Dave Jones Interview

MMORPG.com:

Your character customization feels like crafting. 

Dave Jones:

Yes I think our character customization is more like crafting. The difference is, the crafting in traditional online games,… well there is no real skill or artistic input by the players. You just click and grind them to get them out. I'm frustrated sometimes when I see what the players can create in APB. Like the vehicles. And I say there is no way I could do that. To me, that is like true crafting. The players are creating things that I am aspiring to own. I don’t have the same tools they have nor the same skill. So when you think about making a clan or guild, you wanna get the guys who are really good. You want guys who can create cool things, cool clothes, cool cars. 

MMORPG.com:

Your music system has a lot of customization to it as well. Tell us about it. 

Dave Jones:

Yes, you can do composition of complete few-minute audio tracks if you want too. That kind of grew on too. In the beginning, you could do these little 15-second sound bites. So you could play them as your sirens or something, but it was customized so you would know who was coming. Then we extended that to three minutes, so you could play it as a music track in your vehicle. So the display points are really there. I think we are adding in now some patches of, like, a half hour where players get to play the music they created for anyone in the Social District. We have as many display points as possible in the game.

MMORPG.com:

Will you add player housing?

Dave Jones:

We have the Social Districts all built up to support that, so that is something we hope to have in the future.

MMORPG.com:

Is there any PvE in the game?

Dave Jones:

Um, yes. I think the criminals have it in some respects. So you saw me mugging a pedestrian. They randomly drop loot. So I can mug a pedestrian and take everything I get to a contact, and they will buy the stuff off of you. So is that PvE? It sort of is. But it doesn’t fight back. The only difference is that.

MMORPG.com:

So, is it safe to say that this game is 99% PvP content?

Dave Jones:

90% pure player content rather than PvP. So, for example, Chris (who was playing an enforcer) could have witnessed me. We have a witnessing thing in there. He could have witnessed me do a crime, and maybe he doesn’t like me. He could follow me around and press the “witness key” every time I commit a crime, and his prestige is going up -- in effect that is what the system does. Then that offers a match between those two players and he puts an APB out on me. So, as an enforcer, you can be like a cop and keep an eye on one criminal you really want to catch. As a criminal, you have to be careful because you don’t know when that APB is going to come. So you could be committing a crime and “Bam!”: APB on you! So that creates a deathmatch between those two players, which turns into a mission.