MMO: APB

[Gben 20]

I read this review for a MMO called APB. I'm not into MMO's but this quote caught my fancy...

 

RealTime Worlds says it is building APB on three pillars: Creativity, Conflict, and Celebrity. The conflict pillar should be obvious now. Creativity is much more than what you'd normally expect out of an action game…or even an MMO for that matter. The variation in characters you can sculpt, both for males and females, is astounding. You can modify everything from muscle tone to bust size to the length of individual spikes on a mohawk and Moreland promises that it is very difficult, though not impossible, to make something look freakish. The strength of the character creator was shown with a wonderful recreation of President Obama.

 

This is your playground.

The creation tools go beyond your character. A vector based logo creator exists where you can make all manner of tattoos to slap on your player's skin. Those same logos can be applied to cars or even walls as graffiti. The logos will even take on the properties of the material they are placed on, ensuring that the pigment and texture looks right whether it is on skin or brick wall. You can see the implications of this once you get a clan together.

 

Giving players tools to express themselves is a key goal for RealTime Worlds so the team has extended the creativity and immersion to the realm of audio as well. A little music studio has been added that works a bit like a MIDI board. Players can create their own theme songs and then assign the tunes to play on certain events. Nothing will burn another player worse than being forced to listen to your mocking tune after you take them out. These tunes can be shared with others, allowing clans to have their own theme songs.

 

APB extends the audio innovation to music and chatting as well. A deal with Last.FM has been struck to include that tech in the game. If you're listening to a song and drive by someone in a car, that audio information will be sent over to them. If they have the song in their library, they'll hear what you hear. If they don't, Last.FM will pick a similar song that you do have and play it. In this way, you'll get a better idea as to exactly what type of person you're dealing with. As for voice chat, a deal with Vivox has allowed APB to include complete positional 3D VOIP. You can switch to a private chat, but if you don't you'll hear nearby chitter chatter as if the person were right next to you.

 

Looks ready for some criminal activity.

Celebrity can be a bit trickier in videogames, but RealTime Worlds believes it has several features that will help players feel like stars. "We want everyone in the game to feel famous at something," says Moreland. Leaderboards exist for everything from the most skilled to the most killed. Naturally, there is an auction house exists so skilled artists can put their work up for others to bid on.

 

APB is running on the Unreal Engine 3, which makes the minimum specs needed to run it a bit higher than some other popular MMOs. "We spent a lot of time doing optimization and making it work," says Moreland. "But to be honest, there's a certain level that you just can't run Unreal 3 under. We're pretty much at that basic level for our minimum spec…It runs really well on just a two year old dual core computer with an 8800 or just a 7800."

 

IGN preview

www.apb.com

 

Re-reading this several days later, it doesn't seem to say what I was thinking. But the idea of celebrity was kinda cool. In a game of gangs and cops, it would kinda cool to have a kingpin character who could 'hire' talent to achieve goals, and that the talent was available through a celebratory ranking. So that you could hire a 'top ten' player and pay accordingly for his skill.

 

I really liked the concept... of the open market.

 

And the need for a king-pin/commissioner class character that was an empire builder as well as the fighters, snipers, heavy weapons etc.

 

Kingpins who started with X currency, and spent it to entice mercs to rob a bank, and then had to share the bounty with the crew, and use the rest to finance the next robbery. The alternate version of the police commissioner who works with the gov budget and depending on success/failure at reduceing crime rates etc would get more resources...

[Wee_Ooh 0]

That sounds pretty awesome. I just got done saying that no one can seem to make a good MMOG. This could be good...

[Inferno 22]

Looks epic

[Guest Stevie_K]

yeah it looks very nice. But it's kind of big goals they are setting for themselves.