New user here, I'm a bit bored at work so I decided to throw an idea into the well.
One thing I've noticed is missing from so many RPGs is an in-depth, meaningful prison system. I think a dynamic prison/jail element, if done right, could be one of the most important and interesting elements to exist within Cyberpunk 2077. There's loads of games which didn't really get this right, but there's one which got it surprisingly right; The Ship. I'm gonna explain how Cyberpunk 2077 can learn from The Ship to integrate an interesting and engaging prison system into the game without getting crazy complicated.
For those who don't know, The Ship was a multiplayer survival-deathmatch game with a twist; you're given the name of one player on the ship who you have to kill, thing is, someone else has got your name, too. So you have to kill your target before your target finds you, by any means, whilst also looking after some basic human needs (socialising, cleaning and going to the bathroom etc...). It was a simple game with tons of hidden depth. One of these hidden deep mechanics was the 'prison' system.
When you are caught doing something a bit naughty in The Ship (trespassing, holding a weapon in plain sight of a guard, caught murdering) you're fined, weapons taken away and then sent to the ship's jail. The fine and length of stay depends on the severity of your crime. The fines can be a bit brutal but the length is never more than about 5-6 minutes. Now here's when things get really clever:
- Instead of the prison being a super boring punishment to the player, there's actually a lot to do and think about when you're arrested! There's free food and drink, plenty of showers, books to read, beds to sleep in, interesting people to meet and wonderful toilets to use; so when you get arrested, it's often a mad rush to exploit all the benefits of prison to tend to your basic needs before you're let out and have to pay for everything and travel across the ship to attend to all the various needs. This helps keep the momentum of the game play going but still punishing the player for their sloppy-ness with the monetary fine, which then in turn gives more value to money found/earned in the game which is important (you need money to buy food, for example).
- Remember, everyone's being hunted, so the prison system plays an important role in the action! If you're hunting someone and they're sent to prison, the game notifies you. This is a serious problem for that poor player, as now the hunter knows exactly where to find them: in the brig. Now it's up to the hunter how to react; do they wait just outside the prison for their unsuspecting prey to be released to do a quick hit-and-run murder? Or will the hunter purposely get arrested in the hopes to murder their target while they sleep in their new prison clothes? There's weapons hidden in the various jails if you know where to find them, often turning them into the scariest places to be in the game. You and your hunter trapped in a small space together, it's a mad rush to find something to defend yourself or cleverly avoid them until you're released.
The thing to take away from all this is that there is a way to make jails work in video games, which is important because it gives the player very real boundaries for the law and consequences for breaking them which are both substantial but fun and possibly advantageous to the clever player.
If the player gets caught by the police, they are quickly charged for their crimes through JudgeNet., where the player is fined, has certain illegal items confiscated and a time for the stay is determined, all of which is based on why they were arrested in the first place. This is all well and good, but CP2077 is going to be a much different game than The Ship, so how could you 'keep the game going' so to speak while still retaining a more realistic RPG feel?
Well the obvious place to start is to make jail useful in some way. Maybe there's ways to earn money, drugs and weaponry through bare knuckle boxing. Maybe there's ways to stealth around and break into important parts of the prisons to get high-value contraband. Perhaps there's even side quests which are only accessible from prison. I'm not sure if CP2077 is going to have a 'needs system' (hunger, thirst, cleanliness etc...) but this would also be a good place to take care of the basic needs of your character.
Let's not forget that CP2077 is going to have 'seamless multiplayer', if that's true, then you can bet there's going to be careless players getting caught for stuff all the time, all of which are going to jail, so the jails could become major hotspots for player-to-player interactions. Trades, rivalries and friendships forged in real-time behind bars. Shit, there could even be coordinated riots taking place as players talk to one another and plan attacks. Of course, this would also make them intense, exciting but dangerous places to find yourself in.
So that's basically my idea.
Like I say, this is something which has been botched so many times in the past. Games like GTA come to mind. I like GTA, but the police are unfortunately nothing but bullet fodder for the player, as there is little depth to their existence. You can either kill be or killed, both carrying very little in the way of consequence. If you kill, more will turn up to kill until you either hide for a bit or die. If you die, you lose a bit of money. If you get arrested (GTA 4, for example) it functions the same as dying, except you spawn in a different place and sometimes your weapon is gone.
Red Dead Redemption was similar, but a bit more interesting. There was a 'witness system' which was cool, if there was no-one around to see it; there was no crime. This could help with the player in Cyberpunk from being constantly in trouble with the law for everything. A simple witness system could help find that gameplay balance between being able to do what you want consequence free (by being careful about it/no witnesses) and having rules to work around and give structure to the world in which to effectively role play.
Skyrim had a bit of this. If you've been a dickhead, a guard will eventually come up to you and you're faced with a simple choice of kill, bribe or serve a bit of time. That was cool, but the sad bit was there wasn't really much to actually do when in jail, so most of the time you just waited until your time was up, and then carry on as usual.
One last thing about the time the player should have to spend in jail. It would have to be an amount to give the player time to do stuff and be 'punished' as it were, but also not too long to the point where people don't want to play the game because they spend their entire life behind bars. Perhaps 3-4 days in-game time for murder? It doesn't make sense in a real world context, but in a gameplay context it could feel like a long enough time? That is something which would have to be debated I think.
So what do you think? Think I'm onto something or have I gone completely mental?
Let me know.
