How would YOU save Troika?

[Abu Antar]

hired a QA team

I came in here to say this, but this respectable gentleman took care of that in the very first reply.

 

[Chippy]

Throw 4m at them and ask them to make a traditional RPG.

When I say 'them' I mean the original guys, and not some college grads, new-hire-20-somethings, or Feargus Urquart's blowjob babysitter.

 

[a Goat]

I'd make 1 good game, for starters.

 

[Luckmann]

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.

And after that, you make Skyrim 2.

Never before have I related more to a piece of game art.

This is how I feel. Every day.

 

[Zer0wing]

Hire a producer, bookkeeper and actual manager. Or become their boss myself. They didn't have them and distract alot from actual game development to studio's management. That includes Avellone during his days of being co-founder of Obsidian, he didn't have much time to actually work on games while having to run the studio and defend colleagues from Feargus' malice.

This lack of, as we in russia say, a caesar in your head novadays destroys any opportunity to even create a pitch for the dream game. Gambling an 8M$ for a demo pitch is at least something. Skype callings and the intentions to compete with Cyberpunk 2077 is nothing.

 

[Nano]

QA teams are handled by the publishers, not developers.

 

[Zer0wing]

They've released 3 games for 3 different publishers (Sierra, Atari and Activision), and pretty much burned bridges with all of them.

This is ridiculous in case of Sierra. Sierra was home and the go-to publisher for unorthodox and foward thinking game devs. It was the one responsible for Phantasmogoria and quests in general, Half-Life with other goldsrc games and many more. How the fuck Troika didn't get along?

 

[AwesomeButton]

Isn't this thread about 15 years late?

 

[flyingjohn]

There was no way to save Troika.Not a single game they made was a financial success and sooner or later they would have closed shop.

If they never got involved with bloodlines we may have gotten a true fallout sequel.Their previous games were financial failures but bloodlines bled talent and broke them thanks to the engine problems.

 

[Ol' Willy]

uberwhore whose dual wielding two cutting edge dildo sabers.

 

[Luckmann]

QA teams are handled by the publishers, not developers.

Not always, but this as the norm has always puzzled me. I get that a publisher would want its own team of playtesters to make sure that the developers aren't just making shit up and selling them smoke and mirrors, but I feel (having no experience) like it'd be much better to have actual testers in-house and thus able to connect to the development team more freely.

 

[baud]

QA teams are handled by the publishers, not developers.

Not always, but this as the norm has always puzzled me. I get that a publisher would want its own team of playtesters to make sure that the developers aren't just making shit up and selling them smoke and mirrors, but I feel (having no experience) like it'd be much better to have actual testers in-house and thus able to connect to the development team more freely.

From what I understand of non-indie game development, it's that only towards the end of the development the game is in state that remotely looks like the end product, so testing the game before would be a waste of time. So for most of the project, the QAs wouldn't have much to do (or you'd have to hire some temporary workers at the end, which creates other issues).
If the QA is handled by the editor, the QA team of the editor could be rotated between the different games that the editor is publishing, as they reach the necessary maturity.

 

[vota DC]

I would give them sultan Erdogan so they have infinite time to make their games, means zero bugs.
Also some random emir.....I mean we have the retarded guy of PSG buying all top players and always failing miserably CL competition, why not being content to win in France only and invest some money in videogames?

 

[Tigranes]

I would give them sultan Erdogan so they have infinite time to make their games, means zero bugs.
Also some random emir.....I mean we have the retarded guy of PSG buying all top players and always failing miserably CL competition, why not being content to win in France only and invest some money in videogames?

lolno. They buy football clubs (1) for the amusement of owning something that's a cultural institution with big crowds that turn up physically to celebrate you; (2) and thus, reputation laundering. Videogames do neither.

 

[DalekFlay]

If my actual money was on the line I would have told them to make mainstream multiplatform games and to stop being idiots.

If it's not my money then they need to hold the line and make great PC exclusive CRPGs and immersive sims, just polish them more before release.

 

[ghostdog]

I would provide them with just enough money, food and drinks, to barely --just barely-- keep them afloat. So, in-between bouts of brilliance, drunken visions of grandeur, sloppy mismanagement and hellish crunch time, they'd release another deeply flawed masterpiece.

 

[Glop_dweller]

Would have found a way to facilitate them outbidding Bethesda.

 

[Darth Canoli]

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.

Well, that's about it.
They made Arcanum, a game with a great worldbuilding and quest design, then ToEE, no worldbuilding and great combat and character design and then Vampire, which i didn't play but seems to have a great worldbuilding at least but with the shittiest combat.

They just need to combine Arcanum/Vampire strengths to a revamped (to appeal to a larger number of players) ToEE engine and add good encounter design and they would produce the ultimate cRPG.

Then, after a lot of ports on every plateform, they would get rich beyond their wildest dreams.

 

[Alphons]

Make Arcanum Skyrim before TES Skyrim.

Later buyout InXile and release Wasteland 76.

 

[Tavernking]

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

Would you be interested in giving me money instead? I can make an RPG

 

[Joseph Stalin]

The thread should be "Which developer should save Arcanum." Fuck Troika.

 

[racofer]

Troika means "a three" in Russian.

The company only ever made three games.

Seems fine to me.