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| Posted By:
Witness
@ 21 August 2010 - 10:08 PM |
 Just how long is APB going to be around? Not very, if the details from this article are correct. It's already being called the gaming industry's "Heaven's Gate" - the 1980 movie (known as one of the biggest box-office bombs of all time) that cost $42M to make and brought in less than $3M in domestic ticket sales.
It's been estimated that less than 10,000 units of APB have been sold (as of July 2010, the game had sold 9,181 units, year-to-date) with development costs of over $100,000,000. At $60 a pop, that's less than $600,000 in sales or, factored another way, under 1% ROI (return on investment). Add that to a business model that fails before leaving the company's offices and it's sounding like APB's death knell is ring, ring, ringing... To top it all off, the game's developer, Realtime Worlds (RTW) was placed in administration on August 17th after letting go more than 60 employees during the prior week and parent company Dundee is now looking for a buyer to pick up RTW. This is looking pretty grim. Read more at the source below...
Source: Broken Toys
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| Posted By:
TourGuide
@ 30 July 2010 - 10:01 PM |
The 1.3.1 patch will be live this Tuesday, here is the list of changes.
Changes to mission offers
As of 1.3.1, the following changes will take place:
- Criminal v Criminal matchmaking has been turned off
- System-generated bounties have been turned off - bounties can now only be entered into by witnessing unopposed criminals. This means that the chances of Calls For Backup being bounty missions will be greatly reduced, so those of you who have said that you generally avoid answering CFB because of the number of bounty missions should be able to relax a little and help out the poor souls who need your muscle.
Changes to weapons in 1.3.1
As ever, when we make changes to weapons, it''s not simply as a concession to people raising concerns on the forums. When weapon balance issues come up, we correlate these with feedback from our QA department and from team members who play regularly on the live service. After some discussion, we''ve decided to make the following changes:
N-Tec:
- Base accuracy has been reduced slightly.
- Movement penalty has been reduced slightly to compensate for base accuracy change.
- Number of shots before accuracy degradation is applied has been lowered (becomes less accurate faster).
- Maximum level of inaccuracy the weapon can reach has been slightly increased.
- Benefit gained via Marksmanship mode has been slightly reduced.
OCA-EW:
- Minimum damage percentage at max range has been increased slightly.
- Base accuracy has been reduced slightly.
- Max Range has been reduced by 5m & Effective range reduced by a further 2m.
- Number of shots before accuracy degradation is applied has been lowered (becomes less accurate faster).
- Magazine capacity of the weapon has been reduced from 34 to 28 rounds.
Both of these changes are an effort to reduce the effectiveness of continuous full-auto fire.
NL-9:
So I guess this is the hot topic. After some considerable discussion, we have decided to remodel the NL-9 to behave the way it looks - as a Less Than Lethal shotgun. The NL-9 has been reworked to behave almost identically to the JG-840 shotgun - short range, two-shot stun, with a pellet spread.
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| Posted By:
TourGuide
@ 28 July 2010 - 01:13 PM |
This is just a short post to keep you up to date with what's been happening since we announced some of the areas of the game currently under redevelopment.
Matchmaking
We've already made a fair amount of progress on developing the On/Off Duty system and had some internal playtesting on it last week. The playtest uncovered various issues which are being worked on at the moment. It also uncovered a number of problems with how the system is presented and explained to players, so we're also working on updating various UI elements to support the system and make it more intuitive.
Work is also proceeding with the Pure Skill district ruleset, and we're hopeful that we'll be able to release this along with the new matchmaking system, or very shortly thereafter.
Vehicle Handling
The new pass on vehicle handling is now largely complete and has been through internal QA as well as a team playtest here. Overall the effect is considered to be a clear improvement on the existing system, with vehicles being much more responsive in most situations.
Combat
We've been playtesting our new weapon values, complete with recoil, for a couple of weeks now and are close to the point of being very satisfied with them. The weapons feel more reactive and have much more individual character, and with the addition of new audio effects the overall experience is a lot more satisfying. There's still some work to be done on the camera and visual effects, but progress has been rapid and I hope that we can have a first round of testing on PTW in the very near future.
Missions
I think I mentioned in the original post that we've already started prototyping and playtesting various changes to some of the contentious stage types to improve the way they play and reduce the imbalance and opportunity for exploits. The VIP-on-both-sides, which is the first of these, is already a much better play experience and leads to much more of a cat-and-mouse game than the current one-sided version. Prototypes for new versions of Checkpoint Capture and Item Capture using a bonus time system are underway and then we'll be looking at the most difficult of the bunch - Escape. As an aside, we're also looking to alleviate problems with vehicle delivery missions by removing the dropoff timer and making delivery instantaneous, so that crazy mad-dash deliveries will be much more viable.
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| Posted By:
TourGuide
@ 22 July 2010 - 12:45 PM |
Greetings residents of San Paro!
In the continuing spirit of open communication, we wanted to let you all know about our imminent plans for a Buddy Key program.
THE BASICS
Participation allows you to invite a friend to temporarily join you on the streets of San Paro, for free. If they end up buying APB: All Points Bulletin we will give you 400 Realtime Worlds Points – equivalent to 30 days unlimited Gametime! The Points will get credited directly to the referrer’s account, with a minimum turnaround of 48 hours.
We will shortly be launching the first phase, which is open to anyone who has purchased additional Gametime. If you have paid for any amount of unlimited access (30/60/120 days) or 20 extra hours, expect an e-mail to arrive shortly (and don’t forget to check your Spam folder just in case).
And yes, this does mean that anyone buying Gametime DURING the first phase, right up until it ends, will also get a mail including a Buddy Key. But make sure your friend redeems it before the deadline of midnight GMT / 7pm EST on Sunday 8th August, or they’ll miss their chance!
In your e-mail will be a special key with instructions for redemption. Forward this e-mail to a friend, and he or she will be able to register for a free account, linked to yours, which gets 7 hours of Action District Gametime that can be used over a 5 day period. This is counted from the moment they redeem their Buddy Key. It’s a great chance for them to get a taste of San Paro’s fast-paced action!
THE NITTY GRITTY
During or after the trial period, your buddy can choose to purchase a retail copy of APB from the Store or other available channels, apply that retail key, and upgrade their account - meaning he or she gets to keep their character’s customization, progression, and all associated information, including remaining Gametime. As a bonus, if they convert to a retail account we will give you 400 RTW Points!
However, please note that a Buddy Key can only be used to create a new account, and cannot be applied to an existing account (including Closed Beta and Key to the City). A Buddy account cannot redeem any other type of product key (such as Points or Rewards) until they have upgraded to a full retail account. This offer is currently only open in North America and Europe.
Also note that participation in this initial phase will be tracked so that as we expand the Buddy program with additional benefits, those already participating will also reap the rewards.
Please look for more news about later phases of this program in the coming weeks.
See you on the streets of San Paro!
The APB Team
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| Posted By:
TourGuide
@ 22 July 2010 - 09:34 AM |
Upgrades in APB are a really contentious issue. We see plenty of criticism from you guys in the community that they really unbalance the game. Some people think they should be removed entirely and others think the system is okay as it is and players should “just out-skill them”. We think we can come up with a few critical additions that change the nature of upgrades in the game so they are less overpowered and at the same time more useful.
The Problem
Upgrades and in particular combinations of Upgrades significantly alter weapon balance. The key culprits seem to be:
- ‘Savage’ and ‘Spray and Pray’ on the weapons.
- ‘Monolith’ and ‘Survivor’ on the characters.
Almost all characters that can, run with these Upgrades equipped. Not only does it create balance issues it also means some of the other Upgrades tend not to get a look in.
The Beta players will also remember the old values for Upgrades. They were much more powerful! We made them considerably weaker for launch and this has had a positive effect in retaining more game balance. It’s not solved the problem though as the feedback has shown. We need to do more. So what will we do about it?
The Proposed Solution
We are currently discussing grouping Upgrades together into several categories as well as adding in a more Upgrades to increase player choice.
Upgrade categories will prevent less desirable choices being made. You will have to choose between ‘Savage’ or ‘Spray and Pray’ but cannot equip both. This effectively lowers the advantage that can be gained through statistical increases. It also means players will get to choose Upgrades from the other categories which should promote a more nuanced, less power-hungry approach to Upgrade selection. The exact design of this system is still being decided upon although it’s likely we’ll include a couple of specialist categories and allow you to equip a number of generic Upgrades.
We are also coming up with a range of new Upgrades to add into the game. Our primary focus is to give our community new tactical tools rather than straight statistical benefits. These will fit into the group categories so that player choice will be more interesting still. Will you take the added power of ‘Savage’ or an Upgrade that enables you and your team to get the drop on your opponent? On top of this we’re looking at new Upgrades to deal with some common complaints around LTL weapons and new Upgrades for our jazzed up Combat experience.
We’ll continue to expand the range of available Upgrades in the future to allow players to further refine their tactical toolbox.
Other Concerns
What do we do with old weapons? At the moment we are considering a few options. Preset weapons will be automatically adjusted but the community have a large number of custom weapons already. Our current thoughts are along the lines of:
- Grandfather them in so there will always be a pool of increasingly rare ‘uber’-guns available. This is obviously unfair to players without these guns but is the smallest change we could possibly make.
- Pop out the upgrades back into the players’ inventory and let them rebuild those weapons. There are a number of technical issues with the Locker size that make this a tricky proposition and it might be a headache for you to do.
- Remove all Upgrades from your customised weapons and give you the cash equivalent. This lets you re-buy the Upgrades that you actually need as well as purchase a few new ones. It also stops you being left out of pocket or forced into lots of fiddling about selling old Upgrades and buying new ones
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