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All Points Bulletin: What Went Wrong With APB
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Bill Murphy's The List column this week takes a look at some possible reasons behind the sad news that Realtime Worlds is nearing bankruptcy. While APB seemed to be a promising cops and robbers MMO, the game seemed fraught with difficult issues that may have hastened Realtime Worlds' insolvency. Bill looks at APB's problems from a player perspective so see what you think and add your thoughts to What Went Wrong With APB.
I have my theories as to why APB and Realtime Worlds now find themselves at the end of the line praying for a miracle. I really hope they get another chance too. The original Crackdown was an absolute riot. APB’s not a bad game, and I’m also not going to say “it’s dead”. In fact I hope it keeps on keeping on. With the following list I may be entirely off base, but from a player’s perspective this is the best I could come up with. Feel free to discuss and give your own hypothesis in the comments below.
Read more of The List.
Comments
Rest in peace... APB
It really is a shame whats going on with this game. I didn't get a chance to play it albeit for a very very short time in beta. I was hoping to give it some polish time and come back, but I may not get this chance.
My big draw to the game was that they were planning on a 360 release, so I can play with my xbox live friends.... looks like theres absolutely no chance of that now
From my point of view, the game failed to be enough of a MMORPG to play any period of time. Without the mechanics of storylines and quests it just feel flat. Great combat though and it was fun and funny at times. Just a shame really.
I agree. The game had a lot of potential, but the payment scheme was terrible, the gameplay was repetitive and the controls were awkward.
Had the game been 1st person rather than 3rd it would have been better as that would have made the combat a lot more fun. Take the combat from Crime Craft, or most any FPS, and put it into this open persistant world game and you'd have far better results, but they tried to appeal too much to MMO players.
Even then it would have been far better served as a cash shop game than a P2P sub game.
I was one of the early tester in APB and i knew from the off that the game would take a dive. In my opinion they forgot the 'RPG' part of the game. The concept was great and the graphic were great but the game play was boring and repetitive, their was nothing in depth about it.
They should of made a game that had the GTA appeal, meaning Quests/Mission big gangster or top official Bosses , bigger world and more cities. They should of made an actual mmorpg with the same mechanics as typical mmorpg games. They could of had profession which would be similar to classes.
GTA is a winner because it's a true RPG that let's you lose in a world where you can do anything, that's the appeal. APB was a counter strike FFA with boring game play and to much effort put into customization and not the actual RPG of the game.
I agree with everything you put, and I really wanted to like this game. But after an hour of doing the same thing over and over I had to let go.
It looks a fun game, but it's fallen into a similar trap that befell Planetside and, to a lesser extent, Fallen Earth, you can buy better single player/multiplayer/co-op games that do the same thing but much much better (in their case, without the monthy fee as well).
An mmo thats infringing on an existing market needs something special to set it apart and needs to at least match the execution of it's mmo and non-mmo competition, if not exceed it.
APB simply chose a market niche thats filled with some truly excellent, well established games and gamers who demand excellence based on the competition and experience.
Expresso gave me a Hearthstone beta key.....I'm so happy
this is the MAIN problem here:
people keep harping on the lack of RPG elements....
when/where did realtime worlds ever say this was gonna be an RPG?
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Corpus Callosum
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I think it was simply too expensive for what it had to offer. There is another game that has the same problem.
I never hope a game to fail, simply because there will be players that like it. So ideally I hope that the payment model fails, making the company decide to change the payment model to attract more players. So that you get a win win situation and at the same time sends a clear message to the MMO industry to stop thinking that customers accept everything.
"storylines and quests" does not an MMORPG make. An MMORPG like this only feels flat without such "mechanics" if you aren't quite partaking in the social aspect, and that's reason numero uno for playing some Massively Multiplayer, amiright? If you ask me, storylines and quests only detract from the social aspect, unless--of course--its done in such an engaging manner that it's worth talking about. More often than not, it isn't even worth mentioning. Only one example of quests and storyline done right springs to mind; Guild Wars.
That aside, APB feels "flat" because the combat is very simple but the character progression does nothing but add to statistics, making higher leveled players absolute power houses and causing more frustration that it's worth, especially with a broken matchmaking system. All in all, the game doesn't make the grade because there simply wasn't enough development and preparation behind the launch.
Besides, when you can fire up Grand Theft Auto 4 or Red Dead Redemption and basically get the same experience, only on a somewhat smaller scale, what's the point in paying to play? APB being an MMO makes no difference if the only time you experience the Massively Multiplayer part is in Global Chat or the Social District.
Pretty obvious to everyone what went wrong with APB. It was designed based on a faulty revenue model. Been saying this game would not fly from the first we heard about it. The investors had to be complete idiots to fund this game. They deserve to lose what they put into it.
Everyone sees the monetary projections for online play and wants to get in on the act without knowledge of what works and what does not in this genre. Fools are easily parted from their money.
The game was repetitious and players were prone to cheat which did not help the matter. The cheating was not policed very well either.
Wow and i almost picked up this sinking ship off of steam after seeing it on the top sellers list for more than 2 weeks, but i guess my wallet wins this time.
I have to say I feel your views are dead on, Mr Murphy.
The only thing I can think to disagree with is what seems to be your need to apologize in advance for critiquing the game when you, in your own words, "are no expert in the “what’s and why for’s” of videogame design and videogame business".
That shouldn't matter. You are speaking from your experience as a game consumer and player. A far more important perspective in my opinion considering the current state of APB.
I know you were just being polite and letting people know you didn't feel you were God's Gift to MMO creating, but don't sell yourself short. Your viewpoint as a consumer as to what is wrong, or right, with this game still holds quite a bit of merit.
In fact since it is the people seeing the game from the same perspective as yourself that are responsible for this games continuing existence, it may in fact be the opinion that has the most gravity of them all.
If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, riddle 'em with bullets
It seems like people are really ignoring the fact that pure PvP MMOs don't tend to do very well... the MMO market doesn't have enough fans of pure PvP to support a game like this.
Maybe it was the 100 million pumped into it? Way overpriced budget i think them developers were smoking notes and throwing to many parties. Its really just a small game very little longlivity content and its bland. I liked the idea from e3 all them years ago but when it came down it to, after 20 hours it was boring. Plus no loot = no replayability really.
Wow, why the hope for rescue?
All of us gamers would like to see games survive. All of us gamers want better games. The reality is all games cannot be successful, there's just too much competition now. I, for one, would like to see this game die. I would like to see all dying games die. It thins the herd and we are, in general, left with the best games. Every product including MMOs have a life cycle, some are short (APB) some are long (WOW), but all games have them. When that life cycle is over, even if quickly, because of poor management (decision-making, finances, development, etc...) the game needs to die.
Gaming since Avalon Hill was making board games.
Played SWG, EVE, Fallen Earth, LOTRO, Rift, Vanguard, WoW, SWTOR, TSW, Tera
Tried Aoc, Aion, EQII, RoM, Vindictus, Darkfail, DDO, GW, PotBS
Most PvP MMOs offer at least some PvE, too. Sometimes it's a better blend than others, but in APB, there is NO PvE. All PvP, all the time, and really, there isn't any more to the game than that. No immersion, no real story, not even much by way of rewards for taking part in the PvP, aside from the lame upgrade system, which does much more harm than good.
So yeah, I think that might really be the core of the problem. All other issues aside, it's why the game entirely lacks gameplay, for all but the biggest fans of PvP, and even for them, most know they can get much better quality PvP in so many other games. At least if there were more to it than just PvP, it might hold broader player interest, despite its dreadfully mediocre gameplay. It'd also give them a better foundation to build on, ala Global Agenda.
So they could have either gone the way of Planetside, and made the PvP much better, more immersive, balanced, and plausible, or they could have gone the way of almost every other MMO, and added a PvE side of the game to give players more to do. I'd say they failed because they made no real effort to do either. They just throw characters into a hollow shell of a gameworld, and just hope it magically comes together as a fun game.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
After 2 hours playing it i never logged in again...they either make a shooter or an mmorpg if they want to suceed..this game has poor controls, heavy graphics, its not a real 3rd person shooter, its nor an rpg, has no pve, no quests has nothing, only instant missions over and over again in a small instanced map...how in the world did this game cost 100mil??
Bunch of crap.
The only thing actually wrong with APB is its Payment Model. It doesn't supply the company with enough fuel to keep going.
APB has a solid base for them to build off of, if they were able to keep working and rolling out updaes. The game would be quite fantastic down the line, where now its merely "Good".
It came with a ton of promise and great ideas, but did not live up to even half of its hype. There always seems to be core issues that keep said MMO from achieving "great" status. Instead each of them caters to a small niche of players and that's it.
Good in theory, shame about the execution: I think this summarizes most if not all post-WoW MMOs.
Despite its flaws, APB is still the most fun game I've ever played, and I'm sure plenty of people feel the same.
Bill hit the nail on the head with all five points, however the most important thing is that it just did not look finished and we've seen no small amount of commentary on that aspect. Much like Mortal Online, All Points Bulletin had a lot of things going for it (maybe even has a lot of things going for it?) but it just does not seem finished and players just aren't stupid enough to keep paying for a game that does not seem finished. Folks may look at a 'AAA' game such as AION and argue that there were/are some serious gameplay issues that should have been worked out in the year before it was localised, maybe even add some more PvE things to the game, but the game certainly was finished. This, though, is the point: games don't launch perfectly and even some of the better games may miss the mark in some areas, but if you try to charge people a monthly fee when your game isn't finished you're going to feel the heat and deservedly so.
(1)TL:DR must be your way of saying that thinking hurts. Then again, this may explain why it looks like you responded to the post without using your brain.
(2) It's not about community, is it? You just have nothing better to do.
Bill roper deserves all he did on hellgate fans now will suffer from apb