Can a MMO with Turn-Based Battles work, and be fun?

[Wren666]

This is for those who enjoy turn-based role-playing and strategy games.

Also, if you already haven't played Temple of Elemental Evil (with the "Circle of Eight" fan-fixes patch) I recommend you give that a try and see the most accurate D&D [3.5] engine ever in a computer game.


Do you suppose an MMO with battles played in timed-turns could work, and be fun to play? I mentioned ToEE because in that game, movement outside of combat is in real-time, but whenever one of your party members encounters an enemy, or when the enemy spots one of your characters, it switches to turn-based play.

What if we had a turn-based D&D MMO, with the players free to move around in real-time as in DDO, but when one of them meets an enemy, it switches to turn-based combat, allowing each player to make their moves in the order decided by the Initiative roll and within a time limit? That limit could be based on some of their statistics like DEXterity, Level, Experience or a combination of those.

Yes, there'd be problems like being AFK and such, but if you like the idea of a TBMMO, how do you think they should be handled?

(my take on that is, if a player didn't make a move during their turn, they could be allowed to "interrupt" the Initiave order at any one time.)

[Asketes]

Have you tried the Tower of Despair or Shroud raids?

They are pretty turn based.... heheheheheheheh

hit a portal, lag, hit a portal, lag,


of course i'm just being mean and unfair..

[Uska]

No who wants to sit here while you wait for someone else to decide what to do with their turn. Oh for comptuers I hate turn based games those are for live board games for computer strategy games I want real time like AoK

[sirgog]

The most popular MMO on the market feels quite turn based to me (WoW), and it works and isn't bad to play.

The turns last a much shorter time than games like Final Fantasy 6 - a 'turn' in WoW is the length of your global cooldown (1.5 seconds, reduced if you have a good Haste rating).

All character actions other than player movement must fit within these 'turns' in that game.

[Kaervas]

Also, if you already haven't played Temple of Elemental Evil (with the "Circle of Eight" fan-fixes patch) I recommend you give that a try and see the most accurate D&D [3.5] engine ever in a computer game.

Loved that game. Wish I could get it to run on Vista so I could replay it, and hopefully try out any new Co8 content released since I last played (which was ages and ages ago when the game was still pretty buggy even with their patches and fixes).

[Wren666]

No who wants to sit here while you wait for someone else to decide what to do with their turn. Oh for comptuers I hate turn based games those are for live board games for computer strategy games I want real time like AoK

Well, as I said, this'd be for those who enjoy turn-based games.

Off-topic, but play ToEE unbiased and you might see the difference: there is a definite sense of tension that's missing in [single-player] real-time RPGs, as you're watching the monsters all take their turns one by one, hoping you don't roll a 1 or they don't roll a 20, and you have to make each turn count, instead of just setting an AI script, clicking on an enemy once, and then keeping an eye on the HP bars to chug a potion now and then or to cast a spell for the heck of it (as in Baldur's Gate or Dragon Age etc.) But that's just IMO.

Anyway, Civilization IV and the latest Heroes of Might and Magic are pretty fun and popular, Battle for Wesnoth is fun, and check out some Final Fantasy XIII videos for an interesting twist on timed-turn-based battles, although that's obviously single-player.

Loved that game. Wish I could get it to run on Vista so I could replay it, and hopefully try out any new Co8 content released since I last played (which was ages and ages ago when the game was still pretty buggy even with their patches and fixes).

It does Kaervas! Just follow the instructions on the Co8 forums, works like a charm! I was playing it just fine on Windows 7 here before I had to uninstall it to make room for Dragon Age :P

[dimster28]

there is already a turn-based strategy/rpg mmo.

it is called atlantica online, i am playing that game and love it.

as of now i play only 2 mmo games and it is atlantica and ddo.

[Kaervas]

It does Kaervas! Just follow the instructions on the Co8 forums, works like a charm! I was playing it just fine on Windows 7 here before I had to uninstall it to make room for Dragon Age :P[/COLOR]

Awesome, the last time I'd tried it (few years ago) the instructions at the time were a bit lacking (mostly composed of various people saying "well this worked for me", all of which ended up not working for me). I'm going to take a look at the Co8 forums, thanks.

[Lozareth]

there is already a turn-based strategy/rpg mmo.

it is called atlantica online, i am playing that game and love it.

as of now i play only 2 mmo games and it is atlantica and ddo.

Came to post about that too. Atlantica is a pretty good f2p mmo with turn-based combat.

[Symar-FangofLloth]

There's a reeeeeeally old MMO with turn-based combat. I don't know if it's still around, but it's The Realm, and when it was originally out it was made and run by Sierra. I think some other company took over the game at one point, and added the first new things to it in forever

[DralgerV]

As previously mentioned The Realm was a turn based MMO, kinda fun back in the day when we had no options. But the big one here that has not been mentioned was an MMO called Darksun Online, it was even AD&D 2e rule based!

It was based off the old DOS crpg's set in D&D Darksun world such as Wake of the Ravager. They took those offline single player crpg's, with isometric views and turn based combat, and turned them into a killer 1st gen MMO. Darksun Online: The Crimson Sands was a great game, it came out before Ultima Online even.

It wasn't as well known however because it was ONLY available through the multiplayer service, Total Entertainment Network (TEN) which was used to play games with people online such as Duke Nukem, Command & Conquer etc. Darksun Online (DSO) was available on TEN if you payed the monthly fee ($10 I think).

Anyway it was an amazing game, the turn based combat was actually really intense. We would even form guilds and there was non-consenual pvp out in the wastes battling over good spawn areas. When two guilds clashed it was a sick chess-like game of cat and mouse:

Enemy 1 dispels buffs off friend 3 since he moved out of his Globe
Enemy 2 petrifys (prismatic ray) friend 3 now that buffs are gone
Friend 4 dispels petrification off friend 3
Friend 7 drops death fog on five enemies, forcing them to move out of their Globes of Invuln (dispel protection)
etc....

The game will forever have a place in my heart, and the turn based combat had a lot to do with it.


P.S. The turn based combat would limit you to 20 seconds to make your move (one attack or one spell plus walking about 15 steps) so you had to move fast.

[Glenalth]

I really liked ToEE when I first bought it, got about 2 hours in and hit by game stopping bugs. New game, same issue. Gave up on it. If it's fixed it might be worth pulling out again.

there is already a turn-based strategy/rpg mmo.

it is called atlantica online, i am playing that game and love it.

as of now i play only 2 mmo games and it is atlantica and ddo.

I tried it out a while back. Figured a turn based game would work well with my high latency internet connection, but it makes it nearly unplayable.

[fuzzy1guy]

There's a reeeeeeally old MMO with turn-based combat. I don't know if it's still around, but it's The Realm, and when it was originally out it was made and run by Sierra. I think some other company took over the game at one point, and added the first new things to it in forever

The realm was awesome. For it's day. I was so addicted to it too.

I looked into it not long ago again. It still exists. And looks like it hasn't changed in a decade.

I kinda miss standing in screen 1 of the marketplace or whatever it was called. Some good chats there.

[Symar-FangofLloth]

Talk about a thread necro.

[NaturalMystik]

Big turn-based fan here, I love being able to plot out each attack turn. For me it's what D&D is all about. I will say they've done well with this realtime engine, it's fun to play but a totally different type of game. Turn based rpgs are unforgiving, you could never get away with all the things we've seen in DDO, each turn counts much more. I'm not sure how well multi-player turn-based would work out, but I guess if everyone was on the same page. It sounds like some folks have had a great time with others in the past.

I finally found my ToEE disks, just recently. Thanks for the reminder to check it out. It was one I always installed but never got to playing. I've been looking for the disks for over a year now, whenever I want to scratch the turn-based itch. It seems like ToEE was the last real turn-based D&D game. Unless the recent Pool Of Radiance was newer, that one was fun as well.

If your looking for fun turn-based check out the Battle For Wesnoth. It's an open source turn-based strategy game that has been done very well. You can play online as well. The story and RP elements are pretty light, but there are a bunch of different campaigns you can play. Good fun.