APB: Finally, I Can Be A PUNK!

[TripleDES]

Played with the music editor a bit, you can tell what kind of music the dev in charge of that likes. Obviously a midi/loop style editor is going to be limited, but not that limited! It's been almost twenty years since I programmed in music using such an editor, when I was in music school...and the experience was almost exactly as I remember it. That's not a good thing, given twenty intervening years of technology.

Even modern tools like Ableton still work like that. Reason for instance even makes you push virtual buttons on a virtual 303, 808 and similar.

APB's UI is just dumbed down to various degrees, and it's lacking actual sound generating capabilities, all sounds are just samples. I'd rather like it to have a decent synth, because I'm not really satisfied with the sample set.

[Mrbloodworth]

I dunno, there are some really impressive stuff on the marketplace. Also cool you can support your game time habit making tracks and themes and such.

[Mrbloodworth]

Xbox controllers are supported.

As secondary input? Shooting with thumbsticks = bad.  Driving with keyboard = bad. Driving with thumbsticks but shooting with mouse = clunky but good.

http://na.apb.com/forums/showpost.php?p=41484&postcount=5

[Furiously]

They really need to make all that accessible from the options menu.

Just having a slider for "quality" at low, medium, high, and ultra is dumb. Having shadows no matter what....dumb.

[Modern Angel]

That's why I'm advocating a larger gameworld. That allows you for more stuff. Like renting billboards, statues, locations to leave an impression of you or your clan, and have things be permanent. Plus you could do territorial control (like the shops in GTA, plus takeover gameplay semantics). A large territory allows you to integrate different game modes into the actual world, like GTA, instead of creating different districts with idiotic load times. Might have been trickier on the netcode, but not impossible, by means of seamless zoning.

The ideal case would be someone trying the same concept but grander, or RTW doing an APB2 a few years down the road, if they survive this release.

I'd agree with some of this. As I mentioned, quite aside from the problems I had with matchmaking and balance the areas were just small, unambitious and bland. Really, I had in my head how awesome it would be to have turf wars of sorts but it's shocking how not persistent everything is when you're paying a fee for at least a little persistence (and I'm very forgiving on this count).

[EvilJohn]

So my install crashed some time last night. I restarted it and, hey look at that, its starting from scratch. How awesome. At this rate it will realistically be about 4 days until the game is done downloading.

Heya Morfiend,

Could I impose on you to send an email to support@apb.com listing what happened, and enclose the logs from <where you installed>/Launcher/ ?

It won't help what you've gone through but it will help us try to ensure that this doesn't happen to anyone in release.

Regards and thanks!

[EvilJohn]

Xbox controllers are supported.

Actually, there is no official support for controllers in first release. We have seen it working, but we're not supporting it officially for now.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

[Mrbloodworth]

Xbox controllers are supported.

Actually, there is no official support for controllers in first release. We have seen it working, but we're not supporting it officially for now.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Yeah, I kinda figured is was some fist run stuff.

[Morfiend]

So my install crashed some time last night. I restarted it and, hey look at that, its starting from scratch. How awesome. At this rate it will realistically be about 4 days until the game is done downloading.

Heya Morfiend,

Could I impose on you to send an email to support@apb.com listing what happened, and enclose the logs from <where you installed>/Launcher/ ?

It won't help what you've gone through but it will help us try to ensure that this doesn't happen to anyone in release.

Regards and thanks!

Sent.

[Ghambit]

By the time I get this thing downloaded the headstart will be over.

[EvilJohn]

Many thanks, Mor.

I hope everyone who is interested is getting the chance to try it out - there should be plenty of keys available out there.

Thanks to all who have commented and given their viewpoint - my desire is to be able to report this feedback to help us determine how the product/service proceeds, even if you decide APB is not for you... I am appreciative of your feedback.

To those who are enjoying it but running low on time - keep an eye out this week.  

Thanks again for having the opportunity to be apart of the community and see the feedback, it helps.

[Morfiend]

Little tip. Maybe you should ether shorten the timeout time on connecting to district, or put in a cancel button. I sat for 15 minutes at the "connecting to district" screen before being timed out.

[Furiously]

What I would love to see for endgame.

Some sort of "controllable" districts with resources/spots to capture...

[Mrbloodworth]

Little tip. Maybe you should ether shorten the timeout time on connecting to district, or put in a cancel button. I sat for 15 minutes at the "connecting to district" screen before being timed out.

Financial seems to be having issues for everyone, try the water front if you were originally trying finical.

[Lantyssa]

The driving is ass.  It needs to be cleaned up significantly to make me happy.  Pedestrians need to not be dumb.  Horns and sirens should make people and cars react.

I love the outfit system.  I'm not good enough at FPS to do well solo, but group play was a lot of fun.  I'd really like to be able to hang out in the combat districts while in "social mode", without taking away from play time.  They're far more interesting than the social district.

I'm not going to get it, at least initially.  I want it to get past the MMO growing pains and to see if the billing options change to something which make a little more sense to me.

[EvilJohn]

Actually, horns and sirens do make civilians flee out of the way.

[Mrbloodworth]

Me and a group of friends will be making a clan when its not going to be wiped, more the better. (enforcer)

[Ghambit]

My biggest issue with driving is the lack of real difference between cars/trucks.  Speed, handling, and durability seem much too close statwise...  many times not having any noticeable difference whatsoever.
Granted, people will start bitching like they do with upgraded weapons I guess.   

[Tarami]

Eventhough I do agree with a lot of complaints around here (latency, progression) I really like the character generator.

Me and a group of friends will be making a clan when its not going to be wiped, more the better. (enforcer)

Will take you up on this if transatlantic play turns feasible. As it is, it's hard enough to play on the EU servers.

[Sky]

The driving is ass.  It needs to be cleaned up significantly to make me happy.  Pedestrians need to not be dumb.  Horns and sirens should make people and cars react.

That's why I wanted some sort of analog driving. I'm kind of shocked at that, actually. Launching with keyboard driving controls sticks it way further into the niche.

Also, people need to be a bit more resiliant. Just barely tapping someone and watching blood spurt and they crumple to the ground? Play some GTA4 to see how to handle that. Drop your cup/phone/whatever, call me a motherfucker who needs to learn to drive and walk on. Even worse playing as enforcer realizing every little tap means less rewards (or for the minority like me who would rp it, hitting civilians makes me feel like shit as a cop).


And the dude who kept following me around ramming me into walls while bashing on the horn. Probably Mr Bloodworth 

[Koyasha]

Some of my initial thoughts:
Character creation is somewhat confusing. It took me a while to figure out that just dragging anywhere on the screen would adjust some of the slider controls.  Might want to add either an informational thing at the top to inform people of that, or an actual slider somewhere on screen.

I didn't see an option to save/load character appearance.  Maybe I wasn't looking hard enough and it's there, maybe it's missing.  This is crucial if you ask me.  Being able to save the character appearance I really like, then reload it, incase I decide to reroll, switch servers, or just switch between appearances regularly, is vital.  With so many sliders, there is no way in all the hells I'll ever perfectly duplicate a previous appearance, no matter how much I may want to.  Note: This was a big annoyance for me in Aion, that I couldn't save a character appearance once I got it looking the way I wanted.

On to the gameplay and fighting:
Is there any NPC combat at all in this game?  Cause the tutorial missions: not really very helpful, since you never get into a fight.  I don't mean the obvious 'press button to select gun, press mouse button to fire, etc' but some kind of basic tactical awareness and use of cover and environment.  And hell, a section taking you through the basic controls wouldn't hurt to have it available, just in case.  Especially the less-obvious controls.  At the same time, those tutorial popups, right in the middle of my screen, that block my view?  BAD, BAD, VERY BAD!  Put them at the top or something, where they're not right in the way of whatever I'm trying to do.

Shooting mechanics.  I feel like the game needs a better cover system.  Something that lets me aim better when I'm taking cover.  Maybe just the ability to go into first person mode at times, I don't know, but it could use some help.  For example, I was doing some mission where I had to capture this point near the highway-under-construction.  Taking cover behind the guard rails and trying to shoot out the ~10 inch gap between the concrete barrier and the metal guard rail.  Plenty of space to shoot through, but I simply could not get my camera into a position where I could aim and shoot.  If I could aim, I couldn't shoot, because my shots kept hitting the rail or concrete in front of me, and if I could shoot, I couldn't see what I was shooting at.  Annoyingly, it turned out to be more helpful to my enemy, because he could target and shoot me through that gap, from like 80 feet away.  The ability to look straight along the gunsights/scope/etc would help immensely in this case.  If the ability to do so is there, then as I noted - the game didn't teach me about it.  I don't have a manual, but honestly these days I don't expect any manuals worth a damn from any game, so I can't imagine all these little details being in the manual.

As far as the driving, I didn't really notice much of an issue, but then I am not that great at driving in these games that put you in realistic traffic/road situations.  If it's lag or the game causing me to drive all over and crash into things constantly, I'm not really noticing it because that is what I usually wind up doing in GTA-like games.

Edit: That shooting issue is even worse when firing around corners.  Especially to the left.  Creep up to a corner, lean left, put crosshairs on target, start shooting.  You hit the wall.  No way to shoot around the corner, just got to step right out into the open.  But, even to the right it's an issue - tried taking cover behind an object and shooting around it to the right.  Again, useless, I was hitting the object even though the crosshairs were totally clear of the object and right on target.  Crouching also seems damn near useless.  Walls that I'm fully obscured by, I'm still getting shot by enemies I should have total cover from.

[Mrbloodworth]

My biggest issue with driving is the lack of real difference between cars/trucks.  Speed, handling, and durability seem much too close statwise...  many times not having any noticeable difference whatsoever.
Granted, people will start bitching like they do with upgraded weapons I guess.  

I had always assumed that cars from NPC's are inherently weaker than the purchased versions. While I was in beta, some of the cars you can buy are vastly different in all the things you mentioned. There are also various mods for cars such as increasing explosion range, delaying explosions a bit longer, and decreasing damage from hits or ramming as well.

As for driving, I found its a good deal better to look ahead, and instead of trying to steer directly in front of you, I think some people may not be aware of how fast they are really going, maybe they need a speedometer. Then again, i had many many hours driving in plantside, so perhaps I just have some finger memory, it feels like it to me.

As for shooting over obstacles, yeah it can be annoying, I think the main issue with that is, the reticule gives all the signs of "Good to go!", when really, before shooting, it should be showing the "X". When this happens to me, i just nudge over a bit more, and it normally takes care of it, low walls is a different story.


TIPs:

* In your key mappings, change the marksmen mode (right click zoom) from toggle to "hold", its makes a world of difference in terms of your agility.
* Others players near you can hear your VOIP in game (Distance based drop off), so when stalking, don't talk.  
* When you respawn, you are always rearmed from your locker. Buying ammo goes into your locker.
* The ammo box you can get for your car or person is INVALUABLE, you can get ammo from your locker AND change guns out to fit the situation.
* Group up!
* Move as a group, do not stream endlessly into an area, you will just feed them kills if they are defending a position.
* For every objective, there are at least three direction of approach, do not keep using the same path.
* By default, the mini map goes out 80m. Shooting, driving and sprinting (Shift) will put you on the mini map as a red triangle, DO NOT sprint with in 80m of your target.
* on take out missions (where you have "lives") DO NOT all use one car, most times your amount of lives is 5, thats 4 kills right there if that car goes down.
* To get out of a car fast while hanging out a window, use "F" not "S" then "F". That delay can mean life and death!
* When someone: Kicks a door, climbs a fence, Reloads, or hits trashcans they make noise, listen for this.

[Sheepherder]

* Group up!
* Move as a group, do not stream endlessly into an area, you will just feed them kills if they are defending a position.
* For every objective, there are at least three direction of approach, do not keep using the same path.
* When someone: Kicks a door, climbs a fence, Reloads, or hits trashcans they make noise, listen for this.

Thank you, I imagine I am not alone in having never played a shooter before in my life.

EDIT: Do you really see people making these mistakes?

[Mrbloodworth]

* Group up!
* Move as a group, do not stream endlessly into an area, you will just feed them kills if they are defending a position.
* For every objective, there are at least three direction of approach, do not keep using the same path.
* When someone: Kicks a door, climbs a fence, Reloads, or hits trashcans they make noise, listen for this.

Thank you, I imagine I am not alone in having never played a shooter before in my life.

EDIT: Do you really see people making these mistakes?

Yes. And I know this is a RPG heavy crowd, some may not realize this stuff matters. So, perhaps it wasn't for you, smarty.

They really need to make all that accessible from the options menu.

Just having a slider for "quality" at low, medium, high, and ultra is dumb. Having shadows no matter what....dumb.

If you want to be adventurous, its the unreal engine, the INI's can be edited. Though, this isn't recommended by the developers on the grounds of it makes it harder to fix CS calls, so use at your own risk. But yeah, they should make an advanced tab to edit all that stuff.

Like renting billboards, statues, locations to leave an impression of you or your clan, and have things be permanent.

The only thing that isn't in, is the locations.


I think it was rather smart of them to not go beyond what they have added. We all know what happens when games try to do to much at first. At this point, if the game doesn't go under, all this stuff is a possibility, in fact I recall a few dev posts indicating just as much.

Customization, shooting, driving, world was the priority for launch.

I always find games like this to be good because people like them so much, they constantly think about all the things that can be done to it. Planetside was like this, I think its good when a game comes along and is somewhat inspiring as to the possibilities.

I would like to see aircraft for enforcers :)

EDIT: Found a better image.

[Falconeer]

This is crucial if you ask me.  Being able to save the character appearance I really like, then reload it, incase I decide to reroll, switch servers, or just switch between appearances regularly, is vital.  

I'd change crucial with important, but I wholeheartedly agree with the quoted part.

[TripleDES]

I'd agree with some of this. As I mentioned, quite aside from the problems I had with matchmaking and balance the areas were just small, unambitious and bland. Really, I had in my head how awesome it would be to have turf wars of sorts but it's shocking how not persistent everything is when you're paying a fee for at least a little persistence (and I'm very forgiving on this count).

There are rentable spots for cars and logos in the social districts, that's about as persistent you get. And I think they'll only show in the quasi anonymous district you rented in.

[Mrbloodworth]

There are rentable spots for cars and logos in the social districts, that's about as persistent you get.

Action districts as well. They last for as long as they last. But if they appear in all instances is a good question. I'm guessing billboards no, statures are most likely all instances. You cars, tags, and billboards do indeed persists after you log out, I have gotten my hands on many a sweet ride this way. Thanks random user with awesome car!

[WayAbvPar]

I had heard a lot of varied opinions about this on other sites, so I wasn't sure how I would feel when I started up the 5 hour trial. My thoughts below (pretty much in chronological order):


Wow, this editor is tough to use. No directions, no sliders, just hope you figure out how to make the changes you want. I made some very generic characters because it was pissing me off.

Wow, the image editor is going to be tough for us non-arty folks (I might have to hire MisterNoisy to design stuff for me).

Never going to use the music editor. Looks neat, but without some serious instructions I have no clue how to even start.

Tutorial wasn't very interesting.

Hmm- this is kind of fun, but I don't really feel a sense of direction or purpose.

Driving sucks. I can get used to it, but it is really non-reactive.

Hey-even playing with a PUG makes it much more fun.

(After I hooked up with Furiously)

Holy shit this game is addictive!

Oh crap, there is a time limit? Fuck....


I hope there is a better safety net/introduction for new players soon after launch. It is pretty off-putting at the start, but it can be really fun. I can see how the pay-by-hour model might work well for a lot of people- it would be even better if I could purchase blocks of time and then split it with invited friends whenever we wanted to play together.

Ideas for improvement-

A better more interactive tutorial/new player experience. Let them run a few missions with AI opponents so they get a feel for how things work under fire, and how to react more tactically.

More chances to 'show off' your character. I never noticed who or what my opponents were playing- I just shot them as fast as I could. I barely had time to notice how my teammates were decked out. Maybe a link to character profiles after the mission ends? If something like that exists and I missed it, make it more obvious 

Fix the driving somehow. Ugh. Yes, we know this is NOT GTA and not supposed to be anything like it  but driving in GTA is actually one of the most fun parts of it. Not at all the case here.

More maps, more things to do in the maps- more hotspots. Make the city feel more alive.



I am really on the fence for this one. If it was just buying time/subscribing I would play immediately. I am having trouble justifying a full price box purchase for this though- the entertainment is way too dependent on playing with a good group. Still very tempted.

[Mrbloodworth]

I told you I wasn't crazy. Well, maybe a little.

One of the best parts, with the distance based VOIP, I love hearing the screams and crys of pain from the users.

 

[Stormwaltz]

Okay, let's see if I can get this done now....

First, I'm going to pull two quotes from my earlier posts so it's clear how I'm judging the game:

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that I'm neither skilled nor hip enough for this game.

I use "casual gamer" in the sense of "non-competitive / play for fun" rather than "plays for two hours a week." (snip) I play games for around 20 hours a week and have been known to stay up until 7AM doing so. However, I have a relatively low tolerance for frustration and difficulty, so I classify myself as a casual gamer.

The tutorials were dull, which I expected. All the missions in the game I encountered were simple "go here, take/use this, return." There were two issues I noticed at this early stage:

• Car controls were crap. I expected the big truck I was given to maneuver poorly. I did not, however, expect to have to brake to 10 mph to barely scrape through a 90 degree turn. Nor did I expect civilian vehicles to cut in front of a large truck moving at high speed. I accidentally killed three people on one mission when they turned in front of me, and my intertia-ful vehicle could neither brake nor turn fast enough to avoid them.
• I left the tutorial zone without firing my gun once. I received no instruction or opportunity to practice aiming, firing, or reloading. For a game whose core experience is running around and shooting people, this is a big fail. People need to know this.

After leaving the tutorial, I went to the Social Zone. It was smaller than I expected, about a city block. There were kiosks to customize my outfit, car, and music, but nothing to really do. Maybe they've added minigames since, but when I was there it seemed rather... purposeless.

My experience in the Social Zone was disappointing. There were a lot of ways to customize, but it seemed that most of the pieces you can use are hidden behind unlocks - either achievements or money (earned by completing missions, which I'll get to in a bit). I also noticed that some of the social options were really more about bragging or imposing yourself on others than about actual socializing. You can buy statues of yourself. You can buy statues of your car. You can set loud music of your choosing to blare from speaker systems, and I couldn't figure out how to turn this down without turning all environmental sound down. Overall, the Social Zone reminded me of going to the mall and walking by Hot Topic. It was all about people making sure that everyone nearby knows how cool they think they are.

But the Social Zone isn't the game, so after puttering around for an hour, I ventured to the Financial District. I started a fetch mission, and when I'd nearly collected everything, I got the warning lights and siren that someone was going to oppose me. I approached the last item cautiously. My opponent was already there, and camping the top of a ladder. By sheer luck, I happened to approach by another ladder. He was crouched behind a wall across from me, looking in the opposite direction. I could see the top of his head over the wall.

I pulled out my rifle, took careful aim, and put a burst into the top of his head. Blood misted out.

He got up and whipped from side to side, looking for me, as I continued to fire at his center of mass, clouds of blood exploding from his body.

Then he noticed where I was, spun around, and one-shot me.

Huh.

I respawned a short distance away and ran back. He wasn't there. I got the final item and got off the roof. The turn-in point was nearby, so I began sprinting down the sidewalk.

He ran me down in a car from behind.

I respawned, and resumed my dash towards the turn in. Unfortunately, he reached there first, and had found a roof over the point to camp.

Sniped.

Sniped.

Sniped.

Finally I managed to sneak through blind spots to just under his position, where he could no longer snipe. He jumped down and began circle-strafing and bunny-hopping. I barely seemed to hurt him as he tore me to shreds. For the fifth time in five minutes, I died.

At that point, I logged off. And I never really returned again.

So let's say that's it's not for me, and despite watching it for two years, I won't be playing.

EDIT: To comply with guidelines.

[WayAbvPar]

One thing I forgot to mention- the ease with which I was able use my own MP3s was fucking awesome. I pointed it at my music folder and left it be; wasn't sure if it was working until I got into a car and a Weird Al song was playing 

[Falwell]

So the short of it is what? Half baked with minor flashes of brilliance fleshing out most of it's features on subscription money and has no business being on a retail shelf?

Business as usual, gotcha.

[Ghambit]

Did they ever turn on the ability to share music from your car?  Twas supposed to be through last.fm I believe.

[Mrbloodworth]

Did they ever turn on the ability to share music from your car?  Twas supposed to be through last.fm I believe.

Yeah, sort of. looks like they use Last.FM to match the meta data on MP3's and such. No data, no dice. So say I also have the weird al MP3 with full data, I will hear it too in WAPs car. If i dont have that MP3, but have something else in the same category, it will play that.
Not sure what happened to the streaming really...

[LK]

I'm just going to break out the popcorn and watch from the rafters, I think. There's so much wrong with the "game," and I feel like such a god damn fool being swayed by their controlled media campaign over the last two years, then if it turns into a flash in a pan that fizzles out a week after launch, I'll be OK with that.

Did only true believers play this game? Did CliffyB on his promotional visit last year say anything (I wouldn't be surprised if CliffyB ignored obvious design flaws or went along with "We have plans to fix it" before praising the shit out of the game)? Given the INCREDIBLE flaws with the game, I feel like there was a lot of koolaid drunk during development and that a lot of feedback was ignored. Anything they could do would be a band-aid on a gushing wound.

The only thing I like about the game is the style and the customization, but they should have farmed this engine out to somebody with experience designing fun games and competent UIs.