Slashdot Mirror
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."
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
No one wants to spend 8 hours to play one game of heroes of might and magic.
I think the thousands (millons?) of people who bought the Heroes of Might and Magic games might disagree with you. I think a better statement might be "No one wants to spend 8 hours to play one game of heroes of might and magic when four of those hours are waiting for the other player to go."
I agree with you that turn-based games suffer greatly (in most cases) in the multiplayer department. However, I think you underestimate the desire of many players (like myself) for good non-multiplayer strategy games. Many gamers I talk to are frustrated by the movement away from single-player games to multi-player ones, and more specifically to massively-multiplayer online games. My biggest worry is that someday in order to get my game fix I will be forced to play against 13 year old 31337 H4X0Rs because companies have stopped producing good opponent AI in the belief that everyone wants to play online.
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
--
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?
------
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? :)
----------
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.
It simply isn't realistic. Life doesn't pause for you and let you take a breather. Granted a lot of real time games suck (because they stress building crap and then rushing with everything.)
Actual, life runs closer to turn-based in terms of actual time. "Real" time games are usually accelerated by orders of magnitude, at least in war games like Starcraft.
At operational and strategic levels(battalion and up, for our purposes), an operations order for a single mission is the size of a book - you don't ever want to work on part of one. These behemoths are typed by an entire staff of officers. Yep, we type orders up before we start fighting. The detail involved in planning a real military operation is just staggering.
Turn-based games give you a chance to experience this is in real-life - the sheer complexity of large organizations. A turn-based game is possibly somewhat realistic, just sped up by 10^4 or 10^7. A "real"-time game is completely lacking in realism - your forces appear out of little buildings after 30 seconds, and you all run right at the other side like a bunch of 29th century Soviets. Don't get me wrong, they can be fun. But they're devoid of realism. Turn based games feel more like "the real thing", at least from higher levels.
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?