Assassins Creed: Brotherhood is played with only regard to the final scoreboard. It was funny to see people throw out all strategy once the counter got beneath 1 minute. Everyone would just run straight at their mark without regard to subtlety.

Another thing that struck me as interesting was the lack of finality in the deaths. (This may change with the addition of more modes) Basically, death was an annoyance. It wasn’t a harsh punishment besides that you had ~5 second respawn. Then you were almost immediately chasing down your new target.

In regards to subtlety, there were those who disregarded it entirely, and those who used it occasionally. Do to the lack of finality with deaths, if anyone did attempt to hide in plain sight, they only did so temporarily. There is a slight reward given if your pursuer accidentally chooses an innocent who looks like you instead of you, but it is minimal. (1/8 the reward of some kills).

There were some interesting mechanics with hiding in plain sight. To start the game, you start the same way as SpyParty. The computer is autonomously moving your character, and you take over when you are ready. However, there is very little reason to do so, as people can pursue you even in this mode. In the middle of the match you can walk for a couple seconds with a group of NPCs, and the computer will take over once again and merge your actions with the group. The strategy for this was to find a group with a NPC that shared your appearance in order to lure your pursuer into killing an innocent. One more thing was something I never pulled of successfully. There were carts of hay scattered across the map, and you could hide inside them without being visible to anyone at all. (Your pursuer’s radar is still functional, however) Then you have to hope that your target passes the hay you are hiding in.

The radar, however, was necessary for AC:B. With the size of the map, and different Z levels, you needed it to narrow down your suspect. I however, wish that the point at which the radar fills (when in proximity) would be further away. That would provide a greater challenge, because right now the radar fills when the character is within about 10-20 paces from their target.

My final thought is that if Assassins Creed: Brotherhood adds a mode in which you have only stock, that would greatly increase the usage of subtlety in gameplay.

Also, I read about your experiment with unlimited bullets. Please, include such things, I like sandbox style experiments. I suppose NPCs react to the snipers action (firing) too, else it would be kind of pointless?

Yes, please consider pre-purchases. I like buying games, playing alphas and some day hearing “it is done”, then downloading the full game. It eases the waiting time a lot to play it early and maybe help shape the game.

But perhaps you could also consider selling your prototype for sale for play-testing purposes? Digitalmindsoft
had there beta for “men of war: assault squad”, a rts, on sale for 30 euro, which means you still had to buy the game full-priced.
However, for this game, perhaps you could have something like a “premium payed beta” where people purchase a early prototype to playtest?

As for pre-purchases, I hadn’t thought about it. I think it needs to be farther along, but maybe later.