of course, one of the only twitch based "mmos", a type of game ive been looking for since planetside died...and it dies within 3 months of release.....it was a good 6 or so months (closed beta included)...hopefully someone will come around and buy it and revitalize it
Quite simply: this is ridiculous. I always feel you should run any MMO - major ones that is- for a little more than a year before you decide to pull the plug on it. If you cannot handle the development staff to support it for that period of time , you work with a smaller team. . It might not be improved very fast but it wil improve and that just might turn things around. Another very vital point which is overlooked all the time by all studios is communication with your playerbase. Don't just READ the forums but respond to them. TALK with your playerbase. Make community relations a two-way street ...
You saw tremendous improvements in the final months of Tabula Rasa and that was due to a complete 360 degree turn regarding how they communicated with the playerbase. The fact it was still canceled had nothing to do with the quality of the game at that time but was due to corporate policies . AoC managed to turn things around due to the staff realizing the way they treated the playerbase was totally c**p ( and they apparently realized that in time ) . Players will put up with very slow improvements to any game as long as they feel they are being taken serious.
To cancel APB now is a mistake . I wish those developers success in finding any investor willing to bet on them ( I know I'd steer clear of this lot for certain. They just lost ALL credibility with players of MMO's ) . Coud very well be end of career for all of them .
of course, one of the only twitch based "mmos", a type of game ive been looking for since planetside died...and it dies within 3 months of release.....it was a good 6 or so months (closed beta included)...hopefully someone will come around and buy it and revitalize it
I doubt it . I'm waiting for someone to buy and relaunch Tabula Rasa but that won't happen either.Those games will end up on shelves collecting dust beacuse the companies don''t want to part with the IP .
APB has been a fantastic journey, but unfortunately that journey has come to a premature end. Today we are sad to announce that despite everyone's best efforts to keep the service running; APB is coming to a close. It's been a pleasure working on APB and with all its players. Together we were building an absolutely amazing game, and for that, we thank you. You guys are awesome! From all of the Realtime World staff we thank you for your continued support. The servers are still up, so join the party and say goodbye! - Ben 'APBMonkey' Bateman (Community Officer)
"I truly wish we had the chance to continue to craft APB into the vision we had for it. It has been a long & difficult journey but ultimately rewarding to have had the chance to try something bold and different. APB holds some great memories, from the last night of the beta, to the clans and individuals who amazed us with their creativity and sense of community. I am so sorry it had to end so quickly but hopefully the good memories will stay with us all for a long time. Thanks to all the team for the years of hard work, and to the players who contributed so much." - Dave Jones
Please spare a thought to all the thousands of brave men and women of San Paro who despite knowing the odds, still dared to cross the street. They will be sorely missed.. - Johann van der Walt (Software Engineer: Living City)
Thanks for sticking with us through the hard times guys, we put a huge amount of our lives into APB, but unfortunately we.re not going to get the chance to make it the game we all knew it had the potential to be. Thanks." - Rob 'bobbyd' Anderberg (Technical Lead).
"Thanks for being a creative and imaginative community, the cookies, feedback and ideas were appreciated." . Ben ' Giefster ' Skelly
"Working on APB was rewarding, frustrating, amazing, depressing, exciting, and overall, surreal. I've never experienced anything quite like it, but I.ve enjoyed it all the way. I hope the players enjoyed the time they had despite the short comings, and will remember the game in a good light for what it was meant to be, not quite what it turned out to be. Now just to get started on that Xbox version..." - Jon McKellan (the guy who did the loading screens)
I had the great pleasure of working with some extremely talented people in both the Dundee and Boulder office, and for the longest time APB was our lives. It is truly sad that it ended this way ... but when you aim for the stars, you sometimes fall on your face.. - Ben Abbott, Live Producer.
"Press F to apply for Jobseekers Allowance."- Ben Hall (Development QA)
"In every way APB was a dichotomy. I have witnessed the project alter from a fragile and delicate entity used to show the world the depth of our vision through to the sturdy beast we released to the public. There were the unusual errors and crashes which are to be expected but it worked. Once in the hands of our community I have never seen something elicit such a polarisation of people. It was dismissed as overhyped and broken or else taken to heart to be loved and cherished, buoyed on by a fanaticism I was proud to have played a part in bringing to the world. Although still again among our players APB brought out both the poles in human behaviour. I bore witness to raw hatred and fury, arrogance and mean spirits but I was also delighted to experience the kindest side of human nature as players came to the aid of others when in a tight spot or they created works of art with the tools provided.
In all APB was a fantastic experience with an incredible team and it is one that I will always cherish and has added to who I am. Thank you everyone involved from our excellent players to our incredible dev team."- Conor Crowley (Senior QA, System design assistant, Tech support, in-game support, Overall CS, 1 man Publishing QA team, Tea Boy, Morale Officer)
"I'm sad to see the project go. Of all the games I.ve worked on, APB was probably the one with the most potential. I genuinely believe that given more time, we could have turned APB into the game we all wanted it to be. I.d like to thank the community for all their support, the good times I.ve had playing against them, and for the amazing (and often hilarious) user-generated content that they.ve created.
I'd also like to thank the rest of the team for all of their hard-work, and for generally being great people to work with. " -Bryan Robertson (Gameplay Programmer)
Originally posted by gortic i feel bad for all the people who acctually bought it, 50$ thrown away
putting into prospective that i got over 300 hours of entertainment ( plus another 300 or so just from closed beta) i think 50 bucks is well wort that. plus, i never payed a monthly fee, just sold some crap on the AH for RTW points and had 6 months of gametime before the end of the 1st week of launch
i miss tabula rasa... and auto assault both were something different, if not all that popular (actually TR was still very popular in the EU servers when it announced the closure).
This is a shame, i mean it was one of those games that you felt could work on consoles as well as PC...
died before it's time.
another one bites the dust. You know even one of Tolkiens best friends refused to proof read anymore of his work because, in his own words:
"not another fucking elf"
true story.
"nothing actually matters, we're just slightly evolved monkeys clinging to a dying piece of rock hurtling through space waiting for our eventual death." - Frankie Boyle, Mock The Week
Developer's can try new stuff and go off the beaten path when it's done right, APB should be used as an example and learned from. They should have also paid attention and listen to the beta testers more and fixed the game before going live.
I totally agree.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
It wasn't a MMORPG. Sure it had nice customization but after that?
Everything this game had, crackdown did 100 times better before it. Even with the community APB had, you would still only be running around with 4 or 5 people at a time on missions. I must say playing with 1 other person on crackdown was a million times better and more worth the money.
That's saying something becasue to me crackdown was so-so...
. Clunky movements, clunky aimer, prehistoric crosshair, poorly optimized, terrible mechanics, especially vehicular, no point for the AI, terrible matchmaking, hackers, OP weapons, very inbalanced, small cities, no "Depth" to anything, cheap 30 second lore, no sense of progression, tons of little kids.
For anybody else who wanted a cheap 3rd person shooter thrill. You can buy GOW or Crackdown for MUCH CHEAPER.
It really sucks to see this game get trashed so fast. It was one of the most fun game I have played in a while, but the bugs, hacks, poor performance, the minor gameplay issues, and the fact that all these had to be fixed first after the game's (premature) launch screwed any hope for new content.
his is all so terribly unfortunate. I hope some f2p developer buys out the property....or something. One of the reasons I was following this property was that it wasn't a fantasy game, and they were at least toying with something other than the prevailing "buy our box, pay us our $15/month, spend in our cash shop and like it, people!" mentality.
It would be great if someone would step up and continue to develop the game, and its (relatively) innovative sub model. The fact that RTW was *trying* something different was enough to keep me a little interested at least.
I would consider trying the game if someone made it a f2p property as well, and I would recommend it to friends. From what I saw the game looked decent, if different than what people are used to in MMO's.
Lots of hackers? Like I said, that's really unfortunate.
This is the third property I've followed since 2009 that I was *really* interested in that either a. disappointed me horribly (Champions Online, DCU Online), or has folded.
I wish RTW luck, and I hope APB doesn't just languish forever in oblivion.
Thank the Gods for Arena Net and Guild Wars/Guild Wars 2...
I havent tried this game but im pretty sure this game lacked depth, besides the customization and run and shoot missions. I bet people wouldve been bored of it after a couple of months anyway.
I got the pre-order when the game launched, played 1h30m and never went back.. truly a waste of money. This kind of "business" shouldn't be allowed. Launching a game and 3 months and half later closing doors is a true ripoff..
There must be some laws against this kind of things.. this almost smells like a scam.
I feel the same. I played a total of 3 hours, was waiting for some improvements, like this patch they planned for today and then, BAM, gone. It does seem shady, but I can't imagine any law they are breaking. I want recourse, but am sure I have none. Ah well, it is neither the first, nor will it be the last time I've regretted spending $50.
I played the beta for 10 minutes and knew it would'nt last. Basicly it was very bad online shooter with a monthly fee ? Why would i pay for this when you can play much better FPS for free ?
i feel bad for all the people who acctually bought it, 50$ thrown away
putting into prospective that i got over 300 hours of entertainment ( plus another 300 or so just from closed beta) i think 50 bucks is well wort that. plus, i never payed a monthly fee, just sold some crap on the AH for RTW points and had 6 months of gametime before the end of the 1st week of launch
But what about people who just spent $50 to buy it the day before it shut down?
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.- -And on the 8th day, man created God.-
What do you expect from a game that offers nothing more than what other FREE TO PLAY shooters already do and on a larger scale! (par the customization, which was best i've seen.. ever!)
I foresaw this the moment they announced it was going P2P / micropayments. Own fault, nothing to sob about.
Ha. I called that one. There was no way this game would last once people actually played it. I didn't think it would die this fast though. It gave a nice illusion of character customization, but it wasnt that great, you just paint over pre made stuff. I feel sorry for the folks that wasted 60 bucks and time on this.
What a waste of time and resources. They should have added NPC factions. Maybe that wouldnt have helped either. Oh well.
Someone should DEFINATELY I mean super definately buy the customization engine/license....that thing is huge!!! Imagine a similar customization level in any other MMO...
I think I actually spent way more time reading and theorycrafting about MMOs than playing them
Pans from critics and players aside, this failure pretty much HAS to be pointed at the top. If you don't have the capital to keep a project running while in the red AT LEAST for a year, then you shouldn't even start that project.
They get props for trying to do something different, though. If folks still wonder why so few ever try to go off the beaten path in MMO development, here lies a pretty good example. RIP...
There was nothing different about the game, just improved customization of characters.
Comments
of course, one of the only twitch based "mmos", a type of game ive been looking for since planetside died...and it dies within 3 months of release.....it was a good 6 or so months (closed beta included)...hopefully someone will come around and buy it and revitalize it
Quite simply: this is ridiculous. I always feel you should run any MMO - major ones that is- for a little more than a year before you decide to pull the plug on it. If you cannot handle the development staff to support it for that period of time , you work with a smaller team. . It might not be improved very fast but it wil improve and that just might turn things around. Another very vital point which is overlooked all the time by all studios is communication with your playerbase. Don't just READ the forums but respond to them. TALK with your playerbase. Make community relations a two-way street ...
You saw tremendous improvements in the final months of Tabula Rasa and that was due to a complete 360 degree turn regarding how they communicated with the playerbase. The fact it was still canceled had nothing to do with the quality of the game at that time but was due to corporate policies . AoC managed to turn things around due to the staff realizing the way they treated the playerbase was totally c**p ( and they apparently realized that in time ) . Players will put up with very slow improvements to any game as long as they feel they are being taken serious.
To cancel APB now is a mistake . I wish those developers success in finding any investor willing to bet on them ( I know I'd steer clear of this lot for certain. They just lost ALL credibility with players of MMO's ) . Coud very well be end of career for all of them .
I doubt it . I'm waiting for someone to buy and relaunch Tabula Rasa but that won't happen either.Those games will end up on shelves collecting dust beacuse the companies don''t want to part with the IP .
I played APB since open beta and had a lot of fun. Hopefully someone will pick up the many good ideas it had and make a great game.
Last words out of the gamelauncher:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
APB has been a fantastic journey, but unfortunately that journey has come to a premature end. Today we are sad to announce that despite everyone's best efforts to keep the service running; APB is coming to a close. It's been a pleasure working on APB and with all its players. Together we were building an absolutely amazing game, and for that, we thank you. You guys are awesome! From all of the Realtime World staff we thank you for your continued support. The servers are still up, so join the party and say goodbye! - Ben 'APBMonkey' Bateman (Community Officer)
"I truly wish we had the chance to continue to craft APB into the vision we had for it. It has been a long & difficult journey but ultimately rewarding to have had the chance to try something bold and different. APB holds some great memories, from the last night of the beta, to the clans and individuals who amazed us with their creativity and sense of community. I am so sorry it had to end so quickly but hopefully the good memories will stay with us all for a long time. Thanks to all the team for the years of hard work, and to the players who contributed so much." - Dave Jones
Please spare a thought to all the thousands of brave men and women of San Paro who despite knowing the odds, still dared to cross the street. They will be sorely missed.. - Johann van der Walt (Software Engineer: Living City)
Thanks for sticking with us through the hard times guys, we put a huge amount of our lives into APB, but unfortunately we.re not going to get the chance to make it the game we all knew it had the potential to be. Thanks." - Rob 'bobbyd' Anderberg (Technical Lead).
"Thanks for being a creative and imaginative community, the cookies, feedback and ideas were appreciated." . Ben ' Giefster ' Skelly
"Working on APB was rewarding, frustrating, amazing, depressing, exciting, and overall, surreal. I've never experienced anything quite like it, but I.ve enjoyed it all the way. I hope the players enjoyed the time they had despite the short comings, and will remember the game in a good light for what it was meant to be, not quite what it turned out to be. Now just to get started on that Xbox version..." - Jon McKellan (the guy who did the loading screens)
I had the great pleasure of working with some extremely talented people in both the Dundee and Boulder office, and for the longest time APB was our lives. It is truly sad that it ended this way ... but when you aim for the stars, you sometimes fall on your face.. - Ben Abbott, Live Producer.
"Press F to apply for Jobseekers Allowance."- Ben Hall (Development QA)
"In every way APB was a dichotomy. I have witnessed the project alter from a fragile and delicate entity used to show the world the depth of our vision through to the sturdy beast we released to the public. There were the unusual errors and crashes which are to be expected but it worked. Once in the hands of our community I have never seen something elicit such a polarisation of people. It was dismissed as overhyped and broken or else taken to heart to be loved and cherished, buoyed on by a fanaticism I was proud to have played a part in bringing to the world. Although still again among our players APB brought out both the poles in human behaviour. I bore witness to raw hatred and fury, arrogance and mean spirits but I was also delighted to experience the kindest side of human nature as players came to the aid of others when in a tight spot or they created works of art with the tools provided.
In all APB was a fantastic experience with an incredible team and it is one that I will always cherish and has added to who I am. Thank you everyone involved from our excellent players to our incredible dev team."- Conor Crowley (Senior QA, System design assistant, Tech support, in-game support, Overall CS, 1 man Publishing QA team, Tea Boy, Morale Officer)
"I'm sad to see the project go. Of all the games I.ve worked on, APB was probably the one with the most potential. I genuinely believe that given more time, we could have turned APB into the game we all wanted it to be. I.d like to thank the community for all their support, the good times I.ve had playing against them, and for the amazing (and often hilarious) user-generated content that they.ve created.
I'd also like to thank the rest of the team for all of their hard-work, and for generally being great people to work with. " -Bryan Robertson (Gameplay Programmer)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
putting into prospective that i got over 300 hours of entertainment ( plus another 300 or so just from closed beta) i think 50 bucks is well wort that. plus, i never payed a monthly fee, just sold some crap on the AH for RTW points and had 6 months of gametime before the end of the 1st week of launch
i miss tabula rasa... and auto assault both were something different, if not all that popular (actually TR was still very popular in the EU servers when it announced the closure).
This is a shame, i mean it was one of those games that you felt could work on consoles as well as PC...
died before it's time.
another one bites the dust. You know even one of Tolkiens best friends refused to proof read anymore of his work because, in his own words:
"not another fucking elf"
true story.
"nothing actually matters, we're just slightly evolved monkeys clinging to a dying piece of rock hurtling through space waiting for our eventual death." - Frankie Boyle, Mock The Week
Not hard to believe really... this is what happens when you release an unfinished game to the public.
Played: MCO - EQ/EQ2 - WoW - VG - WAR - AoC - LoTRO - DDO - GW/GW2 - Eve - Rift - FE - TSW - TSO - WS - ESO - AA - BD
Playing: Sims 3 & 4, Diablo3 and PoE
Waiting on: Lost Ark
Who's going to make a Cyberpunk MMO?
I totally agree.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
It wasn't a MMORPG. Sure it had nice customization but after that?
Everything this game had, crackdown did 100 times better before it. Even with the community APB had, you would still only be running around with 4 or 5 people at a time on missions. I must say playing with 1 other person on crackdown was a million times better and more worth the money.
That's saying something becasue to me crackdown was so-so...
. Clunky movements, clunky aimer, prehistoric crosshair, poorly optimized, terrible mechanics, especially vehicular, no point for the AI, terrible matchmaking, hackers, OP weapons, very inbalanced, small cities, no "Depth" to anything, cheap 30 second lore, no sense of progression, tons of little kids.
For anybody else who wanted a cheap 3rd person shooter thrill. You can buy GOW or Crackdown for MUCH CHEAPER.
[Mod Edit]
It really sucks to see this game get trashed so fast. It was one of the most fun game I have played in a while, but the bugs, hacks, poor performance, the minor gameplay issues, and the fact that all these had to be fixed first after the game's (premature) launch screwed any hope for new content.
hahah, almost buy this game like 3 months ago, im glad i save some money!
So What Now?
If management and office operations was so hostile, why not offer it up to the big guys (SOE, etc.)?
Finally - Best site for Chuck Norris
http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/
his is all so terribly unfortunate. I hope some f2p developer buys out the property....or something. One of the reasons I was following this property was that it wasn't a fantasy game, and they were at least toying with something other than the prevailing "buy our box, pay us our $15/month, spend in our cash shop and like it, people!" mentality.
It would be great if someone would step up and continue to develop the game, and its (relatively) innovative sub model. The fact that RTW was *trying* something different was enough to keep me a little interested at least.
I would consider trying the game if someone made it a f2p property as well, and I would recommend it to friends. From what I saw the game looked decent, if different than what people are used to in MMO's.
Lots of hackers? Like I said, that's really unfortunate.
This is the third property I've followed since 2009 that I was *really* interested in that either a. disappointed me horribly (Champions Online, DCU Online), or has folded.
I wish RTW luck, and I hope APB doesn't just languish forever in oblivion.
Thank the Gods for Arena Net and Guild Wars/Guild Wars 2...
I havent tried this game but im pretty sure this game lacked depth, besides the customization and run and shoot missions. I bet people wouldve been bored of it after a couple of months anyway.
If it only came to ps3 not pc i would play it for often the wow It suck's that this game is dieing.
I feel the same. I played a total of 3 hours, was waiting for some improvements, like this patch they planned for today and then, BAM, gone. It does seem shady, but I can't imagine any law they are breaking. I want recourse, but am sure I have none. Ah well, it is neither the first, nor will it be the last time I've regretted spending $50.
I played the beta for 10 minutes and knew it would'nt last. Basicly it was very bad online shooter with a monthly fee ? Why would i pay for this when you can play much better FPS for free ?
Make APB a free to play... I'll create an account just to play when I'm bored of everything else!
Sad to see it goes down so quickly... really..:(
But what about people who just spent $50 to buy it the day before it shut down?
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
They were just plain and simple: TOO GREEDY
What do you expect from a game that offers nothing more than what other FREE TO PLAY shooters already do and on a larger scale! (par the customization, which was best i've seen.. ever!)
I foresaw this the moment they announced it was going P2P / micropayments. Own fault, nothing to sob about.
I'm glad I waited out on this one then, I kinda wanted to buy it at release but decided to wait awhile.
I think they should have gone without the subscription costs, and just had it set up like a normal online fps. Maybe it wouldn't have flopped then.
Ha. I called that one. There was no way this game would last once people actually played it. I didn't think it would die this fast though. It gave a nice illusion of character customization, but it wasnt that great, you just paint over pre made stuff. I feel sorry for the folks that wasted 60 bucks and time on this.
What a waste of time and resources. They should have added NPC factions. Maybe that wouldnt have helped either. Oh well.
AFAIK you have at least 90 days to make a chargeback, the game ran for 80 days, so there is still 10 days left to try
Someone should DEFINATELY I mean super definately buy the customization engine/license....that thing is huge!!! Imagine a similar customization level in any other MMO...
I think I actually spent way more time reading and theorycrafting about MMOs than playing them
There was nothing different about the game, just improved customization of characters.