I wish the Criminal faction was more fleshed out and morally gray

[Winter Shyvana 31]

So, you start APB and as a newcomer you are more likely to choose the Criminals as a faction. Literally the first thing you hear afterwards is a cool quote (at least, for ex-edgy teenagers like me) along the lines of "So, you want thing to change? This is how". 

That line got me all excited about this faction, and I was wondering about the cool lore I was about to experience. Some Anarchism over here, maybe an attempt at a revolution/coup over there, some "yes we're breaking the law but we have good intentions" stuff sprinkeld in between. You know, things in relation with the introduction video of the faction. 

Yet (and this list is non exhaustive, I haven't maxed out a criminal yet to give an opinion about tier 5 and above contacts) what we got was some petty "I wanna take over our gang" drama, a depressed manipulative lass, and some boring 2-dimensional characters who only care about partying and more partying. No attempt at trying to change how things are.

I might sound like I'm nitpicking but the characters are so forgettable that I don't even recall their story and/or goals. What? Who the fuck is Tyrone Sennett?
The Enforcers are no better, but hey I'll get to them later. (Edit: Not anymore since I now believe the lroe was not meant to be taken too seriously.)
I'm not asking to make changes, either, but I care about the lore of the games that I love and I wish they made the Criminals more fleshed out this comical, 2 dimensional joke.

Edited August 17, 2023 by Winter Shyvana

[nndrei 129]

The problem here is this...

 

"So, you start APB and as a newcomer you are more likely to choose the Criminals as a faction. Literally the first thing you hear afterwards is a cool quote (at least, for ex-edgy teenagers like me) along the lines of "So, you want thing to change? This is how"...."

[Winter Shyvana 31]

12 minutes ago, nndrei said:

The problem here is this...

 

"So, you start APB and as a newcomer you are more likely to choose the Criminals as a faction. Literally the first thing you hear afterwards is a cool quote (at least, for ex-edgy teenagers like me) along the lines of "So, you want thing to change? This is how"...."

I don't see what you're implying. Do you mean that by the time you've played for a while your perception changes?
If that's so, the lore still remains the same. I just wish they made the characters sound less like comic book villains and focused on fleshing out more the motivations and goals of the factions ina way that doesn't make them look like jesters.

[Acornie 490]

I always thought the enforcers were better done than the 'criminals', but as a whole the lore always felt halfway done- and never returned to or expanded upon.

1 hour ago, Winter Shyvana said:

I just wish they made the characters sound less like comic book villains and focused on fleshing out more the motivations and goals of the factions ina way that doesn't make them look like jesters.

I feel like that's kind of what they were going for but they missed the mark; comic booky surface level to not make it feel too serious. But then everything feels uninteresting and most people ignore the lore entirely

[Winter Shyvana 31]

1 minute ago, Acornie said:

I always thought the enforcers were better done than the 'criminals', but as a whole the lore always felt halfway done- and never returned to or expanded upon.

I feel like that's kind of what they were going for but they missed the mark; comic booky surface level to not make it feel too serious. But then everything feels uninteresting and most people ignore the lore entirely

I think you hit the nail right on its head. This is a 2009 game and development started much sooner, and in that era IIRC lore writing for games was not the main focus. 
I've been trying to ignore the lore all these years but I always kept grinding my gears, haha! 

[Optimus_Crime 81]

I'm pretty sure the idea there was you start as a nobody, commanded and sent out on missions by also, for the most part - nobodies (but ever so slightly higher up the food chain than you).

You haven't gone that far but the contacts you get referred to after each one, get more and more prestigious until eventually you meet with their respective leaders and then after the seasoned veteran superstars of the show.

It goes pretty well with the lengthy ranking system which can take a literal year to reach the current max level even with premium on a single character, but yeah it's true that there is some missing lore tidbits here and there that was scrapped a long time ago and is now forgotten in favor of milking this game financially of all its worth.

[Winter Shyvana 31]

7 minutes ago, Optimus_Crime said:

I'm pretty sure the idea there was you start as a nobody, commanded and sent out on missions by also, for the most part - nobodies (but ever so slightly higher up the food chain than you).

Yes, I get that feeling too. I haven't unlocked any contacts yet past Tier 4, but I can't shake the thought that so far, the motivations of the Criminals are so lackluster. Where is the change?  Where is the revolt?  The lore feels really cut down like you mentioned and the Enforcers are treated the same way, too.

[mtz 496]

Even though I'm interested in APB's lore and the world of San Paro, I'm also eager to point out that it's conveyed very poorly alongside just being very ambitious yet saying very little. The plot e-mails with an expiration date of 3 days are just the tip of the iceberg.

 

I'd say one of the issues we're looking at is the fact that this is a multiplayer online game chiefly focused on combat gameplay and customization, not on providing a storyline. An overarching plot, like one we would see in other open world games (any of the Grand Theft Auto games, or any Saints Row title, or Watch_Dogs... I could go on), is not conductive to a multiplayer experience. You can't really have any massive plot changes or anything like that because the status quo of the war between Enforcers and Criminals needs to be there in order for the game's premise to even function. On top of that, we've pretty much always had cases of newcomers getting teamed up with veteran players to do the same mission, and it would be tough to provide a plot-friendly justification as to why You™, Newbie McNewcomer™, are even participating in the affairs of someone who's supposed to be more connected than you are.

 

The greatest bits of character development we get are the lines we hear from contacts as they give us missions. For example, Harmon Benjamin, being the black sheep of the Benjamin family, is pessimistic and insecure when you're at early Standing levels with him, but as you let him coordinate your missions and help him prove himself to be competent, his mission intro lines shift into optimism and confidence. Harmon giving you a mission while at level 10 is basically "I'm giving you this mission 'cause I know you're good and you're gonna get it done 'cause we're awesome"...

Maybe he doesn't say it literally, but you get the point: characters warm up to you as you help them succeed, their faith in you grows with each mission you execute, and they confide more secrets in you in their e-mails and such.

 

One of the main themes of APB is the web of intrigue and how no one has any idea what they're really doing, with pretty much every player thinking themselves to be on top of the game actually being a pawn for someone else or otherwise being manipulated to serve a greater scope goal.

The Blood Roses fit into the stereotype of spoiled rich brats high on the power that crime and money gives them... and they are that by design because they don't have to be anything more than that. A lot of criminal activity traces back to Luke Waskawi, the guy who (if we're being very simple about it) got manipulated into killing the previous Mayor of San Paro and now wants to get his revenge, maybe destroying San Paro in the process. Waskawi's plan doesn't need Blood Roses to be this secret mafia enforcing his will because letting them be self-absorbed criminal pricks suits his needs just as well and he doesn't need to worry about any of these spoiled brats trying to backstab him. Hell, they don't even know he's the one pulling the strings. And chances are, if you're not paying attention to the plot, you won't know he's there either. Most you'll get is Michael Simeone confessing that he's in charge of keeping the Roses on a leash specifically because Waskawi made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Other than that, (one of) the greater scope villain(s) never even shows up physically in the game.

(The previous paragraph may have spoiled you some bits of the Criminal side's plot. If so, I apologize.)

 

There are promises in the game. Each maxed out Contact giving you some (metaphorically) game-changing information, often emphasizing how what they've just told you is a secret and you really should keep it that way for their and your own safety... but ultimately the setting of the game cannot change. In a game all about taking action and changing the city, we cannot bring about any actual change. None of the contacts can get killed off because some other player will need to receive missions from them, be told their story and get their rewards. No landmark will get blown up, no part of the map will get changed due to your actions because a new player wouldn't understand the changes, or even know that any change happened in the first place.

 

What I've said might sound really depressing or pessimistic, but I wouldn't really go as far as to disavow the existing lore because player actions don't influence it. There's more to telling stories in video games than just choices and changes. I would say APB's approach to storytelling is the breadcrumbs method. As you engage with the gameplay loop, you may sometimes notice a trail of crumbs here and there. It's up to you to decide to follow that trail and see just what it leads to. Only then will you start noticing the connections and dependencies between the characters in the world of San Paro.

 

On that note, man I would be so down for another alternate reality game. The one we got as a teaser for RIOT Mode was surprisingly fun and just about the only criticism I could level against it is that it was too simple (but I also do understand the limitations, so yeah, I'm not too bummed). Just imagine: changes to the game world sneakily added in an update, unmarked interaction nodes/NPCs added to the map giving hints to those who find them, messaging secret characters through in-game e-mails and getting more clues that way, contributing to a narrative that's half in the game and half in supplementary material... APB lends itself to the shady conspiracy narratives really well.

[Revoluzzer 274]

I think the lore for APB is pretty fleshed out and intricate. Not everything is spelled or laid out and you might have to fill in the gaps here and there.

 

The story or storytelling however is basically non-existent. @mtz's post is really great and acknowledges a layer of depth which I have never really grasped before. I have read the contact-e-mails whenever they arrived and quickly forgotten about them. And I largely ignored their voice-lines at the start of a mission.

 

So APB did never tell me a story. It just provided a canvas for my own.

[iRawwwN 283]

7 hours ago, Acornie said:

I always thought the enforcers were better done than the 'criminals', but as a whole the lore always felt halfway done- and never returned to or expanded upon.

I feel like that's kind of what they were going for but they missed the mark; comic booky surface level to not make it feel too serious. But then everything feels uninteresting and most people ignore the lore entirely

i love reading the mail

[vsb 6171]

9 hours ago, Winter Shyvana said:

So, you start APB and as a newcomer you are more likely to choose the Criminals as a faction. Literally the first thing you hear afterwards is a cool quote (at least, for ex-edgy teenagers like me) along the lines of "So, you want thing to change? This is how". 

That line got me all excited about this faction, and I was wondering about the cool lore I was about to experience. Some Anarchism over here, maybe an attempt at a revolution/coup over there, some "yes we're breaking the law but we have good intentions" stuff sprinkeld in between. You know, things in relation with the introduction video of the faction. 

Yet (and this list is non exhaustive, I haven't maxed out a criminal yet to give an opinion about tier 5 and above contacts) what we got was some petty "I wanna take over our gang" drama, a depressed manipulative lass, and some boring 2-dimensional characters who only care about partying and more partying. No attempt at trying to change how things are.

I might sound like I'm nitpicking but the characters are so forgettable that I don't even recall their story and/or goals. What? Who the fuck is Tyrone Sennett?
The Enforcers are no better, but hey I'll get to them later. (Edit: Not anymore since I now believe the lroe was not meant to be taken too seriously.)
I'm not asking to make changes, either, but I care about the lore of the games that I love and I wish they made the Criminals more fleshed out this comical, 2 dimensional joke.

Arlon Benjamin, and by extension the G-Kings, are the “revolutionaries” looking to overturn the status quo - even if not all the gangbangers are aware of it 

 

there’s a decent irl parallel of the G-Kings being the cultural tastemakers of San Paro even as the city relegates them to the bottom rung of society

[Winter Shyvana 31]

13 hours ago, mtz said:

[Edited for the sake of clarity]

This is excellently written. My main gripe was that the Criminal faction in-game deviate a lot from the premise set up by the introduction video. Granted, as you mentioned, for the sake of gameplay, the city must remain in a static state. But that shouldn't pevent the factions from trying to achieve their motivation, only for that motivation to be in conflict with the opposing faction's motivation, which will result in an endless status quo.

That would be absolutely perfect, and would marry the gameplay aspect of the game. I dislike the partying part of the Blood Roses, how the hell does that aid your cause in trying to change things!

I love the breadcrumbs style of storytelling. You can tell by now that I'm kind of a lore junkie. It doesn't need to be deep, dark or intricate, it just needs to make sense.

 

13 hours ago, Revoluzzer said:

[...]

The story or storytelling however is basically non-existent.

[...]

And that's what bugs me. APB is a good game but poorly designed and that's a rabbit hole that would take a book to talk about xD Lore breadcrumbs in emails that expire in 3 days, breaking your momentum after missions is a no-no. But I love doing so to find out more about what's going on. It's the little details, you know...

  

7 hours ago, vsb said:

Arlon Benjamin, and by extension the G-Kings, are the “revolutionaries” looking to overturn the status quo - even if not all the gangbangers are aware of it 

 

there’s a decent irl parallel of the G-Kings being the cultural tastemakers of San Paro even as the city relegates them to the bottom rung of society

Granted I have not maxed out my Criminal character yet, but the revolutionaries part you mentioned really intrigues me.

PS: I pressed submit by mistake before being able to write this entire post, kindly ignore the (edited) mention above.

Edited August 18, 2023 by Winter Shyvana

[mtz 496]

4 hours ago, Winter Shyvana said:

[...] I love the breadcrumbs style of storytelling. You can tell by now that I'm kind of a lore junkie. It doesn't need to be deep, dark or intricate, it just needs to make sense. [...]

Any one of my friends that I've met through APB will know that I'll jump at any chance to talk about its lore, chiefly because of how little attention it gets, so this thread is a godsend to me

It also gives me an excuse to revisit all the bios and e-mails on APBDB, so that's cool too!

 

4 hours ago, Winter Shyvana said:

[...] for the sake of gameplay, the city must remain in a static state. But that shouldn't p[r]event the factions from trying to achieve their motivation, only for that motivation to be in conflict with the opposing faction's motivation, which will result in an endless status quo. [...]

The kicker in APB's world is that every faction is composed of hardliners dedicated to its ideals and of opportunists or pragmatists who see it purely as set dressing. This applies to both sides and to all four main factions. The underlying issue with almost everything in San Paro is injustice, and each faction – disregarding the aforementioned opportunists, who are playing their own game – adapts a different approach to the problem.

 

Arlon Benjamin, the man in charge of the G-Kings, earnestly believes in his ideals of leaving behind a better world, disillusioned by the San Paro government bowing down to corporate interests and by private corporations deploying armed forces to enact their own rule. Shift sincerely preaches her ideals of subverting authority through free expression and winning people's hearts over bodies. Javez wants to paint the world, express himself, find his place in the world and a crew to call family. This is contrasted by Grayson Fell – Arlon's right hand man – being a fixer purely in the business for personal gain, or by Terri Quan, who's happy to be a pawn and information scout as long as she gets a thrill out of it... or Arlon's own daughter Bonita, who's really psyched about this whole "gangster princess" thing and the ways she profits off that status.
 

Prentiss Tigers – an anti-gang of sorts, dedicated to defending the neighborhood of Prentiss – are led by Orlenz' Moretti, whose grandfather was a feared and notorious criminal and whose father chose to go corporate and ditch petty crime for higher profits. (Hell, "in the modern world, you can steal more with a handshake and a business diploma that you can with a gun, and all of it legitimately" is a literal quote from Orlenz's in-game biography.) Right below him in the progression ladder is Byeong Lee, an old retired deputy commissioner of the San Paro Police Department, who resigned in disgrace when it was leaked to the press that he believed in bringing about peace through lethal measures towards lawbreakers. You have Darryl Kent, who works for the Praetorians but relays intel to the Tigers to avenge his girlfriend who got killed by the Blood Roses, and his older sister Miranda, whose bio and e-mails exude big marketing ghoul energy. (She openly says it's a shame he doesn't want to turn the story of his girlfriend's death into a marketable movie to profit the Tigers. Seriously, even APB writers knew all that time ago that no one who works in marketing is a human being. :^) )

 

In terms of private military companies, the Praetorians are half what-you-see-is-what-you-get mercenaries and half nice faces for PR. Ty Durrant is just on board because he gets to shoot criminal scum. Hea Choi is there with intentions to be their oversight, making sure that their efforts don't cross certain lines. Grissom is a former special forces operator and he's stuck in the war mindset. Eva Orlandez is an upper class young adult who joins up to have cool stories to tell but grows to actually believe in the public mission of the Praetorians. There's also Ernst 'Mule' Templeton, who's a weird (for the organization) mix of being a hardened veteran hellbent on bringing an end to the urban war in San Paro, but still finding the humanity in himself to understand that his brand of getting things done is not always the best way. There's also his comments on Sabbat, where he acknowledges her reasons behind joining and shows compassion, but says that she should not be putting herself in the line of fire for her own sake and she might be in over her head.

 

4 hours ago, Winter Shyvana said:

I dislike the partying part of the Blood Roses, how the hell does that aid your cause in trying to change things!

The Roses specifically are rich partying brats led by people who realized that having a smoke-screen of self-absorbed clout chasers works well when you can focus their bloodrush on some kind of goal. Seung is jealous of his cousin Jeung's higher status in the Blood Roses hierarchy, being an obvious case of an inferiority complex. Jeung himself absolutely cannot fathom the possibility of not being the biggest fish in the sea, living in a constant state of fury at the concept of being disrespected. Britney is a living stereotype of a rich bimbo partygirl, pretty much being beneficial to the Roses purely by being so shameful to her parents that they're eager to put funds towards a media blackout of the gang, just so people wouldn't learn what their precious daughter Clarissa is up to.

None of these dorks could ever lead any serious criminal organization – which is something Byron Bloodrose also half-acknowledges in his e-mails. This is why Tyron Sennet and Michael Simeone are there. The partying and being insufferable is a deliberate distraction (whether the distractions themselves realize it or not), because while you're furious at the crimes of these spoiled brats going unpunished, you fail to notice the puppeteers piloting these same brats. All the daring heists and public displays of arrogance spoil the perpetrators by giving them fame and glory and fill the wallets of those behind the scenes.

 

The partying part of the Blood Roses doesn't want to change things. They're just comfortable enough being rich/famous/powerful within the existing framework. And as long as the scheming part of the Blood Roses keeps the partying part happy, they can cause all the changes they want to see piece by piece, day by day, one crime leading to another. After all, it's a marathon, not a race.

Edited August 18, 2023 by mtz

[Winter Shyvana 31]

Your explanation is a goldmine, I love how nuanced some character are - especially the feud between Seung and Jeung. I was halfway through making a topic about the Enforcers and how kinda bland they are until I read your first comment where you mentioned that the storyline of this game was not the main focus neither was it meant to be taken too seriously.

Yet, I still dig all the subplots happening and all the character motivations and personalities you mentioned. If APB:R was more popular I would do lore videos about it in my spare time  

1 hour ago, mtz said:

None of these dorks could ever lead any serious criminal organization – which is something Byron Bloodrose also half-acknowledges in his e-mails.

See, I agree with Byron. My main gripe is that the Blood Roses don't really go line in line with what I signed up with after watching the introduction video. If you ask me, I think they'd be a good candidate for a 3rd faction, something in-between Enforcers and Criminals.

Edit: Typo

Edited August 18, 2023 by Winter Shyvana

[iRawwwN 283]

13 hours ago, mtz said:

snip

all this makes me want r275/r295 chars and the lore to go with it :sad:

Edited August 19, 2023 by iRawwwN

[Gro 104]

That's exactly the catch with criminals: they bullshoot edgy kids from the beginning, and when you realise there is no great cause but big pocket, there is no way back.

They are not supposed to be revolutionaries, they just recruit idionts and lowlifes with this (just like real life revolutionaries).

 

Enforcers, on the other hand, are presented as: a private militia with licence to kill, and a rich kids private militia with license to kill. And seeing who they are killing, they're actually starting to look like good guys.

It's no secret from the very beginning, that praetorians were hired by the mayor because of failure of local law enforcement. And they arent pretending to be anything other than private army for hire. Same goes to the tigers, who are funding themselves just because they did have the funds in the first place.

Edited September 11, 2023 by Gro

[TzickyT 212]

Criminals have more to do than enforcers ... enforcers need criminals .. criminals can play the game whitout needint enforcers ... it wil get boring ...

 

[Mitne 724]

I agree with you but seems both factions are morally grey somehow.

Enforcers seems like force which want to put law into chaos. But at the same time they are extension of corrupt corporations which created problems in first place.

Criminals seems like this rebel force which wants to get rid of corporations which created problems in the city. Problem is they often preying on citizens, showing they are nothing more than mere criminals.

 

If you really think of it, it's up to you on what side of compass you sit - good or bad. Even game implies there are good enforcers and bad enforcers, good criminals and bad criminals. In the end it's all up to you. Game won't force you to raid shops, mug people... you do it from your own will.

 

The problem starts though with representation with criminal faction. There's a lot more lunatics within criminals while enforcers have more balanced good-bad spectrum when it comes to contacts.

Edited September 24, 2023 by Mitne

[Noob_Guardian 417]

On 8/17/2023 at 1:52 PM, Acornie said:

I always thought the enforcers were better done than the 'criminals', but as a whole the lore always felt halfway done- and never returned to or expanded upon.

I feel like that's kind of what they were going for but they missed the mark; comic booky surface level to not make it feel too serious. But then everything feels uninteresting and most people ignore the lore entirely

Faction lore gets funky. Character lore is soooo much better.

 

Praetorians - Corporation owned "security" that amounts to ex military, alcoholics, poor guys looking to make a difference, and business analytics working together. Controls the "riot squad" which is a corporation owned "dispersial unit" for the city. The same corporations that they are protecting are causing a lot of problems for people. As others said "private militia"
 

Prentiss Tigers - Litterally just a bunch of rich kids who want to party on the beach. Except for devil dog, who for whatever reason, is an ex military sniper which just doesn't seem to fit with most of the prentiss crowd it feels. They are more "rich homeboys and high rep people wanting to make a difference and keep the peace". "rich boy militia"

 

Roses and g-kings - Im not familiar with their lore as i rarely paid attention to crim. But it comes off as 2 gangs fighting eachother and the enforcers where none of them are really bright. With one or two of them having rich pretty boy faces whos pulling strings behind the scenes for anarchy.

 

If you want better functioning lore, the emails you get sent are hardly notable of it and are definitely more fun quips than actual lore. The character backgrounds as you unlock which describe the NPCs of the faction tend to be soo much better. Looking at like Justin Tengs or TY Durrants, maybe even Mirri kent for example has great lore for where they are in the faction and what they do. I cant say how good the criminal backgrounds are though. I very much have a preference towards the attitude and demeaner and lore of the Praetorian crowd.

 

 

On 9/11/2023 at 5:48 AM, Gro said:

 

That's exactly the catch with criminals: they bullshoot edgy kids from the beginning, and when you realise there is no great cause but big pocket, there is no way back.

 

They are not supposed to be revolutionaries, they just recruit idionts and lowlifes with this (just like real life revolutionaries).

 

Enforcers, on the other hand, are presented as: a private militia with licence to kill, and a rich kids private militia with license to kill. And seeing who they are killing, they're actually starting to look like good guys.

It's no secret from the very beginning, that praetorians were hired by the mayor because of failure of local law enforcement. And they arent pretending to be anything other than private army for hire. Same goes to the tigers, who are funding themselves just because they did have the funds in the first place.

 

On 8/18/2023 at 9:03 AM, mtz said:

 

Any one of my friends that I've met through APB will know that I'll jump at any chance to talk about its lore, chiefly because of how little attention it gets, so this thread is a godsend to me

It also gives me an excuse to revisit all the bios and e-mails on APBDB, so that's cool too!

 

The kicker in APB's world is that every faction is composed of hardliners dedicated to its ideals and of opportunists or pragmatists who see it purely as set dressing. This applies to both sides and to all four main factions. The underlying issue with almost everything in San Paro is injustice, and each faction – disregarding the aforementioned opportunists, who are playing their own game – adapts a different approach to the problem.

 

Arlon Benjamin, the man in charge of the G-Kings, earnestly believes in his ideals of leaving behind a better world, disillusioned by the San Paro government bowing down to corporate interests and by private corporations deploying armed forces to enact their own rule. Shift sincerely preaches her ideals of subverting authority through free expression and winning people's hearts over bodies. Javez wants to paint the world, express himself, find his place in the world and a crew to call family. This is contrasted by Grayson Fell – Arlon's right hand man – being a fixer purely in the business for personal gain, or by Terri Quan, who's happy to be a pawn and information scout as long as she gets a thrill out of it... or Arlon's own daughter Bonita, who's really psyched about this whole "gangster princess" thing and the ways she profits off that status.
 

Prentiss Tigers – an anti-gang of sorts, dedicated to defending the neighborhood of Prentiss – are led by Orlenz' Moretti, whose grandfather was a feared and notorious criminal and whose father chose to go corporate and ditch petty crime for higher profits. (Hell, "in the modern world, you can steal more with a handshake and a business diploma that you can with a gun, and all of it legitimately" is a literal quote from Orlenz's in-game biography.) Right below him in the progression ladder is Byeong Lee, an old retired deputy commissioner of the San Paro Police Department, who resigned in disgrace when it was leaked to the press that he believed in bringing about peace through lethal measures towards lawbreakers. You have Darryl Kent, who works for the Praetorians but relays intel to the Tigers to avenge his girlfriend who got killed by the Blood Roses, and his older sister Miranda, whose bio and e-mails exude big marketing ghoul energy. (She openly says it's a shame he doesn't want to turn the story of his girlfriend's death into a marketable movie to profit the Tigers. Seriously, even APB writers knew all that time ago that no one who works in marketing is a human being. :^) )

 

In terms of private military companies, the Praetorians are half what-you-see-is-what-you-get mercenaries and half nice faces for PR. Ty Durrant is just on board because he gets to shoot criminal scum. Hea Choi is there with intentions to be their oversight, making sure that their efforts don't cross certain lines. Grissom is a former special forces operator and he's stuck in the war mindset. Eva Orlandez is an upper class young adult who joins up to have cool stories to tell but grows to actually believe in the public mission of the Praetorians. There's also Ernst 'Mule' Templeton, who's a weird (for the organization) mix of being a hardened veteran hellbent on bringing an end to the urban war in San Paro, but still finding the humanity in himself to understand that his brand of getting things done is not always the best way. There's also his comments on Sabbat, where he acknowledges her reasons behind joining and shows compassion, but says that she should not be putting herself in the line of fire for her own sake and she might be in over her head.

 

The Roses specifically are rich partying brats led by people who realized that having a smoke-screen of self-absorbed clout chasers works well when you can focus their bloodrush on some kind of goal. Seung is jealous of his cousin Jeung's higher status in the Blood Roses hierarchy, being an obvious case of an inferiority complex. Jeung himself absolutely cannot fathom the possibility of not being the biggest fish in the sea, living in a constant state of fury at the concept of being disrespected. Britney is a living stereotype of a rich bimbo partygirl, pretty much being beneficial to the Roses purely by being so shameful to her parents that they're eager to put funds towards a media blackout of the gang, just so people wouldn't learn what their precious daughter Clarissa is up to.

None of these dorks could ever lead any serious criminal organization – which is something Byron Bloodrose also half-acknowledges in his e-mails. This is why Tyron Sennet and Michael Simeone are there. The partying and being insufferable is a deliberate distraction (whether the distractions themselves realize it or not), because while you're furious at the crimes of these spoiled brats going unpunished, you fail to notice the puppeteers piloting these same brats. All the daring heists and public displays of arrogance spoil the perpetrators by giving them fame and glory and fill the wallets of those behind the scenes.

 

The partying part of the Blood Roses doesn't want to change things. They're just comfortable enough being rich/famous/powerful within the existing framework. And as long as the scheming part of the Blood Roses keeps the partying part happy, they can cause all the changes they want to see piece by piece, day by day, one crime leading to another. After all, it's a marathon, not a race.

 
 

Very well said

Edited September 26, 2023 by Noob_Guardian

[BlatMan 711]

I'd have to read through all the contact emails and descriptions, but from what I remember, Birth seems to be the only criminal contact that has a reason to be there.

 

The missions assigned to contacts hurts the lore. Antisocial Networking seems fitting to Birth, considering his hate towards the CSA, but Creme De La Crime makes no god damn sense being assigned to him. It reads like Violet and Lilith got into a petty argument and sent a squad of their fresh recruits to fight their bs.

 

"An economic downturn means our revenue is dropping. We had to slash the prices of all our goods and now we need more. Burgle these buildings and grab some new stock."

 

Did Lilith discover ChatGPT? Cant' get anymore generic sounding.

[CookiePuss 5379]

10 hours ago, Noob_Guardian said:

Except for devil dog, who for whatever reason, is an ex military sniper which just doesn't seem to fit with most of the prentiss crowd it feels.

Spoiled rich kids can be snipers too. 

[mtz 496]

7 hours ago, BlatMan said:

I'd have to read through all the contact emails and descriptions, but from what I remember, Birth seems to be the only criminal contact that has a reason to be there.

 

The missions assigned to contacts hurts the lore. Antisocial Networking seems fitting to Birth, considering his hate towards the CSA, but Creme De La Crime makes no god damn sense being assigned to him. It reads like Violet and Lilith got into a petty argument and sent a squad of their fresh recruits to fight their bs.

 

"An economic downturn means our revenue is dropping. We had to slash the prices of all our goods and now we need more. Burgle these buildings and grab some new stock."

 

Did Lilith discover ChatGPT? Cant' get anymore generic sounding.

Mission descriptions are specifically written as non-indicative/generic enough for the players to be able to see their dispatcher contact and read the description and go "yeah I can imagine this character saying that". This has mixed results as you bring up in your post because ultimately all contacts need to have some pool of missions anyway, and not all of them would be using the same language or style of speaking, so some missions are thrown into the pools of characters that simply don't talk that way or don't have the motivations described in the flavor text.

 

I've got to say though, the notion of individual missions being assigned to specific contacts sounds kinda cool. Makes me think of the game occasionally offering you a mission instead of assigning you into one at random; "this contact is offering you this specific mission that's only available from them in this form, you'll receive increased mission rewards for taking part, do you agree?" or stuff like that.

[Noob_Guardian 417]

On 9/26/2023 at 10:12 AM, mtz said:

Mission descriptions are specifically written as non-indicative/generic enough for the players to be able to see their dispatcher contact and read the description and go "yeah I can imagine this character saying that". This has mixed results as you bring up in your post because ultimately all contacts need to have some pool of missions anyway, and not all of them would be using the same language or style of speaking, so some missions are thrown into the pools of characters that simply don't talk that way or don't have the motivations described in the flavor text.

 

I've got to say though, the notion of individual missions being assigned to specific contacts sounds kinda cool. Makes me think of the game occasionally offering you a mission instead of assigning you into one at random; "this contact is offering you this specific mission that's only available from them in this form, you'll receive increased mission rewards for taking part, do you agree?" or stuff like that.

Certain missions already are only available through certain contacts. I think there was something a bit back, where people would run specific contacts to avoid certain missions.

 

For example, Teng doesnt give bankroll collection, but TY Durrant does, explosive investigation is from TY but Teng does explosive material.

 

Actually, I didnt realize this, but missions also depend on group size. So you can get certain missions from 2v2 but others are 3/4+.

 

See below for Ty then click missions to see his mission list. It's a little different from Tengs, and all contacts i guess then have something slightly different.

https://apbdb.com/contacts/Financial_E4

Edited September 28, 2023 by Noob_Guardian

[Y2Venom 219]

Coding aside, the issue is, when it comes to APB and new content, is instead of playing the game like its supposed to be played, a large faction of the playerbase automatically try to exploit or look for exploits to gain advantage. This makes things very very difficult for developers to come up with new features etc.. If they were to flesh out the crims, you would really have to be very very carful about what you are going to do. Otherwise you would have to back peddle.

 

 

[Noob_Guardian 417]

On 9/28/2023 at 8:30 AM, Y2Venom said:

Coding aside, the issue is, when it comes to APB and new content, is instead of playing the game like its supposed to be played, a large faction of the playerbase automatically try to exploit or look for exploits to gain advantage. This makes things very very difficult for developers to come up with new features etc.. If they were to flesh out the crims, you would really have to be very very carful about what you are going to do. Otherwise you would have to back peddle.

 

 

Pretty much.

 

They still haven't fixed several exploits that came with removing pickup animations. They made some harder to do for heavy items, but medium items it's free game to move at sprint speed using them.

 

Any other major exploits have mostly been fixed, or locations removed from having access to, because of how scummy some players are. RIP moonship

 

Edited October 4, 2023 by Noob_Guardian