Can we get another turned-based CRPG already? @ B'n'B

Dhruin

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A site called Bits'n'Bytes has a plea for a Might & Magic or Wizardry styled game:
The lack of awesome videogame boxes, manuals, maps and so on aside, what the modern gaming world lacks is a true progression of the turn-based, square-grid map style RPG of the 80′s and 90′s. “But wait Armand, we have awesome RPGs these days! Who needs these relics of the long forgotten 1990′s?” you might ask… or comment. I don’t know, was that a question? Well, I’ll answer it anyway. “Yes!” I say, “we do have awesome modern rpgs the likes of which would have given the 90′s version of me a seizure had I seen them then.” Games like Dragon Age truly encapsulate some of the greatest elements of computer role playing games. But they are to the older turn-based games what Starcraft is to the original Civilization games. Both have resource management, armies, buildings and so on, but they are hardly the same kind of game.
Let’s back up a bit. The games I’m talking about are wonders such as the old Might and Magic series, the Wizardry games, or Lands of Lore. These were games that gave the impression of a first-person viewpoint without the modern day 3D world in which such games now exist. The game world was broken up into a massive grid, with individual squares making up a pre-determined space of about 10 square feet. Just enough space for your party of 4-6 adventurers to battle hoards of pixel-based baddies. You could move in four directions provided nothing was blocking your path, or just turn around to observe your surroundings in four directions.
More information.
 
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I will simply will say not gonna happen. The market has moved on despite some of us who want more turned-based CRPG's. The game wouldn't sell well and be slammed by
journalist.
 
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I will simply will say not gonna happen. The market has moved on despite some of us who want more turned-based CRPG's. The game wouldn't sell well and be slammed by
journalist.

I am not sure that is true. A really high end turn based RPG like a M&M or Wizardy or even a dungeon crawl like Lands of Lore or Dungeon Master could be made pretty inexpensively and with all the online distribution now have a really good chance at being a big success.
 
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Both have resource management, armies, buildings and so on, but they are hardly the same kind of game.
Right, but someone, somewhere decided that the turn-based type of game doesn't sell anymore. In my opinion, it's not because the market "moved on". Will you just look at how many computer games are being produced, from the casual indie to Dragon Age to to Crysis 2 to Minecraft? There's plenty of market for every conceivable type of game.

Perhaps a more persuasive point: King's Bounty. It's a turn-based combat game. People played it. It made money. It has a sequel and expansions. If people will play a game that's nothing but turn-based combat, what logical reason is there people wouldn't play an RPG with tb combat? Because they're addicted to cut scenes of gay elf sex?

The reason the games aren't made is because there's some kind of bizarre concensus that they won't make money, and because the AAA players are highly risk-averse. I'll freely concede this point though: as long as no one ever makes another turn-based RPG, no one will play it and it definitely won't make money.
 
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completely agree w the last post. Additionally, the most successful jRPGs have turn based combat at their core, the Civ series is all TB, Advance Wars on the DS, King's Bounty, Heroes of Might and Magic...

I feel like turn-based gameplay as a mechanic is neither old-fashioned or bad for business. It's just a choice. It's relatively out of fashion right now but some genius will come out of the woodwork and make a massively sucessful TB RPG game, KB or Minecraft style. we just don't know what that magic formula will be...

give me more WEGO tb games!
 
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Dare I say... LOL?

OK maybe I just need to make Underworld a bit better still. Or perhaps... Just comment on his post...

Thanks for relaying this precious info :D
 
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To add another point if you follow pc news there was an article with obsidian were they were asked if they could would they make more infinity games. They said yes but the problem is no investor would give money for small returns. So there it is as stated the money to invest is not wroth the risk. In a business sense they are right. Don't except bioware either to ever make a turnbased crpg or another game like baldur's gate.
 
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They`ll come…AOD will be a huge success and others will follow =revival & happy end…

*…meanwhile in the real world…*

So before it (surely! :) happens there`s enough old turn based games to keep anyone busy…try HOTU as a database, if you think "i`ve played them all already!"
 
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I will simply will say not gonna happen. The market has moved on despite some of us who want more turned-based CRPG's. The game wouldn't sell well and be slammed by
journalist.

wouldn't sell??????
R U kidding me????
Just about evey single Might and Magic lover has been waiting for years for a new game. If they would just worry about making a good game instead of how well it's gonna sell, everything would take care of itself.
 
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I'd love more turn based RPGs, but I don't think that first person is the way to go for turn based games.
I'm more for isometric ones.
 
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The point is a series of TB WRPG has been released after BG2 and during first years of the 00's and they shown a selling success decrease, if not a commercial failure. Arcanum, Icewind Dale 2, Wizardry 8, Fallout Tactics, Temple of Elemental Evil, Might and Magic IX.

At opposite right after WRPG using a different approach got much more selling success, NWN, Morrowind, Dungeon Siege, KoTOR.

That short period of few years certainly took an important part in killing Turn based WRPG.

For sure that's not true for JRPG but I don't think there's much influences nor that many links with WRPG.

That long period without TB games could only have generated generations of young players that have few appeal for it. Sure you'll find some fans but that's minority.

I don't think that games like Civ or KBTL could be compared because they are strategy games. That remind me that I have to try a recent game that seems in the spirit of Battle Isle, ie TB but not a serious wargame, cool graphics in this case in 3D with many details, not too many units, and so on.
 
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wouldn't sell??????
R U kidding me????
Just about evey single Might and Magic lover has been waiting for years for a new game. If they would just worry about making a good game instead of how well it's gonna sell, everything would take care of itself.

Im not kidding you in the view of the publisher its not worth it enough to invest money.
 
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The point is a series of TB WRPG has been released after BG2 and during first years of the 00's and they shown a selling success decrease, if not a commercial failure. Arcanum, Icewind Dale 2, Wizardry 8, Fallout Tactics, Temple of Elemental Evil, Might and Magic IX.

Let me break it down to you why (I believe) these aforementioned games were not as successful as earlier TB RPGs.

Arcanum: Deserved cult hit but had its share of bugs on release and dated graphics. somewhat stiff challenge curve as well and I personally felt that it suffered from some serious balance issues.

Icewind Dale 2: Solid classic Infinity game, but regurgitated tech from the last three years + more of the same feel. also, particularly tough difficulty curve.

Wizardry 8: I <3 this game, but man did it have a serious difficulty curve.

Fallout Tactics: Buggy on release. Also some flawed game concepts and questionable design decisions.

Temple of Elemental Evil: Cult gem shamefully released too soon. Again, somewhat tough to get into due to difficulty curve.

Might and Magic IX: Rushed. Questionable design decisions every step of the way.

Notice the trends here? Either the games were rushed out the door before they were ready, or their difficulty levels only appealed to niche audiences (like me), or they simply made poor design choices, resulting in mediocre gameplay.

If a new TB game enters the scene, it needs to have a difficulty curve that's either adjustable or not immediately off-putting. It doesn't need to be dumbed down or have hand-holding, but it does need to offer difficulty on par with modern mainstream RPGs such as Dragon Age (and that had some tough moments), The Witcher and the new Fallouts. For the sake of contrast, I also feel older games like Baldur's Gate 2, the Gothics(!), Might and Magic 6-7 and Morrowind had 'sweet spot' difficulty curves. I'm also of the opinion that Oblivion's auto leveling system was immersion-breaking and misguided on the part of the devs, but the difficulty curve in that game overall was somewhat tolerable.

Tell me I'm wrong, on this, but I think the games mentioned above that suffered from buggy releases probably were under the pressure of deadlines from their publishers and had to compromise the stability of their games in order to ship them. Just my educated guess.

The games that suffered from flawed design decisions did so because the developers either made poor decisions in the moment or didn't have good game design chops. Games that didn't do well because of this reason do not deserve success, IMO. Shame that they sully the brand in the process and ward off publishers from having another go at the franchise (Might and Magic RPG and UBisoft, lookin at you).

The reason I think the next 'monster-hit' TB RPG will emerge from the indie sphere (and will emerge, period) is because there will be no such issues at stake. Indie games have no publishers and thus don't have to meet any corporate deadlines of shipping the games. Age of Decadence seems to be taking its sweet time getting polished and Dead State is probably basking in a similar luxury until it gets released. No publisher means no deadlines, which means a better chance at a bug-free game. Hopefully these devs are as passionate about making their games as good as the ones that inspired them, so here's hoping the games are as good as their forebears'.

Additionally, the tech for users to make their own games is getting more accessible every year. Unexpected breakthroughs in the indie sphere happen all the time. I know I'm not the only one who so badly wants another turn based RPG. I just think for it to really 'hit', it needs to adhere to certain expectations of modern gamers: stability, approachability (being challenging, instead of being brutally hard because it's a TB RPG) and rock solid good gameplay.

everything else, including whether it's turn-based or real-time is incidental to the deeper issues explored above.

i'm optimistic that a 'hit' TB rpg will re-emerge because there is always a passionate audience for good, interesting, fun games (no matter the genre) and the tools to make a game like this are getting easier to acquire and master.

just my two cents.
 
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Im not kidding you in the view of the publisher its not worth it enough to invest money.

I really don't understand this response - maybe we're talking about two different things.

If I recall his numbers correctly, Spiderwebl's budgets for their turn-based RPGs is about $120,000 per game... which is about how much each game brings in within the first 15 months *on the average*. Some do far better, others... not so much. But it's a predictable enough return that they can sustain a business on that.

I don't know if you could do cutting-edge visuals or anything with a budget like that, but once the core engine is in place I could definitely see it being a sustainable business with a significant technological update from the classics of the 80's and early 90's.
 
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If a new TB game enters the scene, it needs to have a difficulty curve that's either adjustable or not immediately off-putting. It doesn't need to be dumbed down or have hand-holding, but it does need to offer difficulty on par with modern mainstream RPGs such as Dragon Age (and that had some tough moments), The Witcher and the new Fallouts. …

Good post.

I´m having a "return to origins" period with the good help of impulse and GoG, Playing IWD2 and Replaying BG1 (with tutu).

What hit me (in every sense of the word) was how lethal these games were. In the first parts of the games, reload was my best friend. And I have played Baldurs gate1+2 for two complete playthroughs before , (with an absurd amount of restarting..)

Do modern games have a smoother learning curve?
I have no idea, but sure as hell the above mentioned games were much rougher in the start than mass effect, DA:O or even Witcher


C

ps. Arcanum, How I would have loved to finish that game, but some serious design flaws and balance issues will forever banish me from completing it (and the somewhat boring colour scheme in the graphics department)
 
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There's some irony in the fact that two posters in this thread either have, or are, producing indie TB RPGs…They're not dead yet for people open to indie values. If you expect AAA production, well, that will never happen.

Anyway…

The point is a series of TB WRPG has been released after BG2 and during first years of the 00's and they shown a selling success decrease, if not a commercial failure. Arcanum, Icewind Dale 2, Wizardry 8, Fallout Tactics, Temple of Elemental Evil, Might and Magic IX.

At opposite right after WRPG using a different approach got much more selling success, NWN, Morrowind, Dungeon Siege, KoTOR.

Your point is diluted by your examples. Icewind Dale 2 isn't a TB RPG. KotOR, which you list on the successful side, does not have a substantially different underlying system.

As for the others, Arcanum also had a realtime option. Does that prove realtime games are out of favour? Wiz 8 was handicapped by a long-delayed release, limited distribution (only EB Games in many countries) and poorly balanced battles. I'm not sure how well F: Tactics did or didn't sell but it isn't an RPG and doesn't prove much.

ToEE is probably your best example. It's a shame the game was poorly conceived (one of the most dull, old-school, combat-heavy modules they could have chosen) and quite buggy but certainly history will record it as a failed TB game that "proves" TB combat doesn't sell.
 
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What hit me (in every sense of the word) was how lethal these games were. In the first parts of the games, reload was my best friend. And I have played Baldurs gate1+2 for two complete playthroughs before , (with an absurd amount of restarting..)

Yeah.. it was always easy to get your ass handed to you early in the IE games, especially in the first 1/2 of Baldur's Gate, but I loved that about those games.

Wizardry 8 was another game that was brutal early on, although it became a lot easier in the latter half, particularly after getting certain spells.
 
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I second the sentiment - good post from Gumbomasta (except for a pedantic point that Temple of Elemental Evil was difficult…not for the hardy goldbox players it wasn't!) ;)

I realise this is idealistic, but I wonder if there has been an attempt made to petition the likes of Ubisoft (and other turn based publishers for that matter) in their usage of the Might and Magic name?
I've played and finished all of them (except for II!) and it seems a shame that today's technology isn't being utilised to give this series a rebirth.

I'd also just make the additional point that a cRPG need not be either/or as far as combat systems go, a hybrid of systems could be adapted with an option to change to turn based (like in Might and Magic and to some extent BG) could be attempted.

A modern refined GoldBox game experience with pure turn based combat is certainly a dream game for me and I'm sure many others.

Bit more personal/offtopic:
Strangely enough, I'm actually trying to get back into Stormfront Studio's abomination - Ruins of Myth Drannor. Initially when I'd first played it (back in 2002 or so) I stopped about half way through because of the sheer monotony, lack of variety and weak writing when compared to Baldur's Gate. There just wasn't enough to do outside of the combat to keep it going.
However, with better hardware, the speed mod and a lengthy varied cRPG soundtrack playlist - I've installed it again and are trying to persist in seeing it through this time, as I do miss that classic party and turn based gameplay alot.
 
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Well good for the indies but you see I prefer quality games and not one that looks like it had a $50,000 budget. Graphics don't make a good game but it helps. Despite the failing of large rpg developers at least I know I will get a good game. Hence why I stated large publishers wont invest in indie games.

PS:I tried the rpg indie games on spiderweb software and didn't enjoy them.
 
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