APB Lives.. but at what price?

**Bisclaveret** · 11-11-2010, 11:12 AM

It's being reported today that GamersFirst has bought APB for a scant 2.5 million investment.

Before everyone can hoot and holler for joy, GamersFirst is a subsidiary of the american-based Korean cash-shop mmo porter extraordinaire K2 Networks, Inc.

So.. the company that owns War Rock, Knight Online, Granado Espada, and 9Dragons now owns APB.

I predict it to have a pay-to-win cash shop within a week :/

**KoopaTroopa** · 11-14-2010, 01:07 AM

It will. Since it is now a F2P third-person shooter, I also expect rampant hacks.

Steer clear.

**Bisclaveret** · 11-14-2010, 11:23 AM

Originally Posted by Gill

It will. Since it is now a F2P third-person shooter, I also expect rampant hacks.

Steer clear.

As if they weren't in there already

**UnDeaD** · 11-16-2010, 07:53 PM

New name "APB:Reloaded".

**Vitamin187** · 11-19-2010, 12:44 PM

there were aimbots when i was playing it.

**UnDeaD** · 01-26-2011, 08:39 PM

Sign up for closed beta....again.

http://www.gamersfirst.com/apb/

**Flarfignuggen** · 02-01-2011, 11:30 PM

Originally Posted by Vita158

there were aimbots when i was playing it.

Just wanted to say that while this is true, the hack-crying was way out of proportion. Anyone with experience in L4D1/2 knows just how much of a difference having a full team of competent players can make when you're going up against PuG players.

And as much as I liked APB despite its obvious faults, I'm not all that much of a fan of GamersFirst. That said, if they can prove they'll actually be a competent developer as opposed to the original team...well... Hey, Duke Nukem Forever is actually coming out, so stranger things have happened.

**Projax** · 02-02-2011, 02:00 AM

Here's an update on what they are changing
http://apbreloaded.blogspot.com/2011...anges-and.html

**DamionRayne** · 02-02-2011, 08:58 AM

Originally Posted by Flarfignuggen

Just wanted to say that while this is true, the hack-crying was way out of proportion. Anyone with experience in L4D1/2 knows just how much of a difference having a full team of competent players can make when you're going up against PuG players.

And as much as I liked APB despite its obvious faults, I'm not all that much of a fan of GamersFirst. That said, if they can prove they'll actually be a competent developer as opposed to the original team...well... Hey, Duke Nukem Forever is actually coming out, so stranger things have happened.

I do want to support Flar on this, you see it in all twitch based FPS games regardless of first or third person. The second someone gets killed a few times by someone much better then they are, they scream "HACKER!" to help them feel better about their lack of skill. It's happening on BF:BC2 server a lot. People accuse lots of TG guys of team stacking and hacking because we are good. The "hackers! aimbotters!" crying was WAY WAY WAY more BS then it was truth. So sorry to say Vita, but unless you knew for a fact people were aimbotting, well they (90%) weren't.

Also this from the new devs,

"Integrated Cheat Detection
First; yes – we have enabled PunkBuster in the closed beta. Not directly a gameplay change, but we think this will improve the gameplay experience quite a bit. This is a significant code change and will require a lot of testing (see Aphadon’s post from last week). So there will be a lot of technical changes as part of this update of which some have been mentioned in previous posts. Death to Cheaters!"

**Flarfignuggen** · 02-02-2011, 09:27 PM

The largest change to an existing vehicle is the Balkan Kolva (Dump Truck). We have made it rarer in the game, and massively increased the weight and torque, while lowering the turning speed and initial acceleration. Combined with much higher health (it is a fully loaded dump truck filled with tons and tons of sand after all), we’re left with a lumbering vehicle that needs a run up to get speed, but packs a rather insane punch if it manages to hit something. Ideally the really low acceleration from scratch will stop it from being a griefing tool (it can’t really change direction to block someone in a pinch), but we’ll have to wait till beta to see whether it works in a large scale environment.

That...is actually a very good, clever solution to that obnoxious "Griefer Convoy" problem the game suffered.

I'm also pleased that, in general, they're not adversely affecting the vehicle maneuvering. I thought that for the game's capabilities and style, the vehicle handling was absolutely superb. I always thought the game struck a perfect balance between GTA4's sluggish, yet realistic handling and Saints Row 2's arcade-y shenanigans. That, and I could pull off almost any specialist vehicle turning you could think of with near 100% success.

**Bisclaveret** · 02-06-2011, 05:03 PM

The problems for a lot of people was the aimbot was discovered during beta, and it progressed to live without any of the accounts having been banned, and evena month after game launch the accounts were still active. And then more and more people showed up with videos. It was easy to tell who had the aimbots because they always locked-on to headshots in a game where headshots did no extra damage and were a detriment.

Yeah, people complain about BC2's hacking, but it is real. Go on a server that streams to PBBans and has the banning system set to the chat/announcement console. Every 3-5 minutes a message will flash about so-and-so banned for aimbot/multihack. As of right now, there's been 1/2 the total bans that BF2 has had in it's entire lifetime. (Better than the over 160k punkbuster bans from COD4 though...)

I liken it to what's happening in Monday Night Combat at the moment. There's been an aimbot with nospread discovered now last week, about 2 weeks after the game came out. The guy whom it was discovered on had a link to Assisted Aiming (a pay-for hacks site) on his steam profile, and all his friends list with the game also had it. It's extremely easy to tell who has the aimbot, because they most often play sniper and have 50-70 kills in a 10-15 minute round, and are no-scoping headshots when a no-scoped headshot is virtually impossible (a non-scoped sniper rifle suffers the same deviation the shotgun does but with only one pellet).

**Flarfignuggen** · 02-06-2011, 07:13 PM

Originally Posted by Bisclaveret

I liken it to what's happening in Monday Night Combat at the moment. There's been an aimbot with nospread discovered now last week, about 2 weeks after the game came out.

That explains a lot.
A server will be going great, nicely balanced teams (rare enough that they're worth remembering, considering all the horrible stacking that seems to plague MNC) and then someone will join as a Gunner or Assault...and proceed to absolutely tear me to hell repeatedly in 1-on-1 gunfights while utterly failing on basic gameplay mechanics (like, say, not using Juice in an area where they can easily be thrown off the map by a grapple/knockback). I mean, I'm not saying I should be unstoppable, just that it seems a little unlikely that the guy can be so good, yet so incompetent.

"Okay, that guy is impossible to fight...time to use strategy"--and proceed to kill him 20 times in a row by using a simple alternative method to deal with him specifically.

It was easy to tell who had the aimbots because they always locked-on to headshots in a game where headshots did no extra damage and were a detriment.

Now that you mention it, I recall recording a video of a guy trying to shoot me through cover, hitting by my head unsuccessfully for his entire light machine gun clip. Never actually did anything with it though, since it was at the point that the game was clearly going under, despite the official statements otherwise.

**SpecOpsBear** · 03-14-2011, 08:24 AM

The Closed Beta has been open for two weeks now, and I am currently playing in it. (As far as I am aware, there is no breach of NDA to admit you are a tester, but you cannot leak any unpublished information about the game.)

If there's anybody in TG who is also in CBT as an Enforcer, please send me an in-game mail so I can friend you.