlines? I worked on mods for Valve's games so that's a very interesting topic to me.
That came up in past videos. Not sure which one. Try ones about Crunch and about Game Engines: ruclips.net/video/QJHpuJxMqiA/видео.html ruclips.net/video/Iw3bCdIvAj0/видео.html Chats with Leonard also contain a bunch of VtMB stuff: ruclips.net/video/Egh2p8ajb3w/видео.html ruclips.net/video/Njwv5tbmhzg/видео.html
The continual OS and app bloat have made it so that there is not much advancement in computers for a long time, so in that sense it is no longer such a huge risk. I wonder if FO will have some more 3rd party FO games before that time.
10 years between games is crazy, games used to be abandoned and be listed on abandonware sites in shorter periods. But it is already over 12 years since we've seen a new TES...
I'm fairly sure Bloodlines had a crash bug too after you deal with the Society of Leopold and the transition back to I believe Santa Monica (or Downtown, I guess it doesn't really matter). I'm certain I needed that v1.02 Patch. As for game development time, I work as a software engineer for a major bank, so we're quite set in stone in terms for what we want to accomplish, the feature we want to introduce (and the legislation we have to obey). But for a game, well, there's no guarantee that what you're working is going to be a) good enough or b) fun. I always imagine that you could work on a physics system for a game but some values might just be that slight bit off. It might be more realistic, but not necessarily fun. An AI could probably do a 180 spin and no scope headshot you in a split second, but that wouldn't be fun for the player. I always imagine that game dev time has that element in it to fine tune things, and if you don't have that time you might not have the best product you have. Of course, fun is also subjective too.
It makes sense and saddens me to know how much of Monarch was cut, MSI and Monarch include some of my favorite cast and artwork, I love the roughish charm of MSI as a corporation separate from the board, forced into the position they are and seeing the ways in which they overcome those obstacles. Outer Worlds truly has some amazing writing and I'm glad such a passionate and tightly knit team could make an RPG like that! There's several things that I really respect and appreciate about how the Outer Worlds plays and feels, especially the level design, which reminds me of the Witcher 2, with both having large, open ended spaces that are free to explore but not entirely open world per se. I think design like this tightens and strengthens the pathfinding and keeps the player engaged by making everything close together enough to not be a Bethesda type of slog between areas if you haven't unlocked fast travel. Sometimes i would find myself being dismissive of level design only to fall headfirst into awesome dungeons, quests, and character dialogs with incredible world building. Rambling aside, everyone involved at Obsidian really put together a special RPG that truly holds its own as an example of streamlined yet so deep and complex on many levels.
What you mention about longer development times it´s something i dread as i get older, i am 30, i played fallout 4 at 21 years old, and i loved even though it was watered down, and fast fowards to 2023, starfield releases, i love it, being playing almost non stop since it came out, but it kept some of the things that in 2015 it were fine enough but in 2023 they are just dated, Even though starfield is a completely different game from no man sky, no man sky in 2016 solved the space exploration lite that´s not a simulation but good enough that you felt good while exploring and going out of a planet to land on other one, but by now i feel like space exploration it´s solved in a game design sense, You have star citizen which has a lot of behind the scenes dev interviews where they showed us how they did solved this issues, and having played it, it´s the most inmersive in this sense, You have a lot of indie and small studios games that also make good on the promise of seamsless space exploration, and procesural worlds and ship combat in space and docking and what not, granted, non of those games come even close to what bethesda managed to do in a rpg point of view, but it comes as a little bittersweet that we have this game that is amazing in a lot of ways, mainly the things that bethesda does best than everyone else like the sandbox, the world building, the atention to detail, etc, but at the same time coming a little dated in some aspects compared with modern games like bg3 recently, and also being completely outdated in other things, things are one of the pilars of that game, things which if the game would have launched 3 or 4 years ago, it wouldn´t have being an issue. Gaming is advancing as such a pace that i feel like this bethesda mentality of launching a game when they feel like they are ready is no longer possible, a good game designer can sit it his chair and with the ammount of access to free tools, amazing tools, and a little knowledge, they can in a short ammount of time create a proof of concept of a new mechanic or feature that in the blink of an eye everyone starts copying and be creative in new ways. sorry for the long response.
And yet some of the best selling games belong to franchises that have been around forever (Doom, Call of Duty, Battlefield, FIFA, Mario, Zelda, Metroid etc.) So it is possible to keep a franchise fresh.
Thanks for another great video! On the topic of game series becoming outdated; personally I've never seen nor felt that a series was "passé" due to the passage of time. If anything, oversaturation has been the killer of series for me. Just recently, it seems like series that take a long time to make a comeback (Armored Core 6 or Baldur's Gate 3, for example) are very welcomed by players new and old alike. If the game's good, I don't think the age of the series matters.
Thank you for the great video Tim!! Can you share the ideas you had for Pillars of Eternity that did not make it into the game (either of the two)? Some of my favorite features of that game I learned through this channel came from you (and I was not surprised 😊)
I wouldnt worry about aging franchises. Most Elder Scrolls players today haven't played Arena or Daggerfall. Most Call of Duty players havent played the PS1 games. Most Final Fantasy players today never owned a Super Nintendo. Its weird when youve been there from the beginning, but a modern game is expected to be semi-standalone. New games are more likely to bring new players to the old games than vice versa. I agree their decade-long development cycle is a bit frustrating, but given how many people still play Skyrim, i dont think Bethesda has no basis for thinking itll work out.
A fear I share with you, that isn't specific to franchises taking long but still applies to Bethesda: When a team is the only one that does their kind of games, and you REALLY love that kind, you have to wait longer and longer between each game. And that sucks. 2003 -> 2011 (8 years) You had Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout3, Skyrim. 2015 -> 2023, only Fallout4 and Starfield. And both those games are really good but it sucks to wait so long. And sadly, even if the developpement is really long, it doesn't seem anyone has tried (or succeeded) to get in between those stretches of times, I imagine because making that kind of game is really hard, especially with the expectations of graphical fidelity we have now.
Do you think we are at (or approaching) a time when we've reached a limit as to how big games can be? Not from a processing or storage standpoint, but from the standpoint of the human brain. The push over the last console generation to max out world size feels like it's at a breaking point to me. Starfield is so freaking BIG. It's overwhelming just to try and make sense of the scope of it. My belief is that this will scale back as developers look at the stats and see for example that X% of Starfield players never engaged with X% of the content. If content ships that nobody sees, then does it even matter? How do you balance a game that big? I'm curious about your thoughts on this. Maybe it'll result in a leaner Fallout a little sooner than 2034?
I hope you won't mind this message/view it as spam, but I honestly love your channel and the opportunity to listen to your views and opinions as someone who wrote one of my favourite games ever, Arcanum! Thank you so much!
Man, you are so humble. Your ability to work within the desires and constraints of other developers, yet still make your voice heard is what makes you one of the industry greats. Keep up the tim storytime for as long as you're able, this is the shidzzt.
I love Arcanum, and Temple. I wish you had more time to finish them cause I think they would have done so much better. I also absolutely loved WildStar and think it's criminal that a game so good went free to play and the servers became TRASH after and I couldn't do dungeons anymore without lagging to death. I'm sad I can't still explore that world.
"who didn't work until close to the deadline, you know that person" Yeah I'm that person. But I thought everyone is like that :D For all people who suffered from my trait. I am deeply sorry, it was not ill intended. I will try to make it up... next week :D
The point about hardware changing during development is less relevant today. Console cycles can be planned around and PC hardware is moving much slower these days. Targeting enthusiast (not even high end) today will easily land you middle of the pack in 4-5 years.
In Divinity Original Sin 2 I ignored Sebille the entire game until a certain point of no return where you had to persuade her to let you ascend. She ran off distrustful of me thinking I'd betray her. I went back a save and spent 10 minutes doing her quest line and wouldn't you know it she's telling me I'm the kindest person and kissing me on the cheek. Then right after the brief fight in the arena of the one we are back on the ship banging. I found this hysterically funny. The only game that I felt did romance options well was Mass Effect 1, they developed organically over the course of the whole game. But, also, if you go for the threesome the characters confront you about it. Underrated game!
It's weird that Bethesda has to develop one project at a time, because their games are connected story wise, while Activision can just give Call of Duty to 3-4 different studios and can release one game every year and won't have to worry about continuum as each entry is a new story anyway.
Do you have any thoughts about game optimisation in regards to a games size on a harddrive? Sometimes I feel that games are bigger than they need to be or could do a better job at keeping filesizes smaller. I understand that storage space isn't as big of a limiting factor as it used to be in the 90s.
Tim Cain! I desperately want to become a Fallout developer and specifically writer and possibly try to bring back the bleak post-apocalyptic and dark/gritty humor of Fallout1,2 and New Vegas. What do you think I should start doing to get there?
You didn't even talk about probably the biggest and most unsustainable aspect of long dev times = extreme costs. As we require bigger and bigger studios to create these ever more ambitious games, developers multiplied by time equals cost. More developers x more time = huge increases in costs. Also think about console development. Even at 3-5 years, we're still talking a major AAA studio possibly only being able to release ONE game for a console generation before having to rebuild and retool for a completely new, future generation with all new higher expectations. It's crazy. It's why I'm actually supporting of potentially using things like AI for art asset creation and whatnot. We need ways to shrink both employee numbers and time required to make these big games. Though I also think another useful solution would be to extend console gens to 9-10 years.
I think the concern about too many years between Fallout 4 and Fallout 5 might be part of why Fallout 76 was made -- particularly why it was made with a model for continuing content over time with that content being developed by BGS Austin more than BGS Rockville -- but obviously it's up to the individual to decide for themselves if that's for better or for worse.
Yeah, the RPG Romance obsession really rubs me the wrong way. Yet writing on par with "first draft of a YAL teen romance drama written by a middle-aged salaryman" seems to garner effuse praise so long as it's got the romance tag slapped over top of it.
To be honest, a lot of these franchises just need to end eventually. Do we really another Elder Scrolls, Fallout or GTA? I'm not sure we do. I even say this about Mass Effect and Dragon Age. Just let franchises die after a while.
I think depending on the scope and scale of the game, 2-5 years is acceptable. I think past that you are probably having issues with the direction, tone, etc. I share your worry about Fallout 5, was just thinking about this earlier this week.
Hey Tim! Love your videos, they provide a really interesting perspective on game development. Also, is there any chance you'll interview Chris Avellone at some stage? That would be a superb video
Bethesda killed those games for me. I wish you and your time could have continued with the sequels. Not looking forward to any more of their games after Starfield
So... Would you be interested in making the next fallout if Bethesda lets you? It would come out quicker. O.O Ngl, it would be a dream come true. A modern Fallout a la Tim Cain!
The solution to the Fallout problem is simple and obvious: farm out the next Fallout to Obsidian. Fallout New Vegas is pretty universally considered the best of the 3d-era Fallouts. Give Obsidian another crack at it.
Bethesda, they do really well when they focus on one thing. No, they really don't. Sadly Starfield was not worth its waiting time and expectations. They really should give it (Fallout) to like Obsidian or maybe retire franchise.
Dating sims are boring and tokenized to hell and back. Also is fun and interesting to have more goals in a game, especially if it's a RPG, and one of the goals may be to form a relation or even a family why not? Japanese games, non dating sims, have this in them. From Final Fantasy to The Legend of Heroes they all come with at least one if not many romance or long friendships or even marriage paths. The Western games, mostly American, are afraid of this purely because fear of critiques and hatred from a particular vocal minority. Witcher had it, and it got vocally attacked, but they don't cared about it and went on to add even more in Witcher 2 and 3. Baldur's Gate 3 seem to do the same, somehow forced, but at least they try. Weirdly enough they did not got the same vile treatment and attacks like Witcher did, no one wonders why on this, lol.
@@donaldothomoson All the games they make sell worldwide. And yes, the West has the same problem, exactly the same problem. Take away the drugs and antidepressants, the compulsory consumerism and fake "religions" like whatever -ism is fashionable and all is left is a 65% divorce rate, 45% singleness and 78% depression rates and raising. If that is not a problem, then what is it? 50 years ago these numbers were in the low 20's btw.
Hey Tim, awesome video, thanks for posting. I know you probably can't speak directly about this subject because it's none of your business, but you seem to have described in detail, some of the problems that have affected Star Citizen's nearly fifteen year development. In my opinion; a game with a huge budget and no publisher pressure, insane feature creep, pre-sale of a huge number of in-game items that could seriously threaten to de-stabilize any hope of allowing for balanced future gameplay mechanics, in addition to the promise of implementing game technologies so advanced, that some still appear to be more science fiction than any workable code-construct or infrastructure. My question to you is, have you ever been involved in a project where the development team has found itself way out of it's depth and the project spiralling out of control? If so what did you do and how did you fix it? Thanks again :)
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Fun fact: My father and grandfather both played Fallout. But Grandfather wasn't even 50 yet when he played it.
I spent last night robbing the good citizens of shady sands blind one cap at a time.
My grandfather fought against the Japanese in WW2.
@@FaxanaduJohn That must have been horrible. But did you play games together too?
@@FluffySylveonBoi nahh, he died in ‘93 without having ever played a video game in his life. He might have enjoyed World at War though!
@@deathsheadknight2137jesus did ya cap em in the eyes or something!
Also hard to respond to feedback or iterate on failures with such long dev times, problems get half-addressed in DLC if you're lucky. Feel bad for Cyberpunk's level designers who realized after launch the problems they had, or Fallout 4's writers who spent 5 years writing 4 identical variations on every line of dialogue.
One of the greatest things about your videos is that, even when it's a subject that I'm not super interested about, or (in this case) a subject that I already have an opinion that I think is set in stone, you always give me food for thought and make me look at things in a new light. Thank you.
Yeah he has so much wisdom, it's a delight to be able to learn from it
I'm impressed that you resisted the temptation to mention Duke Nukem Forever.
Kicking a downed opponent is a low blow, Tim is better than that.
I think what you said about "too relaxed up to the deadline" is a problem of how people focus etc. Towards the end of the deadline they are more inclined to save their skin and work. But also not really willing to make "imperfect cuts" to something and work like "well I do my best, it has to be enough", which is a stress avoiding strategy. Also in my case I tend to wander off into many tangents, detours, start to develop some random thing and end up in something parallel. If I try to enforce staying on a certain path my mind goes blank and I run into road block really fast. The closing deadline is basically the only thing that lets me kill off deadends, replace something I run into blocks with with something that is "a good enough replacement" etc. Probably a devastating part of it is "laziness" and wanting a "chill time". But certainly not all of it. There are also cognitive and methodical reasons to it. You spend 80% of the time to discover and gather creative thoughts and the last 20% are picked to choose and implement the best in a way that is bearable and manageable. Of course this strategy has a massive potential to fire back.
This is why Agile/Scrum is so popular these day. People are bad at thinking long term, so short sprints fixes that.
However, it's also irresponsible to say "just use Agile/Scrum," because so many "scrum-master" are full of crap, and led their team to ruin. Majority of Agile/Scrum teams are doing it wrong. Ex: Daily-stand-up that last 1 hour, using post-it board that get out-of-date instead of digital kanban.
There is no silver bullet. No replacement for intelligence and experience.
Something else you didn't mention about long development cycles is burnout. If folk have been working on the same game for a long amount of time, they may just lose interest. I've seen a few games with weak endgames, or final chapters and I suspect a loss of focus is a part of that.
I really want Bethesda to let someone else make a Fallout again. Perhaps with Microsoft that can be possible now.
I'm hoping Fallout can be given to Obsidian for the next game. I mean Microsoft owns both studios now.
Oof this aged poorly. Rip micro purchases
We love to think in black & white simple truths: "It's done when it's done." "Should've just have bigger budget."
The reality is much more nuanced and complicated. That's why experience is so valuable and why the shortage of knowledge transfer meant the industry kept repeating the same mistakes.
More veterans sharing their wisdom is the way. Everyone can learn from previous generations' success/failures to avoid failing themselves. School lecturers can have more material to construct better lessons.
The last part about games being dated by the time they come out is something I've already noticed happen with fashion and certain aesthetic trends! Because the trend cycle of fashion has become increasingly fast like never before in history, especially in the last decade, but especially the last few years, and game developers aren't all exactly fashion buffs, some games look incredibly dated in terms of these things, it's almost impossible to keep up with it. But the thing that happens is that, let's say a game took 5-4 years to make and the concepts they used are from that time span of the first two years of development, and the devs at that time weren't exactly up to speed with trends either, when the game comes out, that trend ends up being *just* exactly over, which is the most awkward time for any fashion trend. This is why a lot of gen z'ers look at a some recent games and cringe at them for being way too millenial, while out of the loop millenials tend to falsely atribute the aesthethic to "cringy gen z" because the characters are young, all the while the people working on it are probably on the gen x side. It's a funny thing I've noticed, this happened with Redfall and the newest Saints Row game for example.
Isn't it better to just not follow trends?
@@scoutthespirit1133 neither, you do what makes you happy. participating in trends can be fun. but the world changes regardless, and people will react accordingly.
The last part about decade long release cycles of certain IPs is interesting. That's why I think they should be willing to sell the IP to other companies faster. And not keep them as cash cows. The issues of course is a creative one. Are they going to be faithful to the vision or on point to possibly future directions.
Hey Tim! So far I've been loving your channel but there's one question that I always wonder how you would answer. On numerous occasions, you talk about romance systems, and how most RPGs do it wrong. I was wondering if you were to dedicate time to a romance system, how would you go about it? And do you have any examples of games that nailed their romance system (pun unintended)?
Wow... A chat on this between Tim and David Gaider sounds amazing.
Hate the "romance systems," even in Mass Effect. How could you not love Garrus, despite his people's pretty obvious "domineering" effect on the galaxy. Even he goes into that every once in a while with his "calculus of war" bullshit.
Very well done.
Thank you, you touched on one of my questions but can you get more into the publisher and developer relationship? Who has what control or say? Who sets certain milestones and/or content? What are the ramifications of not meeting some or any of those?
Sorry also can you say what exactly publishers bring to the table? Just funding or marketing or support or all of them?
Thanks.
I'd be interested I am stuck wondering about the Saints Row reboot and wonder if Volition wanted to make it that tone or if the publisher made tone
If someone wanted a talking raccoon in fallout, I would have made him put a human brain in it as an experiment or something. You can always change it to fit the theme if they are willing to comprise.
I see myself as the one who has to do something and doesn't get anything done for a long time and then does many all nighters just before the deadline. I just wish I knew how to fix this. I'm studying software engineering at college, majoring in game development. Asked for something to study during summer, all I got was "Make a game, keep track how long you've worked and let's get back to this at autumn". All I got done was a GDD, 5x 3d models and an empty map in Unity where you can walk in 3rd person.
If anyone knows how to fix this, please tell me.
Honestly, the phenomenon just sounds to me like good, old-fashioned procrastination, which I've been just as guilty of as anyone else in my lifetime especially when I was being asked to do something that didn't spark or hold my interest or that I couldn't find a way to enjoy for whatever reason. I'd focus on the very human tendency toward procrastination to get to the bottom of it.
Hi Tim, long time fan of many of the games you've worked on and really enjoying this video blog series, it's enriching my morning coffee routine :)
Hello Tim, I just wanted to thank you for how much your games shaped my childhood. Fallout and VTMBs were games I played over and over again. Vampire's facial animations still look fantastic.
I was definitely that person in high school but not in college
comparing these awkward in-game romance options with slot machines is hilarious😂
What is your take on modding tools and game modding by the players?
Some companies like Betsheda provide total modding freedom including the option to change their own quests/story lines and much more.
Others provide tools for map design/ scenario building. If fallout had something like aurora toolset from the good old BioWare…
I wish more studios were as open and allowed as much freedom as BGS does. I started getting into game development as a hobby because of modding on Skyrim. I was in for a ride awakening when I tried to mod other games, there is much much less support and tools for other games in the same genre
Hi Tim! What was your experience working with Valve's Source Engine at Troika for Bloodlines? I worked on mods for Valve's games so that's a very interesting topic to me.
That came up in past videos. Not sure which one.
Try ones about Crunch and about Game Engines: ruclips.net/video/QJHpuJxMqiA/видео.html ruclips.net/video/Iw3bCdIvAj0/видео.html
Chats with Leonard also contain a bunch of VtMB stuff: ruclips.net/video/Egh2p8ajb3w/видео.html ruclips.net/video/Njwv5tbmhzg/видео.html
The continual OS and app bloat have made it so that there is not much advancement in computers for a long time, so in that sense it is no longer such a huge risk. I wonder if FO will have some more 3rd party FO games before that time.
10 years between games is crazy, games used to be abandoned and be listed on abandonware sites in shorter periods. But it is already over 12 years since we've seen a new TES...
I'm fairly sure Bloodlines had a crash bug too after you deal with the Society of Leopold and the transition back to I believe Santa Monica (or Downtown, I guess it doesn't really matter). I'm certain I needed that v1.02 Patch.
As for game development time, I work as a software engineer for a major bank, so we're quite set in stone in terms for what we want to accomplish, the feature we want to introduce (and the legislation we have to obey). But for a game, well, there's no guarantee that what you're working is going to be a) good enough or b) fun. I always imagine that you could work on a physics system for a game but some values might just be that slight bit off. It might be more realistic, but not necessarily fun. An AI could probably do a 180 spin and no scope headshot you in a split second, but that wouldn't be fun for the player. I always imagine that game dev time has that element in it to fine tune things, and if you don't have that time you might not have the best product you have. Of course, fun is also subjective too.
It makes sense and saddens me to know how much of Monarch was cut, MSI and Monarch include some of my favorite cast and artwork, I love the roughish charm of MSI as a corporation separate from the board, forced into the position they are and seeing the ways in which they overcome those obstacles. Outer Worlds truly has some amazing writing and I'm glad such a passionate and tightly knit team could make an RPG like that!
There's several things that I really respect and appreciate about how the Outer Worlds plays and feels, especially the level design, which reminds me of the Witcher 2, with both having large, open ended spaces that are free to explore but not entirely open world per se. I think design like this tightens and strengthens the pathfinding and keeps the player engaged by making everything close together enough to not be a Bethesda type of slog between areas if you haven't unlocked fast travel. Sometimes i would find myself being dismissive of level design only to fall headfirst into awesome dungeons, quests, and character dialogs with incredible world building.
Rambling aside, everyone involved at Obsidian really put together a special RPG that truly holds its own as an example of streamlined yet so deep and complex on many levels.
What you mention about longer development times it´s something i dread as i get older, i am 30, i played fallout 4 at 21 years old, and i loved even though it was watered down, and fast fowards to 2023, starfield releases, i love it, being playing almost non stop since it came out, but it kept some of the things that in 2015 it were fine enough but in 2023 they are just dated,
Even though starfield is a completely different game from no man sky, no man sky in 2016 solved the space exploration lite that´s not a simulation but good enough that you felt good while exploring and going out of a planet to land on other one, but by now i feel like space exploration it´s solved in a game design sense, You have star citizen which has a lot of behind the scenes dev interviews where they showed us how they did solved this issues, and having played it, it´s the most inmersive in this sense,
You have a lot of indie and small studios games that also make good on the promise of seamsless space exploration, and procesural worlds and ship combat in space and docking and what not, granted, non of those games come even close to what bethesda managed to do in a rpg point of view, but it comes as a little bittersweet that we have this game that is amazing in a lot of ways, mainly the things that bethesda does best than everyone else like the sandbox, the world building, the atention to detail, etc, but at the same time coming a little dated in some aspects compared with modern games like bg3 recently, and also being completely outdated in other things, things are one of the pilars of that game, things which if the game would have launched 3 or 4 years ago, it wouldn´t have being an issue.
Gaming is advancing as such a pace that i feel like this bethesda mentality of launching a game when they feel like they are ready is no longer possible, a good game designer can sit it his chair and with the ammount of access to free tools, amazing tools, and a little knowledge, they can in a short ammount of time create a proof of concept of a new mechanic or feature that in the blink of an eye everyone starts copying and be creative in new ways.
sorry for the long response.
And yet some of the best selling games belong to franchises that have been around forever (Doom, Call of Duty, Battlefield, FIFA, Mario, Zelda, Metroid etc.) So it is possible to keep a franchise fresh.
Thanks for another great video!
On the topic of game series becoming outdated; personally I've never seen nor felt that a series was "passé" due to the passage of time. If anything, oversaturation has been the killer of series for me.
Just recently, it seems like series that take a long time to make a comeback (Armored Core 6 or Baldur's Gate 3, for example) are very welcomed by players new and old alike.
If the game's good, I don't think the age of the series matters.
Thank you for reading my question!!! Happiest day in my life :D
Great video. Thanks Tim.
We've been fighting dragons since the middle-ages and I feel Fallout will be just as fine a story concept in 2050 as it was in the beginning.
Thank you for the great video Tim!!
Can you share the ideas you had for Pillars of Eternity that did not make it into the game (either of the two)?
Some of my favorite features of that game I learned through this channel came from you (and I was not surprised 😊)
that why Xbox need to step up and give you and obsidian a chance to make fallout magic again
I wouldnt worry about aging franchises. Most Elder Scrolls players today haven't played Arena or Daggerfall. Most Call of Duty players havent played the PS1 games. Most Final Fantasy players today never owned a Super Nintendo.
Its weird when youve been there from the beginning, but a modern game is expected to be semi-standalone. New games are more likely to bring new players to the old games than vice versa.
I agree their decade-long development cycle is a bit frustrating, but given how many people still play Skyrim, i dont think Bethesda has no basis for thinking itll work out.
A fear I share with you, that isn't specific to franchises taking long but still applies to Bethesda: When a team is the only one that does their kind of games, and you REALLY love that kind, you have to wait longer and longer between each game. And that sucks. 2003 -> 2011 (8 years) You had Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout3, Skyrim. 2015 -> 2023, only Fallout4 and Starfield. And both those games are really good but it sucks to wait so long.
And sadly, even if the developpement is really long, it doesn't seem anyone has tried (or succeeded) to get in between those stretches of times, I imagine because making that kind of game is really hard, especially with the expectations of graphical fidelity we have now.
Do you think we are at (or approaching) a time when we've reached a limit as to how big games can be? Not from a processing or storage standpoint, but from the standpoint of the human brain. The push over the last console generation to max out world size feels like it's at a breaking point to me. Starfield is so freaking BIG. It's overwhelming just to try and make sense of the scope of it. My belief is that this will scale back as developers look at the stats and see for example that X% of Starfield players never engaged with X% of the content. If content ships that nobody sees, then does it even matter? How do you balance a game that big? I'm curious about your thoughts on this. Maybe it'll result in a leaner Fallout a little sooner than 2034?
I hope you won't mind this message/view it as spam, but I honestly love your channel and the opportunity to listen to your views and opinions as someone who wrote one of my favourite games ever, Arcanum! Thank you so much!
Hello, Timothy! Did you knew that TCR are making VtMB 2? What your thoughts about it?
Man, you are so humble. Your ability to work within the desires and constraints of other developers, yet still make your voice heard is what makes you one of the industry greats. Keep up the tim storytime for as long as you're able, this is the shidzzt.
I love Arcanum, and Temple. I wish you had more time to finish them cause I think they would have done so much better. I also absolutely loved WildStar and think it's criminal that a game so good went free to play and the servers became TRASH after and I couldn't do dungeons anymore without lagging to death. I'm sad I can't still explore that world.
"who didn't work until close to the deadline, you know that person" Yeah I'm that person. But I thought everyone is like that :D
For all people who suffered from my trait. I am deeply sorry, it was not ill intended. I will try to make it up... next week :D
Duke nukem Forever is a sold example of a too long development time. With chasing tech.
Seriously valid points made
The point about hardware changing during development is less relevant today. Console cycles can be planned around and PC hardware is moving much slower these days. Targeting enthusiast (not even high end) today will easily land you middle of the pack in 4-5 years.
Yeah, Bethesda needs to give the Fallout rights up to somebody else. Especially after Starfield. I don't want them touching it ever again honestly.
A rudderless ship will never reach its destination
In Divinity Original Sin 2 I ignored Sebille the entire game until a certain point of no return where you had to persuade her to let you ascend. She ran off distrustful of me thinking I'd betray her.
I went back a save and spent 10 minutes doing her quest line and wouldn't you know it she's telling me I'm the kindest person and kissing me on the cheek. Then right after the brief fight in the arena of the one we are back on the ship banging.
I found this hysterically funny. The only game that I felt did romance options well was Mass Effect 1, they developed organically over the course of the whole game. But, also, if you go for the threesome the characters confront you about it. Underrated game!
It's weird that Bethesda has to develop one project at a time, because their games are connected story wise, while Activision can just give Call of Duty to 3-4 different studios and can release one game every year and won't have to worry about continuum as each entry is a new story anyway.
Do you have any thoughts about game optimisation in regards to a games size on a harddrive? Sometimes I feel that games are bigger than they need to be or could do a better job at keeping filesizes smaller. I understand that storage space isn't as big of a limiting factor as it used to be in the 90s.
My two cents is that games focus too much on textures and polygon count you know. Like it doesn't have to look so ultra realistic all the time.
Tim Cain! I desperately want to become a Fallout developer and specifically writer and possibly try to bring back the bleak post-apocalyptic and dark/gritty humor of Fallout1,2 and New Vegas. What do you think I should start doing to get there?
You didn't even talk about probably the biggest and most unsustainable aspect of long dev times = extreme costs. As we require bigger and bigger studios to create these ever more ambitious games, developers multiplied by time equals cost. More developers x more time = huge increases in costs. Also think about console development. Even at 3-5 years, we're still talking a major AAA studio possibly only being able to release ONE game for a console generation before having to rebuild and retool for a completely new, future generation with all new higher expectations. It's crazy. It's why I'm actually supporting of potentially using things like AI for art asset creation and whatnot. We need ways to shrink both employee numbers and time required to make these big games. Though I also think another useful solution would be to extend console gens to 9-10 years.
I do feel sad that Fallout 5 is basically so far away that it will be more of a resurrection of an old franchise rather than the next installment.
Are you playing Star field ?
I think the concern about too many years between Fallout 4 and Fallout 5 might be part of why Fallout 76 was made -- particularly why it was made with a model for continuing content over time with that content being developed by BGS Austin more than BGS Rockville -- but obviously it's up to the individual to decide for themselves if that's for better or for worse.
There is always the chance that there will be people playing fallout irl ^_^
I wonder what AI innovation is going to do for game design in the future. Maybe a lot will be able to be accomplished in a shorter time period?
There are not many dating seams like Mass Effect out there you know.
Yeah, the RPG Romance obsession really rubs me the wrong way. Yet writing on par with "first draft of a YAL teen romance drama written by a middle-aged salaryman" seems to garner effuse praise so long as it's got the romance tag slapped over top of it.
To be honest, a lot of these franchises just need to end eventually. Do we really another Elder Scrolls, Fallout or GTA? I'm not sure we do. I even say this about Mass Effect and Dragon Age. Just let franchises die after a while.
I think depending on the scope and scale of the game, 2-5 years is acceptable. I think past that you are probably having issues with the direction, tone, etc. I share your worry about Fallout 5, was just thinking about this earlier this week.
Omg the camera angle threw me off at first haha
Hey Tim! Love your videos, they provide a really interesting perspective on game development. Also, is there any chance you'll interview Chris Avellone at some stage? That would be a superb video
What's your favorite dating sim Tim, Hatoful Boyfriend?
Bethesda killed those games for me. I wish you and your time could have continued with the sequels. Not looking forward to any more of their games after Starfield
I'm sure the next Fallout will be appropriately updated for the "modern audiences".
yeah like the people most likely to survive a nuclear apocalypse are HR ladies 😂
I'm genuinely scared I'm just going to hate fallout with F5 and beyond.
So... Would you be interested in making the next fallout if Bethesda lets you? It would come out quicker. O.O
Ngl, it would be a dream come true. A modern Fallout a la Tim Cain!
So basically outer worlds / Outer worlds 2 whenever it launches?
The solution to the Fallout problem is simple and obvious: farm out the next Fallout to Obsidian. Fallout New Vegas is pretty universally considered the best of the 3d-era Fallouts. Give Obsidian another crack at it.
Tell me Star Citizen isn't going well without telling me Star Citizen isn't going well
...and people still whining about theýre console not able to handle cýberpunk 2077 after 9 ýears dev time 😄👍
Hi Tim :)
Procrastination is like the Achilles heal of every artist, maybe I could be wrong but it sounds nice.
Hii :D
Sup
I really wish Obsidian would get another crack at Fallout
Starfield feels dated
Bethesda, they do really well when they focus on one thing.
No, they really don't. Sadly Starfield was not worth its waiting time and expectations. They really should give it (Fallout) to like Obsidian or maybe retire franchise.
Dating sims are boring and tokenized to hell and back.
Also is fun and interesting to have more goals in a game, especially if it's a RPG, and one of the goals may be to form a relation or even a family why not?
Japanese games, non dating sims, have this in them. From Final Fantasy to The Legend of Heroes they all come with at least one if not many romance or long friendships or even marriage paths.
The Western games, mostly American, are afraid of this purely because fear of critiques and hatred from a particular vocal minority. Witcher had it, and it got vocally attacked, but they don't cared about it and went on to add even more in Witcher 2 and 3.
Baldur's Gate 3 seem to do the same, somehow forced, but at least they try. Weirdly enough they did not got the same vile treatment and attacks like Witcher did, no one wonders why on this, lol.
@@DawnRazor-wy8uv
Why not?
No one complains when Final Fantasy does it, and Red Dead Redemption 2 was basically a Wild West life sim.
@@donaldothomoson
All the games they make sell worldwide.
And yes, the West has the same problem, exactly the same problem.
Take away the drugs and antidepressants, the compulsory consumerism and fake "religions" like whatever -ism is fashionable and all is left is a 65% divorce rate, 45% singleness and 78% depression rates and raising.
If that is not a problem, then what is it? 50 years ago these numbers were in the low 20's btw.
Lets face it, the best Fallout game after F1 and 2 wasn't by Bethseda it was by Obsidian.
Hey Tim, awesome video, thanks for posting. I know you probably can't speak directly about this subject because it's none of your business, but you seem to have described in detail, some of the problems that have affected Star Citizen's nearly fifteen year development. In my opinion; a game with a huge budget and no publisher pressure, insane feature creep, pre-sale of a huge number of in-game items that could seriously threaten to de-stabilize any hope of allowing for balanced future gameplay mechanics, in addition to the promise of implementing game technologies so advanced, that some still appear to be more science fiction than any workable code-construct or infrastructure. My question to you is, have you ever been involved in a project where the development team has found itself way out of it's depth and the project spiralling out of control? If so what did you do and how did you fix it? Thanks again :)
Duke nukem Forever is a sold example of a too long development time. With chasing tech.