ShadowPaladin V1.0

Indeed. Pause is something added to Real Time to allow some of the control that TB games allow you over multiple party members. Freedom Force went one further and added a variable slow motion as well as pause. Overwatch and Attacks of Opportunity are something added to TB games to make them more like real time. This is really where we should be focusing our efforts rather than drawing lines in the sand and refusing to cross over them. It's all well and good to say TTB games are fine if you dont like them , then your some sort of imbecile. But that wont get them made. Likewise its easy to say that people who like them are dinosaurs and should move with the times. But the truth is they can both be improved. But it's also true that many of the dislikes may well be purely personal. But thats true of any game and any genre.

Fun taking things out of context isnt it But you still have completely failed to prove the case put forward by your thread title which. That making a TB game would not casuse obsidian harm. The only high sales games you can use in support have less to do with the type of game you are championing than an RTWP game. So I will ask you again. Where is your evidence that a such a game would not cause Obsidian harm ? Because you have yet to present a shred of it. Only excuses as to why similiar games have failed to sell. 1a. True 1b . False. I said that the D&D logo also boosted NWN's and BG sales over what they would have been if they were not D&D games. Real time or TB the D&D name is gold dust. 2a. Thats true. The SW name is valuable. But many SW games have sunk without a trace. Dont see a problem with that. 2b Correct they dont. Its like saying a lot of platform games have failed when your looking at making a driving a game. How many IE type games have failed that didnt come from Europe ? My count is 1 (IWD II) and that was hardly cutting edge. 3a Well you havnt found any have you ? 3b No , still no sales figures for the highest selling TTB either. 4a Paraphrasing dosnt mean make stuff up you know :D Are you denying that JRPG's combat is of a very different design to something like FO ? 4b Again if your not making a Diablo game then Diablo clones dont apply. 4c If I am not even aware of them. And actually it was just Prince of Qin I wasnt aware of. And the game wasnt released in Europe then is it suprising the sales are low ? 4d Again your taking things out of context. That simply a description of LH's combat tagged onto the bottom of a post in response to someone who had not played the game. Nothing whatsoever to do with you. 1a Well if you want to tell me what Civ has to do with RPG's feel free. 1b Again that was in response to the LH combat on how you can accomplish targetting in real time. 1c You thing that sales figures of 24,000 or 75,000 are worth Obsidians time ?Because that might shed some light on why you think them making a TTB game wouldnt cause them "harm". 1. Thats pretty self explanatory isnt it ? If you have lots of free time to stare at the screen your much more likely to notice anomolies than if your engaged in action. You were the one who brought up the bugs being the reason for TOEE not selling. 2. Yep that ones self explanatory too as it would be a game of a similiar type. Since you did me the favour of summing up my posts. Allow me to return the favour. Revolvers Arguement. 1.I want Obsidian to make a TTB game. I am going to promise them that it wont fail 2.I Dont have a shread of proof to back any of that up. 3.I can give you lots of reasons why things have failed. But I cant show you a single success without having to bring in games that are entirely unrelated. Does that cover it ?

It's really aimed at Feargus and how it relates to Obsidian rather than just sales in general.

Here are some numbers. Thank Bobbin for them and make of them what you will. GameState takes a look at units sold for the 20 best singular examples for certain franchises. 1. "The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time" for N64: 6 Million Units 2. "Halo" for Xbox: 2+ Million Units 3. "Metroid Prime" for GameCube: 1+ Million Units 4. "Super Mario 64" for N64: 11 Million Units 5. "Tetris" for Gameboy: 32 Million Units 6. "Street Fighter Alpha 3" for GBA: 30,000+ Units (This was one the editor liked) 7. "Deus Ex" for PC: 500,000+ Units 8. "Mario Kart Super Circuit" for GBA: 500,000+ Units 9. "Neverwinter Nights" for PC: 1 Million Units 10. "Civilization III" for PC: 2 Million Units 11. "Grand Theft Auto" for PS2: 8.5 Million Units 12. "Metal Gear Solid 2" for PS2: 5 Million Units 13. "Gran Turismo 3" for PS2: 7 Million Units 14. "Half-Life" for PC: 8 Million Units 15. "Tempest 3000" for Nuon: 20,000+ Units 16. "Shenmue II" for Dreamcast: 100,000 Units 17. "Rez" for PS2: 100,000+ Units 18. "Elite" for BBC Micro: 600,000 Units 19. "Radiant Silvergun" for Sega Saturn: 50,000 Units 20. "The Secret of Monkey Island 2" for PC: 500,000 Units 1. "Super Mario Bros." for NES: 40 Million Units 2. "Tetris" for Gameboy: 33 Million Units 3. "Super Mario Bros. 3" for NES: 18 Million Units 4. "Super Mario World" for SNES: 17 Million Units 5. "Super Mario Land" for Gameboy: 14 Million Units 6. "Super Mario 64" for N64: 11 Million Units 7. "The Sims" for PC: 10 Million Units 8. "Super Mario Bros. 2" for NES: 10 Million Units 9. "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" for PS2: 8.5 Million Units 10. "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" for PSX: 8 Million Units 11. "GoldenEye" for N64: 8 Million Units 12. "Donkey Kong Country" for SNES: 8 Million Units 13. "Super Mario Kart" for SNES: 8 Million Units 14. "Pokemon Red/Blue" for Gameboy: 8 Million Units 15. "Half-Life" for PC: 8 Million Units 16. "Tomb Raider II" for PSX: 8 Million Units 17. "Final Fantasy VII" for PSX: 7.8 Million Units 18. "Myst" for PC: 7 Million Units 19. "Gran Turismo 3" for PS2: 7 Million Units 20. "Dragon Warrior VII" for PS2: 6 Million Units

How many units sold approximately would you say it took to consider a game a success ? And based on a full developement cycle how many would be required to break even ?

Woah I'd love to know what sales goals they set for the game.. They seemed overjoyed with it if the press release was anything to go by.

Dungeon Siege has a party so its closer to IE than Diablo in that respect. It's also pausable to issue orders another simularity. Depends what you mean by "fans" not everyone who buys a Bioware game is a fan.Bioware have established themselves by making RTWP games. And Jade is real time bordering on beat um up. Not everyone who bought BG bought KOTOR and vice versa. So saying that people will buy a TB game just because Bioware made it dosnt ring true. Biowares strength has always been they have been able to capture the mass market while at the same time not alienating all but the most jaded of RPGer's. Like I said , post a thread over there about Bioware making a TB game and see what sort of reception it gets. I guess I will answer that one after Jade is released since it's their first real departure from the RTWP formula with regards to RPG's. I dont see how making an MMPORG would cause them to crash and burn as you put it. It might ruffle a few feathers but thats nothing new Jade did exactly the same thing.

I'm sure they do their research. If you took this board as a typical population you would get the impression that 90% of people supported TTB strategy games and likely the other 10% didnt mind either way. I've played lots of the things. Front Mission 3 is one of my all time favourites (thanks in part to the Platinum Challenge) Got to love IF B) 10% might be a bit high. But in luie of figures I would guess that the top selling TB CRPG would hover at 100,000.

It will depend if MS think it's a title that will sell an Xbox or two. If they dont think its likely that people will buy an Xbox because of the delay then they wont waste the money on a "payoff". Thats really the only reason to invest in exclusive titles.

Thats usually because I am on the side that either isnt looking for change. Or is supporting the maximised sales strategy B) If you want someone to do something you need to convince them. In the case of business by showing them how its sound investment. If you want them to keep doing what they are doing then you dont. I dont know how you came to the conclusion I am not interested in TTB games. Interested or not dosnt change the fact that I wouldnt tell someone to make a TTB game if it was going to get 10% of the sales of an RTWP game. That just dosnt strike me as a sensible thing to do.

Limiting profits always hurts the company. So your admiting that you would expect lower sales from a TTB game than an RTWP game ?

Yes. For the same reason you wouldnt want FO3 to be real time. You could always post a thread over at the Bioware boards and see what the response was.

Again your making excuses for the poor sales. Really just show me one CRPG with a TB combat system and with tactical (my bad that one) movement that even comes within sniffing distance of lets say Dungeon Siege since its an original property. Or even outline your plan on why you think making a TTB game rather than an RTWP game is a sound financial move.

Which is why he says it doesn't count. Anything that basically screws his argument up doesn't count, like me pointing out that Diablo clones don't sell well at all. Oh yeah, and it should be TTB, for Tactical Turn Based, since Strategic doesn't fit the context of what we're talking about - tactical combat. But, that's ShadowPaladin in a nutshell. It's worth it almost to see some people champion the FF series.. Diablo is only applicable if you are making a diablo clone.I'm not talking about making a Diablo clone. The point is what makes you or anyone else think that a TB game made by Obsidian would be succesful in the BG/KOTOR ballpark. I havnt seen anything , anywhere on or off the boards that would lead me to that conclusion. Yes your correct. I hereby suggest we amend it to TTB from this time forward.

What does FFVII's combat have in common with either BG or FO ? Because I dont see a great deal of commonality there at all. As I have already said the things that are quoted about being irksome in STB's dont come up in JRPG's because they have removed the movement aspect. Now if you were saying I think you (Obsidian) should make a JRPG then FVII and all the FF games would be good evidence for it. Well you could compare the sales of FFVII to FFT. What makes you think I would know the answer ? That JRPG's sell well and have no movement, I can stand behind that. That JRPG's would still sell if they had movement. I have no idea. Square make the Tactics line, but they dont sell as well as the ATB FF's.

Well if your asking someone to take a risk the onus of evidence is usually on you. If I wanted Obsidian to say start making ATB games then I would use Squares success to back that up. Not that I want them to, its just an example. No one seems to be able to come up with a single succesful STB RPG game which I find very interesting. And it dosnt support the assertation that making said game would not cause financial harm.

Yes but since no one is talking about copying Diablo that they havnt sold makes no difference at all. Never heard of Prince of Qin dont think it got released here. Vaugely recall Gorusal which had all the problems that translated RPG's seem to have. But those two studios are also responsible for the lions share of RPG's so it's natural that would be the case. With the addition of Dungeon Siege I think thats covered most of the RPG releases over the last few years on the PC. What about KOTOR and NWN ? They dont use the IE engine. But both are RTWP.

Well some of that wasnt in response to you anyway. Sales figures are interesting. If your effectively saying make this type of game because I PROMISE you it wont cause you financial harm , then you really need to back something like that up with some solid evidence. I didnt buy your explanations in the slightest thats why. Plenty of excuses why certain things didnt sell. But not one solid piece of evidence to support why an STB game made by Obsidian would sell. One wonders if you would accept legal responsibility for you promise ? IE you tell them the number of units they would sell if they made game X then you pay for every unit that dosnt sell upto that number. Is there any evidence of STB RPG's selling ? Or just excuses for why they dont.

A better question would be to ask what games haven't sold at all and what combat modes did they use when you're assessing risk. Another better question would be how many of them there are. Like I said, you can say Diablo 2 sold better than ToEE until you're blue in the face. That doesn't change the fact that just about every single game that's copied Diablo 2 has bombed and the list of those bombs is quite lengthy. True to a point. I'm sure your well aware of my "if your going to make a bad game your better of making it Turn Based" Well Diablo is an original property and deserves its success. However I would compare TOEE with BG and NWN myself. No one is talking about copying Diablo... Rather copying BG. The IE series and the RTWP has a proven track record of success. So your Diablo example dosnt really hold water there. I would bet money that if your talking RPGs then STB's probably dont even reach 10% of the numbers of RTWP. Still I'd like to know what the highest selling one is if anyone knows.

Look at your own goddamn quote. "However neither sales record of those games I would consider worth Obsidians time." And I said that you can't make that statement because they belong in the market for computer squad based tactical games. Read the whole thing over again. What's so damn hard to understand? JA2 and SS ? Fair point but that still dosnt alter that I dont think 24,000 and 75,000 respectively would have anyone jumping for Joy. I dont happen to have any figures for TOEE do you ? What is the highest selling STB CRPG ? By wont do you any harm do you mean financial harm ? Because thats probably the only applicable one in the case of a business.

Sure, I brought those two games up in the first place, but my question was aimed at countering this: You bring up sales records, and I was simply asking you to put things in perspective.--- Regarding FF Tactics- it was a Playstation 2 version, but I'm not sure about the specific one. I played one battle- though I only controlled one character, I had to wait an eternity for my turn, as the NPCs not only took a year to decide what to do (menu navigation and everything), the attack animations were boring and time consuming. Plus everything was on a damn bland rectangular grid. And finally, everyone was a cartoony midget. In Fallout, where, unless you were attacking an entire town, there was never waiting around, the NPCs attacked unhesitantly, the animations were either quick or sadistically amusing, and the great combat feedback and taunts kept me interested throughout. In perspective of what ? As I said I didnt bring those games up and I dont have figures for them. You would be better off asking Feargus what he considers as "acceptable" numbers of units sold. But I seriously doubt 75,000(JA2 at time of release) would have him cracking open the bubbly. Ah well I've not played that one in many years. If you never controlled more than one character though. You didnt play it beyond the tutorial levels. Rectangular , or hex , not really much difference. I dont know about quick. I can still remember waiting around for rats to do their thing even this long after playing FO. And waiting for the rest of my non controlled party to do the same. All the time hoping they wouldnt either shoot me in the back, or hit someone and cause everything to go hostile thus causing me to reload and have to do it all over again.

In PnP you have no choice but to take turns. If you dont then you get chaos because everyone would be talking and trying to do something at the same time and a human DM cant cope with that kind of sensory overload. A computer on the other hand has no problem multitasking. In fact they are very good at it. RT is something that can only be done on a computer. The pause aspect is there to facilitate the interaction between the computer and user. I see very little reason to place the limits of one media on another just because.

Fallout was good in spite of the combat rather than because of it. Of course if you judge it from the "in the day" perspective there wasnt much in the way of RTWP around. But today you really couldnt pay me to sit through those rat encounters.Or the lets have a whole army of non controlled characters so I get to wait even longer to actually do something.

Same one as KOTOR.