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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
An email advertising a fire-sale at Troika has been posted at several gaming forum sites over the past few days but the authenticity was questionable and we waited for further news. <a href="http://www.rpgcodex.com/" target="_blank">RPG Codex</a> has confirmed with Troika's David Marsh that the email is indeed genuine and Troika have closed and are selling off their equipment:<blockquote><em> LIQUIDATION SALE
<br>
<br>After 7 exciting years, and 3 published games, Troika Games is closing its doors forever!
<br>EVERYTHING MUST GO!
<br>
<br>* Computers - P3 & up
<br>* Monitors 13" - 21"
<br>* Desks
<br>* Chairs
<br>* Conference Tables
<br>* Filing Cabinets
<br>* Cubicle System
<br>* Canon Copier
<br>* and much more!
<br>
<br>Saturday, Feb. 19th 9am - 1pm only 17991 Cowan in Irvine (Cash & Carry)
<br>Let our loss be your gain.
<br>Please feel free to forward this email to anyone that may be interested in the sale.</em></blockquote>While opinion will vary, I enjoyed all of Troika's games and will sorely miss them. |
Wed Feb 16, 2005 8:32 pm |
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Garrett
Joined: 13 Jul 2001
Posts: 74
Location: Munich, Germany |
sad news  |
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Wed Feb 16, 2005 8:37 pm |
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Funktion
Village Dweller
Joined: 29 Dec 2004
Posts: 10
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RIP Troika 
They made two of my favourite games of all time (Arcanum, and the recent Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines).
I will deeply miss their great and unique games. In a time where the game's industry is ruled by companies like E.A., it was great to have this company making the games I like to play.
I was looking forward to their rumored projects, and always hoping for a sequel to Arcanum (and an expansion for Vampire...).
If anyone from the company is reading this, thanks for the many memorable hours I've spent playing your games.
Good luck with your future (solo) ventures.
You will be missed... |
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Wed Feb 16, 2005 9:54 pm |
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Guest
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Arcanum was one of the best rpgs Ive ever played.
I tried Vampires Bloodlines but I didn't have time to play it. I saw the ghost house quest an it was absolutely fantastic.
I agree with the other posters that this is very sad. roleplaying games are rare and no major game developer bothers with them anymore. |
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Thu Feb 17, 2005 12:28 am |
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Melvil
Village Leader
Joined: 08 Nov 2003
Posts: 80
Location: Austin, Tx |
all I can say is, "gahhhhh" |
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Thu Feb 17, 2005 4:36 am |
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rinulh
Village Dweller
Joined: 15 Apr 2003
Posts: 19
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Very very sad news. Troika had plain bad luck, like Looking Glass before or Origin, companies that have made some of the best games I've ever played but still couldnt make it to survive. To my knowledge Vampire was selling fine, but so did the Thief series and that didn't make LG to survive.
THe thing now is that there's so many awesome RPG staff going to waste, and now Ion Storm is gone too, so many franchises that we will not see new updates, Deus Ex, Vampire, Thief, System Shock, Ultima, Arcanum, etc.
This is going to be probably one of the worst years ever in RPG gaming, where only we can trust Bioware. |
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Thu Feb 17, 2005 7:19 am |
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corwin
On the Razorblade of Life
Joined: 10 Jun 2002
Posts: 8376
Location: Australia |
Obsidian and Bethesda are still going strong, so it's not just Bioware. However, it is definitely a sad day. I enjoyed their games too. Let's hope the wonderful Indie groups like Arkane and PB continue to produce.
_________________
If God said it, then that settles it!
I don't use Smileys, I use Emoticons!!
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Thu Feb 17, 2005 7:49 am |
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Garrett
Joined: 13 Jul 2001
Posts: 74
Location: Munich, Germany |
@rinulh:
White Wolf & Activision own the rights for Vampire, not Troika. The first Vampire game was developed by Nihilistic and published by Activision in 2000...so Vampire can always get a sequel ordered by Activision or White Wolf, esp as I understand Bloodlines is selling quite well.
Dunno about DX & Thief rights though, but I assme they belong to Eidos, not the devs...so same situation here.
System Shock (rights still with EA?) is getting kind of a sequel with Bioshock and Ultima ist dead for the moment, the old Ultima Online is still running, but compared to new MMORPGs as World of Warcraft or EQ2 it seems onlya matter of time until it fades away...and I am not rambling about EA again here  |
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Thu Feb 17, 2005 7:54 am |
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GothicGothicness
Keeper of the Gates
Joined: 04 Oct 2003
Posts: 110
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I think that this was different from the other companies mentioned. As I understand it, the main reason was infact a ongoing debate between Lord Brittish ( Garriot  and EA. |
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Thu Feb 17, 2005 12:12 pm |
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Arma
Mysterious Lady
Joined: 24 Oct 2003
Posts: 1230
Location: in the middle of hell |
I cannot express my sadness for this. Troika was one of the few RPG developers that I delivered truly RPG games and not some freaking combination b/n Action, Adventure and RPG like Bioware or Bethesda, not to mention one of the few companies that I have actually enjoyed very very much their games. They delivered 2 of my favorite games (Arcanum & ToEE), and though I have not yet played Vampire, I am sure that some time in the future I will get the game and find out just how great it is.
If any of the company staff are actually passing by and reading this, I wish you truimphant success with all your new ventures, and I can only hope that you continue to make great games, in whichever company you move on. |
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Thu Feb 17, 2005 3:57 pm |
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Lucky Day
Guest
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This should be highlighted as a top news story.
Arcanum and ToEE were great games. I won't touch Bloodlines so I don't know what that is like.
Marketing was the biggest problem with Troika.
Arcanum had the huge misfortune of having a "finished" version of their software get stolen and released as Warez. Troika had delayed the launch of the North American version of the game to coincide with the European translations and sat on the game.
The stolen image forced Troika to actually launch the game early and by the bugs and complaints it clearly was by no means finished.
Balance with combat hadn't been completely addressed and SOME people complained about actually having the option of turn based or real time.
A last minute decision to have the CD ship with the brand new DirectX 8 when the game was built with DirectX 7. It turns out MS added features in like sound caching that severely lagged the game. When they discovered this Troika put out the fix that I'm sure your average computer user would find too complicated.
The biggest complaint from players was that it was ugly. It was at first; 3d renderings was at its infancy but reviewers and some players were demanding more 3d and developers were caught up in that. Like Baldur's Gate 2 the 3d aspects in isometric just didn't work that well. But once you got past the start area you could see the artistry taken in the Victorian stylings. Unfortunately, the Demo not got you past the start area.
Word of mouth from hardcore roleplayers kept this game going. The dropping of the class system in favour of straight skills made character creation a blast and there are hordes of quests of variations in the suited for your character and a unique Steampunk setting and a very interesting storyline.
Troika's decision to sit on the game made a certain amount of sense but they underestimated the interst the game was developing which lead to it being stolen and severely hurting initial sales.
I'm not aware of any publisher doing this anymore because of this incident.
---
ToEE is a great game. Yes, there were a few gamebreaking bugs but not so many that couldn't be easily fixed. The questing wasn't quite what people were used too anymore: the dialogue was a lot more streamlined.
This game was basically killed by kiddy Rules Lawyers. No computer game before ToEE has every managed to incorporate the D&D rules so thuroughly. Unfortuntely, this merely encouraged a bunch of kids with too much time on their hands to nitpick it to death where there were the inconsisties with the PnP manuals. This lead to people not so hardcore to the PnP game think there were more bugs in it than there were.
But Let's not forget the delay in patching the game for aforementioned bugs.
Troika's decision to blame the publisher for not getting the patches out in a timely matter was simply stupid. There may have been a SNAFU with the contract with Atari but they bit the hand that fed them.
This, more than anything, IMO has hurt them finding a publisher for nay new game they had in mind. In the end they made the 3rd patch for nothing.
I can't blame Atari for insisting that stupidity that didn't need to be in a game be removed to give it a Teen Rating and a wider audience.
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I can't say much for bloodlines except this game looks sick so I won't touch it. Again, poor marketing to a mature audience limited the sales.
Again, complaints about lack of polish in spite of a delay beyond their control was too much for gamers to take.
This was the final straw for the company. |
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Thu Feb 17, 2005 5:37 pm |
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Lucky Day
Guest
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Not to forget that rumour had it that ToEE had their hearts set on obtaining the license for Fallout 3 but failed. They attempted to shop a Post Apoc game to different publishers but three consecutive "failures" and the track record of the theme with publishers proved that it was too hard a sell.
Screenshots from Torika strongly suggest they've been developing it for some time, investing many hours without recompense. |
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Thu Feb 17, 2005 5:46 pm |
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