All Points Bulliten (APB): Reloaded

[Lotheron]

I haven't seen a recent post on this at least it has been available on steam. So rather than bumping a very old thread, I'll start this one since there are lots more people that might be interested in playing its its Free to Play and on Steam.

Anyway, I'll post a mini-synopsis that I posted in another thread. If anyone wants to play, I'm a Criminal on Joker (NA-East), same name as here.

The easiest comparison is to GTA, but only as far as driving around in vehicles, running over people, 3rd person, and completing missions. It's very watered down and I would actually say its just a big glorified pvp game based in urban environments.

In reality there are two sides Criminals and Enforcers that battle out in individual locations. There are two main locations each broken down into instances depending on how many people are online. Each instance handles about 100 people, generally divided 50/50 Criminal/Enforcer. You make money completing missions and if your'e a crim, stealing things. You can buy (and customize) vehicles and weapons and even clothing/etc for yourself.

The missions are varied enough that they are still interesting even after playing a week. There isn't much to do OTHER than missions as there isn't' much open world stuff to do. Stealing from storefronts is a open world activity, but if you're' spotted by an enforcer, you actually start a mission where the objective is to get the stuff to a drop off point.

The graphics are pretty cool and the balance is pretty good imo. It uses punkbuster to keep cheating to a minimum.

It's well worth free and even playable as such, albeit slower progressing.

Developer link: http://apbreloaded.gamersfirst.com/

Steam Link: http://store.steampowered.com/app/113400/

 

[Red Storm]

The biggest issue with free to play MP games is that they all come with "pay to win" options. Is this any different?

Also, why no link?

 

[Clinkster]

The biggest issue with free to play MP games is that they all come with "pay to win" options. Is this any different?

Also, why no link?

This is not different. Paying gives you such a fat advantage its ridiculous. If you're F2P, you have to spend absurdly larger amounts of time to compete with people of similar skill.

 

[Lotheron]

This is not different. Paying gives you such a fat advantage its ridiculous. If you're F2P, you have to spend absurdly larger amounts of time to compete with people of similar skill.

You are correct to some degree, but since this is a shooter, someone with enough skill can compete with the people that's been playing for a while. The mods that are available, especially the higher ones, come with some sort of downside as well as an upside. For example, the clotting agent while decreases the time it takes to begin healing makes it take longer overall to heal back to full health.

I enabled premium, though, because I like the game enough to support the developers so that they can keep updating the game. These guys are in it to make money, so there's always going to be something in a free to play game to spend real money on. The good thing, though, is that this game doesn't seem to nickel and dime you to death so the $10 or so monthly should be more than enough for most people to advance fast enough if the standard free advancement isn't fast enough. You can of course buy more items if you want, but I've been able to be more than competitive with just the premium.

 

[Lean L]

Wow... this game still will not launch for me. A simple search shows that this game never quite ran for a lot of people and the developer never fixed it. Bundle that with a shitty pay to play model and it's no wonder the game was such a huge failure.

 

[RavenSEAL]

The biggest issue with free to play MP games is that they all come with "pay to win" options. Is this any different?

Also, why no link?

This is honestly why I gave up on F2P games and jumped on the SWToR bandwagon early.

Atlantica Online was pain in the ass after like level 80(Out of 140 Max). Competing in PvP was IMPOSSIBLE.

 

[Clinkster]

You are correct to some degree, but since this is a shooter, someone with enough skill can compete with the people that's been playing for a while. The mods that are available, especially the higher ones, come with some sort of downside as well as an upside. For example, the clotting agent while decreases the time it takes to begin healing makes it take longer overall to heal back to full health.

I enabled premium, though, because I like the game enough to support the developers so that they can keep updating the game. These guys are in it to make money, so there's always going to be something in a free to play game to spend real money on. The good thing, though, is that this game doesn't seem to nickel and dime you to death so the $10 or so monthly should be more than enough for most people to advance fast enough if the standard free advancement isn't fast enough. You can of course buy more items if you want, but I've been able to be more than competitive with just the premium.

Premium accounts are one thing. Being able to buy weapons permanently is a huge advantage coupled with that. F2P only gets it for 10 days, and when you get to the higher grade stuff, it takes a long time to get.

Gameplay is pretty fun if it works. But then you have lag issues, people dropping, weapon balance, mission exploits, and crazy matchmaking that ruins things. Also, they need more things to do. Missions are the only fun portion, everything else (ram raiding, mugging, etc) is a chore.

 

[ThinClient]

The biggest issue with free to play MP games is that they all come with "pay to win" options. Is this any different?

Also, why no link?

There is no such thing as pay to win in APB:R.

There's pay to unlock early, but not pay to win.

The vast majority of weapons available in the pay shop are simply reskinned variants on guns you can buy at any level and they come with mods that you can unlock anyway.

You can either work your way through earning those same weapons or you can unlock them early, but there's no pay to win.

There are very VERY few exceptions, like the tommy gun, but this weapon is a combination of two different existing guns and has its own serious drawbacks.

Weapons ARE balanced. Anyone who complains about P2W weapons simply doesn't know what they're talking about and hasn't played this game very long.

Weapons do NOT make the player. I have played with the stock Star556 and beaten a player repeatedly who had a gold weapon. Player skill trumps weapon every single time. Choose the best weapon for the scenario (don't take on an SMG with a sniper rifle at close range, duh). If you lose, then you need to get better. That's fine, practice practice practice.

Match making depends solely on bronze/silver/gold ranking and that ranking is based on what % of the time your score at the end of the match is in the top 50% of everyone involved in that match (both factions included in one evaluation). If you're routinely in the top 50% for a certain number of matches, you'll gain threat (go up from bronze to silver or silver to gold). If you are in the bottom 50%, you'll dethreat down to bronze (or even green if you're that bad).

That match maker isn't the best. In fact, GamersFirst KNOWS this. This is why they have the temporary Open Conflict zones where there is no match maker. They're encouraging players to play there so they can gather data on match making in an effort to completely rebuild match maker.

This bronze/silver/gold rating can be intentionally affected by playing poorly for a while to dethreat down from gold to silver or silver to bronze, which will allow you to play against lower skilled players. As much as people whine and bitch about it, this really isn't an issue. You win some, you lose some, big deal.

 

[ThinClient]

Also... Do you like my undies?