Tim Cain Loves Oblivion

[Ladonna]

DarkUnderlord: Fair enough. However I do not think anyone with half a brain would not turn around and said that. The question in the link you provided is the usual herd mentality question that we are used to. 'TB sux Tim!!!111 Why didn't you copy off all the rest??'

Boyarsky might be helping to make a Diablo? :shock: Oh well, I guess he can look forward to a nice paycheck. Don't blame him for that....sorta.

If the three of them didn't like the way things went in the Industry, why on earth didn't they make Indy games and market them directly? I bet they would make quite a bit of money with their name's and talents.

As it is this niche has fallen back into never never land waiting for someone to cater to it properly. If these RPG guys could get their act together they would do a Matrixgames and beat the middleman.

 

[EEVIAC]

Wha..? Can someone get me that feature? FPS Arcanum would've been the worst thing they could've done.

I guess you could check at a library if you actually want to read the entire article or use it on TA. Its issue #126 of PC Powerplay. If you just want the quote, this is what he said when asked about a sequel :

We had actually started preproduction on a sequel using the Source engine, which eventually led us to making Vampire : Bloodlines. But there was quite a bit of turmoil going on at Sierra at the time, and it got shelved before it got too far. It had a great premise and was certain to be bug free! It was going to be called "Journey to the Centre of Arcanum."

 

[Voss]

If the three of them didn't like the way things went in the Industry, why on earth didn't they make Indy games and market them directly? I bet they would make quite a bit of money with their name's and talents.

Thats why theres so many indie developers out there. All the money they can make.

Besides, if he went indie, he wouldn't be able to whine about the publisher screwing everything up.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Voss you shut the fuck up! How DARE YOU CRITICIZE GOD CAIN!

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I'm pretty sure Jeff Vogel makes a good living. Lord knows he's got enough computers and kids these days. His wife technically works for him, so I'm not sure if she has a job on the side or not.

 

[Voss]

Theres a difference between a good living and quite a bit of money.

Plus... OK, name another successful indie guy other than Vogel.


@Blackhart- actually I figured there would be a lot more bitching at me. I guess the worship of Timmie has faded with a lack of product.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

No, they're just more hidden than I, like the Illuminati. We watch from the shadows, and only influence, but never do we truly interfere.

 

[almondblight]

Theres a difference between a good living and quite a bit of money.

Plus... OK, name another successful indie guy other than Vogel.

Andrew Welch I think actually makes a lot more than Vogel. Pangae and Introversion are doing well, I think. Bungie did real well before they went to MS. And online distribution is just becoming more popular. Also keep in mind that Vogel's success comes from just two original ideas he's been milking for years. Imagine what someone with talent and originality could do.

Wha..? Can someone get me that feature? FPS Arcanum would've been the worst thing they could've done.

Couldn't it have been like the Ultima Underworld of Arcanum?

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Wha..? Can someone get me that feature? FPS Arcanum would've been the worst thing they could've done.

Couldn't it have been like the Ultima Underworld of Arcanum?

I don't think it would've been too bad as a game in and of itself but I'm a huge believer that when it comes to computer games, sequels should stick to relatively the same formula as their predecessors when it comes to gameplay. Okay, so Arcanum had some shoddy combat but the fundamentals of some kind of hybrid turn-based / real-time system in an isometric point of view I think should be kept. People play games based on their game-play. While improvement can be a good thing and create some interesting new gameplay (like say, the GTA series moving to first-person 3D) I feel that you're losing an audience and trying to replace it with another. It'll be like Fallout 3 essentially. Lose the original fans and replace them with a bunch of new folks who like simple gameplay and a game that holds your hand with lots of quest pop-ups. A lot of people (not me particularly but a few people I've run into) are fans of the relatively easy to use point-and-click interface that comes with an isometric game and are turned off by WASD controls and quick reflexes. I think a lot of Arcanum's appeal seems to be with people who like that style.

Mind you calling the game "Journey to the Centre of Arcanum" does alleviate some of that. Calling it "Arcanum 2" I think would've been a death knell but a new title differentiates it.

In other news...

That is true. "Journey to the Centre of Arcanum" was our original plan for the Source Engine.

There's not much to tell, really. We hadn't gotten that far in the planning stages before there was some sort of problem between Sierra and Valve which scrapped the whole thing. Our general idea was to try to do alot of the same things we tried to do with Bloodlines, but in the Arcanum setting.

 

[Bradylama]

but the fundamentals of some kind of hybrid turn-based / real-time system in an isometric point of view I think should be kept.

It's been pretty much confirmed before by Leonard that trying to balance out between turn-based and real-time was a huge mistake, since it sucked up the team resources and never got anywhere near an acceptable balance.

 

[LCJr.]

Leon wrote:
We had actually started preproduction on a sequel using the Source engine, which eventually led us to making Vampire : Bloodlines. But there was quite a bit of turmoil going on at Sierra at the time, and it got shelved before it got too far. It had a great premise and was certain to be bug free! It was going to be called "Journey to the Centre of Arcanum."

Troika and bugfree? Bwaaahaaaa! Now that's comedy gold.

Could be the clue as to what really led to Troika's downfall, massive substance abuse. Obviously they'd have to been into something pretty heavy like heroin or crack to believe they could make a bug-free game.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

but the fundamentals of some kind of hybrid turn-based / real-time system in an isometric point of view I think should be kept.

It's been pretty much confirmed before by Leonard that trying to balance out between turn-based and real-time was a huge mistake, since it sucked up the team resources and never got anywhere near an acceptable balance.

Oh, I agree but "by some kind of" I was thinking real-time with pause or a similar implementation, perhaps like that of Fallout: Tactics (which actually played reasonably well in both its real-time and turn-based modes). While I like good turn-based games, I enjoyed Diablo as much as I enjoyed ToEE and I always play Arcanum in real-time because it's turn-based mode is so horrible. By the same token, there are a lot of people who only play it in turn-based. There are even some who'll use both. Then again, just because Troika failed miserably doesn't mean I don't think it's not worth the effort (was that a triple negative?). Clarification: From a design point of view it's worth trying, even if you do end up failing. One mode will always end up easier than the other (like it was in Fallout: Tactics) but Arcanum's problem stemmed from a lack of fundamentally solid design principles in its turn-based mode, like say, the ability to know how many AP's it takes to attack something.

While I'd prefer they'd chosen one or the other (and not both) at the outset, they didn't and I believe there's a lot of value in sticking to that decision when it comes to sequels. Otherwise if you go turn-based you lose those who played Arcanum and preferred real-time. Likewise if you go real-time you lose the audience who preferred turn-based.

 

[LCJr.]

but the fundamentals of some kind of hybrid turn-based / real-time system in an isometric point of view I think should be kept.

It's been pretty much confirmed before by Leonard that trying to balance out between turn-based and real-time was a huge mistake, since it sucked up the team resources and never got anywhere near an acceptable balance.

Oh, I agree but "by some kind of" I was thinking real-time with pause or a similar implementation, perhaps like that of Fallout: Tactics (which actually played reasonably well in both its real-time and turn-based modes). While I like good turn-based games, I enjoyed Diablo as much as I enjoyed ToEE and I always play Arcanum in real-time because it's turn-based mode is so horrible. By the same token, there are a lot of people who only play it in turn-based. There are even some who'll use both. Then again, just because Troika failed miserably doesn't mean I don't think it's not worth the effort (was that a triple negative?). Clarification: From a design point of view it's worth trying, even if you do end up failing. One mode will always end up easier than the other (like it was in Fallout: Tactics) but Arcanum's problem stemmed from a lack of fundamentally solid design principles in its turn-based mode, like say, the ability to know how many AP's it takes to attack something.

While I'd prefer they'd chosen one or the other (and not both) at the outset, they didn't and I believe there's a lot of value in sticking to that decision when it comes to sequels. Otherwise if you go turn-based you lose those who played Arcanum and preferred real-time. Likewise if you go real-time you lose the audience who preferred turn-based.

Arcanum would have been far better had they simply added a "speed slider" like quite a few other RT games.

TB just needed the movement costs adjusted(increased) to bring the slower creatures movement rates back down to something resembling their speed in RT.

And I agree despite all it's other flaws FOT is one of the few games that managed to be playable in both RT and TB.

 

[Ladonna]

After looking at the amount of people Troika used making its games, im surprised they worked at all, let alone having the amount of Role playing and polish that they had.

When you compare the Crew that worked on Arcanum (about 12 people) with the amount that worked on NWN (About 80 people) it does say a lot.

Im surprised TOEE ever fucking worked with such a small crew and timeframe. Troika were fucked from the start.

 

[suibhne]

Im surprised TOEE ever fucking worked with such a small crew and timeframe. Troika were fucked from the start.

I don't think it's really a question of team size in this case. PB's Gothic 3, e.g., has a very small core team size relative to, say, KotOR or NWN. As much as I'm a Troika fanboi, I think the problems on their end were managerial; too many chiefs, or they didn't adequately plan and continually readjust the creative process vs. QA, or w/e. I would've loved to see them bring in someone else with a stronger management hand but still a lot of support for their kind of projects, because I think we could've seen some magnificent games from that studio.

Oh well.

 

[gromit]

online distribution is just becoming more popular

I'm not sure this is as good for indie games as many think. They used to have the digital market cornered, although it was never consolidated. Sure, it worked well for the first few put up on Steam, but what will happen now that the secret's out?

Yes, digital distribution currently saves money producing physical media and packaging, and doing it with your own servers will free you from paying a cut to some publisher, but keep in mind that publishers are going to set up their OWN services. These will be the ones that people hear the most about, the ones most heavily advertised, and they'll be stuffed full of pub-backed "AAA" titles.

I wonder how many people will still notice the little guys when the list of titles reads like gamefaqs, and how much free publicity a game like Darwinia will get for going digital when EVERYBODY's doing it? Now that it's the "hot thing," I'm worried it's just going to be a new place for the wee folk to get lost in the shuffle.

The internet was a fucking fantastic way for smaller companies to do their mail-order business across the globe, until Amazon, eBay, etc, showed up and became the "go-to" places for google-free shopping.

 

[LCJr.]

After looking at the amount of people Troika used making its games, im surprised they worked at all, let alone having the amount of Role playing and polish that they had.

When you compare the Crew that worked on Arcanum (about 12 people) with the amount that worked on NWN (About 80 people) it does say a lot.

Im surprised TOEE ever fucking worked with such a small crew and timeframe. Troika were fucked from the start.

That's their problem. If you don't have the resources to do the job then don't bid on it.