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Roqua
High Emperor
Joined: 02 Sep 2003
Posts: 897
Location: rump |
This is like when some kid dies in high school, no one would say a good word about him until he died. This support would have been nice when Troika still had a chance at life.
I'm 100% with bonjo. I'd much rather have a buggy real rpg, than a fake streamlined rpg that runs smooth as silk and is bug free.
Lot of great quotes from this though:
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Troika was always for the fans rather then for the bottom line, and that's what hurt it.
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so you prefer the high polished crap over the unpolished pearls ?
quote:
What's important to me is that Troika TRIED to make good RPG's. Most developers these days (with some exceptions) don't even try to make RPG's - they water them down into Action/RPG's or Adventure/RPG's.
I disagree with the last post because bloodlines was an action game and they didn't try to make good rpgs, they tried to make great rpgs and did imo for the most part (besdies the combat in arcanum and bloodlines).
_________________
Vegitarian is the Indian word for lousey hunter. |
Thu Dec 29, 2005 12:36 am |
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Arundor
Eager Tradesman
Joined: 22 Sep 2004
Posts: 29
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quote:
Originally posted by Roqua
quote:
What's important to me is that Troika TRIED to make good RPG's. Most developers these days (with some exceptions) don't even try to make RPG's - they water them down into Action/RPG's or Adventure/RPG's.
I disagree with the last post because bloodlines was an action game and they didn't try to make good rpgs, they tried to make great rpgs and did imo for the most part (besdies the combat in arcanum and bloodlines).
That last quote was from me, and I agree that Bloodlines wasn't a true RPG. I was mostly talking about Arcanum and ToEE.
Still, Bloodlines was better than a lot of other games claiming to be RPG's. Santa Monica, at least, was pretty good in terms of RPG gameplay. Developing your character in different ways actually had a meaningful affect on the game. There were multiple ways to solve quests based on character skills, skill-based dialogue options, and so forth. At least some of it was good. |
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Thu Dec 29, 2005 7:36 pm |
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niteshade
Keeper of the Gates
Joined: 09 Jul 2005
Posts: 100
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You know....sometimes I do prefer "polished crap" over "unpolished pearls". There is nothing more frustrating then a game that should be good, but which has so many game breaking bugs and horrible design decisions that it just horribly fails. At least polished mediocre games you can just decide you don't like or want to buy or maybe even decide that you like and enjoy them for what they are. But games like TTOE often cause you to waste alot of time hoping the game will be good or get better, only to leave you frustrated and unfufilled when it turns out to ultimately be a buggy mess through and through.
Troika's games weren't all as bad as that though. Many of them managed to be fun despite the game breaking bugs and poorly designed mechanics that were present in every title. If only they could have taken the people in charge of writing the stories, dialogue trees, and wealth of gameplay options that their games (other then TTOE) had, and combined them with people from a different company who actually had some concept of game balance and who could spend more time on the actual programming.
Perhaps Troika's death could be a good thing if the creative minds behind it jump ship to a different company that lets them handle the creative parts of the games, but forbids them from touching anything else. |
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Thu Dec 29, 2005 8:39 pm |
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doctor_kaz
Keeper of the Gates
Joined: 24 Mar 2005
Posts: 108
Location: West Virginia, USA |
Troika had three different badly buggy games from three different publishers. Sorry, but you can only use that "the publisher forced the game out the door too early" line so many times.
For my money, Temple of Elemental Evil would have been buggy even if it had two more months of development. The engine ran terrible towards the end of the game. I was in the fire node and if I clicked somewhere sometimes the computer froze up for 30 seconds before finally moving my party. The interface was fantastic, but the engine underneath it sucked. That's not necessarily poor QA, but poor coding up front. Arcanum was worse. That game ran awful. QA/QC can't fix what is fundamentally screwed up. Troika had the best creative content people in the business, but they didn't seem to have the other competencies that are needed to make great games.
Contrast that with a game like Dungeon Siege 2. The game is pretty mundane in its content, but the game engine is perfect. The thing runs beautifully on just about any system and I haven't seen anything yet that could be remotely considered to be a bug. |
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Fri Dec 30, 2005 2:14 pm |
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Fazigu
Village Dweller
Joined: 13 Sep 2003
Posts: 6
Location: Rochester, NY |
Regardless of any alleged technical flaws, Arcanum is one of the most original CRPG ever published. Do not rest in peace, Troika -- rise and bring us more! |
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Sat Dec 31, 2005 12:58 am |
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Lord_Brownie
High Emperor
Joined: 16 Feb 2003
Posts: 575
Location: Unfashionable arm of the spiral galaxy |
quote:
Originally posted by Acleacius
"I still like the game, but I'm not going to release the programers from blame"
You are free to blame whom ever you want, but if you were making a game which you had to send to a publisher to get tested to be approved to be released and that publisher told you everything was ok wouldnt you think everything was ok?
Regardless of what the publisher said or anyone else, I am still responible for the truthfulness of my own statements. Trokia is responsible for the things they said, regardless of what anyone else was telling them.
In these two cases, Bloodlines/ToEE, things were not ok regardless of what the programers said to the public and what the publishers said by releasing it. The two can pass the buck all they want, these games had major problems, and it is this pass the buck mind set that will kill orginal/reaching RPGs like these by making the public fearful of trying them. "Seek responsiblity, and take responisblity for your actions"-- I guess both publisher and programer need to learn what this means.
LB |
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Sat Dec 31, 2005 12:07 pm |
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Roqua
High Emperor
Joined: 02 Sep 2003
Posts: 897
Location: rump |
The bottom line is would you guys have rather of had a buggy Arcanum/ToEE/Bloodlines, or none of them at all? I would much rather have Troika around making buggy great games, than bioware/blizz/GP making there streamlined games.
I could take the same stance against the big devs, but instead of slamming the what they said about bugs or the state of the game, I'd slam the content, or lack there of, and the poor overall rpgness of the games. Troika made games for me and what I wanted (besides the twitch combat of bloodlines).
I could just harp on about other things, like say Gothic promised good combat but gave us twitch crap, but would I rather have a Gothic with crap combat or no Gothic?
Troika had no clout, the could not get good contracts, and if they wanted to make the games they wanted for people like me they had to take the crap deals offered to them or take no deal at all. They could of made much more mainstream games, and probably would have gotten better contracts for it, but they didn't sell out.
Even if you don't like them or their games, you should at least respect that they didn't sell out. They had all the cards stacked against them and they still stuck to their guns. They were true to themselves and never changed their values. And yes, they released buggy games.
Daggerfall and FO2 were buggier than either of them, and I am just as happy having daggerfall and fo2 buggy, than neither of them at all.
I value content and gameplay much more than a streamlined solid engine and a bug free game. I am a game fan, not a programming fan. I wasn't amazed by the graphics of DS or how neat-o the engine was, I was disgusted by the lack of strategy and poor gameplay. But if GP closed I wouldn't be happy, since DS made a lot of people happy. They liked the gameplay, and would've even if it was buggy.
To each their own, lets let people be free to like what they like and dislike what they don't like, without forcing our views on them (unless you are right like I am with my definition of an rpg), or reveling in their losses. You can dislike troika and their games, but everyone reasonable will at least respect what they did and what they valued. In my opinion of course.
_________________
Vegitarian is the Indian word for lousey hunter. |
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Sat Dec 31, 2005 5:15 pm |
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niteshade
Keeper of the Gates
Joined: 09 Jul 2005
Posts: 100
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Arcanum and Bloodlines I'm happy to have seen....despite the fact that they were bug ridden messes with poor game engines and little concept of game balance.....they still managed to be alot of fun. They were still very frustrating because they should have been sooooo much better then they were. But I'm still happy they came out.
TTOE on the other hand, I would have prefered stay unrealeased. It was by far the buggies of their games, and it was pushed out the door before it could recieve any of the Troika charm. It had nothing that made any of their other games almost great. The only thing it did have was a combat system that was potentially fun.....which is something no other Troika game had. But it had none of the depth of options and richness of game world there other games had. And in practice while their combat system could be fun, 9 times out of 10 horrible bugs and even more horrible AI kept it from living up to it's potential. |
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Sat Dec 31, 2005 5:32 pm |
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Lucky Day
Guest
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Arcanum's suffered from a near finished release being distributed over the internet. That's what caused its publishing date to be released early. At least one newspaper's reviewer got fired for reviewing it before it came out. |
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Sat Dec 31, 2005 6:38 pm |
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Arundor
Eager Tradesman
Joined: 22 Sep 2004
Posts: 29
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quote:
Originally posted by Roqua
I could take the same stance against the big devs, but instead of slamming the what they said about bugs or the state of the game, I'd slam the content, or lack there of, and the poor overall rpgness of the games. Troika made games for me and what I wanted (besides the twitch combat of bloodlines).
[...]
Even if you don't like them or their games, you should at least respect that they didn't sell out. They had all the cards stacked against them and they still stuck to their guns. They were true to themselves and never changed their values. And yes, they released buggy games.
I'd say that perfectly sums up Troika's lifetime.
It's unfortunate that the mainstream couldn't appreciate their games. From what I'm seeing in this thread, the people who did like Troika understood what there were doing and adored them for it. |
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Sat Dec 31, 2005 7:17 pm |
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Roqua
High Emperor
Joined: 02 Sep 2003
Posts: 897
Location: rump |
quote:
Originally posted by niteshade
Arcanum and Bloodlines I'm happy to have seen....despite the fact that they were bug ridden messes with poor game engines and little concept of game balance.....they still managed to be alot of fun. They were still very frustrating because they should have been sooooo much better then they were. But I'm still happy they came out.
TTOE on the other hand, I would have prefered stay unrealeased. It was by far the buggies of their games, and it was pushed out the door before it could recieve any of the Troika charm. It had nothing that made any of their other games almost great. The only thing it did have was a combat system that was potentially fun.....which is something no other Troika game had. But it had none of the depth of options and richness of game world there other games had. And in practice while their combat system could be fun, 9 times out of 10 horrible bugs and even more horrible AI kept it from living up to it's potential.
I whole heartedly disagree. ToEE is hands-down my favorite Troika game. It had more to it than most will ever give it credit for, but it didn't have big yellow excalmation marks or arrows saying, "this way dummy!" most people missed out on all of it. I prefer subtle. And the combat is great. Nothing about this game isn't great.
I guess I got lucky because even unpatched, the game ran smooth for me with hardly any problems (besides the slow down in the fire node).
ToEE on Ironman is the best rpg experience i ever had. If the only games ever released were clones of ToEE mafe with the same engine and bugs I would be happy. ToEE with co8 4.0 is also great, keep on the boarder will be great I'm sure also.
But thats what I'm talking about. I can't play NWN because it sucks so bad, but millions would disagree with me. But I still don't wish it wasn't released, since people did love it. Bio just doesn't make games for me and what I value, Troika did.
_________________
Vegitarian is the Indian word for lousey hunter. |
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Sat Dec 31, 2005 7:30 pm |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
Great description of Troika for my money, Roqua. I enjoyed all three of Troika's games - buggy or not. I'm not quite as fond of ToEE as you but I still enjoyed it.
Actually, none of Troika's games were all that problematic for me - guess I was lucky.
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Editor @ RPGDot |
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Sat Dec 31, 2005 10:37 pm |
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