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APB To Use In-Game Audio Advertisements
Rock, Paper, Shotgun reports that upcoming action MMOG APB: All Points Bulletin will use in-game audio advertisements as part of its business model. The number of ads you hear will be limited: "you'll only hear an ad when you go into a new zone, and that's only once every three hours." Nevertheless, some gamers are upset that these ads will be included on top of APB's already unusual payment plans. The game is set for release next Tuesday. Producer Jesse Knapp says of Realtime Worlds' goals for APB, "We looked at other online action games, and we saw things we felt could be better. Only 12 to 32 players in a match, bad connection due to peer-to-peer, dead cities, way too much time in lobbies, things like that. So what we set out to do was to make a game that has that online player vs. player action game experience in a large city with other players around, no lobbies, dynamic matchmaking, dedicated servers, great experience, and that's been one of the driving factors of APB from the very beginning." CVG recently previewed the game.
"APB's already unusual payment plans"
Don't you mean "APB's *awesome* payment plans"? Being able to "pay as you go" means this might be the first MMO I ever play as I've always opposed paying a monthly fee for a game I may or may not play depending on my free time in any given month.
To begin with, it'll be one add every 3 hours. Once we get used to that, it'll be one an hour, one every ten minutes, then before we know it, there'll be so many ads bombarding us in-game that we might as well go outside into the real world and start shooting actual cops in the face.
Is that what you want, APB? Because that's what's going to happen!
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
So I get to pay full game price for the game, then get to pay for hours (or a normal subscription) to play it... AND I get annoying ads on top of that?
Gee, these guys sure know how to get me excited about playing a game!
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
As far as I'm concerned, ads have no place in something you're already paying for. This applies to television, radio, newspapers, phone applications, and websites. Advertisements have been creeping in to paid services more and more recently. I'm fine with ads in free things; I accept that's part of why they are free. But it pains me when I buy something that forces me to see any ads.
Now, the question is, how many of these things could be supported without any ads?
I bet $50 that there will be a crack that removes the advertisements in less than 2 weeks after the game's release.
People are already reverse engineering the game while it's still in beta:
# All Game Client to/from Login Server opcodes (GC2LS/LS2GC).
# All Game Client to/from World Server opcodes (GC2WS/WS2GC).
# How to connect to another server than retail.
# What encryption/auth schemes we’re dealing with (RC4, SRP 6a).
# The game uses some sort of serialization framework for packets.
# The backend runs a UT3-like server model.
# There is a separate (HTTP-based) Music Server that the game connects to.
1. Buy the game for the MSRP of $50
2. Play 50 hours for "free."
3. Buy additional game time using one of two options:
a) $6.99 for 20 hours
b) $9.99 for unlimited hours during the next 30 days (or you can also buy 60 or 90 day subscriptions)
So, first, you're out $50 for the game itself. Then you're out basically $9.99 a month for the subscription. On top of that they want to send you advertisements?
Seriously, WTF? Pick either the advertising supported model or subscription model, don't double dip at the customers expense.
Having played the beta, my short review of APB is: drive here, shoot stuff, repeat. Oops! Seems like I broke the embargo on reviews which was initially set at 10 freakin' days after release! To their credit (I guess), they rolled that back to merely release day.
A more nuanced look at the game shows they have in fact done some things quite nicely. The "All Points Bulletin" mechanic works very nicely. You'll be doing a mission when up pops up a notification that a comparable group from the opposing faction has been sent to stop you. It changes the dynamic of the mission and gives you a jolt of adrenaline as you listen out for the roar of the car engine signifying your would-be assassins drawing close. However, these adversarial matchups aren't without their problems. Say 50% of the time they work and you get a comparable strength team sent against you, resulting in a pitched battle that culminates in either narrow victory or defeat. Perfect! Well, the other 50% of the time you get a team that is woefully underpowered, say one wee neophyte against our group of four. Or massively overpowered, so you "call for backup", which works maybe 10% of the time. Perhaps the opposition are a full map away and have no way of intercepting you in time. Or they are already at the objective and virtually impossible to budge. The latter gets irritating as there are a few excellent camping spots should you get a VIP 'escort' mission. Oh, and I lied about the proportions. Things go right about 25% of the time rather than 50%.
Despite these problems, the gameplay is fun if you have a good group that you are in touch with through some kind of voice comms. The problem is that there is very little variety. Perhaps I've been spoiled by Saints Row 2 in this regard, but there seem to be about 3 basic types of mission which leads to the game getting boring quickly - pitched battles or not.
There is also a HUGE amount of customisation, if you're into that sort of thing. I won't say more about this as I'm not buying a game to play dress up...
...Which brings me to my next point: pricing. Pinning down the pricing details wasn't easy, although I did eventually find it on Kotaku or similar. I'll quote from RPS again:
The problem is, you are paying full retail price plus a decent fraction of 10 of your local denomination (£/$/€) monthly, for what? Progression seems limited - you can gain prestige with local NPC types to do more missions, but your character doesn't seem to get much stronger as with more traditional MMOs. It's not even like EVE where you can claim a small section of the virtual world for your particular gang. Frankly, I'm not sure it is worth paying for a glorified matchmaking service, but that is a judgment call each individual gamer needs to m
If all you have is a grenade, pretty soon every problem looks like a foxhole -- MightyYar