Tim Cain creating "Cain on Games" videos

[rusty_shackleford]

Again, the alternative is leaving people to the raiders and slavers.

There is one choice that is objectively better by every measure.

Better to serve in Heaven than rule in Hell though.

how is being forced into sexual slavery heaven?
you're just quoting random garbage

[Roguey]

What an *******! Mass effect 1 and Dragon Age: Origins offered good system for romances. Just add flags that is checked race and sex, but no, this ****** can't talk about doing a little more work and putting little more effort than bare minimum.

A number of game developers decided this wasn't good enough because people were missing the content, not even knowing it was available because they didn't click the lines. So they decided that companions should actively express an interest in you and you have to make a choice to pursue or reject.

how is being forced into sexual slavery heaven?
you're just quoting random garbage

One can always just resist and die.

[rusty_shackleford]

One can always just resist and die.

or, or… and I'm just spitballing here…

the vault guy could have supported gizmo and created libertarian wonderland where only people who engage in degeneracy suffer any consequences and the streets are clean and the fountains have soda?


This just seems a tad bit preferable to me!

[Humbaba]

the vault guy could have supported gizmo and created libertarian wonderland where only people who engage in degeneracy suffer any consequences and the streets are clean and the fountains have soda?

Do you still expect us to take your headcanon seriously?

[rusty_shackleford]

the vault guy could have supported gizmo and created libertarian wonderland where only people who engage in degeneracy suffer any consequences and the streets are clean and the fountains have soda?

Do you still expect us to take your headcanon seriously?

That's the actual description that was provided.

Didja know... in the original write-up of Junktown, the "ending sequence" was reversed from its current incarnation. That is, in the endgame slideshow, if the player had favored Killian, the original write-up was something like "With Gizmo out of the way, Killian enforces his brand of frontier justice on Junktown. The city remains orderly but small, as travelers steer away from his rigid sensibilities," and the picture background behind Killian was a gallows with shadows of dead men hanging from it. If the player favored Gizmo, it was "Under Gizmo's leadership, Junktown becomes a trading center and resort, where people come from miles around to gamble, spend money and enjoy themselves in relative safety. Gizmo keeps the town prosperous but healthy, as he has no desire to injure his own affluence. The inhabitants of the town become wealthy and famous," with the background picture showing Junktown as a Reno-like casino with electricity and clean streets free of any drug dealers or riff-raff who might endanger Gizmo's operations. Marketing decided at the last minute that we had to "reward good and punish bad," though, so the sequence was changed to its current incarnation.

[Humbaba]

That's the actual description that was provided.

You already posted that. This is an unimplemented pre-release concept and thus completely irrelevant.

[rusty_shackleford]

That's the actual description that was provided.

You already posted that. This is an unimplemented pre-release concept and thus completely irrelevant.

"the entire basis of the discussion is irrelevant"

[Humbaba]

"the entire basis of the discussion is irrelevant"

If your basis of discussion is something that's non-canon then yeah. Glad we finally agree.

[rusty_shackleford]

"the entire basis of the discussion is irrelevant"

If your basis of discussion is something that's non-canon then yeah. Glad we finally agree.

Best of luck in your next job interview, maybe they'll need a mentally disabled person to fill some government quota.

[Humbaba]

Best of luck in your next job interview, maybe they'll need a mentally disabled person to fill some government quota.

No arguments then.

[Oyster Sauce]

Rusty making ingame moral decisions based on meta GameFAQs information

[Tweed]

the vault guy could have supported gizmo and created libertarian wonderland where only people who engage in degeneracy suffer any consequences and the streets are clean and the fountains have soda?

Do you still expect us to take your headcanon seriously?

That's the actual description that was provided.

Didja know... in the original write-up of Junktown, the "ending sequence" was reversed from its current incarnation. That is, in the endgame slideshow, if the player had favored Killian, the original write-up was something like "With Gizmo out of the way, Killian enforces his brand of frontier justice on Junktown. The city remains orderly but small, as travelers steer away from his rigid sensibilities," and the picture background behind Killian was a gallows with shadows of dead men hanging from it. If the player favored Gizmo, it was "Under Gizmo's leadership, Junktown becomes a trading center and resort, where people come from miles around to gamble, spend money and enjoy themselves in relative safety. Gizmo keeps the town prosperous but healthy, as he has no desire to injure his own affluence. The inhabitants of the town become wealthy and famous," with the background picture showing Junktown as a Reno-like casino with electricity and clean streets free of any drug dealers or riff-raff who might endanger Gizmo's operations. Marketing decided at the last minute that we had to "reward good and punish bad," though, so the sequence was changed to its current incarnation.

As I recall they changed it because normies would have gotten mad that the lawman option turned out to be a sucker punch.

They revisited this in New Vegas with the option to pick Meyers as sheriff.

[Tweed]

Wow, Tim Cain is a major bigot…

A lot of people, even people on this channel, are really into romancing companions. I just never got into that because it strikes me as, first of all, in a lot of games it feels like a weird add-on. It's like this person is wanting to do their side quest and they've joined you and all this, and then by the way, as soon as they get back to camp, they're like, "Ooh, you're hot!"

Also, to make it work with no matter what kind of player character you've made, the male companions have to hit on you, the female companions have to hit on you, the different races that the companions can be have to hit on you. So if there's a lizard man and there's a demon and whatever, they all hit on you. And it just makes the world feel like, "Wow, the world is full of all these really horny people."

It's... if that's not what I want, then I don't want that to be reflected in the companions. So often I'm just, "Let's take romance off the table."

"Can I **** this? Can I **** that? I want to **** the robot/talking chair/ship."

And before you can say "No homo bro!" you have harem simulators where every character wants to jump your bones.

[Oyster Sauce]

Wow, Tim Cain is a major bigot…

A lot of people, even people on this channel, are really into romancing companions. I just never got into that because it strikes me as, first of all, in a lot of games it feels like a weird add-on. It's like this person is wanting to do their side quest and they've joined you and all this, and then by the way, as soon as they get back to camp, they're like, "Ooh, you're hot!"

Also, to make it work with no matter what kind of player character you've made, the male companions have to hit on you, the female companions have to hit on you, the different races that the companions can be have to hit on you. So if there's a lizard man and there's a demon and whatever, they all hit on you. And it just makes the world feel like, "Wow, the world is full of all these really horny people."

It's... if that's not what I want, then I don't want that to be reflected in the companions. So often I'm just, "Let's take romance off the table."

"Can I **** this? Can I **** that? I want to **** the robot/talking chair/ship."

[Tweed]

Wow, Tim Cain is a major bigot…

"Can I **** this? Can I **** that? I want to **** the robot/talking chair/ship."

Video game romances have been a disaster for the human race.

[Vergil]

Wow, Tim Cain is a major bigot…

A lot of people, even people on this channel, are really into romancing companions. I just never got into that because it strikes me as, first of all, in a lot of games it feels like a weird add-on. It's like this person is wanting to do their side quest and they've joined you and all this, and then by the way, as soon as they get back to camp, they're like, "Ooh, you're hot!"

Also, to make it work with no matter what kind of player character you've made, the male companions have to hit on you, the female companions have to hit on you, the different races that the companions can be have to hit on you. So if there's a lizard man and there's a demon and whatever, they all hit on you. And it just makes the world feel like, "Wow, the world is full of all these really horny people."

It's... if that's not what I want, then I don't want that to be reflected in the companions. So often I'm just, "Let's take romance off the table."

This is a really great belief to have but in reality it just manifests as adding characters like the poopoo **** in Outer Worlds instead of anything with actual depth.

[1998]

It's a shame cain is gay

The other thing I hate is when a game states a general role and then doesn't follow through. Not going to tell you what it is, but a very popular RPG in the 90's did this. I was asked to go find an NPC. When you find them, they're dead. They were killed recently, and the intention was you pick up the body and take it back and go 'Oh sorry, here they are, they're dead.'

But I was playing a cleric, and even though I wasn't high enough level to raise dead, I had a 'Raise Dead' scroll, and that scroll said it worked for anyone who'd been dead up to 9 days. And I knew this person couldn't have been dead for more than three days - I knew it. They were alive and home 3 days before, but I couldn't raise them from the dead. I'd cast the scroll, click on the dead body, and it would say 'Invalid Target.'

I was angry because: a) it wasted the scroll, I had to reload and I lost about 20 minutes of gameplay, but I was... I remember finding myself as a game designer going, 'Why did they give me that scroll? Someone put it in the game, and then why did they make this quest? It doesn't even follow the rule of that scroll.'

I thought what was going to happen was I was going to raise this person. I was going to go back and, you know, the person who sent me on the quest like, 'Oh my goodness, you found him! Thank you so much,' blah blah blah. Nope. Nope. There was only one way to solve it, and that was to bring back the dead body and go, 'They're dead.'

It was Baldur's Gate, by the way. I think I tried the same thing.

Another example for this in the same game is the ****** cleric in that Beamdog DLC

[rusty_shackleford]

He discusses a lot of things that are obvious to people paying attention but is never said explicitly.

e.g.,

but when we were making
outter worlds I wanted to lock
companions behind one of the leadership
skills and I was told no because we were
putting so much work into the companions
that make restricting them to players
who bought leadership skills was a bad
idea

The requirement that players must see all the content because it took time/money to develop it is why so many RPGs suck now. Larian not doing this is why so many people enjoyed their games. The more unique you make someone's playthru, the more the character feels like them rather than just playing the same story as everyone else with different skills.

[Oyster Sauce]

He discusses a lot of things that are obvious to people paying attention but is never said explicitly.

e.g.,

but when we were making
outter worlds I wanted to lock
companions behind one of the leadership
skills and I was told no because we were
putting so much work into the companions
that make restricting them to players
who bought leadership skills was a bad
idea

The requirement that players must see all the content because it took time/money to develop it is why so many RPGs suck now. Larian not doing this is why so many people enjoyed their games. The more unique you make someone's playthru, the more the character feels like them rather than just playing the same story as everyone else with different skills.

If it's a skill 99% of the playerbase would beeline, it's a **** idea.

[rusty_shackleford]

He discusses a lot of things that are obvious to people paying attention but is never said explicitly.

e.g.,

but when we were making
outter worlds I wanted to lock
companions behind one of the leadership
skills and I was told no because we were
putting so much work into the companions
that make restricting them to players
who bought leadership skills was a bad
idea

The requirement that players must see all the content because it took time/money to develop it is why so many RPGs suck now. Larian not doing this is why so many people enjoyed their games. The more unique you make someone's playthru, the more the character feels like them rather than just playing the same story as everyone else with different skills.

If it's a skill 99% of the playerbase would beeline, it's a **** idea.

A lot of players don't like playing with companions

[Oyster Sauce]

He discusses a lot of things that are obvious to people paying attention but is never said explicitly.

e.g.,




The requirement that players must see all the content because it took time/money to develop it is why so many RPGs suck now. Larian not doing this is why so many people enjoyed their games. The more unique you make someone's playthru, the more the character feels like them rather than just playing the same story as everyone else with different skills.

If it's a skill 99% of the playerbase would beeline, it's a **** idea.

A lot of players don't like playing with companions

Is "a lot" more than 2%?

[rusty_shackleford]

If it's a skill 99% of the playerbase would beeline, it's a **** idea.

A lot of players don't like playing with companions

Is "a lot" more than 2%?

consider how many people make a party full of mercs in RPGs that allow it

this is typically just cheating, btw. Game is designed around suboptimal companions.

[maidenhaver]

He discusses a lot of things that are obvious to people paying attention but is never said explicitly.

e.g.,




The requirement that players must see all the content because it took time/money to develop it is why so many RPGs suck now. Larian not doing this is why so many people enjoyed their games. The more unique you make someone's playthru, the more the character feels like them rather than just playing the same story as everyone else with different skills.

If it's a skill 99% of the playerbase would beeline, it's a **** idea.

A lot of players don't like playing with companions

I hate them.

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

He discusses a lot of things that are obvious to people paying attention but is never said explicitly.

e.g.,




The requirement that players must see all the content because it took time/money to develop it is why so many RPGs suck now. Larian not doing this is why so many people enjoyed their games. The more unique you make someone's playthru, the more the character feels like them rather than just playing the same story as everyone else with different skills.

If it's a skill 99% of the playerbase would beeline, it's a **** idea.

A lot of players don't like playing with companions

IMG_0795.jpeg

[rusty_shackleford]

If it's a skill 99% of the playerbase would beeline, it's a **** idea.

A lot of players don't like playing with companions

It helps to remember that the most vocal people e.g., redditors posting about "baezal" or astarion etc., are in tiny minorities of the actual playerbase and are never representative of the actual data we get.

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

A lot of players don't like playing with companions

It helps to remember that the most vocal people e.g., redditors posting about "baezal" or astarion etc., are in tiny minorities of the actual playerbase and are never representative of the actual data we get.

While agree to certain extent I do think that people who only use
mercenaries companions are not the majority ( probably 25-30 percent). I don’t have hard data to prove this but it’s general sentiment I find in general discourse.

[rusty_shackleford]

Going to guess the reason this wasn't used again after Arcanum was fully-voiced dialogue.
will be cool to go full circle back to this stuff when we replace voice actors with AI.

[maidenhaver]

"the entire basis of the discussion is irrelevant"

If your basis of discussion is something that's non-canon then yeah. Glad we finally agree.

Best of luck in your next job interview, maybe they'll need a mentally disabled person to fill some government quota.

Ask him the question.

[Vergil]

He discusses a lot of things that are obvious to people paying attention but is never said explicitly.

e.g.,

but when we were making
outter worlds I wanted to lock
companions behind one of the leadership
skills and I was told no because we were
putting so much work into the companions
that make restricting them to players
who bought leadership skills was a bad
idea

The requirement that players must see all the content because it took time/money to develop it is why so many RPGs suck now. Larian not doing this is why so many people enjoyed their games. The more unique you make someone's playthru, the more the character feels like them rather than just playing the same story as everyone else with different skills.

*does a full sweep of every area, quick saves before every dialog encounter, quick loads every failed perception check, cheeses approval systems to get max affinity with all companions*

[rusty_shackleford]

Can't help but notice how much more love he has for Arcanum than Fallout. Just a bit of armchair psychology, but I'm going to guess it's because he feels like Fallout was ripped away from him & taken in a much different direction, and he either owns the Arcanum IP or it's completely dead so it doesn't matter.