10 Things Video Games Did Without Telling You

[@foxmind2490]

This NEEDS to be a recurring video series. This is really fascinating "under the hood" information and video game history. Great work guys!

[@PlazDreamweaver]

AGREEDDD!! This was so interesting.

[@Lazerscythe]

There is already a whole YT channel dedicated to that, it is called Game Maker's Toolkit

[@CowmanUK]

@@Lazerscythe Just looked at it, very interesting channel! I used to make a lot of games (as a hobby, I'm not good enough to have ever done it professionally) first back in the day in BASIC, then game designers, and currently using PICO8. So thanks for sharing that, very much up my street (I subbed)!

[@TheNYCGoldenGlover]

I rarely make it through these whole videos, usually skipping around or just stopping. This is the first where I was glued to the screen whether i even knew of or had played the game. For those who understand programming or those that Dont makes no difference . interesting as hell

[@zackplayzeverything2459]

Those were crazy I really liked the Zelda and fallout ones I've never noticed until now

[@Jukletsplay]

The Fallout New Vegas and Fallout 3 bits are actually quite clever solutions to their respective problems. Anyone who has used the Geck or tried to mod the games more extensively knows how broken they actually are. Often times the games feel like they work when they shouldn’t, and don’t when they should.

[@toomanybrews7123]

Say what you want about Gamebryo, but its one of the more simple engines to mess with. Thats why Bethesda Softworks games have unrivaled modding communities. I read an interview a few years back where some devs at Obsidian were talking about how incredibly user friendly and versatile the engine actually is. Which is not to say it doesn't have its limitations. That being said, I am slightly annoyed at the whole "this engine is outdated" BS though. Some of the most popular game engines in modern gaming are old as hell but have been somewhat regularly upgraded and further modernized. Building an entirely new engine takes YEARS, and then comes the learning curve, and then comes the supplementary years spent upgrading and adding things that weren't added initially. The Creation engine is great. It's very much in need of some modernization, but it's arguably the best WRPG engine in existence.

[@ktbeaverhausen2211]

@@toomanybrews7123 100%

[@ktbeaverhausen2211]

@felix gonzalez I seen your comment and thought about this comment I read before I seen yours. This person makes a good point about creation engine

[@zebwiz1900]

It just works.

[@Armeggadeth]

It's understandable when people complaing about the bugs but comparatively there aren't really many games achieving the same thing. Stress test other open world games on AI pathing, item collision, item physics/velocity, world loading, world/AI mechanics, simultaneously on the level Bethesda games work with and the bugs will seem understandable

[@animegaming4057]

A genius programming that I’ve seen in a game where if you look carefully, you can see how the game keeps you engaged, is Doom Eternal. You’ll see it the most in imp AI, where you can shoot a grenade from launcher or shotgun, an imp will purposely do a move like throwing a fire ball while jumping, it will go close enough to the explosion to either die or get hurt! Very hard to tell with all the chaos, but the enemy AI in doom is outstanding!

[@gameranxTV]

👍🏼

[@SlingerMarshall]

So the AI are programed to throw the fight?

[@milinddixit6583]

@@SlingerMarshall It's to trigger that "reward" feeling and keep you playing.

[@ericjtomsky]

@@SlingerMarshall I think the Imp AI is designed more to be resource banks (health&armor via glory kills) than the actual challenge-- there's harder enemy types to deal with. That's part of the aggressive gameplay loop in doom eternal

[@BlackMoonHowls]

@@ericjtomsky Very interesting to think about.

[@steved1355]

This makes me appreciate fallout modders so much more. Some of the stuff they've done is even more impressive now. Thank you modders

[@j.j.663]

I mean, with the example of Trains that lead me to think of Trainguy, a modder notorious for putting trains in all of his mods. Working, moving trains. The lengths he must have gone to figure out how to do that, and then the madness to keep doing it more and more, it's astounding.

[@MrJimmySnuff]

Thanks the modders but not the devs who actually made the game, makes sense...

[@steved1355]

@@MrJimmySnuff lol I love how people on the internet just have to find a way to talk shit. Good job buddy

[@King_Sad_Boy]

@@MrJimmySnuff Modders do it for free. Bethesda does it for profit. And at this point, modders doing it for free are doing it better than the paid version. So, yeah, thanks modders.

[@ChunkyLover53atAOL-com]

@@MrJimmySnuff makes a stupid comment on the internet, makes sense...

[@johngerken4263]

As a developer myself, I have had to do similar, though not quite as crazy things. Note: anytime the screen flashes to a solid color for a moment at an unexpected time (like how it flashed white at the start of the fallout 3 train ride) there is a decent chance that there is some trickery going on. Developers would not want to do a bunch of work, only to have it hidden by a flash.

[@draconusfrigidus]

The Fallout New Vegas one gets hinted at if you have the Vault 13 canteen equipped (as you demonstrate in the footage). I suspected something was up when I saw the 'You take a sip from your trusty Vault 13 canteen' still popping up during cutscenes, indicating my character was somehow still present.

[@kettelbe]

I exactly thought that when i saw the notif popping up ahah very nice trick

[@nortteppup]

never had the Moreno bug then. there's a bug where if the Remnants are present including Orion Moreno when you finish the dam, and some other shit happens, orion sticks around during the end slides, slowly circle-strafing around the player

[@earlofill2580]

@@nortteppup I’ve never gotten that myself but I’ve seen a video, serious ending cards and you’ve got this guy just staring you down on a green screen, it’s pretty funny

[@GiraffeWhisperer99]

I love how Jake is like the excited puppy when he talks about games, yet Falcon is the seasoned, stoic old cat. I really enjoy the dynamics that they have within gameranx

[@MrPidi86]

As a software developer, most of these hacks make me roll my eyes so hard because of how representative it is. I keep telling people that software development should be considered as some sort of art because you've gotta be pretty damn creative some times.

[@JunkiMoturi]

Gotta be honest, the one from the train blew my mind.

[@ivicamajmunskikreten9714]

you're not a software developer if you think that.

[@Fiery.]

Developers are insane. If an error stops them while they are trying to integrate a process they rebuild the process themselves in some other way.

[@CLove511]

I remember reading an interview with one of the devs on the original FFVII, and he explained that they used up every last inch of memory on those CDs. It kept causing issues because they'd have to shuffle around literal bytes to make changes, and he said something to the effect that the memory stack was fitted like a game of Tetris. I've been searching for years trying to find the interview, so fascinating.

[@RandalReid]

What software have you helped developed and what were the craziest stuff you or your team have to do to make something work?

[@BackXStabbath]

Another fun one I noticed in Fallout 3 was in Point Lookout. Professor Calvert is actually hidden in a Pulowski Preservation Chamber inside a building mesh because without a world model he couldn't speak to the player. If you're near the ferris wheel you can see his tick on your compass.

[@G4System]

0:19 Number 10 - The Elder Scrolls III Morrowind 1:23 Number 9 - Battlefield 3 2:25 Number 8 - Ratchet and Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal 4:21 Number 7 - The Legend Of Zelda Breath Of The Wild 5:43 Number 6 - Fallout New Vegas 7:25 Number 5 - Wind Commander 8:43 Number 4 - Half-life 9:59 Number 3 - The Legend Of Zelda The Wind Waker 11:00 Number 2 - World Of Warcraft 11:53 Number 1 - Fallout 3

[@Bryanmiester]

*spoilers*

[@Bryanmiester]

It’s always a wonderful time experiencing gameranx vids bro

[@tag206]

Don't forget to timestamp the double ' right here on gameranx'

[@lightstar1053]

God's work, 🙏

[@gengoosekhan]

#5 'Wing' Commander

[@kainable8769]

I love things like this. In the background it is actually how I got into film making and game design. The little tricks you use to fool your audience is great. Like the speeders in star wars.

[@wotwott2319]

The first thing that I was taught in film school is that filmmakers and entertainers are just different flavors of magicians. In fact, the majority of the world's filmmaking pioneers are actually magicians using the medium to their advantage in their magic tricks.

[@kainable8769]

@@wotwott2319 I learned most of the magic stuff from watching David Coperfield. The film stuff I just enjoy learning how things are done. The Star Wars example I used was due to them having a very limited budget and making it work.

[@fernandosoto2995]

Another genius programming workaround I have seen in games is npcs in Bloodborne that have special attacks like the Winter Lanterns are actually two npcs. The npc you see and an invisible npc that rests on top of the other one and is the one actually performing the special attack. This is predominant with npcs that have multiple attacks that go off when the actual enemy npc is performing its own animations and attacks.

[@lunarjellyfish5538]

Fuck Winter Lanterns. I hated them so much XD Some of the most infuriating enemies I've ever had the displeasure of fighting.

[@Not-Great-at-Gaming]

Patching your game to make it accept patches is like wishing for more wishes.

[@user-xh3qk3ub5q]

10/10 to Bethesda for their genius hacks! 👏👏👏 I bet the devs were laughing so much when they came up with the solutions and actually found out they worked

[@ftniceberg874]

They were probably fired and had the idea stolen by bugthesda is more likely. They are the shady cl0wns that stole free mods and sold them on their games.

[@GB-sh9st]

This one was really funny... and pretty enlightening regarding how creative game devs get

[@charliekelly735]

@shani yan Why are you treating this random dude like he made the video?

[@slopeye7894]

@@charliekelly735 she's a bot dum dum

[@TroyBlake]

Great information. As a former developer, I know we were constantly asked for creative solutions to problems, and you do what you got to do to ship your product on time.

[@Non-Negotiable]

When I used to make maps on Unreal Tournament 99 GOTY edition, I was curious how one of the main map designers made a particular map where it looks like your flying hyper speed while being in a space ship. When I opened it up in editor, the ship was stationary with a box around it that was projecting the space simulation though a cylnder sky box which was also stationary. It made it look as it was going through endless space with stars flying by super fast. Very interesting idea.

[@Elwaves2925]

It's a good solution and exactly what TV and movies were doing decades before video games existed. Also, I miss making maps in UT. I was never any good at it but I did enjoy it.

[@Leontine74]

I never made maps but l loved playing them. Miss that community and those times! Thanks (you both) for that!

[@beenismcbeen7365]

Oh man I totally remember the map you're talking about - That's so cool.

[@exiaxzero]

Destiny 2 uses a modified modern version of this trick. One of the strikes has an elevator level that in higher difficulties could take several minutes to clear but just take a few seconds in normal. It turns out that the elevator is actually stationary and it's the walls that are moving, that way you arrive at your destination floor as soon as you clear that part.

[@Gatorade69]

DM-HyperBlast ? That was also the game that got me into modding, though I sucked at it.

[@Dorian_Barber]

This video was actually super informative man. Normally I know a lot of those things in your videos but this time you had me the whole time through. Love your videos guys. Have a great day.

[@Not-Great-at-Gaming]

Can't wait to wear my space ship hat in Starfield.

[@Gatorade69]

No clip spaceship hat is the best kind of spaceship.

[@ftniceberg874]

Oh you gonna wait...for a long time! The only thing bugthesda actually works on is microtransactions and crappy merch.

[@bababab-rad]

That fall out one had me laughing so hard when he explained the NPC 🤣

[@JuggiesArchive]

Game creators sure are some sort of magicians 😁

[@SPL1NTER_SE]

Bethesda just seem to be kinda stupid considering the fact they stick to that trash engine. I tough they’d thrown it out before Fallout 4, definitely didn’t expect them to keep it beyond Fallout 76 and tada; here’s Starfield - also running (crawling?) on that crap.

[@SplittingProductions]

Really fun to learn about these tricks. Sometimes when I've made little animations there were issues where I couldn't figure out how to achieve a certain goal without using a creative workaround/cheat.

[@MOONRAK3R23]

@13:52 Right here on Gameranx, right here on Gameranx LoL!

[@sethhowell2278]

i absolutely LOVE learning about the weird hacky ways games get made

[@Dayman667]

The world is very dark and sad, and i'm glad you guys are around to distract me from it for a little bit. Thanks.

[@gameranxTV]

Stay 💪🏼 Dayman. Thanks for watching our videos.

[@Aristowi]

I always wear my car as a hat and start running when I go out. It really feels as if I were driving but it saves me a lot of money on gas.

[@TheRopiak]

LOVE this video. please do more objective "lists" like this.

[@gameranxTV]

👍🏼👌🏼

[@thesituation5315]

@@gameranxTV Yes please! I love bits of knowledge about this kind of stuff. It's amazing to see different things games do to actually work, other than the base behavior and rendering.

[@Warribo]

Changing the error message to a "Thank you for playing" message, is a new level of genius! 😲

[@MooseyFate100]

Turning a bug into an Easter egg

[@egoranonymous3223]

Falcon, don't feel old. My first "video game" was the original Pong!. The one where you got a big green plastic tv. Inside there was a literal led light on a stick and when when you turned the knobs you were really moving blocks of plastic up & down. 😫 Then we got Space Invaders and Duck Hunt.

[@Not-Great-at-Gaming]

Duck Hunt? That was much later. You pretty much skipped a few generations there. I had an Odyssey (sort of Pong), then a 2600, then went to a Vic 20 (skipped the intellivision and Colecovision), then went to the NES with SMB and Duck Hunt.

[@skaetur1]

Your parents lied to you. You did not get the original Pong!

[@jonkR96]

Still got an Atari 2600 and about 50 games.

[@EpicDragon32]

The first video game I played was a 3d space shooter called Fury 3. The name is a little deceptive as it's not actually the third game in a series. The name is referring I think to the third planet of a star named "Fury", or at least I think that's what it was.

[@Joreel]

I remember playing Pong in 1978... Man do I feel old now.

[@soangry]

I learned this playing the Point Lookout DLC for fallout 3. A person would occasionally show up on your HUD in the building next to the docks, so I used noclip to see what was going on. Then I had to look up online why there was a hidden person in a building I couldn't access. Turns out it's the narrator voice, which then lead me to read about all the other narrators.

[@AndrewsYoutube]

Honorable mention to 'Coyote Time' in some of the old school platform games. I remember when I first found out about that. I had never noticed it before.

[@Crackracket]

Strange that you showed the Stanley Parable but didn't include the cool little trick it uses...Portals.. I know what you're thinking but yeah for example the first choice you make in the game. You have to pick the left door or the right door.. The trick is that the right door doesn't exist at all, it's just an illusion. The image you see of the corridor through the door is actually just a very very good identical 2d parallax image of the corridor that you are instantly teleported to as you pass through the door frame. It's actually based and built on the technology invented for the game Narbacular Drop which is the game that was the precursor to the portal games that the university game dev team made before being hired by valve. It's used quite a lot nowadays to save memory and basically nobody notices unless they noclip and go through the 2d parallax image

[@icantthinkofagoodusername4464]

I'm pretty sure portals are using an extra camera to do a render-to-texture sort of thing. A parallax mapped image wouldn't work well for that due to how it distorts, though I think they might have used one for the fake hallway gag in the figurine ending. It's cool to know they had to recreate the portal system entirely in Unity for Deluxe Edition though.

[@Trevin_Taylor]

The first decision isn’t the hallways, it’s whether or not to leave your office.

[@TheBlackItalianGamer]

I love this channel's Top 10. Falcon voice is just perfect for these kind of videos

[@FlyboyHelosim]

One famous example in the Half-Life modding community is trains (or any other moving platforms) with ladders. The engine can't do climbable ladders on moving platforms. So the trick is to have a train that moves and a 'dumb' prop ladder... and when the train comes to a stop it gets replaced in the blink of an eye by a now stationary 'dumb' train with a climbable ladder.

[@OklyDokly]

The Half Life one is hilarious, reminds me of my childhood days honking instead of my toy car “beep beep”

[@Rougesteelproject]

The Fallout cutscene solution applies to Skyrim, too. When you get the Ebony Blade, when you talk to Mephala, you are actually talking to a random table placed behind the door. In terms of freezing your character in place, it happens twice in Skyrim: once if you get married, and once near the end of the game at the top of the Throat of the World. The one at the top of the world is in-game, meaning it's not a video, but actual NPCs running around. If you fail to show up to your wedding, the game unlocks your character, just in case. In the speedrun, if you fail to show up to your wedding during the cutscene, it will unlock your character and you can run around messing with the cutscene - even though you're supposed to be watching something in the past.

[@iDEATH]

Oh man, Wing Commander! I remember being blown away by the graphics of the first game when I first saw it previewed in Dragon Magazine. Wing Commander 1 & 2 were such great games.

[@b.y.o.p.9035]

This is some scary, unreal, jaw dropping, eyes wide open, deep and unbelievably insane information to find out. I am just in awe. Its like, when people say Aliens from space are controlling us. Now, developers have these crazy secrets and methods that are just out of this world in our games. Wow. Awesome video. The Falcon narrator is the best narrator. He really knows how to engage you in these videos. 🙂

[@Ben-rz9cf]

As far as the becoming the missile thing, i can tell you why they did that. Basically when you're controlling a character there are 2 parts, the actual character "controller" (the brain that takes inputs) and the "pawn" itself. Different controllers are designed with custom controls to work with different types of pawns, for instance the actual human CHARACTERs are really just one type of controllable pawn, with other types being vehicles or in this case missiles... So if someone designed a character controller to work with all of the custom controls and player info to work specifically with humanoid characters and didn't want to have to completely rewrite from scratch all of the same exact systems just for a new missile pawn, a hacky workaround is just to keep it as the same already compatible character class and just replace the geometry with a missile.

[@Diablo_Himself]

Yet, Unreal Tournament could do "becoming the missile" correctly in 1999...? If you fired the Redeemer Guided Missile, you controlled the missile (you effectively WERE the missile). If you flew around enough, you could see YOUR CHARACTER standing there, vulnerable.

[@wintercvlt]

I’ve noticed that a lot of people don’t know this - in The Witcher 3 you’ll bump into roaming trader. You can’t talk to him, he won’t stop. He just walks the path around the game’s world. That’s actually CDPR’s bot/box that seeks bugs and glitches and sends reports back to CDPR so they can fix it.

[@jmwashko]

You guys are often a highlight of my day, and as an overly educated and trained engineer, this one was one of the best. Fantastic. Lazy and genius is often way better than diligent and tough. 😂

[@mercury2110]

Really enjoyed the video! Also just wanted to commend you all on always linking sources and being honest when things aren't a definite - shows integrity❤

[@ChippyD]

Been watching your channel for years now. This is probably my favorite video/topic. Please continue to make videos about game dev tricks.

[@brickafide]

Please do this again! Soon! Best and most interesting Gameranx video I’ve seen in at least a year!

[@EdwardZNorton]

The one from Fallout and the train, using vehicles wasnt as bad a thing to add as bethesda made it out to be, as a modder done that for New Vegas, I mean its not exactly forza or need for speed, but someone adapted the engine physics to accept it and it works pretty damn well for 2009/2010

[@LutzHerting]

It was also ONE scene in ONE DLC. A business won't throw a ton of money at such a problem - while a modder can spend as much of their free time on it as they choose to.

[@EdwardZNorton]

@@LutzHerting Yeah but the driving force (no pun intended) behind the whole topic is that Bethesda could have adapted the game engine for the use of vehicles and added in drivable trucks/cars as a cool feature that would have made the game that much better, as well as making it more enjoyable to travel the map. No idea if you've played Fallout New Vegas but travelling the Mojave ON foot, at a slow walking pace can be cruel, making the majority of the player base rely on the fast travel system, BUT why fast travel and wait for a loading screen, when a drivable, cobbled together vehicle and the adaptation to the game engine would have been a more pleasurable experience, while also sparking an interest in exploring the map!

[@dehno3538]

@@EdwardZNorton it would have added more importantace to junk too, gotta find parts for your car after a while lol

[@soangry]

That's interesting. I remember the first working vehicle mod stuttered like crazy and was super buggy. I never really paid attention to them since then.

[@EdwardZNorton]

@@soangry If you wanna get back into it, look into XRE-Cars on the nexus for New Vegas, don't get me wrong, it is not perfect but its pretty close for the date the game was released and the workarounds that the mod author had to utilize to make it work properly

[@Fools_Requiem]

I'm a big fan of games using visual tricks to artificially simulate the size and scope of the world in order to make games work on old tech. Like in the Library level in the Wii FPS "Conduit," there are windows that if you take time to look out of, you can tell that there's a painted wall being used to similate the outdoor environment. When you're just running around in a fast-paced shooter, you won't really notice it, so they choose to make it good enough. Instead of rendering objects far off in the distance like some other games will do, they chose to go the painted skybox route. This was especially noticeable when you actually go outside for a little bit. I also appreciate the usage of radios to increase the scope of the game. Max Payne did that as well. You get to listen to news reports detailing what is going on outside of the level area or how your actions are affecting the world outside. In Conduit and Max Payne, you're in small skyboxes because the system you're playing on can't handle large open environments, so they found ways to keep you locked into small areas that are highly detailed while still giving you the feeling of you being a part of a bigger game universe. The Windwaker trick is similar in that regard. You're shown a massive world, but your character is locked in something much smaller than it appears unless you're reaaaaaallly looking hard.

[@TheBattleRabbit860]

I noticed the mouth animations for Half-Life back when I played it sometime in the year 2000, and for some reason I never put two and two together.

[@DefenDefault4]

I do this kinds of funny techniques sometimes when I'm animating.

[@rosshurst5630]

This was one of the most interesting video game vids I've watched in a long time. I have more respect for the game designers now that I see all these crazy workarounds they came up with.

[@-OokySpooky-]

Soooo does this mean that train helmet is technically somewhere deep in the files, and if I mess around hard enough I can can technically always be murder train?

[@Leontine74]

I love how you express yourself Falcon! I did laugh out loud a few times. Stay yourself in these vids and l will keep watching and listening (and laughing)!!!

[@LawrenceHortonRocksAllTheSocks]

All these things are a perfect example of a saying we have in software development: "Nothing is more permanent than a temporary fix." All these things are technically "Tech Debt" that we're _supposed_ to be able to go back and fix, but we are never given the time to fix. It's called tech debt because at some point, you're going to pay for it, either in time taken away from new features to actually fix it, or time taken away in future development where you have to keep building on top of the shoddy house of hards your solution architecture is built on top of.

[@fubarasamiel7289]

Can’t imagine where I’ll be without this channel honestly 😂

[@gameranxTV]

😍

[@fubarasamiel7289]

@@riley-6324 ok 👍

[@wotwott2319]

My favourite ai trivia is from Doom 2016 where the ai for the enemies actually comes from the new Wolfenstein games but they reversed the order of action so that instead of seeking cover when they're in line of sight of the player, they would run out into the open into the line of sight of the player instead.

[@JustinOhio]

What a great video idea and execution! Whoever at Gameranx came up with this idea deserves a promotion! Awesome content guys!

[@netsoojnomar]

On thing it really liked, watching the in-game commentary of half-life episode 2, is that every time you watch a monitor with something that supposed to happen many miles away, e.g. A scene that supposed to happen on the ship the Borealis, it's done in real-time in the same 'level' as you, with npc's and other assets in an inasesable area, not that far from you in fact.

[@eif6051]

The fallout new vegas trick is actually a very close representation of the cave allegory by Plato. Pretty deep

[@john-wiggains]

This is wild. I would love a sequel to this!

[@lavenderpants8695]

What a great list! Every one of these were terrific!

[@XtremeCashier]

This video gives me more reason to appreciate game developers than I already did. Clever tricks like this that make a game better, or work at all, provide insight of what it can take to make a game.

[@WilliesDET]

This is one of my favorite lists ever! So cool to see how these devs think

[@jamersbazuka8055]

11:52 #1 had me rolling. It's genius, but the way you described it just got me. Good stuff!

[@markmattheviewable]

So... right here on Gameranx?

[@SadTown99]

🤣 LMAO 🤣 Dude the Fallout 3 train hat is the funniest thing ever!! Genius idea 💡

[@abdulwahabkhan3081]

Starfield is said to run on Creation engine "2". I so hope that it just works.

[@gameranxTV]

🤞

[@Not-Great-at-Gaming]

See that planet over there?

[@abdulwahabkhan3081]

@@Not-Great-at-Gaming 🤣🤣🤣😭😭😭

[@Katojana]

Sixteen times the details!

[@UndeadDragonWarrior]

You made me love BF3 more, because I love the idea of someone seeing seconds before dying a Gamertag of their killer 😂

[@ericb3157]

#8...that "buffer overflow" trick reminds me of an old book that said a similar trick was ONE of the ways the infamous "arpanet worm" spread itself. it actually had 3 or 4 ways, which why it was so hard to stop! ti was also NOT supposed to infect the same system multiple times, but THAT part didn't WORK, so it would keep copying itself until it used up ALL memory and/or hard drive space! #6 oh, Half-Life 2 does a similar trick: when you are talking to a distant NPC over a video link, they are actually acting out their part of the scene elsewhere.

[@Rexhunterj]

That Half-Life 2 thing is less of a trick and more of Valve's dev team playing around with the latest shiny graphics tech that NVIDIA and ATi had pumped out at the time. Framebuffered texture surfaces were the new thing and let PC games render to a texture that could then be used to render say... a screen, that way you could show the output of a camera in-game, live and customize how many pixels wide/high it was, the frame rate, etc. Back then it wasn't used for very much as most computers did not have the best of GPUs in them, but I can assure you whoever implemented it into Source, was absolutely doing it for fun when it was implemented as a game feature in Half-Life 2.

[@hauntedhotdog]

The Half-Life ventriloquist and Fallout train hat solutions are hilarious.

[@marksasoldier]

The burning questions now are: Are the train npcs killable? Is there a way to wear the train hat?

[@RaphaelAmbrosiusCosteau]

Yeah, if you’re on pc, you can use console commands (press ~) and type in “player.additem DLCXXMetroCarArmor 1” just replace the “XX” with whatever number that dlc is in your load order (so 01, 02, 03…)

[@gustavoargumanis1863]

Including a literal soft reset mechanic into the lore of the game (Zelda BOTW) is something mind blowing actually Now I understand why sometimes the blood moon appeared earlier than what I calculated Completing the map reduces the cache load on the system? Picking up some chest in the wild too? (they don't respawn, so maybe the game has less data to load)

[@Sheikhblank]

When i want to forget about the bad things that happened to me i just come here thanks 🥺

[@Unikornis86]

Awesome lists still after so many years of uploads...thanks Falcon/Gameranx.

[@nebick27]

I now play Morrowind on my android phone, crazy how far we've come

[@stephenphillips7699]

Love morrowind.

[@Sam-nn9hv]

This was a really cool and interesting video. Do more of these hidden developer things in games! Super cool

[@felixgonzalez8478]

Honestly, the most shocking thing I learned from this video is that Bethesda STILL HASN'T REBUILT THEIR GAME ENGINE! The cracks are showing Bethesda. It's almost impressive they've made it this far. I seriously wonder how much they can keep going like this before everything just implodes.

[@FlamingAirplane]

Most of the current bugs are results of Morrowinds rushes development and Bethesdas willingness to make work arounds instead of solving the problem

[@Not-Great-at-Gaming]

@@FlamingAirplane There are bugs in Excel that have been around since the DOS days.

[@FlamingAirplane]

@@Not-Great-at-Gaming Dang, they really need to fix there foundation before they make any more games

[@Not-Great-at-Gaming]

@@FlamingAirplane I'm saying MS Excel, which is used by pretty much every corporation in the world has bugs that have been around for 40 years. Just because something is old and has bugs doesn't automatically mean it needs to be replaced. Unreal is fine, but there are plenty of games using unreal, none of them have the ability to interact with the environment like Bethesda games do. I get so sick of fighting enemies in games and when you finally beat them, you get some random weapon and armor or even worse, nothing. In Bethesda games you get that armor and weapon. You can even display it or put it on a companion. Other games don't do that.

[@Mythantor]

Game engines are complicated in many ways it makes sense to update your current engine than try to build something new. I have heard alot of different opinions on the creation engine and its problems but it still works. Go play a fully modded skyrim the all HD assets etc and tell me the engine is useless.

[@chachilin95]

This was the most interesting video Gameranx has ever put out imo

[@jm221]

The Fallout one is peak Bethesda

[@music4my4]

Holy crap! That #1 entry literally made my mouth drop... that is insane!!!

[@ancogaming]

The "Up Your Arsenal" one is wild, man, LOL! Buffer overflow is one of the oldest tricks in the book when it comes to Hacking (read: injecting potentially malicious code) and usually wouldn't work in today's age outside of online tutorials and training cases in coding. Enter Microsoft who's Office Software showed exactly the same day-zero vulnerability according to news from just a few days ago... a fact that's not only truly amusing but also shows how important it is to do your homework, especially when you don't think there'll ever be a real-world application for any given exercise. People are so stupid, you'll shit bricks if you get an overview about how stupid they are in general and up the corporate ladder in particular. Kudos to the guys deliberately hacking their own game in order to patch out exploits in online gaming though, HA!, this is gold!

[@geoffwilliams01]

This is my favorite video from gameranx so far! Love it

[@ic651]

I thoroughly enjoyed this segment! All of the ingenious ways the programmers used to address issues to save time and money are pretty damn funny in all honesty. The funniest of them all is the Fallout 3 and New Vegas ones, can't believe in the DLC for FO3 you're inside someone's train hat and then you eventually wear a train helmet, freaking hilarious hahaha

[@jacob_le_gris]

Imagine having a current gen console so behind in the tech department that you have to clear memory with an in game lunar cycle mechanic.

[@anewsin]

Is the Mass Effect elevator load trick just too known for this list? It still stands as one of the greatest deceptions in gaming I have come across in my 30 ish years of exploration.

[@skaetur1]

You owe everything to Resident Evil walking through a doorway.

[@Gatorade69]

Many games do that in one form or another. You could easily have a list of "Ways games disguised loading sequences." Personally the selections in this list were a bit more interesting to me.

[@Oopyuman]

One to mention is the sanity in Amnesia which doesn't actually do anything if it goes out! It's just a trick devs did to make you scared, they said this themselves

[@NGMonocrom]

Train-hat is ultimate Hat!

[@anthonymensah7315]

Man I love the way you narrate. Keep it up

[@jacobmcguire9174]

So part of video game design that creators have to fight against is how you can do things ingame that the software doesn’t specifically allow you to do/create? They are creating a script, within a script???? That’s some 200iq stuff right there 🔥 Wait, does that mean that there is a possibility that variables can potentially do things that shouldn’t be possible within the software?

[@keybladewielder9425]

Yes, just look at Minecraft, those Minecraft players can create another computer inside Minecraft just to play Minecraft

[@someguy227]

Someone programmed flappy bird in Super Mario World by exploiting the way that game stores and handles variables.

[@NorseGraphic]

In 3D-programs they uses 'Instances', meaning when you 'copy' an object and paste it into the scene, it isn't the actual mesh, but a preview of the object. You can have lots of previews, while full-mesh objects takes up a lot more memory. So, they 'cheat' by showing previews instead of the real thing. And you can modify each instance individually so they don't all look the same. Each edit of a preview with the preview itself uses less memory of an edited full-mesh object.

[@cardsfanbj]

This list is the video game equivalent of "if it looks stupid but works then it ain't stupid"

[@ryantracey8574]

I like how overall the fallout series and Eden scrolls series is beloved but we still get mad at the game engine, Skyrim is heavily in the running for greatest game of all time especially of it's time, who cares how they did it

[@toomanybrews7123]

@@webbie7503 But it still was used to create some of the greatest RPGs of all time, soooo.... Also, how is it bad? Limited in ways, sure. But bad? Stop armchair developing.

[@Gatorade69]

@@toomanybrews7123 They can rewrite renderer all they want, but that is not going to fix any of the issues. They haven't fixed anything, they just added more graphical crap on top of it useless middleware. Just of the top of my head some of the issues with the engine: Game engine speed tied to the framerate (can't go above 60) - absolutely massive problem especially now with 140/240hz monitors - this one is so huge they will be forced to make a new engine. A heightmap-based terrain generator, engine allow only single axis modifications otherwise you have to use of static assets. Which is why even simplest caves aren't in open world. cell based loading is completely outdated - look at Witcher 3 for christ sake, loading every single home, underground place and outside dynamically without any issues, while in gamebryo games you are a subject to loading screens. I suspect (can't confirm though) 3D objects can't interact(or maybe they cant detect and that's why) with the environment. That's why none of the games have any sort of climbing, dynamic jumping or cover shooting. You can fly in Fallout 4 but your character still can't make a pull-up over the ledge. Again massively limiting the design space. Tied to the previous one, characters are still ice skating instead of running just like back in morrowind. They have tried really hard to hide it over the years but it's still there. Very likely because of how running animation is handled. Nothing has weight. Look at overwatch, 20 different models, all have very distinct feel, that's how a good engine handles movement. Engine AI is basically primitive, something CS students do for their first project in AI course. Even with all the scripts it's still useless. No native physics, uses slapped in havok, which is the trash tier of the physics at this point. The way dragon skeleton jumps is hilarious and sad. No native mod support, this is what Bethesda added themselves and it causes all sorts of issues. For one when engine detects an error caused by a mod, it just crashes the game. And it can't even tell you why at times! Modern engines can detect an error and automatically disable the mod if is it causing the problem without crashing the game. And I am probably forgetting quite a bit. Most of these are completely unfixable, the core of gamebryo was written in 90s and it isn't just simple jump in and add new code. This crappy old engine is both limiting the performance and limits the design space.

[@ryantracey8574]

@@Gatorade69 if it's so bad don't play there games, after all if it's that bad they won't be able to make any games worth playing anyways

[@Gatorade69]

@@ryantracey8574 lol. I like their games but that doesn't mean the engine isn't janky as fuck. It's like you can like a band but say they made a bad album.

[@Smilley85]

I remember reading that the damage calculation for SNES adventure Terranigma was held together by duct tape and chewing gum. I don't quite remember the details, but it was something about rounding the characters level and adding it to the damage. This would mean that in the game, every 5 levels gained would be a massive damage spike.

[@lelciones]

I was a huge Bethesda fanboy and it took me a while to admit it, but the truth is that Bethesda is one of the laziest developers of AAA games. And part of the blame lies with the fans who are ready to make unofficial patches like the ones that made Skyrim on PC a much better experience.

[@Dubya3030]

This was an epic video. One of the best ones. I think I’ve watched damn near all of your videos.

[@ghassanalzaidi7411]

First

[@kingshadow8782]

Caught me of guard didn't ya.

[@jethzeeltorres9727]

Lmao😂I had no idea about half life ventriloquist issue . 😅 wow this made my day ❤

[@richardtherichard26]

Oh my god #10 puts so many things into context. I got the og xbox the Christmas after it came out and I noticed that with some of my games if they “froze” during a loading screen if I quickly restarted the console it would “pick up” at the point where it froze. I never knew there was an actual reason for it

[@FinnFann]

I think portal 2 did something neat as well where in the intro sequence with the room moving you're actually in a very simple box off map that has simple collision boxes to jump on that mimic the room, and your camera is just offset to the equivalent spot in the actual room. I think they did this for physics reasons, but I forget exactly why.

[@Dargonhuman]

Holy crap, I noticed Barney's mouth movements with the beeps, but it never really registered in my brain what was going on - I thought it was some weird glitch or bug that either went unnoticed or wasn't worth the time or effort to fix so in my headcanon, Barney was whispering his access code to himself.

[@KCreep]

Well this certainly explains why my alchemy obsessed friend in morrowind kept crashing his game. Probably couldn't reboot the system faster than he was jumping to the next 3 loading screens.

[@annaczgli2983]

One of your best lists.🎉

[@YodaGoat44]

Awesome Show! Love the Eraserhead clip!