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PC MMO APB: All Points Bulletin has found a home. After the collapse of original developer, Realtime Worlds, the game's IP has been purchased by GamersFirst, whose parent company, K2 Games, reportedly paid about $2.4 million for the game. The new APB will be free-to-play and supported by micro-transactions when it relaunches early next year.
“[Realtime Worlds] had obviously set their sights very high, in terms of expectation. From a retail sales point of view, APB was obviously a failure, but from our point of view, we see a huge amount of potential in the components of the game," GamersFirst chief operating officer Bjorn Book-Larsson said."We think it’s a fantastic candidate in being a free-to-play title that can be grown over time to be a great community product," he added.
When asked about the major ways the new revenue model would improve APB, Book-Larsson said it would solve two of the chief complaints many gamers had about the game. First, no one will be buying game-time in "chunks," which should cut down on the number of people who drop the game because their friends stop playing, and secondly, the micro-transaction model will help with balancing issues.
"If you joined the game, you’d end up getting shot by people with guns that you couldn’t get," Book-Larsson said. "That's not really a good retention model. So we’re going to change a lot of the balancing components."
In the new APB, players who would rather not grind for a long time will be able to buy 30 day leases on guns that will be comparable to the weapons "hardcore" players gain through hours of hard work. “It’s not the same gun," Book-Larsson said. "But it’s similar to what you’re being shot with by the other people... Our goal is to make it so that free players who refuse to pay still have a decent experience, but those who do micro-transactions, and buy these micro-transaction guns, get a little bit of an edge.”
As for any other changes in the pipeline for APB, GamersFirst was remaining tight-lipped, although the company's goal is to make the transition as seamless as possible for existing players. "Most likely they will be able to reclaim their old characters," Book-Larsson said.
If you missed out on the retail APB, 2011 will bring you a chance to play it for free, which is, I think you will agree, the best price. So what do you think -- is APB perfect for a micro-transaction game? Did GamersFirst get a good deal on the APB IP?
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vishnano1
ok i have one for u what do the guys get that bought the game and spent over 3 month paying and playing it and clocking over 400 hours played time get when it comes out id think we should be entitaled to somthing dont tell me that i unlocked 4 of the mil guns and had like 7 cars and they will be taken away from me even after i have spent time and money in the game
Westlaw
This core of this game was awesome. This is great news. The game had a few major flaw which killed it:
#1) The character and weapon upgrade system sucked because playing an TPS (third person shooter) game where your opponents do more damage, have more hps, and regen faster than you do is not fun. If upgrades gave players more variety in allowing them to change how they did things as opposed to just making them stronger, the game would have been much better because skill and strategy would decide fights instead of gear and grind.
#2) Hacks were rampant. It only takes one hacker in the opposing side to frustrate an entire team and ruin the mission experience. RTW was terrible at policing hackers. This ruined the game because eventually there were so many hackers that competitive players became frustrated and quit.
#3) Matchmaking was terrible. Playing without a pre-made team usually lead to large amounts of frustration. If player upgrades were more universally even, it might have been easier to match players against each other.
#4) Risk/reward for missions was very skewed. Players who cared about winning were often teamed up with players who were just looking for a little fun, or who were trying to grind cash or contact levels. Separating players playing for rank and those playing for exp/cash/fun would have gone a long way towards making the game better.
If K2/Gamer'sfirst addresses these major flaws before relaunch, much of the playerbase who bought the game last summer is likely to return. This game had so much killer potential, it was sad how poorly it was managed.
McDickings
Seriously? This announcement is just a big middle finger to anyone that paid $50 retail for the game. I for one am outraged at this. I fought so hard against microtransactions in the retail launch and got rewarded with a buggy under developed game. The game failed because it was fundamentally flawed not because of the way it was financed. RTW totally ignored their beta community in the United States and pretty much slapped us in the face with a launch date even though the majority of long-term testers were saying the game still needed lots of work.
KingPhazon
I've never played it. Since it''s going F2P maybe I'll give it a try, depends on the reviews, I'll be watching.
frontline_gear
I actually found the game in beta to be fun with friends when we weren't playing wow... I liked the whole mmo with guns idea, but it was HORRIBLY unbalanced. So, if they fix it, APB will be pretty cool. Now, its no WoW, and nothing will be WoW. But APB is the only one like it. So I plan on having both, and playing both, and enjoying both(hopefully).
plasticgiantcatbear
I hope GamersFirst is successful, because I'm not too sure the old player-base will return, and now that Starcraft 2 and the COD franchise have claimed the attention of gamers (and WoW claiming more with Cataclysm and Arenanet's subscription-less Guild Wars 2 nearing release) it'll be hard to live off of micro-transactions when APB is already a heavily tarnished title.
GamersFirst will have to put a lot of effort into getting the word out that serious changes to gameplay and policing are going down, otherwise I see this conversation happening among the general gaming community:
WoW:Cataclysm Player1: Hey, do you guys want to try APB?
WoW:Cataclysm Player2: I thought that game shut its servers down.
WoW:Cataclysm Player1: Some company bought it out and is running it F2P.
Ex APB Player: That game kind of sucked and was flooded with aim-bots.
Wow:Cataclysm Player2: What are "aim-bots?"
Ex APB Player: This cheat tool people pay for that snaps your enemies to you so they don't have to aim. They have wall-hacks so they can see you coming from half the map away, too. It doesn't help that they always have the best guns either.
WoW:Cataclysm Player2: Err, no thanks, we're having too much fun here.
Snikt
I don't think that the hacking/aim-botting problem is being addressed. Design balance be damned, there's nothing more OP than cheating.
Kill Audio
Finally! I hoped that me getting this game for a birthday would have gone a lot better! Can't wait until it's free-to-play.
TehSkull
I will definitely play this game when it comes out. I do hope the 360 version is still in the works, though.
mattofwar
sweet i had a friend pick it from our local gamestop for a penny and gave it to me
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