Troika Games is No More

Post by **Vympel** » 2005-02-18 08:37pm

It sounds as though Troika is no more, or at any rate they are liquidating everything in their offices, so if they are still coherent as a developer presumably their next game involves sitting in a bare room. Troika (for those of you with a concussion) is the little company that couldn't, producing games of marvelous, unprecedented promise coupled with epic lapses in technical execution. The company was a hole that great ideas crawled half-way out of, so I hope you'll pardon me if I don't dab the corner of my eye with a handkerchief and try to look strong. There were undeniably talented people there. Hopefully they'll end up someplace where that kind of thing matters.

Check Penny-Arcade. (Feb 18 2005 news entry by Tycho)

Crom · Post by **Crom** » 2005-02-18 10:19pm

That's too bad really, I loved the ideas behind Arcanum even if it really wasn't that fun to play. Who knows? Maybe some of them will wander over to Obsidian.

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2005-02-18 10:37pm

My friend really liked Arcanum (he's big into steampunk). Here's to hoping that part arrives at Obsidian.

Crom, how long have you had the "Unbroken Circle of Zerthimon" tag? I just noticed it. Go planescape! Love Torment.

Post by **weemadando** » 2005-02-18 10:38pm

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Arcanum shall live forever!

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2005-02-18 10:45pm

*doubletakes* ZERTHIMON!

Oh, and uh...go Troika, hope the devs end up in spiffy locations.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2005-02-19 08:18am

White Haven wrote:*doubletakes* ZERTHIMON!

Oh, and uh...go Troika, hope the devs end up in spiffy locations.

Givin that Trokia was handing out cease and desist orders to HL2 -VampireTM mod makers its not suprising

To clariy, people in the community were digging through the source could of Trokia's VampireTM game, found the old mulitplayer code the Dev's at Trokia abonded, decided heck we can do it! Stronger faster and better! Annouced it as such, got a website and then got smacked with cease and desist orders...

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman · Post by **Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman** » 2005-02-19 08:41am

Why, oh why decent publishers producing good games always die-off, while vampires spewing-off generic shits always flourish and successfull?

Post by **Vympel** » 2005-02-19 10:02am

Troika was a developer, not a publisher, and while their ideas were uniformly good, every game they made was technically flawed with numerous bugs- the least bugged out game they made was Arcanum, the most bugged out game they made was Temple of Elemental Evil, with Vapire: TM Bloodlines being in the middle.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman · Post by **Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman** » 2005-02-19 12:34pm

Vympel wrote:Troika was a developer, not a publisher, and while their ideas were uniformly good, every game they made was technically flawed with numerous bugs- the least bugged out game they made was Arcanum, the most bugged out game they made was Temple of Elemental Evil, with Vapire: TM Bloodlines being in the middle.

Should replace "game publisher" with "game maker". Guess I'm still traumatized of what happened to Microprose. And Origin.

Nevertheless, I don't mind a buggy game with a great game-playing concept, as long as they patched the bugs appropriately.

Jalinth · Post by **Jalinth** » 2005-02-19 01:00pm

Vympel wrote:Troika was a developer, not a publisher, and while their ideas were uniformly good, every game they made was technically flawed with numerous bugs- the least bugged out game they made was Arcanum, the most bugged out game they made was Temple of Elemental Evil, with Vapire: TM Bloodlines being in the middle.

I would say that Arcanum worked pretty well in terms of its game mechanics. Kind of fun although trying to get out of the very opening area was very painful. While the Temple was simply very cumbersome to play (never bothered to finish it).

Is Vampire worth playing? I need to upgrade my computer first, and wondering if it is a worthwhile addition.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2005-02-19 02:01pm

Jalinth wrote:
Vympel wrote:Troika was a developer, not a publisher, and while their ideas were uniformly good, every game they made was technically flawed with numerous bugs- the least bugged out game they made was Arcanum, the most bugged out game they made was Temple of Elemental Evil, with Vapire: TM Bloodlines being in the middle.
I would say that Arcanum worked pretty well in terms of its game mechanics. Kind of fun although trying to get out of the very opening area was very painful. While the Temple was simply very cumbersome to play (never bothered to finish it).

Is Vampire worth playing? I need to upgrade my computer first, and wondering if it is a worthwhile addition.

Playing as one of the Malkavin's yes the game is very fun to play(Especilly when your TV starts talking to you

)

Crom · Post by **Crom** » 2005-02-19 03:47pm

Imperial Overlord wrote:My friend really liked Arcanum (he's big into steampunk). Here's to hoping that part arrives at Obsidian.

Crom, how long have you had the "Unbroken Circle of Zerthimon" tag? I just noticed it. Go planescape! Love Torment.

I just put it in recently. Yeah, Torment rules! And Zerthimonism is definitely one of the coolest religions I've ever come across.

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2005-02-19 03:57pm

I played through Torment the first time and completely missed it (Low Int and Wis at the beginning). It was such a blast working through it when I played the game a second time.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-02-19 11:33pm

Troika always had a huge amount of gamer support that it never earned. People credit Troika with games that Troika didn't make, like Fallout and Planescape: Torment. Those weren't done by Troika, but by the three guys that founded Troika, who must have hired a bunch of idiots to fill out the rest of the company, because their games have always been great in premise and very poor in execution.

I'm not particularly sad to see them go, and I'm glad that they didn't get the Fallout license. If anything, it will free up the founders to lend their brilliance to other projects and hopefully not be hindered by a staff full of incompetents.

Post by **Vympel** » 2005-02-19 11:38pm

Vampire: TM is fun and worth playing- but yes, Troika's gamer support was unearned. It's too bad, really- they could've earned it.

What really depresses me is all the Van Buren (AKA Fallout 3) stuff still coming out long after the project was killed and Interplay died.

Oh well- at least Bethesda has it. If it looks half as good as Elder Scrolls IV, it'll kick ass.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-02-20 12:10am

I'm very enthused about the things Bethesda has been saying. They sound like they're going to do an extremely faithful job and not "Elder Scrolls with Guns". But I'm still very skeptical, and will be until I play a demo or hear positive reviews from people i trust.

Executor32 · Post by **Executor32** » 2005-02-20 01:28am

Mr Bean wrote:
Jalinth wrote:
Vympel wrote:Troika was a developer, not a publisher, and while their ideas were uniformly good, every game they made was technically flawed with numerous bugs- the least bugged out game they made was Arcanum, the most bugged out game they made was Temple of Elemental Evil, with Vapire: TM Bloodlines being in the middle.
I would say that Arcanum worked pretty well in terms of its game mechanics. Kind of fun although trying to get out of the very opening area was very painful. While the Temple was simply very cumbersome to play (never bothered to finish it).

Is Vampire worth playing? I need to upgrade my computer first, and wondering if it is a worthwhile addition.
Playing as one of the Malkavin's yes the game is very fun to play(Especilly when your TV starts talking to you )

It's funnier when you start arguing with a stop sign in downtown.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2005-02-20 01:44am

*sigh*

You know I'm playing Arcanum and Fallout 1 today.

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2005-02-20 08:56am

Troika's problem was that they had a great many good ideas, but never managed to make a convincingly complete game out of them.

Arcanum turned off as many people as it intrigued, TOEE felt like a reject from the last millennium in interface and presentation and was distinctly wobbly inside, and Vampire was nice but had serious combat balance issues and AI that was more like zombies than vampires.

Post by **Vympel** » 2005-02-20 09:41am

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:I'm very enthused about the things Bethesda has been saying. They sound like they're going to do an extremely faithful job and not "Elder Scrolls with Guns". But I'm still very skeptical, and will be until I play a demo or hear positive reviews from people i trust.

Got any links to any of that?

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-02-20 01:17pm

Vympel wrote:Got any links to any of that?

This is the one that really changed my opinion.

Regarding Vampire, maybe I'm unreasonable, but as graphics get better, you expect your first person games to get more realistic and believable, if it's a top-down isometric 2D RPG like Fallout and someone doesn't die from a shotgun blast to the head, that's fine. If it's an old-school FPS or FPRPG with pixelated graphics and that happens, fine. But with a modern-looking game that plays out with the mechanics of an FPS, if I shoot a normal, unarmored human repeatedly in the head from point blank range, and he doesn't die, I stop playing. The only way I would ever play a game like that is if I found an editor to drastically change the weapon damages, and Troika has issued C&D orders against modding of any kind.