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If you haven't bought APB yet and are thinking about it.... wait, and this is from a fan.
GrayGhost79
Member UncommonPosts: 4,775
Since the last patch, which is the one where PunkBuster went live, things have been wonky. The lag that came with the patch is pretty painful in a metaphorical sense. Makes driving insanely aggravating, and shooting no where near as precise as it needs to be.
The game went from fun and insanely addicting to no fun and asininely painful to play in one patch.
I'd hold off until it's fixed because APB in it's current state isn't the APB you should experience, it's a great game even with it's flaws, the current lag just kills the fun though and adds a layer of frustration no one should have to deal with.
Comments
I can understand why they added Punkbuster.
To stop idiots running debug mode or aimbots.
Kills the fun for all for the sad few that choose to take the enjoyment out of the game.
I'd wait for a price drop which will happen by winter for sure plus right now another problem is the boosting, they should make it so you can't have a crim and forcer on the same server boosting is far to common, honestly I believe leader board rewards should be disabled unless its just RTW points and in game cash, this is just me however.
Its never a good idea to jump into any MMG in the first 6 months unless you are willing to put up with the issues that ALLWAYS come up.
This rule has never failed me.
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"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
I generally agree with this notion. However there are a couple reasons to play early.
1. To keep on the same foot as the majority of players, you need to start early. The longer you play a game the better you get at it and if you want to keep up with players skill-wise and gear-wise it's best to get an early start.
2. By the time you do decide to play the game, if you wait too long, there may not be that many players left to play with. In APBs case, I think this is what's going to happen.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Don't get me wrong, I know this and the games still great (Well will be again as soon as this is solved). This just isn't a state people should use their 50 free hours in before they make there judgement on if they like it or not.
Any developer who believes Punkbuster, Gameguard, or the like will stop people running debug mode or aimbots or wallhacks or speedhacks are the true idiots. Just like DRM in singleplayer games, the only ones who end up inconvenienced are the legit players.
The only way to stop shit like that is to code in deterrents from day one, such as making 99% of the game code server reliant, rather than having the majority of the game code client based.
Punkbuster is ran from the users computer, thus it can be bypassed and/or hacked just like the game client. It's no more difficult than cracking the latest DRM.
For example, Ubisoft's latest attempt at DRM with the newest Prince of Persia is the game has to be connected to the server at all times, as when you come to a switch or puzzle in the game, a signal is sent to the Ubi servers and the server tells the game client whether you can flip that switch or not. The downside for Ubi is that as a singlelayer game, it is still 99% client based with all the code on the users computer. So the crackers simply found when and where the game had to contact the server and basically added the calls into the crack, with the game now calling itself instead of Ubi's servers for permission, thus allowing all the switches and such to work.
However, had it been an mmo and had only the base code on the users computer ( i.e. just the graphical elements ), it would be flawless.
This is where mmo developers fail. If you open up an mmo game client, you can and will find the AI code, the scripting code, the server synching code, etc., etc. And this allows you to manipulate that code to your benefit.
When mmo developers learn not to treat their code the same as they would making a singleplayer game ( mmo developers right now still basically at the root just code a singleplayer game then add in some server code ), then you will see the majority of hacks virtually disappear overnight.
-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.-
You can't code an MMO like a single-player game. Mob and aggro tracking are all done server-side for a start. You can test this yourself by loading up your MMORPG, then going into an area where there are other players and finding a set of mobs. Move out of that area (how that that is varies from MMO to MMO) and then come back. The mobs will be in roughly the same places, allowing for built in movement.
Now go to an area where there are no players and do the same thing. When you get back you'll see that your mobs are all in different places. This is because the server despawns mobs when there are no players nearby, because consistent placement isn't necessary any more and it cuts down on the processing needed to track all mobs in the gameworld, and respawns them when a player enters the area.
AI coding is server-side too because it's the most efficient, easiest and most reliable way to synchronise combat across multiple clients. Even so, in theory (and probably in practice although I've never come across it, having no interest in these things) hacks are still possible even if all the code was server side. The hack would intercept and process data between the server and client software, and then return faked data to the server.
Like Punkbuster and other anticheat systems, putting all MMO code on the server (if it were practical in terms of bandwidth and raw processing power at the server's end) wouldn't stop cheating it would just make it more difficult.
And when it comes to stopping cheating, that's really the best we can hope for.
Punkbuster seems to work fine on BF and the like, I don't see why any problems here will not be temporary ones. But I never play a game at launch either, thats just common sense. If you want to play a poorer game when the buzz is hotter thats your look out.
Still got 50+ hours of gameplay, so I think I'll hold off for while until the lag is fixed. What is with new online games and lag issues these days?