Troika R.I.P.

[Aku]

Troika, the maker of some popular games on this site - Arcanum, Temple of Elemental Evil, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines - is closing its doors. Another sad end to a creative and original developer.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/02/24/news_6119143.html

[Mochan]

Yeah, I've been hearing about this for a long time. While I am a bit sad to see them go, seeing as they made some of my favorite games (and I actually bought these games to support them as opposed to my usual you-know-what ways), I have to say that they don't have anyone to blame but themselves.

While they did have a kind of vision in what kind of games to do, they often fell flat in execution, and since their kind of game isn't the best-selling sure-hit type, it really needs to have good execution in order to prosper and set trends in the gaming world. All their games, every single one, reek of incompleteness and lack of balance/testing, poor coding, you name it. While it's true that they probably ran into some real foul conditions what with the Half Life 2 thing not allowing them to release their game, I found it hard to believe that their game was really finished and just sitting their waiting for Half Life 2 to be released, when it came out bug-ridden, unoptimized and apparently content-strapped more than 6 months after it was "supposed" to be released.

In the end, their games all just became derivatives of a Fallout/Deus Ex formula, and not well executed.

I am sorry to see them go, seeing as they never managed to release anything that they could really be proud of, I was really hoping for them to release a really good game to blow my socks off, and I'm sad that they never did. But at the same time, I say good riddance to a company that blew three strikes, and that the void they leave will be filled by other companies like Bethesda.

[Aku]

I am sorry to see them go, seeing as they never managed to release anything that they could really be proud of, I was really hoping for them to release a really good game to blow my socks off, and I'm sad that they never did. But at the same time, I say good riddance to a company that blew three strikes, and that the void they leave will be filled by other companies like Bethesda.

Bah, they could be proud of Arcanum. It was a great rpg. Sure it had its problems, and it was definitely unbalanced (I played as an all-tech gunslinging dwarf with an army of mechs, and crushed everything in my path - right up to the end of the game), but it was great fun and had a cool world to explore.