APB

[Rman]

What a disaster.  Seemed doomed from the beginning.

[Stoney Mason]

This is like the weirdest situation ever. I'm interesting in hearing a RTW employee dish all about the history of this game.

http://lukehalliwell.wordpress.com/2010/09/16/where-realtime-worlds-went-wrong-part-3/

[Great Rumbler]

If you’re looking for your first job in games, it’s worth thinking very carefully about your future employer. Do you want to work on jaded, derivative titles that receive scathing reviews and go straight to the bargain bin? Do you want to work large amounts of unpaid overtime because your project is underfunded and poorly managed? Do you want to work on codebases that are messy and poorly-designed because there’s never time to do things properly? Do you want to live in fear of your company’s financial security?

It’s sad that these and other games industry horror stories are more frequent than they should be, but it’s not like that here. We only work on original, ambitious projects: our first title, Crackdown, was a number-one hit, winning critical acclaim and multiple awards, and our best is yet to come, beginning with our first online game, APB. And while making games is great fun, we take our work seriously. We pride ourselves on our unusually sensible, sustainable and professional development practices, resulting in smoothly-run projects and far less overtime than is normal for many game developers. We’re passionate about engineering and crafting our games to the highest of standards. We cultivate an open working environment where ideas are valued on their own merits, no matter whose they are. The growth of our company and size of our projects allows us to provide a wide range of opportunities. And the investment we’ve raised puts us in a strong financial position with security and creative control over our projects.

Wow. 

[chronovore]

  :'(

We'll always have Crackdown.

[Great Rumbler]

Yes, they'll really rake in the dough when all 5,000 APB players migrate to their game.

[demi]

Sooo basically Dave Jones scammed a bunch of companies for $100m because he's "Dave Jones"

Sounds like a certain "Tim Schafer"

[Great Rumbler]

"$10,000 this month! A new company RECORD!!"

[chronovore]

Sooo basically Dave Jones scammed a bunch of companies for $100m because he's "Dave Jones"

Sounds like a certain "Tim Schafer"

Except that Tim's games are fun to play and people who work on them don't feel like they've been cornholed for the duration of the development.

[Joe Molotov]

Who would even PLAY the game?

[Great Rumbler]

Should have been F2P from the start, really.

[chronovore]

Who would even PLAY the game?

Well, I'll be giving it a try for sure.

[Stoney Mason]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/31564/Interview_APB_Reborn_As_GamersFirst_Microtransactions_Game.php

[Great Rumbler]

I'll probably check it out once it relaunches, won't spend any money though.

[chronovore]

Did anyone start this up again? Apparently it re-launched in December, but I don't recall hearing anything about it.

[Great Rumbler]

I played it for a few minutes, then deleted it.

[chronovore]

What about it was not compelling?

Is it GTA-like? Crackdown-like?

Are all the low-level baddies ammunition sponges?

[Great Rumbler]

It's an utterly janky open-world game with an utterly janky MMO bolted to it.

[chronovore]

I still want to give it a try. My curiosity is overcoming my common sense.

It just seems like an MMOGTA should not even be able to entirely suck.

[benjipwns]

Most of the missions seemed to involve you driving somewhere, getting out, walking somewhere and pressing F.

Shooting and driving was closer to GTA III than The Third. Or Saints Row 2.