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Turn-Based Games: What Happened?
WarSpite self-promotes: "Over at Firingsquad we have an editorial on the fate of turn-based gaming. We explore how real-time games have taken over from their slower brethren, some of the consequences therein, and try to find the answer to that universal question - "why?" At the least it's an interesting read which gets the brain going - feel free to check it out."
You're assuming that people are using the same amount of strategy in an RTS that they are in a TBG. Not a chance! Go look at half the games of StarCraft or RedAlert being played. It's cookie-cutter strategy (if you could even call it strategy). Face it, RTS games lose almost all elements of strategy as everyone just fumbles with the controls to pump out units to rush the other guy. It may be fun for some, but TBG have WAY more strategy involved and for some of us, that's much more interesting. For some of these RTS games, you might as well just pull out a joystick and control your units like an arcade game.
Turn-Based Games: What Happened?
Somebody set up us the bomb !!
Especially with the rise of online multiplayer gaming this becomes a huge issue. If I take 5 minutes to do my turn that's probably going to be 5 minutes I have to sit around waiting for my opponent to move. Boooooorrrrriiiing. When I play a game I want to be able to jump in at any time and jump out without causing any major disturbance. Someone else will come along and take my place. With turn based games I'd be committed to sitting there for probably at least an hour or two.
I love games like Civilization and Sim City. They usually have the best cheats and people don't bitch at you when you use them like they do with real-time online networked games. I mean hell, who wants to sit around for half of forever to build up money in Sim City when you can just give yourself 2 billion, build a huge cool city and then kick its ass destroying it with tornadoes and seamonsters. :-)
Bah, chess is SOOO boring and is complicated with too many obscure rules. Now, Battle Chess.. that was fun. We need online realtime Battle Chess and then maybe it'd be interesting. Too many pussy chess players will sit there for minutes just thinking of their next move. There should be a 5 second time limit on each move and new rules that increase the fun. Maybe let the big castle thingies crush anything on the board if it can get to it in any direction or let the queen cast a spell on a pawn and turn it into a knight for 3 rounds. That'd rule.
Erm, so you're saying...
"Hey, Taco, I don't like this. Why are you posting stories I'm not interested in?"
Jackass.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
pimpwar.com is a very hilarious game, which is turn based, although the turns to come about fairly quickly, its still turn based, and its a whole lot of fun!
-- "I feel a strong disturbance in the for.."\*Segmentation Fault*\ (core dumped)
Yeah, BRE was great, except for the fact that any BBS can cheat by intentionally not sending response messages. If I remember correctly when you send an attack, and there is no response message it could be many days before your units return, leaving you vulnerable (okay if you use jets, bad if you use tanks). And sometimes depends of how often the BBS's talk to one another you can get 2 day's worth of nuke/chem/bio attacks stacked together... very messy.
:)
BTW, be great if there is a version of BRE on the net that you can telnet to and play...
Kill'em! Kill'em all!
But SC1 was rather unbalanced with the Alliance having the almost unbeatable x-form fighter - it's faster than everything else and the missles shoot far enough to allow it to swing around most units and wear them down shot by shot. And once you move one of them around exploring a bit to put in a few add-ons you can walk over your opponent, expecially if you get extra speed and turning rate.
SC2 was more balanced, with a lot more fast units (those respawning Pkunk fighters are neat), but the full game was trivially simple once you have your mothership loaded with power generators and hellbore cannons. I thought that there is limit to the amount of ships attacking in a home world and proceeded to take down about hundred or so Ur-quan dreadnoughts before giving up guessing there is probably no limit.
Pity SC3 is such a shocking dissapointment, some of the new ships are kind of interesting though.
Kill'em! Kill'em all!
Yeah well, everyone is cautious in from of a door, but I wonder how most DM would react to the "we'll grease the hinges of the door, gentally push it open just a tiny bit and point the tip of the wand of fire into the gap and shoot a fireball into the room" :)
Kill'em! Kill'em all!
The problem is in most real-time strategy games your units have the mental capacity of some soft noodle. For example in Starcraft it'd be nice if the siege tanks don't all fire on the first incoming unit, almost all at the same time. have a way to set the firing pattern would make them a lot more useful. And yeah, in real life entrenched infantry is almost impervious to an infantry rush, as demonstrated in the millions of life lost in WWI trench warfare.
Kill'em! Kill'em all!
I think online multiplayer turn based games will need to use the x turns per day way of playing like the old BBS games. But in a LAN game, there is no problem - just have a rule that everybody do the massive micromanagement stuff at the same time. e.g. in Master of Orion II we make sure everyone design ships in the same turn. Usually a game can be finished in about 4 to 5 hours because you don't need to completely annhiliate the enemy to win, any conclusive swing of balance would be sufficient, expecially with the more advanced techs. Also the spare time while waiting for someone to finish their turn can be filled up by some mp3 copying :)
Kill'em! Kill'em all!
No one has yet pointed out that turn-based games work really well in multiplayer if the players are't all free at the same time. The PBEM (Play By EMail) mode of games like Alpha Centauri lets you carry on a game even when all of the players are on completely different schedules.
I have a good friend who's as into turn-based strategy games as I am. In the past, we've gotten together for a full day playing Master of Orion II, FreeCiv, or Alpha Centauri on a LAN, but that takes a lot of time and requires us to both be free at the same time. He and I now live in different cities in different time zones with different schedules, so it'd be very difficult to set up a simultaneous game over the Internet.
Instead, since August, we've been playing near continuous games of Alpha Centauri via email. When I finish a turn, I send it to him in email and vice versa. This lets the game go whenever we have time in our respective schedules, and gives time to think about strategy and tactics between turns without holding up the other players.
This is easily extensible up to the maximum of seven players allowed in Alpha Centauri. The Apolyton Alpha Centauri Multiplayer forum regularly has games going with players from all over the world, playing their turns whenever is convenient for them in their own timezone.
Alpha Centauri is a long game and takes a lot of time, so you can't complete a full game in a single sitting as with RTS games. Coming from a long line of turn-based games it works very well in that mode, and turn-based gaming is very compatible with PBEM. I'm also aware of other games like VGA Planets which also are turn-based with PBEM modes, so the idea that turn-based games aren't multiplayer is a myth.
Turn-based games aren't as popular as RTS games, but there's a sizable contingent of people who prefer them, and will continue to buy them as long as there are companies that produce good ones. The next year looks very promising with Civilization III and Master of Orion III coming out, and I hope they both have PBEM capability.
No way. I squandered months at a time playing XCOM: Terror from the Deep. Still play it sometimes, actually.
Not only chess, but all games based on board games are usually turn-based and not likely to improve drastically through a real-time makeover.
we can also hope they start licensing their engine. And that more companies share their success in Internet-only sales.
You *must* try the demo, but be aware that the atmospheric effects and scenarios are *even better still* in the full version.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
And have minor arthritis and can't keep up with the real time rpg...
Damnit, I want turn based games so I can set up a HUGE TV/playstation etc in my retirement home one day. No, really. Future proof the games industry.
No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up.
Like chess, on-line go is often played against a clock. Of course. It is no less a turn based game.
That's the main problem with angband, I find. If you don't have your resistances covered, boom, insta-death. It's sorta lame. Don't get me wrong, I like the game and play it semi-often, but that's my main complaint.
Plus, I'm fairly sure that Angband wasn't around since 1984. Maybe you're thinking of Moria?
Final Fantasy Tactics is one of the better games I've ever played. I bought a copy when it came out, and haven't regretted it. I've put a lot of time into that game - it's probably the only really re-playable Final Fantasy title. Great graphics, beautiful music, wonderful storyline (it's basically medieval Europe).
I don't think that turn-based games are dead. They might be for multi-player, but that's because you have to wait for someone else. Roguelikes are single-player turn-based games, usually set in a fantasy world. Examples include nethack and ADOM. These are terribly addictive games, and I'd recommend everyone give one a try sometime.
It's both. It's turn based when you play the board, and when you attack an, it's real-time while you organize your troops.
Think Master of Orion, but with real time battles.
Je ne parle pas francais.
The truth is that Baldur's Gate had very little to nothing to do with it directly. Unlike some of our competitiors, we did a huge amount of research in the form of focus groups, usability testing, market research, etc.. ad nausium.
The research and testing concentrated on RTS games in general and especially our first game, Age of Empires. If any of the hundreds of people that provided feedback (of one form or another) were familiar with BG, then the influence would have come from there.
What came out of it was that our designers had profiles of various "player types" who played our first game, with info on what the game experience was like for them (their best and worst feature lists and wish lists if you will). From that a big problem identified for the casual player was that there were moments in the game then things got too overwhelming (remember unlike BG, 2 side clashing could involve 100+ units in AoK) causing the player to throw their hands up in the air and go "AAacck!"
And if I recall correctly, we had AoK in development for over a year when BG came out (still a year to go before it was done), and I think the pause mode for input was in the game by that time.
Still... In both cases you can see the driving force behind the feature was to make a better game for all types of players (the pause feature being totally controlled by the user, thus fits different users playstyles.)
Speaking of Stars! Mare Crisium is producing it's sequal Stars! Supernova Genesis. Check out Crisium's homepage for more info on it. It is significantly snazzier, including the option for allied victory.
Isn't Planetarion just earth 2060 in steroids? I heard similar hype about the named earth 2060 (or whatever), but I _really_ wasn't impressed. Without any sort of spatial dimension, they are essentially just number crunching. I know I shouldn't say the same about Planetarion, not having played it, but I've saw someone else play it a couple of times, asked him a few questions and it sounds just the same.
VGA planets, on the other hand... technically, it's total bullshit, but man! just try it out one day. And don't think that planets-style PBEM-in-space sucks simply because Stars! sucks.
OK, so I'm a bit opinionated here, so what? Feel free to flame me.
- Kaatunut
I can remember growing up playing the SSI D&D games on my C64... Man, those were the days... Everytime you go into a new sector or encounter, changing the 5-1/4...
:-p
My friends and I used to play together - sitting around the computer taking turns controlling our characters... Man, those were the days...
Even old paper role-playing games aren't nearly as popular as they were... Even during the whole satanic/suicide days of the 80's w/ D&D, you always could find lots of people who played...
Recently, I started playing AD&D again with a bunch of friends; old school geeks... We've noticed we play totally different then when we were younger. We're VERY cautious, and over analyze everything. We're not as gung-ho as we used to be, running into encounters, swords raised, screaming a barbaric YALP! Now we argue for two hours at each door checking for traps, listening, thinking how to best handle what could be on the other side of the door. When we reach a room and the DM describes the contents, we analyze everything about the description, from the order info was given to the tense in which words were used... Man, I'm way too anal...
Glutious
Jeremy
"Opinions are like assholes; everyone's got one..."
You forget something. In real war, the commander(If he can see the threat) only issues an order to the relevant unit to take care of the threat bearing down on him, then he moves on to looking over the situation again. Say, for example, a major, commander of an armour battalion sees an enemy armour company bearing down on one of his companies. He then orders one of his aides to issue a warning of the threat and perhaps an order to that unit to meet and take care of that threat. The actual implementation of the orders are up to the captain commanding the company in question.
The above hasn't been covered in computer-based strategy games yet, even though Close Combat is nearing the goal.
Ground Control is good because it focuses on tactics, and, unlike Red Alert etc, is not as much a practice in who can click the button the fastest and build the most tanks(The group I used to play with eventually only played on maps without seas, because they hated the cruisers, and couldn't handle Combined Arms warfare).
I'm with you. Since I got the first HoMM years ago, other games have only been installed for short amounts of time before I go back to Heroes. I buy the upgrades as soon as they come out. The series just has the staying power. :)
BTW, playing against the computer gets tiresome after not too much time in any game; I play Panzer head to head, generally hotseat. Now that's good gaming.
The one thing I remember about gaming is the old board turn based games. Simple ones like "D-Day" were even more stimulating than the current crop of FPS'. I think one of the issues is attention span (or the lack thereof). The people who game these days lose interest in what they are doing if they haven't killed something in the last 10 seconds. The old board games required some thought and planing and stradagy. That is, in my opinion, wht turn pased games aren't as popular.
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If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
ahh just days.. I spent the better part of a year battling the sectoids and aquamen.. Still at the top of my list of best games ever. Also there, the original Master of Orion, it was reviewed as Civ in space but it was very different.. Better in my opinion.
cheese logs keep my wang warm at night.
I would agree with that, however, a point that a LOT of people miss is that realism doesn't make good games.
The reason people are losing interest in turn based games is because of the pauses and how long they take to play. A couple years ago, you couldn't tear me away from Alpha Centauri. In December, when I got Call to Power II, it only served to entertain me for part of an airplane trip. As times and technology have changed, so have interests. I mean, who the hell wants to pay for and play a Street Fighter clone anymore (not counting downloading free emulators)?
Right now, internet gaming's all the rage. Everyone's trying to "push the envelope" by seeing how many people they can cram into one game while keeping it interesting. Turn based strategy simply doesn't make room for this. I tried playing Alpha Centauri in multiplayer with simultaneous turns, but it only ended in frustration. Turn based games simply do not and cannot by design contribute well to TCP/IP gaming. RTS's can.
Why was StarCraft a success? Battle.net. The single player was kinda boring after a while, but I got a good year off and on of playing on Battle.net. Alpha Centauri lased maybe two months.
I'll shut up now.
Because it's a business.
Chess isn't a business. You can't make millions of dollars making new chessboards.
Unless you make million-dollar chessboards.
Chess doesn't rely on technology. Video games do.
Get off the high horse, old man.
Anyway it's a great resource since many of the games are all but extinct, and it's fairly simple to become world champion to some forgotten game - like, I'm the Lord of Rings ("rings challenge username b7kich").
Ka.
Several of my friends and I have just started playing X-Com again, and email each other "battle reports".
Bingo. I've noticed a lot of hardcore FPS gamers I know care more about "I can play game x at framerate y with z ping" than they do about actually playing the game! Of course, you know what they say about guys who brag about how much RAM their video card has. . .
Suprised nobody has pointed out
Combat Mission.
Turn based WWII tactical action, sold only via the web, amazingly well supported. They single-handedly dragged serious wargaming from the '70s into the '90s.
Now if only someone would notice that it's the 21st century...
Sure we have access to PC's and Macs
running Linux and or BSD and the like of course.
If you mean a machine running Windows or Mac OS
I assure you that you are mistaken. Some of us I suppose to install Windows over or in addition to Linux but I certainly would never choose to do that.
Others like myself have access to a Windows box a work but I doubt that the company would care for me sitting here playing games all day. One could also try the local school or library computers also with less than enthusiastic results from the people running the systems. Others live in more remote areas where they couldn't get access to a library or school computers running Windows or MacOS and they may not have work machines and if they do they may all be runnings a real OS. So
basically get a clue.
Hmm they are in the same genre certainly. I played VGA Planets back in the BBS days and haven't checked it out in about 4 years I guess I should look at it again but last I checked Stars was more advanced
except for graphics. Has VGA Planets become as advanced as Stars?
Some of my fondest memories of highschool are gathering around a computer to play Heroes 2. We'd usually get about 3 or 4 people together and usually comp stomp ('cuz it cheats). One game could easily last 6 or 7 hours. Start after school and not get home until 2am. Order a pizza, play cards when it wasn't your turn, or read a book. It was a wacky form of entertainment, but priceless looking back on it.
Before HoMaMz was Fantasy Empires. An entire summer was wasted on that game. I had a lame-ass manual labor job with a friend of mine. Help with construction at a housing development. Anyway, the two of us started taking the game so seriously that we tacked a blanket to the ceiling to prevent the other from watching. That was also when my friend bought the first Boys II Men CD and Weezer and listened to them all the time.
And people wonder why I'm so wierd...
...Turn Based Sucks for Single Player Games.
But at least you always know whose turn it is.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Turn based games have fallen in popularity for 1 main reason: A real opponent is more interesting / challenging than a computer AI. When you add to this the fact that MOST turn based multiplayer games require one player to act while everyone else sits around, you see why turn based games aren't popular. In their old "I go, then you go" form, they take too long to hold the interest of any but the most hard core gamer.
;)
If turn based games are going to make a resurgance, they will need to speed up the time between turns and let the players feel like they can always interact with one another and not waste their time. Games like Combat Mission have the right idea... Instead of an "I go, you go" format, they do a "we go" format, where both sides enter orders at the same time, then see the results of those orders, repeat. This way the games move along at a decent clip and you can always talk to the other players or tell them to hurry up.
Anyways, turn based games remain a niche market from their lack of engrossing multi-player. No one wants to spend 8 hours to play one game of heroes of might and magic.
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Nicotine free Amish .sig.
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Nicotine free Amish .sig.
Where are the screenshots??? :)
slashdot,
think about it, we all take turns to say something, then a few people get inot arguments (ive seen some good ones), where one finally ends up the victor(maybe because the other person got bored)..
So slashdot.org is the greatest TB game, as all here will attest to, and i dont see it going away soon.
Personally, I hate RTS games. Generals have huge staffs to coordinate battles, and so far I've not seen an AI intelligent enough to make a tactical decision I approved of or that even fit my battle plans. I hate trying to scoll over an entire front, or even two fronts, and see/control everything. This is why I love games like X-Com and Alpha Centauri.. because I can take my sweet time making sure everything is going as I would have it if I had the ability to delegate to an adjutant, and then I can hit the button. PS -- Multiplayer on AC is great, because if you have two computers networked both people can take their turn at the same time. Then you both hit the button, it thinks for a moment, and then comes back with results.
I wish there was a choice that said "Factually Wrong -1" when I mod.
Odd that you should mention Bioware.
Most feel that their games are NOT a butchery of AD&D (Let's count Game Of The Year awards, starting with Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment, shall we?). Also interesting is that you bring up NWN, which is the FIRST BlackIsle/Bioware D&D-based game that is NOT turn-based. All of the Infinity engine games were a mixture of both real-time and turn-based elements. The user selected the level of turn-based-ness(?), and could pause at will.
I only mention it because Infinity Engine games, with the ability to play in turn-based mode are MUCH closer to PnP D&D than NWN will be. (though the presence of a judge/DM is a great addition), and yet you praise moving D&D into real-time as "redeeming themselves".
One has to chuckle.
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Who says Quake is not a turn-based game? I take turns killing someone and they take turns killing me. It's all good.
Tyler's words coming out of my mouth.
I always loved the Steve Jackson games - Ogre, Car Wars, etc... I don't think the computer versions did the original board games justice - I think Steve Jackson games have just re-released some of the old games http://www.sjgames.com/ I was cleaning my place and I found my old Ogre game - I wish I had someone to play with!
After spending something like 40 hours playing through Planescape: Torment, a truly great game, I went back to try my hand at Fallout 2 again. Both games are by Black Isle, and they are both quite good, but I keep slamming up against this "take four steps and you won't have enough action points left to attack" thing. Say what? Just let me hit the goddamned thing. That's how the real world works.
-Legion
-Legion
I actually had the Eye of the Beholder games in an earlier revision of the article. However, we needed to cut it down so that it's not too long. I guess it went out with the editing =]
The importance of Baldur's Gate is that it introduced real-time RPGing to this generation of gamers which wants real-time. Eye of the Beholder wasn't revolutionary for being real-time (Dungeon Master claims that title). Eye of the Beholder came too soon, in a sense - it came at a time when everyone was still used to and playing turn-based RPGs. BG came at a time when a game 'needed' to be real-time to be popular.
I'm a little segfault, short and stout.
If that's the only way you can win then maybe you should stick to RTS's.
You sure about that? I've that on some level our brains can do the same sort of calculations as computers, we just cannot express them in words. It's an interesting theory, but that's all it is, a theory.
Even more to that, back in the A2600 days, games that involved shooting enemies generally made it so that pressing the button and releasing rapidly fired one shot, but pressing and holding the button initiated a rapid fire. Now with the Nintendo and newer consoles and systems, pressing the button and holding it either has no effect or serves a secondary purpose, so gamers buy expensive replacement controllers that implement pseudo rapid fire via the chips in the controller rather than the software in the console.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
Mostly kids buy and play games and it is easier for them to dominate a game when they have all the time in the world to practice gruntrushes, set up macros, etc. It's too hard to be 133t when you can't ch33t.
most definately. more and more people nowadays are diagnosed (or could/should be) with ADD. Take a look at today's 900mph children's television shows, both educational (like sesame street) and not (like pokemon), and you will find some REALLY fast-paced programming. the gaming industry seems to have picked up on this trend (faster=hold attention longer).
...And I'm one of those coulda/shoulda been diagnosed with ADD. go figure.
I happen to love turn-based games. If my heart starts pounding faster, I simply play it faster.
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Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Are we there yet? Are we there yet? I'm bored! Can we go home now?
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Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Don't let Jon Katz hear you say that. I can envision a whole series on that topic now.
What do you run your copy of Linux on, a mainframe?
Yes, he runs it on his S/390.
*sigh*
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i even took my laptop with me when i visited a friend in seattle, so i could play alpha centauri. just TRY not to be adicted...
p.s. it's been coming for linux forever. when is it gonna be here...
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"don't smoke, don't drink, don't fuck
at least i can fucking think"
Minor Threat
If you have a "holodeck", you could use it in TWO ways:
1. Being "in" it, in which case you probably want real-time interaction
2. Watching it from "outside", because you're running a sim or something. Although sometimes you may be inside just because you want an up-close look.
Remember the somewhat cheesy ST:TNG ep where geordie was running a holodeck sim to find out where the "shadow" was coming from?
In case #2, you probably do not want real time.
That's cromulent, by the way:
Jebediah: [on film] A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.
Edna: Embiggens? I never heard that word before I moved to
Springfield
Ms.Hoover: I don't know why. It's a perfectly cromulent word.
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Urk. That was supposed to be a fixed width font, but I forgot the tag.
Jebediah: [on film] A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.
Edna: Embiggens? I never heard that word before I moved to Springfield
Ms.Hoover: I don't know why. It's a perfectly cromulent word.
f33r the l33t formatting
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It is?
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There's always Interstelen ...
max
It's alive and well. Alpha Centauri, anyone?
signature smigmature
- James
Unfortunately, MAX 2 was real-time, and sucked. So much for that . . .
From what I saw of it, Fallout: Tactics suffered from its realtime mode (note: I only played the demo. This may have changed.) Opportunity fire just wasn't reliable enough for turnbased, yet realtime offered no "pause" key. If they'd just chosen to do one, it would have been far better.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
and the report of their death is a bit premature. Pool of Radiance 2 is in the works, as is another installment of Master of Orion (which I assume will be turn based since the prequels were), and so will Wizardry 8. Plus, I doubt we've seen the last of long-running successful series' such as Warlords or Might and Magic.
I remember reading about that in high school, and thinking it would be so much fun to do (or coordinate). Alas, I could never find that many active instances of it.
You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. --CmdrTaco
I think that the turn based games were are much superior to the real-time games of the present, especially in the realm of plot development. The turn based games were developed out of the BBS concept, and therefore had to have some attraction other than stellar graphics, namely a kick ass plot and immersive storyline.
Check out spacemerchant, a bastardized but still extremely fun version of the old tradewars, made web-based. BBS-style turn based games still rule.
Yeah, producing a tank in 5 seconds in "real-time" strategy games is more realistic. Along with your troops standing idle while the enemy passes within 2 feet.
I don't like Mangband. In theory the idea of multiplayer Angband variant is very nice, but somehow the movement seemed to be very jerky and kind of quantized. There were some hints how to enchance that, but I and my friend never quite got it working well. But I admit that the idea is nice, and who knows, maybe it's been implemented better in new versions...
Everyone who makes generalizations should be shot.
...is that gaming genres experience the same thing as almost anything else; something disappears almost completely for a long time, maybe even for a decade or two, and then surfaces again. So even if turn-based games are currently few and far bewtween, out of fashion and considered uninteresting, I bet that they will be popular at some point again. Remember how role-playing games were pretty scarce for some time, but are now having a glorious renewal with the Baldur's Gate and its relatives and several other games from producers that have noticed the trend.
Everyone who makes generalizations should be shot.
Yup, you can play Warlords in realtime over the Internet. But you can take turns playing it on the same machine (without multiple logins to the machine) if the players are all in the same place IRL and have only one computer at their disposal. If you think two people can sit close enough to share a keyboard...um...most GUI real-time games don't allow for multiple players at one console.
Not like BG did it first. Lords of the Realm and its sequel) had real-time battles that could be paused to give "orders" (not that they were anything more than movement orders for foot and shooting orders for archers), and that was back in 1994. I doubt it was the first to do it.
I'd suggest that this "universal question" is analagous to the question "why have the talkies taken over from their silent-movie brethren?"
Who wouldn't prefer to have continually-progressing fun, instead of in bits and spurts that are locked into turn increments? Particularly if we consider the emergence of the internet, and the realization and possibilities of multiplayer interaction, then turn-based games suffer even more since they guarantee that some player(s) will be spending time simply waiting for the turn, and not playing.
It wasn't obvious 15 years ago, but real-time games are simply better material for computers -- it took us a while to realize it, since all (non-athletic) games were turn-based prior to the advent of computers.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
but now that idea seems too slow
something realtime would suit me better, think I'll play Unreal instead
Ah yes, MAX. I did quite like that game, but my brain was too little to really make the most of the "strategic" chess-like nature of the game. It really is a finely-tuned ballet of weapons ranges, counting your shots, and evaluating your opponents' abilities based on realistic evidence (eg. "hey, my scout bike just got walloped from somewhere in _those 6 squares_"). I am bad at chess, unfortunately I was bad at MAX too. But at least the computer never tank-rushed me!
Freedom: "I won't!"
The reason Turned Based Games sell poorly is people who like TBGs just have a greater tendency to disagree with the idea of intellectual property. In a TBG, you are planning in a pseudo-"now" for the "future". Thus, such players' perspective is in the future. This leads to the idea that all games eventually will become uncopyrighted over time. So why not copy the game?
:)
Real-time game players are stuck in "now" and have to pay their money "now" for something that is copyrighted "now". I'd rather have the future oriented perspective.
On a more confusing note, stick with the "past": Stop complaining about crappy new games and stick with the classics. Go get an emulator and some ROMs.
Man, them were the days...
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Don't go dissin' the craft man, you know know not of what you speak.
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Plus, I'm fairly sure that Angband wasn't around since 1984. Maybe you're thinking of Moria?
A look at the help files reveals that Moria was released in 1985, followed by UMoria in 1989, with Angband in 1994. I stand corrected:-)
--Cam
All jocks think about is sports. All nerds think about is sex.
There isn't anything well thought out, or neatly crafted.
Did I mention that Angband is totally lacking in a plot? If you want a plot, go read J.R.Tolkien. Or watch Final Fantasy IIV, you know... that game that makes you play few parts in order to get to the really boring plot FMVs?
Everything has an air of ill-concieved pseudo-randomness
Did I mentioned that I've been playing since '96. I know ppl who have been playing longer than that. That pseudo-randomness guarantees that you will never get the remotiest chance to play it the same way twice.
You walk around killing D's for $.
By the time your killing D's, you shouldn't give a damn about $. You should be worring that you've got free action, see invisble, and getting resists.
This is anouther thing I like about Angband; just when you get get used to one style of play (killing o's for $) it changes. Its no longer worth your time to buy anything, and you spend your time scouring the dungeon for the randomly and pseudo-randomly generated items that really count.
--Cam
All jocks think about is sports. All nerds think about is sex.
Planetarion get signal! (For great justice.)
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
ARCHON!!!!!!!!! Oh man that was a great game. Running up to the phoenix with the goblin, hitting him, then running away before he could flame you...
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Yes I have downloaded and played it, for quite some time in fact. When you click on a spot your charecter MOVES there, there is no confirmation box, no little "this movement will take 16 points and you only have 14, are you sure you want to go there?" There are no little hexs, etc.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Ever since encountering the load of bullshit that is Baulders Gate I have refused to buy any of the modern "rpgs".
::COUGH:: Final Fantasy 7+ ::COUGH:: then it is not Role Playing. Role Playing is making a charecter and using it, not reading what amounts to glorified sub-titles in a poorly done movie.
In fact, as far as I am concerned, a real true RPG has not been released since Fallout 2, end of the story.
Goldbox games have alot more playability in them today then Baulders Gate, simply because GoldBox games ROCK. Period. Baulders Gate reduced combat down to pointless "click him before he clicks you" combat and relies on advanced knowledge of the enemies possesion to win. Excuse me, mega powerful wizard teleports in and frags your party, oops, to bad! Reload, make sure you have a spell lined up and ready to go the second he beams in. That is NOT strategy, that is bullshit. Strategy is spending TWO HOURS defeating hoards of creatures. Role Playing is stepping into the shoes of a Dwarven Warrior and kicking an entire armies ass (with the help from a few Mages, Paladines, and Clerics of course!)
Whats more, as shown in Interplays game Dragon Wars (which totaly rocks BTW, and is the most non-linear game I have seen yet) Role Playing is taking the part of either good OR evil and screwing things up how YOU want to screw with them. You should never just throw a player in a dungion and say "go through it". Hell, my charecters are smarter then that (they should be, I rolled them some nice INT dice) and will go AROUND THE DAMN MOUNTINE OF ULTIMATE DOOM THINGY OF PAIN WHATCHAMACOLITE.
Fallout tactics is not tactical at all, the orginal two Fallout games had ALOT of Tactics in them, but the new Fallout Tactics doesn't even tell you how many movement points a move is going to take! DOH, who forgot THAT one eh? Shit, that is SO FUCKING OBVIOUS. If you are going to charge the player points to move THEN ALWAYS TELL THEM AHEAD OF TIME HOW MANY POINTS IT WILL TAKE TO MOVE DAMNIT.
Sorry, that one still gets to me, can't stand that horrible blunder, shit, so friggin obvious people!
Oh yah, and one more note.
If the charecters are all predefined
Who says I *WANT* my charecter to have some secret hidious background? Criminies, that is the auther playing the role for me. If I want ot pretend to be a depressed psycho I don't need to spend $300 on a consol and $40 on a CD for that! I can just close my eyes and pretend I am cutting my wrists, saves alot of money! Sheesh, leave some room for a LITTLE bit of imagination in modern so called "rpgs". Until you do, those quotes around rpg arn't going nowheres!
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Well, I have thought over this for many an hour and have come up with 4 reasons that will probably blow all of you away -- perhaps setting a new metric for the quality of turn-based games. Stay tuned next week for my next turn, where I explain reason number 1.
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...are still out there, just waiting for you to waste your life on them in arbitrarily sized chunks.
Avernum is one that comes to mind right away. Turn-based play, epic storyline, 100+ hours of gametime, more awards than you can shake a stick at -- and, oh yeah, it's shareware. =)
I remember getting hooked on this years ago in its original incarnation (the Exile trilogy) and it's only gotten better with time. The programmer gave the game a complete overhaul within the past year or so -- new engine, more content, etc. -- and it seems to be holding up well.
Such fond memories. This was one of the first games that had me so engrossed that I burned sick days to keep playing. =)
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Many people will agree that the Ultima series went to crap after Ultima VI, because VII was the first non-turn-based Ultima. I also hated the transition to Ultima VII because the conversation system got dumbed down -- from the old "type anything" method to "click on keywords" (like in console RPG's).
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
There is a solution to this. Simultaneous turn mode. I believe, to date, that Age of Wonders and Alpha Centauri had this option. Basically, everyone moves at the same time. This does get into some advantages given to the person who moves their piece first on a given border, but it is much preferrable to the eternal waiting given to the flat turn-based mode. You basically clicked on a button saying, "I'm ready to go to the next turn". And when everyone had clicked in, the next turn began. While waiting for everyone to click in, you could still move units (if you had movement points), and tweak your cities production and what have you.
Bibo Ergo Sum.
Indeed. On the Civ3 development forums, half of the items on the wishlist revolve around increasing the realism of it. A SimHistory, as it were.
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Dyolf Knip
Furthermore, you won't get score many points on the credibility meter by calling Civilization and Alpha Centauri 'worthless'. If you don't like them, fine, but kindly accept that they are not automatically a 'banal form of entertainment' simply because you play no game other than mindless 1st-person shooters.
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Dyolf Knip
Some of my favorite turn-based games were on folded-cardboard maps covered with hexagons and used little cardboard sqares representing armored divisions or infantry. The company that made them was called Avalon Hill. Games like Panzerkrieg and Third Reich were awesome. The problem with them was that they were so complex that it was hard to find another person interested in playing with you. Avalon Hill provided a service that hooked up players together over the U.S. Mail. You gave them your name and address with the game you wanted to play and they would give you the name and address of someone that wanted to play also. You would take a turn, write down what you did, mail the details of your turn out and the other person would update his board and pieces. He would then take his turn and record the details, mail them out to you, you would update your board, et cetera, et cetera. It would take months to play a game this way.
I wish I still had those games and that they were still produced. I would still opt to play an Avalon Hill board game over mail (or in this day and age, e-mail) with a real person rather than by myself with the AI of a less-robust computer game. Then again, I have a cat and a four year old and wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of leaving the gameboard and its pieces intact for more than 2 minutes - advantage computer.
It didn't, but it does have a games section.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
Well I don't think you would call it turn based technically. Its real time but unlike other games, its not scaled down so you can play it and be done in half an hour. When something takes 24 hours, it literally takes 24 hours, but the turns happen whether you want them to or not...they are scheduled on the hour. I suppose you could look at it either way. I think it feels turn based because you get a whole hour to choose what you want to do, and if you don't log in, it just doesn't do anything new.
you're right on about it being addictive tho 8) The game has some pretty major flaws in it that a lot of people don't like, but everybody still keeps playing it just cuz its so darn fun.
-Stype
-Stype
Bus error -- driver executed.
I think one of the most ironic things in the "death of turn based games" is that many of the gamers who have abandoned turn based games for RTS are the same people that will spend hours playing a game of Chess or Go with friends
The article did mention them, actually. But yes... I installed the original X-Com a few months ago and spent many hours playing it. Lately I've been playing Jagged Alliance 2 incessantly. Screw real-time ;)
It's not that turn based games are decreasing, it's just that real time games are increasing.
Arguably because it takes a lot less effort to slap some new units onto a Star Craft engine and call it a new game than it does to produce a genuinely interesting turn-based strategy.
I actually miss these. Especially turn based RPGs. Everything now is all action oriented.
For a good game, and if you have a PSX, pick up Final Fantasy Tactics, if you can find it. Turnbased, strategy, and a very involving storyline.
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I grew up in SE Georgia, and belive me, there is _nothing_ to do here. I haven't gone fishing in years, but I agree, it is an excellent alternative to being bombarded constantly with images and information. A sense of serenity and peace is something that I miss emmensely having gone to college. I dig channel cats myself :)
Perhaps we should all drag out our C64's from the closet, dust them off, and let the youngn's learn to wait for a 1540 floppy load Bard's Tale for a while. Let them understand that speed and reactionary time isn't all there is to gaming.
"What? No mouse!"
If I'm playing a turn based game with my brother over the internet and he decides to get a coke or take a bathroom break, I'm waiting forever.
In a RTS game when he's in the bathroom, he get stomped into the ground!!! I win, therefore I like RTS, I can hold my own!
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Heh, exactly. Those sorts of games (and I include Master of Orion in this category) all suffered from the "I'll just..." bug:
"I'll just get this turn done then get a drink"
"Ok I'll just send this fleet before I forget"
"Dammit I havn't changed that technology, have to do that"
"What was I going to do? Oh well doesn't matter, I have to change the ratios here"
Then 3 hours later you'd wonder why your mouth was dry.
I can't imagine being in a fight with somebody where we stand facing each other taking turns throwing punches and not being free to do something so simple as blocking.
I know what you mean, but consider that this is basically how a debate works. Similar to a court trial also. And those are classic, universal methods of "civilized" competition.
speaking of Stars!, the VGA Planets crowd always thought Stars was a cheap rip-off =).
eudas
Blessed is he who expects the worst, for he shall not be disappointed.
i was thinking:
1. take counterstrike's FPS, round-based combat
2. make a "general" for each team who places specific team members in specific job slots (sergeant, private, squad leader, whatever) and specific places
3. make each round a battle with an if..then..else outcome, which will determine the next battle placement, as in a war. win one battle, advance a trench. lose one, fall back a trench. (wwI) etc.
4. the goal is to win the war; "generals" can get their strategy fix by picking places to defend and places to move/place troops, fps ppl can get their fix by being the troops.
anyway, it's an incomplete idea, but hopefully you can get the basic gist of what i'm saying.
eudas
Blessed is he who expects the worst, for he shall not be disappointed.
i hear ya. that game rocked.
eudas
Blessed is he who expects the worst, for he shall not be disappointed.
Man, the real turn-based games were on BBS's. Either you had the patience to wait 20 minutes for the one line to free up, then another 10 to wade through the menus and play some game, then you waited a week for your attack to work its way through the network. Those were the days of turn-based games.
.. hey, it was a long time ago.. in any case, those were the games.
Games like BRE, uh oh.. mental block for the names.. uh the fantasy BRE,
Buy tanks. End turn. Buy land. Buy tanks. End turn. Add tanks to attack. Logout.
Had to be a patient sucker for those games..
I'd just like to say that everything on the Atari ST was amazing. It's been so long now, I can't even remember the names of most of the games, but the machine was incredible; about 2-3 years ahead of IBM-compatible machines. Their Finest Hour, Sam & Ed Basketball, those were the games that my young life revolved around. Of course, GFA Basic ruined my programming habits forever...
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
Interesting point, I guess.
I really enjoyed games like X-Com, Civ, and the text based Zork on my C64 back in the day. I think there still is a future for TB games, if the TB aspect is used functionally. Try playing chess without it for instance, in my opinion the ultimate TB game. Don't tell me this one doesn't count, lots of people play it in some sort of digital form; via e-mail, 2D, 3D, battlechess, etc. Does it really matter that it doesn't generate zillions of money for a company?
I could also think of lots of examples in which sharing the same game space in different points in time could add value to a(n existing) game.
But then again, I won't, so I don't.
We haven't even started burying the artificial dinosaur skeletons yet - HHGG
...a fact which for the sake of a quiet life most people tend to ignore ~H2G2
There are other examples of a hybridisation between real time and turn based games that have emerged over the past few years. One such example is Blue Byte's Incubation, a turn based squad combat game with pretty damn good 3D graphics. There were also the Fallout games that followed this trend, one which incidentally is very much still alive. The creators of the Fallout series later split away from Interplay and formed Troika Studios, which are releasing a game called Arcanum . This will follow in the vein of the Fallout series, and to date looks amazing.
jungle is massive
Turn-based games probably got their start because programmers were coding boardgames into computer and video games. Turn-based model yields turn-based code. The switch to real-time type games is only in games that were originally always represented in turns because of pencil and paper, but actually model a more analog-style play (RPGs are prime examples). Turn-based games (board games, game shows) are maintaining their model.
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Wanna see what you can do with the Infinity Engine?
http://www.teambg.com
These guys are awesome...
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
Download the demo for Fallout Tactics: The Brotherhood of Steel. I've played through it and it is an awesome turn-base strategy game. Sorry I don't have the URL handy. And btw Baldur's Gate & ALL of the Infinity engine games do have very intellegent AI scripts that you can create & edit yourself using 3rd party editors. So you could let the AI go by itself if you wanted to.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
Master of Magic! Voted the "More Addictive than Crack" game for the 90's. I wish they would make a sequel.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
I think many turn based games have been replaced by more brain taxing RTS games. Part of the difficulty in RTS games is coming up with descisions rapidly, much more than turn based games. Take chess for example. If you dont have a timer a person may go through every consequence and decide if its a good move (supported by this statement on page 4 "TBGs are very time-consuming. To plan out all the moves of your characters in an SSI gold box game, or to move every trooper in X-Com, or (especially) to plot the movement of divisions and corps in a war-game - that's brutal work."). That might bring a bad chess player up to someone who can make the descision in a second. Stick on a timer and the better person will win. Well a RTS game is like that except of course timed chess isn't really RTS but if they had it I'm sure it would get the brain goin a little more =D A level of pressure can also be added, and also visual intensity. So a simple answer to your question, they were replaced by better games. So I fail to see a "problem" with the dissapearing TB games.
the saniy de-enhaned amongst us may want to have a crack at pernmangband
a Turn-Based First Person Shooter so that I could play a Quake-like game at my leisure. Any takers on designing one?
- - - If the sun is a star, why can't I see it at night?
I look forward to this
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
Nethack is not turn-based in the sense that you could play it multiplayer, or do lots of actions during one turn. It is more like constantly hitting the pause key in a real time game.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
I don't agree to the statement that you don't have to plan anything in real-time strategy games.
Take Starcraft as an example: If you just build some tanks because you think they look cool, somebody will come up with something flying (tanks can only attack ground units) like 12 Guardians, then you can be sure that you won't be able to build any tanks in this game any more. Or somebody produces 100 small, cheap units which blow away the slow tanks, too. You have to choose a good combination of forces, be faster than the other players, and attack the right way (flanking, hit-and-run, overrun, kamikaze, drop, offensive pylon...). That sounds like planning and strategy for me.
I don't like turn-based strategy, because you sit for 30 minutes at your computer, watch some player slowly moving his forces. Then 5 secs after you got control, the game crashes (this actually happened to me!).
So far they released a rewrite of Steel Panthers, with update features, etc. The game is high quality.
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minusthink [Code poet or super hero? (you decide)]
"when life gets complicated, I like to take a nap in a tree and wait for dinner" - Hobbes.
From the manual:
2024 Taurus Colony Set-up on Earths Moon, 15,000 Men, Women and children emigrate there. War was begining. Somebody set us up the bomb. The first Lunar Mining Plant is commissioned by the EEC (Eon Energy Commission) and they make a discovery that will change the future of mankind forever, a metallic compound similar to mercury in a vein of rock 1.7 miles below the surface.
::I will not moderate my opinions for your stinking karma
I think it can be attributed to the types of players that gaming companies want to attract now, and the new technology that has sprung up.
Gaming companies are not mom-and-pop shops anymore. Most big game titles are hitched with a gigantic publisher. A gigantic corporation, more importantly. Game developers dont neccessarily have the luxury of building games that appeal to niche audiences, such as the people who would play heavily-strategic turn-based games. They have to appeal to a broader audience of people who may not be nearly as sophisticated, or its very hard to get a good publisher and mainstream reach.
Five years ago, in the DOS days, not just anyone could setup a computer for gaming, it was comparatively much more difficult. I remember I typically had a different DOS6.2 configuration for each game (Masters of Orion, Civilization, Doom, XWing, etc). That's changed, and gaming has point/click potential. People want fancy effects and fast action, which are two things that don't neccessarily fit well into turn-based gaming.
Personally, I very much miss the way gaming was five years ago, and these changes prompted my departure from the industry. I find today's games lack the sophistication of the game's of five years ago. Or maybe I'm just getting older...
I really never cared much at all for turn-based gaming. It's so much more fun to just run into a room shooting at everthing that moves....
Of course, and I highly suspect it, I may be talking out of my ass. -oqti
Oh, thank you for mentioning AOW. At least someone else knows it. This has been one of my favorites for a while, it seems to be the closest to Master of Magic that has come out for a long time. Beautiful game. This game had a lot of pluses: music, balance, story, and gameplay.
One important point I wanted to bring up though, even though both sides could more simultaniously, things still happened in turn based. In fact, the simultanious turn option was really not that innovative, as it still moved things around in a turn based fashion.
In any case, I'm looking forward to AOW2, and I hope people can try these out, instead of lamenting that Turn Based games are dead.
"We all want multiplayer"
Am I the only one who don't?
I think that multiplayer and realtime killed the spirit of old computer games. The problem is - you don't have time. Don't have time to lose for "thinking and clicking next turn". Don't have time to lose for play with AI - so play with humans. Don't have time to choose hard way - then go easy...
But what about magic of games? What about that nights only with computer? What about sitting alone and thinking how to win?
Was Quake really so great game like Doom? Are RTS so playable for you like turn-based-strategy? Well... My answer is NO. I still belive in roguelike (I love NH) and I still can play single-player Doom or DN3D...
The first Star Control game mixed strategic turn-based and realtime gameplay well in its "Full Game" mode. Quite fun. Star Control 2 also kicked ass IMO. :)
I recommend playing the PC version of Wasteland from Interplay and Electronic Arts if you don't mind EGA graphics and like turn based gameplay.
.44. No Les, no more."
Now that game was damn fun. Still is, I think.
Some supposed tributes to Wasteland in Fallout:
http://bsc.edu/~bassaf/hqgrid/fallout.html
"Lester More, shot by a
Pre-chewed? I take my cake IV.
1. Bigger, faster, cheaper LANs and fast internet access. Because more and more people are getting a LAN in their home and millions have reasonably fast internet access, it's feasable to write a game that allows people to interact over a network in real time without much lag. The publishers probably think that we would never settle for and older style of gaming whose dynamics were influenced by older technology. What's the point of sitting at your computer while the person on the other side of the 'net is making their moves when there's more than enough bandwidth to do it in real time?
2. More powerful computers. Again, in the years when turn based games were more common, the computers were often not capable of handling more than one player in real time. It was too complicated and there just wasn't enough horsepower in the 16 bit processors.
And is all this a good thing? I say that it's neither good or bad. The gaming world goes through phases and waves for most generes and styles. For example we're near the peak of the RPG cycle. They will eventually die out in popularity and then come back again as they always have. I predict the same thing will happen with turn based games. Sooner or later, developers and consumers will get tired of making/playing the action, RPG and other games that are common today. They'll look for something fresh. And turn-based games and well as adventure games and other generes that are currently in a drought phase will experience rebirth.
It's all a cycle. Gaming generes don't permenantly die. There's a nice little cycle of temporary death and rebirth that refreshes the market.
O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law:
For starters, there is still literally millions of AD&D geeks out there. Secondly turn based is completely different playstyle than RTS. RTS forces the player to mke decisions in real time vs planning. Perhaps there should be a new hybrid TBRTS (turn based real time strategy) that applies to most new stuff. A good example of a TBRTSFPS (turn based real time strategy first person shooter) would be counterstrike or even rainbow 6. Both games have turns where people can sit and wait and plan stuff out......
Sorry folks sorta forgot where i was goin with this, but i think you get the picture, turn based isnt going anywhere, just its gaming characteristics will be brought into some of the newer games coming out.
--Toq
IMO it's not so much that turn-based games have declined, its just that the turns now take milliseconds. Obviously, a computer can't calculate the results of all players movements and actions at the same time, its simply done in so little time that you are basically taking 1000/(your ping in milliseconds) turns per second; couple that with some neat tricks in the programming department and you get the illusion that you are engaged in fluid motion.
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
Where the hell does 'strategy' come into play in the crap-ass, mindless, Quake-engine-based cookie-cutter FPS-of-the-month?
"If it moves, blow the shit out of it" is not really a strategy on par with the kind of strategy you need to employ in, say, Civilization.
~Philly
Right on.
One game says it all. X-COM. Oh yeah. Have you noticed that games in general are beginning to suck more? The GameCube Metroid is a perfect example. The game companies feel that EVERY game HAS to be 3D. If it's not 3d it wont sell. SO they make every game 3d. I would have been very happy with another 2d metroid, and so would everyone else. The guys making it weren't doing a good job with it as a 3rd person platform game, so Nintendo made them change it to a first person shooter. Me and my friends are going to start programming massively enourmous 2 dimensional games that will blow everyones mind. Look at Diablo II? Oh yeah. 2D. As for turn based games. X-COM. Nuff said.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Most wargames from 91-97 had this option, like my all time favorite great naval battles. Most of these games were made by ssi.
Make a man a fire and he will be warm for a day, set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
A noble spirit enslickens the lamest GUI.
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Sometimes nothing is a real cool hand.-- Cool Hand Luke
Some of spent college years playing the classic board games - Axis and Allies, Risk, Squad Leader, and others of the sort. They had a map or board and dozens of little cardboard squares. There were dozens of them in the old game and hobby shops. We'd have a board set up for weeks, playing turns between classes, leaving notes for the next player to walk in. There were several turn-based computer games around too. Empires was a favorite. Some of us still love the old board games and have never found computer versions to have the same appeal.
- Sig this!
I really like both types, but I find that turn based games tend to be more fun. The entire final fantasy series has traditionally used turn-based combat and final fantasy games are some of the most sucessful RPG games for consoles. Towards the end, they started to use some kind of hybrid combat system that was between real-time and turn-based. There are real-time combat RPG games for consoles such as zelda (which I haven't played much of), but I have always prefered the relaxed, turn-based nature of the FF series.
On the PC, I loved both Fallout I and Fallout II. Both games are very well done and have excellent artwork. But now I'm playing DiabloII which is equally as good, but of course it has real-time combat.
Baldur's gate is a weird game in that it uses real-time combat, but to stand any kind of chance in the game you have to pause all of the time since you control so many guys. I really didn't like that system as well, but it's an interesting way of handling real-time combat when you have several people under your control. Most other RPGs would have turned their control over to AI.
I would agree that most network games are better with realtime combat systems, but turn-based games definitely have their places on consoles and PCs for single player games. The fact that they are slower is great for when you just want to relax and veg out in front of the TV w/ your playstation and copy of FF7.
Turn-based games are far from dead... A quick search of this thread didn't turn up a single reference to Baldur's Gate or Baldur's Gate 2. These are immensely popular and critically acclaimed games that came out it the last two years or so.
Baldur's gate does not take a traditional approach to turn-based gaming, but is definitely not real-time. I recommend that everyone check out this game and then come back and say that turn-based games are dying.
As far as gaming goes, the ideal is a real-time, immersive experience. But due to the limitiations of user interfaces, complex games like RPG's that allow the user to do such a diverse range of actions are sometimes better off turn-based. If a developer can put together a usable and flexible enough interface to pull off real-time, great! But games should not be forced into real-time environments when the depth of the game is at stake.
-3Suns
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The Revolution will be Slashdotted
The same market forces work on other art forms too. Scott McCloud came to some similar conclusions about comic books. In his book Reinventing Comics he examines how a single genre (superhero comics) took over the industry. Same story, different day.
This
Ruthless.com was a great turn based game. It's not that old, but I always thought it was a shame that it didn't catch on. But, I don't think computer games are as fun as games you play face to face with other people. Nothing beats a long session of Vampire LARP or Diplomacy.
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evil adrian
evil adrian
Baldur's Gate was not the first real time AD&D game. Anyone here remember the eye of the beholder series. That was quality graphics for the time better even than many turn based games however it just didn't catch on.
Written from The House of the Venerable and Inscrutable Colonel
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Oh *that* kind of trolling...
just because turn-based games are dwindling on computer media doesnt mean they are leaving. it just doesnt make sense to do turn-based on computers when it was designed for pen/paper.
Question
http://www.ironfroggy.com/
What we really need are more real time tactical games.
Douglas Adams
1952-2001 :(
It seems to me that Bioware butchered the AD&D franchise with Baldur's Gate 2. I mean, it's fun and all, but I demand dynamic games. It's good to see that they're redeeming themselves with Neverwinter Nights. [Oh come on, it's ontopic.. turnbased games.. get it?]
Douglas Adams
1952-2001 :(
Oh, and while we're on civilized competition (not that you brought up the following topic, dstone, but I thought I'd probably better address it anyway) I do enjoy a game of chess every once in awhile and have no problems with that being turn-based. I think it's just an issue with me that when it comes to board games I recognize that it would be absolute mayhem trying to understand what's happening- especially when you're dealing with such simple representations of "characters". With the added realism of onscreen representations I can better comprehend activities going on hither and thither.
hoping your rules and wisdom choke you, since 1976
I'm really not sure where people are getting this idea that turn based Strategy games are dying off.
Take games such as Alpha Centauri, Combat mission, Heroes of might and magic, Age of wonders, Space Empires 4, Reach for the stars, Warlords and the descriminating gamer has plenty to choose from. Add to that pile, up coming classics CIV3, Stars!SuperNova and Master of Orion 3 and I just do not see TBS games going away anytime soon.
Real Time Strategy is no doubt a very popular format but realistically, it's Real Time Tactical gaming and a different game altogether. As a fan of both types of games, I can tell you that the requirements for each TBS and RTS are quite a bit different.
In most TBS games, a very real part of the game is long range planning. Since the player is given time to actually run through all the options, the complexity of the game can get very sophisticated.
With real time tactical games, you have very real restrictions on how much can be done in a set amount of time. What this does is force the designer to shrink the strategic portion of the game down to the bare minimum as to allow the player to concentrate on the immediate tactical situation.
I find both genres, when well done, to be a joy to play. At the same time one hardly can take over the reign of the other, as they are simply too divergent in their final goal.
I find Hybrids such as Shogun, which mixes a turn based stategic game with a fully realized RTS tactical module as a refreshing take on the scene. It's hardly a new idea (the original Star control had the same sort of dual genre) but with the surge of new gamers entering the scene via the starcrafts and Age of Empires I think the two tiered approach might well pick up new converts.
Cheers!
-Liquidated
I am still losing lots of nights of sleep playing the civilizations series. The only choice I have to make is 1, 2, or 3. Once in a while I'll just have to pull out colonizations. Those were real games, screw this new crap coming out.
freeciv is merely what was spawned from a bunch of unimaginative geeks with the ability to turn a great game into a pile of shit
LOL your caught the gag ...
Tight lines
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I believe My response was on the basis of ADD and that fishing ( imo ) is one of those sports that can teach you to relax and be pactient.
Ever learn to read the water and the sound of the surf at night (northeast). It's a trick that you learn after many of a night not catching fish. Also did you know that certain fishes emit a smell in their POOP. Stripe bass after eating bunker POOP a watermelon scent
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I think the fate of turn-based games can be summed up by looking at the history of XCOM.
In the beginning, (at least for me) there was the ultimate turn-based game: XCOM. Loved it.
Then there was XCOM2: terror from the deep. I actually found it too difficult, but lots of people loved it, and it was faithful to the original.
Then came XCOM 3. Now you had the choice between real-time or turn-based, and IMHO and the HO of others, it sucked huge cocks, and was the death of the series.
If XCOM3 was the death of the series, then when (supposedly the same people) created Abomination: the nemesis project, they actually created the animated rotting corpse of xcom. Now it was real-time only, and it was a shambling mess.
The history of xcom serves quite well to illustrate the history of things- but thankfully there are a few highlights in this, now, the post-XCOM phase of games.
For example, if you really like XCOM 1 and 2 but they run too fast on your computer, you could check out the following:
Soldiers at War: WW2 squad-based, turn-based. Is VERY similar to XCOM- dunno if any of the xcom creators were on board. It's Windows not dos, so speed should be less of an issue. (This is quite an old game though with basic graphics).
As many people have pointed out, there is Baldur's gate 1 and 2. Both very good for turn-based fans if you set the "auto pause at end of round" option. Watch out though, you can't do this in Planescape Torment...
Also as others have pointed out there is Jagged Alliance 2, which doesn't run too fast even if you have a 6 GHz machine. I haven't played the expansion for it, but lots of reviews thought it was bad value for money.
Two more turn-based games, which I actually never really got into are the two Warhammer 40K ones. The first is a space marines vs chaos one, and the second is Rites of War, involving eldar. At least the first one is very xcom-influenced.
AND FINALLY- my hot tip, mega game for turn-based freeeeeeks everywhere, but including modern 3D graphics is Odium by Monolith. It looks all new-fangled and 3dized to start with, but you quickly see that it uses a square grid system, is completely turn-based, extremely challenging and great great fun. Check it out, please. It was made in 1999.
Graspee
There are about 40,000 people playing online turn-based games at this very moment, at Yahoo! alone.
The new Fallout game, Brotherhood of Steel, is a game that can be turn based or real time, depending on how you want to play. It's also squad based like X-Com.
Bring it on, baby!
Fuzzy Knights: New RPG Strips Tuesday and Friday!:
http://www.fuzzyknights.com
I wish turn based would have a resurgence. In my opinion, turn based games rely a lot more on strategy and tactics, rather than just flailing around and having overwhelming firepower.
Don't get me wrong. I love Age of Empires, Planescape: Torment, and other real time games. But turn based games introduce a whole additional layer of strategy that simply is not present in real time games.
-Michael (Aristotle@Threshold RPG)
Online Roleplaying at its Finest
-Michael
Threshold RPG
Have you guys ever heard of Troika games? Anyone who has played Fallout I or II and has kept up with the creators of that absolutely fantastic and engrossing series should have. After leaving Black Isle and forming their own development team, Troika Games, they have moved on to an even grander CRPG project: "Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura". This game is set in a completely different world, a world where magick and technology are at war with each other, and is turn based in the Fallout style (although the designers have made concessions to the real time crowd with a realtime option AND multiplayer AND custom level/story design). Just like Fallout you have ultimate control of what you do, how you do it, and the game reacts accordingly, even more so than the the Fallout Series did. If you want to check it out, go to:
www.sierrastudios.com/games/arcanum
It sounds awesome, and it'll be out in a couple months. They just made feature lock, which means theyre ironing out the bugs and story stuff. I cant wait.
"I am never less alone than when alone" --Scipio Africanus
Seriously, though, I haven't seen a real-time game that can adequately answer the hard-core grognard's lust for detail, especially at operational levels. Shogun: Total War and Ground Control both came tantalizingly close in terms of gameplay, but both fell short because, in order to make the game playable in real-time, they cut out a lot of detail (and flavour). They're both effectively tactical games, anyways.
For those of us who want to worry about lines of supply, unit morale, and the difference between an M1A1 and an M1A2 against kinetic penetrators, turn-based games are where it's at.
Another advantage to turn-based wargames is the fact that most of them come with a good scenario editor. If I want to find out what might have happened at 73 Easting if the Iraquis had been better prepared, or had been equipped with T-80s instead of T-72s, or something of the like, I can spend maybe half an hour in TOAW2's scenario editor and come up with a plausible scenario.
I can't say that the RTS genre could never come up with a sufficiently anal-retentive^W^W^W richly detailed, but still playable, tactical or operational wargame, but it hasn't happened yet as far as I can tell. Screw Blizzard, Norm Kroger owns my soul.
--
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over?
One's interaction with a book, in particular a book with a narrative, involves a creative synthesis of the real-world time of the reader with the timeframe of the book. Neither time-frame need be sacrificed for the enjoyment of the medium. In a TB game, your own speed of play is your choice and enjoyment of the game is possible at any chosen speed of play.
One's interaction with TV involves submission to the time-frame of the medium in order to enjoy it. The same is true with RT games, although this isn't absolute; they can be sped up and slowed down and even paused.
Another area in which the comparison holds: RT games tend to be more visually oriented, whereas TB games are more conceptual. This obviously holds for television and books. The type of imagination brought to each is also different. Books (and turn based games) require a more active imagination, whereas television and RT games are more about responding to sense data (with RT games certainly being more active than TV).
All of this leads to the following observation: Of the diehard TB gamers I encounter, many are also avid readers. Of the more current gamers who are into RT, far fewer are readers, although there are still some readers represented.
Needless to say, I've been getting a lot more reading done, since I now no longer buy new games, since almost all of them RT. The only games I'll consider playing these days are Alpha Centauri, CIV, and MOOII, all of which are at least several years old. I wouldn't pay money for any RT games--for me they're merely stressful and the game play is not nearly as satisfying, since I mainly have to supply reflexes and tactics, not imagination and long term strategy. I will consider updates to CIV and MOO when they come out. Maybe there are enough of us TB types still around that these will sell well enough to send the game makers a message.
Solar Wars is a turn-based space strategy game, based in a distant solar system, with up to thirty orbiting planets. Starting with your home world, build up your ships and strategy. Scout out nearby worlds, send fleets of ships to attack or send annihilation bombs. Destroy opponents by setting hidden proximity bombs or pulse bombs. Play in single player mode, with computer opponents, or multiplayer mode, over the Internet. See how fast you can eliminate your opponents and dominate the entire solar system! http://members.bellatlantic.net/~jme69/solarwars.h tm
*sigh* I think that's why we have seen the demise of the adventure game genre, which are the only kind of games I ever really enjoyed. People find these kind of games slow, and boring if they make you think. However, I and a lot of other adventure, turn-based, etc. fans find games like Quake, etc. boring.
"Maybe for once in my life people will call me 'sir' without adding 'you're making a scene'." -Homer Simpson
ROCK ON MAN! King's Quest kicks ass! (Along with all those other early Sierra games.....ahh, nostalgia).
"Maybe for once in my life people will call me 'sir' without adding 'you're making a scene'." -Homer Simpson
Tut via bazo est aperteni al nia!!
--
Car Granda Justa!!
I think that the non-existence of modern turn-based games is due to the simple fact that they are a worthless form of entertainment. With the exception of the Final Fantasy Sagas (an anomaly of their class) turn-based action is (at least to me) boring and banal. Besides, who wants to wait when you can frag right away!
In the old days, the button was always to the left of the joystick. Look at the Atari 2600. This was because game control was more important than pressing buttons, hence the stick was allocated to the right hand (as most peope are right handed). The Nintendo era reversed all this. All of a sudden the button(s) were on the right. And more and more buttons too. You scored well on these newer games just by slamming buttons faster. Skill? What skill? Boom---Boom---Boom for player 1, BoomBoomBoomBoomBoom for player 2. Player 2 wins. Skill. Yah right. And it's only getting worse. Today the "game" is only an annoying interlude to get you to the next FMV movie. Yeesh.
It didn't do so hot, but I have heard rumors of a AoW2 to be put out, so maybe it did sell a good number of copies. But it certainly wasn't a shelf-clearer like DII.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
What was that an article or a novella? Many valid and interesting points, but too too long.
If there are fewer turn based games (TBG's), then let me suggest a relatively recent release that was overlooked. Sure it's one of those wargames which the writer described as being a hopelessly small niche market. I'm not a war nut, I am becoming a "The Operational Art of Warfare - Century of War" (TOAW-CW) nut.
It is the wargamers' wargame. Practically every major offensive of the past century is represented in the scenario library. And if you like to play a game with a friend on your own schedule. TBG's can't be beat. Every other night I play a turn vs. one of the guys from work. Testing each other's prowess in various scenarios. This game could be played for years without exhausting the scenarios or growing bored. And as it ships with its own editor, you're free to create your own scenarios.
The first thing I did was turn the 3D view off, and settle into the informative 2D game view. The variety of units, formations, supply, combat and organizational tactics and strategies that can be mastered are a pleasure to delve into. And here is a game AI which is better on offense than defense...
You can find it for $19.95 at Gamestop
Life is like an egg better scrambled than fried. -- Ken Sawatari
Of course, even rogue-like games have become real-time. Now there's Mangband - multiplayer real-time angband. It's not very popular (in that I never saw more than a handful of people playing when I looked), but kind of neat anyway.
... they're just keeping a low-profile.
My favorite UNIX-based game is a turn-based game, XConq, which is a derivative of the old Empire and Conquest series.
The thing that keeps turn-based games alive is that a large number of people prefer strategy games. There are no real-time strategy games that I'm aware of. Game such as StarCraft, Total Annihilation, and other "gather-resources and make units" aren't strategy games, no matter what the marketing droids say. They're tactical games. Which is a whole 'nother ball of wax.
What I'm waiting for is someone to create the marriage of the 1st-person shooter with the real-time "strategy" game and requiring multi-person teams. Strategy requires a larger time-frame, and a broad view, something with our current generation of realtime games don't have, but turn-based ones have down cold.
-Erik
(who knows more than a few people at MIT who almost didn't graduate because of an Xconq addiction...)
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
If you liked VGA Plants, you should try Space Empires III, or it's recently-commercially-released relative, Space Empires IV. Like VGA planets, it is turn-based, and can use transferred files so you can play with people far and wide. It has a bit more economics, and the ships are restricted by what you choose to research instead of by race, but it does have the minor problem that turns are sequential, not batch, so everyone is at the mercy of a single slow player. The graphics beat the pants off of VGA Planets, though.
SE3 was the yardstick by which I measured WINE performance for a long time, although now it's perfectly playable under it so I need a new yardstick.
A lot of people will not play real-time games because they have high blood pressure and it could endanger their lives. I had that problem until the right drugs were identified.
Perhaps they should file lawsuits under the Americans with Disabilities Act against the makers of games they like that don't feature turn-based play. That seems to be the preferred approach these days.
-
It's an older game, you can probably pick it up for $10-15 if you can find it -- and that's very true for a lot of turn-based strategy games -- older games still play well, as they're generally not so graphics and speed oriented that they seem too outdated...
--
> It is?
You realize, of course, that every word was made up by someone?
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Let's see... Civ 3 and MOO 3 are coming out soon,
Um... I hate to break it to you but even MoO3 is starting to lean toward RTS-hood. The combat will take place similar to Harpoon (continuous time, but lots of time to do things).
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
I haven't played earth 2060, so I can't answer that part. But yeah, PA has a lot of flaws. It's really simple, and there isn't any real notion of distance. It's a game that you can play by spreadsheet. But for all that, it's still interesting. I'm really interested in the community of players. Other people have their own reasons for sinking the majority of their lives into the game.
Oh, go on, check out my job.
As technology advances, simulation and games get closer to being indistinguishable from everyday reality. I've heard the comment that gamers don't want reality, but I don't believe this. Players may not want realistic plot (though the Sims may show me to be incorrect), but they do want realistic gravity and reflections, and they also want realistic _time_ continuity.
When we are sitting in a holo-deck, are we going to want to take turns each time we do something? Turns are only a model of reality. Even though a single player and a computer can't do the work of an general and his staff (as the article states), players will step into the role of the characters and work with others in a massive online environment and become the general and his staff.
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
There are some great 'independant' companies selling turn based games that are winning tons of awards:
Shrapnel Games
This company sells tons of award winning games, such as "steel beasts".
Another such company is "Battlefront games" at BattleFront Games with games such as "Combat Mission"..
There are lots of turn-based game companes out there.. many of them may not be "big names" but the companies listed above are getting lots of press and business thanks to the power of the internet community.
Who knows, companies such as this may become much larger in little time.. Fans of turn based games won't be left out =)
A Qt version? Oh shit, I've already started downloading. This stupid game affected my grade point average...
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
Heh, I'm well aware that it's not a real word. If I had delivered that post verbally, the parenthetical statement would have been delivereed with a narrowing of the eyes and a twist of the mouth.
It's a bad habit of mine to make up words by incorrectly adding prefixes or suffixes (like en-). 8)
For a minute there, when i saw your post, I thought that it really was a word...
-J
Karma: T-rexcellent.
Hehehe, I like that. um... what does it mean, exactly?
I think it was last weekend that I used the word "octopusillanimosity" in reference to... well, an octopus, I guess.
-J
Karma: T-rexcellent.
The reason turn based games are declining is uber-simple ... YOU SPEND HALF THE GAME WAITING.
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I really want to meet someone that can play a game of Heroes of Might and Magic in 8 hours... must be a genius to think and act that fast...
:) Especially with enough cigarette and pizza breaks.
My games (2-3 players) will go 18-24 hours, easily... but 3 people on 5 computers with the max difficulty takes a while...
I got Heroes III Complete sitting on my desk, and it the game I play most often. They had a successful game, 2 expansions, and a series of standalone campaigns that seems to be selling. They are supposedly working on Heroes IV. Turn based games still exist, because some people prefer them. They are easier to write and have a following.
Not tried buying or selling a house yet then? I've currently been waiting nearly three months from performing an action (accepting an offer on my house) to the corresponding action from the other party (exchange of contracts). On the other hand, that was incredibly annoying which doesn't exactly support turn based games (which I like).
My fave turn based game for anyone who recalls it is "Rebelstar". There were definitely FPS before Wolfenstein too.
Rich
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You can play turn based games over the internet.
Fight Spammers!
Chess is definitely not going to die in the near future. But computer game companies are not going to make millions of dollars selling it, either. In the eyes of those play everything the day it comes out and shelve it a week later, turn based games are nearly nonexistant. There is no question that lots of people still play turn based games. The question is if many people are still buying turn based games, or if many companies are still making them.
Bugrit! Millenium hand and shrimp!
The increase in bandwidth available to users has made networked games popular.. people can act at the same time, and it not only tests strategy, but reaction time, and ingenuity..
Games that take "turns" are to slow for the average user these days. We all want our cake now, and it pre-chewed for us to mitigate eating time..
(Stop your bitching -- everyone reading this site has access to a PC or a Mac, and no amount of zealotry will change that.)
What do you run your copy of Linux on, a mainframe?
"And like that
While real-time games are great if you're sitting in your house alone, turn-based games can be played with a group of people all at one machine. So you get to play computer games and get the social interaction parent-types seem to think we should get, all at once.
Why are there 2-4 joystick ports on the front of the game consoles instead of just one?
That's right folks... real-time, multi-player games that you and your friends can play while gathered around the same machine.
As far as old-school games go, none better than King's Quest I! KQ1 was classic because you had to actually TELL THE COMPUTER WHAT TO DO! None of that sissy click-everywhere-with-the-mouse like the rest of the KQ series had... Classic.
"And like that
An excellent turn based game is the Operational Art of War. This game allows you to play out many battles that have taken place since World War 2. You can play against your friends via email with it's play by email (pbem - After you finish your turn, you save a file and email it to your opponent) feature. Once you finish all the scenerios that come with it you can build your own scnerios with the built in scenerio feature. Overall, it's a great game, and anyone that is opposed to turn-based games has NOT played it.
Someone ever tries to kill you, you try to kill them right back!
By this, of course, you mean that it was pretty cool in Baldur's Gate, so you took it... Right? Right?
--Come, on! Let us use the basement, Lou! Haaaaaaahaaaaaaaaaaahahahahaa!--
In no function of real life am I ever restricted to performing an action and then waiting for the corresponding action from the other party. Even in something as simple as conversation- it is certainly polite to speak and listen to the response and then speak again, but I am always free to interject, interrupt, ignore, or simply walk away from the other person when it is their "turn" to talk. I can't imagine being in a fight with somebody where we stand facing each other taking turns throwing punches and not being free to do something so simple as blocking.
Say what you will about a lack of imagination/intelligence/attention span on my part, I just have a very difficult time mentally connecting with this style of play.
hoping your rules and wisdom choke you, since 1976
Maybe if we can teach our children to fish they would learn to let time pass them by.
just my 2 cents
I'm not trolling
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I think the real reason turn-based games have lost ground is that people's attention span has decreased, frustration tolerance has diminished markedly, and, as a consequence, people are now most likely to seek instant (or fast) gratification.
You gotta love how postmodernism has screwed up the world.
David.
People generally find it more fun to strategize and plan when there's a time limit and the pressure is on. Sure, it can be fun to sit around all day to come up with a plan, but it's just as fun to come up with some ad-hoc thing on the spur of the moment because you just don't have time for something better... and then pull it off.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Rush rush rush!
People find it easier to react (ie: real-time) than strategize/plan their actions (ie: turn-based).
It's the whole Nike "Just Do It!" philosophy presented at it's finest.
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>>Real-time games are more fun.<<
For you, I'm sure. Personally, I get bored with them very easily.
Real-time = tactical play
Tactics get your blood boiling, you need to be thinking 3-5 steps ahead. Nonetheless, you are constantly reacting to other's actions, you're not really in control.
Turn-based = strategy
Strategy is cool, reasoned long-term planning. Unless you can plan 10 or more steps ahead, you're not going to cut it.
In tactical games, those with the fastest reflexes win. In strategy games, those with the best planning and creativity win.
I'll take the strategy games any day of the week, I happen to enjoy attempting to figure out the long-term consequences of seemingly minor actions. Plus, I can daydream all day about the various things I can do for my next turn...
Funny thing, I was diagnosed ADD a long time ago. I actually find it an advantage in this type of game, since I can "task-switch" between evaluating various options while planning my next move.
The problem I think is the move towards multiplayer games. Personally I get a little impatient when the computer takes it turn in Alpha Centauri; do I really want to wait for 3 human players to take theirs? I like turn-based games solo, but give me Starcraft when I'm playing against opponents who can't process a hundred million floating point operations per second.
--
And for good reason... it's a blast to play. I have the original, as well as the sequel, and have already pre-ordered the "squad based combat" version called Fallout: Tactics. It is a "real time" game but you disable the real time play for the classic Fallout turn-based mayhem.
I highly recommend Fallout if you like the isometric view of Diablo but don't like the real time game play.
Plus, you get the fantastic post-apocalypic environment of The Road Warrior with some good humor (making fun of themselves at times). Definitely worth picking up a used copy on eBay or from a friend.
Some Fallout sites:
Duck And Cover
No Mutants Allowed
Let's see... Civ 3 and MOO 3 are coming out soon, there are several RPGs coming out with 'phased' or 'initiative based' or full turn based combat, there are always wargames, computer board games and card games, and my personal favourite: Worms World Party. That's at least as many turn based games coming out now as at any time. It's not that turn based games are decreasing, it's just that real time games are increasing.
You don't need a fancy $600 card to play the average turn based game. Think about who buys the 3 page spread advertisements for hardware in the magazines, and the kind of games that usually play on them. Not turn based, thats for sure.
Also, I mean - the flashy screenshots with 4 stage multipass effects and lens flares get great press coverage... buzz words baby, buzz words.
I expect turn based stuff to be relegated to a niche market, as the accelerator vendors gather more and more influence with the industry.
Here is a discussion about real time games vs. turn based games.
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On the other front the only semi-complete Open Source developed game is FreeCiv. Is it coincidental? I don't think so. Like it or not turn based strategy is more 3l33t than those C&C and populous clones. But it hase a very nice and loyal niche.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
I see that another poster already mentioned Fallout where you stop the realtime mode for turn-based combat.
Believe it or not, one of the biggest of what people think of as "pure" RTS (Real-Time Strategy) games actually has a form of turn based play. Age of Empires II:Age of Kings (and the Conquerors Expansion), when played in single player mode, allows the player to stop the game (just hit the pause key) at any time, and scroll around, check units, and issue new orders to their hearts content. When they are done, they unpause the game, and play resumes with the new orders. This creates a hybred mode, where a human player can issue destailed orders and micromanage the game as well as if not better than the computer opponents, even if they have over one hundred active units in the game.
The reason we (the guys who made the Age of Empires games) added this feature, was in response to direct feedback from focus groups made up of people who play our games. They told us what they like and dislike, and how they want to go about playing the game.
If you were to guess from all the hype and reviews, you would think that 50-75% of our audience plays the game in online multi-player mode. In truth, it's more like 7-15% multiplayer, with a huge and vast demographic of people who like to play against the computer. Mostly, these people are not "hard-core" gamers, but 'normal' or 'casual' game players.
This large group that doesn't play online, isn't always accustom to playing the game at a relentless pace. They like being able to stop and ponder specific situations and spend time plotting their strategy.
Unfortunatly, we found we can't let multiplayer games do this, because 2 or more players won't agree on when to pause and when to go... Trust us: it would be very ugly if they could do that.
Its pretty much a safe bet that you will this functionality, if not even more extended 'turn based like' features in the single-player component of all of our future strategy games.
What's happened is that the real-time model provides some play benefits over turn-based for a trade off price: I.e. when 100 units goes into battle in AoE or Starcraft the Unit AI stands in and allows for the battle to be resolved in under a minute, while taking limited but significant decision input from the player (i.e. like which units get targeted first, etc). Done in true turn-based fashion, with 100 units to individually order, it might take 30 to 60 minutes for the same battle to play out, thus changing the game playing experience radically.
Turned based play elements offer the player some gameplay benefits too.. they giving the player time to think, plan complex maneuvers, micromange, and be thourough in ways that the continous turn system of an RTS game can not provide.
Anyway, with respect to the editorial, I think they were a bit too negative in tone. When developers are trying to make a game as good as possible, they'll do what it take to provide maximum gameplay benefits. In many cases that probably will mean games with multiple modes - real time for those portions when its more exciting/interesting and turn-based for when it provides more control.
And as for pure turn-based games? They'll be back around... (In fact, they'll never really go away).
-Mp
... is one turn-based game that will far outlive the rest of the real-time games. I don't see chess dying in the near century.
Fsck cluebie moderators. I'll say what I want, offtopic or not. And fsck having to qualify every bloody statement just
Nethack is an excelent turn-based game. It features lots of characters, potions, spells, weapons, aromour, shops, etc. The homepage is here and the Qt version (which i prefer) is here
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A whole group of us actually went out and purchased copies of Stars! (yes, Stars!) for the sole purpose of having legitimate copies so we could start some lengthy e-mail based campaigns.
;)
It makes so much more sense too. We get about 18 hours to complete our turn, which means we can do it at our leisure, or you can really sit down and play out several different options to see which is best for a really nasty battle/trade agreement/whatnot. We're thinking that with so much more time to make our next move, that our games will be incredibly aggressive, and definitely some of the best gaming we've ever had. Plus there's so much to anticipate. We plan on 1 turn a day... just imagine our anxiety waiting an entire day to find out the outcome of an assult!
Not exactly a stressful game either. Runs on a 486 just great, Windows 3.1 and it runs in Wine just fine. You can order it straight from the UK for about £10.06 (about $14.05 U.S.) from Empire Interactive with shipping included.
Who says turn based gaming is dead?
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Evidently, they haven't discovered Planetarion -- the most addictive (and free (beer)) turn based game around. More addictive than Empire or Civilization (although, oddly enough, not nearly so interesting), Planetarion will take over your life if you let it. Turn-based games are dead? No, I think it's just game magazine editors.
Oh, go on, check out my job.
Remember playing Civilization? (or later Civ 2, Alpha Centauri..) How many times did you stay up all night because it's so easy to take a break? :)
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Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
I'm with you on that all the way. Nethack is still my favorite game.
But we mustn't forget the other interfaces available besides the Qt thingie.
http://www.pinn.net/~jry/allegrohack/ ... AllegroHack uses the Allegro libs to enslicken (shutup, that's a word :P) the graphical interface that us DOS users can use. If it works, it's awesome. ... Falcon's Eye is a really neat "isometric 3d" interface with mouse control and everything. Still in development, but cool nonetheless.
http://www.pinn.net/~jry/allegrohack/
The Nethack Site lets you set up a career ont heir server and then telnet in and play there, so that all the scores can be collected and people can compete against one another. Cute.
Also, there are many other Roguelikes out there... Rogue (the original roguelike, hehe), Angband, ADOM, etc.
I'm still partial to NetHack. I could list the reasons, but it's better if you play it for yourself and see.
Diablo is a roguelike, really, just shinier and with realtime action. Durn newfangled games.... ;)
-J
Karma: T-rexcellent.
As nice as it is to play Diablo II with my IRC friends, I miss turn based games. When we were dating my husband and I would sit together talking about stuff and taking turns at Warlords. My parents have only one computer, and my little brothers fight over who gets to play with it. It doesn't occur to them that there are games that they could play together, both at the same time. While real-time games are great if you're sitting in your house alone, turn-based games can be played with a group of people all at one machine. So you get to play computer games and get the social interaction parent-types seem to think we should get, all at once. And without the bother of carrying your machine to a LAN party.
Turn Based RPGs aren't gone, they're just hiding.
Angband is possibly the best game ever. Granted the plot is totally lacking, but I can distribute the complete file on a floppy; and I judge every game against it. Its graphics are simplistic, yet convey more information than most gaming interfaces today. The controls require some learning, but allow the user to execute any command without delay or mouse movements. I've been playing it since 1996. Did I mention that it was Open Sourced in 1984, before the GPL was thought of, and can run on ANY OS that came out since then.
But its strongest aspect is that it is turn based. I can stop, walk away, smoke a cigerate, come back, walk a step, then go to the bathroom. Or I can run down a hall and assult a vault in less than 30 seconds. Because it is turn based the game runs at MY speed. I never feel that I had to make a split second decision. When I'm getting my ass kicked, I can slow down and analyze the situation.
The game kicks ass. I have wasted many a day playing it. I lost a keyboard when my HDD crashed and killed my best character. Check it out, read the help files, read rec.games.roguelike.angband and get hooked:-)
--Cam
All jocks think about is sports. All nerds think about is sex.
At the least it's an interesting read which gets the brain going...
Isn't that what I'm not supposed to be doing on a Friday night?