True, but it's still pretty cool nonetheless.

Not really interested. I already have a living room PC hooked up to my TV in there.

No, I'm not really sure what you are suggesting Sorunome. Could you try to elaborate? It seems that we are going to have a muliparty system regardles of wether we do an arpg or an turn based system. The reason i say i cant see both working is that we would need to create two entirely different battle systems to handle multiple party members. Not only that, but most likely they'd need seperate interfaces to handle commands and item usage( an arpg is minimalistic and turn based rpgs tend to be menu driven). I really dont see the justification of doing such a thing. Then u also have the issue with how attacks are handled collison based (arpg) vs accuracy and evasion tables (turn based) Also, design wise equipment hp levels, and items tend to be way different in the two systems. In zelda for exaample you have maybe 20 hp (80 if you count taking 1/4 damage), where as in something like final fantasy characters can easily have over 9000 hp.

Also, although arpg is ahead in the pole turn based isnt far behind (i said they were close too equal). At some point the design team has to decide which is the best implmentation for the game. In this case, the poll should be used to see how people feel. Not the be all end all answer in my oppinon. We who are actually developing it seem to favor turn based as the best solution, and the important thing is that a good solid game is produced in the end. Not something that is cumbersome and pleases no one.

What about a compromise?

We could handle weak enemies that occur all over the map like in an action RPG, so you can defeat those with pressing the attack and defend buttons a few times, and for very strong enemies, bosses and maybe some quest-related fights, we can use a special tactical battle engine. Doing this will also make the gameplay more varied, which is often a good thing.

It does give more work to code, but a lot of hands can do a lot of work .

I think that would make the system very awkward, unnecessarily bloated, and hard to handle from a programming standpoint. Since both ideas are almost equally popular we just need to choose one and stick with it.

Wow, great work Jim! There is also a Z80 asm implementation of this floating around on Ticalc somewhere.

For ARPG, which hugely favors one party member RPG game, I can only think of few ways of implying multiparty system:

1) Press button to change to different party member (prolly 4 max)
2) Party members move based on an AI, and only the "selected" party members can be moved manually
3) LoZ: four swords

A combination of 1 and 2 was what I was thinking if that were the route we were to take (action rpg+ multiparty)

Our current story would allow for an ambiguous number of party members. Party members and allies help with the depth of the story, so it should be important that we have them in some form.

This could still work within the confines of an action RPG. In addition to your main character, party members that join and leave the party throughout the course of the game could follow AI patterns. I would probably have a max party size of 2 or 3 at any given time in order to keep things simple and not slow things down too much in this case though.

*Edit* Actually you could have an action rpg where you have mutiple scenarios occurring and you switch between control of the main characters as the plot progresses. When the characters paths meet, one (or more) of them could become AI controlled members of a single party. If they diverge, you could split them again and switch between scenarios as needed. This would be another way you could implement a multiparty ARPG.

btw, github has the project being listed at omnimaga.com instead of omnimaga.org. :p