There's a million ways to make a game. Cast time is absolutely not necessary. The above posters make an excellent case that it has a role in many games, but you have to make this decision in light of other aspects of the game. You wrote:

"There's nothing more annoying than trying to cast while a melee is up in your face"

This is a game with a spatial mechanic in battles. You have to perform combat maneuvering; you have to get into a position where you can cast while the melee character is not in your face.

Mario RPG has no spatial mechanics. You have some characters standing in a line on a board and they attack in turns. There is no "cast time" but there's also no "in your face" and so on. It's a different game.

Old Final Fantasy has a light spatial mechanic; you have front and back rows. Melee and "ranged" attacks then have an advantage depending on what row a character is in and the row of the character he's interacting with (attacking, being attacked by). There is a charge time but it's decoupled from the rest of it and magic spell charging is only theatrics.

Legend of Mana has a slight spell charging and different spells cast on different ranges (spatially). An enemy may maneuver out of their way. You should maneuver to a position that puts your enemy deepest into your cast zone, and mind the actions of other characters as it may stall the enemy's maneuvering.

These are the things you're thinking about here. Understand? The games your playing have cast time in a certain context; it affects the actions you're taking, the short and long term goals, the tactics and strategies, etc.

If you remove it, all of that can break and may need to be changed. Nothing uniquely special about cast times, but it is a gameplay element and it has to jive with elements around it. You cannot look at it in isolation. You might as well ask "can I play Chess if I don't have movement restrictions?" It's not Chess anymore and such a change can break the game. You can, however, make up a different game that doesn't have movement restrictions (or movement at all).

There's a million ways to make a game. Cast time is absolutely not necessary. The above posters make an excellent case that it has a role in many games, but you have to make this decision in light of other aspects of the game. You wrote:

"There's nothing more annoying than trying to cast while a melee is up in your face"

This is a game with a spatial mechanic in battles. You have to perform combat maneuvering; you have to get into a position where you can cast while the melee character is not in your face.

Mario RPG has no spatial mechanics. You have some characters standing in a line on a board and they attack in turns. There is no "cast time" but there's also no "in your face" and so on. It's a different game.

Old Final Fantasy has a light spatial mechanic; you have front and back rows. Melee and "ranged" attacks then have an advantage depending on what row a character is in and the row of the character he's interacting with (attacking, being attacked by). There is a charge time but it's decoupled from the rest of it and magic spell charging is only theatrics.

Legend of Mana has a slight spell charging and different spells cast on different ranges (spatially). An enemy may maneuver out of their way. You should maneuver to a position that puts your enemy deepest into your cast zone, and mind the actions of other characters as it may stall the enemy's maneuvering.

These are the things you're thinking about here. Understand? The games your playing have cast time in a certain context; it affects the actions you're taking, the short and long term goals, the tactics and strategies, etc.

If you remove it, all of that can break and may need to be changed. Nothing uniquely special about cast times, but it is a gameplay element and it has to jive with elements around it. You cannot look at it in isolation. You might as well ask "can I play Chess if I don't have movement restrictions?" It's not Chess anymore and such a change can break the game. You can, however, make up a different game that doesn't have movement restrictions (or movement at all).

JoeCooper, I dig this post.

You clarified it excellently.

Providing spells that give the caster a means to keep their target at a distance or defensive measures to counter the target in another form is also something to keep in mind. Spells can be more than just damage.

Thanks!

You want to see how it would be if casters had 0 cast time ? play league of legends.
You have 100% hp. Annie kills you at lv 6 with her blink 0.17sec (depending latency) auto-hotkey macro. Too bad you were under tower, annie lost 240 hp from the tower, she doesnt care. gg now she will proceed to get her pentakills.

As has been mentioned a few times already, it's part of balance and more importantly the underlying game system. I think the Mario RPG example is a good one, it's a completely different mechanic.

In MMOs like WoW and Everquest, it's just a means to justify an end: that players do X DPS. Developers can adjust casting times and damage to make X whatever they want. Anything else is secondary.

It's the secondary stuff that I'd like to see developers play around with a bit more myself. In both WoW and Everquest, it was possible to interrupt most spells by either using a special interrupt ability or stunning the NPC. I'd like to see more options for dealing with it though. In WoW for example, fireballs chase you down. It's all but impossible to actually dodge them (only once or twice did I manage to outrange the spell, and it will fly through walls or whatever it needs to do to hit you). In EQ, I don't think it's possible to outrun spells at all once the NPC begins to cast it, since they hit instantly.

Why not make it possible to dodge magic, or use terrain to help? If you do things like that, then it's not necessary to roll all of the balance into spell cast timers and reuse timers. Faster casting spells that are easier to see coming and avoid might spice things up a bit.

I suspect the real answer to that is that it makes the game more skill based, like an FPS or a related game. I don't really see that as a problem myself, because otherwise people demand that skill be incorporated in other ways that are far more artificial (i.e. "He's using firebolt, I have 1.5 seconds to cast Mind Freeze, except I just used up my last Frost Rune!"). It also makes the AI more abusable though...

If I recall correctly, bolt spells in Dark Age of Camelot could "miss" their targets. They were treated more like an arrow than a magical spell.

What you are discussing needs to also include Resist Rates. Resist rates can help fill the void of "dodging" spells so to speak.

If a spell goes from point A to point B, caster to target, I feel that an accuracy roll should be required. If a spell does not travel, but is cast directly on the target, dodging shouldn't be an option. Latency is also a factor to keep in mind. Generally the hit or miss is determined upon casting, not upon hitting, the target as a work around.