I called them morons in an interview with RPS, which caused a lot of butthurt and drama.
Kieron: Regarding your thorough take on turn based… well, I take your points (and generally agree) but that’s not quite what I was really chasing after. I tend to think most real-time combat in an RPGs can trigger a disconnect as much as a turn-based one – but that’s a slightly different issue. What I was trying to draw a line between is the actual feedback on the actions you’ve ordered – that an animated character taking turns swiping at each other can create that disconnect more than two pieces with no animation just standing by each other, with the game information of attacks being offered in a more symbolic fashion. I’m trying to talk about why some people had that odd response to the video you released, if that makes sense. Do you think the audience just need re-educating of what games can be? Explaining that this system offers so much more to them than a more kinetic presentation would allow?
Vince: Let me ask you one of them rhetorical questions. Is turn-based for everyone? No. Will chess appeal to everyone? No. Casual players prefer to load a game, hit a few buttons and watch their characters kick some ass. They don’t want to play games like XCOM where a single mission can easily take a few hours. Yes, a few hours to kill 20 aliens. Should we be really surprised that in an age of weapons with DPS stats – that’s damage per SECOND – and avg expected kills of 10-15 monsters per minute, spending 2 hours to kill twenty aliens doesn’t sound like fun to some people?
As for the comments in that “let’s laugh at turn-based combat together” article, look at what some guy named Kieron said – “I was fine with the turn-based combat, in terms of it being an indie-game and all…”. See, he was fine with TB combat because it’s an indie game, but if it wasn’t an indie game he probably would have written an angry letter to his congressman or maybe even shot someone. Imagine that.
And yes, I understood what you were chasing after, but I guess I failed to explain my point properly. Let me try again using the most important discovery and technological breakthrough of the century – bullet time. Remember Matrix? The first scene, where that cop points the gun at Trinity and says “English, motherfucker! Do you speak it?”, and Trinity says “my turn lolz”, slowly jumps into the air, hangs there for a few seconds, while the cop blinks, and then kicks him? Tell me with a straight face that when that happened you didn’t stare at the screen with an open mouth but said “I call bullshit! That shit is clearly turn-based and it just done ruined my suspension of disbelief!” Tell me that, and being a gentleman, I’ll admit that you have a point.
Now, let’s go back to the responses to that article and take a look at the points your audience made:
“I’d rather puke a lung, to be honest. It would probably be more fun.”
“I am a discerning gamer of the modern age. I demand heads that smush like rotten melons, over then top rag doll death animations and screams recorded live from Nike sweatshops.”
“They took their combat model from Bookworm Adventure. Snore!”
“This is for those times when you want to sit back in your chair and only click the mouse once every 10 minutes.”
“Taking turns fighting may be something “classic” and “niche” audience, but it’s “niche” for a reason, people are looking to new things, and while rolling dice worked for pen and paper, we don’t have to do that anymore and for most people, it’s just not all that fun. Real time is just more immersive for most that want to deal with something that feels more like a real world, not a jumble of numbers and calculations on screen, the illusion is maintained with it off screen, happening in real time while people move and fire freely aiming where they want, when they want, how they want.”
“Wow, I will never play a game like that, ever. I loathe turn-based games, which is the main reason why I refuse to play any Final Fantasy game. It takes me straight out of the immersion of a game when everyone lines up and takes TURNS swiping at each other. Give me something that involves my skill. I absolutely hate it when my hit chance relies on some random dice roll. That is pure and total BS.”
When you have time, Kieron, how about writing an article explaining the difference between RPGs and shooters to your audience? Or maybe an article mentioning that the first computer games were real-time, not turn-based, and disputing the popular opinion that RT is more advanced than TB? I mean, it’s nice that your site tries to attract morons and makes them feel at home, but shouldn’t you be educating them too? It wouldn’t take much to double their IQs, so if you want, I can give you a hand there.
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Kieron: Okay – Some of your answers seem genuinely angry, or at least frustrated. Who are you most angry at? Are you worried about alienating people who would be interested in your game by showing that, or do you think that your real audience at the people who would empathise and completely understand it? Or do you just not care either way, and would rather speak your mind?
Vince: I’m a big fan of the “honest and blunt” approach. An internet reader has a right to visit a game site and read “Did Oblivion really suck or what?” or “Molyneux has gotta be on drugs!”, don’t you think? Instead every journalist pretends that Oblivion was a 10/10 brilliant masterpiece, that Molyneux isn’t a lying old kook, and that Dungeon Siege wasn’t a screensaver. Then Chris Taylor says that he’s making Space Siege even simpler and everyone nods in agreement: Right on, man! It’s about time someone makes a game for the amputees. BRA-VO!