The Strange Legacy Of Troika Games
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- Опубліковано 16 кві 2022
- Talking about the history and legacy of Troika Games and it's three buggy cult classics
Arcanum Review: • Arcanum: Of Steamworks...
ToEE Review: • Temple of Elemental Ev...
Bloodlines Review: • VTM: Bloodlines - Retr...
Intro Music By Juan Andrés Matos, www.juanmatosmusic.com/
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#Troika #VTM #Bloodlines #Templeofelementalevil #Arcanum - Ігри
About Bloodlines, I think it's worth noting that they didn't choose to release the game on Half Life 2's release date, that release actually kind of got screwed over by their licensing deal IIRC. Since they licensed the Source engine for Bloodlines, they had to develop the partially-complete engine in tandem with the actual development of the game, and thus they weren't working with a fully baked product. And, per their engine license, they also couldn't release the game _before_ HL2 either (though in the state it was in, I don't think they should have, but it's worth noting their hands were tied in multiple ways).
Yep, it's also the only game running on this version of Source since it was at this time that ValVe got hacked and had to redo most of their engine.
I'm one of the few who bought Arcanum at release. Didn't know it was such an exclusive club. I think I still have the box somewhere. Really want to see Arcanum 2. My favorite game of all time.
My roommate bought it, and he wouldnt let me borrow it as often as if like.
Great game!
I didn’t either. I love the Arcanum universe tech vs magic thing, an up to date game in that setting would be my jam.
I kept the manual because it's so damned brilliant.
Arcanum is the game that cements me as a gamer who put story over game. I got so into the world of Aracanum and its Inhabbitants. Virgril, Gibert Bates, Gar, Magnus Shalefist. These names and dialog living in my head rent free
For real. The game was super clunky and unbalanced. But the amazing story and loveable characters really made their mark. And let's not forget possible sweetheart Raven.
I bought a physical copy of Bloodlines waaaay back in the day, never regretted it
Ah Troika, I remember playing Arcanum a long time ago. And I first read about it from PC Gamer magazine, it was an ad near the back on the Diablo 2 issue.
That is quite the crazy story. I love Bloodlines so much it it easily the best vampire game ever made imo. The franchise definitely feels cursed with how things seem to just keep getting worse for Bloodlines 2. I hope we can see some good games out of InExile and Obsidian in the future though. I very much enjoyed Wasteland 3 and Obsidian’s 4 recent outings haha.
I finished Bloodlines recently and it instantly became a favourite of mine. An actually serious and well written vampire story that takes place in modern world and it is a crime rpg. That part was sufficient to make it a unique experience, but they did not stop there. They implemented religion, clash of east vs. west, capitalism, anarchism and a lot more. And every mission was atmospherically really unique. An absolute monster.
And Arcanum. I am still playing it so I can't comment about the complete story but as far as I saw, they made a fantastic work. What we expect from them, to be honest.
i HIGHLY recommend reading the Vampire the Masquerade novels. The original 9 had one each per clan. The Wraith books are nearly as good, and they also have Werewolf, Demon, and Mage series.
I loved what I played of Arcanum! I really should finish it. Last time I tried playing Bloodlines though, it made me fiercely motion sick.
You really should give some credit to Bryan Fargo, who founded Interplay, helped to found Black Isle and produced the very first Fallout games. The schism you mentioned about Interplay happened when they went public. The man forced out of the company, as you may have surmised, was Bryan Fargo. As he is now the founder and ceo of Inxile it becomes obvious that xbox had a real steal in acquiring them at the same time. Good vid, tho'
Arcanum is on the same fate as Tyranny both games offered a lot and innovated in some areas but didn't become popular cause they were made on a tigher leash without realising their full potential and never getting a sequel. Meanwhile the outer worlds a sub par game with shallow mechanics and world building is getting a sequel cause it was overhyped and promoted as the next new vegas. The og though bloodlines could use a remaster in unreal engine.
@@youngthinker1 Yes combat in bloodline was bad (it's not like oblivion had better at the time) and it seemed way worse when you used weapons you hadn't invested points. Can you give an example of bad mechanics cause the game had pretty good for an RPG. Also games come in different forms and some of them are story and less action. If gamers wanted to read books to experience a story then games like "life is strange" or "beyond two souls" wouldn't exist.
I bought Arcanum and VtM: Bloodlines when they came out, played them almost obsessively, and still love them. Since I already played VtM P&P I was really pleased with how they translated the game for PC. But my favourite remains Arcanum - such a wonderful world, great ideas, and amazing lore. I would really have loved to see a sequel.
Everyone always mentions how buggy the games were, but back then I didn't really notice that.
As for Arcanum's fighting... what really stayed with me were the golems that damaged your armour and weapons. I hated those things.
All three were playable on release. That isn't to say that they weren't buggy (or even very buggy), but they were definitely playable. I got them all on release and still have my physical copies, and Bloodlines is in my top 5 games.
That said, I'm glad they got new life via the digital market, all three of these games deserve a place in everyone's collection - especially Bloodlines.
I bought all three of these at release, and yeah they were rough. Still can't get into Temple of Elemental Evil, but the others are special to me nonetheless. If I could have a new Arcanum in either classic or modern Fallout style, that would be amazing!
I played all three when they came out. Arcanum is the one I enjoyed the most and still replay it time to time.
Do you want to know how clueless the industry is, during PEAK Vampire Years(True blood, Twilight, Diaries, etc) we never got ONE vampire game during that era. Not One.
Arcanum was such a fresh take on the genre, with its mix, no doubt that is the one I would want to see. Im currently playing Fallen Earth and it has that mix of magic/ guns. Need more of those mix/ match like Darkwatch with western/ magic. More of these would be refreshing.
Excellent video, and very interesting, got a lot of new info. Thank you!
I do find the story of Troika very interesting, it really is too bad about the buggy state these games were in, now I love TOEE and Arcanum. I wish we could get some sequels to them though I can't see how that would happen, particularly Arcanum would be an awesome sequel.
I am somewhat surprised to hear that Vampires did not do well on release. I remember my friends talking fondly about the game. I myself did not have a PC good enough to run the game at the time.
I wonder if we will get a sequel. I think I would enjoy an isometric crpg, heavy on story and dialogue, like planescape or disco elysium, in the world of darkness setting.
I would love to be high up enough in Microsoft to say “You three, make a good Fallout game, like the first one but with modern graphics. “
That would sell like crazy.
The philosophy lesson on human nature you are given when speaking to Loghaire Thunderstone alone is worth buying and playing Arcanum for. And I love the game to this day.
"RPG house out in LA; it's in Irvine, a little south. Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, and Jason Anderson are the major players. Workin' on a secret project, I don't know much about it. Camarilla's concerned they know too much."
Arcanum was so good. Just absolutely formative for me in terms of what I love most in fiction and video games.
What a great vid for a beautiful Sunday morning! Thanks Mort!
Troika ruled! Arcanum is still awesome! Vampire bloodlines is a work of art even today!
Thanks for this slice of gaming history! May the algorithm spread your wisdom...
Btw I heard Tim Cain voice his appreciation for your channel and your thorough review in a couple of his videos.
Just thought you might like to know in case you had missed that!
i was wondering exactly what happened! thank you! i'm making an HD pack as well for VTM, i wanted to such a long time. there are really amazing people out there that still love VTM and you are totally right
Fascinating topic - it always seemsed so wrong that Troika went bust after producing such good games, especially Bloodlines - which is a candidate for top CRPG of all time imo. However, if Troika going bust was why Bethesda could produce FO3, may be there is an upside. I suspect a Troika Fallout 3 would have been an incremental advance on FO2, rather than switching to the first person, real time approach of Bethesda.A Fallout in the style of Bloodlines, though - that would have been something. (Maybe that was FNV?).
If anyone is interested in behind-the-scenes stories from Troika (or from Fallout), Timothy Cain has a UA-cam channel :)
100% agree... all three games are amazing... looking forward for their next titles
Three of my favourites. Bloodlines was easily one of the best, despite its issues. Which always makes me wonder, just how good would it have been without those issues?
I still have my Bloodlines DVDs. Played it to (un)death.
There is a tiny chance for Arcanum 2, but at least now there is a chance. Let a man dream
Still waiting for the release of Fallout 3. I mean, the real one. It's certainly possible now :)
It is called ATOM RPG.
For people coming to this video a year plus after it was posted Tim Cain now has a UA-cam channel where he talks about all these classic games.
Arcanum 2... there is hope now !
I've enjoyed all of their games but Bloodlines is my favorite. There are some more recent games based on White Wolf but hardly any when this came out (can't remember if Redemption was out already) and they nailed it. So much replayability even without many of the mods out there.
First, thank you so much for mentioning GOG. Second, Troika Games might just be the only video game developer that managed to produce games that gamers love, reviewed well and still ended up closing shop.
The industry was moving towards a different, darker path that Troika didn’t, couldn’t or wouldn’t follow. Such a pity. Here’s to you founders of Troika Games. I hope your new corporate overlords let you make great games once again.
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing
I was going to tell you that there was a sequel to Arcanum. Then I realized I had it confused with Realms of Arkania. I played them both when they were released. I also had The Masquerade when I was released.
Shout out to wesp5, who is still making patches for Bloodlines!
GOG have been packaging his unofficial patch with their Bloodlines distribution for years now.
A true legend of the industry. Or at least a cautionary tale.
VTMB and arcanum are insanelly good in storytelling. Just like fallout 2. The characters and their voice acting are simply the best i ever experienced in video games.
Troika made history
Everyone should be aware coming to these games now that the crippling issues that plagued these titles at launch NO LONGER MATTER. Every one of them has been fixed by fan patches. They are now what they could have been. So enjoy them. People put alot of work into making it that way.
Very good stuff here
I'll never understand why Activision treated Troika like a bastard child. You would think theyd given them more time and resources given the talent behind the studio was responsible for one of the greatest RPGs of all time, fallout
free comment. also that vtm dance.
Masterpieces them all.
Flawed but visionary. I take a buggy Troika game over a polished Ubisoft openworld title any day.
Been listening to Tim Caines stories lately.
Wish they had gone on to make games, loved Arcanum and Vampire and enjoyed Temple okayishly. :) Arcanum is the best one for me. :D
To me these guys are kind of visionaries and tried to go "indie" at the worst time. It's "funny" they were able to see Interplay turning into a hot mess but not realising the full scale publisher crash with Atari, Sierra and many other VG publishers going bankrupt. Then we got kind of a dark age until KickStarter got big, between 2002 and 2014 the video game landscape was dominated by FPS on consoles, MOBA and MMORPG on PC and the smartphone game market was growing too.
Still 5 years ago I was doing an exposé about Troika for my game design class. Troika games are in my all-time top games along with Deus Ex and Yasumi Matsuno games, they have a soul and respect the player's intelligence. They're the kind of games many game makers of my generation want to do and as players we are happy to see the old guard still kicking at Obsidian, Arkane & co. and keeping this soul alive. I'd wager the head of Microsoft games also remembers fondly what that mid 90's to early 2k's era of games meant for the industry as a whole.
Also I see Obsidian's Alpha Protocol as the unofficial, last Troika game. It has the fresh setting, player agency and buggy jankyness of a AA title trying to crunch forward AAA ambitions, all the Troika trademarks :p
And Spiders is kind of a Troika that will never achieve greatness because they actually stay on budget delivering pretty ok AA RPGs that are neither great nor terrible XD
I made a point to remove any sentiment from IPs I grew up on. Just gotta admit once the spirit of an IP gets amputated by corporations, the industry, and life, the odds of things going back to the way they were are very poor. At this point, the IPs can be whatever. The 'spirit' of those games - that's what I want to see make a come back.
I hope we get back into a trend of games that all but force you to keep a pen and paper nearby. Force us to really think which direction we're facing. 'Wait, am I going East or West right now? What other NPC was also talking about this?'
In my opinion, the more you have to figure out for yourself, the more memorable and satisfying the success. Jigsaw puzzles don't put numbers on the back of the pieces and are one of the most addicting passtimes. Using your brain to solve a problem, not a UI.
Unfortunately we live in an age of walkthroughs and information readily available at a click of a button so a trend of forcing you to keep pen and paper nearby will never ever be seen again. Neither will gamers ever have to actually ‘think’ lol I started gaming on DoS, the old text adventures that really made the old grey matter work overtime.
@@Carfilliot I started out on DoS too. These games are being made, just not as prevalent as they were back then.
Indie developers are already doing this kind of thing. So this kind of gaming is definitely still around, no question about it.
My statement is just that I hope it continues.
The Community saved all these gems.
You going to review new expeditions rome DLC? :)
Yes
Troika was so close to being really good, yet they managed to turn victory into defeat in all 3 of their games. It all boils down to exquisitely bad timing and bugs.
(1) Arcanum had a weird, quirky character system that started off slowly if memory serves. It was also kind of ugly, even for its time, and buggy. Throne of Bhaal, the awesome expansion to BG2, released only 2 months prior. Given that BG2 would take many players 200 hours to finish, Arcanum released right as people were finishing BG2/ToB and were kind of burnt out on RPGs. And since Arcanum didn't hold a candle to BG2, it was kind of put aside when it started slowly and had bugs. Who wanted to play a low level character in an ugly RPG when they had just put 200 hours into being a God in BG2? Still, because it was different it put up reasonable numbers.
(2) ToEE was a more marketable (D&D) property but released in a huge GLUT of D&D RPGs. It didn't do anything better than Icewind Dale 2, which released the year before. NWN also released the year before and released 2 expansions the year ToEE came out - one 2 months before the release and one 2 months after. It was largely lost in the noise of almost a dozen D&D type RPG releases the prior 2 years. Arcanum (with better graphics) would have been a better release in 2003 than it was in 2001 due to the different material. Reverse TOEE and Arcanum (with better graphics) and each game probably sells at least twice as many copies.
(3) Vampire was probably their best product and looked/played differently than other RPGs at the time. But it had the worst timing of any game ever. It released in November, 2004. You know what else released in November 2004? Three of the biggest releases of all time. Half Life 2. World of Warcraft and Everquest 2. No action RPG is going to survive the simultaneous release of those 3 titles - 11/2004 may have been the biggest month in PC gaming ever. And when the game released is buggy as hell, it stood no chance of making it big. Delaying that game 6 months would have done wonders for both the stability and to let the noise die down from HL2, WoW and EQ2.
i love Bloodlines and tbh is one of my favorite game of all time. It's sad the 2nd one is about to never be released at all. Let's hope not. Greetings from Brazil!
Arcanum was the most real. good as fuck
I think Temple of Elemental Evil didn't do well because everyone was already playing Neverwinter Nights and Knights of the Old Republic in 2003. Neverwinter Nights had modding tools and multiplayer while KOTOR takes place in a setting that virtually everyone in North America was already familiar with. IIRC, Bloodlines was borderline unplayable on most computers in 2004 and released on the same day as Half-Life 2, which had much better marketing and ran well on release. There was actually some coverage of Temple of Elemental Evil in mainstream media because it was the closest you could get to turn-based D&D 3.5 on a computer in 2004 and the module was written by Gary Gygax.
Yeah I'm checking out NWN now actually, and playing it after ToEE and realizing NWN released a year earlier was a bit of a surprise.
I woulda kill for a other game in the arcanum universe
Best game company ever!
Noice
Larian, please say no when Microsoft tries to buy you, too....
Larian has notoriously bad history with publishers etc, so I sincerely doubt Swen would be willing to sell after that 20+ years of work he put into finally making his studio what it is today
Jeez man I just started playing Pillars of Eternity my first CRPG and you weren't kidding they really bad at guiding new players. I'm not really familiar with D&D, or any other major rulesets so I don't have the table top background to help me out. Anyway I gotta say I've almost given up multiple times the combat is so frustrating! I love pretty much everything else but the combat feels broken, the AI listens like 2% of the time, and enemies cast or use abilities more than a person anywhere near my level could do, I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding or it's just plain cheating. I know some of it is my fault I'm still trying to learn, but these games seem to assume you've played every CRPG ever, know all their specific rules by heart, and they are expecting you to min/max everything. It's no wonder the genre doesn't grow when it's this obscure to new players like me. I doubt I'll ever play a "Realtime with pause" game again, it's just seems like a messy free for all, and a chore to use, just because they did combat like that 20 years ago doesn't mean it was any good. I know some people like it, but I just don't get it. Anyway please don't take any of this in a negative way, I am really enjoying most of it, but I can definitely see why the genre isn't bigger, the patience and research needed to play is much higher than your average game. Anyway these are just my thoughts as someone new to CRPG's. Thought you might be interested because your videos inspired me to finally start playing CRPG's thanks......I think lol
Preach, brother. I feel exactly the same way.
best team ever is Obsidian.