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How would YOU save Troika?

Tavernking

Don't believe his lies
Developer
Joined
Sep 1, 2017
Messages
1,216
Location
Australia
Troika - a company founded by Fallout devs and made the following: Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, The Temple of Elemental Evil, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines.

Personally: I would have tried to licence DND for more games, using the The Temple of Elemental Evil engine to make games based on other classic modules. Fire most of the programmers and many of the other staff. Most of the work has been done (you're reusing the same engine, perhaps adding a few new features each new game) and you have a guaranteed audience of DND fanboys. It wouldn't have been ambitious but it would have kept the money rolling in.
 
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CyberModuled

Savant
Joined
Mar 31, 2019
Messages
443
Even if they ended up stagnant in the long run, having the Bloodlines team they did in the ideal scenario where that game was financially successful would've held them over for a few more good RPGs is what I'd like to think.

aka, I really would've liked to see what that one engine they had planned could've done
 

youhomofo

Augur
Joined
Jul 13, 2005
Messages
142
I would start by not having fucked up Arcanum from the getgo. However much you like the world building and the Fallout devs, none of that matters if the gameplay itself is shit. And it is shit.

The worst of RtwP or the worst of TB does not a commercially successful game make. Fucking pick one and make it work right.

To be fair, I don't think Troika stood a chance. They could have been amazing by funding further development by releasing buggy as shit early access then gradually squashing bugs and listening to player input if they were around today.

So I would save Troika by somehow magically creating digital distribution before Steam. Then I'd take points off everyone who sells on my platform. The phat stacks I'd make doing that would eclipse anything my buggy games could make. So I'd stop developing them, get fat as fuck, grow a beard, and take regular trips to Thailand for the amazing culture and great food.
 
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Ol' Willy

Arcane
Zionist Agent Vatnik
Joined
May 3, 2020
Messages
24,574
Location
Reichskommissariat Russland ᛋᛋ
Give them:

- more money
- normal publisher THAT DOESN'T FUCKING FORCE THEM TO RELEASE THE GAME ON THE SAME DAY AS HL2
- license for Dark Sun
- license for Planescape
- license for Fallout
- Avellone

This way we could have get Fallout 3, Dark Sun 3 and Planescape 2 and rejoice
 

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
Patron
Joined
Oct 3, 2015
Messages
11,756
Personally: I would have tried to licence DND for more games, using the The Temple of Elemental Evil engine to make games based on other classic modules. Fire most of the programmers and many of the other staff. Most of the work has been done (you're reusing the same engine, perhaps adding a few new features each new game) and you have a guaranteed audience of DND fanboys. It wouldn't have been ambitious but it would have kept the money rolling in.
Was there even a possibility that TSR WotC Hasbro Atari would allow Troika to develop a second game using the D&D license, given that The Temple of Elemental Evil had low sales?

The combat aspect of the game being bad is overstated. Yeah, it's not great, but it doesn't really detract from the rest of the game, that at this point is mostly bugfree and remains one of best cRPGs ever made.
To quote from a wise post made on No Mutants Allowed, "Actually, Arcanum's real-time and turn-based combat system is often used as the primary example of how two combat systems DOESN'T work. Turn-based combat in Arcanum is hideous and the real-time is nothing fantastic. I'm not sure, but I *think* Tim Cain even acknowledged that the combat systems in Arcanum are horribly flawed. Arcanum itself is just an "okay" game, it certainly isn't a great game like Fallout."
Although I think if the real-time combat option had never been attempted, and instead the time saved had been expended on improving the turn-based combat with full party control, the result would have been at least serviceable. :M
 

Serus

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jul 16, 2005
Messages
6,680
Location
Small but great planet of Potatohole
The problem with combat in Arcanum is not necessary that of an attemp to make tb AND rt combat at the same time. Kingmaker showed that it is entirely within the realm of possibility. The main problem was how little effort went into designing combat in general, imo. Think of the boring enemies, almost non-existent encounter design, lack of any balance or fine-tuning. There was too little effort done to make combat interesting, challenging or fun. It shows that combat was relatively low on priority list, most effort went into designing location and quests. Taking that into consideration, even without the real time combat, the tb one probably wouldn't be much better. The additional time would be spend on more prioritised elements.
 

Farewell young Prince into the night

Guest
I would hire Julian Le Fay, Ted Peterson and Indigo Gaming and then ask for 12 million in my pitch so I could compete with Elder Scrolls VI and Cyberpunk.
 

normie

️‍
Patron
Zionist Agent
Joined
Mar 9, 2019
Messages
3,724
Insert Title Here
the first thing is to get them on TRT - make the relevant boomers biologically male again, then make them lift heavy weights

no women allowed, guard against the corrupting effect of gynocentric thought and socialisation on the games by protecting the people investing themselves into making them (not even voice acting, which wouldn't ever be an issue, because voice acting is a force of decline)

to unwind, scheduled meet-ups to discuss the speeches and writings of Adolf Hitler and to meditate on his teachings and example
 
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jackofshadows

Magister
Joined
Oct 21, 2019
Messages
4,488
So "Perestroika" means "The Perez Three"?
Hilarious ^_^ Different root. It's like to say overweight means "The Overw Eight".

I would put the team into cryostasis and release near rise of the kickstarter or even now thanks to more accessible tools, crowdfunding, steam EA and all that.
 

Kruno

Arcane
Patron
Village Idiot Zionist Agent Shitposter
Joined
Jan 2, 2012
Messages
11,478
If they added dragon shouts to their games then they would have sold a million times more.
 

Goldschmidt

Learned
Joined
Oct 27, 2019
Messages
461
Location
Swen Vincke's bedroom (Ghent)
Call in some AAA class whores to relieve these poor guys from their sexual frustrations. You have to remember that these guys have to suck up to all kinds of furries, lefties and female degenerates with half-shaven hair.

It will give them the much needed moral to develop a hooker sim where the size of breasts and penis are decided by throwing some dice. Of course there are natural bonuses that will be applied, depending on the race. You will have turn based fights with pimps on a hexagonal grid and as reward you will get 'access' to these whores. With enough dough, you can unlock special whores and gain their bonuses. When enough experience is gathered, you will have to fight the uberwhore whose dual wielding two cutting edge dildo sabers.

After the credits start rolling you see the protagonist having hot steamy sex with all the whores he won and you see the Nameless One and Vault Dweller joining the scene.

398.png


And after that, you make Skyrim 2.
 
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Azdul

Magister
Joined
Nov 3, 2011
Messages
3,328
Location
Langley, Virginia
Give them:
- normal publisher
They've released 3 games for 3 different publishers (Sierra, Atari and Activision), and pretty much burned bridges with all of them.

Nowadays if no publisher wants to talk to you anymore, you organize Kickstarter campaign. And later on, when you inevitably go over budget again, you sign contract with Deep Silver.
 
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
781
I wouldn't because Troika was meant to be a shining star that shines twice as bright and burn twice as fast, a meteor that made 3 awesome games and then died in glory

But as long as I live I'll never forget these precious moments we shared
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
33,052
Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Give them all my money (I have enough) to make an Arcanum 2 based on my own specifications

which means a full lesbian foot fetish questline in Madam Lil's brothel

It would be the perfect RPG and then they'd still go bankrupt and so would I as their investor, because good RPGs aren't bestsellers
 

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