Well, I find that my favorite genre in gaming is party based rpgs, both real time (BG, PS:Torment and Icewind Dale) and Turnbased-Loren and Planet Stronghold.



Theres got to be more out there but I find that Im very picky with regards to what I like.



My favorite games are party based where you create a character and then the party you can join who you want. I do like games where you make a party but there is more roleplaying in create/character approach.



I find real time are good but only bioware does them, heh. Im still in the process of finding more turnbased rpgs out there. Most of them I cant say that I like as Im a VERY VERY picky Gamer. Does the rest of the forum play any party based games and if so what do you play? Ill be more than glad to give something else a shot.

http://conquistadorthegame.com/ is a good game. I'm not sure it's what you're asking for, since it's not a traditional RPG that we see today. But it's still very much an RPG and you have party members, which was the stipulations. It has excellent writing, fun battles, and addicting gameplay. It's very much like a visual novel in a lot of ways.



http://www.mountandbladewarband.com/ is another awesome RPG with party members that I know doesn't fall into your requested type of games specifically (since it's not a character-driven game) but it's really good. It's open-ended and you can be whatever you want to be in a medieval setting, with real-time life-like battles. If it's your type of thing, you WILL be playing it for hours on end.



Star Ocean: The Second Story is an amazing game. I still have cravings to play it. The battle system is its biggest selling point (real-time combat you can pause anytime, like Bioware games). But also, it has massive replay value. Like Jack's RPGs, you can choose to play either Claude or Rena. Their stories mostly overlap, but you will not get all the characters in one playthrough, nor will you see all of the story since you only see one point of view. There's also crafting and non-battle skills, which is always fun.



Legend of Dragoon remains one of my favorite jRPGs outside of the Final Fantasy series. It is a turned-based system but to attack for full damage you must complete a timing mini-game to complete a finishing move's combo. I found it really addicting (because your attacks level up the more you complete them correctly) and the whole dragoon system made battles more fun.

Well, are you limited to PC gaming? There are quite a lot of console RPGs that might be your cup of tea, especially if you go back to the PS2.

I found Expeditions Conquistador not that good. Especially the story, which did not motivate me to do what should be my target: Plunder the riches of the new continent. And the random events felt much too unfair. I stopped playing long before I got to the mainland.



Mount&Blade: Warband is a game I did sink a lot of time into. Really a lot of fun. Combat is real time in a ego-shooter fashion (Ego-slasher? I always used swords...) and as Aleema said not much of a story holding everything together, it is more like a sandbox. Though a sandbox where you can become king.



Somehow, what I played RPG-wise in the last 5 years (and what was released in the last 5 years), I can name any number of games where I was disappointed. WW games do stand out because they are fun. Maybe go back to Fallout 1+2+Tactics which are still available. If you have not played them to death (like me).

Most of the games that I play are Single character turn based roleplaying games without a party. Games like Geneforge, Dungeons of Dredmor, Eschalon, The Quest, Fallout 1 and 2 are all single character games. They all rock.



For party based games I am too good at Icewind Dale, Planescape, Baldurs Gate but they still rock. Real time is too easy for me as my reflexes are good. I had to give up real time games mostly because I couldn't be surprised. Thus turn based is a good choice.



The only games I play that are turn based with party rpgs are Loren, Planet Stronghold, Fallout Tactics and thats it. I find that other eastern rpgs that try and look like Loren fall way too short and Spiderweb I have given up on for party games. They got a good thing going with Geneforge as you can solo but their other games are just crap.



There must be like 100 hits it takes to kill one boss in Avernum and Avadon games. Talk about unrealistic. The Avadon game would be good if melee could be used. Instead the game forces you to use ranged weapons and magic, completely lame.



Im waiting on the party based game from the makers of the Quest. They will make a good turn based party based game.



Knights of the chalice is another garbage game and proves that any d and d rpg that is outside the infinity engine won't work.



The solo games Im not picky as they all rock but when party's involved there really aren't more than 3 or 4 games in existence that are good turn based games. The more I play of Loren, the more I wish there WERE other companies making rpgs out there.

I've played and enjoyed these turn based party RPGs:

Nightwatch: Modern day setting

Gods: Lands of Infinity Fantasy world setting

There is a fair amount of single player action in Gods: Lands of Infinity before the main character joins a party. The members of the party change during the course of the game.

I'm going to name drop some games that may or may not be in your ballpark (not all strictly RPGs). Since everything you've mentioned has been available on PC, I'll assume you only play PC games.



Anything Black Isle/Bioware you may not have touched, such as Jade Empire or Knights of the Old Republic.

Wizardry 8

Final Fantasy VII

Anachronox

Jagged Alliance 2

Batrayal at Krondor / Return to Krondor

Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption

Played many of those myself, I loved FF7 on the PS1, though I really hated the random encounters

JA2 is also very cool, albeit more a strategy game even if has many RPG gameplay elements. One of my favorite games of that genre is Silent Storm, really a great game.

I'm going to name drop some games that may or may not be in your ballpark (not all strictly RPGs). Since everything you've mentioned has been available on PC, I'll assume you only play PC games.



Anything Black Isle/Bioware you may not have touched, such as Jade Empire or Knights of the Old Republic.

Wizardry 8

Final Fantasy VII

Anachronox

Jagged Alliance 2

Batrayal at Krondor / Return to Krondor

Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption

+I tried Vampire Redemption and might have to finish it this time. It wasn't a bad game and wasn't 1st person like Bloodlines. The only 1st person rpg I will play and complete is The Quest because its turn based and like Eschalon.



-Jagged Alliance 2 was a good game but I found that the realism was too extreme to the point where you get hit and have to close the wound asap. In fantasy you could just heal it which made more sense in my eyes to me



+Anachronox I never played and will have to rectify that. Its on gog for cheap so thats good choice!



-Wizardry 8 I never played but I read that it takes 100 hours to finish. Thats the same problem I had with Avernum series-the games are too long and when working full time job, you eventually lose interest. Games that are too long are only for people that have the time to complete them, Im not one of those people.



-Jade Empire is an action/rpg, I played through it 3 times and while its a good game, I would rather play through KOTOR 2 or 1



+Kotor1-Excellent rpg which like baldurs gate 1 I can play over and over again.



-KOTOR2-Terrible game. It takes all the good stuff from 1 and mixes in everything bad. Terrible story, characters. The only thing better was crafting system. Besides all that stuff, Kotor 2's big downfall is that the beginning is so boring and stupid. I usually give up after I finish that as I am bored out of my mind.



-Final FantasyVII-I always thought that Jack does better eastern rpgs that the big companies, end of story.



-Betrayal at Krondor-This game series is too old to be played, I mean its from 1995. Below 1997 there are really no good games. I also gave it a shot and you can't even create your character from the beginning. If I was going to play it, I would have started with Return to Krondor as at least that had a better beginning.



+Beyond Divinity-This one has piqued my interest as Divine Divinity is a good game. Very much like baldurs gate with pause.



+Silent Storm is on the list jack. Excellent game!

Another recommendation for you to take a look at is Thunderscape, which is available over on GOG now.



It's a pretty good Party based rpg, where you can either build your own party (from a single character only through to the entire party) or meet and recruit various characters throughout the game to join your party instead, some of which are secret and are of races you can't even create at the start (such as a steam golem)

The Spirit Engine 2

It's extremely linear in design, as you literally just move left or right, with little divergence. The game starts with the player choosing a party of 3 characters. There are 9 characters total, each representing a personality type and class. One of each personality type (antihero, idealist, and logical). Some character combinations yield unique dialogue. Combat looks simple at first, although it seems like the difficulty ramps a little later. Levels are gained quickly so don't have to grind a whole lot to gain a level. At each level, you get 1 point to spend on upgrading skills. Each victory in battle will give you point to respec your characters. There is a level/experience cap with each chapter to prevent over-leveling. It also happens to be freeware. I played a little bit of the first Spirit Engine, but it was inferior in many ways.



Dragon's Dogma:

It's an action-oriented game, with more emphasis on combat and exploration. You are allowed to switch classes throughout the game. You have a "main pawn" who will forever follow and assist the player, but you can recruit 2 additional pawns to your party. Pawns are AI-controlled, but they are surprisingly helpful with the right loadout.The story and NPC interaction is very weak though.



Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter

It's definitely an acquired taste; it's generally disliked even by most BOF fans. It's dungeon crawler, so don't expect much NPC interaction. Combat is turned based, with each party member using AP to perform actions (like Fallout 1/2) during their turn, which can be chained together into a combo. Attempting to beat the game during your first play through is rough since enemies are relatively strong, and resources are limited. Even healing to full health is a luxury, you have to be careful with every encounter.



Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne

With over a 100 demons to recruit, fuse, or evolve, Nocturne offers a lot of options when it comes to party composition. The battle system is turn-based much like your typical RPG except for the inclusion of the Press Turn system, which essentially awards an extra turn for exploiting weaknesses and landing a critical hit. Conversely, hitting a enemy that is resistant to certain attacks or missing means losing a turn. All demons having varying resistances, thus the player is encouraged to change the party often to adapt against new foes.



I'm going to try out Darklands.

http://www.gog.com/game/darklands is very old (as you can see from the art), I remember playing it on my 486DX2 when was 18-19 years old, but is one of the best RPG games I've ever played (also very original setting). There are many CYOA scenes, and real-time (with pause) battles. I'd love to make such a game one day

I don't think anyone has explicitly mentioned the original Neverwinter Nights yet. It's a classic. *sheds a tear for poor Aribeth*

I don't think anyone has explicitly mentioned the original Neverwinter Nights yet. It's a classic. *sheds a tear for poor Aribeth*

That would be because I hated the single player campaign passionately.

Why did you hate it? For me NWN was one of the few good RPG. The first expansion was also really good (esp. Deekin), the second did not really catch me (D&D rules beyond level 20 are just silly, and the story was beyond "meh").



Though it was not really "party-based", I mostly run through it solo. Except with Deekin, of course.

You know what, I probably don't actually hate it. I'm just completely indifferent to it. I don't remember a single thing from the campaign that shipped with NWN. Not one. That is exceedingly rare for something developed by Bioware, and tells me the writing must not have been very good.

It's the same for me though for a different reason: that game shipped with the Aurora Tools, and I was always more interested in MAKING RPGs than playing them, so I spent all the time trying to do mods for the game (I was 20-22 years old at those times so the results were quite horrible).

If only the toolset for Dragon Age was as robust and well-supported as the toolset for Neverwinter Nights was. Neverwinter had an incredible modding community, and that, more than the original campaign, or the expansions, made it such a great game. Its Aurora toolset was awesome.

http://www.gog.com/game/darklands is very old (as you can see from the art), I remember playing it on my 486DX2 when was 18-19 years old, but is one of the best RPG games I've ever played (also very original setting). There are many CYOA scenes, and real-time (with pause) battles. I'd love to make such a game one day

Im sure Darklands is better than the 2 games Im about to mention. Im not a graphics must have but Ive read a lot of good things about that game.



My biggest gripe with rpgs is when they make a good game exceedingly long to the point where your playing 2 games-1 game that is awesome, and 1 that is just never gonna get finished.



Avernum Escape from the Pit was a really fun game but I find that just completing one of the endgame quests was too much 60-80 hours. I work a full time job



I wanted to try wizardry 8 but I heard that that was even moreso long to the point where the main quest is like 80-100 hours long. Do these developers think we have time that grows on trees? Has anyone found a decent proof of Wizardry's main quest? I'd like to play the game but don't want to go for it if its longer than 50 hours for the main quest, jeez..

I wanted to try wizardry 8 but I heard that that was even moreso long to the point where the main quest is like 80-100 hours long. Do these developers think we have time that grows on trees? Has anyone found a decent proof of Wizardry's main quest? I'd like to play the game but don't want to go for it if its longer than 50 hours for the main quest, jeez..

Well, whenever I play Wizardry 8, I play Wizardry 6 and 7 first and transfer my characters between the games. So that's probably 150 hours or so, now that I've mapped W6+7. It was significantly longer the first time.