Troika probably closing down

[Monte Carlo]

My favourite Troika moment was when, in an interview post-release of ToEE, St. Timmy blamed many of the bugs on the inability of technology to keep up with the complexity and vision of his design ideas.

 

Ha ha ha.

 

How many years did they surf on the credibility of the original Fallout without producing anything genuinely outstanding afterwards? The miracle is that Troika stayed afloat as long as it did.

 

Cheers

MC

[DemonKing]

How many years did they surf on the credibility of the original Fallout without producing anything genuinely outstanding afterwards? The miracle is that Troika stayed afloat as long as it did.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

LOL - you mean Troika were actually better businessmen than they were designers...now that is a funny thought!

[One2Many]

so Obsidian--you're all we have left of the days of past glories--my Black Isle logo games are so-o-o alone

 

i know that the success of a game is judged by net profit, but if it were judged instead by the total number of hours spent playing it by the total number of players, i think BIS and its descendants could lay claim to a sizable chunk of

gaming uber-dom.

 

regrets to troika-but lessons will not go away until you learn them. i just hope the lesson learned here is not that making crpg's is a lost cause.

[Sarkus]

As someone who purchased all three of Troika's games at release and paid full price, I feel qualified to comment on their apparent demise.

 

I think Troika's biggest problem was that they were more artists than businessmen. As artists, they committed to more than they could deliver without being realistic about the business side of things. I remember an interview Tim Cain did a few years ago where he talked about why he left Interplay. It was clear he had strong negative feelings about how he perceived being treated there. It always struck me as odd because there was no other company but Interplay, with Brian Fargo's Wasteland history, that would have green lighted a post-nuke RPG in the mid-nineties. I think that Mr. Cain may have left with unrealistic ideas about the business of CRPG's.

 

Each of Troika's releases raises serious questions from a business standpoint. Why did Arcanum, which was done months before release, ship with so many bugs? How did TOEE release in even worse shape when Troika was given more time than they had originally contracted for to finish it? How did Vampire end up unfinished with all the delays to HL2?

 

Finally, I can't get over Troika's "we won't patch it unless we get paid" attitude, expressed so clearly with TOEE. Regardless of who's fault a buggy release is, it is clearly in the best interests of the developer to patch the game for the good of their own reputation. Compare Troika to BIS, who when facing criticism over IWD2, a game they were rushed to complete, created a free expansion for their fans.

 

All that said, I hate to see Troika go, but I'm left with the hope that maybe the core folks that made Troika are best suited to let others handle the business side of games while they focus on the artistic side. If they realize that then hopefully we'll see them involved in some great stuff in the future.

[Ellester]

Finally, I can't get over Troika's "we won't patch it unless we get paid" attitude, expressed so clearly with TOEE.  Regardless of who's fault a buggy release is, it is clearly in the best interests of the developer to patch the game for the good of their own reputation. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I agree, I would take the loss and patch the game to get people to stop bad mouthing the company. 80% of the complaints would have stopped if troika came out with a full patch that fixed the big bugs like NPC looting and slowdowns in the nodes. You lose some money initially, but maybe you make it back. Heck people are telling others not to buy the game because it

[omnimutant]

I thought it was more of a deal where they wern't allowed to patch the game under contract, more then they did'nt want to because of $. Also look at the Publisher. I can think of probably 5 recent games from that same publisher that have all released buggy as hell. Seems like a trend.

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

I'm no fanboy of any company. I liked trokia's work, I admit they were pretty buggy pieces of work, and I'm quite agreeable to that, but still I liked what they were trying to do. The ToEE engine was extremely good, no game beats it for rules implmentation, while not perfect it was a hell of alot better than NWN.

 

Some folks in the industry see games creation as an art, i wonder what people would have said if Trokia's software hadn't been so buggy, if they'd have had polished products, each of the games could have been considered works of art. For me they nearly created a classic in V:TM Bloodlines, and by that I mean true classic. If it hadn't been so unstable! All I can say is that it was the only game I bothered with last year that mattered to me.

 

Sad to see them go, but like everyones been saying, they lacked business skills, the games lacked polish, and in the games industry that means you're outta business. I'm shocked they staied afloat so long, I'm more shocked that the publishers didn't cut funding when trokia clearly weren't meeting their milestones.

 

It's sad, because if obsidian sinks, we're left with bioware... Which to me is quite troubling, they've not managed to entertain me to a level of satisfaction since 1998.

[Simon Appleton]

Very sad - just when Troika were starting to hit great form with Bloodlines.

 

I agree with the post that they were artists; I disagree that they failed to produce anything outstanding.

 

Arcanum has one of the best atmospheres of any CRPG. The music, the wonderful "courtly" writing, the unique setting etc. The plot, sidequests, NPCs and character creation were pretty good. But the combat was pretty shoddy and it was rather clunky. It's not in anyone's top 5 of CRPGs of all time, but it may in my top 10 or 20.

 

Bizarrely, TOEE was the anti-arcanum. It had one of the best tactical combat systems of any CRPG and graphically was pretty smooth. But it had virtually none of the great virtues of Arcanum. It was pure combat, a pretty soulless grind, even worse than IWD and almost reaching POR2 levels of tedium.

 

Bloodlines was closer to Arcanum - its strengths were atmosphere, writing and plot/sidequests. I actually think it is one of the all time CRPG greats (see the other thread in this forum). I think it is one of those all time classics like PST, System Shock 2 or Jagged Alliance 2 that do not get the business they deserve.

[Drakron]

Well in ToEE they stick with the original D&D module as close as possible so its not a suprise that its nothing but a dungeon crawl, back then all D&D modules are dungeon crawls.

 

There are worst choices that "Temple of Elemental Evil", "Against the Giants" module series for example.

 

If I was Troika and had a choice I would used "Ravenloft" module instead.

[Darque]

Finally, I can't get over Troika's "we won't patch it unless we get paid" attitude, expressed so clearly with TOEE.  Regardless of who's fault a buggy release is, it is clearly in the best interests of the developer to patch the game for the good of their own reputation. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I agree, I would take the loss and patch the game to get people to stop bad mouthing the company. 80% of the complaints would have stopped if troika came out with a full patch that fixed the big bugs like NPC looting and slowdowns in the nodes. You lose some money initially, but maybe you make it back. Heck people are telling others not to buy the game because it

[taks]

Compare Troika to BIS, who when facing criticism over IWD2, a game they were rushed to complete, created a free expansion for their fans.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

uh, actually, the free expansion, Trials of the Luremaster, was a result of a short Heart of Winter, a $30 expansion to IWD1, not IWD2, but the point is still valid. they were forced to rush both HoW and IWD2.

 

taks