real time

[EisenKreutzer]

I'm baffled by this debate, actually. Would chess be better if it was real time?

[Chris]

I'm baffled by this debate, actually. Would chess be better if it was real time?

Don't the players take their turns in real-time?

[EisenKreutzer]

Don't the players take their turns in real-time?

I always assumed the players were suspended in some form of temporal stasis field while their opponent moved.

I migt be confusing chess and the TARDIS again though. I tend to do that.

[Chris]

Regarding tension in real-time games, it is certainly possible but it's a different type of tension. Some of the tensest games I've played are Company of Heroes in multiplayer, which usually uses a victory point system where holding two of three victory points causes the other person to lose points until they reach 0 and the game is lost.

It's the tension of time (can I get my Tiger to the VP to reclaim is before time runs out?) rather than tension of action selection (do I shoot at the Sectoid or retreat my soldier back round the corner?) but it is also rather effective if done well.

[TrashMan]

But aren't games like X-Com or Jagged Alliance considered some of the most tense strategy games out there? I don't know any RTS games that are particularly known for the tension they induce.

I don't think that's directly tied to them being turn based. Corellation does not imply causation.

I do consider JA2 one of the (if not THE) best games ever. But it has more to do with atmosphere, the leveling and skill mechanicss, the little details and the option it gives you than it has to do with it being turn-based. After all, you could play it (partially) real-time if you wanted to.

[tiger12348]

Go do some Starcraft ladder games, only another human player of equal or higher skills can provide the real time tension you are looking for. AI has a much better chance at creating challenges in turn based strategy games IMO.

[TrashMan]

Regarding tension in real-time games, it is certainly possible but it's a different type of tension. Some of the tensest games I've played are Company of Heroes in multiplayer, which usually uses a victory point system where holding two of three victory points causes the other person to lose points until they reach 0 and the game is lost.

It's the tension of time (can I get my Tiger to the VP to reclaim is before time runs out?) rather than tension of action selection (do I shoot at the Sectoid or retreat my soldier back round the corner?) but it is also rather effective if done well.

The tensest game I played was...I believe Medal of Honor? Well, SOME WW2 FPS anyway.

So me and my friend where the only palyers left on a ruined vilalge map. Both snipers. We spent an entire hour hunting eachoter. Slowly crawling from one piece of cover to the next, looking for any signs of the enemy. Nerve-racking!

Looking back now, I suspect we were both going in circles around the central Church, stayign on opposite sides.

JA2 is definately my favorite squad-based game, for many reasons. But I really liked UFO: Aftermath too (or was it Aftershock?).

RTwP can work very, very well.

[Gorlom]

The thing is, I think you are asking the wrong question to start with.

Ah you've had a debate with me that I'm not part of or interested in then. I think you should have clarified that earlier. I don't care about your question (which haven't even been made clear despite your walls of text as far as I can tell) since I'm kind of focused on the other one.

If all you're talking about is whether or not one genre is filled with players that use "cheap tactics" or not, then all the discussion will ever be is a "Call of Duty Sux" thread.

I have not used the word filled and I don't think Jean-Luc did either. As far as I can tell that was not where me or Luc was going with this. please stop putting words in my mouth or trying to read between the lines of the words i actually do type.

We can all say what games we like, and what games we don't like, but it doesn't give us any better understanding of the actually important questions of why we like these things, and how they can be made better unless we take the time to actually analyze what it is we're actually enjoying.

I wasn't aware of what you were discussing so this wasn't the least bit relevant to what I was discussing and the points I was trying to make. Frankly I don't care.

And a large part of why I tend to write so much is because I'm trying to think my through the problem by discussing it with myself, as much as anything. All angles need to be considered to have a proper answer to any question, after all.

There wasn't a problem. There was a question with a binary answer posibility..

If the comparison is over the difference between real-time and turn-based, then the most critical component to examine is exactly in that length of decision-making process.

The question did not need any comparison to be made. It was an absolute question with a yes or no answer possibility.

To point back to that depth-versus-complexity video I pointed to earlier,

No thank you, I'm not debating that with you. Stay on topic please.

I answered it in the back half of the post that triggered this whole exchange:

[/Quote] Not the question. Wrong quote. I said "Original" question as in the first posted by Jean-Luc in the thread.. I supplied you with the quote in question earlier.

If I were to further that argument a little:

I don't care.

Your response to my response to Trashman have successfully roped me into a debate I don't give a fuck about. Congratulations. I thought I was talking to you about something else. Hopefully this will count as forfeit on walkover. Have a nice day while I go mutter some curses over those damned irrelevant walls of text you insist on providing for no reason.

[Wraith_Magus]

Regarding tension in real-time games, it is certainly possible but it's a different type of tension. Some of the tensest games I've played are Company of Heroes in multiplayer, which usually uses a victory point system where holding two of three victory points causes the other person to lose points until they reach 0 and the game is lost.

It's the tension of time (can I get my Tiger to the VP to reclaim is before time runs out?) rather than tension of action selection (do I shoot at the Sectoid or retreat my soldier back round the corner?) but it is also rather effective if done well.

Again, I think there might be a problem in what, exactly, you define as "tension".

Honestly, if there's any game that really, honestly, gets to me, it's often a stealth game.

Although, probably, if there was one time I was most nervous, it was in the opening sequence of Zebes in Super Metroid (owing much more to my youth than anything else, no doubt,) just because I knew the aliens were out there, somewhere, but I didn't see them, yet. The first time I opened that door, and saw the threats crawling up the walls, I jumped out of my seat. Then, it was back to run-and-gun gameplay that was actually much more calm than when I didn't have a threat in my face.

And I could post links to a half-dozen video game commentators talking about how nobody does horror right anymore in games, but it all leads back to the same thing: It's all about raising the tension.

This is why I think that, if Xenonauts wants to really deliver on the tension, it really should focus more upon stealth-and-detection gameplay, where it's harder to find the enemy, but easier to stay hidden.

And as said before, I don't think this is something that is necessarily tied to turn-based games. Commandos had good stealth, including double-vision-cones, one for detecting standing commandos, and one for detecting crawling commandos. The brighter, smaller arc for detecting the guys trying to hide was only about 60 degrees in front of them, and 20 meters in length. The fainter, darker arc for detecting anyone standing up like an idiot was about 160 degrees wide, and 30 meters in length. (And they swiveled as they walked, especially when they were spooked by a sound, or saw a dead body.)

And yeah, it's tense - can I drag that Nazi corpse out of the way before the guard spots me? Should I drop the guard and go prone, and wait for the guard to turn back around? Will his path take him close enough to me to see me or the corpse, even if I'm prone? Maybe I should just cap him in a noisy method, and hope for the best?

I honestly think it would do the game a world of good if there were more terror weapons that had awesome firepower deployed more frequently, but where they are incapable of detecting stealthy xenonauts, and rely upon other aliens to flush the xenonauts out. If they don't have spotters, they're just big metal targets. That allows for a division of unit types even within a single force - spotters for finding you, and sweepers for dealing the heavy damage. If/when the AI is improved enough to make such things really happen, you could build alien AI to function like modern military revolving infantry/tank combined forces, with the tanks being the mobile cover and core of an alien unit, and the infantry working from alongside. It would mean that confrontations would, instead of being (aside from the UFO breach,) be a matter of peeking in on a massive enemy threat, trying to ascertain how best to trap it and destroy it quickly and efficiently, rather than a piecemeal grind of individual units acting on their own.

As that "like a ninja" video said, a good stealth game is often like a puzzle where you have to sit there and gather bits of information piece-by-piece, trying not to tip your hand as you do so.

You can try to take out individual units that go searching for you quickly, before their backup can come in and squish you, picking them off until you've either whittled the enemy forces down to the point where you can take the terror weapon head-on, or to use bait to lure it into an ambush point.

Besides, if you're worried that players might get bored with the missions enough to offer rewards for not doing missions, then maybe making missions have a single massive, bloody confrontation, rather than a drag-out as you clear room by room would be for the better?