All-Disappoint-Bulletin: Is APB Already Dying?
The following editorial was written by a friend of Ripten who has been playing APB since the first beta phase and is a senior member of one of the top APB clans.
APB had a huge chance to make it big in the MMO market with its dynamic customization and fun gameplay. It was hard to see this game becoming anything but a real contender amongst the big name MMOs, but I don’t see that happening now. Sure, Realtime Worlds has come out and said that they are fully committed to keeping APB alive, but there are many factors that could prove otherwise.
I’ve been playing APB since the first phase of testing. I can still remember my first day of gameplay- it seems so long ago. Although people can still have fun in APB with population rates dropping (population is down to about 30-40% what it was at the game’s release two months ago) with no anti-cheat system in the game, you’ll find yourself getting flipped back & forth between legitimate players and “suspected” players. At this point, it seems like 1/3 of your matches will be against a, “hacker”, unless you don’t play at peak hours. I guess my question is- why is this allowed to happen?
"Hacks!? Is That All You Got!?"
Realtime Worlds normally uses Punkbuster as its anti-cheat system, and that was up for a total of about two days, a month ago. I believe they brought it back in once more after that, but it didn’t stay up for more than a day. During the time Punkbuster was up, clans of suspected hackers disappeared off the league boards- but it didn’t last long. Another reason this continues is that when people are reported hacking (mind you, it’s up to the player base to report hackers in APB, which it really shouldn’t be) and are caught, they only receive a friendly email asking them to stop- no ban, no major punishment. The only times people were banned were when they posted videos of themselves breaking rules.
When it comes to anti-cheating, Realtime Worlds has completely dropped the ball. There isn’t even a way to report any offenses in-game- there are NO GM’s. You have to go to the website and make reports through the support pages. If you go to the APB forums and look through posts the players left, you will notice that hacking is the main reason the player-base leaves. And speaking of forums, the APB forum community may have the highest population of trolls ever seen in an MMO forum. You will see the same exact people trolling posts on a daily basis (The same people who suspiciously deny there’s any hacking problem.)
You also might have seen recent news that Realtime Worlds is letting go of a portion of their work force. What I find funny is that the day before the news hit the web, APB’s month, 3 month, and 6 month Game Time buy options were gone, leaving only a 20 hour Game Time option. Could this be a sign that the game is getting ready to move to a free-to-play or a buy-to-play format?
The real question is, with the lack of an anti-cheating system, an increase in hackers, no in-game support, a declining player base, and a real lack of communication with its players, can the game be saved even if changed to a free-to-play format? Or will APB forever be doomed and written off as another great MMO idea ruined by a company that couldn’t connect with its community? Only time will tell, but the outlook is grim.
I’ll leave you with a few videos my clan made, showing just how awesome APB can and should always be.
