Warning: this is kind of wrong. The game takes on 2 elements. Most of the game will take place through a 3rd person perspective with an RPG type feel. On completing the final objective of each mission will be through the 1st person, in a first person shooter type environment. The basis for this story is kind of taken from a couple of different movies. The story in itself is not directly taken from anything, but elements of the story are. In most FPS's, shooting type games I love playing the sniper role. I have always wanted some sort of game with a really deep and twisted storyline involving sniping, contract killing, government assasinations etc. What I have come up in my head so far the story takes place in the somewhat near future (10-20 years or so). Some technology breakthroughs, but nothing like flying cars things like that. Weapon advancement, but still using bullets, nobody getting killed with high tech plasma guns and lasers nothing like that. The general public has lost trust in the American government. They are in favor of taking the current powers of be out of office and replacing them with uncorrupted money grubbing officials, which would change the country for the better. They want government officials who actually care about the country itself. While not yet going to the extremes of terrorism within our nation, many anti-government, militia groups have started popping up over the U.S. The government has not yet fallen, laws are still in effect as well as city, state, and government law enforcement agencies. The main character is a highly paid government operating killer. The job of this killer is scoping out the large more threatening anti-government groups and essentially eliminating the threat. Using very covert tactics the main character's job is to assisinate these groups high up officials. The catch, the main character remembers nothing before taking this government job. Upon accepting this government position the main character and others like him receive an injection virtually erasing everything he has ever known prior to accepting this position. He does not know who he used to be, who his parents are, where he is from, only that he is now property of the U.S. government. After the animation sequence explaining the current state of the U.S. and basic character background the story starts in an operations building where the character is stationed out of. This would virtually be the save point, resting place, re-stocking point. Imagine the warehouse in blade 2 where his operation took place out of. Of course the government has to prove you were a good investment in the amount of money spent turning you into what you are. So you have to work your way up, starting at the bottom with the smaller groups, eliminating the less-important, but yet still a viable threat officials. Basic mission objectives include recon. Finding out information of where your target will be at a certain time/day. Finding out the best location to do the job, etc. But, you only have a certain amount of time. In essence if you take to long you will lose your window of opportunity. This could be because they find you snooping around, see you following them, etc. There are several storylines that could be followed, depending on how well you do on eliminating your targets, or if you don't complete your assignments. Ultimately all of these storylines, except for 1 will end up in the main character turning on the goverment that trained him. If you take to much time and your target catches on to your presence you could end up dead. If you take to much time, lose track of your target, fail your objectives, etc. the government could potentially see you as an unreliable loose end. If this happens you will find yourself fighting for your survival. You will become a part of what you were eliminating. Once this happens you will have to rely on the black market for your supplies, while taking private contracts for money for these supplies. Another storyline involves your past. When you chose to go work for the government this was essentially the last straw for the main characters father. The father already agreed with the general consensus that the current governement was a corrupt ruling mass. He never really did anything about it, but upon learning of his son's decision and essentially "losing" his only child he joins one of the larger anti-government groups. Works his way up, and becomes enough of a threat the government with full knowledge that he is the main character's father sends the main character after him. If you do enough snooping around the main character will find all of this information. Through his recon if you check in the right places you will find pictures, documents, journals, and things of the sort where the character will learn of his past, what he used to be and that he is being sent to kill his own father. The player will then have the choice to continue and kill his own father, or as with the previous storyline I explained above turn against the governement and fight for his life as well as his father's. Of course if the player does not snoop around enough the main character will never catch on to this, and continue on receiving assignments from the government. If the player does not find out this information he will essentially start receiving very confidential assignments and information. He will learn of a very large American terrorist group that will overthrow the government at all costs, including killing innocent lives. This group has virtually been undetected for years while they acquired dangerous weapons of mass destruction, a large army, etc. This group if necessary will use these weapons of mass destruction to elminate the current american government, and appointing themselves as the new government (as in if that happened forcing the public to follow them or die). Once this player starts receiving the confidential information about this terrorist group, and continues along the game eliminating this groups high officials, etc. With the officials of this group all being assasinated this group will eventually disintegrate. The actual game as the player bought it would end here, but there would be monthly downloadable updates (for both storylines, depending on if the player successfully completed all government missions, or ended up turning on the government) with more missions etc. to keep the player entertained. This is by far a VERY rough draft. Most of this came to me as I was typing out the original idea. I'm going to keep on working on this, and start writing a detailed storyline, with mission info etc. Suggestions? Comments? Should I drop the idea?

It's an interesting idea.

I would like to see more of a backbone on how the gameplay will go.

You might want to be careful on how you allow the player to move down the different story paths. By default, a player will expect he is supposed to complete whatever mission he's given, and that if he doesn't complete it, he's lost. You'll need to give the player enough clues and hints to the fact that they do have a choice, and that they can refuse to complete a mission at any time. Unless you make it clear that the game is open-ended, I think most players will simply assume that they must complete their missions. Most games that has the player learn something about his superiors and then turn against them follow a scripted story path for this. Having it be up to the player is much more interesting, but also more difficult to build around.

Yeah I want the game to be very much open ended. I havn't had a chance to write anything after that first post I made. Don't know where to start.

I know what I "want" for the game in my head, but don't know how to go about it. I started typing that first post and it just kept on coming out, so I just kept on typing as much as I could for an overall idea. Now I need to work on those ideas, and be more indepth with them, just got to figure out how to go about doing it.

You could make it a bit like Grand Theft Auto or Morrowind and allow the player to choose employers. That way they know if they are doing dirty work or supposedly good work (IE: assassinations for the military or something). Allowing the plyaer to choose employers also allows the game to be open ended as well.

Interesting idea indeed. To follow a bit up on what was said in the previous posts, you should be absolutely certain that the player knows he got choices. Perhaps even pause the game the first few times to let him know in a out-of-character way.

What would make the entire storyline a lot more interesting, and closer to a possible future, is if the government isn't labeled as evil from the creators side. Don't give the player a black and white to choose between, but two different shades of gray. The discussion as I see it, can be pretty much like the one going on between Israel and Palestine today. Just using an example, and not wanting to start a discussion about that conflict. Suffice to say that both side got their mistakes, and (in their own eyes) logical reasonings behind their actions. If you can make an equally difficult choice for the player, where neither option is obviously the best, I think you have managed to create something really interesting.

Difficult choices are something we don't see much of in computer games. You either do the Good Thing - and perhaps spend more time doing it, or take a shortcut and thus the Bad Thing.

There could be some sort of opening sequence showing different scenes from both sides of the fight showing an equal amount of good things/bad things from both sides.

But if the player had that choice from the very beginning that would rule out a lot of the storyline that I started to explain in the first post.

You could still have that opening scene, but have the player start out with the government but somehow as said I would have to show that the player has that choice, but how to do that I dunno. I don't want that choice to be blatantly obvious just one of those things that is stumbled upon and once that storyline starts to unfold it makes them think "whoa".

Yea, I can definatly understand that you want to keep the choice still in the setting of the game. Having two flashy arrows with GOVERNMENT and REBELS to click on is probably the best way to ruin immersion right away :)

You could have some other character provide hints along the way. If the main guy is failing his missions, a friend in the agency could make a joke about him going over to the opposition, if his hidden government'o'meter is tipping further towards the rebels he could get a discrete approach from an old friend telling him he the other side is watching his progress and liking what they see. Perhaps even in a mission (and not a cut scene) so the player can choose to follow him, ask for more information, or just shoot him dead.

You might give him a mission where he is to stop someone from making a bomb, only to let the player find out (if he is willing to stop shooting for a second and listen at the doors) that they are bombing some kind of installation that most players would not approve of. Major civilian surveillance, top secret prison, chemical weapons lab, etc. Then he got to choose to follow through with the mission, quietly go out again and choose an "end mission" button or talk to the people making the bomb.

Some of these are obviously more discrete than others, and some players wouldn't even know they were there. But things like that also add to replay value. The players browse the web, see someone that has played a completly different part of the mission than they did, and go back to the game to play a little more.

I think an interesting way to do this would be have an opening cut scene showing the player and a team mate, his best buddy, going on a mission. His buddy goes into a room first, an immediately a shower of bullets hits the door so the player can't enter. When the player does dive into the room, he is just in time to see his buddy throw a flash bang, and run off with the enemy. This could be followed up with a debrief about how agents switching sides is becoming a problem; show the gov't endorsing some sort of propaganda training that they make all agents take that basically says that switching sides is evil -- the wrong thing to do.

It is rather subtle, but depending on the presentation, the player would see that there will be a choice in the game.

I'm almost picturing the GoldenEye beginning here, except making the switching of sides more obvious.

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Original post by hallucinogenic I think an interesting way to do this would be have an opening cut scene showing the player and a team mate, his best buddy, going on a mission. His buddy goes into a room first, an immediately a shower of bullets hits the door so the player can't enter. When the player does dive into the room, he is just in time to see his buddy throw a flash bang, and run off with the enemy. This could be followed up with a debrief about how agents switching sides is becoming a problem; show the gov't endorsing some sort of propaganda training that they make all agents take that basically says that switching sides is evil -- the wrong thing to do. It is rather subtle, but depending on the presentation, the player would see that there will be a choice in the game. I'm almost picturing the GoldenEye beginning here, except making the switching of sides more obvious.

That could be done, except it would have to be done a different way. What I am imagining in my head is sort of a one man team kind of thing.

The way your cutscene idea and then "propaganda training" idea could take place though is say the government setup some kind of secret undercover meeting with one. The anti-gov organization thinks they are selling some kind of information, they bring the trading character in to assasinate the anti-gov guy. Instead the scene shows the sniper shooting the government guy instead of the anti-gov guy. This shows the switching sides problem and gives the player the idea that this is happening.