APB: Finally, I Can Be A PUNK!

[5150]

Welp, EA tries to do at least somewhat right by customers by handing out free compensation games to APB buyers and then 4chan (and other various seedy sites) go and fuck it up by scamming the CS reps using screenshots from other peoples' purchases back in July.

So now EA will only recoup people who bought APB since early August (long after its critical and commercial savaging), which leaves the vast majority of the few people who actually bought APB out in the cold.

It's not looking good for a replacement game for my still factory-sealed copy of APB. Despite sending them photos of the aforementioned they seems to be sticklers for 'policy' and want to see the receipt I bined as soon as I got home :-(

I'm hoping to get escalated to someone with some common sence _and_ the authority to deviate from policy but I'm not holding my breath

[5150]

Just in case anyone else was looking at pursuing the 'replacement game' from EA, their tier 3 support did a U-Turn on me yesterday and said the policy has changed and they are only offering a replacement to people who bought APB "from specific digital partners" (which they didn't list)

[FatuousTwat]

I wonder if steam is included in that list...

[Outlawedprod]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-11-01-the-fall-of-realtime-worlds-article?page=1

"But the writing was on the wall. Each of RTW's many offices boasted monitors streaming live player figures direct from the servers. At any time, the company's employees could glance up and see APB's failure written in cold, dispassionate numbers on a graph. It was a constant reminder that simply not enough people were buying and playing the game. "

[UnSub]

I can save people reading that article: "I had a great job, first as QA then as CM, up until the company collapsed."

"Not at all. At the end of the day, the feedback was there, it was recognised," says Bateman. "But whether it was due to management, time, money, whatever it was, they just didn't get implemented.

"People forget how ambitious and difficult an MMO is. You have to remember that Realtime Worlds went from being a medium-sized company that made Crackdown to trying to make an MMO, which entails becoming an online publisher, having customer support, supporting several different languages - people forget the scale of it.

"So where people have said we should have been fixing this problem about the game, maybe there was more time being spent on things like the online shop, or improving our customer support. There's so much involved."

I'm sure Eurogamer was happy to have someone talk to them, but it was a very gentle article. Not saying they should tear strips off RTW, but the "MMOs are hard!" lesson isn't exactly insightful.

[NiX]

I'm sure Eurogamer was happy to have someone talk to them, but it was a very gentle article. Not saying they should tear strips off RTW, but the "MMOs are hard!" lesson isn't exactly insightful.

Well, it could be that the insight wasn't there. QA to CM? Not sure he had all the inside info on what the company was going through. I think the problem with most MMO "post mortems" is that they rely on one source of info, when in fact they should be gathering it from every level/angle of the team.

[Count Nerfedalot]

Actually, the problem with most MMO "post mortems" is that most everyone who knows anything is under dire threat of financial and career ruin if they tell what actually happened.  A very few get written anyway, and most of THEM are by "fringe" players who only know a very small bit of the whole story.  The remaining handful are either laser focused on technical issues and omit even mentioning much less describing the stupid politics and/or idiotic management decisions resulting in the mess, or are self-serving paeans to the enlightened leadership and the shameless glorification of the role the author played in making it all come out far better than it could have in the hopes that they will be given another chance at it. 

An honest dissection of what were the actual decisions/choices made that caused a game to fail/undersucceed viewed from all angles would be greatly entertaining, possibly highly educational, and absolutely won't ever happen or be released outside of the sealed chambers of a courtroom with a whole lot of lawyers battling over every single word.

[UnsGub]

Software Projects fail for known reasons:

Incomplete requirements
Lack of user involvement
Lack of resources
Unrealistic expectations
Lack of executive support
Changing requirements and specifications


It is about the processes for determining:

What is desired
What is needed
What is possible
Who knows
Who decides

Most of this is not evident till the system is implemented.

The feedback mechanisms and communication methods that can draw out this information at the beginning of a project, and keep addressing it thoughout a project, are critical factors for a successful project.  Ideally this loop is within the hour or at most a day.  The longer it is the more risk and if the loop is never completed the small failures start to pile up.

Without a solid process for communications, feedback, choices, etc software projects with +100 people are at a high risk of failure even with the right idea and people that know how to implement it.

Very little of their process have been mentioned since shutting down and it could be inferred that there was very little process involved in attempting to steer the ship in some type of direction.

[Surlyboi]

Apparently, K2 networks bought the rights to APB today for about 1.5 million quid. No talk on a timeframe for bringing it back or whether it'll be brought back as APB at all.

[Modern Angel]

Perfect ending to the story. 100mil budget, only worth 2.25mil.

[UnSub]

First off, I hate how Gamesbiz hides most of the article behind a sub wall.

Anyway, did K2 actually get the tech, or just the IP?

[AutomaticZen]

I wrote a story about it for IG, but GI.biz doesn't mention the tech itself, just the IP rights.  It's assumed the existing game code is coming along for the ride, as APB isn't worth much as a brand.

[Paelos]

Perfect ending to the story. 100mil budget, only worth 2.25mil.

That's a pretty epic waste of cash. I'd love to see a flowchart of all the individuals with their hands in the cookie jar on that one.

[IainC]

Gamesindustry.biz is reporting that the game may be up and running by the end of the year - which seems incredibly optimistic to me but indicates that K2 have bought the tech and the codebase as well as just the licence.

[NiX]

I've heard rumors that the patcher is still up.. and patching.

[UnSub]

Perfect ending to the story. 100mil budget, only worth 2.25mil.

That's a pretty epic waste of cash. I'd love to see a flowchart of all the individuals with their hands in the cookie jar on that one.

The thing I find (vaguely) humourous was the mention of all those 300+ interested parties and 6+ VIP potential buyers and Epic Games and Codemasters and the rest, then along comes someone who is mostly unheard of and buys it for such a small amount. Sure, there is a small chance the administrator didn't want to sell it to a company who wanted to scrap the game for parts, but that's an outside chance - how little did any of those potential buyers want to spend to get hold of APB for it to finally sell to this particular bidder?

[UnsGub]

how little did any of those potential buyers want to spend to get hold of APB for it to finally sell to this particular bidder?

Paying for APB is probably not the real cost.  It is what does it cost to make it able to generate revenues?

I am sure the code reflects huge team and bad management.  Getting a new team to learn, maintain, and add to the existing product is a bigger challenge then starting from scratch.  Few of the places I worked when bought out where for amazing small amounts.  It was because there was 10x the cost as expenses needed for another year to ship.

[HaemishM]

K2 does F2P games with microtrans, so maybe they'll turn APB into something worth playing.

[Daeven]

The sad thing is that one can see the kernel of an interesting game in there. Get rid of the 'he who has played the longest has the best gun and thereby wins' mechanic, add in a 'rpg' like story in instances and you could probably sell this thing - possibly even charge a sub for it. But not enough to recoup 100 BILLION... DOLLARS...

*shrug*

[fuser]

I've heard rumors that the patcher is still up.. and patching.

Local future shop still has the game on the self 

[LC]

Local future shop still has the game on the self  

"Collectible APB Beverage Coasters"

http://cgi.ebay.com/APB-PC-Games-2010-/280586926153?pt=Video_Games_Games&hash=item415448b849 - My PC couldn't handle it.
http://cgi.ebay.com/EA-APB-All-Points-Bulletin-/120635558758?pt=Video_Games_Games&hash=item1c16708b66 - No refunds.

[Surlyboi]

Free to play in early 2011.

I know, Kotaku, take it with a grain or twelve of salt, but hey F2P, kinda what Hamish predicted.

[Paelos]

Free to play in early 2011.

I know, Kotaku, take it with a grain or twelve of salt, but hey F2P, kinda what Hamish predicted.

AHAHAHAHA!

[NiX]

Free to play in early 2011.

I know, Kotaku, take it with a grain or twelve of salt, but hey F2P, kinda what Hamish predicted.

If any of what the GamersFirst people said is true, this could very well be a success this time around. They've already acknowledged it isn't fun and that there's huge gaps in balance, something RTW wasn't really willing to openly admit.

[Lantyssa]

As I said long ago, I'd consider playing if it were a f2p game.  If I can do my fancy dress up and ride around without being force to pay for hanging out, I'm happy.

[Mrbloodworth]

Big question for me is, what part are they going to charge for?

[WindupAtheist]

Article says they'll charge for better gear to let you skip grinding for it. They got it for cheap and seem to know it needs some changes. I'll bet they end up doing okay with it.

[HaemishM]

As I said long ago, I'd consider playing if it were a f2p game.  If I can do my fancy dress up and ride around without being force to pay for hanging out, I'm happy.

That right there. APB was simply not worth a sub or box purchase. But for F2P, there's a chance I might spend some money on it, which is more than RTW ever got from me.

[Surlyboi]

Same. Never bought a box. Never played, but the level of customization intrigues me and if I don't have to pay for it, all the better.

[Simond]

Psst. SOE. Do this with Planetside.

[UnSub]

Free to play in early 2011.

I know, Kotaku, take it with a grain or twelve of salt, but hey F2P, kinda what Hamish predicted.

If any of what the GamersFirst people said is true, this could very well be a success this time around. They've already acknowledged it isn't fun and that there's huge gaps in balance, something RTW wasn't really willing to openly admit.

RTW might have started to admit it, but two months isn't that long to do anything about it.

I support the public beta process, but I do see an increasingly ra-ra cheerleading element entering betas and saying how great the game is and because they hand around longer, can be much easier for devs to listen to. I made the comments that driving in APB had all the reaction time of driving on wet glass, but then several 1000+ post players come along and go 'OMG n00b u suck driving is soooo ezy' and it becomes a he-said / l33t-said situation.

[Count Nerfedalot]

Psst. SOE. Do this with Planetside.

How much dress-up customization is available in Planetside anyway? 

[NiX]

RTW might have started to admit it, but two months isn't that long to do anything about it.

I support the public beta process, but I do see an increasingly ra-ra cheerleading element entering betas and saying how great the game is and because they hand around longer, can be much easier for devs to listen to. I made the comments that driving in APB had all the reaction time of driving on wet glass, but then several 1000+ post players come along and go 'OMG n00b u suck driving is soooo ezy' and it becomes a he-said / l33t-said situation.

I agree, but the gun balance issues and general lack of fun was something no amount of cheerleaders could stifle on the boards. I remember APB Monkey once admitting that gunplay wasn't where it should be, but he was just a CM and clearly what he acknowledged didn't matter.

[Koyasha]

Psst. SOE. Do this with Planetside.

How much dress-up customization is available in Planetside anyway? 

Well, there's about five faces as I recall, and you can wear stealth, light, heavy, or MAX armor.  That's about it.  Your rank also determines a few additional graphics that appear on your armor once you achieve high enough rank.

Planetside - or any other game based around being in an army - doesn't really seem like an appropriate place for customization though.  You're in the army.  They give you a uniform and you wear it, you don't get to customize.  Customization pretty much consists of your unit patch, at best.  At least for me, and I really like fiddling around with character appearances in most games, that's not something I ever thought of in Planetside.  Never really occurred to me that what the game really needed was being able to customize my own combat armor or whatever.

[Surlyboi]

You could also wear a beret and sunglasses at high enough levels.

Customization overall wouldn't really work except in the little details. Shit written on helmets, a-la Vietnam or little things like the padlock on Hicks' armor in Aliens. Not really a huge selling point, but a nice to have.