well the long casting time was more of a way to discourage players that are low level from casting mega powerful instant kill spells, while making it possible for higher level characters to do so. So it would be possible in a realtime or single player game. Low level characters can try to duck and hide when they need a complex spell, but would mostly be using weaker versions. High level characters would use the stronger spells always (because they would be instant, instead of taking time.)

Menu system is not that good either for real time, since you usually have to look for the spell, or have a limit spell list to look at, limiting choice, although a mage should know what spells they need and when, exp would add to that.

I would think Voice is not a good Idea, it would add to realism but id never be able to play games at my usual time in the morning when everyone else is asleep, since I cant be talking to my comp yelling it and such, should I be banned from being a wizard since I cant say commands...., since thats my favorite class, I doubt I wouldn''t even try a game with voice.

I havn''t tryed black and white, but I shouldn''t have to be an artist to throw a fireball, at an enemy and theres high chance at failure for the wrong shapes and such

key combs would be interesting, but not if there predefined "fireball" "fa", I more agree with one of the other replies, each key would add some part of the spell, diffrent elements, life, death
then you would not know a combination until you try it

to limit speed typers and people making comb like ffffffaaaaaaeo it could be limited by experince and mana cost, the fact that it would be slow, thats a part of being a wizard, thats why wizards are suppose to have gurdians, while they prepare there spells,
the guardians keep away the nasties.

if you had the whole voice thing set in your mind, send the ffeeaa comb to everyone and the receiver comp ''could'' turn it into sounds based on the keys, and you would regonize the sounds being made from experince, Then noone needs to be shouting, waking up the house to cast a spell, this wouldn''t take as much bandwith as sending voice which would lag my 56k even more then it already is.

(I can barly undertsand people in voice chat and ive tried voice programs, slow and alot of errors.)

you could go on forever making diffrent systems but if there not fesible in a busness sense like gloves, then your just wasting your time, until they become more available, voice and hand contol is not really a aspect that should be looked into at the moment, except foresight for games produced when it is available

(sry for many spelling errors, i dont usualy post in forums
(if anything is unlclear feel free to email or expand on this topic, or call it aload of rubbish :p)

~Aliza~

I''ve got to say something on Voice Recognition. I think it''s a great idea. But there are problems with it. First of all, there is accuracy. I don''t know exactly how good there current systems are, so if they make a lot of errors that''s a major problem, but technology continues to get better, so it''ll be fixed someday and probably soon.

Second, there''s the problem with eylling at your computer. Personally, I''d have no problem with this. But since some people would here''s what I suggest. The mouse has been around for a long time, but nearly all programs still allow the use of the keyboard. Why can''t Voice Recognition be the same? Allow an option to turn VR off, and provide spell menus or hotkeys or whatever. This is a little more work for the programmer, but I think it would be really cool.

Finally, does anyone one know how to program a VR system? Are there any libraries or tutorials out there? I''d be really interested if anyone could point me in the right direction.