APB: Finally, I Can Be A PUNK!

[Amaron]

My real complaint was the max 4v4 crap.   That's some shitty console matchup size right there.   Even worse though you'd rarely even get anything even close to a 4v4.

I want to say with such small severs they are going to have to forget about skill ranking at all and just matchmake anyone who's available.   That way the calling for reinforcements might actually work and you could get some interesting 6v6 or 8v8 stuff going on.

[Surlyboi]

I do like the "In Memoriam: Realtime Worlds" tag in the opening credits.

[TripleDES]

That Gamer's First shit installs a P2P background service with it and is sapping your bandwidth whenever you're online. It's probably also what BSOD'd your machine.

[caladein]

It's Pando Media Booster, same thing that LotRO uses.  You're right in that it just keeps seeding by default, at least with LotRO.

Just uninstall the GamersFirst thing and Pando when you're done.

[HaemishM]

Tried playing this again at lunch. I'm done. I can see no noticeable improvement since the original beta and it runs like ass even on my machine at work due to lag or some kind of graphics stutter.

[Surlyboi]

Yeah. The lag is making this thing unplayable right now.

[FatuousTwat]

I'm still having the problem where I'll get the drop on someone, shoot them 5 times (all hits) and have them turn around and kill me while I continue to shoot (and hit) them. It's not due to them using a better gun for the situation, I'm talking STAR vs STAR.

I just don't get why a 3:5~ ratio in this game is pretty good round for me, yet pretty much every other PC FPS I've played its been the other way around. Maybe it's the shitty (and apparently non-configurable?) PoV.

[5150]

It's Pando Media Booster, same thing that LotRO uses.  You're right in that it just keeps seeding by default, at least with LotRO.

Just uninstall the GamersFirst thing and Pando when you're done.

Does APB still run without them?

Having got in a played a couple of times I think the concept is excellent but it is running like crap on my system

[Mrbloodworth]

It's Pando Media Booster, same thing that LotRO uses.  You're right in that it just keeps seeding by default, at least with LotRO.

Just uninstall the GamersFirst thing and Pando when you're done.

Does APB still run without them?

Having got in a played a couple of times I think the concept is excellent but it is running like crap on my system

Yeah that stuff is not required to be running during gameplay.

[Hoax]

You can recover your old account now, if you remember the password. Amateur hour continues.

[Threash]

Does that mean i can play?

[Surlyboi]

They rolled through a new patch yesterday I think and overall the lag is not as bad. There are still some ridiculous spikes though and the haxors still run rampant. The clownshoes are a few sizes smaller, but still clownshoes nonetheless.

[HaemishM]

They rolled through a new patch yesterday I think and overall the lag is not as bad. There are still some ridiculous spikes though and the haxors still run rampant. The clownshoes are a few sizes smaller, but still clownshoes nonetheless.

At least the clownshoes don't cost anything to see with this version. That's about the best I can say about it.

[FatuousTwat]

They rolled through a new patch yesterday I think and overall the lag is not as bad. There are still some ridiculous spikes though and the haxors still run rampant. The clownshoes are a few sizes smaller, but still clownshoes nonetheless.

At least the clownshoes don't cost anything to see with this version. That's about the best I can say about it.

The clownshoes I paid for are taking up all the room in my closet, I just do not have room for another pair.

[Pendan]

Dave Jones lost enough money to deserve being rehired. Now a consultant for GamersFirst.

[Surlyboi]

Open beta starts the 18th.

[UnSub]

Dave Jones lost enough money to deserve being rehired. Now a consultant for GamersFirst.

I guess the rumours about Jones having a reality distortion field are true.

[Kageru]

I truly appreciate gamersFirst for letting me experience the wreckage. It is far worse than I imagined possible and really makes me wonder what Realtime worlds was doing during development. If gamersFirst payed any meaningful money they got ripped off badly because I just don't think this is repairable given the core design is flawed.

- No tutorial.
- 2 maps.
- purchased weapons with a time limit?
- user contributed porn in the social area (which is funny, but still)
- Huge zones that end up meaning you are generally far from the action and doubtless contribute to the terrible lag.
- Creating new zones will be a huge investment of energy
- lots of shooting and action that you are not allowed to join in on.
- Twitchy driving + laggy servers + mazelike zone + too many slow moving obstructions
- general tactic seems to be the car cannonball followed by random shootout as people trickle in.

I am awed. I thought crime-craft was the worst persistent shooter because it's just a basic shooter with a social zone and some progression tacked on but at least that works.

[Amaron]

A lot of that is gamersFirst fault.  The lag wasn't bad for me on the original game and they didn't have stupid crap like temporary weapons.  The real flaw was always the matchmaking.   The system failed on all levels at creating anything better than 3 on 3 usually.

[UnSub]

Enough of those issues stem from the original launch though - controls were always a bit wonky and that someone launched a multiplayer game with 2 maps (where you could fight, anyway) was always bound to end in tears.

[Der Helm]

Biggest problem is that almost everybody who plays the game hacks. And I am not joking or exaggerating.

Every
body
uses
hacks.

[Threash]

There is a tutorial. 

[Kageru]

I'd debate that. Being told to hit K and follow the prompts on a couple of basic missions (go there, hold f) before being dumped into the shark-pit is pretty marginal. It was sort of interesting that NPC's have huge text bio's and it mails you essays on city backstory but that's firmly in the "don't care" category while you are still trying to work out the controls. It certainly does a poor job of giving new players a progression focus (including covering customisation).

The new crimecraft:bleedout tutorial zone does a much better job.

[Koyasha]

I've been playing pretty regularly since the re-relase with Reloaded (well, the so-called "beta") and finding it pretty fun again.  The purchased weapons with a time limit is actually new to the G1 release (it's a moneysink and an incentive to purchase permanent weapons from the ARMAS market).  The tutorial is actually considerably better than it used to be with RTW, from what I remember.  There are now a few videos and other instructions, whereas in RTW time it was basically, press F about 15 times, now go fight people.  Also, everything lists what unlocks it and how it's unlocked, unlike RTW where I often had no clue how to unlock items and such.  It could definitely use a number of additional tutorials, though, but eh.  Plenty of people figured it out already, it ain't rocket surgery.  A manual would be nice, though, but then that's what I want out of every game.  An actual manual that contains all the relevant information.

The 'hacker' issue is greatly, greatly exaggerated on both the official forums and by players in game though.  A huge margin of players will accuse anyone of hacking that is better than them, anyone that uses tactics, etc.  I play a lot some days, and I can rarely say that I've faced more than a handful of people a day that I even suspect are cheating, much less the fact that I'm sure that some of those I suspect aren't really cheating.

[Threash]

Yeah i played fairly regularly for a while and there was almost no hacking.  If you want to find out how many people are hacking look at other players on your team, you won't be able to tell with enemies but it is fairly obvious when your teamates are doing it.

[Kageru]

I've been playing pretty regularly since the re-relase with Reloaded (well, the so-called "beta") and finding it pretty fun again.  The purchased weapons with a time limit is actually new to the G1 release (it's a moneysink and an incentive to purchase permanent weapons from the ARMAS market).  The tutorial is actually considerably better than it used to be with RTW, from what I remember.  There are now a few videos and other instructions, whereas in RTW time it was basically, press F about 15 times, now go fight people.

That's pretty much the start sequence I saw 2 days ago. Press K, go to location, hold F, repeat 3 times, good luck. It recommends you look for a group but since you are in a tutorial zone with a pretty small population there were, unsurprisingly, no groups to be found.

Explaining the cash shop should be a minimum. I'm sure a lot of people look at the shop and balk at the idea of having to re-buy their weaponry every 10 days. It should at least be use based (as per crime-craft or WoT) rather than calendar based since a lot of F2P players are going to be playing it casually and irregularly. Likewise having cash-shop weapons being infinite use is pretty stupid since it has to be a large one-off purchase. Crime-craft's slow decay plus cash-shop perfect repairs / discounted weapons is smarter.

[Der Helm]

Yeah i played fairly regularly for a while and there was almost no hacking.  If you want to find out how many people are hacking look at other players on your team, you won't be able to tell with enemies but it is fairly obvious when your teamates are doing it.

I played back in... don't know... June, I think. Hacking WAS everywhere back then. People who say otherwise are simply delusional. I believe that to be true because I decided one day that I am not THAT attached to the account and installed  a radar hack and an aimbot myself. The radar hack alone proved to me that roughly 50-60 percent of the population used something similar. Same goes for aimbots, once you have used them yourself they are easy to spot.

Funny part being, using hacks the game was way more fun and not because I was steamrolling people (tried to avoid that) but because the fights were now on more or less even ground. And even running the full programm of all hacks avaible (autotrigger, 3d radar, autoaim, etc etc) I was called a hacker a few times in chat, but the account was still active last time I checked.

edit to add: That was the first time I used anything resembling a hack and I still feel a bit bad about it.

[Kageru]

Hacking is an issue once the community is convinced it is. It starts to poison the spirit of it being a fun competition and leads to people being more likely to hack or exploit because "everyone is doing it". And the game is definitely at that stage.

That said the game is full of legal exploits. Using neutral alts as mobile bullet shields or traffic blocks, waiting until you are in an ambush position before you join the team, kicking team members if they're going to get MVP and you want it. The incentives for this game are just all over the place and generally negative to any sort of community building. And the 4x4 team size, matchmaking and respawn mechanism... urgh.

[UnSub]

That said the game is full of legal exploits. Using neutral alts as mobile bullet shields or traffic blocks, waiting until you are in an ambush position before you join the team, kicking team members if they're going to get MVP and you want it. The incentives for this game are just all over the place and generally negative to any sort of community building. And the 4x4 team size, matchmaking and respawn mechanism... urgh.

Why is it when people design PvPMMOs, it's like they've never met a PvPer?

Neutrals being mobile bullet shields and spys being the absolute obvious one. Back in the original beta, I remember trying to flank a target, but they've got a spy on every entrance who lets them know which side to watch for. Or the use of 'neutrally' driven cars as shields or as character blockers.

[Threash]

Hell, neutral cars can knock you off when interacting with a mission goal.

[Kageru]

I honestly believe this game is fundamentally broken. The cost to repair the terrible design is probably more than it is ever going to make.

If they focused on the fact there's lots of players on the map and tried to utilize that maybe it would work. Give up on trying to form little 4x4 shootouts (or even 1x1 shootouts) from the tiny pool of free players and let the action spiral and ebb so that everyone gets into it. Say for example let anyone join in the action as long as it can find someone for the other team (it's so weird you can see criminals shooting civilians but they're not "your" criminals so you walk on by). Have the mission objectives linked and maybe have sub-groups within the grand-melee having their own objectives. And those objectives add or subtract from the number advantage you are allowed to have so that one team eventually achieves a decisive advantage and wins the match. Big matches also let clans play together and gives the possibility for some sort of territory control end-game (though hard with a whole two maps!).

I doubt the engine and maps can handle it though. And it would be a massive design effort almost certainly beyond what gamers first wants to invest or has any possibility of making back.

Realtime Worlds can't blame anyone else but themselves though. The flaws in this game should have been obvious in the first month of design. Though the article I read suggesting the lead designer was also the CEO (and thus distracted) and preferred design to build organically (which might work well for smaller titles) works though. Explains why some of the ancillary features are so much more polished than the core game design.

[Threash]

Missions were 8x8 last i played, i think they actually bumped it down from 13x13.

[Kageru]

I saw mostly 4x4 or 3x3 matches result. I had more 1x1 matches (which are terrible) than larger matches (which showed real potential). But really unless they can offer more than 16x16 battles then the game-play itself isn't really "massive" and is probably better suited to a dedicated map for the size of gameplay they want.

[Surlyboi]

If anything for me, this game has revealed the limits of 32 bit Windows 7. I consistently get out of memory errors like clockwork after about 20 minutes of play. It's partially because the game's got an awful memory leak, but it's also because 32 bit doesn't address all eight gigs of RAM I've got. Bleh.

[cironian]

Not-so-stupid question: Why would you put 8 GB into a 32 bit system?