My Subversion Ideas

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RabidZombie
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My Subversion Ideas

Postby RabidZombie » Tue Feb 23, 2010 7:44 pm

Oh god, the subject made me cringe, but I want to write down my various ideas/questions/thoughts somewhere and I couldn't think of a better one. Ah well, here it goes.

General

We've seen the city generator. It's really nice. I'm assuming the city is sort of like the internets that were generated in each game of Uplink. I can't imagine the city was otherwise just generated for scenery. And it's always chilling to see the rest of the game world to exist, when you know you will probably never visit most of it.

What other similarities will there be to Uplink. Will it be as RPGish? Do we have a form of currency? Will we be able to buy/hire equipment? Will we get more tools available as we progress through the game?

Story? Will it be like Uplink's, or will it be a more linear affair? Perhaps none at all? If there is one, make it good. ;)

Correct me if I get anything wrong: Missions from a BBS. Equipment/blueprints/intel from the black market? Hired goons presumably from some sort of BBS as well?

Missions

Could missions take place across several buildings? I think the game could benefit from an added layer of depth if missions could spill over into adjacent buildings, maybe just for entrance and exit from the target. Adjacent buildings may have laxer security. But it won't be easy getting across unnoticed. Possibly, multiple buildings will be owned by the same corporation and you need an ID card or similar from one building to access parts of the other.

There's a large number of missions that could be carried out. I've put them in order of what I think the difficulty may be.

Surveying buildings to provide floor-plans.
Planting of bugs.
Copying of plans/data.
Stealing of valuable items.
Assassination/interrogation of a VIP.
Destruction of servers/data.
Tracing of other spies (kind of like Uplink's tracing another hacker)

The earlier ones involve no damage done. Much easier to get out without being noticed. Also, less harsh consequences. Think Uplink. Fines instead of jail. The later ones obviously ramp up the difficulty. It'll take an expert to assassinate a VIP unnoticed, and the consequences larger.

Has any thought been put into how the game will progress difficulty? Obviously the guards can be made to be more difficult. You could have the guards pay more attention to footprints, have them report in on a regular basis so they can't simply be taken out, and obviously one can increase the numbers. Cameras can have increased FOV, longer range, more difficult to take out. I'd love to see some Hollywood's security systems as well. Lasers, pressure-sensitive floors, gun-turrets, tear gas dispensers.

Most of these could easily take place in any old office layout. However, the stealing of valuable items maybe one type of mission that is better suited to a different environment. Possibly a bank/casino like layout? How can you have an espionage game without having to break into some sort of vault?!

The tracing of other spies could be a difficult mission to do correctly. Like Uplink, it would have to be time sensitive (but to a larger degree). One could follow traces the spy has left to find information about him/his employer. For example, footprints (seen in the screenshot), dead guards, empty shells, broken glass, etc. I'm not sure how the mission would end. Perhaps you could follow a spy from building to building (zip-line from window to window?). It wouldn't make sense if it ended in finding the spy, unless you were incredibly quick to the scene. Although that could easily be worked into a story line mission, where you're not limited to getting missions from a BBS.


Actors

Obviously, we have the guards and the player controlled characters. What about harmless civilians (although is setting off the alarm harmless)? VIPs? It seems possible to populate the game's buildings with a large number of people, each with different behaviour. Guards will actively hunt you down while civs will run and hide.

VIPs may be the target of a mission to kill, or to get information. The VIP could either be on his office, or for a higher difficulty, could be on a preset route. Eg Office -> Lift -> Tour of another floor -> Bathroom -> Lift -> Lobby -> Limo (at which point you've failed the mission). You'd have to plan when and where to get him and have multiple options. Hack the lift? Set explosives in the bathroom? Push him out the window? Snipe him from a completely different building? For added difficulty, he could deviate from the route you expect him to go on, or not know his plans at all (and you'd have to tail him while out of sight). Lets not forget that torture and interrogation is always fun!

Game-play

When carrying out a mission, do we have to worry about actually infiltrating the building to begin with? What about the escape after we complete the objectives? With a whole city, I see the potential for a lot of freedom in this area. You COULD go the standard route of getting in through the front door, but what about sneaking in through the back door for deliveries? Or making your way across from a neighbouring building (which obviously you've have to infiltrate as well) to the roof, or maybe even through one of those windows I saw in the screenshot? What about via the roof? Given there being a big enough reward, the cost of an air-insertion may well be worth it for our spy(/spies).

And the escape? The escape may be the most nerve-wracking part of the heist. If you make it through your mission without anybody noticing, you obviously have an easier time of it. If you get caught, the building may be swarming with guys. Don't let MGS influence you into thinking once the "panic" time is over, the guards all go back to normal routine. That makes no sense. In real life, the guards would track you down until you're dead.

I can't help but think of that scene in The Dark Knight with Skyhook. Obviously, it'll cost an arm and a leg and has to be decided on before you even start the mission. It would also require you to time your mission exactly. Aircraft wait for no man. How gutting would it be if you missed your extraction by a few seconds due to an earlier complication. Or how thrilling if you made it, just, with VIP in tow.

Another thought I've had is whether once you've left the building, whether "that's it", or you have to reach a safe house, or similar. I doubt the target organisation will be happy in your infiltration. They might even give chase. However, I can't think of any way of doing this without recreating the next GTA, and think this idea would bring little added fun for the undeniably huge costs of implementation. Opinions?

Tell me there's more than one way to move between floors. Obviously we have lifts and stairs. What about the trusty ol' window washer's platform? Ab-sailing? Zip-wire? Hiding in delivered cargo? Air vents (sorry! :P)? Breaking through glass ceilings?

I keep saying this, but travel between buildings (can you tell I really want this?) would be awesome. We have zip-lines, jumping between rooftops. I can't think of any other ideas right now.

Multiplayer

I understand this is unlikely, but if you do consider it...
Possibilities:
Cooperative. Two agents, each player controller? You could split up, or cover each other's backs. I think it could be quite entertaining.

Competitive. There are infinite possibilities here. I was thinking you could have an "assault" like mode. One player controls his agent. He has a budget of which to buy intel of the building (procedurally generated, ofc), weapons, gadgets and what have you. The player would control the agent much like in the single player game. The other controls the "building", if you will. He'd too have a budget to place security systems and buy guards. He'd be able to set the guard's patrol paths as well as control them in real time. Obviously he'd only be able to see what his people and cameras see. The agent's objective would be like the missions from the game, and obviously, the opposing player would have to stop him. Both sides would need to employ planning/strategy. My only concern is balance would be a BITCH. Although I suspect you'd be able to learn lessons of difficulty from the main game. Perhaps a way of handicapping players could be to give them different starting budgets.

Overall

I get the impression this game has a lot of freedom. But be careful not let the player get a winning strategy for all situations. The different options need different benefits and disadvantages in different situations. Hell, make some options completely impossible in certain situations. Force the player into variety. Also, not being able to plan everything beforehand is thrilling. You probably want the player to step into the unknown as much as possible. Some information on the target building/surrounding buildings may carry a hefty price on the black market. Hell, some might just not be available at all.

Is there going to be perma-death? I love perma-death. And make it stick, unlike Uplink, where you can backup your files. ;)

Dun
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The GoldFish
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Postby The GoldFish » Wed Feb 24, 2010 3:50 am

Wow, that's uh, a lot of ideas. Or really, questions... or something o_o.

I'm just interested to see how they mix procedural content and espionage based incursion - generally these are not things that go hand in hand.

Also RE multiplayer, the Splinter Cell games attempted to make espionage friendly competive multiplayer (as well as coop, which is more suited to the genre), perhaps this may serve as an example of a (afaik) successful implimentation?
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Postby GreenRock » Wed Feb 24, 2010 5:39 am

I dunno, but I already want some official Subversion wallpapers...

Oh, and wasn't this project CODENAMED Subversion? It's a pretty odd name for an espionage hacker game....

(what happened to the city generator? Was subversion reduced to level by level gameplay?)
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Postby RabidZombie » Wed Feb 24, 2010 4:49 pm

The GoldFish wrote:Wow, that's uh, a lot of ideas. Or really, questions... or something o_o.

I'm just interested to see how they mix procedural content and espionage based incursion - generally these are not things that go hand in hand.


I was bored. I suspect most of it's crap, and I'd rather just see where Introversion want to take it. :P

Procedural content is rare anyway. I think this is more to do with developer's fixation on visual content than game play problems. Which is a shame as I think it provided enormous re-playability. I hope it works well in Subversion.
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Re: My Subversion Ideas

Postby xyzyxx » Wed Feb 24, 2010 4:56 pm

RabidZombie wrote:The tracing of other spies could be a difficult mission to do correctly. Like Uplink, it would have to be time sensitive (but to a larger degree). One could follow traces the spy has left to find information about him/his employer. For example, footprints (seen in the screenshot), dead guards, empty shells, broken glass, etc. I'm not sure how the mission would end. Perhaps you could follow a spy from building to building (zip-line from window to window?). It wouldn't make sense if it ended in finding the spy, unless you were incredibly quick to the scene. Although that could easily be worked into a story line mission, where you're not limited to getting missions from a BBS.
You could have missions where you have to find out what the other spies have been doing, and possibly reverse their actions. (Find and remove bugs, for example)
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