Troika gone belly up?

[Claw]

Great, so we have one person who meets the minimum requirements and one who doesn't. Yes, there is a variety of computers out there, the point is?

Well duh, my point exactly. Basically Gonchi was making a statement about his PC, not the game or Troika.

 

[Roshambo]

A friend of mine who lives in the Irvine area did go to the sale, and yes, it was real.

He even ended up talking to Tim Cain about some networking gear. My buddy says he's a nice guy.

Are we sure this is the Tim Cain that works at Troika? I want to make sure he publicicly stated that yes, he was THE Tim Cain of Troika not just say that he was Tim Cain and we're falsely led to believe that Troika's Tim Cain was selling Troika's hardware. 8)

 

[Brother None]

Hey, thanks for setting things right Rosh. It's good to see that some of us haven't lost our minds to asskissery and mindless sycophantism. Yes, Welsh, I'm talking about you.

Figuring out who Andrew Meggs was a matter of elementary. He practically disclosed his identity with his nickname.

Hold your horses there Rex. Sycophantism has fuckall to do with this.

The internet is about anonymity. You register on phpBB under a nickname and that is your handle, that's all people deserve to know about you until you reveal more.

Your point stands, any moron could figure out it was Andrew. So why didn't you let them? If it's so obvious, don't point it out. Or I know one better, why didn't you just ask "So, who are you?" I'm sure Andrew would've been more than glad to reveal his identity, seeing as he did little trouble to cover it up. But you just assumed it was fine if you revealed it and quite frankly that assumption was totally without any base. If I had caught your post before it went onto other sites, I would've purged it.

You don't reveal personal info about other posters. It's rude.

I'm sorry if I sound a bit pissed off, but we basically got shafted by you, Rex. Gamespot saw another chance to mock us by quoting, for no clear reason, Andrew's angry response to you. What do you think this says to other devs? We've always been careful with people's identities and now we look like a bunch of fucktards who shout out our sources at any given oppertunities

Ok, sorry, I'll be fair, that's not really your fault, that's mostly Gamespot's misrepresentation.

But for future reference; revealing other people's private info is against forum policy.

 

[Roshambo]

I am going to take Devil's Advocate on this a bit.

Gamespot saw another chance to mock us by quoting, for no clear reason, Andrew's angry response to you.

Well, this assumes that Gamespot wouldn't try any trick for page views. They just did it cheaply this time, considering that the accusation of personal information doesn't really stand given that more than enough public information was given, it really isn't a big secret at that point. If you use your real name or some standard abbreviation of that, you are putting yourself public. Especially when you're using the e-mail addy of a development house.

What do you think this says to other devs?

That your personal information is only secret as long as you keep it so? If you don't want to be tied to publicly known information, then there are better ways to provide it rather than post with your real name on a message board and cry about it afterwards.

We've always been careful with people's identities and now we look like a bunch of fucktards who shout out our sources at any given oppertunities.

That is one aspect that does need to be clarified. Gamespot would indeed cash in on the "oh, how dare anyone do anything to upset a developer!" line, but those who are a bit brighter than Thor can piece together that everything said about Andrew Meggs and his identity was provided by himself. I don't care about any attention whoring game site's feeble attempt to cash in on page views, I don't care about any clannish political drama.

I am going by what is legally representatable in a court of law in terms to one's identity being known on the internet. Sorry, but once you use your name and tie an affiliation to that, you're already representing with your real identity.

Or are we going to throw a similar shitfit when DSmart comes onto the forum and starts throwing a tantrum because he saw some anti-BC posts, and someone lets people into the startling revelation that it is Derek Smart, developer of BC? Furquart? Tcain? Where does this silliness end?

 

[Brother None]

If you use your real name or some standard abbreviation of that, you are putting yourself public. Especially when you're using the e-mail addy of a development house.

Check his user settings, Rosh, his "Always show my email address" is set to "no", it can only be seen by admins (and Supermods?), it's not public info.

Apart from that, his nickname is "Mandrew". That's his first name and the first letter of his last name. I don't reveal Sander's full name, do I? And if I did, it would be a violation of his privacy.

Fact is, the only thing he made public was "Andrew M." and even that he didn't actually make public since he didn't post at his nick saying "this is my name". Seeing that, I don't think posting his private info falls within decent rules. Maybe if he posted under his last name, ok, but first name? No.

Not saying that it isn't his own fault. Even more so, if his info was posted on another site before it was posted here, AKA if he was identified somewhere else, I would've posted about it here, but I would still have considered it rude. However that's another place and this is our place and I do think it's our job to fight against this kind of rudeness, be it against devs or other people.

 

[Roshambo]

Check his user settings, Rosh, his "Always show my email address" is set to "no", it can only be seen by admins (and Supermods?), it's not public info.
...
Fact is, the only thing he made public was "Andrew M." and even that he didn't actually make public since he didn't post at his nick saying "this is my name". Seeing that, I don't think posting his private info falls within decent rules. Maybe if he posted under his last name, ok, but first name? No.

I do stand corrected, then. The last name and first initial are considered to be standard, and I failed to check and see if the e-mail was public or not. That was my mistake.

Apart from that, his nickname is "Mandrew". That's his first name and the first letter of his last name. I don't reveal Sander's full name, do I? And if I did, it would be a violation of his privacy.

And good point.

Considering this, I have some apologies to make. First to Andrew. Yes, you did have a part of your real name, but in light of what I have been made aware of, it would still be considered a thing for you to disclose. I was going by the e-mail, which threw me a red herring. I am sorry for wrongfully claiming that you did make your identity public when you had not, and in retrospect it would have been your choice to reveal it or not.

And lastly, to Torr. I am sorry you're still an idiot that needs to quote pick from other sites in order to come up with your bullshit. It must be easy to pretend you know what is going on, or went on before you entered Gamespot "journalism":

...which was cofounded by Black Isle Studios alumnus Tim Cain.

CLASSIC!

 

[Dukester]

So another RPG developer bites the dust. Remind me if I ever manage to get an independent company going to stick to the shareware / indie business model. It seems like almost every time a game developer signs a deal with a distributor, the distributor ends up killing them off.

It must be like how rocks stars end up in debt to the record companies even though their albums are selling wildly.

I think the only successful model is to make "a game" and then just keep milking it with periodic upgrades and expansions. Starting from scratch each time is ridiculous. Manufacturers really don't do this. Once you spend the capital to set up a production line, you sit back and sell that product for as long as you can, making minor tweaks and variations to remain competitive, but you don't suddenly switch from say making pipe plugs to car tires.

You have to dance with the girl that brought you if you want to make it. These companies expand to quickly, get too many irons in the fire, and then they run out of cash. They sign with a bigger fish like EA, Atari, Activision, or Microsoft, and then the big fish promptly eats them.

The big fish might be killing the geese that lay the golden eggs, but they don't care because in the software industry you can sell copies forever with essentially no manufacturing cost.

Greed -- every damn company wants to be the next Microsoft. Its totally killing the creativity in games and software.

 

[Radwarrior]

Can you imagine the pain and howls of rage if the Troika staff got jobs with Bioware?

Why? Maybe BioWare would then start developing half-decent games for a change.

It'd be the ex-Troika who would have to fit in while working under Bioware's system, not the other way around. At least they might learn how to turn a decent profit. Lord knows they could do with one.

Or maybe they will learn how to produce a game that works? I never played Vampire, mostly because after TOEE I swore I would never touch anything with Troika's name on it. So if vampire is an amazing game, I guess I'm gonna miss out.

The community had to beg troika to make the needed patches for that game and the end result, it still bugs out near the end and is unplayable.

Everyone blamed that on the publisher, but I'm not so sure. If your game has problems and they aren't fixed, nobody blames atari or refuses to buy another atari published game. The studio's need to take more responsibility for quality, troika didn't and they are history. I loved fallout every bit as much as you guys, but troika couldn't cut it. Good riddance.

 

[mettalhed]

If it's true that Troika are going out of business it's a real shame. I will agree that the bugs in their games, especially TOEE, could be very annoying. I do feel, however, that they did show alot of potential.

Take Arcanum for example, the ambiance in that game was amazing. I loved the blending of magic with technology, and the environments (most of them) were creative and fun to explore. The music fit the environment really well as well. I also thought that the backgrounds that you could choose from while creating your character, and the fact that they actually had an effect on your stats was a unique idea. At least it's the first time i've seen such a thing in an RPG that i can remember. The item creation system through the use of schematics was a unique idea too. Its a real shame they didn't implement a better turn based battle system.. or at the very least Pause and Play. Trying to heal yourself with a potion in the middle of getting the piss knocked out of you wasn't easy. Having some control over your allies would have been a nice touch too. I can't count how many times i had to reload my game because Virgil charged into combat with an enemy way out of his league.

Back to the point, bugs and the few complaints i had with the games aside, they were a whole hell of alot better then alot of the so called RPGs that have been coming out nowadays, with the exception of Vampires, why did they have to go with the whole 3rd person action thing, they were starting to distinguish themselves as makers of good RPGs, but then they had to go the straight up action route.

That does make me wonder what kind of battle system their PA RPG was going to have though. Even if it did end up being action oriented instead of turn based, i'm betting it still would have beat out alot of the generic crap that's being force fed to us.

That's just my opinion anyway, and i do hope Troika's talent will find a nice place to work for and maybe we'll see a good RPG come out in the future.

I'm not holding my breath though.

 

[Radwarrior]

Come to think of it, didn't iplay try to pretend they were still in business even after they were obviously shut down?

Didn't iplay go down with a PA RPG unfinished and much talked about?

It looks like troika might have picked up some of herve's tricks.

 

[Montez]

The community had to beg troika to make the needed patches for that game and the end result, it still bugs out near the end and is unplayable.

The publisher determines if a game gets a patch, not the developer, and how much time the developer gets to make that patch. It doesn't excuse having crippling bugs in the first place, but the patch was in Atari's hands, not Troika's.

 

[greatatlantic]

The community had to beg troika to make the needed patches for that game and the end result, it still bugs out near the end and is unplayable.

Everyone blamed that on the publisher, but I'm not so sure. If your game has problems and they aren't fixed, nobody blames atari or refuses to buy another atari published game. The studio's need to take more responsibility for quality, troika didn't and they are history. I loved fallout every bit as much as you guys, but troika couldn't cut it. Good riddance.

You do realize the publisher of the games decides when and what patches are released? Especially when the game is the publishers intellectual property. Furthermore, developing patches does take a lot time, which means money. I'm under the understanding that publishers compensate their developers for the time it takes to make patches. If Atari wasn't willing to give them the thumbs up, there was little Troika could do, except take the financial hit, release patches, and hope Atari doesn't sue them. It is easy to blame a developer, since there are so many of them a single developer's work shares a lot of common touches. Publishers, on the other hand, are very few in number. If you swear to never buy another Atari game in the future, you are missing a lot of games. Plus, their line-ups tend to be very diverse, making it hard to pidgeon hole them as buggy, action oriented, or what not.

Bloodlines was also had some bugs, but I think you really are missing the best RPG since Torment if you insist in not playing it.

 

[SimpleMinded]

What confuses me is... didn't troika have to bump back the release date for Vampire Bloodlines when Halflife 2 was postponed? Wouldn't that have given them a LOT of time to check for bugs since the game was supposed to be done already?

 

[Le Jedi Fou]

Boyarsky said that "Bloodlines is ready since 4 months, we're just waiting the release of HL2" was an urban legend.
And considering the bugs in Bloodlines, I tend on trust him