The Rise and Fall of Troika on the Escapist

[SuAside]

they did admit that it was a bad idea to try and run & develop at the same time as well, Kharn.

of course the buggy aspect of the games and the failure of Troika in general cant be pushed onto the plate of the publishers, but they surely had a big part in it.

 

[Gnidrologist]

It's funny how I missed all this OMG TROIKA MAKES BUGGY GAMES thing until I learned it from forums like these. I remember when playing Arcanum there were few crashes and performance in Tarant was a bit laggy, but all in all I barely remember these minor glitches till I got teh internets access in my home and started to realise truth with the help of message boards.
The same goes with Bloodlines. I played it first time once it came out without the patch (IIRC) and besides graphical glitches and some audio errors it didn't struck me as being much more buggier/unfinished than most of the pc games I've ever played. Ok, a game stopper ar the boat mission was nasty, i give you that.
Haven't played TOEE yet.

Either I have uncommonly high tolerance level against software bugs or might it be that this whole troika=buggy is just and excuse to explain why they're games were flops. The real reasons being shitty marketing and game industry along with it's consumers becoming generally dumber, computer games becomming an entertainment for young idiots with no attention span and whiney attitude, thus developers like Troika becomming ''absolete''.

Anyway, I'll take whatever buggy game of the artistic calibre of Troika over flawlessly executed (as if there are any), shiney crap that's been shoveled out in recent years labeled as rpg.

 

[SimpleMinded]

I can relate Gnidrologist. I never had any problems with any of Troika's games. While I know that doesn't prove anything as "I experienced this" is the worst way to prove the general case, it does make me think the bugs are blown out of proportion at times. (Though the computer destroyer mentioned in the escapist is pretty scary sounding).

As the article said, it's too bad they didn't find someone else to do the business end of things.

 

[Sander]

Ugh.
Incidental 'I didn't encounter these problems' doesn't mean the problems didn't exist. Hell, the fact that fan-patches for Bloodlines are *still* being churned out should show that that game was indeed very buggy.
The same goes for Arcanum and ToEE, really.

That said, the games were still brilliant. Regardless of the publisher's attitude, though, the games should never have been buggy in the first place.

 

[SuAside]

*snip*

well, in the original playthrough in Arcanum i dont think i encountered any problems due to bugs. in ToEE, it was more the rigid (annoying) combat rules and kinda boring story that was the prob. in VtMB however, i encountered the gamestopping bug in the caves under the monastery (many other people had it as well). i had to use a console instruction to be able to load the next area. this is unacceptable in a released game. i was REALLY pissed about it, but even then i had to admit it was a brilliant game.

anyhow, Arcanum (even with the unbalanced combat) and VtMB (buggy) still both rank in my top5 best games ever. (ToEE wasn't my kinda game)
2 out of 3 aint bad...

Hell, the fact that fan-patches for Bloodlines are *still* being churned out should show that that game was indeed very buggy.
The same goes for Arcanum and ToEE, really.

and the same goes for Fallout, HL1,... all the great games of our times?

 

[Sander]

and the same goes for Fallout, HL1,... all the great games of our times?

Well, older games are a bit different, since modding tools and a modding community were generally smaller/less available. In any case, I don't think Fallout 1 was *that* buggy, but Fallout 2 certainly was.

Half-Life is still having fan-patches churned out, though?

 

[Gnidrologist]

As far as I checked the change logs of that fan made patch series for Bloodlines, there was lots of modificiations, that altered the gameplay. Not even majority of them are bug fixes.
Oblivion spawned a shit load of gameplay fixing fan made mods within the week of being released. By now, there's probably a good couple of terrabytes of them. So, is this relevent too?

Ok, I'm not trying to argue that Troika's games were fine and dandy. Maybe I indeed was more lucky than most of people or I just have shit for standarts, but It's just that in my opinion Troika's notoriety for buggy products is overexaggerated.

 

[SuAside]

and the same goes for Fallout, HL1,... all the great games of our times?

Well, older games are a bit different, since modding tools and a modding community were generally smaller/less available. In any case, I don't think Fallout 1 was *that* buggy, but Fallout 2 certainly was.

Half-Life is still having fan-patches churned out, though?

nah, HL1 wasnt buggy at all with the exception of the occasional crappy AI (at least not for me).

dunno about patches, but there are still plenty of mods coming out based on HL1.

 

[Sander]

As far as I checked the change logs of that fan made patch series for Bloodlines, there was lots of modificiations, that altered the gameplay. Not even majority of them are bug fixes.

Yes, so?
The fact that there are modifications *as well* is irrelevant. It's about *patches*, which fix bugs. There are still bugs being fixed. The fact that they also added a lot of modifications (most of which, by the way, are also corrections of unintended behaviour) is not relevant.

Oblivion spawned a shit load of gameplay fixing fan made mods within the week of being released. By now, there's probably a good couple of terrabytes of them. So, is this relevent too?

Mods are not the same as patches.

Ok, I'm not trying to argue that Troika's games were fine and dandy. Maybe I indeed was more lucky than most of people or I just have shit for standarts, but It's just that in my opinion Troika's notoriety for buggy products is overexaggerated.

Just look at the change-logs for official and fan-made patches and you'll see that it isn't an exaggeration.

I mean, they had a truly game-stopping bug in the release version of Bloodlines that did come up with almost everyone.

nah, HL1 wasnt buggy at all with the exception of the occasional crappy AI (at least not for me).

dunno about patches, but there are still plenty of mods coming out based on HL1.

No patches it is, then.

 

[st0lve]

and the same goes for Fallout, HL1,... all the great games of our times?

Well, older games are a bit different, since modding tools and a modding community were generally smaller/less available. In any case, I don't think Fallout 1 was *that* buggy, but Fallout 2 certainly was.

Half-Life is still having fan-patches churned out, though?

Actually there are patches, but not fan patches. Fan patches haven't been needed for HL, since Valve still cares about it's nr 1 baby, which is Counter-Strike (not Source). So if you read when they have engine updates and such, you often see that they update the GoldSRC (HL) engine alongside with Source.

I guess there is no need for a fan patch, when the developer is still alive and kicking.

 

[Bradylama]

I can't even play ToEE with hardware made after 2003 without a fan patch, and even then I still have some minor problems. (for a while I couldn't loot bodies)

I payed 10 bucks for it at a Wal-Mart, and it's the only reason I didn't regret the purchase.

Troika games were fucking buggy as Hell, there's no way around that.

It's not really fair to blame consumers, either. Consumers aren't getting dumber, there are more dumb consumers. All of the reported numbers concerning sales figures show sales for Troika games dropping from Arcanum down. If you consider Vampire a "dumbing down" of Troika's design history, then it means that Troika games stopped appealing to the niche that made Arcanum slightly profitable.

 

[Gnidrologist]

As far as I checked the change logs of that fan made patch series for Bloodlines, there was lots of modificiations, that altered the gameplay. Not even majority of them are bug fixes.

Yes, so?
The fact that there are modifications *as well* is irrelevant. It's about *patches*, which fix bugs. There are still bugs being fixed. The fact that they also added a lot of modifications (most of which, by the way, are also corrections of unintended behaviour) is not relevant.

That just means that there's lot of dedication put by some people at fixing every single issue they think is no right in V:B, which is excellent. However, that does not indicate that V:B is exceptionally buggy game compared to most other games, right? I had mutch more issues with Fallout (yes the game this entire site is more or less dedicated to) than with V:B. Starting with crashes to desktop after using explosives/rocket launchers, continueing with npcs going hostile with no appearent reason, concluding with magical multiplication of Ian, making it a whole army of shoot-in-your-back-Ians running all over the screen.
Why there's so mutch fuss about VB being buggy thus a comercial flop, thus a main reasons of Troika's demise, when there's hardly any hint on Fallout/Fallout 2 being buggy which could be one of the reasons of Interplay/BIS losing it?

Oblivion spawned a shit load of gameplay fixing fan made mods within the week of being released. By now, there's probably a good couple of terrabytes of them. So, is this relevent too?

Mods are not the same as patches.

Unless they patch the game, which is what many OB mods did.
Ok, I'm being irrational on this one, but just had to spell that out.

Ok, I'm not trying to argue that Troika's games were fine and dandy. Maybe I indeed was more lucky than most of people or I just have shit for standarts, but It's just that in my opinion Troika's notoriety for buggy products is overexaggerated.

Just look at the change-logs for official and fan-made patches and you'll see that it isn't an exaggeration.

I mean, they had a truly game-stopping bug in the release version of Bloodlines that did come up with almost everyone.

The game stopping bug, whitch I also mentioned in my previous post (the boat escape part in the underground) was fixed by official patch 1.2. Ok, it came a bit late, so I lose.

As for change logs. Let's take this random one from version 2.0:

All dialogues matched to speech and fixed thoroughly by RobinHood70.
Repaired a lot of lines that were not audible to female characters.
Removed Empire key after use and continued standardizing many names.
Made Prince react to Persuasion for money when sending you to Ming.
Restored additional lines of Jack, Imalia, Ming-Xiao and the cabbie.
Fixed money bugs with Bill, Hatter, Heather, Misti and prostitutes.
Made Empire clerk bisexual, responding to Seduction from either sex.
Restored Ventrue specific Prince dialogue and more cut extra lines.
Removed an exploit with Copper and fixed Jeanette taking your knife.
Restored unused Nosferatu and Malkavian lines of Tseng and Wong Ho.
Fixed possibility of Beckett not talking on return from the Society.
Corrected bug caused by 1.9 corruption that broke Chinatown quests.
Restored feeding on rats that would not work for some people in 1.9.
Lessened MAC-10 kickback on firing with increasing firearms skills.
Moved dance spot at club Confession because of the cross-zoom error.
Made crossbow bolts purchasable sooner and added a doll easter egg.
Provided baseball bat and tire iron to anyone skipping the tutorial.
Corrected Hitman quest rewards and added peace-talk lines for both.
Fixed problems with morphine quest and more after angering Mercurio.
Cut exclamation of Nadia that was audible when she was not present.
Removed the annoying sidetable in Gary's lair and hid two map holes.
Changed wrong status display for the power of pump 118a in warrens.

Most of the fixes are not bug related. Rather polishing grammer , balancing game in the fashion author's see appropriate and getting rid of some annoyances.
All major bugs were fixed with patch 1.2, really. I've replayed the game for several times with the original patch installed (not completing it though) and there were no gamestoppers, no reoccuring, irressistible gltiches.

 

[SuAside]

All of the reported numbers concerning sales figures show sales for Troika games dropping from Arcanum down.

VtMB sold less than ToEE? i find that hard to believe...

are you sure you're not looking at revenue instead of salesfigures?

once Troika kicked the bucket, VtMB games sold for 9.99 euros overhere (in their normal boxes, no special editions). this might explain lower revenue numbers, but not lower sales.

 

[Sander]

That just means that there's lot of dedication put by some people at fixing every single issue they think is no right in V:B, which is excellent. However, that does not indicate that V:B is exceptionally buggy game compared to most other games, right? I had mutch more issues with Fallout (yes the game this entire site is more or less dedicated to) than with V:B. Starting with crashes to desktop after using explosives/rocket launchers, continueing with npcs going hostile with no appearent reason, concluding with magical multiplication of Ian, making it a whole army of shoot-in-your-back-Ians running all over the screen.
Why there's so mutch fuss about VB being buggy thus a comercial flop, thus a main reasons of Troika's demise, when there's hardly any hint on Fallout/Fallout 2 being buggy which could be one of the reasons of Interplay/BIS losing it?

Ehm, Fallout and Fallout 2 are both known to be very buggy.

Also, I say yet again that *you* not encountering bugs does not mean that there aren't many bugs.

And again, the fact that there are many *bugs* being fixed in the patches notes that, hey, the game was buggy. Again: I am not talking about changing the game, but about fixing *bugs* (ie. unintended behaviour).

The game stopping bug, whitch I also mentioned in my previous post (the boat escape part in the underground) was fixed by official patch 1.2. Ok, it came a bit late, so I lose.

As for change logs. Let's take this random one from version 2.0:

All dialogues matched to speech and fixed thoroughly by RobinHood70.

Bugfix.

Repaired a lot of lines that were not audible to female characters.

Bugfix.

Removed Empire key after use and continued standardizing many names.

Bugfix, since this is behaviour that is inconsistent with the rest of the game. Standardising the names is intended to make further bugfixes easier, but not a real bugfix.

Made Prince react to Persuasion for money when sending you to Ming.

Mod.

Restored additional lines of Jack, Imalia, Ming-Xiao and the cabbie.

Bugfix/re-adding already created content.

Fixed money bugs with Bill, Hatter, Heather, Misti and prostitutes.

Bugfixes.

Made Empire clerk bisexual, responding to Seduction from either sex.

Possible bugfix, although uncertain.

Restored Ventrue specific Prince dialogue and more cut extra lines.

Again, re-adding cut content.

Removed an exploit with Copper and fixed Jeanette taking your knife.

Bugfixes.

Restored unused Nosferatu and Malkavian lines of Tseng and Wong Ho.

More re-adding creation of content.

Fixed possibility of Beckett not talking on return from the Society.

Bugfix.

Corrected bug caused by 1.9 corruption that broke Chinatown quests.
Restored feeding on rats that would not work for some people in 1.9.

Fixing created bugs.

Lessened MAC-10 kickback on firing with increasing firearms skills.

Changed content/balancing.

Moved dance spot at club Confession because of the cross-zoom error.

Bugfix.

Made crossbow bolts purchasable sooner and added a doll easter egg.

Silliness.

Provided baseball bat and tire iron to anyone skipping the tutorial.

Balancing.

Corrected Hitman quest rewards and added peace-talk lines for both.

Bugfix/adding content.

Fixed problems with morphine quest and more after angering Mercurio.

Bugfix.

Cut exclamation of Nadia that was audible when she was not present.

Bugfix.

Removed the annoying sidetable in Gary's lair and hid two map holes.

Bugfix.

Changed wrong status display for the power of pump 118a in warrens.

Bugfix.

Most of the fixes are not bug related. Rather polishing grammer , balancing game in the fashion author's see appropriate and getting rid of some annoyances.

It seems you can't count. See above, I counted 13 bugfixes and several occurrences of re-adding cut content. The majority of items in that patch is bugfixes.

And yet again, you are missing my point. Whether or not they *also* change the game and add content is completely irrelevant to whether or not they *fix bugs*.

All major bugs were fixed with patch 1.2, really. I've replayed the game for several times with the original patch installed (not completing it though) and there were no gamestoppers, no reoccuring, irressistible gltiches.

YET again: the fact that you do not encounter and/or notice bugs does not mean they don't exist.

Yeesh.

Other than that, you are also wrong. More bugs have been fixed by fans than by the Troika team by now.

 

[Bradylama]

All of the reported numbers concerning sales figures show sales for Troika games dropping from Arcanum down.

VtMB sold less than ToEE? i find that hard to believe...

are you sure you're not looking at revenue instead of salesfigures?

once Troika kicked the bucket, VtMB games sold for 9.99 euros overhere (in their normal boxes, no special editions). this might explain lower revenue numbers, but not lower sales.

According to the numbers released around March 1st:

Arcanum was the company's best selling game, and it only managed to sell 234K units and generate sales of $8.8 million, according to the NPD Group. It was downhill from there; The Temple of Elemental Evil sold 128K units ($5.2 million) and Bloodlines sold a paltry 72K units ($3.4 million). It didn't help either that Bloodlines, which was published by Activision and powered by the Source/Half-Life 2 engine, was released at the same time as Valve's blockbuster first-person shooter sequel.

In a thread about the numbers at the RPGcodex, Boyarsky commented:

I don't have any actual numbers at hand (nor do I know whether I can reveal numbers per our contract, since I don't have that with me at the moment either), but to the best of my knowledge, ToEE was our best seller - or at least our fastest. The reason it's difficult to say is because our numbers were often being adjusted after the fact for arcane business reasons (on the publisher's end). I believe Arcanum is close to ToEE in sales, but Arcanum has been out alot longer and is at a much lower price point. Vampire hasn't been out long enough to really judge how well it will eventually do, as our games tend to continue to sell (as do all RPGs) longer than most.

The reported sales figures, according to Boyarsky are iffy, but he does know for sure that ToEE was their fastest seller. If Bloodlines wasn't a success along the same lines, then it suggests to me that they lost their niche audience, and couldn't appeal enough to either shooter fans, or Vampire ones.

 

[Briosafreak]

I disputed those numbers from NPD based on the feedback from Boyarsky at the time. First they had this to say through a GameDaily Biz editor I was talking to:

Hi, thanks for the feedback. As I said in the article, those numbers are straight from NPD. I forwarded your email to the NPD rep to see what they thought of it, so here's what I received:

"I'm sorry they feel this way, but our POS numbers are dead-on. Remember that these sales figures are U.S. only. Maybe this is what has jonaac disputing the numbers?"

Hope that helps.

In fact we found at the time that NPD was doind estimates based in a small number of stores for their PCGaming numbers. That was why the numbers didn't fit, and since then NPD has changed the estimates methodology.

So Boyarsky was right (well he was the CEO, after all...) and I stoped reading much into NPDs figures for PC games prior to 2006, these days they seem to be much more correct generally speaking, as the console numbers were.

 

[SuAside]

well, i dunno about the US, but salesfigures in the EU are worth shit. they're constantly manipulated. my dad's gf works for the company that makes that kind of charts, mostly for music and fastmoving consumer goods, but i'm guessing it's pretty much the same for software. note that the company doing this is american, so i'm pretty sure it's just as fucked up in the USA as it is in the EU.

If Bloodlines wasn't a success along the same lines, then it suggests to me that they lost their niche audience, and couldn't appeal enough to either shooter fans, or Vampire ones.

you shouldn't say 'lost'. i bet a lot of Rock* fans dont buy the table tennis thing, but that doesn't mean they wouldnt have bought the next installment of GTA or similar game.

 

[zioburosky13]

There is a reason why Troika's games are so buggy because they have to balance the choice and consequence gameplay. I read it somewhere from a former Troika developer from rpgcodex, I think.... wish I had bookmark the site..

I don't like TOEE. But it's a refreshing D&D experience other than Bioware's Baldur's Gate series (which I personally think the whole 'C'RPG industry is following its footstep this day).

V:T Bloodline is hammered by its bugs. In fact I think it probaly is the most buggyest Troika game. Sluggish perfomance on my rig (mostly outdoor scene and my rig has 3xthe recommand requirement of it).

Arcanum is perhaps the one that still I keep installing everytime I reformat my HD (usually 7-9 months ). It's so addictive and never get tired of trying different character to get different gameplay and listen to those dialog (<4 inteligence hard orge is fun to play )

 

[SuAside]

There is a reason why Troika's games are so buggy because they have to balance the choice and consequence gameplay. I read it somewhere from a former Troika developer from rpgcodex, I think....

what? you're making no sense...

V:T Bloodline is hammered by its bugs. In fact I think it probaly is the most buggyest Troika game. Sluggish perfomance on my rig (mostly outdoor scene and my rig has 3xthe recommand requirement of it).

3x recommended, you say? that's 3.6ghz P4 or 3.6ghz AXP (doesnt exist, so let's assume overclocked), 1.5 Gb of RAM and a vidcard with 192mb of vidram (doesnt exist, it'll be 256mb then).

and you say you had trouble with that rig? i kinda doubt that... i ran it on high qual settings on a 2.53Ghz P4b (non-HT), 1gb RAM and a 9800pro 128mb (later a 6800GT 256mb).

 

[Brother None]

VtMB sold less than ToEE? i find that hard to believe...

are you sure you're not looking at revenue instead of salesfigures

http://www.rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=6612&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=100

Leon: "I don't have any actual numbers at hand (nor do I know whether I can reveal numbers per our contract, since I don't have that with me at the moment either), but to the best of my knowledge, ToEE was our best seller - or at least our fastest. The reason it's difficult to say is because our numbers were often being adjusted after the fact for arcane business reasons (on the publisher's end). I believe Arcanum is close to ToEE in sales, but Arcanum has been out alot longer and is at a much lower price point. Vampire hasn't been out long enough to really judge how well it will eventually do, as our games tend to continue to sell (as do all RPGs) longer than most. "

As for the topic, the incidental "I don't see no bugs" thing is funny. I played Arcanum without a patch first time through, couldn't get a ship because I didn't have high enough gamble, the dealer was broken (bug) and the pirate was broken too (bug). There's a game-ender for ya.

Fallout 1 was relatively bugless, 'cept for the infamous Infinite NPC bug. I can remember trying to trigger than one on purpose just to be able to shoot dozens of Ians. Take that, Ian!