MattScott

Hi there, I have been on vacation, but the Newsletter and blog should be up by tomorrow. Thanks, Matt

Hi there, If someone wants to contact apb-r.ru and let them know to take down the link, they are usually very helpful. I just don't speak Russian. Thanks, Matt

We sold the APB Brand and IP to Unit Game, but retained all rights related to APB Reloaded.

Hi all, Several of you stumbled across an update to http://apb.com. This showed a group named UNIT GAME. This press release will be going out later today, so I can finally share some exciting news. I'll cut to the chase. We sold APB.. sort of. Before anyone overreacts, this is all good news. No change in management. No changes for you guys. We basically realized that developing both APB Reloaded and APB2 was too much for us. The Australia team was struggling to get their head around the massive amounts of tech, and we lack mobile experience to expand the brand. APB Reloaded is staying with Little Orbit so we can continue on developing and expanding the game in perpetuity. UNIT GAME will spearhead a new game starting on mobile in Asia. This move puts Little Orbit in a very sound financial position, which will make it easier for us to continue with our plans for APB Reloaded. EDIT: We sold the APB Brand and IP to Unit Game, but retained all rights related to APB Reloaded. Thanks, Matt FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: APB BRAND AND IP EXPANDS TO ASIA Irvine, CA, August 27th 2019 - Little Orbit has reached an agreement with Unit Game to sell the APB brand and IP for an undisclosed amount. In a ‘Best of both worlds’ deal, Unit Games will develop and launch an all-new APB mobile game starting with the Asian market, and then expanding world-wide, while Little Orbit will keep the rights to the current APB Reloaded title on PC, XBoxOne, and Playstation 4 so they can continue to develop and expand that title. The CEO of Unit Game said, “For years, I have been an avid player and fan inside the immersive world of APB. The gameplay, stories, and customization system still remains unique today. We are looking forward to developing a new experience for mobile and PC.” Matthew Scott, CEO of Little Orbit, said “We are very excited for Unit Game to give APB fans a new avenue of modern content. At the same time, we are preserving our ability to keep expanding and improving APB Reloaded. It has been over a year since we took over the game, and we are just now learning all the ins and outs. I would not put players through another change in management again.” APB Reloaded is the world’s first and premier Action MMO Third Person Shooter game, allowing you to choose between two sides of the law. Play as an Enforcer or a Criminal, customize your gear for the task at hand and hit the streets and play how you want in a city filled with more action this side of a Hollywood blockbuster. http://www.gamersfirst.com/apb Little Orbit is a worldwide video game publisher formed in January 2010 with a focus on AAA licensed-based entertainment products. The company acquired the GamersFirst.com portal with more than 22MM registered players in May 2018 and has been focusing on extending the work of popular creators through online video games. http://www.littleorbit.com Unit Game is a Hong Kong based company that develop games with strong IP. The company starts its market from Taiwan to China, and later on expands its influence in some Asia Markets. http://apb.com --- Edit by Flight: Due to a lot of misunderstanding and misinterpretation it felt necessary for me to do a quick writeup of what is currently happening. I will dump information in the format of a Q&A. (a chunk of this is admittedly just paraphrasing - will add more later if it becomes relevant) Does this mean Little Orbit will no longer develop APB? No. The sale concerns the APB franchise, but Little Orbit is still able to develop APB: Reloaded as they please. Does UNIT GAME decide what goes into APB: Reloaded? No. UNIT GAME has no creative control over APB: Reloaded. Does this sale come with new faces or people controlling the direction of the game? No. There will be no change in management or anything that the players would be impacted by. Does this give APB less of a life time? Little Orbit can run APB Reloaded indefinitely and still control all their own social media and web presence through GamersFirst.com. They dont have to do any content approvals with the new owners either. In short: What was sold was the rights to all future APB titles (the brand itself). Nothing current was sold. --- Edit by @mayii (1st of September 2019) A post was made with further answers, those are included below. What is "Unit Game" exatcly, and what are their plans for APB Mobile? Unit Game are a well funded startup in Hong Kong led by a long time fan of APB. I believe the company was created just to pursue this new opportunity for them. Can we get examples of UNIT GAME's games? Unit Game added the description of their company at the bottom of the press release, so I can't speak to that line or examples. Does LO still have rights to use San Paro and the other lore elements in APB Reloaded to change/expand the plot? I recognize this is one of the more oddball parts of the deal. It was critical to me that Little Orbit be able to deliver on what we promised and that the players not have to go through another change in management. So we negotiated to keep control and continue developing APB Reloaded. We have all rights to expand the plot, characters, locations, etc, and everything we do is considered "canon".

Hi all, We recently banned a large number of players for using external tools to modify their game directory files. I want to remind everyone that only the Advanced Launcher has been approved by Little Orbit. This program only makes changes to the config that any normal player can make by hand editing the config themselves. Use of the Advanced Launcher has been temporarily approved until we can integrate these features directly into APB Reloaded, and then we will not allow it any more. Players should only download the Advanced Launcher directly from us here: https://media.gamersfirst.com/gamersmedia/apb/Advanced_APB_Launcher.zip Here is an example of a launcher that is NOT allowed that actually got a number of players banned. This is NOT the Advanced Launcher we approved, because it goes far beyond editing the config. This replaces shaders and massively hacks the game. Since the advertisement for this and other launchers makes them seem like the Advanced Launcher that we approved, I’m going to assume some of our players didn’t know the difference, and I am going to unban these players since they were not given any warnings. They have already been banned for more than a week. That’s punishment enough. However, I am not disabling the EAC auto ban for these types of programs, and there wont be a second chance again. Please pass the word to your friends to uninstall these other launchers and to reinstall APB. We will continue to ban for this level of changes to your game files. Do not put your account at risk. Thanks, Matt

We are looking mostly at locations where multiple regions can play. Sydney is great for locals, but terrible for everyone else.

Lots of edits to my original post for clarity.

Yes. World servers will be mirrored in multiple regions. We haven’t nailed down specific locations for new Action Districts, but options are Los Angeles, New York, Moscow, Singapore, Rio. These Action District servers will be marked in the Advanced list by region, but will be available to all players to join.

Hi there, Plenty coming - both to ARMAS but also in the 2 new contacts. I’ll be previewing some soon. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, During the coming weeks, we will be disabling special characters (Cyrillic, Latin, etc) in names and flagging all names that contain special characters for a forced change. We explored a number of ways to fix this without changing names, but in the end we are somewhat limited to the characters enabled across all our players’ keyboards. We need to do this to fix the /report & mail issues and to prep the upcoming Jericho and Citadel consolidation. The goal is to finally open all characters across all regions. EDIT: This isn’t like a traditional server merge. World servers will be merged, but we are spreading out the Action Districts so that North American players can play with other regions and so that our Asia-Pacific, South America, and Russian players can have better latency.  We haven’t nailed down specific locations for new Action Districts, but options are Los Angeles, New York, Moscow, Singapore, Rio. These Action District servers will be marked in the Advanced list by region, but will be available to all players to join. This is how the Action Districts are hosted alongside the World Servers now, which limits where we can host them. This is how we can expand the locations of Action Districts after the merge (although we will have multiple district types and threat levels in each location). (@SKay thanks for the images, and Happy Birthday!) EDIT: The locations shown on the map were picked randomly for demonstration purposes, beyond that they don't have any particular meaning. More details will be coming later on. EDIT: This move is a prerequisite for Phasing, which eliminate the need to spam click in an effort to join a district with 79 players. Instead we will match across all online players in the same district type and move those players to the best server for them. EDIT: We are also going to do something special with character names to avoid collisions this time. Anyone who hasn’t logged in their character within the last year will have their name released so that new and existing characters can use it both during and after the merge. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, We had no notice or control over this PS4 sale. This is the first I’m hearing about it. My guess is that it was initiated by Sony or by Deep Silver, our console publisher. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, Looks like this has been resolved. I’ll let a couple more players confirm the can get in, and then I’ll lock the thread. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, We’re looking at it now. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, Since we are updating Test Districts, I am going to lock this discussion. Thanks, Matt

Honestly, it’s a bit of everything, including a couple meetings with Deep Silver / Koch to manage the APB upgrade coming on console.

Hi all, I’ve been stuck in meetings at Gamescom, so I haven’t been able to weigh in much on the first round of RPF/OCA changes. We did take the time to rethink our strategy, and this new round hopefully addresses some of your feedback. Test A Is the simplest and most direct set of changes that moves the RFP back to shorter range secondary. Test B still significantly reduces the range but has a bit more risk vs reward gameplay. I recognize that based on the stats we shared, the last round was easy for players to spot our misfire. The lack of specific stats was not intended to upset anyone or force testing. This is just something we want to try this time because we all know that stats on paper can appear vastly different than actual in-game feel. Perhaps these notes were too vague, and we can work on finding a middle ground, but I want to reduce the amount of discussion from players who weighed in simply based on the stats but without getting into a district. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, We’ve got a hardware issue with one of the FE servers. The team is working on it. Update as of 5am PST: estimating another 6 hours. Update as of 7am PST: we are back up Thanks, Matt

Hi all, I have been fairly tolerant of this thread, but I think it has gone far enough. Hopefully the participants feel that the topic was discussed enough. I’m going to go ahead and lock it now. Thanks, Matt

Hi there, We have fixed this issue. Should be working better now. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, We fixed an issue that was disconnecting players in Sector 3 and elsewhere. Things should be working better now. Let me know. Thanks, Matt

Hi there, Unfortunately you’ll have to open a support ticket at http://support.gamersfirst.com for us to help with this. Thanks, Matt

Hi there, This really shouldn’t happen. Would you mind opening a ticket at http://support.gamersfirst.com? We’ll try to take a look at your account and see what is happening. Also, I wasn’t aware we had any 15 day Premium codes active. Thanks, Matt

Hi there, Please open a ticket at http://support.gamersfirst.com and give us as many details as possible including the character name. Thanks, Matt

Hi there, We are working on this issue. Thanks, Matt

Hi there, Unfortunately there is no ability to track your issue and do proper support on the forums. Please open a ticket at http://support.gamersfirst.com and give us as many details as possible. We are doing the best we can to drive support times down. Thanks, Matt