3D turn-based MMORPG’s: Click to move vs. WASD

[Psalms34]

Click to Move is where you basically use your mouse pointer and click on the ground to move to a new position. If you hold the mouse button you will continue to move. The best thing about this at least for the server is that it takes far less bandwidth than WASD. Often you will find free mmorpg’s use this system and some commercial games as well especially Asian mmorpg‘s. A couple examples are Shadowbane and Lineage II.

WASD is where you hold the keys W to move forward, A to turn left or strafe left, S to move backwards and D to turn right or strafe right. Often you will see this in many commercial 3D mmorpg’s as well as most shooters. Two examples are EverQuest and Star Wars Galaxies.

Turn-based is simply where your character automatically targets the NPC or Player during combat and they can in most cases be left to fight without intervention by the player (usually for melee classes). This is a bit different than needing to line up a targeting reticle to hit the target like all shooters do, but there are some mmorpg’s that use this system such as World War II Online, PlanetSide, SWG after the release of the NGE. For the purposes of this poll, this only has to do with a turn-based system (i.e. EverQuest, Anarchy Online, SWG pre-NGE etc..).

What is your preferred method of movement for a 3D mmorpg that is turn based?
Feel free to discuss why you prefer one type over another or why you have no preference between the two.

 

[micro]

Well i would of said wasd untill you said that it was turn based. Then i start thinking of the game "civilization". If i rember correctly that game is wasd, and i think it would have been better as a click to move.

I am reluctant to vote, but considering your not asking what i prefer in a non turned based i dont have much of a choice.

 

[Psalms34]

I’m speaking of turn-based 3D combat. If you ever played EverQuest or many of the mmorpg’s they are actually turn-based combat systems rather than some that have a real-time combat system as mentioned if you read the OP. Civ would fall under something else, that is an entirely turn based game rather than a turn-based combat system. I don't recall EQ, AO or SWG pre NGE being anything like Civ

 

[Extronic]

Click to move, I play Anarchy-Online so it's turn based, but because I'm not very coordinated this is the best method for me.

 

[Psalms34]

Click to move, I play Anarchy-Online so it's turn based, but because I'm not very coordinated this is the best method for me.

Yeah, AO uses a turn based combat system. Something like 95% of all mmo’s use a turn based system. It’s easy to tell, with real-time combat systems you need to aim when you attack, and to do that, click to move would not work. But for turn based you simply target what you want to attack and start combat, if it is a melee attack it will usually keep swinging until the fight is over though you can interact and change attacks and such. It’s mainly concerning game coding, and the turn based combat system uses far less bandwidth than a real time combat system which is a big reason why you don’t see many shooters with giant populations on the map since they are all real-time and wasd based and eat bandwidth like mad since the server code needs to be more responsive (eg. tcp vs. udp).

This is usually a hot topic in other forum sites, thanks for the votes and replies so far

 

[OdwinOddball]

Turn based in this context is rather misleading. Turn based historically refers to traditional CRPG's where you decide on the actions for your character or party at your leisure, and then they all play out in order when you un-pause the game.

Though you don't have to input every weapon swing in a game like EQ or WoW, it is still very much real time as there is no pause feature in an MMO. You won't find anyone in the industry referring to these types of games as "Turn Based" in regards to combat or otherwise.


There is certainly a difference in game style between something like Morrowind where you have to move the mouse for every weapon swing, and a game like WoW where you auto attack, and it is generally the difference between RPG's and FPS's. RPG's are based more on character stats and not player reflexes, with FPS's being the exact opposite. This is in actually the reason for this type of game play and not bandwidth. The traditional RPG player does not want a twitch based game experience. They want their character to be the deciding factor, not whether they can click faster than an opponent.

Regardless of the semantical differences though, point to move is matter of taste. It is hugely popular in the Asian RPG world, but seems limited and constricting to those of us who grew up with WASD based movement. The point to move interface of Shadowbane was consistently a sore point for their beleaguered player base. You got used to it, but it never felt quite right.

 

[Psalms34]

Though you don't have to input every weapon swing in a game like EQ or WoW, it is still very much real time as there is no pause feature in an MMO. You won't find anyone in the industry referring to these types of games as "Turn Based" in regards to combat or otherwise.

eh, what industry is that? It is a turn based system. You are talking about a move turn based system like with some strategy games where you get one turn to move all your pieces. It's about logic code, how it calculates damage every xy seconds etc. This is in contrast to FPS's which 95% of mmorpg's are completely unrelated to and has nothing to do with morrowind either which is an FPS system. Even most players at mmorpg.com know the difference, there have been multitudes of discussion about turn-based mmog systems and how movement is done, though I spend most of my time in game industry development communities and they certainly know the difference.

Oh well, this thread isn't getting any votes. I posted it mainly due to the fact that I was deciding on how my game will handle controls; CtM vs wasd or even both, but I got good input at other sites, however. CF is pretty much dead anyway, with all this talk/vote of denouncing it as a Christian community and changing its name to something else, so wasn't expecting a lot of input here other than attacks or what not.