Company News Bizarre rumours: Troika shutting down?

[Jinxed]

Everyone? You're kidding. I don't get any stutter in HL2.

Troika was also supposed to implement the stutter fix patch, according to Leon or one of the other guys, but they never did it.

Well if it was only me they wouldn't bother releasing a patch now would they?

 

[Sammael]

And if you have Geforce 4MX... well, you just deserve it.

Except that I have a GeForce 4 Ti4200 with 128 megs of RAM. It's not state of the art, but it's a decent card that can still run pretty much every game (except FarCry) with decent level of detail and decent graphics.

Bloodlines behaves the same regardless of the Video and Visual options I set (works just as bad on 800x600 as on 1600x1200), so the problem is not with my GPU, I think.

The only conclusion I have is that I don't have enough RAM - but 512 MB is what they recommend, is it not?

As for bugs, I've so far encountered two critical bugs. Once, I was stuck in an elevator without the ability to press any buttons and open the doors. The second time, in the peep show quest, the last voyer wouldn't leave after I robbed the change machine (and I left the game running for an hour, just in case... tried exiting and coming back, etc). Neither bug is addressed in the patch.

Troika has always had great ideas, but failed horribly in their execution. Arcanum was buggy and ubalanced as hell. ToEE was buggy and bland as hell. Bloodlines is buggy and slow as hell. If we combined all three, we'd get a game that had a great setting, good atmosphere, interesting NPCs, and fantastic combat - but the amount of bugs would cause the computer to spontaneously combust.

 

[Jinxed]

Hate to brake it to you Sammael, but your rig is really poor. No new game using DX9 can run well on it. You might get a half decent framerate with opengl games.

Recommended specs are to trick the newbies into thinking they might actually have a smooth experience playing a given game on their machines making it a more or less convincing factor in buying the game. It never works.

 

[Sol Invictus]

My friend Jason can play Far Cry and Half Life 2 on his Ti4200 just fine, even with the details turned on high with a resolution of 1024x768. He just disables AA and AF. It never goes below 40fps.

He can't play Bloodlines.

 

[Sammael]

Hate to brake it to you Sammael, but your rig is really poor. No new game using DX9 can run well on it. You might get a half decent framerate with opengl games.

Recommended specs are to trick the newbies into thinking they might actually have a smooth experience playing a given game on their machines making it a more or less convincing factor in buying the game. It never works.

Didn't I just say that I can play pretty much every new game without problems? I expect you know better than I do how my computer runs, then.

As an example, I played both Doom 3 and NFSU2 and experienced no problems at all.

 

[dojoteef]

Well the buggyness of the games is mainly due to Troika's inability to manage a project properly. I believe if they honestly got a proper studio manager instead of having certain individuals (*cough*Tim, Leon*cough*) double as a project lead and a manager, their games would be much more polished. Then they need to plan out their games better. If they contract for a certain amount of funding and time, they need to make sure that it is enough for them to make the game. They have great ideas and they implement them. The problem is in doing the boring stuff; they seem to have an aversion to it. If you talk to most developers they'll tell you that when they near the end of a game's development, they are mainly doing boring stuff. Why? Because they aren't making new things, they are sitting there trying to fix bugs and optimize performance. They will tend to do a code freeze and start bug fixing. Troika apparently hasn't learned this impotant concept yet, which is why their games are unpolished.

So if Troika got bought out by a company that would be willing to let them keep their own creative control of the projects, but would manage the projects for them, I think it would be great all around. Either that, or they need to hire some veteran managers from the game industry. If instead they decide to keep their ego trip (hi I'm Tim "the producer, lead programmer and designer for Fallout" Cain) then they are going to run themselves into the ground.

 

[Jinxed]

I think your definition of problems is different from mine. I like to watch how my brother plays certain games on his GF3, he's like "it runs well". What I see is a fucking slide show, he's like "no problems".

When I loaded up Doom 3 I got 5 fps in certain areas, visible when you look up on the engine of the ship that dropped you off. When you stare at a wall, Behold! 60 fps!

Exit, does your friend Jason have 512 ram? Did he turn on an fps display so he knows that he has a constant 40 fps? You see, that's what I love about statements like these. Someone plays a game staring at a wall for 5 minutes getting a good frame rate and then goes on a forum writing just how much his rig is bad ass because it runs the game well while everyone else is crying. It's blatant lies and in a way reassuring that you don't need to upgrade since your computer runs games well. In fact, it's fucking great. You feel so much better than those loosers who bought those cards for 1k $ just to turn on AA.

I played Far Cry on Radeon pro 9600 without AA on 1280x1024 and got FPS drops many times, now tell me, how come your friend who has a much older card, one which doesn't support dx9 runs it just as well if not better? Oh yeah, I forgot, his rig is bad ass.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Yes, he's got 512mb ram. Not high speed ram mind you, but it's DDR all the same. We ran a FRAPS model to calculate the framerate he was getting on Far Cry and Half Life 2 and averaged at 40-50. It went to 12-15 a couple of times for a second or so but it was only during a couple of really nasty explosions.

As I said, he doesn't play it on AA or AF, and there's really no need. It looks better, somewhat, but compared to model animations and framerate it's really not that important.

Why are you playing on 1280x1024, anyhow? That'll equate to a 20fps drop. Resolutions eat up framerate much more than anything else. A 9600 will run Far Cry at 1280x1024 rather poorly. Playing CS:S on my 9800XT at 1280x1024 and max details gave me an average framerate of 60fps. That's bad. I set it down to 1186xfunnynumber or so and that's jumped up to 90fps average, 60 minimum. Problem's with overheating, I think. I'm getting a CoolViva come monday (shipment got delayed) so that'll be alleviated.

 

[EvoG]

Ha. Farcry on a Ti4200 with the settings on HIGH and at 1024x at an avg. of 40fps? Not a chance. I'm sure you guys did get 40 in areas, more like what Jinxed says, but throughout the experience...no way, regardless of this testing software or that.

I can possibly believe those numbers on at MOST medium settings and less, but HIGH is techincally impossible as you'd blow your vid ram and texture swapping would tank you. I'm unfortunately on a 128meg card and got aced in the sack when I tried to do it on high, and my system is tight ( 3.4 P4, 1.5 gigs ram, 5950FX, SATA 160 gig ). Doom3? BRAAAAAP...no way but more earthly settings..again high will gobble vid ram. HL2 has the best chance with their highly scalable engine but barely.

No sound stuttering in HL2 for me either btw.

As for Troika...well honestly I haven't cared for a title they've made since Arcanum, so it sucks but I dont think I'm going to feel the loss. They're all talented enough to hit other studios quickly so thats good. And yea, him not denying said rumor is more or less confirming there's at least a problem.



Cheers

 

[Fez]

A lot of people turn up to high resolutions when they don't need to, for instance with a 17" monitor 1024 X 768 is fine for anything really. If you are desperate to get a smoother picture it can sometimes be more benificial or performance cost efficient to use a lower resolution and turn on AA instead.

 

[Surlent]

Well the buggyness of the games is mainly due to Troika's inability to manage a project properly.

There might be other reasons as well. If I remember right, Troika doesn't do internal QA as much as the publisher does their QA. Miscommunications between the two parties would explain a lot of issues like the bugginess.

 

[Volourn]

"I personally don't buy it at all since they just shipped a game that seems to be doing well and since Temple of Elemental Evil sold pretty solidly as well."

Eh? I'd be surprised if BL did as well s TOEE. Afterall, the first month or so, BL has basically falled down the toiler. And, I'll say that even though, I like it.

Now, on to the real issue. I liked Arcanum, disliked TOEE but saw its positives, and liked BL inspite of the Bug Mass. I'd be dissapointed if Troika goes under as then it be just Bioware and Obsidian actually PC RPGs I actually want to play. None of this Gothic and Divine Divinty shit people. And, keep your trashy Spiderweb games too.

That said, if Troika is having toruble; if they'd be smart, they ask someone for help. Yes, possibly even Bioware. Then again, for some reason, I don't see the ego that is Tim Cain & Co asking for that kind of help. They'd rather have the comapny completely fizzle most likely. I would hope to be proven wrong on that.

Though; i don't know why some people are shocked. Afterall, as far as we know, Troika basically has no actual games in dvelopment. Just some random cocnepts they've been trying to push onto publishers and they've been obviously doing a poor sell job on them... So, it's not surprising that their cash flow is starting to hit a brick wall.

R00fles!


P.S. This isn't news; but entertaining nontheless.

 

[dojoteef]

Well the buggyness of the games is mainly due to Troika's inability to manage a project properly.

There might be other reasons as well. If I remember right, Troika doesn't do internal QA as much as the publisher does their QA. Miscommunications between the two parties would explain a lot of issues like the bugginess.

Any QA department that couldn't notice the bugs in ToEE or Bloodlines would have to consist of blind deaf lepers. Considering those were from two different publishers, I honestly don't think you can say that it has anything to do with the QA departments. Even if the QA departments were bad in both cases, it still doesn't change the fact that there had to be mismanagement. In order to make sure a game is bug free, the developers have to ensure they catch as many bugs as possible. Here's a good article called Production Testing and Bug Tracking. And here's are some excellent quotes from the article:

Don't rely on your publisher to do all of your testing. Do testing in-house. Either have a testing department, or, if you don't have the budget for one, you'll have to have people on the team do the testing. That's what I mean by production testing: the producers do it.

Generally, any asset or feature is going to need a lot of testing. The person who creates the asset or feature should test it before submitting it. Their lead should test it before signing off on it. In house testing should test before each milestone is submitted. The publisher should test it before it is sent to the console manufacturer. The console manufacturer tests it before releasing it.

It's quite possible you work at a place where upper management isn't going to spring for in-house testing. All this means is that you have to do more testing yourself. Because we had no testing department handy, I, the lead programmer, spent about a third of my time every day playing Tony Hawk when we ported it to the Dreamcast. Rough job, eh?

Ultimately it is up to the developer to make sure they have tested the game as well as they can. Expecting the publisher's QA do magically be able to fix all your problems is ludicrous.

 

[Fez]

I'd say both were to blame, as in the end the publisher must approve it for release, knowing full well it is shipping a buggy product.

 

[Volourn]

Yet, you are the one who wants to give ALL the credit to the developer except for disc copying. Talk about double standards.

 

[Fez]

Not at all Vollie, the developer makes a bad product, but the publisher passes it on to the customer, therefore they share equally in the blame.

Imagine a factory knowingly sells dangerously shoddy cars to a dealer and the dealer then sells them on, knowing that they are shoddy and dangerous. They are both to blame for the product, but it is the dealer who gets the blame for when the fuel tank explodes and the customer gets burnt.

When I get burnt with a shoddy troika product, the publisher who pushes the product out to me (the customer) is bound to be frowned upon the most.

 

[Naked_Lunch]

So it's the publisher's fault that Troika can't code for shit? Yeah, the publisher is to blame for basically passing along Bloodlines even though it had texture problems in the opening cutscene, but don't you think Troika would've caught that when they tested the cutscene? On all computers I installed it on I had graphical glitches in the first movie. It's like they don't even play their own games, anyone would've caught that.

 

[Fez]

Try reading it again, clueless.

 

[Naked_Lunch]

Troika shoudn't have to rely on the fucking publishers, who only care to get the game out on the shelves. If Troika is so poor that they can't test the first fucking 2 minutes of the opening cutscene then the blame deserves to go to them, all the publisher does is get the game out on the shelves so they can make money. They know fucking well they can just release a patch later.

 

[Quentin Payne]

I used to work for QA at a big company, and if I had signed off on those movies in Vamp I woulda been fired. Blaming the dev is BS, they should have taken it away fro Troika if they couldn't do the job. Activision decided when to release this buggy POS from those bug masters at Troika.

Arcanum 2! No more FPS RPG wannabees!

Quentin

 

[Naked_Lunch]

Arcanum 2! No more FPS RPG wannabees!

Well, that doesn't have a good chance of happening...
http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11676

Also I wasn't putting the blame entirely on my dear Troika, I was just stating it's pretty bad when the creators of the game can't even see glaring bugs like the movie glitches, which also says volumes about Activision's commitment to "quality".

 

[Fez]

When you disagreed with me saying they were both to blame it sounded like you were putting the blame all on Troika.

 

[dojoteef]

Trying to blame the publishers is all good and well, but you have to understand they are in a business. The developer makes an offer to the publisher to release a product within certain budget and time constraints. They can't afford to keep throwing money at a developer. Yeah, in the "good ole days" they would tend to give more money and time to developers if they had mismanaged, but now adays that is becoming a slim occurence. There are entirely too many games being released now for the publishers to take the risk. So if the developer doesn't send the game off to the publishers in time to for the QA to catch the bugs and get back to them, it's the fault of the developer.

Yeah, it's a shame that the publisher might put out a bad product; but would you rather that they didn't ship any products that were less than perfect and then go under because they can't afford to stay in business anymore? It's more the developer's fault with these bugs than the publisher's fault, and that's a fact.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

I blame EA. Fuckers would mess up a wet dream. D:

 

[Naked_Lunch]

I blame the ignorant masses who need their Halo fix.