Jobs2k

Would it not be more efficient to accept the details others have provided you directly from official statements until such time as the official word changes? Matt and the LO team does a much better job of informing the players of information far better than G1 so have some trust that they are doing what they can as quick as they can without burning themselves out and giving up. Will anyone else take on this game? I really don't want them to give up! Try and find something else to do with your time, take a deep breath and give them until a few more days. They'll probably have to get over the new years celebrations first.

It's obvious you want to play and this is a significant frustration for you, but it is one of those things that (as others are pointing out) isn't likely to be 'fixed' any time soon. Maybe check back on the thread every 12 - 24 hours, or switch on notifications for it, and give it a day or two between requests for answers? I'm sure you would rather the staff spent time getting the issue sorted rather than scouring the forums for threads to respond to. They also deserve to spend time with family and friends during the holiday season...

Actually, a single natural blink (not a wink style of intentional blink) is around 40 ms...

Thank you for providing that. You said that it was no longer against the spirit of the game. That is not the impression I get when reading it. Of this I am aware. I was doing it to make a point, not directly compare the two topics. Just because an authority says they feel something is acceptable it doesn't mean everyone agrees. As I said; its different views. I feel it is morally low to use something like a monitor based crosshair in this (or any other PvP shooter) game... but I also said that I believe it doesn't help in this game anyway. I'm 100% likely to believe a person is using a trigger-bot rather than a monitor sight if I feel a situation was questionable.

It might help your point if you provide a source for that. My current response is: It's not "morally low" to murder someone as the law says it is no longer against the spirit of survival... Different views and I'm not aiming to derail the thread.

True, but it is 'morally low' at the very least ...not that is it* really helps in this game.

There are good sections of the game that is client side, but a large amount is server side and (from my memory) if there is any conflict between client and server then server information is taken and client ignored. Just look at driving in a high lag moment. You think everything is fine, then you are told you didn't take that corner after all and you've been driving into this wall for the past two seconds. As to those scripts... NOPE. I've had that sort of moment happen in game but (due to what I said above) I don't immediately jump to them hacking. If you 100% feel like that is the only thing they could be doing then ignore them in the mission and take on their mates. Find enjoyment elsewhere by the time they are caught and ejected you'll have forgotten all about them. There are certainly people abusing all manor of things in this game, but there is very little seriously egregious stuff happening to any level like it used to. Anyone remember a certain Epic Goat? They weren't the only one by any means but I play far more games that I can easily put down to the opposition being veterans that just know what the hell they are doing than someone doing shady shit. No, it just means that you have played a lot of different things and you have some knowledge. Unless you either code hacks yourself or you code for APB then you don't know anything about how this game does anything and you're just making a guess. Maybe I let too much go, or maybe I'm right to put things down to surprisingly fortuitous lag spikes but my advice would be to take more deep breaths and look more for enjoyment than giving into the frustration. I'm not saying you aren't doing that already, it is good more for others reading this. When it comes to macros... that is a whole topic that I DO feel needs to be curtailed. Some people know exactly what they are doing and cover it as much as possible, others think that because a bit of software comes with their mouse/keyboard then it can/should legitimately be used in any game they want without any issue. Same sort of thing for monitors that have internal/software crosshairs. "Not my fault if you can't afford this, I bought it so I could use it. .... What do you mean it is against the rules? How will they know?"

I don't think so as when it happens to me (fellow silver) I tend to get a mission opposition pretty quickly after they ditch the mission. The problem then is that I am frequently on my own at that point and get put against another silver... this equals no backup for either side and the mission quickly turns boring.

Oh I agree, I was just pondering the situation. At the end of the day players need to pay for stuff for the game to continue, but we both know it isn't that simple. There is a funding that has to be provided at anything from a per month to a per year basis Fingers crossed that the servers can be funded for long enough that player investment picks up enough...

It is starting to look like LO might not have the funding to keep the game going... This new data centre company seems like a bargain basement job that can't get their act together. I hope LO got a few benefits for the crap they are being put through here.

It's now worse than that...

That might be down to the companies involved with your package doing a standard job that they do every day as well as your country's postal service knowing exactly where to deliver it. It would also be down to you to know how to use the relatively part. Getting servers delivered and installed is a bit of a different task...

They didn't have the time to because the contract on the old hosting was ending. It was either do it in a rush or wait much longer, probably about a year. This was detailed pretty clearly. It is quite possible that they weren't told the moment the equipment was flagged at customs. The details were probably sent to the hosting company/data centre, first and then relayed to LO. Customs takes its sweet time, then the hosting company don't want to say there is an issue so they hold off in the hopes it won't be more than a day or two, then LO gets the info and have to formulate a response. In companies there is usually a procedure to be followed before public statements are made. This takes time as well.

I'm assuming you're going to do (or have done) the 'fix install' type of option?

You could also try running the game borderless windowed. I do this and have only had the HUD go when switching characters. When running like this you only have to hit escape (or anything that gives you a mouse cursor back) and then you should be able to access the taskbar. I know it is a pain to keep using the mouse when a simple keyboard shortcut is much quicker, but with the way APB is right now it saves a lot of frustration. I'm not making excuses for LO - it needs fixing - but removing a frustration can only help while we wait.

I think that will get very different responses depending on the viewpoint of the person replying. My overall aim is to try to bring new life/players to the game... or just generally increase the active player base and I'm looking for ways to do it. The reason I felt a need to post came from a discussion that began in the 'Extended Server Maintenance' thread.

I completely understand that psychology but do you feel it is productive ? This is not an easy problem to solve. I would be naive if I couldn't admit that. It doesn't stop me wanting to try. I'm pretty sure I remember G1 doing exactly this across all threat levels. It failed hard. I think that was because it was a hard limit. Back then I frequently played in a 4 man team and the moment one of us went gold they would become annoyed and depressed because they knew the moment their connection dropped (happened a lot back then) they wouldn't be joining us for a good while. They would be playing alone on gold while listening to the rest have fun. I totally agree. I'm just trying, probably in vain, to find community acceptable solutions that LO might want to consider. I feel that pain far more frequently than I like, but I don't believe going AFK is the best solution. Even if I know that direct conflict simply will not end well for me, I just switch to being an aggravation to do damage and leave. I focus on combat survival while hopping my team mates will capitalise. Yep, totally understand. It makes sense in the low population state we're in. Do you think it will change when the population increases, or will the server list show 2 empty gold servers, 6 full silver servers and three full bronze ones? Currently I forsee the latter. That had a higher chance of working because there was enough players on-line to provide a choice of active servers. I remember back then, if you were getting stomped (or just not enjoying the opposition) you switched out. It might happen again, but it relies entirely on getting enough players to fill enough servers.

Yeah, in a way I misspoke/typed. I do understand they are basically guaranteed to be going for the cash, but part of my confusion is the fact that there are empty silver servers they could be doing that in. They go for the gold servers for exactly the reason you're talking about - no one goes in there, even if there are Crims raiding. They are at least 90% sure that they are safe in their crime spree and a huge chunk of that safety is provided by the idea of "Silver = Gold".

Again with the error.... I'm guessing it is down to a flurry of praise DDoSing it now!

We're totally up and running except for the bits that aren't! lol Joking aside, please pass on our extreme gratitude for everything the entire team has been going through during this entire ordeal... complication... situation... whatever. Just, thank you!

When is LO bringing in platinum then? That way there is an even greater distance for platinum to dethreat down to bronze and keep players from being able to enjoy the game and stay. Sorry, but I feel that the Silver = Gold reasoning is fundamentally wrong and hurting the life of the game. Just because people accept a situation it doesn't mean it is correct to do so. It is quite possible I will (and do) drag down the performance of my team, I don't recall ever denying that here or in game, but that is also possible. A great many times I am apologising to golds for bringing them down. Just as many people I have introduced to the game have done to me when I have taken them to bronze servers. I thought this was politeness and understanding. "I'm not in the server intended for my level so I must recognise that others aren't likely to be at my level. I should still help them enjoy the game where I can." One, both or neither of us has things confused in regard to the phasing. In a recent post Matt said that they are no longer looking at merging the two databases, rather they were now intending to loan characters back and forth between the two that currently exist. I took that to be more like other MMOs that allow you to move your character to a different server. Am I wrong and do we know what impacts that would have to the idea of phasing yet? This is a huge issue when it comes to player retention. I don't know this to be true, but it sure as hell feels like it a lot of the time. Agreed. I am always baffled when I see 0 Enf 10 Crims in a gold server in the list but enter a silver server and see a sea of gold that I feel are all ready to tell me that the gold servers are empty. I don't fully agree with everything you are saying as I feel at least some of it might be a remnant of experience in the G1 days. I did enjoy seeing the odd one pop up in chat just after LO took over though. I hope it is something that is on their roadmap, even if it is an 'after the bigger stuff' type of thing. Not directly, but I know of at least one person that has outright said that they can't wait to jump back in on the new engine. They are out there and their return might bring a shift we sorely need. I do agree that the new engine and phasing, separately or together, will not fix the overall issues. I also think that LO and the community understand that as well.

I'm contemplating spinning up a server, but knowing this community it'll get DDoS'd by the first person to get blown up by a creeper!

While your post is on the better side of the criticism I think there is one possible scenario that critics might not have considered: What if LO took a good look at the public face or APB and saw so much potential, then they found out that they could own the IP and thought "yeah, let's look at doing this!"? They took the time, spoke to the right people, got lied to profusely, realised it would be a challenge but thought it was going to be okay. We know LO had to have had a fuller idea than any of us how bad it was, but frequently companies or their liquidators make their products/stock look the best they can while hiding the full story so they can mitigate losses. I'm describing a scenario similar to going to a real shady car dealer and seeing what you are SURE is a gem, a diamond in the rough and just think it needs a good clean and a tune up. Once that deal is done you don't get to go back. Now your options are simple: Sell it on and hope it doesn't kill people, break it up for scrap and take the loss or rebuild it over time. The scrap option for APB is essentially switch off the servers and give up on it. I don't see anyone who is reading these forums actually wanting that to be the ultimate outcome in the near future... especially LO! Selling it on would be possible, but it is likely that the game, in its current form, would be a loss in money and at this moment (yes, even after the servers have been completely off-line for days) I feel that all of LO (especially @MattScott) really do want the game to be successful... even if that is just for financial reasons. It's all the same to the end user - the game is on-line instead of dead. Once you rebuild the engine ( ) and the car is up and running, you can turn your attention to fixing up the panelling and interior. This is all completely speculation but it might provide people a different or unconsidered viewpoint.

Nope! At minimum, 70% of "You should play on bronze" comes from an opposed gold player, usually right after I kill them. When it comes to my team mates (or rather my faction) the mission starts, I am put in a team of about 4 players, the golds immediately abandon mission (see, not team mates), it is down to only silvers... which is very often just me. They don't stick around long enough to berate me for what they feel is me being in the 'wrong server'. I explained why I don't feel I should go to a bronze server and why I like to have my account in the silver threat level. Is my rational actually wrong? Or is it that people can't understand why I don't just conform to what everyone else does? Or have I entirely missed something important? Thank you for providing a thought-out detailed response. I agree with your post, but specifically with the bit I quoted. That said, I know how this community can be (but not always is) and I wanted to skip the general "you're just salty, try learning to play first" or "just go to bronze and stop bitching noob" type of stuff that so often happens. I recognise that I'm one player and I don't have a clue what the game code is doing, but you never truly know if your ideas are good or bad unless you discuss them with others or implement them yourself. I can't do the latter so I went with the former.

After trying really hard to understand anything you said, I can't agree with this statement more! It is your decision, but I would suggest typing in your native language and then providing whatever English your translator of choice provides you. At least others can then try to decode what you really meant if they feel a desire to.