Let's say Hope has been chosen as the host city for the next GTA-style open-world crime drama, or whatever. Naturally there would be some sort of force continuum regarding the law enforcement responses to the player character's inflicted carnage and chaos.
Where would SHIELD and its operatives fall on this scale? Would it be just the PC against everyone like GTA, or would it be more likely to send out individual members when all other means of response have failed, similar to Saints' Row IV and its Wardens? Or am I going at it all wrong and there's some better way of representing law in video-game-ified Hope?
To Anyone
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IamLEAM1983
- Site Admin
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- Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2013 4:54 am
- Location: Quebec, Canada
As Kulich
"I'm not much of a gamer, my human nephew's the one who's fascinated with retro-gaming, what with Skyrim and whatnot - but my understanding is that these open-world games are designed to give the player some leeway. In essence, law enforcement seems to be just dumb enough in your average crime sandbox, to the point where there's at least some form of response to expect, but plenty of time to go hog-wild in, before that happens. There's a kind of metering system at play, something that makes your rising mayhem reach a certain threshold, and that's where the game's code sends in the fuzz.
The Criminal code is a lot less generous in any real-world city. If someone sees you hot-wire a car, chances are you'll be reported within the next few minutes. Plant an IED in the middle of the street and detonate it as a set of cars passes, and you can be sure every squad car within the perimeter will converge on the blast's location within seconds. In games, wholesale curbside slaughters can vary between spawning a few foot units to maybe one or two cars. The scale seems to be pushed up, and I can understand why. Getting busted in virtual playgrounds is never fun. It's also the same reason why tankbusting protagonists are a dime a dozen in superhero sandboxes, and why real-world tankbusters aren't all that prolific. Games allow for all sorts of rule breaks, but reality has a point where no amount of via-based mutation will allow you to endure additional damage without any measurable consequences.
I tend to pass cases on to Holden Hall on a preferrential basis. I know who works with Archie, I know what the team's individual members can do, and I know where their strengths lie. If anything in their profile seems to fit what I've got sitting on my desk, Archie gets a peek. In my line of work, you get to quickly find out when to call on Forensics and when to ask for a via screening or a pass for wards, in a sense. They're all capable as first-response units and could be dropped as some sort of quote-unquote elite characters for the protagonist to face, but their varied makeup makes it more adequate for me to tap Shield as technicians doubling with a bit of everything else.
As that's what Archie's ended up with after a few weeks, honestly: Crime Scene Investigations specialists paid to keep a finger on the trigger, their eyes open and their wits sharpened. Making them out to be bosses would cheapen their skills; unless you intricately weaved your story around Shield and made their progressive investigation of the protagonist a focal point of the game's narrative design. They'd eventually graduate to antagonistic elements to face one by one, I'd assume, and always after the player is given a chance to understand that for most, if not all of them, their powers or other abilities aren't what's made them out to be an efficient opposing force.
Their teamwork is, as well as the kind of respect that's expected of them. You don't stop rampaging sandbox protagonists by tossing armed mooks at them - at least not if you apply conventional logic to the game's limited systems. You stop them by understanding them, and by dismantling whatever's keeping them on track. It could be a power source, something as simple as weak points the player has to guard during combat sequences - or it could be a motivation in the game's narrative, a driving force in the player character that could be diverted - maybe even turned around and made to serve the greater good.
After all, if BioShock made you serve a central antagonist unwillingly, who's to say a game's twists and turns couldn't have you finding decent reasons to side with your former enemies?"
The Criminal code is a lot less generous in any real-world city. If someone sees you hot-wire a car, chances are you'll be reported within the next few minutes. Plant an IED in the middle of the street and detonate it as a set of cars passes, and you can be sure every squad car within the perimeter will converge on the blast's location within seconds. In games, wholesale curbside slaughters can vary between spawning a few foot units to maybe one or two cars. The scale seems to be pushed up, and I can understand why. Getting busted in virtual playgrounds is never fun. It's also the same reason why tankbusting protagonists are a dime a dozen in superhero sandboxes, and why real-world tankbusters aren't all that prolific. Games allow for all sorts of rule breaks, but reality has a point where no amount of via-based mutation will allow you to endure additional damage without any measurable consequences.
I tend to pass cases on to Holden Hall on a preferrential basis. I know who works with Archie, I know what the team's individual members can do, and I know where their strengths lie. If anything in their profile seems to fit what I've got sitting on my desk, Archie gets a peek. In my line of work, you get to quickly find out when to call on Forensics and when to ask for a via screening or a pass for wards, in a sense. They're all capable as first-response units and could be dropped as some sort of quote-unquote elite characters for the protagonist to face, but their varied makeup makes it more adequate for me to tap Shield as technicians doubling with a bit of everything else.
As that's what Archie's ended up with after a few weeks, honestly: Crime Scene Investigations specialists paid to keep a finger on the trigger, their eyes open and their wits sharpened. Making them out to be bosses would cheapen their skills; unless you intricately weaved your story around Shield and made their progressive investigation of the protagonist a focal point of the game's narrative design. They'd eventually graduate to antagonistic elements to face one by one, I'd assume, and always after the player is given a chance to understand that for most, if not all of them, their powers or other abilities aren't what's made them out to be an efficient opposing force.
Their teamwork is, as well as the kind of respect that's expected of them. You don't stop rampaging sandbox protagonists by tossing armed mooks at them - at least not if you apply conventional logic to the game's limited systems. You stop them by understanding them, and by dismantling whatever's keeping them on track. It could be a power source, something as simple as weak points the player has to guard during combat sequences - or it could be a motivation in the game's narrative, a driving force in the player character that could be diverted - maybe even turned around and made to serve the greater good.
After all, if BioShock made you serve a central antagonist unwillingly, who's to say a game's twists and turns couldn't have you finding decent reasons to side with your former enemies?"
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Karl the Mad
- Posts: 1260
- Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2013 4:27 am
- Location: Oregon
Re: To Anyone
Let's turn it around, then, and address the criminal side of things. This is more directed toward the criminals and kingpins of Hope, naturally.
Anyway, in many open-world games you face off against more than cops; other gangs and organized criminal groups also serve as antagonists, and in some instances you can get them onto your side after, like with Viola DeWynter at a certain point in Saints Row: The Third. Any hypothetical game thus set in Hope would also feature its gangs and criminal culture to some extent, and like with the police, a heat meter would indicate how badly they want you dead when you start to piss them off. How would Hope's gangs fit into this system, and would the Commission bosses make an appearance at some point? We can assume all are aware and accepting of the parodying nature and the necessary stereotypes and caricaturing that comes with games like the Saints' Row franchise, just to make getting an answer easier.
Anyway, in many open-world games you face off against more than cops; other gangs and organized criminal groups also serve as antagonists, and in some instances you can get them onto your side after, like with Viola DeWynter at a certain point in Saints Row: The Third. Any hypothetical game thus set in Hope would also feature its gangs and criminal culture to some extent, and like with the police, a heat meter would indicate how badly they want you dead when you start to piss them off. How would Hope's gangs fit into this system, and would the Commission bosses make an appearance at some point? We can assume all are aware and accepting of the parodying nature and the necessary stereotypes and caricaturing that comes with games like the Saints' Row franchise, just to make getting an answer easier.
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IamLEAM1983
- Site Admin
- Posts: 3710
- Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2013 4:54 am
- Location: Quebec, Canada
As Weasel
"Eh, I ain't much of a gamer; but yeah, you're right. Sayin' the Saints are, uh, a glorified representation of the Urban Gangster culture is puttin' it pretty fuckin' lightly. Seein' as how I'm never Sicilian enough for my Sicilian cousins, I have a particular loathin' o' those same stereotypes. Y'know, the whole Cosa Nostra deal, the back-stabbings, the politicking...
Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky had it covered. Treat crime as a business - and strictly as a business - and bad blood goes down the proverbial drain.
Goin' back to the Saints, Philippe Laurent an' the Syndicate were kinda like the Commission, 'cept they're all flashy idiots. Plug a guy like Killbane in my roster and you can be pretty fuckin' sure I'll Eddie Pryor-him out of the conference room. Sarvin works 'cus he keeps a low profile. I work 'cus I know how to work a crowd and fill a stomach. Shen Long works 'cus crime's just the enablin' factor to a shitload o' good will. We don't all have special lieutenants and not all o' Shen's boys carry katanas or know Kung Fu. Any asshole with powers wants to play Supervillain around my fellas or anyone else's in town, he's gonna have words. I can't control outside sorts, but we've all had some o' those before - triggermen or community members who go through a massive via burp an' somehow figure they're fuckin' gods amongst men.
My way's simple. Gods still gotta eat. Gods still need money. Cut those two off, and your wannabe troublemaker tends to quiet down or turn to independent crime. In which case it ain't my business no more, it's in Shield's lap or the HPD's. That would cover your Crime Sandbox meets InFAMOUS scenario. No need for fuckin' RPGs or bombs and shit; kids who come into a ton of power real quickly tend to do a lot o' stupid shit. Then they get caught, or real fuckin' dead - all thanks to our ever-vigilant constabulary.
Even Jimmy knows that if stern talks don't work, you're best leavin' the spitfire to crash and burn. It's either that, or he makes it personal, goes through a shitload o' trouble to set up a predetermined kill zone, parks his ass in the right spot at the right time and waits to plug the fucker with an extra bullet-shaped eye-hole.
The bottom line is your hypothetical player-controlled supe would have to be either hella powerful, or just plain smart. Option A's not likely as Inspector Kulich just told ya, and Option B's hard to come by. You'll always hear the occasional sedate origin story from a metahuman who maybe kinda flirted with crime for a while, but bein' successful means you time your shots and plan your moves. No supe would just go Akira and tear a bank vault outta the fuckin' buildin' with his damn mind, because that's asking for an immediate response. If you survive that, it's asking for a nation-wide search and maybe a coupla warrants with INTERPOL.
The sad truth is kids who sprout powers tend to think they can pull off Grand Theft Auto-style insanity in impunity - then it all blows up in their faces thanks to one little mundane detail they overlooked. Kill anyone and you're branded a murderer for life, even if you escape. Steal anything and you'd best stay the Hell gone. On this little planet of ours, that means ideally staying the Hell gone from Earth itself, kid. If you're powerful, the authorities want to know you can keep yourself in check, or that they can keep you in check, if that fails. Fail on both counts and you're ripe for an Exo-Squad, at which point your life is pretty much fuckin' forfeit.
See, the one supe I know who'd kinda like the whole Go nuts and salt the earth approach is in lockdown in Chimera Row. I ain't talkin' 'bout Rendell, the guy's got goals in mind. He's got methods. He'd look to something like your average Crime Sandbox and wonder what's the point of those long bits where you're free to do whatever and kill whoever. No, the whole Jolly Mayhem schtick is more Doctor Cerebro's angle. What starts with a grand plan usually ends with killer robots or death rays or shit like that. Nothing that's terribly well directed.
In real life, finishin' a set goal and going on a sidewalk stomp with your stolen Italian luxury speed devil doesn't end with your ass walkin' out of a clinic with a couple thou deducted from your balance - it ends with your ass gettin' either pacified or killed.
The short of it is I kinda ran your question by one of my employees' kids, a smart gamer tyke who sometimes runs around the conference room's floor like a fuckin' little Pepsi-overdosed maniac, heh. Y'know, those Bring Your Kind to Work days. I kinda like those. Builds good team morale.
Well, he said you'd kinda have to merge Dark Souls with Grand Theft Auto. He's mentioned pretty vicious AI, bottom-tier enemies that hit pretty fuckin' hard and somethin' called permadeath. That would give a sense of what it'd be like to try and start some shit in this town, what with the cops and the Commission's people.
Basically a sandbox for anyone who's got balls o' chromed steel or who's skilled enough to back up the whole I'm hardcore, check me out schtick."
Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky had it covered. Treat crime as a business - and strictly as a business - and bad blood goes down the proverbial drain.
Goin' back to the Saints, Philippe Laurent an' the Syndicate were kinda like the Commission, 'cept they're all flashy idiots. Plug a guy like Killbane in my roster and you can be pretty fuckin' sure I'll Eddie Pryor-him out of the conference room. Sarvin works 'cus he keeps a low profile. I work 'cus I know how to work a crowd and fill a stomach. Shen Long works 'cus crime's just the enablin' factor to a shitload o' good will. We don't all have special lieutenants and not all o' Shen's boys carry katanas or know Kung Fu. Any asshole with powers wants to play Supervillain around my fellas or anyone else's in town, he's gonna have words. I can't control outside sorts, but we've all had some o' those before - triggermen or community members who go through a massive via burp an' somehow figure they're fuckin' gods amongst men.
My way's simple. Gods still gotta eat. Gods still need money. Cut those two off, and your wannabe troublemaker tends to quiet down or turn to independent crime. In which case it ain't my business no more, it's in Shield's lap or the HPD's. That would cover your Crime Sandbox meets InFAMOUS scenario. No need for fuckin' RPGs or bombs and shit; kids who come into a ton of power real quickly tend to do a lot o' stupid shit. Then they get caught, or real fuckin' dead - all thanks to our ever-vigilant constabulary.
Even Jimmy knows that if stern talks don't work, you're best leavin' the spitfire to crash and burn. It's either that, or he makes it personal, goes through a shitload o' trouble to set up a predetermined kill zone, parks his ass in the right spot at the right time and waits to plug the fucker with an extra bullet-shaped eye-hole.
The bottom line is your hypothetical player-controlled supe would have to be either hella powerful, or just plain smart. Option A's not likely as Inspector Kulich just told ya, and Option B's hard to come by. You'll always hear the occasional sedate origin story from a metahuman who maybe kinda flirted with crime for a while, but bein' successful means you time your shots and plan your moves. No supe would just go Akira and tear a bank vault outta the fuckin' buildin' with his damn mind, because that's asking for an immediate response. If you survive that, it's asking for a nation-wide search and maybe a coupla warrants with INTERPOL.
The sad truth is kids who sprout powers tend to think they can pull off Grand Theft Auto-style insanity in impunity - then it all blows up in their faces thanks to one little mundane detail they overlooked. Kill anyone and you're branded a murderer for life, even if you escape. Steal anything and you'd best stay the Hell gone. On this little planet of ours, that means ideally staying the Hell gone from Earth itself, kid. If you're powerful, the authorities want to know you can keep yourself in check, or that they can keep you in check, if that fails. Fail on both counts and you're ripe for an Exo-Squad, at which point your life is pretty much fuckin' forfeit.
See, the one supe I know who'd kinda like the whole Go nuts and salt the earth approach is in lockdown in Chimera Row. I ain't talkin' 'bout Rendell, the guy's got goals in mind. He's got methods. He'd look to something like your average Crime Sandbox and wonder what's the point of those long bits where you're free to do whatever and kill whoever. No, the whole Jolly Mayhem schtick is more Doctor Cerebro's angle. What starts with a grand plan usually ends with killer robots or death rays or shit like that. Nothing that's terribly well directed.
In real life, finishin' a set goal and going on a sidewalk stomp with your stolen Italian luxury speed devil doesn't end with your ass walkin' out of a clinic with a couple thou deducted from your balance - it ends with your ass gettin' either pacified or killed.
The short of it is I kinda ran your question by one of my employees' kids, a smart gamer tyke who sometimes runs around the conference room's floor like a fuckin' little Pepsi-overdosed maniac, heh. Y'know, those Bring Your Kind to Work days. I kinda like those. Builds good team morale.
Well, he said you'd kinda have to merge Dark Souls with Grand Theft Auto. He's mentioned pretty vicious AI, bottom-tier enemies that hit pretty fuckin' hard and somethin' called permadeath. That would give a sense of what it'd be like to try and start some shit in this town, what with the cops and the Commission's people.
Basically a sandbox for anyone who's got balls o' chromed steel or who's skilled enough to back up the whole I'm hardcore, check me out schtick."
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Karl the Mad
- Posts: 1260
- Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2013 4:27 am
- Location: Oregon
Re: To Anyone
I guess Hope would make a poor host for an open-world crime game in the style of Saints' Row or Grand Theft Auto. ^^
So maybe a different genre would fit better. Point-and-click mystery procedural? We'd call it Katherine Starr: Ace Attorney.
So maybe a different genre would fit better. Point-and-click mystery procedural? We'd call it Katherine Starr: Ace Attorney.
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IamLEAM1983
- Site Admin
- Posts: 3710
- Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2013 4:54 am
- Location: Quebec, Canada
As Thomas Ephesian
"That might be a better fit, except for the part where Ace, Edgeworth et al get to free-range around evidence or crime scenes... More often than not, the way things go is I have to submit an access request with the HPD. Even then, all I get are snapshots or copies of official reports. I'm the guy who has to take whatever it is the cops have classified as solved and either confirm their suspicions or find a way to shed a different light on the implicated events.
Mind you, I don't think any nice and convenient handheld game would sell if you had to spend weeks and weeks poring through cold or related cases, digging your own grave out of cardboard boxes and musty folders, putting up with stale evidence room coffee and the weekly recriminations that you don't spend time enough with the family. When things do click, though, and I realize I've moved on from sorting stuff out to writing an actual summation's outline - that's when the thrill hits me, personally. When you've got clear and present evidence that you've grasped at something that's more than straws and that you're well-equipped to sell what it is you've understood that the cops might not have, that's when the whole thing sort of turns into a game, for me.
When you're out in the court and it's your words against the prosecutor's and you know you have a rock-solid defense; trust me on this, but you'll actually want to hear what the other part has to say. You'll want to hang onto every word and get your mind racing in that corner where you stashed that defense, to check if you've actually got what you need to punch holes through those affirmations.
Cody tells me justice should be its own reward and yes, he's absolutely right. Just don't tell me there isn't a gamer out there that hasn't gloated internally, after nailing a tough level, right? The post-victory bar line-up is always something special, and so is the first family meal that follows in the wake of you having put things right. Maybe I'm still too young to see it, but I can't quite nail it - when I do - and not feel a surge of pride.
All Tanner gets is this glimmer of hope in his eyes, that little smirk that means tons more than what's shown, and he just heads back to the office. That's all he needs.
I'm guessing victory cheers and personal celebrations lose their charm after a couple hundred years. He'd make a poor gamer, then. No endgame cinematic blow-outs, no self-indulgent mechanics, no Achievement or Trophy pop-ups, no victory fanfares... Just the sense that he's pulled it off and that it's another day in the wild and woolly world of a defense attorney.
I don't know how he does it, honestly."
Mind you, I don't think any nice and convenient handheld game would sell if you had to spend weeks and weeks poring through cold or related cases, digging your own grave out of cardboard boxes and musty folders, putting up with stale evidence room coffee and the weekly recriminations that you don't spend time enough with the family. When things do click, though, and I realize I've moved on from sorting stuff out to writing an actual summation's outline - that's when the thrill hits me, personally. When you've got clear and present evidence that you've grasped at something that's more than straws and that you're well-equipped to sell what it is you've understood that the cops might not have, that's when the whole thing sort of turns into a game, for me.
When you're out in the court and it's your words against the prosecutor's and you know you have a rock-solid defense; trust me on this, but you'll actually want to hear what the other part has to say. You'll want to hang onto every word and get your mind racing in that corner where you stashed that defense, to check if you've actually got what you need to punch holes through those affirmations.
Cody tells me justice should be its own reward and yes, he's absolutely right. Just don't tell me there isn't a gamer out there that hasn't gloated internally, after nailing a tough level, right? The post-victory bar line-up is always something special, and so is the first family meal that follows in the wake of you having put things right. Maybe I'm still too young to see it, but I can't quite nail it - when I do - and not feel a surge of pride.
All Tanner gets is this glimmer of hope in his eyes, that little smirk that means tons more than what's shown, and he just heads back to the office. That's all he needs.
I'm guessing victory cheers and personal celebrations lose their charm after a couple hundred years. He'd make a poor gamer, then. No endgame cinematic blow-outs, no self-indulgent mechanics, no Achievement or Trophy pop-ups, no victory fanfares... Just the sense that he's pulled it off and that it's another day in the wild and woolly world of a defense attorney.
I don't know how he does it, honestly."