do you think the realease of the new engine will increase the number of players?

[Easiest 8]

everything in the title just a simple question cause i was talking about that in the district chat a few minutes ago, talking about how apb is dead, if the new engine can revive the game, because actually the new engine take TOO much time to get release.

Edited December 8, 2020 by Easiest

[Bambola 379]

It certainly might attract some old players to come back, but I wouldn't expect a bigger influx of new players. Once that (in)famous engine upgrade happens, I suppose APB's population could go back to what it was back in 2015 - 2016, but briefly only, before it starts dropping down again. 

[Nagletz 215]

As Bambola said, there is gonna be some new/comeback players. But in the future they will have to develop the game, improve it, add new content etc. And of course, advertise it. Because even 10k players is too few for massive projects like this. But even this quantity sounds way too good for us, isn't it?

[Flaws 1033]

If it releases in the state that we've seen in the Open Betas recently it will only speed up the game's death. Sure, there will be some old players coming back just to see it due to the long wait time alone but upon seeing how bad it is - they'll leave and likely never look back. This is APB's last chance for a reason and right now it doesn't look good at all. In fact, if APB remained the way it is now on this old engine it would survive a lot longer than if they release the engine in it's current state. The current APB 2.1 builds are a lot worse in many ways. At least in current live APB the players that come back to play it every now and again know what to expect, they know how it performs on their PCs and they've come to terms with it. On the current new engine builds that will not be the case.

 

A lot of the problems come from overblown promises by LO and Matt which could not be kept, whether purposefully or not is not for me to say. Back when LO purchased G1/APB they told us that the engine is almost ready to ship but here we are 2 years later and the latest build is unplayable regardless of how powerful our gaming rigs are. Ridden with bugs, terrible lighting and poor performance. Had they just told us that its going to be a while before we get anything decent due to RP's slow progress on it, people would be more lenient about the game. LO rode the hype train wrong and its backfiring. The hype was there already with just having another company purchasing the game which more or less meant that APB's lifetime is being extended by at least a few more years or so. When you hype up something you do yourself a great disservice as a game dev. You put tons of pressure on yourself and your team during development and then when it finally sees the light of day its just a disappointment to many players. In APB and LO's case this was done by claiming that something as big as the engine upgrade is right around the corner and talking about all the great features and improvements it will bring to the game.

 

A lot of us started dreaming big of what APB could become within the next 2-5 years of LO's acquisition but somehow 2 years later we're in almost the same spot, with some improvements of course, but the core game and its issues have not truly changed or improved a whole lot. I could go on and on but thats already going off-topic from OP's question.

[vsb 6171]

well have a quick burst of people coming back to check out the infamous engine upgrade finally being released, but if orbit doesnt start fixing big issues pretty fast afterwards then no one is going to stick around and play the new engine with the same old gameplay flaws

 

i also think orbit should hold off on really advertising the engine upgrade release, 99% certain "patch day" will be absolutely unplayable 

[RadeonPro 6]

its preobldy never going to show up as a full final release until summer of 2021. really doesn't matter at this point. 

[MonkaS 215]

should've just focused on the thing we've all been saying since day one performance everything else should be secondary even those rtx crashes.

[Aeronaut 647]

45 minutes ago, MonkaS said:

should've just focused on the thing we've all been saying since day one performance everything else should be secondary even those rtx crashes.

rtx crashes would be performance related.

 

3 hours ago, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA said:

well have a quick burst of people coming back to check out the infamous engine upgrade finally being released, but if orbit doesnt start fixing big issues pretty fast afterwards then no one is going to stick around and play the new engine with the same old gameplay flaws

 

i also think orbit should hold off on really advertising the engine upgrade release, 99% certain "patch day" will be absolutely unplayable 

this big time. i still stand by my stance thinking the premature steam launch was a wasted move back in the olden days.

[explosiveUA 48]

Are you sure that the engine update will be released?))

[gogeo 38]

They should bring those newer builds to console first asap. PC can wait until the bugs are sorted out. 

[KyoukiDotExe 231]

1 hour ago, explosiveUA said:

Are you sure that the engine update will be released?))

Yes.

1 minute ago, gogeo said:

They should bring those newer builds to console first asap. PC can wait until the bugs are sorted out. 

No, PC waited before consoles were out the door with the old team. Consoles will get the same build as PC one though, should be on the same patches as the PC as it will be uniformed in one way.

4 hours ago, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA said:

 but if orbit doesnt start fixing big issues pretty fast afterwards then no one is going to stick around and play the new engine with the same old gameplay flaws

A very valid point, one I certainly agree with. There are much bigger plaguing issues with gameplay in general then just a shiney client.

[vsb 6171]

3 minutes ago, gogeo said:

They should bring those newer builds to console first asap. PC can wait until the bugs are sorted out. 

seems like a weird thing to do when the console builds are all ports from the pc build

[LilyRain 674]

          » Players come in after 2.1 goes live «

Player w: Ah, they fixed the new lighting and visuals after those beta-tests, I could look at this all day!

Player x: They sure did, but they didn't fix the actual gameplay issues..

Player y: Yeah.. I thought of inviting my friends to try this game, but they will suffer for a while with only a STAR, a Calabria and no mods of any kind.. I can't do that to my friends or I might lose them.

Player z: Indeed. Weapon balancing is nothing but changing numbers. It doesn't really need a new engine & phasing won't make us enjoy using the 'garbage' weapons.

Player Ω: Maybe they'll realize over-dictating weapon-niches and 'personalities' is not the right way to go. It existed for a decade and never succeeded. Why would it succeed now? It will never appeal to the masses, ever.

Player Σ: Yeah, maybe I'll check again in 2022.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

To answer your question: Ultimately, no.

While the newer engine going live will spike player counts for a bit, all it does is allow for more potential for improving the game. It doesn't really make the game better on its own.

 

[Easiest 8]

but lmao, if the new engine comes summer 2k21 it will be already too late, look at the players stats actually... 500 players is actually nothing, if LO doesn't wake up and release the new engine before 2-3 months the game will just die and R.I.P APB, maybe it'll be bought by another company again lmao. atleast do a good christmas event

[TheMessiah 430]

Yes.The questions are with what amount and for how long..depends mostly from how smooth the game will run.Also im afraid that after 2 days when this game Cyberpunk comes out-how many players with high end PCs(mostly golds)will suck out from apb.Because i think that will happen.If from 500 players we drop to 300/200-we are done

[Easiest 8]

If we drop to 200 players i just gonna leave the game, it will be useless to play,..

[ColorBauss 74]

All it takes is for Summit1g to stream the game again. He still even has some clips of him playing APB in his stream outro...

One big 20-30k Summit stream and APB is back on the map again.

[vsb 6171]

1 minute ago, ColorBauss said:

All it takes is for Summit1g to stream the game again. He still even has some clips of him playing APB in his stream outro...

One big 20-30k Summit stream and APB is back on the map again.

unless the game is still shit, then its just 20-30k people being shown why they should never try apb for themselves

[Lord Cashpoint 269]

2 hours ago, TheMessiah said:

Yes.The questions are with what amount and for how long..depends mostly from how smooth the game will run.Also im afraid that after 2 days when this game Cyberpunk comes out-how many players with high end PCs(mostly golds)will suck out from apb.Because i think that will happen.If from 500 players we drop to 300/200-we are done

 

Has this not been a concern every time a large game is released? I don't think even GTA V's PC release had that much of an impact on this game's numbers. APB players don't stick around because there aren't other games to play, they do so because nothing available is anything close to what APB offers.

[Gothina 22]

Yes.

 

But how many and for how long is hard to say.....

[CookiePuss 5379]

1 hour ago, ColorBauss said:

All it takes is for Summit1g to stream the game again. He still even has some clips of him playing APB in his stream outro...

One big 20-30k Summit stream and APB is back on the map again.

The last time Summit streamed APB the servers were shitting themselves and the game was unplayable. 

 

Not surprisingly it did not increase pop. 

[wHisHi 206]

Not EU itself, but fixed major issues after engine release. Game industry influencers also

[Easiest 8]

anyways we are all waiting the new engine, for me that was done before 2k21 but it seems to be a dream lmfao

[Hatsumiku 7]

game is currently unplayable to me in districts. i got hiccups from 80 fps to 25 fps in a nearly empty district. it wasn't like this 2 years ago even in a full district. hopefully the new engine would fix these things...

[Talla 84]

It will attract new and old players, but that won't make them stay.