: Here's the problem Hed, nobody will ever make the perfect PvP RPG. Nobody wants to.

I think there's more to this than your making out Azmo. The fulcrum of the issue is size and time. Real-time vs Turn-based turns into a balance of how you want to control your game. Some of the issues to be deal with are:

1. Time: How long does it take for someone to be able to participate in combat.

Real-Time: One on One or fifty on fifty. Who gives a damn. You'll be able to participate in combat to the same extent.

Turn-based: Turns take a maximum of thirty seconds. One on One, you make a move once every minute. Fifty on Fifty, you make a move once every 50 minutes.

Real-Time spanks Turn-based on the ability to keep combat inter-active. You simply cannot make a massivly multi-player traditional turn-based game. It takes too many ticks for the player to be able to act. Player's will get bored.

2. Lag

Realtime: One on One, most likely your going to be okay. Fifty on Fifty, yikes, your going to be hurting.

Turn-Based: One on One, or Fifty on Fifty. Doesn't matter, you still only have to deal with one person at a time.

On a 28.8 modem, Turn-Based combat will keep things simple, lag isn't a problem. Real-time, lag starts being a big deal fast.

3. Communication

Real-Time: You take a hit. Real-Time combat means you've got to react instantly. The current state of internet voice capabilities can't really be used. Communication becomes reduced to pre-defined shouting, or taking time out to say things .. which hopefully your comrades will have time to read.

Turn-Based: Same problem, but it depends if it's a one on one or a fifty on fifty. However, either way you've got time to chat, sip your drink and spank the monkey in a relaxed fight. Here your adding to inter-activeness and providing a much more social enviorment.

Multi-player gaming is still new. The idea of talking to other gamers is fairly unheard of, thus real-time wins over turn-based.

The Points in Action: UO vs NWN

With the points above, compare the two games. The way the games panned out is spookily near the issues I've discussed.

UO - Realtime combat.
Advantages: Massively Multiplayer(2500), Massive Combat( Unlimited participants )
Disadvantages: Lag, communication and lack of community.

NWN - Turn-based combat.
Advantages: Highly social enviroment and strong community. Highly competitive atmosphere.
Disadvantages: Limited Multiplayer(500), limited combat(8 players at a time)

Both games did however do a fair job of keeping combat as an encapsulated entity. If you wanted to avoid it, you could. DSO needs mentioned at this point. Using a UO interface and turnbased combat without a "bubble" battlfield simliar to NWN doesn't work. You get people not being able to decide wether they want to be a part of combat or not. A trip to town could potentially take me an hour instead of five minutes if I get sucked into a large fight.

What this means
As you lean towards a real-time enviorment, you lose communication and social variables, lag becomes a problem. Combat is quick, potentially involving large numbers of players with little decrease in the amount of combat resources the players control.

As you lean towards turn-based, you gain communication and social variables, lag is easy to deal with. Combat becomes bulkier and you must restrict the amount of players allowed to participate.

So, when you say no one wants to make a PvP game, your right Azmo. Currently games focus on keeping things massively multi-player and constantly allowing every user to move around. What's not currently being considered is creating an online community, where people know each-other, compete and genrally enjoy themselves.

People are still playing the game, not the people. I think this is based off the fact that computer games are traditionally based of single player interaction with the computer. This focus is still carrying over to multi-player games. The idea that the game is a medium through which to play other people is still new, and to find that kind of genre you've got to play Quake or Starcraft, both of which don't offer a peristent universe.

And as we all know, a persistent universe, where you play the people is what we want.

Tyo Ark
KAAOS