www.apb.com

Anyone thinking about checking this game out? Official launch is 6/29/2010. It basically looks like GTA shooter turned into a MMO. Supposedly a lot of the GTA developers in on this project. It isn't necessarily a Rockstar game, but has a lot of ex-Rockstar employees. If you pre-order you get in a couple days early it looks like. There is also closed beta occurring and you can apply for it, I just have heard back and am probably too late.

From what I've seen about this game, there's two interesting things to note:
-Players have no skills or abilities. All characters are equal. What does differ is actual skill of the person controlling the character in-game. That means to succeed you need to be better at co-oping, shooting people, chasing people down in cars, etc to be better. Possibly not as grinding dependent as other games.
-The payment model is a little different where there's an option to pay by the hour, and that's by the hour in the action zones, excluding unlimited time in the social zones. It looks like it still has a reasonable $9.99/month unlimited with discounts for like 6 months.


I'm not really a huge MMO person, never played, but if there a new game that looks cool I'll get in during the beginning of it or during Beta. This games reminds me a lot of the Matrix Online which was awesome until Sony bought it and messed it up. Going on a city-wide chase to kill someone is always a good time. If you google there's many more videos and stuff.

Regardless of suck or awesome, I'll probably be there for the first 6 months. If you get in, post here. It'd be cool to have some UER'ers there.

Someone Who Isn't Me (SWIM) was in the closed beta. SWIM says it got very repetitive very fast, and wasn't very fluid feeling at all.

LOL. Screw the NDA. I've love to hear more what you think about the game. Especially since it's launching in a few days, well not the official launch, the 'keys to the city' early entry thing (with a char wipe).

That is one big thing that I've been hearing though is that the missions are very bland and repetitive. However, without playing it yet, it seems like the type of game I would enjoy. That is because of its similarities to the Matrix Online, R.I.P.

MxO's missions were horribly simple 'go get X from Y' or 'escort XX to YY to obtain ZZ' missions. But the great part of the game was the social aspect and playing on hostile open pvp servers. From what I hear on APB's beta, no one's been on their Chaos servers yet where it's open warefare 24/7. That is what I'm hoping the different maker will be.

MxO was great (before Sony took over) because pvp was intense, it was exciting because you always had to watch you back unless you were hanging out in the primary areas where your faction hangs out. Also, PVP took some skill to be good at because MxO had a low level cap and everyone was maxed out. There was actual strategy in how/where you attacked and that's what made the difference, not your stats. I'm hoping APB where players don't have skills/abilities and everyone is pretty much even will make it fun, because the difference maker would be your skills in actually fighting people. Also, I hear having a good driver is important since due to lag driving is slightly tricky.

I hear the customization is good. For OCD people that sounds pretty interesting.

I've already pre-ordered, but I just read some thing that says I might be able to cancel my order before the launch on the weekend of the 25th. I'll be able to play from the 10th to the 20th and if it sucks, cancel it before the 25th and get my money back.

As for the fluidity, or lack thereof, which part(s) of the game is that applicable to?

Yup, screw the NDA. Driving is all but impossible. Menus and settings are confusing, nothing is simple and just 'there'. It's all hidden somewhere.

As far as fluidity, the overall feel of EVERYTHING isn't fluid. Lag is a bad issue (even in the beta with limited people), the whole ranking up system is just plain weird and not explained at all. The social system could use some work. It was hard to really get in any sort of group with people, and I don't even think the clan system was even implemented yet.

Oh yea, and Sony RUINS MMOs. Any MMO touched by Sony will die. They killed my poor, poor SWG. SWG was truly the greatest MMO ever.

Posted by Whootsinator Yup, screw the NDA. Driving is all but impossible. Menus and settings are confusing, nothing is simple and just 'there'. It's all hidden somewhere. As far as fluidity, the overall feel of EVERYTHING isn't fluid. Lag is a bad issue (even in the beta with limited people), the whole ranking up system is just plain weird and not explained at all. The social system could use some work. It was hard to really get in any sort of group with people, and I don't even think the clan system was even implemented yet.

I'm going to attempt to defend it a little bit even though I've never played it yet, so may not be totally correct. Let me know if I'm saying anything incorrect.

-I heard driving is tricky too. But I understand the technical reasons too and it's quite hard to have little to no lag with cars going 80 MPH in a server with 100 people. I heard it's best to have a driver with a really good computer or someone that's good at driving.

-For game GUI's, I always find them confusing at first in MMO's because there's so many controls they need to put in there. I actually enjoy finding little known features buried in the menu's that you don't notice for months.

-In beta's I really disregard lag until the final product it our. That's because they're most likely running the game with debugging on during beta and really slows things down. Also, sometimes beta servers are peice of shit servers and not the actual production servers the game will be running live on.

-In regards to the social system and ranking, I haven't played so I don't know. But I just read in steam forums today that gangs (clans) will have a max of 150 people.


Yah, it's just really depends on what the final product is and what people consider fun. If one interested in the FPS multiplayer in a GTA-like environment. I think the some (not all) people that are critial of the game expect the game to intertain them where the goal behind the game is to have the players be the ones that provide the enjoyment to other players.

Also, I just like getting in new games from the beginning and pwning newbs

Overall, I'd say try it before you buy it. You might find you like it more than I did. I'm pretty strict on MMO grading scales. I think APB is a great idea, just not implemented the best that it could be... as too many things are.

Driving isn't just a lag issue. The driving mechanics are absolutely terrible. Not 'oh this is too realistic and hard, I hate it', more 'wow this feels like I'm trying to drive a semi on a frozen lake and totally blows'.

Posted by Whootsinator Overall, I'd say try it before you buy it. You might find you like it more than I did. I'm pretty strict on MMO grading scales. I think APB is a great idea, just not implemented the best that it could be... as too many things are. Driving isn't just a lag issue. The driving mechanics are absolutely terrible. Not 'oh this is too realistic and hard, I hate it', more 'wow this feels like I'm trying to drive a semi on a frozen lake and totally blows'.

Again, while not attempting to defend it, but more just saying: yes it's mechanics, but the mechanics are derived from the lag.

If driving was processed on the client side, if anyone had a laggy connection to the server you'd see their car skipping around and jittering all over the city. And because cars are fast, it'd be hard to keep a persistent jitter free driving from the client to the server to all of the other players to see. That's two hops the data has to travel from client to server back to the client (and other players).

So instead they put driving calculations on the server-side which is getting fed estimated directions/speeds and inputs from the client making it it only 1 hop of data for all clients to see the car. Then with car calculations central on the server-side the player can see a lag-free/jitter-free car as well as the other players. The only downfall is the effect of the car handling like a semi since there is latency to send your commands to the server (instead of only to your PC), the server update position, and then send it back to you (and other clients) to see.

I see why they built it that way, but unfortunately that seems to be the only way to do it in a world with objects traveling so quickly and so many of them all over the place. People walking/running can be processed client-side and fed to the server, the speed of cars breaks that model and something new needed to be created.

Dude, I've been playing in the KTTC demo. I'm wondering if things have improved since beta. I've spent about 15 hours in action dist now.

Driving is simple as hell and I can be very accurate with it. I'm wondering if once they turned off debugging and logging and are now on beefier servers if less lag makes a big difference.

The other big gripe from the beta players was the repeatativeness of the missions. That is true, but that's not the point. Missions are a vehicle to initiate gun fights, that's all. It's the human v human of the battles that are always dynamic to make it fun and exciting. no one cares about the missions since it's not a single player game. Also, out of beta there's a shitload more people playing. So now in an action district it's ridiculous. If there was onle 100-200 people max online at a time in beta I could see how the game could be considered boring.

This game is pretty damn polished. I've never seen an MMO (if you can call it that) looking so good at launch. And they still have like 2 weeks to go!

So since the game has now launched, any players here?

Posted by trent So since the game has now launched, any players here?

current negatory.

You guys suck.

If you haven't heard 2 months after launch, RTW the developer and publisher behind APB has filed for the UK's version of bankruptcy protection. The outlook on the game is grim and unknown.

While the game has many great positives I love, after a while I've seen the negatives too. Here's a Hitler 'Downfall' parody video I put together for the North American customers of the game:

Low Quality: http://www.vimeo.com/14377704
High Quality: http://www.vimeo.com/14375716 (let it buffer for a min before playing)

Posted by trent If you haven't heard 2 months after launch, RTW the developer and publisher behind APB has filed for the UK's version of bankruptcy protection. The outlook on the game is grim and unknown. While the game has many great positives I love, after a while I've seen the negatives too. Here's a Hitler 'Downfall' parody video I put together for the North American customers of the game: Low Quality: http://www.vimeo.com/14377704 High Quality: http://www.vimeo.com/14375716 (let it buffer for a min before playing)

Well if the game is going down it's time to start fucking things up and using hacks til you get booted! Go out with a bang.

Posted by Esoterik Well if the game is going down it's time to start fucking things up and using hacks til you get booted! Go out with a bang.

LOL, there's so many cheaters its ridiculous. But I don't cheat in skill games (only macro) and the cheaters are still easy to kill in this game if you have a moderate amount of skill. Also, the cheats for this game cost like $50 to not get canned by the games anti-cheat instantly.

Just saw this:

Realtime Worlds is shutting down APB servers

We all know that Realtime Worlds has been going through some difficult times ever since All Points Bulletin was released. In August the developer’s staff was reduced to a skeleton crew, and the future of certain projects was in doubt.

We all thought (hoped?) APB would continue to be a game generating revenue and get picked up by some other developer/publisher. But that is clearly not the case as Realtime has just announced the game is set to go offline any time now.

Posting on the APB forums, Ben Bateman, Community Officer said the following:

APB has been a fantastic journey, but unfortunately that journey has come to a premature end. Today we are sad to announce that despite everyone’s best efforts to keep the service running; APB is coming to a close. It’s been a pleasure working on APB and with all its players. Together we were building an absolutely amazing game, and for that, we thank you. You guys are awesome!

From all of the Realtime World staff we thank you for your continued support.

The servers
are still up, so join the party and say goodbye!

http://www.geek.co...-servers-20100916/

/RAAAAAAAAAGE

meh, join WOW like all the othr cool kids.

it's aliiiiivveeeee


http://www.rockpap...aper%2C+Shotgun%29

Posted by trent it's aliiiiivveeeee http://www.rockpap...aper%2C+Shotgun%29

Let her go, she's already gone.