Forums → Art, Music, and Writing → Multiplayer mind tweaking horror!
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Ok so maybe this is a lousy pretext to talk about one of my many many ideas but the point is valid. See this occured to me when reading about multiplayer in Splinter Cell. I can't rightly remember which splinter Cell I was reading about but it had multiplayer consisting of two teams, the mercanaries and the spies. The idea is that the merc's team is going first person shooter style with their assault rifles and assorted what nots and the spies are creeping through the shadows stalking their prey with knives and such. This seemed interesting to me because it allowed you see from both sides in the series. Your either hiding and trying not to get torn apart by assault rifle fire or your sweeping the shadows with a flashlight and looking over your shoulder so you don't get your throat slit. A similiar system was in play in the AVP games as well as Colonial Marines. So this is an excellent idea that has already been well excuted on numerous accasions but how can it be further improved? Well I think I know how. Despite that fact that your pitting two equally dangerous characters against each other in a creepy atmosphere, what is there to be scared of? Well the same thing there is to be scared of Day Z, ZombiIU, or Xcom, The loss of a beloved character. You see I propose an MMO in which you are randomly flung into a random game type with a random weapon and partially randomized stats. The randomization takes players out of their element putting them on edge and furthering the sense of nervousness. The random stats are not bad enough to hinder a player, it's only like a few extra stat points on random stuff. The weapons are not entirely random in that it's based on your character, your kill records, and chance percentage added to the randomizer by spending points on your luck skill. Now that you have been placed in the game you will see text appear on the screen saying something along the lines of "Blood, There was so much blood. I couldn't stop the bleeding. I was suffocating, I felt like I was drowning and I couldn't do anything to stop it." This text is a hint at the game type in that it mentions negative experiences with something the color red implying that red is bad implacating a team death match. Another unfortunate mind freak the player might experience is that the way to tell what team a player is on changes. In one match it could be eye color and in another match it could be a tattoo. This makes it hard to tell what you are supposed to be doing and blurs the lines of teamwork so if someone is paying little attention or acts on impulse they could ambush and murder their team mate making them into a threat. This type of phsycological in game punishment is what makes the environment so scary with the threat of immenint death. Why is death so scary? Because you only keep a very small fraction of your experience upon death, oh say ten percent. How does the leveling system work? Based on your soul. What is your Soul? The basis for each character that is generated upon rebirth (respawning). Now don't think this game is just a device to punish players, OH NO! It is expected that players will die and as such death is accounted for and turned into an element in game. Now I believe we are familiar with kill streaks, so what if kill streaks accounted for kinds of kills as well as deaths and kind of deaths. All the numbers are accounted for and used to activate various abilities equipped to souls such as the martyr (If you are killed without making any kills your enemies location is broadcast) Undead (two kills and five deaths allows you to become a zombie) Reincarnation ( survive an entire game with no deaths and in the next match your first death doesn't cost you anything.) Revenge (After being killed once you gain fifty percent strength bonus against the person that killed you) Cannabil (Exactly what it sounds like, eat a person get a stat bonus) Feind (Become a monster after cannabilizing six people without dieng, major stat bonuses and big sharp claws). Well on to another point the environment. In addition to all the jerky dumb people trying to kill each other there is a large suite of monsters and environment hazards. Traps (Some set by other players) Gargoyoles that only move in the shadows and can't be destroyed in the light. Suits of armor with weapons that try to kill you and hide against the wall when not trying to do that, they have spuratic random behavior that is fairly unpredictable. Zombies (Sometimes other players or spawned by other players). Random NPCs that look like players but only want to kill people. Swarms of flesh eating creatures (maybe like bats or something I don't know). Not to mention the demon (That's a complicated creature I'm to tired to explain). So anyway the idea is a grueling, psycologicaly damaging, overly difficult, MMO horror game that turns people into monsters. Would you guys play it or does it seem to punishing?
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This seems to be a similar basic concept to EvolvE, but much better. I'd play it.
I figuired it would end up drawing in the hard core gamers crowd and give the horror gamers something to have nightmares about. I find that often times games don't take advantage of everything they should and I was hoping a game like this would really cover all its bases in what it could have done.Interact with players, use all the numbers, interact with environment.
So in the grand scheme it would be a way to bring about evolution in game environments for all as well as in game elements for the stealth and horror genres. I think I'm kinda babbling but I guess it makes sense.
Back to the point of the environment interaction (I probably shoulda mentioned this before) the biggest weapon would be the environment. Even though you spawn with a weapon your weapon is easily lost like it break after stabbing a tenacious opponent and getting in a brawl. Now you are left with no weapon so whats a man to do? Well you could be the animalistic brute that makes the game what it is and start bashing people with the nearest blunt object you can find, be a chair or a large rock.
A better option for the discerning and stealthy killer would be to either, crawl through around in the shadows and look for a good weapon like a wood chopping axe or french knife, or you could wait for someone to drop theirs whether it's because they found a better one or because they just died.
All of those were great options sure, but if you really wanna be the classy psycho you can take the high road and go for an environment kill. This was an idea I had because often times when you hear about using your environment to kill enemies it's mostly scripted conveniently placed stuff and perfect timing. Rarely is it the orchestration of an ingenous player. What if it was though? What instead of poisining some guys meal you push a statue onto him and crush him while he wanders around looking for the person that just fired a rifle (Rifles in this game are either flintlock or revolving, few bolt) Clever you rigging up a time delay alarm with a rifle, a clock, and some string. Now there is a man below you expecting to use a decorative cutlass to kill a man who just used his one and only shot, but instead the fool with the crappy weapon is crushed underneath several hundreds of pounds of stone. Alternative option you could use a fishing rod, and a rifle to rig up a trip wire to shoot anyone who activates it. Or just push a guy off a ledge when he isn't looking whatever works.
So in short I wanted to make the environment the largest element in game. There the Phsycological part of it that turns people into monsters but that's related to the environment.
I have to ask @samiel... is this thread about making a game, or about something you want to create art-wise? Because I can't quite figure out where you are going with this... you see, if it's about a game you want to make, I probably should move this to the Programming Forum for you. =)
Sounds interesting. There could be a few problems though, like what if people want to party up with friends? Then they would have to be put on the same team, eliminating the "I don't know whose on my team" factor. I also think that everything being completely random could get kinda annoying after a bit to competitive people. What if you had a few set classes (sniper, assassin, juggernaut, marine, ex) to pick from, and then everything within those classes was random? The random game mode idea is interesting too, but any players with mics in game could sort it out for newcomers. Maybe have mic audio based on location too, so you have to be near someone to actually talk to them. I generally feel like this kind of game would be dominated by groups of friends who could actually talk to each other, and it would give solo players without mics a serious disadvantage. But despite that stuff it still is an interesting and unique idea.
Dude, reading this is a pain. Add paragraphs in your wall-o-text comments.
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