Peeking and indicators

[Moloch Horridus]

Peeking:

 

As the multiplayer gaming in PZ approaches I think we need more functional stealth mechanics. This would also be useful in single player when NPCs eventually drop. Maybe little less useful with zombies, but advantageous with them also.
 

How does being able to peek from beyond closed curtains or doors sound like? I'm talking about animationless way of implementing this, right click a closed curtain or a door and get an action called a peek to choose. Choosing this action would grant you a second or two view outside, only a very narrow view mind you. Implementing this with its own key/button would let the player to press and hold to peek at long as they wish, all the while increasing the chances of being spotted.

 

You could also peek into an inside of a building. Peek through a door before entering a suspicious building or take a look through barricaded windows when scoping out enemy base.

 

This would let you assess a situation outside without revealing yourself. If a character, be it a zombie, NPC or another human player, looks directly at the player peeking the game could have some light indication that signals said character to take notice. With zombies or NPCs this of course would be handled by the programming and AI but in multiplayer this could maybe be indicated by quick glimmer like animation in the window or door area.

 

Indicators:

 

As briefly described in the above paragrah I'd like to suggest small visible indicators to things currently presented as huge graphics or noticeable actions like peeking.

A quick animation like glimmer mentioned above could indicate car keys on the ground for instance. Now we see a huge key on the ground and immediately know what it is. All small objects on the ground could have same kind of glimmer to them and only when the player is examining the ground container would the see what is actually there.

A simple animation would suit many different use cases where a blown up graphic seems out of place in otherwise graphically well laid out world and would also let developers quickly implement new features like peeking without creating animations at least right away.

[Faalagorn]

There's a look around/peek mechanic in Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead, so it can be looked/compared into.