As designer for the revered RPG Fallout and similarly respected games such as Vampire: The Masquerade--Bloodlines and The Temple of Elemental Evil, Tim Cain continues to garner respect from RPG fans around the world.

Cain has since moved from the single player RPG to the complex world of MMORPGs as design director of NCsoft-owned Carbine Studios. His project will be the studio’s debut game.

We caught up with Cain and Carbine executive producer Jeremy Gaffney to talk about MMO accessibility, mature-themed games and the grind factor. And we made sure to talk about Bethesda and Interplay’s upcoming takes on Cain’s masterwork, Fallout.

You’ve released some hardcore PC games in the past. But today, how concerned are you with accessibility and mass market appeal with this unannounced Carbine game that you're working on?

TC: We’re very concerned in making it available to the mass market and trying to design a game that would appeal to casual and hardcore players alike. I think the MMO space is big enough that you can design a game that appeals to both of those groups.

It’s interesting that for the open job positions at Carbine, pretty much all of them have the requirement of a deep knowledge of pencil and paper RPGs. So that kind of design element is still going to be a mainstay in your MMO?

TC: I’ve always felt that paper and pencil RPGs are still about five to 10  years ahead of computer RPGs in terms of different system mechanics that they try out. So there’s a lot you can learn from that side of the industry.

Carbine’s owner NCSoft also has a partnership with Sony. Would you consider an MMO on PS3? Would you work on a console?

JG: A lot of the things we really like to embrace with our MMOs make a lot of sense for consoles. The UI, gameplay that can last for hours at a time or a couple minutes at a time.  We haven’t announced anything about what we’re going to do with the console one way or the other yet.

Tim, you have a knack for mature-themed games. Is that your current direction right now with this Carbine game?

TC: We’ve had a lot of discussion about that because some people like dark games and I assured them that I can go as dark as they want it. But to be honest, this game is going to be a lot more—I won’t say not kid-oriented—but it’s probably more of a teen-rated game. There will be violence, there will be a dark side to the game, but I don’t think it’s going to be nearly as in the forefront as many of my past games, but it will be there.

What are your impressions of what you’ve seen of Fallout 3? Do you think that they’re doing that franchise justice?

TC: I do like what I’ve seen about Fallout 3. I’ve talked to those guys at Bethesda about it and they know that it’s their IP now and they’ve gone in a certain direction that I find very intriguing. It’s not necessarily the direction I would have gone, but I can tell you I have my Fallout 3 pre-ordered. I want my life-sized Pip-Boy and I’m going to be all ready to play that at the end of the month.

What direction would you have taken it? The way that they describe it is they’re basing it more off of the feel of the original Fallout rather than Fallout 2, obviously with their own twist on it. But what would you have done different?

TC: I’m not sure. I’ve hardly thought about Fallout. I did think more about the online version of Fallout, because I’ve also talked to the guys at Interplay about Fallout Online. The biggest problem I have with expanding the game currently is the single player games were designed to make you feel like you’re one of the last people on earth. With Fallout 3 and the online version, I’m curious how they handle making the game not feel too crowded, like there’s not a lot of life out there that’s left after the war. But I’m not sure. I like how they did called shots. It’s an interesting way of adding called shots into a game that otherwise has real-time combat. I’m still waiting to see how the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. survives the transition into real time, but to be honest I’m approaching Fallout 3 as a consumer, not a developer. I just want to play it and enjoy it.

How are you approaching the grind factor with your MMO?

TC:  There are whole bunch of options about what a player can do at any one time in order to advance their character. One thing I’ve been pushing for are quests that not only give you experience, but also advance the storyline. I also want to see quests associated with your character class and your race and trade There can be more than the experience you get from just going out and killing monsters.

Bioware is working on an MMO [since been confirmed as Star Wars: The Old Republic]. Any lessons for developers that you’ve learned switching from single player RPGs to an MMORPG?

TC: There are a whole load of ways I could answer that, from the programming side or the client/server architecture side. But I think from the design standpoint the thing I always find myself wondering is when designers make quests for a certain game, some of them think, “how would a player play through this all by themselves?” Others think about “how would a group play through this?” So you always have to ask yourself, “are these quests meant to be solo, or played by a group?”

Sometimes it’s not clear if you can play through the game entirely by yourself or entirely in a group. In a single player RPG you basically know, you’re always balancing in-game specs for just that one player. But with an MMORPG you have a far bigger job of trying to balance against a seeming random assortment of character classes that come together in these ephemeral temporary groups to play through your game. It’s really hard to get the game balanced for that kind of environment. So that’s been the hardest part from my point of view.

What are you playing right now?

TC: Let’s see, I’m playing Dungeons & Dragons Online. I’m playing City of Villains, I’m playing Warhammer Online and I’m going to cancel my [Age of] Conan account. I think that’s about it.

JG: Is your WoW account active?

TC: Yeah I play WoW. Everyone plays WoW. I have Fallout 3 preordered and Lich King preordered so I know what I’m going to be doing in October and November.