Diogo Ribeiro

I believe you've made a typo miss Di. Allow me to correct it for you. "I don't care much about ninjas." Undoubtedly should've read: "Ninjas are totally sweet, and if they are not included in Project X, I'll like totally flip out, and kill like 85 people." Have a nice day, and you're welcome. Thats one hell of a typo

Yes, it's going to be a tentacle monster hentai game. Its going to give a whole new meaning to "Spaghetti Western". What wouldn't?

Fallout and FO:Tactics did this but with text blurbs. While there was minimal dodging movement, the lines usually reflected the event (a taunt for player failure, a criticism/lashing out against a hit). As for movement, can't remember anything at this hour of the day

I don't know that-- *explodes*

What if the ninja was carried into Europe by two African swallows? Who do you think the Black Knight was? Thats right, a ninja, and he was the lone survivor of a party of ninja. The french? Pirates, the well known, and formidable nemesis of the ninja. Aye, but did the swallows carried the Knight with or without armor?

I wasn't shrugging it off with a "roleplaying excuse". I understand why people like to control all characters in a party; I don't mind controlling all party members in a party during combat (though its not a prefered option). I only pointed out the roleplaying aspect because in essence, a player only roleplays one character, and controls most or all aspects of said character; controlling 6 people almost as if they were player-created is weird at best (ordering an NPC in Baldurs Gate to kill a kid, then watching as it carried out the task, but then having to listen to him complaining about the reputation drop was surreal, at best). Thats why the roleplaying aspect isn't as intense or as thought-dividing as, say, playing a dungeon crawler like ToEE or Wizardry because you are not actually roleplaying 6 characters, and there isn't also a main character.

What if the ninja was carried into Europe by two African swallows?

Fallout had few combat options but these were somewhat offset by being able to invest in various skills and perks. And while I didn't exactly consider it boring, I can see why someone would, specially by not being able to control party members. For me that made the NPCs feel more like their own selves, not some meat puppets who I could order about (and that would inexplicably obey every command). As for ToEE, I think that it suffered not because it followed the ruleset closely, but because there weren't many occasions where you could actually use other combat options (or they simply weren't worth it).

@MrBrown: Well, trying to take the default PnP approach to combat works, after all. It would be old-fashioned if better ways had actually been invented, but until now, all these so-called improvements barely improve, if at all, and just fall under preferencial categories. If it still works, I'll use it and support it. Also, just because its been around for a long time doesn't actually mean its old-fashioned: if I remember correctly, both TB and RT have been around for somewhat the same time (and if I'm not mistaken - which I can be - the very first D&D CRPGs, at the time nothing more than dungeon crawlers, were RT).

That almost makes it sound as if TB is old-fashioned. Yeah I've noticed I'm really bad at making titles I was thinking along the lines of theres only been 1 TB CRPG in recent times and that was TOEE. If you can think of other ones, by all means, point me towards them... Well there are some, but they weren't exactly great commercial successes (despite garnering good criticism); and it also depends on what you consider "recent". Off the top of my head, you have ToEE, Silent Storm, Geneforge 1 and 2, Devil Whiskey, Paradise Cracked and Wizardry 8. More TB games are in production, too. A pity that only indie developers or low profile companies invest in TB. EDIT: I had forgotten about UFO: Alien Invasion. Its an opensource project, but its also TB.

That's kind of an interesting idea: having the game start out as a traditional party-based RPG, but then as the characters advance in level, having the very nature of the game change to something more like an RPG/strategy hybrid where you're not leading a party of 6, but a "party" of 600. I've always thought of higer level adventurers as taking on more administrative roles in their particular society anyway, as they advance in levels and power; politicians, generals, teachers... that sort of thing. Interesting idea indeed... no idea if it's workable or not, but it's something I haven't seen before, anyway. One could be given the task of defending city walls against an invading army, but you'd need to go out and recruit soldiers and people willing to fight. In the large battlefield, those "600" could be computer-controlled, and you'd only need to control yourself and the party. What you could do however, to make it more manageable, is to set groups within those 600 people, and give them orders in the form of general behaviours: aggressive, tactical, defensive, flanking, etc. That way you'd remove the need to order about 600 + you and your party.

Well, Bioware is primarily judged by their Baldur's Gate saga, which while not their first game, it was basically their first commercial success. NWN was compared to it, so was KoTOR (even if somewhat less). I doubt Jade Empire will get the same treatment (basically because its being targetted exclusivel for console players). But I believe their other IP, for PC, will get the same kind of comparison.

That almost makes it sound as if TB is old-fashioned.

No doubt that a resolution slider would've helped.

While I don't have anything against Jude Law, it seems to be a wrong choice. Looks too young, doesn't exactly have the charm of what is to be expected of a Bond character, and is also a bit of a mannequin (his expressions seem forced). Hugh Jackman, for instance, would be a better choice in my opinion.

PS:T gives actual importance and various uses to character skills. Most situations can be dealt with via dialogue instead of combat. In fact most combat is avoidable. You are given certain interactivity functions to use while engaged in dialogue (an example would be the possibility to ditract someone in dialogue and kill them silently, instead of loudly and publicly - and this is also dependant of, say, Dexterity to pull off a swift neck-snapping). There are various endings, all according to what you decide. It has the first (and last) fully randomized dungeon using the IE, also. Different than BG and IWD? Definetely. PS:T far behind BG and IWD, gameplay-wise? No.

Popful Mail was nice.

3D environments offer the possibility of better interactivity, but not always. As pointed out, NWN is a bad example of it. You look to Arcanum, and the tile-based engine allowed for much more interactivity that NWN's poor attempt at 3D did.

That's ok

Hence why Planescape: Torment's premise - guide someone with amnesia - worked

There aren't Espers in FF8 <_<

Er... it was? This is related to Odin't strike in Final Fantasy 8. Zantetsuken was meant to mean "Iron Cutting Sword" or "Cutting Iron Sword". I don't recall it being Zanzetsuken; and I don't recall ever reading "zanzetsuken" anywhere, either I could be wrong, though

The idea of isometric being used for party-based games is ok, but it isnt a requirement. I can play solo in a party-based game (Fallout, Baldur's Gate), just as I can play a party in a first-person view (Wizardry). I believe it should be related to the type of combat. Turn-based works better in isometric. For one, you have quite a large view of the battlefield, which allows you to see a large part of the battlefield. You have a wider point of view, which allows you to build up estimatives of possible moves and analyze what part of your surroundings (if any) can be used to your advantage. Real time, however, works better in first person (FP), or third person (TP) in my opinion. For one, the "zoomed in" factor of the point of view gives players a larger sense of immersion, of being there. Isometric and real time also has a problem with allowing more specific combat options (like the impossibility of allowing to move and fire simultaneously). In FP/TP, you can directly control your character, and can do the above. Direct control allows for different and more interesting, player-controlled combat mechanics like combos and blocks if TP, or a more immersive type of experience of your standard FPS with things like prowling and phisically aiming at your targets if FP. Isometric's "zoomed out" perspective makes you feel like a general overseeing your troops; FP/TP perspectives makes you feel like a soldier actively envolved in the battle field. And if I had to name a favorite, I'd have to go with Temple of Elemental Evil's isometric 3D characters on 2D pre-rendered backgrounds. I have no problems with other types, but I like this best

I find JRPGs quite irrelevant to this. The would-be "greatness" or "usefulness" of ATB is purely subjective. In the "old days", ATB had 2 options: Active and Wait. Wait made it so it actually simulated turns (allowing for characters to only be attacked after they inputed their orders); Active made it so characters would be attacked even before they made their decisions. The main problem with it is that planning was rather mundane: few combat options, time limit defining when it was a characters' time to act (very bad imitation of turn), and the worse - no movement. It was even more boring and less interactive than a CRPG's TB.

@Greatjon: Theres no workaround that will diminish it, and adding more workarounds in a system which is already a major workaround to two different systems will start compromising its integrity. If you state that an RTWP system is useful in allowing players to get more control in everything during combat, then you can't approve of removing control (in this case, the inability to cancel already activated actions) because that is one of the ideas behind a RTWP system. The main aspect we should realize here is that when you pause, you're effectively disrupting combat pace for your own reasons, sacrificing realism. If you take realism as a rule, a turn is unrealistic, but so is pausing, as its also an abstraction of realistic combat. One can't approve one and disaprove of the other based on which is more realistic. As for the rest... I agree with all those lines, except with point #7. Not because I dislike realistic combat, but because I don't see a reason as to why CRPGs should have realistic combat. Also, #7 and #1 will always conflict, and there is rarely, if ever, an acceptable middle ground.