Looking for suggestions: A for Assassin

I got a map concept for a multiplayer tactical action game called A for Assassin. The point of the game is to start alone, gather followers, make appointments with the other players (appointments like money transactions, deals, and stuff like that), and eliminate other players by killing their leader (the person you start off with at first). You can dress your leader and followers with casual clothing, put them in a suit or something else to keep cover among the crowd walking around. During a meeting with another player you can choose to go yourself (your leader), or send someone to represent or act like he is your leader to keep your leader safe. Followers can be ordered to walk around with a weapon or you can set them up in a room in a building to keep an eye out from long distance. You can order your followers to walk around with a pistol, full-automatic gun or sniper rifle (Pistols are well hidden, full-automatic guns are strong but easily spotted, and sniper rifles are for units in buildings).

Entering a building:
I'd like some suggestions on how to order a follower to enter a building. My 2 idea's are Dialogs and typed messages.
For the dialog, you select a follower, click his Enter Building ability, select a building and you'll get a dialog screen. First screen is which side of the building to watch out from (north, east, south or west, depending on what area you want to keep an eye on). The second screen is which floor (a higher floor gives less chance to be spotted, but less accuracy too).
For the typed message idea, I was thinking about letting the players type the commands. If a player types '-Order Follower 1 to enter Office 3, North side, Floor 7' then it does as told. This could be annoying, but the followers don't show on the map.

Meetings:
Also I'd like some suggestions on how to arrange those meetings. My first thought was typing them. As in '-Ask Red for meeting at Public parc 1 at 18'. This will send a text message for Player 1 (Red) only that the player typing that message requests a meeting with him at Public parc 1 at 18.00. Player 1 can reply by typing '-Accept meeting Blue' (if the player who requested the meeting was Player 2 (Blue)), and Player 2 will get a text message for him only that Player 1 accepted.
Maybe somebody has any idea's on how to do this easier.

Leaving a building:
After a few posts, I realised that I could also use suggestions for how to command units to leave a building. You can command units to enter a building. Since I can't make the a building a transport (because then only units fro 1 player can enter, and other players know someone is in there, etc.), I just make the unit in a building removed upon entering, saving it's information and when it's going out it'll have the information loaded again. The problem is: If the unit is removed from the game and only has statistics of it, how do you people suggest how I should allow players to command a unit to leave the building? Keep in mind that they should order a specific unit in a specific building. Chat strings are possible, but then there needs to be a way to inform them of which units (probably with a number) are in which buildings.
Any idea's are welcome. If you have questions, please post them here too, so everyone can have a better idea of the concept.

For the first one, I'll think about it.
As for the second one, I have one suggestion. You have a messenger at the beginning and you can use the messenger to move around and look for followers or the "mastermind" of the player. Then the messeger has a skill, maybe something like "Request". Then a dialog pops up for the guy who received the request, then if the guy accepts, the person who requested the meeting can then type stuff to tell the other guy. Lets say "Meeting Point X, Time X" and the message will show up as a game message to the person who accepted the meeting, style is something like "Meeting Requester: Message". If an another player has a messenger nearby, there is a chance the messenger will get the message as well.
The messenger will probably be hard to see with an active/passive invisibility or something.

I'll probably keep the eavesdropping out of the picture for now. The messenger idea is good, but the problem is: you don't know who are regular crowd and who are player controlled, so you can't tell who are owned by who.
Anyway, thanks for checking my concept and sharing your idea's

Mmh... the sniper idea isn't bad but it should be very hard to make. Unluckily Warcraft 3 units' attacks can pass through walls, units or doodads, so the "facing" system would be quite impossible unless you use a trigger that makes the sniper fire to units in the specified region (example: a reegion for the north, another for south and so on) but that will require 4 region for every building in your map .

However, I was thinking about a pair of things: first of all, will this game have a modern ages setting or a little more futuristic one? Because you may add cybernetic implants for your followers (I think "agents" would fit better ) like improved legs (speed), arms (accuracy - inventory size), torso (armor - life - maybe even an autodestruction ).
Also I was thinking about the police... if I understood well, your game will be set in a city... so police is a must! But here's a little explanation:

"Policemens have an unrewarding duty. Having the obstacle of the necessity of showing themselves for commanding a minimal respect for the law, they can't shoot on your agents before the weapons have been taken out and the roads already wet with the blood of the innocents (and not only innocents). Even if well trained, well armed and well protected with armors and helmets, this helps your agents to evade the policement looking for their objective. Also, when you hear the warning "Police!" you should put away your weapons! It's a good idea the put them away - unless the enemy agents have already opened fire."
- Adapted from the manual of the videogame Syndacate, 1993 -

And, here's another idea: why not making different parts of the city to control for getting money? This will also allow you to buy new weapons, equipment and so...
That's it, I hope you'll find some good inspiration from what I wrote here .

P.S.: some of the ideas I wrote here are inspired by the videogame Syndacate too .

You don't see the unit when he enters a building. All you got is statistics from that moment, all based on If/Then/Else triggers to give statistics to the game, so everying is happening, but the unit is hidden. So no problems with that

The map is in modern age. Maybe in a later update, I'll add unit upgrades. For now all you can add to your units is disguises, since the last thing you want is public attention.

I've also been thinking about police, but I got to complete the idea of how to do that first. It's going to be tough to get those done well, and I first have to know what the game exactly is going to be like, so I know when to activate police.
I just don't really understand that phrase. xD

I haven't posted it yet, but I already had the idea of allowing you to send followers to stores, banks, etc. to get yourself nessecary stuff (like money, disguises, maybe even food & drinks, and stuff like that to keep your men loyal to you and don't starve to death)

Thanks for sharing your idea's, and I'll check which I can enter in the game

The phrase? You mean the policeman's duty? It basically says that policemens are indeed tough but they can't shoot at you until you start firing (unlike what the enemy agents can do) XD.

And, about the sniper, unless you mean that there is no unit that fires a projectile but, instead, there's a trigger that kill the designated unit if it is in sight/if ordered, hidden or not your unit will be able to shoot to enemies that are on the other side of the bulding where he is... :O

yes I meant that phrase, but I get it now, thank you

And about the sniper: I remove the unit from the map. It'll be completely statistics, so bugs won't happen there. However now you mention it, I also need a suggestion for 'storing' the unit (I believe I can simply do that with Game Cache's), and I need a suggestion for how to command a specific unit to leave a building.

I think that ''A for Assassin" couldn't be a better idea to start of. But he should be a lone assassin:
One day he was sent to prison by an unfair reason and something happens on the prison unknown that everybody is dead and hes blamed on it, and he carries this name with him, and he is chased everywhere he goes, has a lot of partners for short time, like a big journey fleeing from the guards...and he wears this identity of assassin and becomes one, not always with a good reason to do so...
this idea not too intersting by the looks, but could get really good.

It's a mulitplayer game, so a story isn't much of a must. Barely any game that's meant for players to fight eachother have a story. But if it seems to be needing an input, I'll check out the story and see what I can fit in

Thanks for your suggestion!

I have a thought, what will death be like in this game?Will it be world of warcraft death?runescape death?Or hardcore mode diablo 2 death?I think death should be permenant or with severe penalties so players will be a little hesitant to take on the police or another more powerful player, for an overall more criminal like experience.

Cool idea. Like super LOAA with a twist.

I think there should be a leaderboard with each factions overall notoriety.

I think there should be a unit that can set traps etc for defense of your hideout.

For detecting enemy spies etc there should be a watcher unit that cannot disguise himself that either automatically detects close enemies or detects them when you use a skill on them.

Thats all my ideas.

Rock_Golem: The idea of a more aware police would be nice. I think I know how to insert that in the map. Thanks for your idea


howl2000: What would you want to have displayed in the leaderboard? The mean thing is that you don't know much about your opponent then what you see yourself by meeting them.

And what kind of traps are we talking about here? My idea of the hideout was letting the player choose a random building to make his hideout. If it's found by another player (which is quite hard with a lot of buildings, having a lot of rooms) that player can use it to his advantage to get all the weapons out of there or have an ambush on the leader when he enters.

I'm probably not going to enter spies. Everyone can spot everyone. Even civilians can see a weapon (the bigger the weapon, the more chance of being spotted) and run away and call for police. For player units, you can train your followers to have certain abilities. Not like hero abilities, but abilities as in better accuracy, disguising, tactical knowledge, spotting enemies, stuff like that.


Thank you both for your input!

If you don't want them to know anything about their enemy then leaderboard is a bad idea. If you do which would give reason to hide, then show total gold acquired total/ 100 and call it notoriety or something.

As for traps only the door should be trapped then with net or low damage single thing. Or just get a door enemy has to smash down so you could hear it and maybe rush back there.

The hide-outs are only accessible by followers of the owning player. The leader can't be in there, since that would be unfair. Or another option is to make all players start with a leader and pick their own hide-outs in any building on the map. That way it's harder to find, but leaders can be found and ambushed there.


Anyway, back to the mean problem: I still have 3 questions in the first post that remain without any suggestions on how to do those. I'd really like some suggestion there, since those are the keys to the game.

BUMP

I'd really like to hear people's opinions on the issues mentioned in the first post.