How conservative are you? What new shit do you want?

[Kaanyrvhok]

The game was a year away from being a 360 launch title. How does that not happen?

And compete with games like Condemned ? no way the xbox 360 tards would have bought a source engine-level game when launch titles featured stuff like Condemned. You have to understand that market before thinking you could wave your magic wand and make millions. Apart from the nice character faces Bloodlines was technically subpar. It had huge loading times and would practically have taken a rewrite to stuff it into the 512 mb of xbox 360 ram, even if it didn't run on a full OS like PC games.
To go by your plan Troika should've fired most of their developers and hire competent graphic wizards.

Morrowind sold well next to Halo and an allaround better group of launch titles yet Bloodlines cant sell next to Condemned?

Gamers tend to let graphics slide if a game is large in scope, good and or has RPG elements. GTA is a fine example of that, Dragon Age is an ugly 360 game, Two Worlds and Morrowind were nothing special to look at. I don't blame Troika. After the success of western RPGs and first person games on the original Xbox Activision should have penned Bloodlines as a next gen launch title and covered the cost for porting it.

 

[Twinkle]

As much as RPGs console audience could handle. :D

Also, why so much bitching about ToEE? Ironically, it was realtime action-heavy game that killed Troika, not hardkkore turnbased D&D one.

The main problems with their games were shitload of bugs and crappy publisher support, not interfaces or whatever.

I don't have any actual numbers at hand (nor do I know whether I can reveal numbers per our contract, since I don't have that with me at the moment either), but to the best of my knowledge, ToEE was our best seller - or at least our fastest. The reason it's difficult to say is because our numbers were often being adjusted after the fact for arcane business reasons (on the publisher's end). I believe Arcanum is close to ToEE in sales, but Arcanum has been out alot longer and is at a much lower price point. Vampire hasn't been out long enough to really judge how well it will eventually do, as our games tend to continue to sell (as do all RPGs) longer than most.

leon

Though I agree that BL had a lot of potential audience among console crowd.

 

[MetalCraze]

@Kaanyrvhok:
So what does that collection of quotes prove? I fail to see anyone writing how it is more comfortable with a gamepad.
Besides there are much more designs than radial menus. Perhaps you should check -PC- games from time to time?

I played the demo for it. It was surprisingly good. It was more like a superior fun version of Dynasty Warriors than Total War. It was Total War in name only.

This wasn't the point - the point is that you can't play Total War on consoles.

There are plenty console RPGs where you control large parties. Blazing Heroes, and Fire Emblem had huge parties. KOTOR could have handled 6 if Bioware had such ambitions.

I don't know about others but you control only one character at a time in KotOR. Knowing other console games however it's all the same in them.
Again you can't control a party with a gamepad. Add to that the shitty combat.

You were the one that wanted a RTS with voice rec. If its Natal you are going to shit on it no matter how good it is. This thread has come full circle.

I wanted RTS with voice control? And what does voice control has to do with a fake-camera? Dude, this is the 4th quote in a row where you fail at reading comprehension. Please show me a quote where I wrote that.

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

@Kaanyrvhok:
So what does that collection of quotes prove? I fail to see anyone writing how it is more comfortable with a gamepad.
Besides there are much more designs than radial menus. Perhaps you should check -PC- games from time to time?

I never said anything was more comfortable with a pad. That was someone else talking about Oblivion. I stated that ToEE had a clunky interface and that the pie menu had a consolish feel. ToEE reminded me a lot of that Lotr RTS that EA ported to the 360. NWN's was just as clunky. Control wise ToEE would be an easy console port.

This wasn't the point - the point is that you can't play Total War on consoles.

Rome and previous could play on todays consoles. They werent really spec heavy. The controls would probably suffer but it could be done using the sticks to scroll and select troops. The real problem is the audiance. I dont think RTSs will move on consoles unless its Halo, you can fight along side, or if it has the novelty of voice commands.

I don't know about others but you control only one character at a time in KotOR. Knowing other console games however it's all the same in them.
Again you can't control a party with a gamepad. Add to that the shitty combat.

You can que stuff and click to move is easy to replicate in console games. Lots of em had it. Worked swell in FSW.

I wanted RTS with voice control? And what does voice control has to do with a fake-camera? Dude, this is the 4th quote in a row where you fail at reading comprehension. Please show me a quote where I wrote that.

Natal has voice rec and gesture rec. I can think of no better genre for Natal than RTS but for now and maybe for good its goofy party stuff. We will see.

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

Why could they not afford to be conservative and why do you think they weren't, anyway? Their games didn't have AAA+ production values so they could afford it. They didn't spend a shitload of money on graphics, animations and famous people as voiceactors. They tried to appeal to a niche, and they failed because of delivering buggy products, having shitty project management and their publishers sucked, not because they didn't aim at a broad enough audience.

Troika didnt have to aim at a broader audience. The audience was there for them. Again I blame their publishers for not going multiplatform especially with Bloodlines. Troika really didnt have to change. My only beef with Troika was ToEE's design which I already talked about and others expanded on.

Also, of course their PC fanbase would be pissed. And the games Troika made were PC-centred anyways. They had gameplay that was well known and loved by PC players but unknown on consoles. The Troika devs themselves are PC players, not console players. They know how to design good PC RPGs. They don't know how to design a good console game because they have no experience developing them.

PCs RPG were envogue on consoles. Troika didnt have to change. From what it sounds like they wanted to make action RPGs anyway so starting with the platforms that have standard controllers makes sense and only a tiny minority of PC snobs would take issue with that.

It would be like telling the makers of Ninja Gaiden to suddenly make Arcanum 2 with tactical turnbased combat, lots of C&C and a branching storyline. Or like telling an engineer who specialized on repairing factory machines to repair a spaceship for a change. The end result would be shit.

Most devs that I know see variety as the spice of life and dislike being pigoned holed into designing one style of game. Troika had some variety in their step and taste. Just like Bioware and Obsidian you were going to see more spice.

Because the game you suggest ToEE should have been is something I wouldn't really like to play. Mostly because of its multiplayer focus. I don't mind action RPGs, I like them as long as the combat is fun, but if your version of ToEE had been released, the Codex wouldn't like it as much as it does now.

Oh no question. I get what you are talking about because Alpha Protocol's combat looks boring. I would have liked to see other D&D RPGs with ToEE's combat just not ToEE with it lol.

Yes, you're talking about console titles. Fact is, I don't care about consoles and neither do many other PC gamers. Another fact is that PC exclusive RPGs did sell really well for over 20 years.

I'm talking about console owners. Those PC exclusives didnt do as well as they should have. A game like PST should have sold multi millions.

Black Isle went down because Interplay went down, Interplay went down because Herve pulled some retarded shit like making console action spinoffs (BG Dark Alliance, FO Brotherhood of Steel) and canceling the RPGs that the fanbase would've liked to play. Van Buren and BG3 would have made a lot more profits than those shitty spinoffs.

Thats the truth with omission. Ipply didnt understand the market. After IWD 2's numbers and BGDA's they musta thought they had something on consoles but they didnt. BGDA sold off of name value. The lesson learned should have been that they always had the market as long as the games werent shitty. The problem was that those games were late and that they were spin offs. People wanted the real thing. Van Buren and BG 3 should have been the games to go multiplatform after BG 1&2, PST, and a FO package. That would have done more than save Ipply and Isles. Again like Trokia they didnt have to sell out in anyway or change anything. The market was there.

 

[MetalCraze]

Rome and previous could play on todays consoles. They werent really spec heavy

You don't get it do you?

The controls would probably suffer but it could be done using the sticks to scroll and select troops.

Yeah, like spending 30 seconds to select your troops. That's like very fun and comfortable. Have you ever wondered why there are no RTS on consoles besides very slow crap like Halo Wars and C&C3?

You can que stuff and click to move is easy to replicate in console games.

Again you will spend like what... 5+ seconds to move your character to a needed position (see Mass Effect)?
This isn't a game - this is a chore.
And can you select two party members at a time very fast in the time of need? Or 3? Or 4?
Gamepad is just a joke when you need speed and precision.

Console developers should just stick to platformers and fighting games.

Natal has voice rec and gesture rec. I can think of no better genre for Natal than RTS but for now and maybe for good its goofy party stuff.

So how will you control your RTS armies with a mic?
Probably something like this:

Natal-sheep: "OMG enemy tanks are coming! Quick Group 1 attack... attack.. those guys! No you idiots not those guys, those guys!" all with waving your hands around like a retard.

PC gamer: *click - click*

 

[MetalCraze]

Rome and previous could play on todays consoles. They werent really spec heavy

You don't get it do you?

The controls would probably suffer but it could be done using the sticks to scroll and select troops.

Yeah, like spending 30 seconds to select your troops. That's like very fun and comfortable. Have you ever wondered why there are no RTS on consoles besides very slow crap like Halo Wars and C&C3?

You can que stuff and click to move is easy to replicate in console games.

Again you will spend like what... 5+ seconds to move your character to a needed position (see Mass Effect)?
This isn't a game - this is a chore.
And can you select two party members at a time very fast in the time of need? Or 3? Or 4?
Gamepad is just a joke when you need speed and precision.

Console developers should just stick to platformers and fighting games where you constantly need to press 3+ buttons at once - useless in all other genres.

Natal has voice rec and gesture rec. I can think of no better genre for Natal than RTS but for now and maybe for good its goofy party stuff.

So how will you control your RTS armies with a mic and a camera? You can do jack shit with them because you'll need something like precision.
So it probably will be something like this:

Natal-sheep: "OMG enemy tanks are coming! Quick Group 1 attack... attack.. those guys! No you idiots not those guys, those guys!" all with waving hands around like a retard. (And now imagine that you will also want to outmanoeuver enemies, not just attack them right in the face - ohoho)

PC gamer: *click - click*

 

[dr. one]

i want a game oozing enthusiasm and creatibity
i´m kinda conservative

 

[JarlFrank]

Why could they not afford to be conservative and why do you think they weren't, anyway? Their games didn't have AAA+ production values so they could afford it. They didn't spend a shitload of money on graphics, animations and famous people as voiceactors. They tried to appeal to a niche, and they failed because of delivering buggy products, having shitty project management and their publishers sucked, not because they didn't aim at a broad enough audience.

Troika didnt have to aim at a broader audience. The audience was there for them. Again I blame their publishers for not going multiplatform especially with Bloodlines. Troika really didnt have to change. My only beef with Troika was ToEE's design which I already talked about and others expanded on.

Ah, finally a point that we can agree on. Yes, Troika shouldn't have changed and Bloodlines did have multiplatform potential.
But still, multiplatform also means a longer developing time as Troika have to port the game to other platforms, too. First making a PC version then making a port with a smaller team/outsourcing it would have been a good idea, though.

Also, of course their PC fanbase would be pissed. And the games Troika made were PC-centred anyways. They had gameplay that was well known and loved by PC players but unknown on consoles. The Troika devs themselves are PC players, not console players. They know how to design good PC RPGs. They don't know how to design a good console game because they have no experience developing them.

PCs RPG were envogue on consoles. Troika didnt have to change. From what it sounds like they wanted to make action RPGs anyway so starting with the platforms that have standard controllers makes sense and only a tiny minority of PC snobs would take issue with that.

What do you mean by standard controllers? Like Microsoft not letting you publish a buggy game for XBox or the consoles having standardized controllers (cause PC also has them, like mouse + keyboard)?

It would be like telling the makers of Ninja Gaiden to suddenly make Arcanum 2 with tactical turnbased combat, lots of C&C and a branching storyline. Or like telling an engineer who specialized on repairing factory machines to repair a spaceship for a change. The end result would be shit.

Most devs that I know see variety as the spice of life and dislike being pigoned holed into designing one style of game. Troika had some variety in their step and taste. Just like Bioware and Obsidian you were going to see more spice.

I'm not talking about no variety, I'm talking about quite different genres on quite different platforms. Console action games usually play differently than PC action games, too (mostly because of the controller).

Because the game you suggest ToEE should have been is something I wouldn't really like to play. Mostly because of its multiplayer focus. I don't mind action RPGs, I like them as long as the combat is fun, but if your version of ToEE had been released, the Codex wouldn't like it as much as it does now.

Oh no question. I get what you are talking about because Alpha Protocol's combat looks boring. I would have liked to see other D&D RPGs with ToEE's combat just not ToEE with it lol.

So your problem isn't the combat but the fact that the game as a whole is rather mediocre (encounter design, quests etc)? Then why change the combat, changing the design would yield better results overall.

Yes, you're talking about console titles. Fact is, I don't care about consoles and neither do many other PC gamers. Another fact is that PC exclusive RPGs did sell really well for over 20 years.

I'm talking about console owners. Those PC exclusives didnt do as well as they should have. A game like PST should have sold multi millions.

Again, PST didn't sell well because of a lack of marketing. It's an obscure game and I've shown it to some people who never heard of it and they loved it, and all of them are PC players who don't own a console. See what I'm getting at? Marketing is imporant, when nobody knows about your awesome game it doesn't matter which platforms it's on. Make people know about it and don't let it be an obscure underdog.

Black Isle went down because Interplay went down, Interplay went down because Herve pulled some retarded shit like making console action spinoffs (BG Dark Alliance, FO Brotherhood of Steel) and canceling the RPGs that the fanbase would've liked to play. Van Buren and BG3 would have made a lot more profits than those shitty spinoffs.

Thats the truth with omission. Ipply didnt understand the market. After IWD 2's numbers and BGDA's they musta thought they had something on consoles but they didnt. BGDA sold off of name value. The lesson learned should have been that they always had the market as long as the games werent shitty. The problem was that those games were late and that they were spin offs. People wanted the real thing. Van Buren and BG 3 should have been the games to go multiplatform after BG 1&2, PST, and a FO package. That would have done more than save Ipply and Isles. Again like Trokia they didnt have to sell out in anyway or change anything. The market was there.

BG3 and FO3 would've sold well enough on PC only, but I see your point. Again, I say that going multiplatform also requires a bit more programming work and, as Skyway says, point and click isometric games are a bitch to play with a gamepad.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

As much as RPGs console audience could handle. :D

Also, why so much bitching about ToEE? Ironically, it was realtime action-heavy game that killed Troika, not hardkkore turnbased D&D one.

The main problems with their games were shitload of bugs and crappy publisher support, not interfaces or whatever.

I don't have any actual numbers at hand (nor do I know whether I can reveal numbers per our contract, since I don't have that with me at the moment either), but to the best of my knowledge, ToEE was our best seller - or at least our fastest. The reason it's difficult to say is because our numbers were often being adjusted after the fact for arcane business reasons (on the publisher's end). I believe Arcanum is close to ToEE in sales, but Arcanum has been out alot longer and is at a much lower price point. Vampire hasn't been out long enough to really judge how well it will eventually do, as our games tend to continue to sell (as do all RPGs) longer than most.

leon

Though I agree that BL had a lot of potential audience among console crowd.

Troika's sales figures say that Arcanum sold 100 000 more copies than ToEE.
BTW it's amusing how the gamebanshee person can't understand how Arcanum could outsell Bloodlines.

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

*

No need for individual responces I can sum it up with one simple truth. You are in a small slowly shrinking minority. The vast majority of gamers that grew up with consoles arent going to have the issues you describe. Viva Pinata has cursor select controls and my six year old son can manipulate the Pinatas with similar confort and control to what he would have in an IE game. Its certianly not going to take him five seconds to select two Piñatas to mate unless its those damn squirrels. Then you have people from my gen that were around before the mouse like my cousin who only plays MMOs with controller support and myself that played Gold Box games with a joystick.

The first time I played Sim City was on the SNES. It was fine because I had nothing to compare it to. Thats the gaming masses. People that grew up with a controller or never developed a preference for mouse and keyboard have no such issues.

Oh and with Natal you could select troops with your hand similar to using a mouse.

 

[Squeek]

Didn't cell phones recently become computers? That seems awfully non-trivial to me. I would expect it to change the overall competitive landscape for video games and, as a result, impact the competitive position of the PC as a game platform.

Cell phones, being smaller and cheaper, are ill-suited to host the same graphics-intensive applications as PCs while consoles, though also less expensive, aren't nearly as limited (and are better platforms for video games as they exist today, IMO).

I think the PC stands to benefit from the emergence of intelligent-phones, because game development for those new platforms will emphasize good game design in the absence of substantial graphics.

Every fun new cell-phone application will demonstrate to customers how computers can host game applications differently and better than consoles whose emphasis is on graphics. The PC will be in a position to take advantage of that new crop of customers, ones who already appreciate the difference between good games and good graphics.

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

I don't know, I had a N-Cage QD (mostly because it was a cheap and good phone at the time, probably the best I ever had considering how good battery it had), now it did have Pathway to Glory which was a good game and had some nice ideas like making team speak sound like you were talking through old radios, but did it have any other games worth playing? And it had a D-Pad, I don't think most phones have buttons designed for gameplay.

 

[Volourn]

Lots of dumb shit in this thread.


"They had gameplay that was well known and loved by PC players but unknown on consoles."

Must explained why Troika fuckin' bombed on the PC. I guess PC gamers didn't love teir gameplay as much as you claim. SDo, STFU, with the bullshit lies.


"The Troika devs themselves are PC players, not console players."

Are you that retarded? Are you REALLY trying to claim that none of the Troika devs play console games? FFS


"They know how to design good PC RPGs. They don't know how to design a good console game because they have no experience developing them."

Man. This argument is one of the lamest ever. You don't get experience without doing. This is the same moronic retard argument that makes people passe. BIO was originally a medical software company yet 10+ later theya re one of the most successful game developers. Their first game, SS, wasn't even a RPG. By your argment, Troika shouldn't have even done BL since their expertise was tuurn based combat. LAME


"Again, PST didn't sell well because of a lack of marketing. It's an obscure game and I've shown it to some people who never heard of it and they loved it,"

Wrong. PST had the marketing of the IE behind it. It wasn't the amount of marketing that was the problem but the how it was hyped.


And, the nutwho claims that yopu cna't control multiple characters or do turn based on consoles is plainly retarded. You can, and it has been done. Repeatedly. And,m successfully. For decades.

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

What do you mean by standard controllers? Like Microsoft not letting you publish a buggy game for XBox or the consoles having standardized controllers (cause PC also has them, like mouse + keyboard)?

If its an action game thats closer to Devil May Cry than Diablo people are going to want controllers. Those Gauntlet style actions games kinda shot their wad. That was the problem with D&D Heroes. Even a poor mans Ninja Gaiden style game with good blance and 4 player co-op would be more apealing than a good top down hack and slash.

Again the probelm is the publisher with D&D. Maybe Atari has learned from Ghost Busters. Ghost Busters was as dead as D&D and its about 20 trips to Gamestop away from a million and a half sells. Great production indeed.

I'm not talking about no variety, I'm talking about quite different genres on quite different platforms. Console action games usually play differently than PC action games, too (mostly because of the controller).

Agreed. Thats the main hurdle. Infogrames was just ignorant. Micropose folded around the same time after D&D Heroes. Micropose and Troika could have collaborate on an action RPG. Micropose was kinda green to the action genre and they did a solid job with D&D Heroes. The problem was the style of the game and the lack of multiplayer on Live. It wasnt bad for what it was. Thats kinda how I feel about ToEE. People were sick of dungeon haks and to the casual gamer ToEE was a dungeon hak in one Temple.

People wanted a free camera multiplayer game like Crackdown which sold 1.5 mill and Two Worlds which sold .5 mill on the Xbox alone. Crackdown 2 is going to be 4 player co-op. Thats going to be eye popping with the physics and the cars. Thats marketbale make for a multiplayer action game. Unless its 8 player co-op top down beat em ups are out of style.

So your problem isn't the combat but the fact that the game as a whole is rather mediocre (encounter design, quests etc)? Then why change the combat, changing the design would yield better results overall.

ToEE's stringent TB combat would not fit the survival horror/sim design. I would rather see ToEE’s combat in a game like Shadows of Undrentide.

Again, PST didn't sell well because of a lack of marketing. It's an obscure game and I've shown it to some people who never heard of it and they loved it, and all of them are PC players who don't own a console. See what I'm getting at? Marketing is imporant, when nobody knows about your awesome game it doesn't matter which platforms it's on. Make people know about it and don't let it be an obscure underdog.

Thats the benifit of going multiplatform. The demo is downloaded by tens of thousands and the games in the fanboy mags. Then you are on the fanboy message boards. Next week its the fries.

BG3 and FO3 would've sold well enough on PC only, but I see your point. Again, I say that going multiplatform also requires a bit more programming work and, as Skyway says, point and click isometric games are a bitch to play with a gamepad.

RPGs that have similar navigation to the IE should be PC ports. They should be deved with M&K in mind. I acutally believe that makes for a better experience for console gamers too. PST and every other IE game should have been ported to the console. You can play the unreleased PS 1 version of BG on the PSP. IE games would sell on the PSP today.

Its like I said with Viva Piñata if you tweak the sticks in a certain way point and click mechanics are easier for consoles gamers to pick up than first person shooting. If you don't believe me give someone thats new to video gaming Viva Piñata and Bioshock on the 360. With Bioshock they are guaranteed to stare at the sky and the ground for 10 to 20 minutes while with Viva Piñata selecting and manipulating multiple Piñatas is chimp easy.

DA is the 'spiritual successor' of Baldur's Gate that was billed as the 'hardcore' RPG and its already sold more than 1.5 mill on the 360 and PS 3. FO 3 will likely see 5 million sells on both the PS 3 and 360 combined. Ipply should have been sued for malpractice if BG 3 and Black Isle's FO 3 weren't multiplatform.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

So are you a genuine retard who believes all this or it's more of a case of writing it with that "hurrr I am such a heartless capitalist asshole durrr" crooked smile on your face?

 

[JarlFrank]

So your problem isn't the combat but the fact that the game as a whole is rather mediocre (encounter design, quests etc)? Then why change the combat, changing the design would yield better results overall.

ToEE's stringent TB combat would not fit the survival horror/sim design. I would rather see ToEE’s combat in a game like Shadows of Undrentide.

Okay, I'm going to stop arguing with you about console ports since we obviously have different opinions. From a business point of view it might make sense (although I still don't really believe in the viability of isometric party-based games working properly on consoles) but I don't really care about consoles at all and would rather have the devs spend time on properly finishing the PC version (going multiplatform is additional work, and thus Troika would have had even less time to bugtest which would lead to even more bugs).

But I don't get what you were saying there. Survival horror/sim style? ToEE was a pure oldschool dungeon crawler with similar gameplay to, say, the Gold Box games. There's no survival horror/sim style there.

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

Okay, I'm going to stop arguing with you about console ports since we obviously have different opinions. From a business point of view it might make sense (although I still don't really believe in the viability of isometric party-based games working properly on consoles) but I don't really care about consoles at all and would rather have the devs spend time on properly finishing the PC version (going multiplatform is additional work, and thus Troika would have had even less time to bugtest which would lead to even more bugs).

But I don't get what you were saying there. Survival horror/sim style? ToEE was a pure oldschool dungeon crawler with similar gameplay to, say, the Gold Box games. There's no survival horror/sim style there.

ToEE was like Disney’s Fantasia. Its jammed with a constant stream of encounters. There are weird elemental creatures, ogers, men, beholders, bandits, robbed priest. What it lacked was rhyme, reason, and atmosphere that I assume a DM could give it or a video game with a greater focus on non-combat AI. There was no ecology to the Temple and there was no chaos. It just didn’t make sense. Depsite the graphics it was about as atmospheric as a rock quarry. A DM could have made sense out of it all.

The reason why I said it should have been part sim was to create this chaos or ecology or both. There needed to be infighting, AI that hears fights going on in the next room and reacts, gorilla fighting, combat that could be bypassed with stealth, creatures that flee battle and go solo. That doesn’t work well with TB combat.

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

So are you a genuine retard who believes all this or it's more of a case of writing it with that "hurrr I am such a heartless capitalist asshole durrr" crooked smile on your face?

The top ten best selling RPGs are all Pokemon, and Final Fantasy with WOW being the lone exception. I'm not a heartless capitalist I'm a realist and when it comes to RPG a bit of a Nationalist.