The use of stealth in video games is very common, but what about the other way of not being seen - assimilation in the crowd. Do you think it will be a good idea to force the player to act like the NPCs in order to not draw attention(the title makes sense now doesn't it?) of the enemy? I'm talking about walking in about the same speed, dressing with the same clothes ect. The idea of such missions will be to complete the objective - like picking up an item or talking to a person - without drawing the attention of the enemy. So, what do you guys think?

ever played the game "hitman"?

it had some missions where you had to get dressed like an enemy, walk slowly in his secret base and pray that nowbody recognises you. actually sometimes you could walk around freely while running around would instantly catch the enemys attention.

i think its quite a nice concept if done right (i.e. you don't have to only "play crowd" and get something interesting to do once in a while)

So are the Commandos series, and possibly Commandos: Strike Force since I haven't played it yet.

sounds really hard to pull off. you could have to go both ways if you do something like that. (enemys use that same tactic) the thing thats going to make or break it will be how well the AI is written and how much overhead your going to plan on using for it. Its a good idea though. I'm sick of waiting in the shadows..why can't I just start groping a group of chicks to hide.

Heck, I've done this before in online Multiplayer games.

In Tribes2, teammates had a green symbol above their head, and enemies had a red symbol. You could also wear a pack that protected you against sensor detection and thus showed no symbol at all. But that particular pack was rarely used...so everyone was just conditioned to attack at the red symbol.

I had loads of fun coming to the enemy base, turning on the pack, and casually walking around. Occasionally people would stop and stare at me, but so long as I acted normal (neither skittish nor hostile) they'd usually leave me alone. And then I'd continue on into the heart of their base to perform some nefarious act like blowing up a generator.

It's a good idea. Just saying that it could work in singleplayer or even multiplayer games.. if done right.

Something like that was done in QuakeTF and HalflifeTF. I remember quite well how i could play as a spy and change myself to look like an enemy soldier. The trick was getting into their base (since anyone running boldly towards their base without a flag strapped to his back would probably catch a bullet in the head, such is the way of CTF). This kind of thing doesn't always work if there are too few people however, games where there were two vs two, or 3 vs 3 were generally harder to pull off since they could easily notice the new guy, and all it took to do a test was one light hit and your camo would be gone.

I just like the idea of trying to follow someone in a crowd and they dissapear on the screen to the player but they are still really there. the vision of it my head would require alot of humanoid models though. and alot of indepentant animation on them. would be a really rad crowd simulation.

As suggested, Hitman did a good job of this, where you had to change clothes and have a reason to be in a certain place.

Are you talking about not being detected by other NPCs or players?

Also take into account that NPCs are usually very dull. They walk in set patterns or sometimes a little randomly, and they are boring. Fitting in with them will be very dull if there wasn't a real mission and something on the line. If this is all I was doing I would be bored.

For me, the best part of Hitman was doing something cool once I had infiltrated an area -- like going round and quietly killing lots of people. The actual initial infiltration, however, was dull as it took so long to achieve something you already knew how to do. (i.e. once you worked out the guard patterns it was just a matter of doing it on time so as not to get caught, and this got frustrating if it took a lot of waiting and standing around).

Depends a bit on the type of game you're aiming at here, but it strangely reminded me of a Jurassic Park RTS-like game where there was high grass, where you (or an occasional raptor) could hide in. You could see NPC crowds as a sort of 'terrain', moving and organic, where you could step into and suddenly vanish for the enemies eyes... sort of a tactical ground type. Of course, running at high speed does leave a trail (screaming people and such), so it would be limiting somewhat, but other than that, due to the density of people, you're just invisible.
Would work best in a cartoony RTS game I think, though. Quite different from what you probably meant, but I figured it could be worth mentioning anyway. :)