RTwP is an abomination and harbinger of decline

[Arbiter]

Hah. "Almost real-time strategy-style interface." I remember getting into an argument a while after I settled in to this forum, about RTwP in BG basically being a response to the success of Command & Conquer. Some people didn't believe it. But it's true.

C&C's success had a huge impact on developers at the time, I remember, I lived through it and it was regularly being mentioned in PC gaming magazines at the time (just at a time I was getting into gaming and was interested in looking behind the curtain and nosing around the sausage factory). Strategy games had been a niche while they were turn-based, but C&C blew the strategy game up with the introduction of realtime control

Baldur's Gate was initially a strategy game named Battleground Infinity that later pivoted into an RPG, hence Infinity Engine. That is why combat resembles a strategy game.

 

[Arbiter]

Real-time combat in RPGs is nothing new, it was implemented in Dungeon Master released in 1987.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

RPGcodex was kind of born on the idea that there were alternatives to Baldur's Gate that were better (Fallout).

 

[Dadd]

RPGcodex was kind of born on the idea that there were alternatives to Baldur's Gate that were better (Fallout).

Please provide links

 

[†††]

Please provide links

rpgcodex.net

 

[Arbiter]

RPGcodex was kind of born on the idea that there were alternatives to Baldur's Gate that were better (Fallout).

The way things are going, Fallout will be replaced by Witcher or Skyrim in RPGCodex top 3 in a few years and the latter will be touted as hardcore old-school RPGs.

 

[†††]

The way things are going, Fallout will be replaced by Witcher or Skyrim in RPGCodex top 3 in a few years and the latter will be touted as hardcore old-school RPGs.

You'll live to see Disco Elysium claim the #1 spot in the next Codex's top RPGs of all time list.

 

[Dadd]

The way things are going, Fallout will be replaced by Witcher or Skyrim in RPGCodex top 3 in a few years and the latter will be touted as hardcore old-school RPGs.

You'll live to see Disco Elysium claim the #1 spot in the next Codex's top RPGs of all time.

Vig has been hard at work to achieve that already

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

RPGcodex was kind of born on the idea that there were alternatives to Baldur's Gate that were better (Fallout).

Please provide links

See my join date vs yours.

 

[Dadd]

RPGcodex was kind of born on the idea that there were alternatives to Baldur's Gate that were better (Fallout).

Please provide links

See my join date vs yours.

I can see you're about to be senile. Please provide evidence to support your statement.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

RPGcodex was kind of born on the idea that there were alternatives to Baldur's Gate that were better (Fallout).

Please provide links

See my join date vs yours.

I can see you're about to be senile. Please provide evidence to support your statement.

How am I supposed to provide evidence for that? You had to be here close to 20 years and be aware of the conversations on the board and how Bioware wasn't looked highly upon. Volourn could probably comment on the anti-bioware views of the site during that time as he was a big source of arguments.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

IE games + NWN derivatives aren't rtwp because they aren't real time. Having a discrete time step is the opposite of real time.

 

[Inhabitants of Khorinis]

The pause function in most rtwp games is similar to the pause function in total war games. You're not really supposed to use it. If the action is too fast and the game too difficult for you, just lower the difficulty. That's how I play it anyway.

 

[Gregz]

IE games + NWN derivatives aren't rtwp because they aren't real time. Having a discrete time step is the opposite of real time.

Planck time (plural Planck times) (Abbreviated as: tP) (physics) A natural unit of time, equivalent to the time it takes light to traverse one Planck length; it is the smallest duration of time that has physical meaning.

 

[Dadd]

The pause function in most rtwp games is similar to the pause function in total war games. You're not really supposed to use it. If the action is too fast and the game too difficult for you, just lower the difficulty. That's how I play it anyway.

I've seen Josh Sawyer (an expert in rtwp games) play Darklands and he paused every two seconds.

 

[Kruyurk]

RTwP can be good for systems where you don't have much direct control on the characters and to create chaotic situations. These two characteristics are probably reason why most of you don't like RTwP, but I have two specific examples that make me think it can work.

The first is Kenshi, where for the most part you just move your characters and tell them who to attack, but they will also move on their own and engage combat if an enemy threatens them. The combat can become really chaotic when a lot of people are involved, some get crippled and keep on fighting, others fall and start bleeding to death. It would not be the same in TB.

The other example is FTL. I know, not an RPG, but a damn good game. Similarly to Kenshi, you just give basics orders to your crew, tell them in which room of the spaceship to go, you allocate power to the subsystems and that's about it. But the fun part is when the combat becomes really chaotic in the mid- to late-game. You thought your ship was prepared for the upcoming challenge and suddenly you realize things are going really bad, the hull is pierced, oxygen is getting low, some critical subsystems are damaged, etc. Given how good the gameplay is in FTL, I really don't think it would work as well in TB. Sometimes it can get frustrating that you have to spam the pause key to try to manage everything, but it is actually what is intended. You are the captain of the ship and suddenly you are in a dire situation where everything goes to shit on your vessel, you feel that you are loosing control of the situation.

In both games, big parts of combat are the preparation before it and whether you feel like fighting or fleeing. Once combat is engaged, you still have some control, but it is mostly about preparation and how well you assessed the risk. Another important aspect of both games is the damage accumulated over multiple combats.

But I share the sentiment that most RTwP games would be better in TB. Icewind Dale has been cited already, and I wish it was TB.

 

[turkishronin]

The way things are going, Fallout will be replaced by Witcher or Skyrim in RPGCodex top 3 in a few years and the latter will be touted as hardcore old-school RPGs.

You'll live to see Disco Elysium claim the #1 spot in the next Codex's top RPGs of all time list.

it's not worse than borement

 

[Arbiter]

The way things are going, Fallout will be replaced by Witcher or Skyrim in RPGCodex top 3 in a few years and the latter will be touted as hardcore old-school RPGs.

You'll live to see Disco Elysium claim the #1 spot in the next Codex's top RPGs of all time list.

it's not worse than borement

Makes sense, it was apparently meant to be a spiritual successor.

 

[Arbiter]

But I share the sentiment that most RTwP games would be better in TB. Icewind Dale has been cited already, and I wish it was TB.

I believe that IWD was positioned as D&D Diablo, hence TB combat was not an option.

 

[Hammer Of The Heretics]

I have played and enjoyed games using RTwP combat. But if a game gives me a choice (e.g. PoE2, Kingmaker, Arcanum) I will go turn-based every time. Conclusion: for me, RTwP is not a deal-breaker but it's a decline.

 

[Jvegi]

SCS and IWD2 are superior to all tb games, including kotc2 and toee. They have most of the depth and what they lack in mechanics, they more than make up in not relying on initiative and aoe bullshit.

High level rtwp is better than high level tb. Reverse is true for low levels.

 

[Dadd]

You need to reconsider your perspective when playing rtwp games. It's like a rhythm game within an RPG game.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

odd little thing that never made any fucking sense

They wouldn't sell otherwise. Western RPGs only could avoid extinction by latching unto a more popular genre. FF7 is barely an RPG by Western standards

Well, as it turns out, they probably should’ve latched onto the cinematic presentation of 3d adventure games like Resident Evil given how much better FF7 ended up selling. Because the wider audience couldn’t give a fucking shit if the combat was turned based as long as the game itself looked cool.

BioWare would try going more “cinematic” starting with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, but their version of “cinematic” was decisively not so.

 

[Arbiter]

IE games + NWN derivatives aren't rtwp because they aren't real time. Having a discrete time step is the opposite of real time.

I disagree, some RTS games have cooldowns, especially the old ones. For example in Warcraft 1/2 a unit cannot perform any actions immediately after an attack, not even moving, a cooldown needs to end first. IMO this is very similar to DnD "1 action per round" rule.

 

[Theldaran]

Yes, I think that BG's main influences are Diablo and Command & Conquer, two big names of its era. The Infinity Engine was primarily an RTS engine, since Bioware was thinking of doing such a game. The selection voices are a clear legacy of C&C.

Fun to think that the worshipped isometric game had such origins. Ultima too, I think. Otherwise there was no good reason for isometric since we were coming from first person blobbers.