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APB: GDC First Look Part Two - Optimist
While at this year's Game Developer's Conference both Keith Cross and Laura Genender attended a seminar called "My First MMO". This seminar was about the upcoming MMO All Points Bulletin. While both Keith and Laura left the room impressed, Keith's impressions were pessimistic, while Laura's was through the roof enthusiastic. Today, we present both of their views as an MMORPG.com first look at APB.
This past Thursday I accompanied Keith to the “My First MMO” seminar. I didn’t really know what to expect; to be honest, I thought it would be ‘lessons learned’ about MMO-specific issues, like customer support tools, PVP vs. PVE balance, etc. As Keith mentions in his article, though, the seminar was more about speaker David Jones’ upcoming MMO All Points Bulletin, or APB.
The first half of the seminar, Jones discussed the definition of an MMO and how he was trying to break that mold. Keith gives an excellent description of that presentation, far beyond my power of memory, so I’ll just recommend you read his article and move on to APB.
The second half of the seminar was a showcase of APB, and here’s where my jaw started unhinging. Everything about the game seems fresh, detailed, and unique; whether or not it will actually work as an MMO is another question, but it’s Keith’s job to be jaded – I get to be a fangirl.
Character Creation
I try to shake off the “female gamer” stereotype by showing little interest in my characters’ appearances, clothing, accessories, etc. Truth is, while I would gladly wear an “ugly” piece of armor if the stats were better, I love looking great with my character. I spent hours in City of Heroes and PotBS playing with character creation. I’ve timed my client out several times while tinkering with EVE portraits. I even play with my armor dye colors during raids while playing EverQuest (man, I hope my raid leader isn’t reading this).
With all that in mind, I was absolutely batty over the APB character creation demo at GDC. While we only got to see a male avatar, the detail of customization was so deep and innovative that I believe I began to salivate.
The amount of details which you can put into character creation is overwhelming; it surpasses City of Heroes, POTBS, and even EverQuest II. You can make your character skinny or fat, buff or lean; you can change their height and skin color and even change how prominent their veins are. You can decide the size and angle of ears, mouth, nose, cheeks, eyes, eyebrows, forehead. You can pick their hair color and style, then GROW the hair out in whole or in part (i.e. just the bangs or just the back – mullet, anyone?).
As amazing as that all was, my eyes bulged out of my head when Jones showed us the decal system, and how it could be implemented in terms of character creation. In another customization screen you can create logos or decals via geometric shapes and a selection of random images such as suns, skulls, etc. Using various geometric shapes, players will be able to make detailed, personalized images; the demo we saw included a hockey mask and two skulls in front of a flaming background.
Players can then use those logos on their character’s body as extremely realistic tattoos – and man, do I mean realistic. They followed the contour of the body and stretched as the player desires to wrap around an arm or over a shoulder. You can essentially create any tattoo you want, and stick it anywhere you want.
Players can also pick from a variety of different clothing items, which can all be layered, mixed, and matched as desired. David Jones showed us a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, where the user could decide to tuck his shirt in to the pants, into the boxers, or leave his shirt untucked. You can layer a short sleeve shirt over a long, or a jacket over it all. You can wear a necklace, or several necklaces.
Of course, the decal/logo system applies to clothing, too. Player-made decals follow the contours of cloth, and can even be put on your shoes.
Last but not least, vehicles play an important role in character creation in APB. Vehicles can be similarly detailed and customized, with different styles of headlights, fenders, wheels, etc. You can even choose to have your car be green, but the engine hood be red. Want to play music in your car? Anyone you drive by will hear it if they have the same track; if not, the game checks to see if they have a song by the same artist, then genre, then random.
A video of part of the character creation system can be found here: http://www.gamevideos.com/video/id/17691
Gameplay
Quests in your average MMO are mostly PVE based. You kill some goblins and bring their heads to your NPC; you kill some bats and bring their wings to your NPC. Sometimes you have to kill a special boss which has an annoyingly long spawn time and/or a placeholder to bring his SPECIAL head or SPECIAL wing to your NPC, and you get a slightly more SPECIAL reward. But it’s all very repetitive.
APB aims to make PVP an intrinsic feature of “questing”. Players are divided into two factions which essentially boil down to “cops and robbers”. Robbers get tasks like hijacking an armored van, or stealing televisions – and cops get missions to stop them. Players are matched up based on location and skill – while the game doesn’t have levels, per say, it has some sort of tracking system which keeps track of your ability.
You might be matched up 1 v 1 against someone of similar ability, or 1 v 4 against 4 newbies. As David put it, this means everyone ends up happy: the 4 newbies have a chance because they only have to face one guy, and the one guy gets to be a badass and take on 4 people by himself.
From there, it’s up to the players – you can have a car chase or a shoot down; you can use pistols and accuracy or make big ‘splosions with a rocket launcher. Because of the dynamic match up system, no two missions are the same.
You can watch more about that here and here.
Conclusions
Keith, Jon, and even Evan spent a fair share of time trying to shake me out of my hype, but I’m not going to let them rain on my parade. Even if APB doesn’t pan out, it’s representative of a new and much needed shock to the MMO world: APB is a well funded, well made attempt at something unique and innovative. And hopefully we’ll see more, similar attempts by developers in the years to come – if you kiss enough frogs, you’re bound to find a prince!
That character creation video was pretty amazing, I have to admit.
I normally don't like PvP, which is basically what this game seems to be, but I have to give them high marks for creativity and character design.
Yeh, character creation looks like a dream to me. Just hope the game isn't 100% PvP.
I agree that APB sounds too good to be true. However, if everything the developer says comes to fruition, this game will revolutionize the genre. I think this game will be a hit if it includes everything the developer spoke about.
The only thing im worried about with apb is that they will over hype it....and make it too good to be true, then people will be disapointed when they are missing something they thought was going to be in the game.
I'm not sure how you can be to pessimistic about a game that is TRYING to be radically different than the warhammer aoc wow clones. For me they get 3 stars just for being different. No levels and turf wars come on what more can you ask for?
It would be so cool to make my toon look just like me including all my tattoos.
There are some interesting ideas and I'll be keeping an eye on this....
sounds like a good game on paper. must of missed where they mentioned not having a standard leveling system, but that sounds good too. im a little concerned about the balance between cops and robbers but im sure there are numerous things to be done about it. what kind of an endgame will this thing have? do you have to form a crime syndicate and be hunted by the fbi or something?
i think this game could appeal to the casual gamer. log on for a quick smash and grab kill some cops and then log out. and then you can appeal to the hardcore gamer by having a system set up to create a drug deal like in that new jack city movie. lol they could be like battlekeeps in AOC.
I would have to agree with you, the concept sounds great but I think they will have to add more substance to this game for it to be successful. From what I read, it seems the only way you can progress is doing quest which involves matches, what else is this game going to offer besides matches? Is there going to be any PvE? Will we be able to set up clan/guild matches? Maybe I am thinking to far ahead but these are some of the questions that pop in my head.
I would have to say that the PvP and shooting appeal to my FPS side, while the character customization and character progress appeal to my MMO side, you kind of get the best of both worlds. Let’s hope they can put this together.
I'd have to say the house "pessimist" is much more of a pragmatist.
The game sounds great--yeah, as always, we will have to wait, see, and taste what actually comes out of the pot. But the sounds and smells from the APB kitchen are making my mouth water.
As for the designer's approach and comments--we need more of that in MMOs. More willingness to look at things and ask why and why not?
Soon as i heared about APB i went to the site and booked marked it its a game am looking forward to this year and i upgraded my pc for this to am hopeing to make a clan out of this game.
To answer the question of the end game , Stephen Hewitt, Lead Designer on APB has said
"APB is a freeform, massively multiplayer game where players can either play as cops (Enforcers) or robbers (Criminals). Criminals commit crimes, and Enforcers try to stop them. You can play solo, group up into groups, or form more permanent Gangs or Squads (much like guilds). You can fight over persistent Turf Areas, develop contacts, and do a whole host of other things."
Nicky Hunt Senior Software Engineer from Real Time Worlds(developer) has said in an interview
"Question: So, if the game is cops vs. robbers, how do you start the game?
NICKY HUNT: Criminals will start as a basic thug and cops will start out as a rookie. Each side will level up and move up through the ranks of their respective areas of play.
Question:Can you make or join a gang if you're a criminal?
NICKY HUNT: Yes, of course, and that will play a big role. You'll also be able to control territory with your gang. There's going to be a whole territory system involved."
So one of the end games is your guild fighting other guilds over ownership of persistent turf areas. Also there seems to be some kinda reputation system so that might be part of the end game also.
The quotes are from apb-evolved.com/
The concept and the character creation video got me salivating. I'm keeping an eye on this one!
PvP.
Action.
No grind.
Customisation-focus.
This game is what some of you guys have always been asking for. I hope you support it. Cause if you don't, you have no idea how much I will be happy telling you all these points are detrimental in a MMO...
Nice info, get this game an offical forums on here, stat!!!
I wonder if you'll be able to play a dirty cop or an undercover thug
Well, rhetorically, he answered his own question. Without balance, you have the example given. Not much of a leap of logic there...
Oh wait, maybe the 4 noobs had the time of their life fighting a guy they couldn't touch!
...
And who determines what 'balance' is right? How do you guage players 'power' in these games? Levels typically, but this won't have levels right? So...
Well, this is just more proof of the shotgun effect, fire enough MMO's at the gaming audience, maybe one won't suck. I don't have high hopes of a pay to play GTA game.
Nobody has said if this will be pay to play or not. Since this WILL be on the xbox360 live service also. They might make it free with ads or item store. Until they announce something we wont know.
So....let's see what they come up with for 'viable options'. Proof? More like a cynical guess.
knowing this developer (webzen), the game might be as good as they say, they'll just never release it in America. They've been promising SUN and Wiki for years now. SUN has been out in Korea since 05, and was supposed to come out here in 06. Now, i'm not sure if I even want to play it anymore. Webzen is undoubtedly one of my least favorite companies.
The guy that's behind Crackdown is making APB so it's definately coming to America, probably before Asia even.
The issue I see with this, and perhaps the only major issue, is that there does not seem to be any PvE. No INstanced PvE, or open world PvE.
So take the average gamer that likes to Solo online (Apparently there are a lot of people that play this way, see WoW for more info ;-) ). The suggestion is that as a High Level solo player, the game can match you with 4 low level players.
Now what happens with MMORPGs is that at some point they become top heavy, there's a lot of high level players but no so much low level players.
What happens to the player match making then?
And then what about Server populations? Your gameplay experience will be directly tied to the number of people and the overall level range on your server, since apparently PvP isn't really an option for advancement, its the primary focus for advancement.
It's like hunting for a Counter Strike game, or going through a Halo matchmaking engine to find a game. Works fine when there are several people at your skill level online, but when there aren't it sucks.
And for an MMORPG, persistent world type game, the player should be challenged and be able to find a suitable game always (especially for a monthly fee).
Is this potential issue addressed anywhere?
They said that there would be no leveling system, but you could see a character's progress in their appearance and weapons. For example, we saw some "newbies" in blue jeans and white t-shirts, then a much more "gangsta" looking character who had been playing a long time. David also mentioned that the newbies only had pistol, while the veteran had a variety of weapons.
When did developer webzen take over real time worlds developers? Its real time worlds who is the developers of the game webzen is just going publish it.
I've been following APB since it was being thought up hearing rumors several years ago about dave wanting to make a gta like mmo. However after reading and listening to the movies I'm frustrated because it would appear the game isn't going to be much of an mmo but rather more of a hellgate london as far as MASSIVE goes. I will surely play apb but it pisses me off when amazing games like this shoot for instance based worlds and encounters rather than making one massive world. My opinion is all speculation of course seeing as I have not played the game. But just take hellgate for instance how awesome would it be if it were just one big ass world instead of the piece of crap it turned out to be... I have followed apb longer than hellgate and I think APB is going to hold the same disappointment for me as hellgate did. I will however be spending 5 hrs making my character before this disappointment sets in :O
If any of you writers or people who work for mmorpg to get interviews are reading this and you ever interview the devs about APB talk to them and really get into whether or not it is a persistent world or 90% instanced.... with those graphics it is easy to assume the devs are going for instanced.. I r sad
Haven't heard heard of the game before. Seems to have much potential. Will keep my eyes peeled.
"Servers will hold 100 players maximum and are considered "districts" of the city. Half can be cops, half can be robbers, or depending on skill level, higher ranked players can fight in smaller numbers against greater hordes of opposition. Players can also design their own graffiti to put up around the district. Also, they will be able to trade custom designs with others." - Source
"While groups can hold up to 40 members, PvP action only allows for 8 of those members to take on 8 opposing players." - Source
FPS servers house 10x more players yet they consider this game to be a MMOG (Massive Multiplayer Online Game)? Not so much imo... Not to mention we will have to pay monthly for this? The game is pretty but this pisses me off.
www.25tolife.com
APB needs to raise the bar... 25 to life Hosts 16 players are they a MMOG? they host double APB's numbers... When are game development companies going to learn genres? APB is hardly massive it is however a MOG (Multiplayer Online Game), yet it is being advertised as an MMOG and is perceived as an MMORPG... I guess it's all marketing schemes to attract more players but I see hellgate london fail written all over APB big disappointment for me as I expected more out of this game.
I should just get into game design but then again I don't think I would be able to work for some of the big named noobs behind all the current mmo's in development and already released. I could never stomach working for someone who had an idea for a mmo that I would never play. Also why is mmorpg.com starting to advertise games that aren't mmo's? I hate seeing hellgate on here...
1337 . Ima roll an orc pimp.
Apb does look amazing and i can't wait for it to get released :)
This game is looking good. It clearly has plenty of development time ahead. No need to read into what little information is currently available.
New info
Meet RTW at "Game in Scotland"
Whether you're looking to get into the industry, or are already in it, Realtime Worlds and many other Scottish games developers will be at Game in Scotland on Saturday the 29th March in our hometown of Dundee.