Tim Cain doesn't comment on Fallout 3

Silencer said:
Hur hur hur. I wonder if Tim's reserve suffices to instill some temperance in the more mindless and vocal criticizers (not "critics"!) of Fallout 3 ;)
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Exactly. :clap:
 
In some sense, I feel bad because it appears that Timmy blames himself for the fall of Troika. It also seems that for that exact reason he chooses to remain in the shadows.

Tim, get over it! Sometimes you win, sometimes you loose. The end of Troika wasn't your fault- you just had the misfortune of being one of the dot.com victims (and Activision to a large extent). Get back on the fucking horse and stop depriving us of one of the most creative geniuses in the industry.

just my 2 cents.
 
Actually, the fall of Troika was partially Tim's fault. And Leonard's and Jason's. No two ways about it, they were just not brilliant businessmen. Yeah, they got screwed over pretty bad by others, but no reason to exonerate them fully.

I wish circumstances could exist in which Tim, Leonard and Jason, if you can get him out of his current comfy existence, could team up again without having to bother with management or PR this time around. Not gunna happen, tho'
 
it's not the marketing that failed, it was the management/business side mostly. (games like V:tM-B were marketed well enough, i think.)
 
I still think that the main reason for their demise was the state of the industry at the time. That’s why I see no good reason why Timmy shouldn’t try again, just as Kharn said, perhaps not as a businessman but as creative director of sorts.

The .com is booming again, now its the time to get back - until the next bubble bursts.
 
SuAside said:
it's not the marketing that failed, it was the management/business side mostly. (games like V:tM-B were marketed well enough, i think.)
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Sovz said:
I still think that the main reason for their demise was the state of the industry at the time.
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The fact that Troika kept on bringing bug-ridden games to market didn't help to boost sales, and of course that meant a rush to publish the next product. Poor press did a lot of damage, but there is also a very toxic effect of putting time and effort into playing a challenging game only to find some game-ending bug...
 
Yeah, well, look at those companies. Interplay went de facto bankrupt, got purchased, and went de facto bankrupt again, Bethesda went de facto bankrupt and was purchased.
 
Ausir said:
They weren't more bug-ridden than, say, Elder Scrolls games or Fallout 2.
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No, but that isn't the point. The point is that their reputation for releasing buggy games did damage to their reviews, and consequently, their sales.

It is one thing to have bugs in a game that you can pick-up-blast-put-down, but Troika's output was much more ambitious and demanding than that. Intelligent games are inherently niche, but if you simultaneously alienate your audience or potential customers with bugs, then it is a real problem. This is especially true if you happen to be a relatively small company, where economics place you in thrall to your publishers.

Releasing games with bugs isn't such a problem if you have the marketing might to overcome the negative press. It also helps if you have the resources available to quickly address the bugs, and that timeliness certainly wasn't Toika's strong point
 
Sniff said:
The game is not "the spiritual sucessor"? OK. Agreed already. But it will have some elements important to any Fallout fan. And that's important to me. Doesn't matter it's Bethesda's product. Play it, than judge - that' what I'm gonna do. Thank you.
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Yes, yes... I can indeed follow this flawless argumentation.

Not everyone will like Agent Orange in his daily air to breathe,
but there will be elements in this air, every fan of air
has loved to date, and were important to them.

So, take a deep breathe first, and then judge.

Erm, thank you? :?

To take some elements completely from their context,
aye, that will hardly make sense very often.
 
Troikas problem was, that they had to take 'deals' that wasn't that good, i think.
They had to make something to keep running, and so they seem to have thought "Hmm normally we would need 10millions and 20 months to do such a game, but they are only willing to give us 8millions and 15months".
There fore they were in 60-80hrs a week, and in such work conditions you start producing bugs...
Also they had the problem, they weren't able to quite deliver in time.
So they hoped every game "After we've finished it, the Publisher will work with us again, giving us some more money, and more time" - But it never happened.

So it was a bit of hubris and not-so-good deals. Mixed with a bit of misfortune...

At least, that's what i'm thinking about it ;)
 
Bernard Bumner said:
Releasing games with bugs isn't such a problem if you have the marketing might to overcome the negative press. It also helps if you have the resources available to quickly address the bugs, and that timeliness certainly wasn't Toika's strong point
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This is more the fault of the publishers than Troika, though. At least in the case of Bloodlines it was.
 
Sander said:
Bernard Bumner said:
Releasing games with bugs isn't such a problem if you have the marketing might to overcome the negative press. It also helps if you have the resources available to quickly address the bugs, and that timeliness certainly wasn't Toika's strong point
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This is more the fault of the publishers than Troika, though. At least in the case of Bloodlines it was.
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It was also the case of Temple of Elemental Evil...
It paints me how much better this game could've been but because of Atari it's just a shadow... meh.
 
I think that the main problem was, that after Arcanum they stopped doing story-based classic cRPGs.
They made a dugeon crawl and a FPP RT RPG with vampires, instead.
 
People always mention bugs as one of the prime reasons for why Troika went under. I don’t buy that crap. Reviews had nothing to do with Troika’s demise. As far as I recall almost all major game reviews praised Troika’s games for their innovativeness and game play, giving their games high scores despite having numerous nasty bugs in them. Same can be said about the fanbase. All of Troika’s games (with the exception of TTOE which I didn’t really like) were notably hyped (and for a good reason) and were well received both within the industry and within the game communities they addressed. There was always constructive word to mouth advertising as well mainstream media coverage – all of which were of a rather positive nature, despite those mentioned bugs.

If anyone is to blame, it’s the publishers, who rushed game development, withheld funds and demanded unrealistic deadlines. Sierra, Atari and Activision – all withheld much needed cash while hindering additional licensing problems.

Don’t forget, Arcanum was considered quite a financial success, and Sierra is to blame for blocking the sequel from being made.

One thing should be stressed – Troika did release various patches to address game bugs, sometime even without pay, as the case of Vampire.
This is one of reasons why Tim, Leon and Jason are held in such a high regard among the fans, and IMO it’s the reason why they should get some financial backing and get back together. We could really use some quality RPG’s for a change.
 
Ausir said:
They did a dungeon crawl, but it was a damn good tactical dungeon crawl.
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I agree. The problem is that a niche for turn-based tactical dungeon crawls is a lot smaller than the niche for games like Fallout and Arcanum.
 
Sovz said:
If anyone is to blame, it’s the publishers, who rushed game development, withheld funds and demanded unrealistic deadlines.
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Sorry, but no. Deadlines are negotiated over, simple as that. Troika knew in advance what the deadlines were, and they didn't make them properly. That's not the fault of the publishers, that's Troika's fault for not planning development right and being too ambitious with the content.
 
Ausir said:
They did a dungeon crawl, but it was a damn good tactical dungeon crawl.
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I agree. Dungeon crawl =! dungeon crawl... Compare Arcanum's mines which were pretty annoying and for example ToEE's moathouse- different quality.
Besides, ToEE is one of few games that use normal D&D system (not f**ked up BG's AD&D) and I'd like to play more games like that.
But it seems that nobody is interested in making games like this... It's all about bloom and hype, via Fallout 3.
 
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