I saw the movie "Enemy at the Gates" a few months back (excellent movie by the way) and it planted the seed for a game idea that I think I would enjoy, but I wanted to bounce it off the community. A First Person Shooter, either Team Based or Free For All, that involves sniping and only sniping. It would probably work best as a Mod for say UT or something of that nature. Time Limit or Kill Limit, respawn immediately after death. All in all, just like a UT game only a very realistic sniping situation created. When I say realistic, I don''t mean in levels. There would be no reason not to have WWII levels mixed in with Sci-Fi or ancient Rome style levels. By realistic I mean in physics and accuracy. I believe the biggest hurdles in a game of this nature would be two-fold. First, level design. I think that levels would have to be VERY carefully created. They would have to be made such that the developer/designer knew exactly where the "sniper spots" were on each individual level. Each Sniper spot could be sniped at from at LEAST one other sniper spot. And that a careful player could move from spot to spot by crawling behind low blockades, running through open areas, or being camoflaged in bushes, etc... and be relatively safe from fire. Secondly, weapon diversity would be important to maintain. Different rifles would have to have different pros and cons, and different power ups would have to allow different things to change your playing style. I think it would be important, to keep the game moving and to keep people from squatting in one spot and never going anywhere, to have some way of imparting knowledge of the other player''s positions to a player occasionally. Maybe every 45 seconds a mini-map shows up for a few seconds highlighting the other''s players positions and movements on the map. Something that would allow a player to say "Oh, I can get FragKing729 if I run to that spot over there" or "Shiznit, SmellySniper85 is going to be able to shoot me once he cross that bridge and gets into that spot. I''d better move quick to this other spot so that I can nail him once he get''s there." Anyways, I thought it''d be cool, and this seems to be the forum for letting one''s cool ideas roam free so... What do you guys think? --Ben

That is a really cool idea!

However, I wouldn''t try to force the game to move on. The sort of players who are into this kind of game are going to want to set their own pace.

Plus, if I spent minutes carefully working into position, and then the damn minimap came up and told everyone where I was, what would be the point? I might as well rush them like a frag match. Players should only know where a sniper is if they see them moving.

I would suggest using standard soldiers in the game as well. The sniper would have to worry about being discovered by the soldiers while trying to get into position. The player would have to balance whether to try to wipe out the squad from cover, or just hope they don''t see him. Once the sniper starts firing, most soldiers are going to try to locate and surround him.

My suggestion would be to design the levels in such a way that there were good sniper spots, some more obvious than others, but not in such a way that each sniper spot was exposed to another one. Of course, in order to avoid people from taking all the best sniper spots and camping there, you could give them an incentive to move, like roaming patrols or bomber flybys, just like in the movie.

Of course, sitting in one place for hours and hours and waiting for the split-second, perfect moment to snipe someone is what sniping is all about. Might not make for a really fun game if you made it too realistic I guess. In the same way, hunting is 99% waiting and 1% adrenaline-soaked activity.

Just some thoughts...

R.

Hope I get this across right.

I really like the idea of the popup-map thingy.
But as the Anon.Poster said it makes a mockery of your cunning stealth if a map flashes up to alert everyone of your position.
What would be cool is to have a recon object pass through the level (eg. recon tank on the road, recon plane in the air..) and then relay it''s findings to the players via a data burst about 10 seconds after it''s been through. And even then ONLY if it could see you!

So you''ve spent a good many minutes finding the perfect vantage point. You hear the distant sound of aircraft engines. You makes sure that you have a cover over your head and sit and wait for the plane to fly over. When the data burst comes through you''re in the clear cos there''s no way it could have seen you!

Similarly, a tank rolls by. You need watch out for this one cos it''s got good peripheral vision via it''s sweeping radar.

Ultimately of course you put the player in a situation with radars mounted on to tower tops. No place to hide!

This is a great game idea. Congratulations.

I think that's a cool idea.

I don't really like the mini-map part of it though - you spend ages making this realistic sniping game, and the player is thinking "wow - this game is so realistic" - and then a minimap pops up, and everyone knows where you are.

As you said, the levels would have to be very well designed, but I don't think there should be such a destinction between "sniping spots", and "everywhere else". In a real situation, there are a few really good sniping spots, but they can't anlways see each other, and the suitability of a place is very variable. Obviously the levels have to be altered from "real life" to make it fun - but the designer has to make sure he/she doesn't go overboard with the idea of perfect positions.

John B

[edited by - JohnBSmall on April 4, 2002 4:33:00 PM]

quote: Original post by Tacit
Might not make for a really fun game if you made it too realistic I guess. In the same way, hunting is 99% waiting and 1% adrenaline-soaked activity.

Exactly what I would want to avoid.

You''re right in that the audience for this style of gameplay (slow, methodical, strategic) might be small, the trick would be to braoden it''s appeal and combat that effect.


I''m hoping that the ability to see occasionaly where other players are located and where they are moving takes away that whole "99% sit and wait" element. When you see what the opposing players (or opposing team) is doing, you''d want to adjust your positions or your movements to accomodate. It makes it like a chess match of sorts. Everyone trying to determine everyone else''s goals through just a few seconds of knowledge. Then, when you get it right, and all of the sudden you''ve got a clear shot at the back of someone''s head, you zoom in, take aim, and squeeze the trigger. Now we''ve got 80% moving, strategizing, and guesswork at your opponents goals, and 20% "holy Shiznit there his, I better fire quick before he moves!" adreneline-soaked activity.


It still would have a pretty particular audience, but the idea is to appeal to as many as possible. Include all of the cool stuff about sniping without the bad. Think of how boring Enemy would be if they spent thirty minutes showing Jude Law sitting and waiting, picking his nose, farting, whiddling his thumbs, etc..

On that note, who wants to help me make it?

--Ben

quote: Original post by Tacit
Might not make for a really fun game if you made it too realistic I guess. In the same way, hunting is 99% waiting and 1% adrenaline-soaked activity.

Exactly what I would want to avoid.

You''re right in that the audience for this style of gameplay (slow, methodical, strategic) might be small, the trick would be to braoden it''s appeal and combat that effect.


I''m hoping that the ability to see occasionaly where other players are located and where they are moving takes away that whole "99% sit and wait" element. When you see what the opposing players (or opposing team) is doing, you''d want to adjust your positions or your movements to accomodate. It makes it like a chess match of sorts. Everyone trying to determine everyone else''s goals through just a few seconds of knowledge. Then, when you get it right, and all of the sudden you''ve got a clear shot at the back of someone''s head, you zoom in, take aim, and squeeze the trigger. Now we''ve got 80% moving, strategizing, and guesswork at your opponents goals, and 20% "holy Shiznit there his, I better fire quick before he moves!" adreneline-soaked activity.


It still would have a pretty particular audience, but the idea is to appeal to as many as possible. Include all of the cool stuff about sniping without the bad. Think of how boring Enemy would be if they spent thirty minutes showing Jude Law sitting and waiting, picking his nose, farting, whiddling his thumbs, etc..

On that note, who wants to help me make it?

--Ben

I have thought about this idea before too. I think it could be fun but would be difficult to do it well.

The biggest problem with a game like this is camping. Camping is always kind of annoying in FPS games, and this game would be *built* around it. The mini-map thing is a pretty good idea, actually it is kind of like the recon character in Global Operations.

I think that the game would be better as an objective-based game rather than "sniper deathmatch". For one thing, snipers hunting other snipers without any other goal doesn''t make much sense... snipers are should be used to assassinate VIPs, harass enemy troops, that sort of thing. Of course, you can have counter-snipers but I think having objectives would really add a lot to the game. Also, objectives give flow to the levels, and give the players a reason to move around, which helps to minimize the camping... ar at least to make it more tactical and less cheap.

Another idea is to have the game be "snipers vs. something else" rather than "snipers vs. snipers". If you have played Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, there is a single-player map in that game where you need to lead a tank crew through a bombed out city full of enemy snipers. I can see that sort of thing being translated well to multiplayer. A cool counter-ability for infantry would be the ability to call in artillery support on areas where they think snipers might be. That would make the snipers get their shot off and move before they get shelled. It would be hard to balance the 2 sides against each other but I think it could be fun.

Another thought... this game could work well with extremely expansive maps. The Torque engine might be well-suited to this concept.

http://www.garagegames.com/

I would really like to play a game like this! I don''t see it being easy to impement well but I would love to see someone try.

Maybe you could have AI soldiers running around the map that suicidally charge forcing a player to fire and give away his position if a soldier is charging at him.

I play this, I think.

I think it would be a good idea to add a lot of different items besides just your gun to add the the strategy.

Things like decoys, NVGs, infa-red, different scopes, different guns, bigger clips, smoke grenades, silencers, silent boots, exploding bullets, hollow point bullets, armour piercing bullets, remote cameras, remotely detonated bombs and proximity bombs, just to throw out a few ideas.

I think you should make it mostly about strategy, so including lots of little details would be good. Such as, seeing peoples breathe in cold maps, bodies and blood remain for a long time, so you can see where they were recently killed,(as mentioned above)not nessisarily large, but intracate maps, with many hiding spots, and it would be nice to be able to move small objects around to provide cover.

I think the key to make this exciting, and not 99% waiting, is to have a lot of things you can be doing to prevent yourself from being seen, and finding other players. Instead of sitting around you could be sneaking around and setting motion sensors. Or you could be scanning with you IR goggles for recent activity. I agree that a super-realistic setting wouldnt be a good idea.

Just some thoughts. Good luck.

PHRICTION