Rumor: APB Dev Dropping Staff
- Thread starter Logan Westbrook
- Start date
None, Crims rob stores/kill civilians to get cops onto them, cops fight them, rinse the blood of the streets and repeat. The missions are all timed and by the time you reach the objective the entire enemy teams sitting there with the OP guns pimped out from botting the leagues so you get shot down at 100 yards out. The entire game is that one PvP fight with bots on top again. Like its been said its been done before and better.SenseOfTumour said:
It just seems a little weird to me that people will play TF2 and MW2 and that is all PvP combat, but when it comes to a major release with a subscription, people expect more out of a game of the same caliber. I played a game similar to APB, Crimecraft. I played the beta for Crimecraft for a few days, and had a bit of fun with it. At least there were bot matches in the game, and you weren't always forced to do the PvP arena battles, but you did have to struggle through them in order to continue completing missions. Sounds like APB was along the same vein, but with vehicles that handle like shopping carts with bum wheels.
My brother got into the beta for APB and said it was alright, but he mostly did the customization thing for a few days as he had the same complaints as everyone else when it came to the timed missions and unbalanced combat and the lousy vehicle mechanics. I watched him play it a bit because he was excited about it the first day, but after that I didn't hear much from him about it. If all you can do is have fun with it for a day, that hardly warrants the subscription. Even if this game went F2P, it sounds too broken to even attract people to play it under those conditions.
With more and more studios moving their MMOGs to F2P, it is surprising to continue seeing games being released with monthly fees. Even WoW has toyed with a F2P idea, and if the behemoth that is Blizzard has to entertain that notion, it doesn't seem to bode well for other games. There hasn't been a lot of innovation to the field of games in the pay to play area in a while, and just re-hashing old concepts with a few minor tweaks and then wanting to charge people just seems like a bad business decision these days. I'd like to make an odd observation, so please play along.
For those of us who can remember, early porn on the internet was all pay to play... unless you ended up on IRC with people who allowed remote access to their hard drive to share. You might run across a few places, but mostly the scene was all cash up front. Over time, it has really loosened up and there are at least as many free sites as pay sites, and they make their money through ads instead of relying on customer paid direct support of these sites. It might seem weird to say, but perhaps online games should take a hint from the internet porn industry and move more towards the ad-heavy free to play area instead of trying to rely on people willing to shell out money every month for something they can see for free elsewhere, and often done better.
That RTW claims to have spent $100 million on a clearly half-assed project, I can't see how the game could have been saved with subscriptions from tens of thousands of players. Even with that many people, the overhead for running the game still would have heavily eaten into the profits, and upgrades to the system would have come after they made their investment back. Unless they could pull down numbers like WoW and made $200 million a month off the gamers, that game would have remained broken for quite a long time. You can only get so far with an unfinished idea, and you can't limp to the $100 million gate with a broken leg. Hopefully their next project they are focusing on will be better polished by the time it is ready to be released.
My brother got into the beta for APB and said it was alright, but he mostly did the customization thing for a few days as he had the same complaints as everyone else when it came to the timed missions and unbalanced combat and the lousy vehicle mechanics. I watched him play it a bit because he was excited about it the first day, but after that I didn't hear much from him about it. If all you can do is have fun with it for a day, that hardly warrants the subscription. Even if this game went F2P, it sounds too broken to even attract people to play it under those conditions.
With more and more studios moving their MMOGs to F2P, it is surprising to continue seeing games being released with monthly fees. Even WoW has toyed with a F2P idea, and if the behemoth that is Blizzard has to entertain that notion, it doesn't seem to bode well for other games. There hasn't been a lot of innovation to the field of games in the pay to play area in a while, and just re-hashing old concepts with a few minor tweaks and then wanting to charge people just seems like a bad business decision these days. I'd like to make an odd observation, so please play along.
For those of us who can remember, early porn on the internet was all pay to play... unless you ended up on IRC with people who allowed remote access to their hard drive to share. You might run across a few places, but mostly the scene was all cash up front. Over time, it has really loosened up and there are at least as many free sites as pay sites, and they make their money through ads instead of relying on customer paid direct support of these sites. It might seem weird to say, but perhaps online games should take a hint from the internet porn industry and move more towards the ad-heavy free to play area instead of trying to rely on people willing to shell out money every month for something they can see for free elsewhere, and often done better.
That RTW claims to have spent $100 million on a clearly half-assed project, I can't see how the game could have been saved with subscriptions from tens of thousands of players. Even with that many people, the overhead for running the game still would have heavily eaten into the profits, and upgrades to the system would have come after they made their investment back. Unless they could pull down numbers like WoW and made $200 million a month off the gamers, that game would have remained broken for quite a long time. You can only get so far with an unfinished idea, and you can't limp to the $100 million gate with a broken leg. Hopefully their next project they are focusing on will be better polished by the time it is ready to be released.
Sounds like a rumor to me. The devs and community managers on the forums have directly stated previously that while RTW has been cutting lately, the APB team itself has remained primarily intact. Furthermore, they are still regularly patching the game;
([small] http://eu.apb.com/en/news/2010/08/13/apb-1-4-1-is-on-its-way [/small])
and while they unfortunately have to deal with the complaints of a few gamers with an inflated sense of entitlement, they still maintain their passion and optimism for the game.
The game does have quite a few problems, but as stated above they are regularly and rapidly fixing them. Rough start maybe, but my friends and I have found it immensely enjoyable to play and will continue to support it until the minute the servers go offline.
As a side note, I am greatly saddened by the fact that developers are attacked for the prescence of hacking. I mean... I understand that you want them to do something about it (and they are)but the Hackers are the problem! Don't get mad at an architect for the graphiti.
Edit: Quote and link of community forum response from a dev.
([small] http://eu.apb.com/en/news/2010/08/13/apb-1-4-1-is-on-its-way [/small])
and while they unfortunately have to deal with the complaints of a few gamers with an inflated sense of entitlement, they still maintain their passion and optimism for the game.
The game does have quite a few problems, but as stated above they are regularly and rapidly fixing them. Rough start maybe, but my friends and I have found it immensely enjoyable to play and will continue to support it until the minute the servers go offline.
As a side note, I am greatly saddened by the fact that developers are attacked for the prescence of hacking. I mean... I understand that you want them to do something about it (and they are)but the Hackers are the problem! Don't get mad at an architect for the graphiti.
Edit: Quote and link of community forum response from a dev.
Toxico http://na.apb.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1513703#post1513703 said:
Toxico http://na.apb.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1512425#post1512425 said:
I've been playing APB since the pre-release "Keys to the City" event. While any game that offers such extensive customization will always keep the artist in me happy, the other half of the game is unfortuantely far more hit-and-miss. A number of balance, technical and gameplay problems still linger from the beta, there is no in-game hacking prevention (turning on PunkBuster server-side caused hideous lag problems for many players; RTW turned it off two days later), and exploiters make answering and making backup calls a pain (it's no fun when all of your teammates are either turning in stolen cars or hiding inside a wall so they can't be shot, only to take mission after mission for minimal gain).
I still feel the game has potential, and swift moves from the development team can yet save it- but if these rumors are true, it doesn't look like that'll happen. Which is a shame, because I was really looking forward to robbing banks and then driving off on my ridiculously expensive car.
I still feel the game has potential, and swift moves from the development team can yet save it- but if these rumors are true, it doesn't look like that'll happen. Which is a shame, because I was really looking forward to robbing banks and then driving off on my ridiculously expensive car.
Shame, i like APB, it's a genuinely pleasant mmo in that because the sub is based on playtime rather then days, there is no stress to make the most of it like other mmorpgs.
As part of a carefully balanced gaming diet, APB is a worthy game imo, eugh, why does every mmo i like plunge down the drain? T_T (hellgate london, WAR, and now APB)
As part of a carefully balanced gaming diet, APB is a worthy game imo, eugh, why does every mmo i like plunge down the drain? T_T (hellgate london, WAR, and now APB)
