Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tai" data-source="post: 4939592" data-attributes="member: 84238">But Warblades and Swordmages aren't included in NWN, and Wizards, Clerics and druids only worked because the game was pausable - for exactly the reason that there's too much clicking and busywork involved in casting spells from a big list. In order to make the game work, they had to strip out a lot of the more complex options - and even then, it only really worked when the game was pausable. That's what it comes down to - if you're willing to make the game pausable, then it's definitely doable, but with four to six people all pausing the game when they need to take actions, it slows to a crawl. The best way to do that is to have the game pause at the end of every round... And then you just have turn-based combat with animations.But the WoW abilities are all significantly more simple than D&D 4th powers. The most complex movement abilities you get in WoW are immobilisation, fear etc, which has a prescribed effect on movement. You can't move someone five feet in the direction of your choice, because it's not practical to do in realtime - too much button-work.What I've heard about D&D online from people who've played it, and the limited experience I've had of it, indicates that it's really pretty awful when compared to other games of its type. I haven't seen enough to know whether that has anything to do with them trying to implement 3.5 in realtime or not, but I do know that anyone who hasn't had extensive experience with 3rd will have no idea how to play it, which is a significant issue when trying to appeal to a wide audience.I haven't played most of the older D&D games, but the main thing is that pretty much all of the big "realtime" d20 games - NWN 1&2, Baldur's Gate, KoToR 1&2 - are  turn-based. The fact that the animation happens in real-time doesn't mean much, because the game is pausable - in fact, the KoToR games have an option to pause the game at the end of each combat round. Also, any attempt to play a character with sneak attack damage almost inevitably required the player to pause the game every second or two in order to get behind people - and that movement and board position is one of the main differences, in complexity terms, between 3rd and 4th, so if you want to play a rogue, a warlock, or, god forbid, an Avenger, you'll be pounding that pause button all the time... And that's before you get to the nightmare that is forced movement. Anyone who has played Diablo will tell you that a power that requires more than one click is *extremely* difficult to use effectively in a non-pausable system.Of course both kinds of game are possible. But if you make a realtime game that isn't pausable, it will either be impossible to play, or will bear very little resemblance to the original product. It's a simple matter of the amount of information the player needs to convey during his turn.</blockquote>

Verification