Hello gamedev, I was wondering something which I have been working out for some time. Games like Grand Theft Auto are very popular, its because of the mix of criminal acts, violence and such woven into a nice story, and the freedom and huge gameworld the game offers I suppose ? What if : You were put into the shoes of a (sorry going to use stereotypes here dont want to offend anyone here) : ghetto thug, yakuza member, italian mobster, russian maffia, or any other types of organized crime there was to be. The idea here was in short to be dropped into a huge tightly woven gameworld as a person whos aspirations lie in the criminal world. Im not talking solely about just the typical things like in SA you are a gang person taking over territory and liquidating other gangs of the map and such. Ofcourse in GTA you had side jobs like courier jobs, and breaking and entering which were really fun, and because the GTA series have a complexity but still are able to remain simple its a very attractive game. But I was thinking about deep proffessions here and working them out in a complex yet pick up and play manner. Like bankrobber, gang banger (the usual), proffesional hitman/woman, catburglar, organized crime ( think mafia like bootlegging, drugs etc etc, and more of these proffessions. Yeah I know it has been done a thousand times before dont even mention that haha ;) The difference would be here that every proffession would be more complex, for example: Imagine your a litte petty thief you start robbing peoplese pockets purses and other small things, but eventually you want to get bigger, or maybe you dont. Then youre thinking about robbing your local supermarket ? Here is when it kicks in (nothing revolutionary but here goes). First, ofcourse you have to case certain places, you start to look how heavy police activity is there, how much cameras and how is the security, what are the opening and closing times, when is it the most busiest and so on. You as a thug really have to plan this, are you doing this alone or with a friend in crime, you have to work everything out be it on paper or in your head, and have to get the proper tools and such for the job. Then you have to commit the act itself, everything will happen in real time im thinking here so you pick a time and place and you hope you have cased the place well enough to rob this place without to much of a hassle. You have to think about almost everything cause you dont want to be recognised and you dont want to be caught and you dont want this heist to be your last one. This is how I want to do it with every proffession be it a burglar or a hitman, every crime or what so ever has stages , preperation and planning and committing the act itself, erasing your tracks along the way, and so achieving a high tatus in the underworld. Meaning people will know who to turn to if they want a hit, a heist to be done right. All of this will take place in a big random created state/province and ofcourse you will have total freedom in what carreer to pursue and how you want to get there. It doesnt mean that when youre american you cant join the yakuza or another faction, think like the move "American Yakuza". In my imagination it would be great to relive movies like this in a game and create your own criminal legacy and such. The other possibilty would be online co-op play, there is nothing more fun then robbing and stealing places with some real friends, would create moments not to be forgotten. But this is a very very later stage of planning and developing. Examples would be : Italian, Russian mafia. Yakuza/Triads, Mexican Mafia Le Eme, Maori groupings/gangs, etc etc (anyone knows some not so obvious gangs and such?)... The setting would be very grimy, semi-realistic and so on, where free roam is an option. And there are pre made characters with each their own story that will be told through their eyes ,it is still a free roam mode but just with a coherent storyline. My question is : is this idea a bit feasible is it fun do you like it or not, and why dont or do you like it, I would love to hear your opinions about this idea. Sorry for the way to long post thanks for reading and thanks for all the help in advance ! [Edited by - Jamaludin on October 1, 2005 5:07:03 PM]

I think, although it has been done in more... closed scope projects before (Mafia, GTA, Hitman) that a game like this is fun and will always be fun. It is (as evidenced by the games mentioned above) completely feasible to work out.

However, the pitfall that I can imagine is the "free-roaming" aspect falling short. What I mean to say is that you would have to design engines for the planning and pulling off aspects of every type of profession, to allow every "job" to have rewards such as notoriety (the more edgy the job, the bigger the fame). So you would need to send the players to a "job creation" system where it would allow them to lay out the basic framework of the job they're planning, for example, heisting the bank.

First the player would have to enter the "job creation system" and select "heist" as the job type (could also be hit, theft, drug deal, whatever). Then they would have to select the target location/person (stored in a list as the world is randomly created) so... "Bob's Big National Bank". Then the rest is really filler information such as "Time" and other factors. Then once the job is created it could be given a certain "difficulty" rating based on factors like is it daytime or nighttime, average police presence in the area, bank security, etc...

However, the fun part here is that after we create a job in the job creation system, we can then approach other criminal elements of the underworld and recruit them to help with the job(or hire them as the case may be, the don of course might plan a hit, but he's gonna hire a hitman to do it for him).

I think that a game in this sense, provided the game world was large enough so that after a day's worth of playing you haven't heisted every shop/bank/etc... in the city, would be extremely fun to play. Then you could also provide means for the players to launder out their ill-gotten gains, setting up residences as "safe houses" and "hideouts" and whatnot. Perhaps the system could also be added to here in a "police notice" sort of sense. That is to say, if you're a joe nobody and all of a sudden you're driving a brand new, imported sports car, eyebrows will get raised.

Anyway, that's all the ideas I can come up with in regards to this topic, so I'll leave it for you to chew on.

Vopisk

Vopisk thanks for your valuable input man greatly appreciated !

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I think, although it has been done in more... closed scope projects before (Mafia, GTA, Hitman) that a game like this is fun and will always be fun. It is (as evidenced by the games mentioned above) completely feasible to work out.

Thanks im glad you feel about it that way, and indeed it has done before it has been done till death as a matter of fact haha... But I was worried because those games mentioned are of a smaller scope, cause it still remains very arcade. My idea is more indept and would require a full living and breathing world, with fully working high A.I. citizins and such, and seamless exteriors interiors. I dont know if hardware one year from now can already cope with that ?

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However, the pitfall that I can imagine is the "free-roaming" aspect falling short. What I mean to say is that you would have to design engines for the planning and pulling off aspects of every type of profession, to allow every "job" to have rewards such as notoriety (the more edgy the job, the bigger the fame). So you would need to send the players to a "job creation" system where it would allow them to lay out the basic framework of the job they're planning, for example, heisting the bank.

You hit it right on that one. This is a big task like you said every proffesion has to be worked out just as deep and coherent as the other one. You would have to make it feasible from the planning to the stage where u actually pull of the job, be it a heist, simple robbery, a hit etc etc.

This will require a lot of effort and thought and has to be done very very well to be done right. And it is allot of work cause there has to be alotta freedom to do it how you see fit in maybe a 20 or so different ways, to keep it interesting every time around...

I like the idea you have kind of a schematic like "der Clue" has, in this way you can make this system fit for every type of job, kind of a contract with a game plan on it already or so, would love to hear diffrent ideas about this one a well ?!

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I think that a game in this sense, provided the game world was large enough so that after a day's worth of playing you haven't heisted every shop/bank/etc... in the city, would be extremely fun to play. Then you could also provide means for the players to launder out their ill-gotten gains, setting up residences as "safe houses" and "hideouts" and whatnot. Perhaps the system could also be added to here in a "police notice" sort of sense. That is to say, if you're a joe nobody and all of a sudden you're driving a brand new, imported sports car, eyebrows will get raised.

Yes indeed it wouldnt be possible because if you would rob that many the cops or what ever authorities would nail you in a day or two. You have to plan and pick your places and times carefully or else you wont have a long lasting career ahead of you.

Like in "bandits" when theyve robbed a bank they waited a week or two before they would go the the next state and rob the other bank they picked. This has to be possible in the game to. Search up the bank director, knock at his door , keep them hostage for the night and go with them to the bank at the morning and rob it and get out of there, was done brilliantly in the movie.

I want it to be that you can be as creative as you want in the way you approach the job at hand in any manner you see fit, so every person would develop his own style of doing things, this is espescially interesting for online play when co-oping or taking eachother on for the numer one spot..

Ive chewed allot on what you had to say man thanks for your input, it is fun to brainstorm about an idea this way, it keeps me motivated, the name is pending a trademark and copyright search as of now so the title is still on hold.

I am going to put the ideas I have in this topic as I go on and I hope that people like you and many others hopefully like it and would like to discuss and exchange ideas and opinions on this together ,THANKS :D

I think a lot depends on how much work you want to do in setting up the virtual world. For instance, for the bank, do all the guards have a schedule? Or is it just brute force run and gun?

What it sounds like you're talking about is having several forms of crime strategy, with stats and resources. If so, then how far do you want to take it? Do you have to create a witness system that works off of lighting, or intimidation? Or what about social systems like bribery, or the fence that sells you out?

What do you imagine a complete walkthrough being?

Wav you busy man , great to see you reply in my topic thanks ! :D

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I think a lot depends on how much work you want to do in setting up the virtual world. For instance, for the bank, do all the guards have a schedule? Or is it just brute force run and gun?

You understand exactly what level of detail I have in my mind. Every person in the virtual world wil have a life, they have families connections, schedules, work, places of interest they often hang out and etc etc. So the guards would have schedules and diffrent shifts, and personalities for example one is this brave gunner and the other one is a coward who would be very afraid in dangerous situations.

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What it sounds like you're talking about is having several forms of crime strategy, with stats and resources. If so, then how far do you want to take it? Do you have to create a witness system that works off of lighting, or intimidation? Or what about social systems like bribery, or the fence that sells you out?

Again totally right, I want many systems within systems. It would have a witness system where people remember faces sometimes, people would be influencable like when you try to scare a witness so he wont talk to much about something he has on you and so on. Relationships are very imoprtant here and would have to be very well thought out and very deep and complex, just like in real life.

I do think this is much work and the A.I. would be a difficult task to do this ?

I am at school at the moment I will write a walk through of a day in the life of one of the criminals in my game idea when I get home.

Wav thanks for the input man, I always still have much fun reading your topics. It is really hard to create an interestic topic and give valuable feed back for further discussion and debate ive found out...

Cya !

Danny...

www.mobsterlife.com

I dont want to be rude or something but a web browser game that resembles the idea I had isnt exactly the same, its all in text, and imo its a totally different thing. And such a link to a game aint really usefull input to me I dont understand ? What exactly are you trying to say ?