Fall of a great game

[AxeTurboAgresor 268]

I just want to share a video that kinda mirrors APB developement history. Its a short honest, and very informative interview with a CEO of a great game that failed, and I think it will help you understand the past and the current situation we are in.

This video might help you understand some G1, and LO decitions. I think that both players, and the developers might find this video useful.

 

Just sayin. The devs are not bad guys. G1 was not evil company either. They are trying hard to make this game succeed, so lets learn something from the mistakes of others:

The Growth, Mistakes Made, Lessons Learned

 

[Snubnose 640]

damn.. I remember enjoying robocraft for a few weeks on and off... few years later checked it out again and it was all about "flying shotgun drone" meta... RIP, nice game with great potential...

also, these guys are pretty much exactly where APB is right now...

I think most players leave in the first few minutes / hours of playing APB... what it mostly needs to keep new players is a proper tutorial to explain the games basics (no, not text to read, but an actual tutorial mission with a contact TALKING to you, telling you what to do). and also improved matchmaking, which is the hardest part considering the games playercount and being restricted to 1 district - and this is where phasing comes in...


a proper tutorial, district phasing and more strict matchmaking should be release WITH, NOT AFTER the engine update. because lots of players will return, and some new players will too (especially old players returning, telling their friends to join).

if the engine update releases without a proper "first time experience", which it probably will, its bound to fail.
you might have the chance to update the game with district phasing, matchmaking and a proper tutorial afterwards, but you already had a great loss not doing it with the EU.
(real question is: what loss is bigger, the people that left APB in the time these things were developed, or the people that never gave APB the chance it deserved because of no proper tutorial and matchmaking?)

we already have new contacts with "filler content" coming with the EU to make some long time fans happy, but there's gotta be something in it for the new players too.

I pray that LO is doing the smart thing here, even if it means the EU is being delayed for a few more weeks / month.
it's not like we can get any more disappointed by waiting than now.


while writing this, I opened a topic about it.
 

 

[SmilyFace 300]

Is just too much for this game to be reworked, LO can't make everything within the release of the engine upgrade, we alredy need to pray for it to come with the contacts and things they said, should i mention that they cancelled alredy some of the things that were coming? Names of chars and clans cleaning, district unification, jericho and citadel, which is still in the works to be unified as one large server.

 

APB do need proper things reworked, totally, the company alredy said the engine upgrade can't change only some visuals and optimization while keeping old screens and loadings, some menus if not old needs to be redone from scratch, that merans even more time behind it.

 

Yes, we still missing Phasing and most of the thigns that are planned, the population is what it is, so we need to wait and se what will come.

 

This game don't have alredy peoples visiting or playing it that are new and wanna keep playing it, if there are, well, we should give them some real rewards.

 

@Snubnose remember that LO don't talk about everything they planning, there could be something in the works hidden not announced that they will reveal at later time / date.

Another thing is, before the engine upgrade will come out as Complete.. will pass some time, the Beta i think will be there for a bit of months, but we are reaching it slowly, that's the important thing.

[NotZombieBiscuit 3146]

15 hours ago, Snubnose said:

damn.. I remember enjoying robocraft for a few weeks on and off... few years later checked it out again and it was all about "flying shotgun drone" meta... RIP, nice game with great potential...
 

 

Flying repair/zappy beam drones was the better meta.

 

Thing that killed robocraft for most people was the complete overhaul of their inventories/how you get blocks/and the stupid monetization of it. The stupid mega bots didn't help either.

Edited April 7, 2020 by NotZombieBiscuit

[rooq 175]

This is an incredibly good video. I am very happy that you shared this, thank you.

There are some scary parallels. There are clearly issues with the steep learning curve of APB, and as a developer you'd be inclined to dumb things down to try and smoothen that out,

 

I've heard people use the argument "Little Orbit shouldn't design their game for the existing playerbase, their efforts should focus on the future players." - but the reflection at 6:55 seems to suggest the exact opposite. Perhaps rather than chasing the mythical retention statistics, you should utilize the intelligence of the veteran player base to identify what works and what does not. Maybe that will lead you to a more sustainable road. Very interesting.

 

It's unlikely that everything is applicable to APB, but I can see a lot of things that make sense.

Edited April 7, 2020 by rooq

[Mitne 724]

I played Robocraft. Newbie quoue isn't bad but later you get thrown in big water. That's the moment player like me quit.

I mean it's all fun and games but if you got some tank-like creation versus drone which you can't reach, all while guns which could be labeled as "anti-air" are locked behind tiers of components. Not even gonna talk how you got limited components which you can use... similiar steep curve where you get slapped if you try too hard.

Difference between Robocraft and APB - In APB I got invested.

Edited April 8, 2020 by Mitne