Little Orbit should have just started from scratch.

[MasterTheHero 20]

For the past 11 years, the first 5 spent playing the game. I have been lurking on the APB forums, reading updates from Matt, following blog posts, all in the vain hope of finally seeing that the engine update is released.

 

Three years after Little Orbit has taken over this still hasn't happened.

 

I do not understand why these game devs think they could reverse engineer APB's code into NOT EVEN the newest engine of Unreal. It is painfully apparent that Real Time Worlds coded the game in a way that would only work with the Unreal Engine it was built in. Every week I read Matt's engine tracker updates and all I see is problem after problem in regards to making this game work. It's too old, it was never built properly to begin with, and I think Little Orbit is wasting time trying to make this game work.

 

The amount of time invested into upgrading the engine should have been spent rebuilding APB from scratch with the Unreal 4 codebase or a different engine altogether.

 

The code was not built correctly, plain and simple. If it were built correctly, then APB would be in the same boat as Grand Theft Auto Online which is using the RAGE engine version built during GTA IV. Their engine is not perfect and it certainly has a lot of limitations, but the code to upgrade it and continue to develop it is on a solid foundation. That same GTA IV engine was used to develop Red Dead Redemption 2. Funnily enough, I believe horses were listed under vehicles and there was still some code for airplanes that weren't used in RDR2.

 

My concern now is that I fear Little Orbit will now run into the investors fallacy. Where they've spent so much money on trying to make something work they will continue throwing money into it even though it's never going to pan out. This is how I feel about APB.

 

Instead of trying to glue together a broken egg shell, Little Orbit should consider transferring their resources into developing APB 2 and just put APB 1 on maintenance mode.

 

Reasons why Little Orbit should focus on developing APB 2 instead:

 

1.) Good will with APB is already tarnished. The terrible launch on consoles already left a bitter taste in most gamers mouths who didn't know anything about APB.

2.) The engine update isn't even going to dramatically increase graphic fidelity. The screenshots that were released with the "engine update" is the equivalent of an HD remaster of a game. And with the way development has been going, stability won't be improved due to spaghetti code.

3.) Veteran players have been playing the same maps for 11 years. There's no freaking way new players will stand a chance against the vets. When I was matched against a new player, I was dominating the poor kid without even trying. So rather than let him get discouraged, I change my guns (nerfed myself) and played less competitively. I heard him get excited over voice chat when he was finally able to beat me. I shouldn't have to play worse so that new players don't leave.

4.) With all the experience Little Orbit has gained in the development of APB, all that experience can be transferred over into developing an engine that is stable, clean, modable, and offer better performance than the current one. Leave the original APB in maintenance mode, continue to run your events, and build a competent codebase that can be upgraded in the same way as Rockstar's RAGE engine.

[AlienTM 138]

LO reworks most of the G1/RP work already(at least what im gettin from the posts)and they are not Rockstar.They cant make APB 2..thats massive amount of money(and not only)If the game starts growin after 2.1 release and they start making more money-maybe apb 2 in future but now-cant happen

[Nagletz 215]

- Complains about long development time of 3.5.

- Suggests to develop the game which takes even longer time than LO's current progress at new engine.

Flawless plan.

[BlatMan 711]

Can Little Orbit legally make an APB 2? I thought they sold the APB branding to another company.

Edited May 22, 2021 by SquirrelFace

[MonkaS 215]

1 minute ago, SquirrelFace said:

Can Little Orbit legally make an APB 2? They sold the APB branding to another company.

Technically no but they prob already figured out a licensing agreement since they talked about apb 2 on ue4+ on multiple occasions. if not they lack a fontal lobe. 

[Jazeker 1082]

I'm still playing several old games and quite a few of those are online-multiplayer and active. So... if it's not all about eye-candy and the latest engine what is going on with those game? They are alive because of ever changing events, weekly's, daily's, tournaments and active gm's and yes like you say maintenance, bugfixes / updates and sometimes new items. And their vanity cashshops, sure. 

 

When APB 2.0 is what it should be and ready to explode in the above then, maybe then, sure why not try an alpha-APB 3.0 in the latest engine, maybe one small map and just some guns... heck try VR for me mhahaha. But hey remember how big the RTW team and funding was? Pulling off an upgrade to 2.0 already is quite something here if we remember the original developer-stories about parts of the original code (even on youtube back then). LO is still at it so who knows right!? 

(And we know others tried before!)

[Farbon Ciber 65]

2 hours ago, MasterTheHero said:

For the past 11 years, the first 5 spent playing the game. I have been lurking on the APB forums, reading updates from Matt, following blog posts, all in the vain hope of finally seeing that the engine update is released.

 

Three years after Little Orbit has taken over this still hasn't happened.

 

I do not understand why these game devs think they could reverse engineer APB's code into NOT EVEN the newest engine of Unreal. It is painfully apparent that Real Time Worlds coded the game in a way that would only work with the Unreal Engine it was built in. Every week I read Matt's engine tracker updates and all I see is problem after problem in regards to making this game work. It's too old, it was never built properly to begin with, and I think Little Orbit is wasting time trying to make this game work.

 

The amount of time invested into upgrading the engine should have been spent rebuilding APB from scratch with the Unreal 4 codebase or a different engine altogether.

 

The code was not built correctly, plain and simple. If it were built correctly, then APB would be in the same boat as Grand Theft Auto Online which is using the RAGE engine version built during GTA IV. Their engine is not perfect and it certainly has a lot of limitations, but the code to upgrade it and continue to develop it is on a solid foundation. That same GTA IV engine was used to develop Red Dead Redemption 2. Funnily enough, I believe horses were listed under vehicles and there was still some code for airplanes that weren't used in RDR2.

 

My concern now is that I fear Little Orbit will now run into the investors fallacy. Where they've spent so much money on trying to make something work they will continue throwing money into it even though it's never going to pan out. This is how I feel about APB.

 

Instead of trying to glue together a broken egg shell, Little Orbit should consider transferring their resources into developing APB 2 and just put APB 1 on maintenance mode.

 

Reasons why Little Orbit should focus on developing APB 2 instead:

 

1.) Good will with APB is already tarnished. The terrible launch on consoles already left a bitter taste in most gamers mouths who didn't know anything about APB.

2.) The engine update isn't even going to dramatically increase graphic fidelity. The screenshots that were released with the "engine update" is the equivalent of an HD remaster of a game. And with the way development has been going, stability won't be improved due to spaghetti code.

3.) Veteran players have been playing the same maps for 11 years. There's no freaking way new players will stand a chance against the vets. When I was matched against a new player, I was dominating the poor kid without even trying. So rather than let him get discouraged, I change my guns (nerfed myself) and played less competitively. I heard him get excited over voice chat when he was finally able to beat me. I shouldn't have to play worse so that new players don't leave.

4.) With all the experience Little Orbit has gained in the development of APB, all that experience can be transferred over into developing an engine that is stable, clean, modable, and offer better performance than the current one. Leave the original APB in maintenance mode, continue to run your events, and build a competent codebase that can be upgraded in the same way as Rockstar's RAGE engine.

100% agree

 

 

[Hexerin 1140]

They literally can't remake from scratch, they don't own the game's IP anymore.

[Fasalina 163]

Anyone else remember the old G1 saying that the engine update was really close to completion?

[cowhorseman 441]

can we stop suggesting shitty idea thats you people clearly know nothing about. how many of you have worked on or are currently working on one?

 

yes that is a good idea, is it possable? no becuase that means you have to rework all the textures to mechanics in a certain amount of time with certain works and as of now in a certain environment which isnt going to be fun for 1 and 2 it's going to cost them more then this festering shit stack would ever be worth   and 3 you would stress out the works so much that by time they get done all you people would have to say is "meh i could have done this faster and better then them" so for the love of god just stop posting your stupid ideas unless your going to help them in any way like if you see matt say "oh were having x issue" and you know how to fix x issue super fast and cheap then say so not this crap about how your 20 cell 4 iq brain and 500% ego can do better by yourself then a full crew 

 

my god it's been 8 years of this between fallen earth and apb just stop acting like your some tech god because you watched the matrix or what ever 

[vsb 6171]

5 hours ago, MasterTheHero said:

[text]

feels like you're vastly underestimating just about everything you mentioned in your post

 

not only is the current engine upgrade already partially complete but it functions as a roadmap of sorts for little orbit, throwing that all away to start from nothing in a different language is way harder and will take way more time - you're complaining about 3 years and counting for the engine upgrade, when at the very least its going to take that long for "apb 2" (which they can't actually make because of ip licensing) on ue4

 

obviously its more difficult to work on apb than on gta and rockstar's custom built inhouse engine, and even pretending that orbit can measure up to a billion dollar company with infinite employees and decades of past experience (and success) is dumb

 

 

 

 

[Spillra 135]

Yeah lets just redo a game that we have a start on from scratch, its not like the development of this game cost 100 million.

[BlatMan 711]

39 minutes ago, Lovtal said:

Yeah lets just redo a game that we have a start on from scratch, its not like the development of this game cost 100 million.

More like 1 million for the game, 99 million for PR.

[JunoSuzuki 99]

12 hours ago, Fasalina said:

Anyone else remember the old G1 saying that the engine update was really close to completion?

Yes i remember that and it's frightening how close this game would've been to death if they pushed it out years ago in this state. Glad LO took over and eventhough they might suffer horrible nightmares and torture while fixing this mess, i appreciate their work even more. But i also had that thought "What if they just made it new from scratch from the beginning" yet i have no idea about game development.

[Mitne 724]

Don't get me wrong but last week I was thinking deeply about what G1 even planned with APB.

They had people, resources, money and time to drag out engine update.

But they didn't. Why? Because I wasn't planned to be carried like that out from beginning.

If somebody will review GamersFirst history they will discover it's not company which produced any games, it taken games which other deemed non-profitable and milked them out of cash while maintaing image of benevolence. Would you play if G1 was all out for money and just shown it blatantly? Of course not, so image had to be made.

At 2019 they absolutely didn't care about APB or Fallen Earth and had this cash cows milked out as population crumbled apart. Hence why complete silence.

They just waited for reason to close this games up when they were not paying themselves up.

I don't understand why they sold to LO tho. - possible LO dropped fat stack of money on them and that was enough or there was something other going in background.

 

Nevertheless I believe LO doesn't say full truth about what state engine upgrade was at when they taken over game... I'm pretty sure it was at state of almost zero things done and a lot said. Anyone who follows Matt Scott engine upgrade topic can get such impression as LO doing everything from scratch.

So now LO which I see they know what they doing work on the game puts me in full hope. Engine is code spaghetti and this is small team so it might take even more than year yet but I still wait and I will wait. I will only give up when they do - and that becomes clear.

 

Give them for once credit, they taken over dying company - that takes guts.

[Jilleroo 349]

Feels like a hindsight thread.

 

In hindsight, I'd estimate they probably could have just built a new APB over 3 years and probably have more to show for it than a sphere Matt shared a little while ago.

Alright, that was a bit underhanded, but honestly, I don't think they really understood just how awful APB is under the hood and underestimated how much effort it would take to fix it.

 

They're kind of committed to fixing it now... I seriously doubt they can pack this all up and just reforge the spaghetti code from scratch, so this thread is more-or-less just reflecting on the likely more efficient path that was available when they first started off.

 

If we're doing the whole hypothetical hindsight thing anyway, I'd have to say that if they could have bought the rights to the universe/game, then they could have let G1 keep their spaghetti monster, and then save money + time and just make All Points Bulletin 2.

Edited May 23, 2021 by EvaPooh

[CookiePuss 5379]

2 hours ago, EvaPooh said:

they probably could have just built a new APB over 3 years

Just how much money and how many resources do you think LO had/has? 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 23, 2021 by CookiePuss

[R3ACT3M 489]

So how I imagine it. 

LO saw APB and thought it would be a piece of cake to finish what GamersFirst had started.

After 3-5 beta tests and people are unhappy with how the game is LO is now going through the muck again looking at potential problems. And well? they found some...

Rebuilding APB from scratch would be probably easier? Maybe? I think that if they Built APB from scratch in Unreal 4 or 5, something would feel off about it. It wouldn't "feel" like APB anymore. I know that the closed beta streams that's what everyone's main concern was.

If they went for the sequel route, myself and I'm sure AT LEAST 1 other person would be upset over the fact that our money investment into the game is now for nothing. The cars, guns, clothing we bought means nothing now. (assuming that the sequel would reset everyone)
 

I also heard rumors APB for Unreal 4 was supposed to be a thing (being worked on by a group of hires off shore) but was scrapped, either due to costs or because 3.0->3.5 clearly wasn't going to be a month project.

I keep saying this and hold by it. LO have shown to me that they don't want to put the resources into the people who are playing still. The ones that hop onto 1.2 . I imagine their plan is to get the upgrade as good as it can be. Then begin advertising the game so those who never heard of this game catch wind of it. Then rebuild the new player experience.

[TheDogCatcher 176]

 I maintain that the biggest problem that APB faces and always has faced is one of image, it has always been seen by the wider gaming public (rightly or wrongly) as a pay to win game that is riddled with cheats, I personally dispute the pay to win claims but I don't think anyone can seriously say that this game doesn't have a problem with people cheating, it's a free to play game and all free to play games have this problem to one degree or another and again rightly or wrongly APB has historically always been seen as one of the worst.

 

This is the biggest hurdle that anyone running this game has to overcome - cleaning up it's image, a new engine will do nothing to fix this issue, you can have all the new content you like but if this game is seen as a hackers paradise you are never going to get your players back.

 

When LO first aquired APB one of the first things they did was unban all previously banned players, in my opinion (and I doubt I'm alone here) this was monumentally bad optics, then we had the utter farce of them switching anti - cheat provders every few weeks, this only served to make them look even worse, I think by this point they have lost the trust of gamers to get this most important aspect right. We can argue all day about whether the bans dished out by G1 were deserved or not but I don't think anyone can dispute the fact that a good proportion of them must have been justified, anyway it's not even about that it's about public perception and this game is still percieved as a hackers paradise run by devs who really aren't in control of the situation.

 

Without trust you are building your house on a foundation of sand and with this in mind I strongly believe that APB is way beyond salvation at this point.

Edited May 23, 2021 by TheDogCatcher

[Jilleroo 349]

8 hours ago, CookiePuss said:

Just how much money and how many resources do you think LO had/has?

More than they have now.

[Reprimand 98]

11 hours ago, TheDogCatcher said:

 I maintain that the biggest problem that APB faces and always has faced is one of image, it has always been seen by the wider gaming public (rightly or wrongly) as a pay to win game that is riddled with cheats, I personally dispute the pay to win claims but I don't think anyone can seriously say that this game doesn't have a problem with people cheating, it's a free to play game and all free to play games have this problem to one degree or another and again rightly or wrongly APB has historically always been seen as one of the worst.

 

This is the biggest hurdle that anyone running this game has to overcome - cleaning up it's image, a new engine will do nothing to fix this issue, you can have all the new content you like but if this game is seen as a hackers paradise you are never going to get your players back.

 

When LO first aquired APB one of the first things they did was unban all previously banned players, in my opinion (and I doubt I'm alone here) this was monumentally bad optics, then we had the utter farce of them switching anti - cheat provders every few weeks, this only served to make them look even worse, I think by this point they have lost the trust of gamers to get this most important aspect right. We can argue all day about whether the bans dished out by G1 were deserved or not but I don't think anyone can dispute the fact that a good proportion of them must have been justified, anyway it's not even about that it's about public perception and this game is still percieved as a hackers paradise run by devs who really aren't in control of the situation.

 

Without trust you are building your house on a foundation of sand and with this in mind I strongly believe that APB is way beyond salvation at this point.

I see your point but how can LO account for the bans of another company? It isn't ethical. Giving players a second chance was a good idea. 

[TheDogCatcher 176]

1 hour ago, Reprimand said:

I see your point but how can LO account for the bans of another company? It isn't ethical. Giving players a second chance was a good idea. 

How was it a good idea to drive away many legitimate players because they now believe the game is infested with hackers  ?

 

I don't dispute that many players might have been wrongly banned, but by unbanning everyone it just looked like LO weren't taking the issue of cheating seriously, this in a game that already had a terrible reputation for stuff like this.

 

Just look at the numbers on steam charts if you don't believe me, when LO took over the number of players doubled almost overnight, so it's not like people weren't willing to give them a chance, then when they unbanned everyone the number of players dropped like a lead balloon and never recovered.

 

Again, it's not about doing the right thing by those who were unfairly banned, it's about maintaining your current playerbase and being seen to take the issue of cheating seriously, gaining the trust of players and slowly building from there.

 

It really isn't a matter of ethics, it's a matter of good business sense.

[Deadliest 385]

9 hours ago, TheDogCatcher said:

How was it a good idea to drive away many legitimate players because they now believe the game is infested with hackers  ?

 

I don't dispute that many players might have been wrongly banned, but by unbanning everyone it just looked like LO weren't taking the issue of cheating seriously, this in a game that already had a terrible reputation for stuff like this.

 

Just look at the numbers on steam charts if you don't believe me, when LO took over the number of players doubled almost overnight, so it's not like people weren't willing to give them a chance, then when they unbanned everyone the number of players dropped like a lead balloon and never recovered.

 

Again, it's not about doing the right thing by those who were unfairly banned, it's about maintaining your current playerbase and being seen to take the issue of cheating seriously, gaining the trust of players and slowly building from there.

 

It really isn't a matter of ethics, it's a matter of good business sense.

Please LO did take the game pretty seriously against cheaters, we had EAC and then BattleEye, which Is better than Fairfight. I said this before Mattscott in 4 years did more than what tiggs did in 6 years all she did was spoiled you guys with sales so you can kiss her butt.  F*KEN GOOD FOR BUSINESS??

 

Those guys who say the game in infested with cheaters are usually the one who accused 70% of the population is cheating. Then there's a guy on the forum who accused half of the population in fight club is cheating or a streamer who was using no recoil when his clearly not. People are just so ignorant. and I don't care if they quit at least there still some talented legitimate players around old or new coming which is needed for the player base.

 

Many more players would be wrongly banned if FF was left unchecked, Mattscott literally identify some false positive in FairFight meaning you may have a chance ending up falsely banned when you are not cheating! which is a problem don't you get it? How can an anti cheat exist when it has a chance of falsely banning legitimate players is it fair to sweep the legitimate players with the actual banned cheaters? those legitimate veterans players who were victims of false bans were part of the player base too. 

 

You don't care because you never experience a false banned.

 

It's good business for LO to unban those players. You can blame G1 for those mistakes. 

 

Edited May 24, 2021 by Deadliest

[AxeTurboAgresor 268]

Coding or developing something is about overcoming never ending small problems. I bet LO would start from the scratch if they knew its the easiest path.

 

[PolarKC 10]

Hindsight is usually 2020. In this case we can't really estimate how long it would take to build a minimal viable product of APB from scratch in a newer Unreal version. Building a game is a monumental task, especially on the scale of APB. Even using current APB as a reference to build out a detailed game design doc... estimate accuracy for a project of this scale is a lofty if not unobtainable goal. Ask any dev, they've poorly estimated how long a single task will take countless times (I have), scale that up to a full project even with 30-40% padding and you could be off months or years.

Suffice to say, if they could enter a time machine and go back 3 years to make a different decision, would they have enough knowledge at this point to do so? Probably not. Trying to start from scratch would be just as large a pipe dream as untangling the absolute mountain of spaghetti that is/was the RTW/G1 codebase.

It is good that we see progress every week. It may not be identifiable to players or even the devs (I'm sure it feels this way sometimes), but they're working through problems. That is progress. At a point does one say "enough is enough" and walk away? Sunk cost fallacy is a hell of a drug. But like I said before, making the game from scratch was never necessarily a better option.

Edited May 24, 2021 by PolarKC