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

I'm working on it! Just give me more artists and it would be done faster!

I see everyone referring to MM as "TB" - I must be the only one here that played it as real time. Couldn't stand the TB mode, felt it was too slow already back then. Same thing with Fallout - I loved BG, IWD, PS and so on, but Fallout combat bored me out of my mind. I like TB whenever a fight is challenging, but I can't stand it when I'm fighting rats and what not.

Every TB game should have the automatic combat option of HoMM, where you can choose to automatically smash the enemy if they're not a challenge.

Also, I think people are discussing different things in this thread. Some are discussing games that are cheap to develop, while others (like Couchpotato) are referring to more expensive games. Two very different topics in other words.

@ Maylander: MM6 and after, yes, you're right. There are five games before that though (six if you count Swords of Xeen) and they were all pure turn based.
But I also tended to play 6-9 in real time, save for harder fights.

That is kind of brilliant in MM actually how you can switch between TB and real time. Quite complex to do I'd assume… but more games should have that.

Originally Posted by Dhruin
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.

I think that's a bit overly pessimistic. Certainly a TB RPG will never sell millions of copies, but most games don't need to.

I agree with you if "AAA" means only Bioware/Bethesda budget but I certainly think it's possible for a non-indie TB RPG with a medium budget to sell a couple of hundred thousand copies. I'm sure if someone described the gameplay mechanics of Minecraft to you 2 years ago, you wouldn't think it would sell a million copies either.

Also, consider that no one has made any "AAA" real time party based RPG's that aren't based on a Bioware-engine. Black Isle was working on their own engine with turn-based support for use in Fallout 3 / BG3 but Interplay going bust put a stop to that.

It's not really the case of an irreversible trend where all party based RPG's have gone real time. It's one company totally dominating that market since 1999, either directly or through licensing of their (real time) RPG engines.

Working on it - but it will be a while

Well, it could be argued that Drakensang was an AAa game - with real time party combat not based on InfinityE (which was great because it was actually nearly turn based). And yet it`s dead apparently…

I think we really are a niche audience and apart from few indies it`ll be a long time before any major dev will touch this genre again… (in the West, that is

Originally Posted by Pessimeister
(except for a pedantic point that Temple of Elemental Evil was difficult…not for the hardy goldbox players it wasn't!)

Me, I didn't find TOEE very difficult.

Challenging, yes, but not very difficult.

But maybe that's because I'm already trained into TB-thinking ?

Originally Posted by zadokAllen
Well, it could be argued that Drakensang was an AAa game - with real time party combat not based on InfinityE (which was great because it was actually nearly turn based). And yet it`s dead apparently…

That's precisely my point, remove Bioware from the picture and real time party RPG isn't doing any better than turn based party RPG.
Meanwhile, other genres with far more intricate turn-based mechanics are doing just fine.

Originally Posted by zadokAllen
I think we really are a niche audience and apart from few indies it`ll be a long time before any major dev will touch this genre again… (in the West, that is

There's plenty of non-indie games for other niche audiences.

Sometimes a genre faces an unexpected downturn, happens to niche as well as mainstream. Then those devs go bankrupt or start doing other genres. Happened to space sims and adventure games, both once mainstream genres that sold millions. It's probably going to happen to genres that are mainstream today.
The publishers will then refuse to invest in the genre until some small-budget game becomes an unexpected hit and "revives" it.

I guess all turn-based games will sooner or later die out and for a very good reason : they are all boring.
Even grand strategy / 4x games are moving to real time direction ( Distant Worlds anyone?)

Civ 5 and Total War (campaign mode) seem to be doing alright, don't they.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Working on it - but it will be a while

If I was actually intelligent enough to NOT miserable fail my Computer Science education, I probably would have been working on my own hobby-project right now

As it stands now, I'm STILL trying to get a basic grasp on C++, and after years of trying I still haven't gotten an inch further in my attempts of getting into hobbyist game development.

Originally Posted by Tragos
I guess all turn-based games will sooner or later die out and for a very good reason : they are all boring.
Even grand strategy / 4x games are moving to real time direction ( Distant Worlds anyone?)

Yeah definitively, specially chess. So boring. Those 150 million active players are just waiting for someone to come up with a good real time adaptation.

Originally Posted by TheGameSquid
If I was actually intelligent enough to NOT miserable fail my Computer Science education, I probably would have been working on my own hobby-project right now

As it stands now, I'm STILL trying to get a basic grasp on C++, and after years of trying I still haven't gotten an inch further in my attempts of getting into hobbyist game development.

Well, all I can say is that making a game of significant scope as a one-person team whilst maintaining a full-time job (and various personal obligations) is pretty ridiculous

I can recommend delving into C# from the getgo - and then use XNA for your game. It really is a lot easier when dealing with the graphics aspect of such a project. It took me a while to move from procedural programming to object-oriented programming - so you can imagine I'm not really a coder. But I manage most things I need to do, somehow.

It helps to set realistic goals, and I think that's probably THE most important aspect.

Might as well make it as easy as possible, because it's a lot of work doing textures and UI art in Photoshop, 3D art in Blender, storyline, quests, actual working code, game system designs (the only thing I'm really interested in), sound, and all those other things…. So, as I said - it'll be a while

Yeah definitively, specially chess. So boring. Those 150 million active players are just waiting for someone to come up with a good real time adaptation.

don't forget it really needs high-res 3d graphics with lots of shaders and simplification of the rules!

O… and the queen… she needs to have bigger boobs…..

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Civ 5 and Total War (campaign mode) seem to be doing alright, don't they.

They are doing alright because they have a dedicated crowd but they will not generate any new fans , so their fan base will decline .

Originally Posted by TheSisko
Yeah definitively, specially chess. So boring. Those 150 million active players are just waiting for someone to come up with a good real time adaptation.

Chess is not a computer game, i play backgammon with my father and cousins at Sundays and i can not tolerate turns

Originally Posted by GothicGothicness
don't forget it really needs high-res 3d graphics with lots of shaders and simplification of the rules!

O… and the queen… she needs to have bigger boobs…..

Of course, and in the endgame you must make the difficult choice of whether to romance the enemy king or queen

Originally Posted by Tragos
They are doing alright because they have a dedicated crowd but they will not generate any new fans , so their fan base will decline

Are you saying the Civ/TW games haven't increased in popularity from the time of the first iterations?

You said turn-based games are boring, and yet millions of people are buying these titles over and over.

So, how can that be? Explain please.

Originally Posted by TheSisko
T
There's plenty of non-indie games for other niche audiences.

Sometimes a genre faces an unexpected downturn, happens to niche as well as mainstream. Then those devs go bankrupt or start doing other genres. Happened to space sims and adventure games, both once mainstream genres that sold millions. It's probably going to happen to genres that are mainstream today.
The publishers will then refuse to invest in the genre until some small-budget game becomes an unexpected hit and "revives" it.

Plenty? Hmmm..dunno about that. Looking at adventures, these struggle pretty much too. Strategy? About the level of rpgs I`d say. Can`t think of any other niche audiences…

But, all in all agree with your `revival` theory - thats what I was hoping for in my 1st post in this thread :)

Originally Posted by Tragos
i play backgammon with my father and cousins at Sundays and i can not tolerate turns

How d`ya play then? ;)

Originally Posted by Tragos
They are doing alright because they have a dedicated crowd but they will not generate any new fans , so their fan base will decline .

"Empire: Total War was released on 3 March 2009 to the North American market, and three days later in Europe. The game has become the fastest selling Total War title to date; Empire topped British video game sales charts for all platforms in the week of release, the first PC exclusive title to do so in a year and a half."

I'm sure they were very sad with their declining fan base.

Originally Posted by Tragos
Chess is not a computer game, i play backgammon with my father and cousins at Sundays and i can not tolerate turns

So you assume no one else wants an experience because you personally don't tolerate it?

Your argument seems to be based on the idea that turnbased games only succeeded because it wasn't possible to make them realtime, and that most of their players wished they were realtime. I simply don't think that's true, specially since realtime games have been around since the 80's.