Company News Is Troika Dead?

[Digit]

Well I don't think there is much point in debating the ifs and whys, but I always think its sad to see a dev team go down. You never know what they could do next, and if they actually do close their doors, you will never find out. It could be a mediocre game, that gathers averagely average reviews and press, or it could be the next Fallout. It doesn't matter how unlikely you think it may be, there is always that chance...

Digit

 

[RGE]

I really liked Arcanum, but I can't say that I care one way or the other about Troika possibly shutting down. It's not as if I enjoy dungeoncrawlers like ToEE, or hardware-demanding bugfests like BL seems to be. It's too bad that no publisher would touch their real ideas, but what are we going to do - kill all the mainstream gamers and steal their money so we can fund brave new virtual worlds?

If the ToEE engine is as good as people say it is, would it be possible for them to spend a year or two writing a game for it while keeping the costs way down? That is assuming that they wouldn't need that much programming. Or should they just toss that thing and go build NWN2 modules for money? Personally I can deal with just about any combat system, because for me it's the writing and the plot and the significant choices that matter most in a CRPG. But then again, judging by the 25% sale on those premium modules, Digital Distribution isn't working out that well, so perhaps a few idea-men can't rely on that to get paid for their visions. But at least the basic gameplay would be relatively free of bugs! :D

 

[Volourn]

"Volly, we've had our differences and disagreements, but this crap is beyond stupid. Iply was an empty shell of a company stripped of its divisions, founders, licenses, and employees. It was a company that canned its RPG department JUST BECAUSE, canned 2 highly anticipated games JUST BECAUSE, and funnelled tons of money to Titus just because it could. This is not the same as Troika's situation, so kindly shut the fuck up."

HAHAHA! Keep spinning you fanboy wheels! If Troika is having problems; it's because of mismanagement. Just like Interplay. Period. Their route may have got there differently; but the situation (if it's true) is the same. Deal with it. And, whining and telling me to shut up won't change that.

The problem is; is you guys are hypocrites. You laugh, you cheer, you celebrrate the demise of Interplay inspite all those who lost jobs because of it; inspite of Interplay's history of developing/publsihing great games INCLUDING Fallout yet you are slavsihly loal to a dev house that ahs released 3 games - none of which (except my bias in favor of Arcanum) makes them deserve such loyalty.

Then again, I'm not surprised consideirng it's the same 'ol Codex - Troika cna do no wrong and when they do it's somebody else's fault.

Bio makes a RT w/pause game. They suck.

Troika makes a full fledge RT game. They rule.

Bio makes a D&D game. They are just trying to cash in.

Troika makes a D&D game. They love the business.

Bio makes games that have bugs. They are evil, have poor support, and hate fans.

Troika makes that have bugs, and major game brekaing bugs at that. They are too smart for their own good as they make too complicated of games, and oit's the publisher's fault.

BIO sends a press release bragging. They are egotistical.

Troika sends a press release bragging. They are marketing.


R00fles!

Keep humping Troika.

I like them; but they aren't deserving of being mourned (if it's even true) since their fall (if true) is occuring due to their own mistakes.

Period.


"But then again, judging by the 25% sale on those premium modules, Digital Distribution isn't working out that well,"

It's doing well enough to support a second round of DD modules which is all BIO wanted them for because without DD there'd be no more patches and/or downlaods for NWN.

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

Bah. Fired, and laid off are the same. Other than MINOR quibbles; the bottom line is that you are jobless now. You no longer get the MOOLAH. You are now a B U M.

Except that getting fired is a disciplinary action, and you're much less likely to be hired by another company than if you were just laid off, which in general does not reflect on your abilities or performance.

So if you get fired, you're more likely to REMAIN a bum with no moolah

 

[Sol Invictus]

I find it funny when people make posts such as these. It's not really founded in any reality. You know those console games that people so often play. The devs try to go for around 30fps.

That's because TVs and monitors aren't the same thing, are they? TVs have built in motion blur, while monitors do not, so games that run on 30fps look like slideshows on monitors. I just don't get how someone can say that 30fps is 'acceptable' when it clearly fucking isn't. TV shows display at 24fps and the frames are blurred beforehand in order to give the illusion of fluidity. If you pause the video tape you are watching you will notice that it is very blurry.

So suddenly all those games (which make up the majority of games) are unacceptable.

They would be if you played them on a computer monitor.

As for this whole Troika thing. You brought it on yourself. I've been trying to stay out of the discussion (in fact I haven't read many posts after the 10th page or so, I just got so tired of it). Yeah, I said Troika fucked up the management; I whole heartedly believe that. Am I happy that they might be disperesed to find jobs seperate from each other; no! I think they were a very creative bunch that were simply mismanaged. As I said, if they had a veteran studio manager or were acquired by a company that could provide one, I think Troika could be one of the best companies.

That's besides the point, considering they weren't. Arguing what Troika could have been isn't an argument at all.

I'm not going to bother responding to all the other stuff you said because it doesn't need any more reiteration.

 

[Volourn]

"So if you get fired, you're more likely to REMAIN a bum with no moolah"

Ha! You win on the basis of using my words against me and making me laugh at the same time!

 

[Sol Invictus]

p.s. dojo did you even read those damn links I pasted? It's easy enough to say that developers just aim for 30fps in their games, which may or may not be true for console titles (you have yet to cite sources) but how is that true for PC titles? Monitors and TVs aren't the same.

People at hardware review sites wouldn't be criticizing a graphics card for performing at speeds of lower than 60fps if it wasn't a bad thing and I can guarantee you that it is most certainly a bad thing for a game to be displayed at so low a speed. It's choppy and headache inducing.

Here's a proper definition:
http://www.mikhailtech.com/articles/editorials/fps/

I will quote it because I know none of you will even bother to read it.

One day I got to thinking about all this FPS (Frames Per Second) business. There is so much talk about what's right, what's wrong, what can be and can't be seen. Considering I knew next to nothing aside from personal experience, I thought I'd do a little research and give a little fact and fiction. Many people argue about what makes a difference and what doesn't, specifically what the human eye can perceive. Some claim 24fps, others 30, some 60, some 200, some even upwards of 2000 and above. Feel free to add any numbers in-between. The truth of the matter is, every one of these people is right and wrong in their own respect. Why? Because that's not how the brain works. Try as I may to make the information "flow", it's relatively difficult because everything is intertwined. Therefore, I've provided a few categories with things to consider.

Motion Blur vs. Sharpness

Here's something interesting you can try right now. Take your mouse and shake it slowly. Now shake it really fast until you can't make out the outlines of the buttons. What's the FPS rate? Is it low because it's blurry and you can't make out the features? Or is it high because it doesn't look choppy (don't you think it would be really freaky if fast moving objects appeared at one point and then at another, with nothing in-between)?

Let me answer that for you: it's neither. Simply put, according to our brains frames per second don't exist. Hypothetically speaking, if you could make out the individual lines while shaking it really fast, then your eye was taking more "still shots" to make it look smooth and you'd have to shake it even faster to see the smooth motion. You can see where the catch-22 comes in.

Television

The most common "frame rate" on a television set is 24, with ranges that can go from 18-30 (these are approximations). I use quotes because TVs don't work the same way as computer screens. A television set doesn't render individual frames; instead it provides a range. Everything appears fluid because everything is blurred. Notice how still shots of action scenes aren't the most crisp images in the world? Wonder why. But then how come you can make out static details on a screen? Why can you see the same cracks in stones watching The Matrix as you can playing Q3A? See below.

Brightness vs. Darkness

Because of the way the world is set up, light is much easier to recognize than the absence thereof. To put it bluntly, it's a lot easier to notice a flash of light in a dark room than a total darkness in a bright room. The difference isn't apparent until the event time is reduced to hundredths of a second, but on a flicker-free TV set you can't see the black, although the refresh rate is only 100hz (100 times/second), whereas tests on Air Force pilots have shown their ability to not merely notice, but identify the type of aircraft when shown an image for only 1/220th of a second. Furthermore, eye sensitivity is different throughout (you can't notice the flicker of a 60hz monitor looking head on, but it's quite obvious when gazing sideways) which furthers these rates even more. Just please don't start me on the whole subliminal message trip.

Computers and Monitor Refresh Rates

A lot of people despise vertical sync, as this caps your maximum frame rate to that of your monitor's refresh rate (assuming we're talking CRT). Some things to consider: is running a game below the refresh rate of your CRT smooth? Or maybe it looks better synchronized? Or maybe it's best to run above it? What about using multiples (i.e. 170fps with an 85hz refresh rate)? Personally, I haven't noticed any differences. Just don't confuse that with variations in FPS. Current LCDs don't have higher than 30-40hz refresh rates, but they're progressive. So things may look blurry, but they won't be choppy. And if you want to crank up all the features, you won't be getting 100+ frame rates anyway. Just a thought.

Here's the important part:

FPS in Games

This is of course, all about games. The reason you can't run them smoothly at 24fps is because each frame is just that: a still frame; not a blurred range. Now, let me dig up a random number out of the blue, say 40fps. Ok, so 40fps is sufficient, right? Yes and no. Let's say you're the proud owner of a Geforce4 Ti4600. You don't care about 200fps so crank up the resolution to 1600x1200, turn on 4x FSAA and 16x Anisotropic Filtering. Plus all the in-game candy you can throw at it. Your rates drop from 150 down to 40. Naturally, it looks like crap. Why? Several reasons.

The more detail you have the more "sampling" your eye does automatically (or, more accurately, you strain it more). Try this: find an older video card (or underclock what you currently have) that will only run 1600x1200 at 40fps without any special features. Chances are it'll look smoother because you don't have anisotropic filtering enabled. More importantly, however, is adaptation. If you've played games at 40fps all your life and haven't seen otherwise, it'll look pretty good to you.

The same goes for the person who's had the luxury of 100. Now swap their positions. The 40fps person won't notice much, because to them 40fps was smooth as is. The unlucky person will be the one who's downgrading; to him/her a dramatic difference is in store. This is one reason why a lot of people claim that anything over 60fps doesn't matter: because they've never been significantly over 60fps for long. I bet if you play at 250fps (possible, but only with older games at low resolutions) for a couple weeks and then go down to 125, you will see a difference.

So is there a limit?

Technically, yes. Practically, no. The technical "limit" would be anything ranging from the speed of light to how long it takes it to reach your eyes to how fast your brain can interpret it. Other things like internal chemical reactions and the state of developed neural connections should also be considered. But still, 300,000,000m/s is pretty fast. What am I trying to say? This:

THERE IS NO PROVEN LIMIT TO THE FRAME RATE THE HUMAN EYE CAN PERCEIVE.

So what's enough? 30fps? 300? 3000? Who knows. But on a more practical scale, 1024x768, 2-4x FSAA and 16x Aniso between 50-100fps in most games is just fine. On a final note, this topic is a lot more complex than what I've pointed out but you get the general idea; if interested in learning more, Google is your friend. If you have any questions or comments let me know here or post in the forums or both. Thanks for reading and enjoy the site!

AFAIK, most GameCube games run at a solid 60fps.

 

[JanC]

Aside from a dwindling collecton of eccentrics, what distinguishes the Codex is an occasional visit from developers. Alienating all parties with imature diatribes will, as has been stated in this very thread, lead to the demise of the site.

As long as I have been reading it, the Codex has been full of rants and diatribes and l33t speak. Since developers still come here, I guess they are thick-skinned.

However, it is extremely unpleasant and bad taste to mock people who just lost their jobs.

 

[Volourn]

"However, it is extremely unpleasant and bad taste to mock people who just lost their jobs."

Tell that to those who participated in the 'When Will Interplay Die' extravaganza.

And, oh btw, it's also extremely unpleasant and in bad tatse to release games, don't support them, and then blame someone else for your lack of support.


R00fles!

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Well, you got me there Volly.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Bio makes a RT w/pause game. They suck.

Troika makes a full fledge RT game. They rule.

You want to find the quote from me where I said anything close to this? I even said that because Bloodlines was going to be first person and real time, I was less interested in it than anything they've ever done in the past. I also said I didn't care much for the setting.

However, I have said numerous times that given the choice between real time with pause and pure real time, I'd rather have real time because real time with pause lacks the interactivity of both turn based and straight real time. I've said that since this site openned.

Bio makes a D&D game. They are just trying to cash in.

Troika makes a D&D game. They love the business.

I think I've stated a number of times I'd rather see Troika work on their own intellectual properties than other people's licenses.

Bio makes games that have bugs. They are evil, have poor support, and hate fans.

Troika makes that have bugs, and major game brekaing bugs at that. They are too smart for their own good as they make too complicated of games, and oit's the publisher's fault.

The last part of the first sentence is hardly true. However, as far as bugs go, NWN was far buggier than anything Troika's put out. Yet, because they're BioWare, no one seems to notice that much.

As for the complicated part, I believe you're quoting David Gaider there, not anyone here.

BIO sends a press release bragging. They are egotistical.

Troika sends a press release bragging. They are marketing.

I have yet to see Troika say something along the lines of "Every game we do is great, and every game we do is greater than the last one."

 

[dojoteef]

Exitium, it's true that we have yet to actually determine what the limit of the human visual perception system is. That's not the point. The point is, the idea that anything below 60fps is suddenly determental to the experience of motion. Just to let you know, the our visual system can make a coherent perception of motion without "jerkiness" at 15fps. That's why things such as framerate are subjective. If you have gotten used to a certain framerate, then your mind will make it appear smooth (it's amazing like that). That's why there are plenty of people who are willing to display a game at 20fps in order to bump of the detail level, they are so used to that framerate that it makes no noticeable difference to them. So saying a certain framerate is required and anything lower is unacceptable is a bit naive.

Another major point is, regardless of video card fps, the real limiting factor is the display technology. Most TVs refresh at 60hz interlaced. That means it does every other line each pass. Which means the entire image is refreshed 30 times per second. Why would any console developer worry about processing more than 30fps if the TV is only going to display 30 frames a second anyway? There is no need to cite a source for that. It's fairly common knowledge. So until we develop the means for the "perfect display technology", then all these sorts of statements can safely be called bull shit.

Also if you want to know more about some of the latest display technologies that show promise in reproducing images in such a way as to fool the visual perception system into believing an image is real, check this research* out.

*Be warned: It's a pdf.

 

[Sol Invictus]

You're still missing out on the fact that TVs and monitors aren't the same thing, and that the way games are rendered on TVs from consoles are different from how they are rendered on PCs. When consoles render games they do so at a blurred range between 24fps and 30fps. GameCubes do it at 60fps, but this is lost on anything short of a HDTV or any other kind of digital TV set.

When games are rendered on computer monitors, they are rendered in still frames and not in blurred ranges, therefore the game looks very bad and choppy.

I notice that you didn't read what I posted, either, or I wouldn't have to be reiterating all of this to you.

edit: Console games on TVs do not render still frames, they render a blurred range between 24-30fps (60 for GameCube). Rendering it on a monitor would look extremely choppy because monitors do not have built in motion blur unlike TV sets.

2nd edit: FPS on TV sets stands for 'fields per second' rather than 'frames per second'. I'm surprised you're trying to argue this with me without knowing all the details. You can't compare the rendering of console titles with the framerate in computer games

. It should also be noted that there is far less detail in console games so you don't strain your eyes as much as you would when playing a current generation PC title. 30fps may have been perfectly acceptable for Quake, which didn't feature high detail textures, pixelshaders, soft shadows or detailed light sources, so you didn't strain your eyes as much and 30fps was fine for it, but when you play HL2 or Bloodlines, you've got all of these details and they cause your eyes to strain, just as the article said, so the engine and graphics card need to compensate by increasing the framerate or the game will look extremely choppy due to the intensity of your eye's focus on what you're looking at.

Stop being a moron and try reading what I typed before coming up with some response about how 'all these statements are bullshit because tvs only render 30fps' when you don't even know what the fuck the "F" in "FPS" for TVs stands for, and how TVs render differently than monitors do. Games for the most part are still frames and not blurred ranges so its not acceptable to compare the two. If we were playing games with blurred ranges of 30fps they would look quite smooth to us but they wouldn't be very detailed.

Edit: Games like NFSU have a "Motion Blur" feature that makes gives the game an illusion of smoothness when you are driving at high speeds. It's a nice effect but most games don't have it, and even if they did you probably wouldn't turn it on because it can cause motion sickness and it detracts from details by blurring everything.

 

[Volourn]

"You want to find the quote from me where I said anything close to this? I even said that because Bloodlines was going to be first person and real time, I was less interested in it than anything they've ever done in the past."

Never said otherwise. However, the 'codex is supposed to be about hardcore TB RPGs yet somehow Troika making a RT game is much more forgiveable than RT w/pause AND actual 'turns' to you guys. That shit is wack!


"However, I have said numerous times that given the choice between real time with pause and pure real time, I'd rather have real time because real time with pause lacks the interactivity of both turn based and straight real time. I've said that since this site openned."

Yes, you have. Your point? I haven't suggested otherwise?


"I think I've stated a number of times I'd rather see Troika work on their own intellectual properties than other people's licenses."

Yet again, you missed the point. The issue here is not whetehr you'd prefer them to do one over the other; but the interpretaion one has of Troikand BIo's motivations for using the D&D license. for BIo it has to be "greed"; and for Troika it's because they love D&D. Don't side step the issue.


"The last part of the first sentence is hardly true. However, as far as bugs go, NWN was far buggier than anything Troika's put out. Yet, because they're BioWare, no one seems to notice that much."

No, this is false. There are bugs; than there are bugs. First off, NWN is a much bigger game offering much more than Troika's game. Secondly, none of NWN's bugs are literal game enders. Thridly, people *do* complain about BIO's bugs. Heck, I've done it. I've done it on this site. Just reread my 'review' of Taris when i first played it. Fourthly, people do give BIO some slack in regards to bugs because they know that BIO will likely try to fix it instea dof ignoring it or blaming the publisher.


"As for the complicated part, I believe you're quoting David Gaider there, not anyone here."

If Dave Gaider said it; it doens't exuse the wrongness of that statement. However, Troika has said it. They said it right after BL was released, and it was echoed very enthuiastically by most on this site. I'm sure if one did some digging (I'm not gonna bother); one cna find that thread.


"I have yet to see Troika say something along the lines of "Every game we do is great, and every game we do is greater than the last one."

Really? These are the same people who LOVED BL's combat? These are the ones who bragged about TOEE's story and role-playing? Believe me, theya re as guilty as hype as BIO is. In reality, there is really nothing wrong with that by itself; but people make it seem like its something its not for one; but not the other is just plain silly.

 

[dojoteef]

I did read it, thank you very much. No where does it state this poppy cock that you are going on about. Do you think that if they do this blurring on consoles because it is so much better, that they wouldn't do the exact same thing for computer monitors? Give me a break. The only difference between a standard television set and a CRT monitor is the resolution and often the ability to change the refresh rate (though most default to 60hz). They use the EXACT same technology. So explain to me this so called difference. I certainly didn't see it in any of the links you posted.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I think the point you're missing, Exitium, is that there is no point in saying that monitors and TVs are two different things. It doesn't matter in the least to this discussion. 30FPS on a console game is still 30FPS because those games don't get to blur every other frame like the TV shows do.

 

[dojoteef]

Thanks for backing me up on that one Saint.

 

[Sol Invictus]

That's fair Saint but those games don't have much quality either, and games like NFSU as I stated have a built in motion blur feature that gives the game an illusion of smoothness. It is not acceptible for games like Bloodlines or HAlf Life 2, which have far more details, to be rendered in such low framerates.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Thanks for backing me up on that one Saint.

Oh Saint backed you up I guess you win the discussion huh? Shithead. Saint said yesterday in IRC that the eye doesn't see more than 30fps.

 

[dojoteef]

Exitium, just admit that you are wrong. There isn't a single console that uses motion blur to make the scene look more "realistic". It just isn't there. There are two big reasons why. First it takes extra graphics processing power. Second is the fact that in the blurred area, how do you determine where the entity is currently. You have this problem that if you are shooting a gun at someone, in the blurred area, are you actually hitting the enemy, or is the enemy out of the way? This affects action games the most.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Okay I'm wrong because the eye can only see a maximum of 30fps. Saint has spoken!

 

[dojoteef]

Just like a little bitch boy. You can't admit that you made a false assumption. Consoles don't use any of the tricks that TV and movies do: FACT! So then saying that it's okay for consoles to run at 30fps but not okay for computer games is bullshit. This same sort of denial is what keeps dragging out conversations like this. Damn your childish, grow up already.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Fine, so console games dont do all the little tricks that TV shows and movies do. You got me on that except for the fact that NFSU and other racing games do do that in order to provide an illusion of speed where the framerate is not high enough to convey it. However, because console games are far less detailed than their PC FPS counterparts, is it not logical to simply state that FPS games on the PC look choppy when played at similar framerates due to the detail present in the imagery?

I explained how that works.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

That's fair Saint but those games don't have much quality either, and games like NFSU as I stated have a built in motion blur feature that gives the game an illusion of smoothness. It is not acceptible for games like Bloodlines or HAlf Life 2, which have far more details, to be rendered in such low framerates.

The more things going on at once, the less likely you are to notice that the frame rate might not be optimal for what the human mind percieves as motion. There'd be too many things for the brain to track to notice that WHOOPS the frame rate dropped to 25FPS down from 30FPS temporarily or from 40FPS to 35FPS or even all the way down to 25FPS.

In a situation like a game, then you've also got your brain focusing on interacting with the scenario. So, until it gets down to 20FPS and below, you're probably not going to notice it unless you have that little counter up telling you that your frame rate is dropping.

 

[Sol Invictus]

In any case I think this is all a moot point. Whether Bloodlines renders at a framerate of 35fps is irrelevent because in some combat sequences (particularly those with other vampires that use powers) the game slows down to 5fps, which is DEFINITELY noticeable. That's 1 frame every 200 ms.

That's the real performance bog.