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Post by mase on Dec 28, 2019 14:20:46 GMT
I want to introduce an assassination side quest soon and wanted to hear your opinions on how to design it.
First of all, quests will be generated automatically and you will be able to select one as the active quest. Unlike jobs or missions, quests can be done while in roaming mode, they don't put any restrictions on other open world features.
Now back to assassination quests. I was thinking about having a target appear in a random city. You could either snipe the target or go in hard. In any case, there would be a whole bunch of thugs, which would turn on you.
The questions that need answers:
- If the player tries to run away from the defending thugs, would they (the thugs) eventually disappear? Perhaps based on distance, or on a timer? Needless to say of course that destroying them will give you a reward.
- What if the player misses the target? Will the target escape and will the defending thugs come for you? Does the target escape into a car (perhaps a limo; giving the player an additional chance) or a building (meaning the target disappears for good; quest failed)?
Let me know what you think.
Merry belated Christmas, Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year to all of you!
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Post by mase on Dec 29, 2019 12:17:51 GMT
The new sniper rifle scope.
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Post by Clinkzbone on Dec 30, 2019 5:18:27 GMT
1. What are the plans are for the gangs in this game? Will there be different gangs and factions, or will they all be lumped together as "bad guys"? If it's just going to be "bad guys" then yeah I guess you can just base it on distance, like maybe leaving the city. Or perhaps even a hybrid, like you can either leave the city or hide in the city (like not getting seen by the enemies) for a while. But if there are factions, then it can be much more interesting. Like the other members of the gang in other cities can be put on alert. Meanwhile if you got the mission from another gang, maybe they will become friendlier and maybe help you fight or offer discounts in the shops they control.
Actually the question can just be summed up as "will there be a faction and reputation system?"
2. I think it can change depending on situation and mission difficulty. The thugs should definitely come after you (except maybe 1 or 2), and the target should try to escape. Whether they try to escape into a car or building would maybe depend on proximity and context? This actually ties in again to my earlier question, because say the meeting is in the target's gang's territory then they could easily just escape into a building, but otherwise they might need a vehicle.
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Post by mase on Dec 31, 2019 7:52:13 GMT
I'm glad you raised this point. 1 - It would obviously be nice to have different gangs in the game. I'm just worried the game is becoming too similar to games like GTA. GTA2 had exactly what you're talking about. Basically you would do jobs for a gang, or kill members of an enemy gang to receive respect and support. I would be totally cool with the concept, if it had its unique little twist on it though. 2 - Another issue is, how would it work out with thug wars, where you essentially drive the thugs out of a city? Do they have a home city from which they cannot be removed for example? Do they occasionally try to (re)capture a city? 3 - On a side note, the cars would be the same, but every gang would have its own unique emblem painted on them. The Furious Demons The Ferocious Apes The Fuming Dragons --> After giving it all some thought, perhaps we should place one gang on every island (in a specific city), have them attack each other occasionally (cross island / city), as well as unoccupied cities. Different gangs attack each other on sight, so if the player flees to an enemy city, s/he would get support by default. Bordering cities might have smaller conflicts by unintended intrusion from a member of a different gang. How does that sound for a start? It would be similar to conquest mode in Space Borders, but with multiple factions and in real-time. Unfortunately, all of this opens up a whole new set of questions, with tons of potential problems and difficulties, so we'll have to go into a bit more detail later on.
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Post by Clinkzbone on Dec 31, 2019 15:41:13 GMT
The problem is that right now the game world feels dull. It's not very interesting to simply repeat the gameplay loop of driving to a new city and clearing out all the thugs. It's fun the first few times, but gets boring quick after that. Each town feels exactly the same, and also feels very small. The cities don't feel like cities. They feel like small towns or villages. Each has exactly the same buildings as the previous one and next one.
If each city was bigger, or at least had more character, then I could see something like each city having ongoing gang wars all the time, or perhaps even an uneasy peace between rival gangs. Then the character could choose to do things like helping one gang to remove the other gang, And choosing whether or not to betray them later, or attacking both at once to try and clear the city entirely all in one fell swoop. It would be even more interesting if both gangs decided to team up against the player (perhaps after the player has killed enough gang members).
For something even more interesting, how about allowing the player to become a gang leader? Perhaps through taking over an existing gang, or even by allowing the player to start their own gang. And after forming or taking over a gang, then the player would need to manage their gang and territory, and defend it from other gangs. Ideally this would happen in real time, but it can perhaps be simulated instead and only have the NPCs appear if/when the player gets close.
A side note: perhaps give the gang card a special colour or design too, to make them easier to identify?
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Post by mase on Dec 31, 2019 16:47:22 GMT
Yes I know that the landscape is quite repetitive and of course the fun part should come from the Open World. The game is nowhere near complete with regards to features, but I wanted to have a functional game engine to build on first. I think we've made some good progress improving the controls and fixing many bugs and glitches that needed to be fixed. Now is the time to add substance to the gameplay, but everything needs to be thought through carefully. I think you have some very good ideas, but implementing them will take some time, so all I want to do is to make sure there's a solid plan to go on. Once something is implemented it is usually very difficult to modify.
OK, let's try the logo first, if that's not enough we'll update the color as well.
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Now let's sum it all up and add some ideas:
- The player has a reputation with the various factions of the game - The reputation will be a function of your interaction with the various factions - The player owns his own gang (faction) and can take over and control cities - Every faction has a home city (which cannot be conquered by the player or any other faction) - You can take allies with you for assistance - The police is a faction - There is a simulated war going on between factions / when the player is in a war zone s/he can interfere - The player can strengthen the defenses of controlled cities by some investment
PS: Thanks for all the feedback as usual. I'm glad you're still with me on this project! I know that there's still a lot that needs to be done and some patience will be necessary, but I have sunk many thousands of hours into this game so far and I'm convinced that the game engine has great potential. Most of the things I've been working on recently can be described as the icing on the cake. Implementing Thug Wars was less than 0.1% of the total effort I put into this game so far, so there's still hope that the game can become much, much better than it is now.
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