All Points Bulletin players to help determine game's evolution
by James Egan 
Jun 28th 2009 at 4:00PM
Filed under: Interviews, MMO industry, New titles, All Points Bulletin, Crime
The team at Massively is pretty happy to see that Realtime Worlds has broken radio silence with All Points Bulletin, first with the E3 2009 announcement and a video podcast, and now with some in-depth interviews about the urban crime game. Gamasutra's Christian Nutt recently spoke with APB lead designer EJ Moreland about some of the elements that could make this game different from most anything else presently on the market.
The game is clearly a departure from some of the conventions and game mechanics typical of an MMO. The game's emphasis is on dynamic action; Moreland describes APB as "an online action game with persistence." And, of course, there's that incredible potential for customization they've shown off.
Moreland relates that the All Points Bulletin concept is somewhat protean -- since they aim to break some new ground with APB, the feedback they get from the players after launch will determine where the game goes from there. Moreland tells Gamasutra, "Once the game releases, based on what the players' feedback is, we're going to go in every direction we can."
What possible directions could this be? Moreland says,"We're looking at much more horizontal expansion than reproducing the same content. So APB is the action district; the conflict of the city is one part that we'll continue to support after release. But we're looking at things like racing districts, fashion shows, private housing -- you know, everything in between."
Interesting. So Realtime Worlds is providing a setting and the interests of the players themselves are what will determine the evolution of that setting.
Gamasutra has an intro to the piece that concisely summarizes Moreland's main points, but we recommend reading the full interview, which is an extensive look into the All Points Bulletin concept and the game design decisions Realtime Worlds has made.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Archipelagos said on 5:07PM 6-28-2009
I really like the idea of developing the new districts to cater to the players, it has the potential for some great depth of play.
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ScytheNoire said on 5:51PM 6-28-2009
I'm really looking forward to this game. I just wonder how well it will run. Unreal 3 engine plus lots of players, plus insane action... going to take a hefty rig. Most MMO's lag badly with much lower quality graphics, so curious how they will solve the lag issue.
Also curious how they plan to do the world. Sharded servers is far from optimal and most players hate it.
Still a lot of info needed about the game, including if they want to try subscription (bad idea). But it has a ton of potential.
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robert said on 7:52AM 6-29-2009
You mean whatever we want, we get?
I like this game more everyday!
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THAC0 said on 9:02AM 6-29-2009
I so want to set up my own crack-house!
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jondews said on 5:31PM 6-30-2009
I want to move house if Thaco moves in next door to me!
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