thiefinthedark on 15/3/2008 at 20:44

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Let me explain. I am currently writing a Design Document for a game of my own creation called "Dark Life". It is heavily influenced by the Thief series (on which i cut my design teeth, in Dromed) and i will be submitting it to win a scholarship.

Now, since this is the highest concentration of thief players on the planet, i thought it a good idea to ask of you your opinion on the concept, and a few questions to gauge reception for the idea, if you are willing to give me some time?

The game is set in a dark and gritty city, caught between the industrial revolution and the middle ages. 4 noble houses are warring behind the scenes for control of the city, utilizing the services of thieves and assassins to gain footholds against the other houses. The city is currently ruled over by the Industrial-Religious theocracy of "The Order", following the dissolution of the monarchy centuries ago. Players may choose to join any of these factions, or go solo and become a freelance Thief, Assassin, or perhaps go out on a limb and indulge in a serial killing spree.

The tagline for the game is: "A steampunk simulation of the underbelly of society"


1. What aspects of gameplay would be most interesting to you?

2.Would a server player cap of 500 players be too much? too little?

3. While not an RPG in any respect, how would you prefer to see the problem of player death dealt with? Instant respawns? Permanent Death with Apprentices inheriting your items?

Any feedback would be most appreciative. I can provide more details on request, as i am in the process of transcribing my notes to design document form. The idea is not to create a straight up multiplayer thief clone, but to take the essence of what thief created and extrapolate it into a persistent world which players might explore and mutate to their whim.


EDIT:

As promised, here is the link to the Final version of the DarkLife design doc. Its 100% done, exactly what i sent off for the competition. Feel free to peruse it and comment back :)

Ah screw it. I lost the nice formatting but at least people can READ the damn thing now. Just scroll down and CLICK the last title at the bottom of that page ;)

thiefinthedark on 15/3/2008 at 21:58

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Well, each house is technically granted control over a very small portion of the city, think like the enclaves in 'The Diamond Age" by Niel Stephenson. However, The houses eventually attempted to extend their reach out into the unclaimed portions of the city via crime and intrigue - Which has resulted in the current behind the scenes conflict, as the houses vie to shift the balance of power to their own benefit.



For now, it is just going to be a design document, which i am submitting to try and win a scholarship at the Art Institute of Vancouver, as i am going there to get a degree in Game Art and Design. If i can get the details done well enough, though, i would like to consider actually getting a team together and at least making it as a mod for a game.



Hmm, i am not familiar with this term, could you extrapolate?

Thank you for your kind words.

Chade on 16/3/2008 at 09:24

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jtr7: not that you want much, however ... :p

thiefinthedark: Ok, so it's only a proposed design atm. I guess that means you can get away with a bit of ambition, then ... :)

As far as the "footholds" go, I am still curious about what this actually means in terms of gameplay nuts and bolts. The most obvious interpretation is of gaining and holding physical territory directly against opposing team, but I don't really see how that works in a thieving context. I think that sort of competition is too direct to integrate well into stealth gameplay. Perhaps instead the different thieving factions compete for influence over the nobles/wardens in that area by stealing/possessing objects which mean something to the organizations involved? (Another question: what use do you intend to make of NPC's? What about NPC guards? I think it would be a good idea, if possible.) Anyway, the point of all this is: I am interested about what exactly you intend to do here ...

As far as social stealth goes, I guess the term is unnecessarily obscure. All I meant was that, ideally, you wouldn't make a thief MMO without that warm cozy feeling of betrayal. Perhaps players could appear to join one group, while actually being rewarded as part of a competing group (the point would be that the player would intend to act as a saboteur). Intra-group intrigue could be provided by having internal ranking systems. Players could benefit (in some situations) by sabotaging their own team-members, if it meant they would rise higher in the ranks. I don't know exactly how far you could take this without ruining the MMO experience, however. People probably don't want to play a MMO game where alliances mean nothing, so you would have to get the balance between brotherhood and betrayal right.

And btw, in answer to your original three questions:

1) I would be interested in the minute-to-minute stealth gameplay between players, and also in the ways in which the various factions competed.

2) I have absolutely no idea. I guess this really depends on what sort of roles you give to the players, and what sort of roles you give to the NPC's.

3) I don't like the idea of permanent death. Apart from that, I am Ok with whatever doesn't break the minute-to-minute gameplay. I think.

BTW, I have never played an MMO and have no authority whatsoever on the subject. Just so you know ... ;)

RavynousHunter on 18/3/2008 at 23:39

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I had (and still have) an idea along these lines a few years back, only set in a semi-futuristic setting, and psionics instead of magic, but your idea sounds great. One thing I would like from this... is good music! What can I say? I freakin' love music! :thumb:

[edit]
Social Stealth refers to using things like disguises and such to hide amidst a crowd. Also, if you want a game that features a good bit of social stealth (which I'll be able to play by the weekend, w/ any luck), pick up Assassin's Creed, and you should understand.

Ziemanskye on 21/3/2008 at 12:07

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If you have a single coherent environment large enough to keep 500 players busy in, then dying and respawning back at a base is probably going to be painful enough. You're probably a good few minutes sprint (at least) from where you were, which if the "stealth" aspects are strong enough could easily be 20-30 mintues skulking/sneaking to try to pick up where you were.

Add a little physical delay so that members of one faction or another can tag (/desecrate) your body to claim points one way or another, and tie that into some kind of barbaric display thing to shame/annoy players and you can make death something to really be avoided just because people don't want their (probably slightly customised, but identifiable-by-name) corpse on a spike outside their enemies compond. (Perhaps have "missions" from named groups all slightly-silly-in-the-fiction all written down, so looted corpses give letters to take back to base for points proving who's wanting what done to whoever's territory/personel)

A much more problematic thing is giving said 500 players room to be sneaky in and having things to do: especially if there are assassins and thugs amongst the players and mostly-NPC guards. With that many blades knocking around you're going to find it very hard to have anyone on their feet in the area, which makes a lot of the stealth aspects rather pointless. Assassin's Creed works because it's singleplayer, meaning it can just spawn extra NPCs as/when needed, but in a multiplayer game everywhere is potentially being watched and it's all got to replicate over the network, and you're not likely to find many players who want to be commoners walking the streets.

(An aside-ish idea: make dead players turn into commoners coming out of otherwise non-enterable houses nearby, but have to travel to a guild/mansion/watch-house/whatever to complete respawn, and possibly change faction just on a whim - large scale "betrayal" mechanic by being able to join any side you want at any time, with the only player-meaningful score being the personal profit margins dispite the server-based scores for factions)