Kaelan

And those games have absolutely nothing in common, so what exactly does that have to do with the point I was making? Actually, it is. On the other hand, "you're wrong" is not a counter-agument. So here's the thing: when you make an argument, you have to actually justify why you're right. You don't get to just assert things without backing anything up. Your entire reply is essentially "No, u!". And you clearly are unfamiliar with most of those mechanics if you think adding pause makes any of them usable in real-time. The reason they don't work has nothing to do with "thinking time", it's a problem with units taking turns concurrently. Pausing doesn't change that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JQpE7n6eUk That's the kind of bard I want

Making units act concurrently doesn't complicate things, it simplifies things: a huge array of strategic options are no longer feasible. - Initiative is meaningless in real time (which is extremely important in D&D-type systems, as anyone who's ever played a D&D caster will know) - Movement ranges are meaningless. There's no reason for a unit to stop moving before it gets to its destination, and there's usually nothing its opponents can do to stop it before it actually gets there (especially when there's several units moving at the same time) - Movement is less precise (you lose 5ft steps, running, withdrawing, etc; anyone can move any distance at any time) - Attacking is less precise (you lose the ability to strategically use single attacks, full attacks, keeping opponents out of range with bull rushes, etc) - You lose "Ready vs." actions, because everything happens too fast for them to be useful - You lose reach weapons, because anyone can just waltz in and out of your threat range whenever they want (again, because everything happens too fast) - You lose the ability to aim spells effectively because units keep moving all over the place, making it extremely difficult to avoid friendly fire (every time you move your tank, enemies just immediately follow him; you never get a chance to throw a spell after he backs away, nor do you get to open combat with a spell as enemies often are right next to you by the time it goes off) - You lose the ability to use positioning to control the battle effectively (i.e. you can't use Enlarge Person on your tank to block a hallway, because it's not tile-based, so anyone can walk wherever they want, whenever they want) - You break the action economy (no swift actions, quickened spells, etc.) - You lose surprise rounds (even if you notice the enemy first, by the time whatever attack you're using goes off, they'll already have started attacking you back) - Attacks of opportunity are a lot less useful. Making a Lockdown build is almost out of the question. The reason it's hard to do these things in real-time is because this system is not meant to work in real-time. It's just a bad combination. The strength of a real-time system is quick, twitch-based gameplay (Star Ocean, Diablo, Dark Souls, Witcher, etc.). It's very very bad for strategy-RPG type gameplay. Play ToEE, then play NWN and compare. There is a huge difference.

Diablo would be unplayable if it had backstabs, attacks of opportunity, crowd controls spells, reach weapons, buffing/debuffing and had one person controlling a party of characters. The reason it works without pausing is because you have a much more limited set of options at any given time. I can't see how that could possibly be an advantage for this type of game, given the enormous amount of strategy you lose when that happens. The only reason I can see for making a system real-time is if you're interested in making the core gameplay twitch-based, like Diablo or Star Ocean. If you ever have to pause, that's a sign that it should have been turn-based in the first place (especially if you end up like the hard mode in Dragon Age, where you're essentially pausing every two seconds and the game becomes much slower than it would have been were it turn-based).

Agreed. I have no idea why people insist on making D&D-based games in real-time. The whole point of the strategic options available is that only one character takes a turn at a time, so timing and spacing can be precise. Pausing doesn't really help; even if you pause every frame, multiple units are still taking their turns all at the same time. Not sure what to think about the spells. Sounds like they're effectively making everyone a spontaneous caster (plus spell book management).