Gaffers, I have thinking about how we can take
cues from Burnout Paradise and Journey as well as Demon's Souls and Dark Souls. Each of the two share a common theme. Let me show you:
Burnout Paradise & Journey: Seamless online integration and transition.
Demon's Souls and Dark Souls: Invasions.
A buzzword:
Coincidental timing
This idea can also be implemented into other games. For this to work, being connected online is a prerequisite.
Idea:
As aforementioned, assume you have a SP campaign where you get to play both the Vektan and Helgan side. Or it can be two equally deep separate campaigns. In any event,
retreading some of the same location has to exist. Now, imagine you are progressing through the story and as is par for the course facing a multitude (as always) of enemies with your AI team-mates. Here is the fun
twist- One of those adversaries is a
real player who is in his/her part of the
campaign where he/she is playing as the other side retreading the same ground. If the player of one side
dies, the mission restarts for him/her (as usual) now with either a new human player as one of the opposing forces member
if available or just another AI driven drone. For the player who
wins the fire-fight, he/she simply proceeds onward with the campaign.
The storyline would have to share the same
timeline from both sides (once again, think
Snatch) and multiple points of
intersection woven into the fabric of the campaign. I also mentioned earlier that the story should be a touch more
personalized and that it could be achieved via providing dialogue options like ME/Alpha Protocol. This way
non linearity can be attained even in terms of
locations chosen for fire fights from time to time. This means
differing points of intersections and grounds for retreading.
Rationale:
- Current AI in games is no substitute for human player. Introducing a human element in the opposing team without foreknowledge introduces an element of surprise and enriches the experience.
- Given limited non-linearity in choosing locations (eg: Player chooses to battle on Front A, over B or C), it weaves an element of replayability in the campaign itself without resorting to "item collection"
- Given no one has done it in a FPS before, it would be a tremendous way to move the series forward, not unlike the games mentioned at the beginning of the post. It will be a generational shift that is beyond graphics.
Caveats:
- Given this system relies on "coincidental timing" the net code would have to be sublime to filter things through continual monitoring for the following and etc:
- Player skill balance. This is a variable that is dependent upon the choice of the difficulty of SP campaign.
- Load times would have to be "tweaked" in clever fashion enforce the "coincidental timing" for potential match ups.
- Map design and triggers to move to next sections have to be designed with this in mind.
- Given the complexity of numerous variables, this seamless transition/invasion would be limited to a few maps.
In effect, this is a combination of single player and playing multiplayer with one player and multiple bots at the same time.